Feb 2, 2007
Channel Tips:
Supporting the Complex Sale
How Traditional Marketing Programs & Tools Fail and What to Do About It
By Greg Nutter
Part 1
Most B2B sales are complex, particularly those involving high-tech products and services. However, a great deal of marketing programs and tools are of marginal value in helping the field selling organization advance a sale. The impact of this reality is lost sales, unproductive sales teams, and a whole lot of wasted money. Don’t believe it – read on.
Some recent statistics:
Ø “….50% to 90% of materials created by marketing to support sales are never used by sales people.”
American Marketing Association
Ø “Talk to any salesperson at a B2B and ask him the percentage of corporate-developed tools he actually uses. You’ll rarely hear more than ten percent.”
Maureen Blandford
Branding Doesn’t Work in Business to Business
Ø “Salespeople are spending approximately 40% of their time preparing customer-facing deliverables while leveraging less than 50% of the materials created for them by marketing”.
American Marketing Association and the CMO Council.
Let’s explore this disconnect and suggest ways you can fix it.
We’ll begin by defining what we mean by the term “Complex Sale”. There are two ways in which selling can become complex: first, where there is not an obvious connection between a product feature and the value a customer receives from it. I call this “tactical complexity”. The second situation is where there are multiple people involved in the purchasing process and each has a different view of the decision criteria (IT, purchasing, legal, users, executives, etc.). We call this “strategic complexity”. Today, B2B sales are almost always strategically complex because that’s how companies minimize the risk of making poor decisions. Tactical complexity happens when products aren’t commodities and the more “value-added” features they have, the more complex it is to link them to benefits that customers really care about.
The Tactical Disconnect
When companies buy solutions, they often go through this process:
- Event occurs
- Problem identified
- Problem severity assessed
- Fix/no-fix decision made
- Options evaluated
- Decision criteria developed
- Select best option
- Sign contract
- Install & validate
- Pay bill
Reps who are good in tactically-complex situations know that the earlier you’re involved, the better your chances of winning. The BEST place to start is just after the “Event occurs” so you can help the customer identify the problem. The WORST place to be engaged is in Step 7 – that’s where you and your competitors are brought in to explain your products and why you’re the best option. Chances are, if you’ve not been involved earlier to help frame the problem, you won’t make the cut unless you have a relative in the corner office.
The marketing disconnect: Look at how your marketing programs, collaterals and tools are focused. Most tend to be very product or competition oriented (spec sheets, company overview, market positioning, customer references, etc.) They’re perfect for helping a customer decide if you meet their decision criteria, which is what you need at Step 7. However, most are very poor at helping sales reps be effective in earlier stages where you have much greater likelihood of success.
So, what can you do?
- Understand your customer’s buying process for your offerings
- Evaluate your field selling skills (direct and indirect). Where are they normally engaged? At which steps do they have problems?
- Develop more programs, collaterals, and tools to help your sales team engage customers earlier in the selling process
- Prioritize programs and tools which are ‘actionable’ and can be integrated into the selling process.
There’s an old saying that goes: “The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet”. Putting more money into helping your sales team move upstream in the sales process can help you beat the odds.
In Part 2 we’ll discuss The Strategic Disconnect.
******
Greg Nutter is a Principal with Soloquent Inc. (www.soloquent.com) where he helps technology companies develop go-to-market strategies, programs, and tools that increase indirect and direct selling performance. He has over 20 years experience in sales, sales management, and channel development in the HVTO industry.
Got a comment, got a question, got a problem? Send Greg a note at greg@soloquent.com
Read more Channel Tips by Greg Nutter >>>>