SalesVPI

Relevant Video Communications

We released support for native video as a media type in Avitage Collections this week.

This got me thinking of the questions associated with using video throughout an organization.

John Chambers of Cisco has predicted 90% of internet traffic will be video in just a few years. Who will produce all this video? What will it cost? What un-intended consequences will we bear? How can we prepare for this impending reality?

Here are some questions to consider:

• Are you relying too much on live communications in an online, on demand world?
• Will your text-based content grab attention well enough?
• Do you really know how to create the volume of relevant content to address all your audience variables by roles, issues, buying stages, industries, and purpose -- without an exponential budget increase?
• Is search really the best way to direct busy salespeople to the right content for each selling situation?
• How well do your messages get delivered when your experts aren't available to deliver them directly?
• Are you sending your sales people to engage customers with documents in a video and multimedia world?
• How have you been doing e-learning -- isn't this essentially what lead nurturing is all about?
• What if your competition started sending tailored videos to prospects and customers, how would you respond, how would you feel?
• How would you make your videos relevant for every situation?
• How well do you organize and update your PowerPoint slides and shows -- so, you think you're ready for video?
• Are you losing sleep over the prospect of video as ubiquitous as PowerPoint -- should you be?
• What's the best way to enable an organization of business communicators to regularly assemble and deliver relevant videos?

Avitage Approach

What if marketing pre-produced souce video and multimedia content, not as finished programs, but as modules that could be organized into all common communication scenarios required by marketing for lead nurturing and sales for JIT learning and customer communications?

The result might look something like this.

What Really Creates Sales Excellence?

Dave Kurlan's blog raises this question in response to webinar invitations from Avitage and other companies. He makes good points, although I think it's hyperbole to suggest that these invitations "promise the solution to all of our sales problems".

His point is, "the only way to make them (sales people) better is through evaluation, training and development."

And I certainly agree that, "these (vendor) applications are far more effective when you've already worked with a sales force development expert, developed a sales process and developed your sales people."

But it also reminds me of the adage, "when you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail."

We use Dave's assessments, believe completely in sales process and have documented our selling process since 1998. Sales development should be seen as a continuous process, not a periodic event as some organizations do.

But is that all there is to creating sales excellence, to improving sales effectiveness?

"Competent" means "the state of being adequately or well qualified." It is a function of skill, knowledge and ability. "Effective" means "producing or capable of producing a desired effect." We focus on supporting sales performance with information, knowledge, content, tools and assistance that indeed make sales people more effective.

Our customers who are involved with a complex sale tell us that to help their sales people shift from product providers to consultative sellers requires support to help them take their skills and awareness and actually execute to produce the desired sales results.

After they've hired the right horses, worked on development and implemented a sales process, their sales people need help conducting better conversations. This goes beyond ability and skill issues.

Often this requires a "four legged sales call" where SEs (pre-sales engineers), product managers or sales managers are brought in for conversation support.

For over 12 years, customers have asked us to help them with remediation (coaching), call preparation and physical delivery of key messages to customers. They tell us sellers need:

• Selling messaging and diagnostic questions, especially given expanding sales bags and a more competitive environment;
• Compelling and relevant content to deliver messages that support the customer's buying process;
• Knowledge aids that help sales people prepare for sales conversations quicker and easier;
• Selling tools and aids that help them engage customers more effectively, especially over the telephone, and communicate proof points relevant to the value they can provide a prospect;
• Convenient, opportunity specific coaching to assist with strategy and provide actionable next steps.

Avitage provides a process to build sales communications that are aligned to, and in support of, conversations that occur at each stage of the sales process, relevant to different stakeholder types, business needs, value points, competitive context and industry factors, among others.

This process supports an organization's training, marketing, coaching and sales communication needs with coordinated messages, shared content, and cost effective deployment.

The long-standing rap on sales training is that it's deployed as a periodic event and the benefits atrophy as early as 90 days out. But skills training without supporting selling information means sales people (each) have to figure it out for themselves, resulting in wasted time, opportunities and inconsistent selling.

To become a "trusted advisor" means sales professional have to have knowledge, and access to information, that makes them an advisor in the eyes of the customer.

Selling is fundamentally about communication. Communication is about delivery. Delivery today occurs in far more ways than face-to-face conversations. More selling over the phone, especially in the early stages of the process, require new engagement methods. Selling is more collaborative and it is necessary to bring experts to the customer in timely and cost effective ways. Web meetings and multimedia vignettes help here.

Sales people need to develop and cultivate leads. Multimedia vignettes help capture customer attention, and capitalize on that attention with compelling delivery of messages. Lead nurturing involves customer education. Customer portals with relevant (multimedia) content help here.

After the challenges of getting prospects to engage, the next biggest challenges involve accelerating the buying cycle, creating and demonstrating value, closing business -- not losing to "no decision". While skills are essential to this process, they are not sufficient. Knowledge, content and new delivery methods are also essential.

Mindset for an Anemic Business Climate

In working with sales teams over the last few weeks -- our own, customers and prospects -- it's clear everyone is trying to assess the implications of the recent precipitous economic decline. Then, we'll determine how to respond (and this has me thinking of "re-sponse-able").

This is especially true for sales professionals who have to sell (sail) into these headwinds. For sales people, this starts with having the right mindset. We are committed to producing the number regardless of the general economic circumstances. The question is how.

Dealing with a severe business downturn seems similar to the stages of dealing with death. Most people have moved from denial and anger over the past couple of weeks into depression today.

I've applied this framework to develop the following which seems to be helpful both for our selling mindset and to use as questions with customers.

I'm using this to determine a prospect's mindset and likeliness to take action. But I'm also using it to prompt people to think beyond the current paralyzing state, or to refer me to people who are.

I see four stages we all could go through:

1. Deer in the Headlights -- most people are in this stage now, given we are only four weeks into the economic chaos. It is difficult to engage people at this stage, and we hear language like, "I can't even think about talking with you, we're locking everything down until we decide our strategy."

2. Fight or Flight -- people will have to decide whether to fight to find ways to win business and protect customers, or whether to retrench, hunker down and just weather the storm. Avoid the latter.

3. Take Ground -- some will determine now is the time to innovate their selling process, attack new market segments, or capture customers from marginal competitors who have hunkered down.

4. Prepare for the Rebound -- others will use the next couple of quarters to fix what is broken, implement better processes, work with target prospects so they are ready to capture business when the economic rebound hits. Those best prepared at that point will win more business sooner than competitors who have hunkered down.

Which of these strategies works for your organization? Use these as questions with your prospects to find the contacts who think the way that best aligns with your solutions.

This framework helps our selling mindset, prompts customers to think differently, and aligns us with those individuals who are willing to take action.