T OF VS S - Visible ImpactAs Dan Roam contends in his excellent book The Back of the Napkin , visual...

1 Manasco and Sellers The Power of Visual Selling

THE POWER OFVISUAL SELLINGHow Compelling Visuals Accelerate Buying Decisions

Britton Manasco and M. Lee Sellers


Provoke Conversations. By vividly capturing the dynamics of a problem and the dimensions of a solution, you set the stage for engaging conversations exploring business value and the specifics of your customer’s world.

Accelerate Comprehension. By clearly illustrating the scope, magnitude and cost of their problem, you help buyers comprehend why the present course may be unacceptable.

Clarify the Case for Change. By clearly illustrating the solution and its dynamics, you illuminate a clear path from the present state to the future state – one that acknowledges the challenges of change and shows how it can be managed.

Demonstrate Business Value. While some elements of the business case are best expressed in spreadsheet calculations, this approach also lets you visually tell the story of business value -- showing, for instance, how costs will be reduced or revenue will be generated.

Drive the Deal Forward. By building credibility and enhancing clarity, visual provocations and explanations provide a compelling map to guide buyers through the journey that lies ahead -- giving them the confidence to invest and reducing the length of a decision cycle.

Provoke Conversations.

Accelerate Comprehension.

Clarify the Case for Change.

Demonstrate Business Value.

Drive the Deal Forward.


It’s now tougher than everto turn prospects into customers.But prospective buyers won’t make any moves unless they understand the full scope and magnitudeof the challenges they currently face – and comprehendwhat a value-rich solution might look like. These are complex mattersrequiring far-reaching explanations. So why do companies keep trying todescribe and depict these matters in mere words? How can sales people expect prospects to commit to high dollar, high stakes solutions when they can’t understand them – much less explain them to other members of their decision teams?


Prospective buyers are likely to remain indecisive – or worse, indifferent – if they remain unprovoked. If you don’t identify the issues that threaten performance – and clarify the case for a new approach – they will continue to embrace the status quo. Even those buyers out looking for a solution to an identified problem are unlikely to recognize value if that value is not vividly presented.

The unprovoked buyer is one who can’t clearly answer these questions:

• Doesthescopeandmagnitudeoftheproblemjustifychange?• Doesthefinancialimpactofthesolutionjustifyinvestment?• HowwillIgetfromthepresentstatetothefuturestate?

In an influential Harvard Business Review article making the case for “provocation-based selling,” Geoffrey Moore and his colleagues argue sellers in today’s difficult markets must provide “a new angle on the situation” – clarifying issues that are unacknowledged or poorly understood. They must challenge the buyer’s status quo thinking to establish credibility and create an incentive to change.

This idea is amplified by Erik Peterson and Tim Riesterer in their powerful book Conversations that Win the Complex Sale. As they put it, “you must be willing to challenge your customers’ current situation if you are going to get them to something different... if you don’t do it someone else will.”

The Unprovoked Buyer


Indeed, we’re seeing B2B sales and marketing leaders recognize they must produce relevant and provocative insights that challenge current thinking, provide new perspectives, and vividly make the case for change. They must make the move from solution selling

toinsightselling.AsBrentAdamsonandMatthewDixonpointoutintheirthoroughlyresearched book The Challenge Sale, the biggest driver of B2B sales performance today is “a supplier’s ability to deliver new insights.”In work with companies such as SAP, Microsoft and Accenture and a long line of entrepreneurial ventures, our firm has demonstrated how compelling visuals can serve this purpose – provoking conversation and clarifying value. Visual selling, as we’ve seen, can elegantly address the questions facing today’s unprovoked buyers.


Confronting the Trust Barrier

But there’s also the issue of trust to consider. Trust is essential to successful selling, particularly if you are engaged in a high impact sale.

Here’s the problem: Trust is now trading at a higher premium than ever. Why is that? Well, look around. Economic uncertainty is extraordinarily high and threatens to remain that way for the foreseeable future. Unpleasant factors that once were cyclical seem to have to have become structural.

Call it the trust barrier.

These days, decisions are made at higher levels than ever – and with the participation of more parties than ever. In most cases, prospective buyers would rather not buy what sellers are selling. They’d rather not even take a call or get entangled. They’d rather remainweddedtothestatusquo–howeverunsatisfyingthatis.Theyjustdon’twanttotake a chance. The pain of failure (decision theorists call it “loss aversion”) weighs much more heavily on them than the promise of gain.

Constrained budgets are at stake…and careers…and reputations.


And that’s why the trust barrier has risen to new heights – and why new strategies are necessary to surmount it.

Takethefirstmeeting.IDCfoundinitsresearchonthecustomerexperiencethatmore than 50% of sales people were showing up to these meetings unprepared. ForresterResearchfoundthatjust15%ofexecutivesbelievesalesmeetingsmeettheirexpectations.

Why in the world – if the odds suggest the sales meeting will be a drag – would a prospective customer actually want to invite an unproven sales person into his or her office and risk getting tied up for an hour? Well, they probably don’t. And they probably shouldn’t.

Trust is earned. Step by step. Conversation by conversation.

That’s why you want to start your interaction with a prospect by providing compelling insights. It’s a chance for you to establish an initial level of trust and credibility without askingtoomuchfromsomeonewhoisalready(justifiably)waryandskeptical.

You can overcome the trust barrier by making these insights easy to comprehend and consider. Rather than confront your prospect with a wall of words, you provide a model of their world – a context-setting backdrop that facilitates a powerful sales conversation.


The Case for Visual Selling

Visual selling is about exploring and explaining complex ideas with compelling images, dynamic animations and information-rich graphics. It certainly doesn’t eliminate the necessity to converse in words, but it makes your conversations so much richer and more insightful. Visual communication of this sort is also more memorable – and more easily conveyed to others who may not have been present during a prior conversation.

Instead of spending your precious meeting time trying to paint demanding word portraits and trying to synchronize your thoughts with those of your prospects, you can simply lay out a visual image that depicts the complex problem or solution you are trying to describe.

The visual image opens up discussion. It enables your prospects to see themselves in the problem space and visualize the dynamics that are at work. It is an enormously efficient means of producing clarity – or discovering hidden issues. It’s also a powerful way to help your prospects get a better sense of where they stand.


Lost in Translation

Imagine a company that sells complex solutions with a five- or six-figure price tag. It may be well acquainted with sales cycles running anywhere from nine to eighteen months. What happens when this company’s sales team shows up for a sales meeting with a prospect’s decision team?

If the company has diligently done its homework, the meeting will be based on insights gathered in prior conversations or analysis.

But what happens when the presenter starts showing slide after slide of bullet-pointed text that then leads to product-driven slides depicting technical architectures? What gets lost in translation? Why does the presentation fall short? And why doesn’t the deal go forward?

The problem is that prospective buyers can’t see themselves in the story – much less picture themselves as heroes of the story. It could be that there is no real story at all – justalonglistofstuffthatthe“solutionprovider”canprovide.


The Solution:

Here’s a modest proposal. What if you were to start your positioning and messaging exercises – which lead to marketing content and sales presentation materials – by focusing on the visual representation of your buyer’s journeyfromthecurrentstateto the future state?

You can begin by sketching out a visual of what the prospect’s world presently looks like. We call this the breakdown.

Visual Provocations, Explanations and Demonstrations


You then go on to sketch out a picture of the breakthrough. Just as drama demands conflict and resolution, you achieve clarity in contrasts when engaged in a sales conversation.

The goal is to produce a vivid depiction of the story in play. In fact, you are storyboarding thejourneytobemade–thehero’sjourneyifyouwill.Byenabling the participants in a

complex buying decision to see themselves in the story (as the hero), you help accelerate their comprehension of the case for change and investment.

Ofcourse,thisapproachlendsitselftolotsofcompellingapplications.AsDanRoamcontends in his excellent book The Back of the Napkin, visual explanations “can help us crystallize ideas, think outside the box, and communicate in a way that other people simply ‘get.’”


The Payoff:

Several benefits emerge from the skillful use of visual provocations and explanations. Consider the immediate payoff for sales and marketing specialists. The approach enables you to:

• Provoke Conversations. By vividly capturing the dynamics of a problem and the dimensions of a solution, you set the stage for engaging conversations exploring business value and the specifics of your customer’s world.

• Accelerate Comprehension. By clearly illustrating the scope, magnitude and cost of their problem, you help buyers comprehend why the present course may be unacceptable.

• Clarify the Case for Change. By clearly illustrating the solution and its dynamics, you illuminate a clear path from the present state to the future state – one that acknowledges the challenges of change and shows how it can be managed.

Becoming a Visual Provocateur


• DemonstrateBusinessValue.Whilesomeelementsofthebusinesscasearebestexpressed in spreadsheet calculations, this approach also lets you visually tell the story of business value – showing, for instance, how costs will be reduced or revenue will be generated.

• DrivetheDealForward.Bybuildingcredibilityandenhancingclarity,visualprovocations and explanations provide a compelling map to guide buyers through thejourneythatliesahead–givingthemtheconfidencetoinvestandreducingthe length of a decision cycle.

Ultimately, you have a powerful opportunity to engage buyers and drive growth by becoming a visual provocateur. By visually demonstrating the case for change, you build trust and credibility. You enable your buyers to leap the learning curve and see themselves as heroes in their own stories.

And while video, webinars and white papers are all powerful vehicles for presenting (and repurposing) compelling visuals, it may be in virtual and on-site sales meetings where this approach has its highest impact.

This is the moment when you can put the buyer in a story that is uniquely his or her (or their) own. You visually explore the unpleasant present to drive it into the past. You envision the value-rich future to bring it into the present. You provoke to propel.


What will set you apart in the eyes of your targeted buyers? Your ability to challenge current assumptions and bring new perspectives to the table. As new research on sales performance demonstrates, you need provocative and compelling insights that will drive deals forward.

Relying on Visible Impact, you can strengthen your market positioning, elevate sales conversations and accelerate decision cycles. You’ll have the insight-driven positioning you need to:

• Help your buyers visualize the case for taking action• Vividly communicate the full value of your solution• Make your message go viral within a decision team

Find out what clients like SAP, PTC, Cisco, Microsoft, and Accenture have already discovered. With Visible Impact, you can bring your selling and marketing teams together to produce compelling positions, messages and insights that create a sense of urgency and win more business. Our signature programs – Visible Insights, Executive Perspectives, and Actionable Assets – are designed to position your company as a trusted authority at all stages of your buyer’s decision process. Learn more about the solutions we deliver and the results we guarantee. Contact us now.

Visit us at www.visibleimpact.com. Find out how you can capitalize on these opportunities now. Schedule a complimentary Executive Briefing with a client advisor from Visible Impact. Contact us today at (512) 301-4881 or email us at [email protected].

About Visible ImpactCreate Urgency. Close the Deal.

www.visibleimpact.com.

[email protected].


Partner with Visible Impact, Britton Manasco has nearly two decades of deep expertise in business technology and professional services focused on developing strategic marketing and sales enablement programs to build business credibility, generate demand and enhance sales outreach.

Prior to launching Visible Impact, Britton was a principal at Manasco Marketing Partners where his content and communications work enabled clients to powerfully articulate their differentiation, value propositions and business solutions. Britton has written for Harvard Business Review; The New York Times; CIO Magazine; Sales and Marketing Management; and many other media outlets worldwide.

Partner with Visible Impact, Lee Sellers has over two decades of executive experience incorporatesalesandmarketing.PriortojoiningVisibleImpact,LeeheldavarietyofmarketingpositionswithDell,Inc.,focusedonbuildingstrategicmarketingplans for both the SMB and enterprise space. Prior to that, Lee was Vice President of SalesforZiffDavisEnterprise,leadingpublisherofbrandssuchaseWEEK and CIO Insight. There, Lee led a team of sales consultants responsible for building integrated marketing plans for several global technology firms.

A licensed attorney, Lee spent the decade of the 90s in legal publishing and was intimately engaged in developing and driving the adoption of online and software-based research.

About the AuthorsBritton Manasco

M. Lee Sellers

T OF VS S - Visible ImpactAs Dan Roam contends in his excellent book The Back of the Napkin , visual...

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