Thought Leadership as Sales Strategy
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Transcript of Thought Leadership as Sales Strategy
© Copyright 2012 The Sales Management Association.
14 June 2012
Presented by
Thought Leadership as Sales Strategy Building a Sales Force That Customers Find Credible
SMA Webcast
About The Sales Management Association
A global, cross-industry professional association for sales
operations and sales management.
Focused in providing research, case studies, training, peer
networking, and professional development to our membership.
Fostering a community of thought-leaders, service providers,
academics, and practitioners.
Learn More: www.salesmanagement.org
Slide 2
© 2012 The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
Today’s Speakers: Jeff Baker and Adrian Logan
3 Slide 3
© 2012 The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
Agenda
4 Slide 4
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
• Welcome and Introductions
• Point of View Selling Overview
• Siemens Customer Case Study
• Advice for Sales Managers Implementing
Point of View Selling
• Questions and Answers
Increasingly Challenging Sales Environment
5 Slide 5
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
Impact on Your Business
• Longer selling cycles
• Greater pressure on prices/lower profitability
• Higher cost of sales
INCREASED COMPLEXITY
OF MARKETS
VUCA: Volatility, Uncertainty,
Complexity, Ambiguity
GLOBAL, MORE
SOPHISTICATED
COMPETITORS
SMARTER, MORE
DEMANDING
BUYERS
Selling
Organisation
Polling Question
Slide 6
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
Which one of the following describes your
sales organization’s strongest response to
today’s challenging selling environment?
oWorking harder
oWorking smarter
o Providing new incentives
oUsing thought leadership selling
oOther or no changes planned
The Customer Business Continuum
Slide 7
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
Implementing Solutions
Sourcing Suppliers
Setting Needs and
Specifications
Analyzing & Selecting
Generating Options
Unit Planning
Enterprise Planning
Guiding the executive’s decision making allows you to get involved early in the
customer business planning process
Point of View Selling Traditional selling
Point of View Selling
Slide 8
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
What?
What are the issues
we should address?
How?
What are the
possible solutions?
Who?
Who can best
deliver the right
solution?
A key to this approach is understanding how a senior level customer makes
decisions – including potential purchase decisions
Entry point for a
Point of View Selling-based
approach
Entry point for
traditional selling
Basic Needs of a City
Slide 9
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
• Efficient transportation of people and goods
• Reliable and efficient supply of energy
• Health, security and comfort
• Low emissions
Requirements are drastically changing from siloed solutions
to interdependent and intelligent infrastructure solutions
Case Study: Energy Reduction Yields Cash
Slide 10
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
City energy consumption growing
– Significant percent of budget
– Crowds out other programs
65,000 sets of traffic signals in city
– Significant energy consumption
– Annual maintenance expenses for frequent bulb replacements
Compare current energy use and annual maintenance to LEDs
Finance LED replacement using energy savings
Results:
– Zero cash expenditures by city to convert to LED
– Increased free cash flow in years following LED conversion
– “Green” success story
– Increased traffic safety due to reliability and longer life LED
"What we have achieved is something that will effectively cut our energy bills by
almost two-thirds, and which will also result in some of the latest technology being
installed on our network that will offer real benefits in maintenance and reliability.” - Chief Executive for the Integrated Transport Executive
How Does Point of View Selling Differ?
Slide 11
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
Traditional Selling… Point of View Selling…
Respond to the customer’s point of
view
Lead with your point of view
Ask questions to uncover the
customer’s needs
Educate customers about their unseen
opportunities
Seek to understand known “pain
points”
Advocate capturing lost or hidden
value or identifying and mitigating risk
Meet budget constraints
Establish investment frameworks
Align with the customer
Challenge the customer
Assure the customer
Provoke the customer’s interest
Sources of Rep Credibility
Slide 12
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
• The power of the point of view itself
• Industry knowledge and customer specific business
knowledge
• Business acumen
• Executive teaching skills: ability to quickly convey a
powerful idea linked specifically to relevant business value
driver
• Advanced dialogue skills to withstand the inevitable
challenges to the idea
• High confidence
Polling Question
Slide 13
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
To what extent does your sales force
demonstrate these aspects of credibility
today?
o Our sales people are masterful now
o Our sales people are fairly good
o We have some of the basics in place
o We have a long way to go
o We are not going there
Implications For Sales Leaders
Developing New Skills
Slide 14
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
Discovering needs
Solving problems
Matching product features and
benefits to customer needs
Thinking innovatively
Generating insight
Educating customers
Engaging in skillful dialogue
Testing validity of ideas
Point of View
Selling Traditional Selling
Ensuring your sales people are equipped with the necessary skills to develop
compelling points of view and educate customers
How Provocation Changes the Sales Cycle
Slide 15
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
Source: “In a Downturn Provoke Your Customers.” Harvard Business Review, March 2009
Implications For Sales Leaders
Managing the Opportunity Pipeline
Slide 16
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
Point of View
Selling
Traditional
Selling
Responding to customer
trigger events
Confirming needs & budgets
Proposing solutions
Initiating new value conversation
Confirming value
Guiding decision framework
The cadence of the selling cycle changes in Point Of View Selling so requires a
shift in how sales leaders monitor the health of the sales opportunity pipeline
and help their sales people to find and advance deals
Implications For Sales Leaders
Obtaining Internal Support Resources
Slide 17
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
Point of View
Selling
Traditional
Selling
Product expertise
Research about and positioning
against competition
Pricing support
Customer industry experts
Research and analysis of
customers’ business
Business case support
Point Of View Selling requires additional resources to support sales people
The Point of View Selling Approach is Appropriate In
Complex Selling Environments
Slide 18
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
• Large-ticket, complex
solutions often involving
multiple products and
services
• Target buyer is an
executive who can find (not
just manage) budget
• Ultimately, the solution has
a significant impact on the
customer’s strategic
business objectives
Single
Product/
Service Offer
Full
Business
Solution
Bundled
Services/
Products
High
Medium
Low
Seller’s Knowledge of Client’s Business and Industry
Opportunity
for Educating
Client about
Business
Opportunities
and Risk
Low Medium High
TRANSACTIONAL
SELLING
CONSULTATIVE
SELLING
POV SELLING
Situations Where Point
of View Selling is
appropriate
From Educating to Provoking: Questions for Sales
Leaders to Consider
Slide 19
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
Selected questions from Forum Corporation’s POV Selling Maturity Assessment*
1. Business Fit: The degree to which you have a sales strategy and value proposition
adequately focused on engaging senior level decision-makers and guiding their
thinking.
2. Compelling Points of View: The degree to which your sellers have available to
them fully developed and compelling points of view that they can use to educate and
engage senior-level buyers.
3. Foundational Skills: The degree to which your sales reps have the necessary
foundational business and selling skills for effective POV Selling
4. Advanced Selling Skills: The degree to which your sales reps have the necessary
skills required by sales people who engage in POV Selling
5. Sales Structure and Support : The degree to which your sales structure and
supporting resources are sufficient for the successful deployment of POV Selling
* contact Forum to arrange for a POVS Maturity Assessment for your sales organization
From Educating to Provoking: Questions for Sales
Leaders to Consider
Slide 20
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
1. Business Fit:
– You are able to target customer decision makers who can find budget, not just manage
budget
– Your target buyers are interested in novel ideas for improving business performance
– Your solutions have a significant impact on a customer's business value drivers
– Your solutions and POVs are sufficiently differentiated so that you become the obvious
“supplier of choice.”
2. Compelling Points of View:
– You have client-ready POVs that educate the market about ways to generate or capture
new/more value and which differentiate you as industry experts.
– Your client-ready POVs allow the customer executive to quickly understand the
opportunity/risk that your idea addresses.
– Your POVs address quantitative business drivers (e.g., revenue, cost, quality, time) as well as
qualitative drivers (e.g., brand value, customer loyalty, employee engagement).
– Your POVs give an estimated range of the size of improvements that are possible for key
business drivers
– Your POVs compel immediate action from your customer
From Educating to Provoking: Questions for Sales
Leaders to Consider
Slide 21
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
3. Foundational Skills: General Business Acumen, Industry Knowledge, Customer Business
Knowledge, Products and Services Knowledge, Consultative Selling or Solution Selling Skills
4. Advanced Selling Skills: Your sales reps:
– Can generate insight for creating new business value or managing major risks for customers
– Understand how an idea/point of view impacts relevant customer business value drivers and
performance
– Can develop methods to test with customer the validity of the new pov/idea
– Know who to go to in your company to help them develop new povs and create ways to test
validity with each customer
– Have the ability to develop and convey a brief and compelling narrative about a new point of
view.
– Can graphically illustrate (draw) essential ideas of the point of view
– Have the ability to develop and consider with customer viable solution options.
– Can influence the establishment of customer’s buying decision framework and criteria.
– Have the ability and confidence to guide the customer team through a complex decision
process
From Educating to Provoking: Questions for Sales
Leaders to Consider
Slide 22
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
5. Sales Structure and Support:
– You will use POV Selling as a way to differentiate our company and our sellers in the
marketplace and/or for positioning new solutions
– You are prepared to redesign your selling processes and pipeline management process.
– You are prepared to establish a new resource model to support sales efforts (e.g., create
collateral material or provide subject matter expertise)
– You have internal resources who can develop new POVs (e.g., Marketing, Product
Development, Business Intelligence resources)
– Your performance measurement system and rewards systems can accurately measure and
reinforce POV selling (e.g., pipeline metrics, performance-based compensation metrics)
– Your Sales Managers are capable of coaching POV style selling skills
Your Questions
Slide 23
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved.
?
www.forum.com 24
Strategy Accelerated
Forum mobilises people to embrace
the critical strategies of their
organisation and accelerate results.
When you need to swiftly align your
people to tackle an opportunity or
tear down a roadblock, Forum is an
essential business asset.
www.forum.com
Contact: Call: +44 (0) 20 7017 7150
Email: [email protected]
© Copyright 2010 The Sales Management Association
Thank You.