tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-64298589477565035582024-03-08T12:32:28.601-08:00Channel Sales Automationrajeshdashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17906861115811930566noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6429858947756503558.post-71936576499367340292015-02-10T07:13:00.003-08:002015-02-10T10:42:09.722-08:00A Day in the Life of a Sales Rep – in the very near future.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bIUB2gLdFIY/VNofgkpPHCI/AAAAAAAAAN8/2VruwIqtFag/s1600/Jonathan-Hopkins.png" imageanchor="1" rel="author" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bIUB2gLdFIY/VNofgkpPHCI/AAAAAAAAAN8/2VruwIqtFag/s1600/Jonathan-Hopkins.png" height="200" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB">By <a href="https://plus.google.com/107393425009003368155">Jonathan Hopkins</a></span></td></tr>
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<br />
A Day in the Life of a Sales Rep – in the very near future.<br />
<br />
I won’t bore you with the pre-breakfast routine, my day starts with a damn fine cup of coffee.<br />
As my brain enters something approaching a state of consciousness, I look at my smartphone.<br />
My day is drawn for me on the screen. I have a couple of sales calls on my own this morning and a meeting with a major customer, together with one of our business partners this afternoon.<br />
<br />
I glance through the details of the first call, this is a new prospect. Fortunately my phone contains a whole range of useful information about the call, and the important thing is that the information is focused on the opportunity. <br />
The marketing team rates the opportunity as a 21 – which means it’s a visit which will be well worth making. As I scan through the detail on this opportunity, I can see why people were excited, it looks like our products have a close match with what the customer says he needs. So I link the zip code from the account into navigation app on the phone, my route is planned and I am good to go.<br />
<br />
This is so much easier than in the old days before we got truly mobile, when I used to feel the need to re-qualify every new appointment that was generated for me. Now all I do is give the potential customer, a quick call before the meeting just to make sure that there have not been any last minute changes.<br />
I drive to the appointment and I check my phone, my boss has asked me to solidify a couple of aspects of this opportunity, which had been at the back of my mind anyway (well sorta).<br />
<br />
The meeting kicks off with a few pleasantries then it’s into the first meeting drill. When we started using the smart Battle card, I was concerned that following it point by point might not feel natural but the customers seem comfortable with it or even like it. We come across as more professional and the information we generate makes it more useful experience for us and for our customers.<br />
<br />
The first thing I am going to do is to check on a couple of gaps we have in our qualification process. I need to find out a little more about who are the relevant stakeholders in this deal, and most importantly how these stakeholders plan to arrive at a decision.<br />
<br />
The battle card takes me through this and lets me capture the relevant data through the phone app. This is really cool because now I will be able to put a tick in the box for the task my boss gave me. <br />
Having completed the Battle card I now have a much better understanding of the customer's requirements. I am able to let him know with genuine confidence that we have a great solution to meet his current challenges. The information it generates confirms the next stages in our engagement process, and I am able to share them with him.<br />
<br />
Leaving the meeting with my app complete, I am happy a good job has been done, a positive working relationship is being developed and we are able to give him value in that meeting. Having closed the app, I can relax, because my paperwork is also done, new contacts are in the system and the probability of the opportunity has been re-evaluated, which will automatically modify my forecasts.<br />
<br />
Next stop is with a prospect who we have already had a number of meetings with, and we are progressing the deal nicely. They have asked us to come in to discuss numbers and a potential timescale which is always the kind of conversations you want to be having.<br />
<br />
I arrive a few minutes early which gives me some time to look at the dashboard on my app. We are 2/3rd of the way through the month and my numbers are looking OK. I can also see my sales team forecast, and again this is stacking up nicely although a couple of prospects are drifting to the right, I am sure that people are over this.<br />
<br />
It’s a great feeling working with a prospect, when you know something positive is going to happen. Everyone is energized and excited, which is just the spirit of this meeting. I had the pleasure of being introduced to the CFO of the company, and he gave me some important information. His company is in the process of acquiring one of their smaller competitors and we would need to be able to integrate our stuff with their old technology. Could we do this?<br />
<br />
One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a technology sales rep is pretending you know more than you know. It destroys all the credibility you might have. Fortunately for situations like this our very smart product managers have developed battle cards. I dial in the relevant one and start the Q & A. In this case it’s not a simple query, and the battle card directs me to a number to call. I tap on it and in seconds I am talking to a properly clued up project manager, who is looking at our Q & A session.<br />
<br />
He is able to give positive news and sends the relevant supporting documentation to my prospect's technical people to explain our solution. The customer is unsurprisingly delighted, we have been able to ease his pain, credibly and directly. We complete our meeting and I have a request from them for a formal quotation to include the new integration work. On my way out I send off a task request to our Product Manager for a price for the additional work so that I can adjust my forecasts.<br />
<br />
The afternoon meeting promises to be a good one as well, in this meeting we are working with a partner and one of their customers. This partner likes to involve vendors in his sales from time to time, and here I am going to support him at a commercial level.<br />
<br />
Before the meeting with the customer, I can review on my phone all the relevant data and interactions that have taken place between our partner and his customer. I can see that this opportunity has a really good score, so it’s well worth my time to get involved.<br />
<br />
In the old days before going to see the customer, the partner and I would have needed to have a preparatory meeting. So that I could understand where the customer was and we could agree on a strategy as a consequence. By using the app and talking the same language, I have a clear understanding of where the customer is. Because the partner understands our sales processes and workflows, he knows what approach I will be taking to bring the customer to a sale.<br />
<br />
The meeting went well, the customer thinks the partner is great, the partner knows he is going to get his deal, and I move that little bit nearer commission accelerators.<br />
<br />
And now my day is done, my meetings have been completed, the documentation is all put to bed, and I am now free to prepare myself for tomorrow. <br />
Friday no longer has to be a day at the office, I can use the old CRM data time for other things like selling more - or just other things!<br />
<br />
<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6429858947756503558.post-19526360869359073632014-12-08T10:03:00.001-08:002015-02-10T08:31:42.035-08:00IndirectSales.com is an organization which is responsive to market needs and works to make that response in a timely manner. <div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bIUB2gLdFIY/VNofgkpPHCI/AAAAAAAAAN8/2VruwIqtFag/s1600/Jonathan-Hopkins.png" rel="author" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bIUB2gLdFIY/VNofgkpPHCI/AAAAAAAAAN8/2VruwIqtFag/s1600/Jonathan-Hopkins.png" height="200" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-GB">By <a href="https://plus.google.com/107393425009003368155">Jonathan Hopkins</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">At Dreamforce in October, we met with a broad range of
successful and smart business people shared a range of different ideas.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br />
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Here’s the thing, we went to Dreamforce to talk about our
passion for building great tools for organizations and their partners to maximise
their sales opportunities by bringing in both intelligence and clear vision
into the indirect sales process.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br />
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The delivery of intelligence and clarity to develop and close
business opportunities was a subject which resonated with just about everyone
we spoke. However, the burning questions on everyone’s lips was – “Don’t just
tell us you can do these things with our indirect sales, we need them in our
direct sales teams as well”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">We were intrigued and since then have been researching the
issue, talking to customers and partners, trying to in understand their
real-world experience and see how we can help.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br />
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This is our thinking, CRM systems are fantastic at managing
customers, and they also deal with the administration of selling, to the extent
that the sales manager of old (we all know him, the guy who is first in the
office in the morning, last out at night who operated on the principle that if
he stares at Excel long enough the numbers are bound to come good) is
redundant.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br />
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">But to the actual business of tools to help you make a sale? The
evidence points to a gap in the market. There are some people operating in this
space, but they have not yet made the impact they should.<o:p></o:p> So what impact does this have on indirectsales.com? Should we
change direction and put our focus into developing technology for Direct Sales
teams? We think that would be short-sighted. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The world is changing, organisations are coming to terms with
new ways of doing things. The hard and fast edges that sit between direct and
indirect sales are softening. A new
model of collaboration is developing where an opportunity may go through a number
of owners on its journey through the sales process. What is
needed are technologies that offer both clear sight and guidance to all
stakeholders in this increasing complex environment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br />
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The sharing of information is beneficial to all parties, but to
be of value it must be presented in a format that the user can assimilate and in
a time-frame that is useful. This speaks to pervasive computing, the capacity
to make both tools and information available when ever and where ever it’s
needed. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br />
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">IndirectSales is addressing this need by making a series of
powerful, functional apps available, that contain technology focused on the
needs of the business developer, when they are interacting with customers or
partners, supporting timely decision making and paradigm shifting interventions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br />
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">This works well at the operational and field level, and delivers
performance improvements, but what about the strategic decision makers, if we
provide insight into what is happening in the narrow end of the sales funnel
can we make a difference to them? The answer is yes, typically by the time an opportunity has been
qualified, the enterprise has invested heavily, and the further progresses
through the sales cycle the greater the investment becomes and the greater the
impact that failure to win the bid, or to deliver on the promised margin will have
on the forecasts and the potential plans of the enterprise. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<br />
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Traditionally Senior Management has received information from
spreadsheets and this information is often out of date, and of variable credibility,
especially if it comes from partners. IndirectSales.com will give insight into what is going on
with all the opportunities, and the greatest insight will be for those
opportunities which are most critical. As an output of the process there will be a whole host of
data, which strategic management can use to evaluate performance of process,
people and products, To be able to understand with absolute clarity why deals
are lost, to understand why deals are won, and replicate the successful activities, and shape the
business accordingly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Analysis can be performed on a range of topics, performance
of direct and indirect teams, products in certain markets, why certain strong
products work in some markets and not in others, are there activities that
sales people are missing at some particular stage in the sales process ?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The focus of the strategic meeting can change from the norm,
which is trying to understand why things are not going to plan, because mature
users of IndirectSales.com know that already, to how do we change the plan to
deliver on our operational and strategic goals<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6429858947756503558.post-31011461174926404772014-11-30T22:38:00.000-08:002015-02-10T08:38:23.609-08:00 Can technology help you sell? No really - “Sell”?<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lwXs5LYrMgM/VNozPPb7yfI/AAAAAAAAAOM/KJgtFnGsgrM/s1600/dave.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-lwXs5LYrMgM/VNozPPb7yfI/AAAAAAAAAOM/KJgtFnGsgrM/s1600/dave.jpg" height="200" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">By <a href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/105082785485693501445/" rel="author">Dave Wilson</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Selling is an art, and those artists come in
every shape and size, age, sex, color and religion. Some are good talkers and
others are good listeners, and everything in between. Some have great product
knowledge and some haven’t got a clue. Yet they do their numbers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Selling, though, is also a science. Companies
go to a great deal of time and expense to have their sales people trained on
how to “sell”, and how to sell their products. They also invest in sales tools,
and the emphasis over the past 30 years has been traditional sales accounting
systems (CRMs), where the emphasis is on Sales accounting, reporting and
forecasting for management. In more recent times we have seen huge growth in analytics
and marketing automation (leads). If Dreamforce 2014 was anything to go by,
comfortably 90% of exhibitors focused on those two technologies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Getting good leads is obviously
important and management can now get better insights from the data produced
from our CRMs – and the marketing Automation processes – but what about actual “Selling”?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The burning question is whether or not
technology can make the science of selling more effective for the sales people;
put the emphasis on the “selling” as well as the “accounting”; enhance the art
of selling? In recent times Gartner has been making much of the concept of
digital business, and the effect of the mobile form factor is an obvious one
for sales people. For the first time ever you can carry a mobile battle card,
or playbook with you into an appointment or call, and no customer would object
to a simple request: “ I have a checklist of questions about your requirements,
(relative to our product) do you mind if we go through those together now or
later?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">As a rep you are expected to know everything
there is to know about every product and every specialist use of those
products. The company has just done a marketing campaign aimed at Finance (or
Healthcare, etc, etc), for one of your 20 products. In the course of a day you
might do 5 calls for 5 different products in 5 different sectors. This might
seem an exaggeration, but in my last company, the account managers had to
contend with 125 products and every vertical marketing sector. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Do you think technology can help? Of course,
it can. While those are “product” or “needs analysis” questions, you have the
device in your hands, it is perfectly natural to just check about Business
questions – the budget, the timescales, decision makers, any specific drivers
for this deal? Compliance, for example, or ROI targets? What is the best
process for this product? Arrange a trial, or a demo? Right through the sales
cycle we follow a workflow and every product in every market has its own
playbook. As a rep you cannot possibly know all of that but those product
managers and marketing people can. They need to get that encapsulated into a
simple process you can check through across all 5 of those calls you have
today. Every deal has its playbook. Every deal for every sector has its own
playbook – but for you they are all the same – a series of checklists, and maybe
the opportunity to fire up a Powerpoint or video demo at an appropriate time?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is tool to get your win rate average up,
but even better it also detects that you have made changes that should be
reflected into your sales accounting system and into your companies brand new
Business Intelligence and Predictive analytics system. More to the point, you
are a few steps closer to another good quarter and that Club trip to Hawaii,
and your Fridays can be spent on the golf course (with your customers), rather
than trying to remember what to put into your CRM! </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6429858947756503558.post-9640012295829790562014-10-14T10:44:00.002-07:002014-10-14T10:44:53.719-07:00IndirectSales Released.This week sees the official launch of IndirectSales.com.<br />
<br />While this is our official launch, we already have a number of users world-wide who have been helping us ensure that we have a stable and feature rich product that is business ready to solve channel sales collaboration needs.<br />
<br />We have also completed the mobile app to enable in the field sales users to interact, anywhere, anytime using their mobile phones or tablets.<br />
<br />It is not a coincidence that our launch is happening at the same time as Dreamforce, the Salesforce.com annual conference here in San Francisco which we are attending.<br />You'll find us in the Cloud Expo North, booth N2338, and with us are 2 of our pre-release users, Access Governance from Australia and Porter Consulting from here in the USA.<br />
<br />Access Governance are a master distributor in Melbourne working throughout Australia and Asia. The represent a number of companies in that area. They use IndirectSales in 3 ways To track sales though their own and their reseller sales organizations, to track recruitment of new resellers and to also track the recruitment of new suppliers. They make extensive use of the notes facility to hold copies of all agreements from a simple NDA to a full reseller agreement.<br />Maureen O'Hare will be with us all week at Dreamforce.<br />
<br />Porter Consulting use IndirectSales on behalf of a major Silicon Valley technology supplier. They work with them to deliver targeted marketing campaigns for specific products through a set of master distributor and reseller networks. They chose to use IndirectSales because we implement a customizable qualification and sales tracking process easily deployed and administered in the field for all distributors and sales partners.<br />Al Morgan from Porter Consulting will be with us on Wednesday.<br />
<br />But why Dreamforce For many customers, IndirectSales starts where Salesforce leaves off - in handling and collaborating with the channel on major sales. We are the ideal compliment to any company that deploys Salesforce, has an indirect channel and wishes to integrate channel sales data securely into the corporate CRM.<br />
<br />If you are here in San Francisco for Dreamforce, come see us and discuss how we can help you collaborate better with your channel sales network. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6429858947756503558.post-79213547890082284072014-10-11T08:54:00.000-07:002014-10-11T08:54:33.786-07:00A User View<span style="font-size: small;">We're pleased to welcome Maureen O'Hare to California and to this blog. She's here for Dreamforce next week. Here's Maureen's article.</span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">How did this Australian woman come to be here in Santa
Cruz, California? Why would I fly through the sunny Australian skies to get to
those of California?</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">I am the Sales and Channel Director of the Australian
company, Access Governance. We started up earlier this year. We are a Master
Distributor for the Asia Pacific region, for some fantastic software from
Europe and the USA. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">We have multiple suppliers, currently 6 but the list
is growing. We have multiple resellers as well as our own sales people. With
each of the suppliers, we have different agreements, different territories and
several currencies to manage for our price lists. Ditto for our resellers. And
we have to make sure that we and then each of our resellers are trained in the
different products, but not all resellers sell all of the products.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">So, we also have the track the ‘recruitment’ of
suppliers and resellers.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">Then, we have to assign leads from suppliers and our
own sources, to the relevant sales person or reseller making sure that we have
the materials and training, and subsequently have enabled our reseller with
these too. It follows naturally that we then need to manage those leads and
deals through to the close, and report the result back to the relevant
supplier.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">Sound familiar?</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">We could do some of it in Excel, some of it in Word,
but the real action would usually be in email. And we’d spend hours every week
keeping each other up to date on who was doing what and who needed to what
next.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">We could have bought some different systems; a CRM, a
document management system, a lead tracking system, and a sales process
workflow system. Oh! and a task manager. But that would have just divided up
the information differently and still we would not have an overview of our
suppliers and channels, and it would leave us scrabbling about in the different
systems for the current status of a supplier or a reseller or a sale.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">Then we came across IndirectSales! And it does it all!</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">I can track the progress of adding a supplier or
reseller and, with the customisable workflow, I can ensure that all of the
steps in the process have been completed. I can store the agreements online in
the system, so I can easily check the terms for a supplier or reseller. I can
assign a lead to a reseller or even to a particular person for that reseller. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">I can customise the workflow for a particular product
and track the salesperson’s progress though that workflow. We can also store
the price lists so that everyone can be sure they have the current list. With
notes I can keep a specific log of the interactions. We can even provide a
specific ‘battlecard’ for each product, accessible on the mobile app.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">So I came to California to boast about how IndirectSales
makes my role possible instead of impossible to other Channel Managers battling
to cope with the myriad of forms, spreadsheets, and emails, all the while
wondering what is really happening out there in the channel.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;">
</span><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="line-height: 200%;">If you would like to know more about my experience
with IndirectSales, come and visit me at the Dreamforce Conference on October
13th-16th in San Francisco Cloud Expo North Booth N2338.</span></span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6429858947756503558.post-81637379049830781362014-09-29T08:31:00.000-07:002014-09-29T08:31:23.212-07:00It's Time to Stop and Smell the Channel<br />
If you're like me, and you've spent the majority of your career selling directly to customers, you have an innate mistrust of the Channel. Sure, they're just like you and me, they sell stuff too, but they do it in strange and unknown ways, in a dark and mysterious realm beyond the reach of human vision, entirely out of your control. <br />
<br />
It's really not as bad as all that, but if you're serious about your craft and have embraced Sales Process as the key to greater success, it can definitely feel that way. As you deign to entrust your precious leads and life's blood revenue goals to organizations and individuals that you no idea whatsoever which sales process they embrace, if any at all. The instinct is to keep all the "important" deals firmly in house where you can have full control and total visibility of their progress through your sales process and not have to risk "throwing your pearls before swine" into the black hole of the Channel.<br />
<br />
Well, sorry to say it, but this approach in a competitive market will virtually guarantee slower growth, lower margins and continually being outflanked by your enemies. To stay at the front it is absolutely essential to embrace meaningful partners, and to do so around a commonly shared sales process and true collaborative selling. To be honest, we all need to get that place of trust where we eagerly hand off the best leads with the biggest upside to the right partners. It's often the partners who have the better relationships within the customers and hence a much better chance to actually close the business. You just have to <u>know</u> that your partner knows how to best sell your product. It's easier said than done, but with today's convergence of major technologies like mobility, digital business process, the API economy and the Cloud, the previously unimaginable has become not just possible, but essential. The key is SaaS-based Chanel Sales Automation with a mobile app at the front end which will accommodate a customized sales processes, real deal progress scoring, and a digital Sales Battle-card, with API integration to all of the major CRM and Sales Automation tools currently in use. Every member of your Channel organization may be using their own CRM or Sales Automation tool, but as the vendor at the top of the food chain you can mandate your own common sales process to be used to sell your products, and at the same time provide your own "Digital Sales Battle-card" within the mobile app that greatly aids in onboarding new partners with minimal training and ensures they are following your own best sales practices to close more deals. All of this can easily integrate into their own CRM using available API's to reduce double entry.<br />
<br />
The Channel has been around for a long time, but today's greater level of competition and demand for efficiency requires that we all take another look at how we can optimize our Channel investment for far better results, and the good news is that once again, technology has provides the means to do just that.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6429858947756503558.post-7196791265081448792014-09-23T20:54:00.000-07:002014-09-23T20:54:12.031-07:00Sales Best Practices in Channel Sales<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">One of the best salesmen I have ever worked
with called me last week. He works for a large company that does a lot of its
business through partners. He had just lost a deal, and it looks like the partner was not talking to a key decision maker. It sounds like they were
outflanked. Everything looked good on this deal, yet it was lost over one of
THE most basic of sales best practices – make sure you are talking to the MAN
(Money, Authority Need). His reaction was that he needs get out his sales
training materials to remind himself of the fundamental rules of selling – he was beating himself up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Of course, if my friend were selling direct,
without that partner, then he would have figured this out for himself before it
was too late. It is the fact that he took for granted that his partner would be
following best practices for Sales, that was bugging him. This can be a
mistake, as in this case. This is a great partner, who is technically strong,
and very loyal. Besides he needs the partner. It is just the way the business
works now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">How many times have you heard such stories,
or experienced them personally? It happens all the time. It could be that a
deal is forecast, but it turns out the budget is for next year (or none at
all). It could even be that the customer is in pure “Research” mode; there is
not even a defined need/project.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">There are not one, but two big lessons here.
The problem is not just that basic sales principles have not been followed, and
that is problem. The more difficult issue is that the partner is a different
company and you are not working through a formal collaboration system. If you
WERE using a common system, like IndirectSales.com, then it would have been
obvious. There is a simple checkbox for Authority that you would both be using,
on a simple app on your smartphone, and you rate your exposure to the decision
maker between 1 and 5; if it’s a 1, then you need to find Mr, Miss or Mrs 5.
It’s a simple as that.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">As new technology makes collaboration and
keeping sales best practices easier and easier, and the changes in the product
landscape (especially in the technology sector – cloud, SaaS, commodity
hardware, apps, etc) make collaborative selling more and more essential, then
the more we will need to use such tools. We must work better together.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6429858947756503558.post-64622644254991375142014-09-22T08:19:00.001-07:002014-09-22T08:19:43.806-07:00Blog 2: Channel Loyalty and the Software Defined Datacenter<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">I often tell my adult kids that I owe my career to Moore’s
law, and they roll their eyes. But it’s
true, with every advance in silicon, the number of solutions that became
economically viable increase, and my value as a marketeer continues. However, it is a two-edged sword: every
advance has made high margin, proprietary hardware, so cherished by resellers,
easier to replace with commodity systems.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">And so we arrive at the software defined datacenter. All of the infrastructure elements are now
based on low-margin commodity hardware.
Where do the margins come from that bind a channel partner to a hardware
vendor?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Many of my clients sell such hardware, whether it is to
resellers or service providers. My
clients want to engage their partners to sell these products, or commit to
deploying very large volumes. We often
must remind them that from the channel point of view, the hardware is simply a
low-margin pivot point on which to sell high margin services. <u>So driving channel services must be a key
element of the hardware vendor value proposition.</u> Services drag becomes a core part of the
channel partner “What’s in it for me?” conversation. It is very different conversation than with direct sales.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This is where a channel-collaborative sales model, along with
a tool such as Indirectsales.com, can really make a difference. Through working closely with channel partners
in a shared selling model, vendors can guage and track how services factor into
deals. If, as part of this process,
vendors can help partners suggest additional services, based on product
capabilities, it enriches the sale and the teaming relationship. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">By documenting incremental partner services,
tools such as Indirectsales.com show that specific products drive channel margins. It adds a level of differentiation in a commodity marketplace. Things like sales collaboration, deal process
analytics, and “whole deal” revenue tracking make the value more obvious. And that grows vendor mind and wallet share,
which is the whole point.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">These ideas are part of every coaching or content
development project we take on. I think
it is why folks come back to us, and channel partners are happy to see us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_MailAutoSig"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Al
Morgan<o:p></o:p></span></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Director, Solution Marketing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Porter Consulting<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">+1 408 394 7122<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><a href="mailto:almorgan@porterconsulting.net">almorgan@porterconsulting.net</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.porterconsulting.net/"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">www.porterconsulting.net</span></a><o:p></o:p></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02960722399943677680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6429858947756503558.post-76315702073348625042014-09-15T08:06:00.000-07:002014-09-15T08:06:22.714-07:00I don’t like you ……..But I love you<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This song, originally written in 1962 by the legendary Smoky
Robinson, could be an anthem for today’s channel sales model. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For most companies, channel sales has become “the” major way
of doing business. Over 70% of all high-tech sales go through the channel,
sales cost can be 20% lower than with a direct sales force and using the
channel companies of all sizes can effectively and efficiently extend their reach,
not just nationally but globally. You really have to love the channel sales
model.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But talk to most corporate sales professionals and they’ll
tell you they really don’t like selling through the channel. They spend
millions of dollars on marketing campaigns and never really know what happens to
the leads. Market development funds get spent but there’s no accountability.
Forecasting is a nightmare because no-one really knows what is going on, where
and with whom and no-one ever admits to losing a sale so there is no feedback
on product or sales performance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Corporate sales professionals really don’t like the channel sales model.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The song’s real title is “You’ve really got a hold on me”
and that’s how those corporate sales folks feel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And they feel like they are held in a very
painful place.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So how do you change the game and make this a partnership
where everyone likes and loves the channel sales model? The answer is
information. Help the channel provide visibility of each and every deal – and
do it in a way that is straightforward, with common goals and reporting that’s
available in real time for everyone to see.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Show the marketing team what revenue each campaign generates and how
those MDF dollars spent are turned into sales. And while we’re doing this,
let’s help the channel sales people by giving then sales and product training,
on the fly on their phones. Let’s make it so simple that it’s easier to use the
new tools that work with the old.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And of
course, because everyone has one and they are all different, let’s make the
information available into your – and their – CRM systems.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sound too good to be true?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Well in the past it was. But recently a group of seasoned channel sales
professionals, who have been battling with these issues for decades, got
together with a team of young an enthusiastic web and software designers to
make it happen. The result is Indirect Sales.com. The first and only cloud
application to address this formidable challenge.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The application is already live and helping our first
customers. They really like what it does to solve their channel sales issues.
Like?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I should say love.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Want to know more, see a demo or have trial? Contact us on <a href="mailto:info@indirectsales.com">info@indirectsales.com</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And see us at Dreamforce Expo North Booth
2338</div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6429858947756503558.post-34809364868354550592014-08-28T11:22:00.001-07:002014-08-28T11:22:49.507-07:00Apples to Apples: Applying SCOTSMAN Scoring to Channel Sales and Campaigns<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
At Porter Consulting, we manage IT infrastructure channel
demand gen campaigns, where the deal sizes run from 10,000 to 100,000+. For those campaigns, we provide program
management and sales coaching. As you
can imagine, costs per lead can be expensive, and demonstrating ROI is
important to everyone involved. A lot of
our work is ensuring that the leads generated meet the profiles set during
campaign planning. Over the past few
years, we have moved from simple BANT qualification to the SCOTSMAN model. Before we get any further, let’s define the
models and what they can do for us:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><b>BANT</b> means: Budget, Authority, Need, and
Timeframe. But this just shows that
someone wants to spend some money. Most
campaigns are much more focused: competitive displacement, installed base
refresh, very specific product lines or solutions. BANT does not really address those
aspects. As a result, leads may not
match the narrow objectives of the sponsor.
We have many cases where only 30% of the BANT-qualified leads were
actually in the target sweet spot of the campaign. That is where SCOTSMAN profiling can really
help to keep everyone on track.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> <b>
</b></span></span><!--[endif]--><b>SCOTSMAN</b> extends the BANT model to ensure that
the prospect is interested in the specific solution being promoted by the
campaign. Here is how BANT and SCOTSMAN
match up. The four extra criteria
(Solution, Competition, Originality, Size) re essential for working the deal
effectively.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -.25in;">
<br /></div>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-left: -.15pt; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-yfti-tbllook: 1184; width: 540px;">
<tbody>
<tr style="height: 15.0pt; mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0;">
<td style="border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 77.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="103">
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b>BANT<o:p></o:p></b></div>
</td>
<td style="border-left: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; height: 15.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-top-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 327.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="437">
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b>SCOTSMAN<o:p></o:p></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 16.15pt; mso-yfti-irow: 1;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; height: 16.15pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 77.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="103">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 16.15pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 327.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="437">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>S</b>olution (does what they want
match what we are selling?)<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 16.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 2;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; height: 16.6pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 77.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="103">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 16.6pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 327.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="437">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>C</b>ompetition (can we be in the
running?)<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 17.5pt; mso-yfti-irow: 3;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; height: 17.5pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 77.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="103">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 17.5pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 327.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="437">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>O</b>riginality (does our value
proposition resonate?)<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 17.5pt; mso-yfti-irow: 4;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; height: 17.5pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 77.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="103">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>T</b>iming<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 17.5pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 327.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="437">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>T</b>imescales (is it close-in enough
to pursue?)<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 17.5pt; mso-yfti-irow: 5;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; height: 17.5pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 77.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="103">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 17.5pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 327.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="437">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>S</b>ize (is it worth our while,
or too big to tackle?)<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 13.0pt; mso-yfti-irow: 6;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; height: 13.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 77.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="103">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>B</b>udget<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 13.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 327.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="437">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>M</b>oney (can I win based on
their funds available?)<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 16.6pt; mso-yfti-irow: 7;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; height: 16.6pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 77.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="103">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>A</b>uthority<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 16.6pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 327.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="437">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>A</b>uthority (are we speaking to the
right people?)<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 13.0pt; mso-yfti-irow: 8; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;">
<td style="border-top: none; border: solid windowtext 1.0pt; height: 13.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-left-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 77.0pt;" valign="bottom" width="103">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>N</b>eed<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
<td style="border-bottom: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-left: none; border-right: solid windowtext 1.0pt; border-top: none; height: 13.0pt; mso-border-bottom-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; mso-border-right-alt: solid windowtext .5pt; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 327.75pt;" valign="bottom" width="437">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>N</b>eed (is there enough pain
for them to commit?)<o:p></o:p></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here is how we apply it:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For each campaign, we create simple criteria for every
SCOTSMAN element. For every letter, what
does a 5 look like, and what does a 1 look like. We then use the model to rank each deal after
initial qualification, and then periodically as we work with the reps to
advance the deals.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Creating that simple model enables us to do many things:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For each lead:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Evaluate their fit to the campaign, and only accept and pass
on leads to the reps that match the solution.</li>
<li>Provide specific guidance to the reps on what needs
immediate understanding, to convert lead to deal as fully qualified.</li>
<li>Help the reps take the next steps to improve the overall
score, or drop the deal as a poor opportunity.</li>
</ul>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For the larger set of leads generated by the campaign:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Assess whether the prospect list is generating leads with
the right profile. </li>
<li>Provide additional training to the telemarketing team if
certain areas are consistently poorly understood.</li>
<li>Give the sponsor a solid understanding of how the leads are
mapping to the campaign objectives.</li>
<li>Help partner sales managers understand if they have weaknesses
addressing certain</li>
</ul>
<o:p></o:p><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Applying the model leads
to better quality and consistency for both leads and sales reps execution. That converts to more revenue and better
campaign ROI. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We like the
IndirectSales.com solution because it allows us to capture the scoring easily,
and in concert with the rest of the campaign tracking information. That leads to better, faster, decisions and
better results.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
We recommend applying
SCOTSMAN as a simple way to add rigor to your sales management process. <o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02960722399943677680noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6429858947756503558.post-70533116700300524192014-08-26T14:49:00.000-07:002014-08-26T17:07:48.557-07:00A "lingua franca" for Indirect Sales Channels<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Whenever you get groups of people working together and needing to communicate </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">together, there is obviously a need for a common language. That is easy if you are </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">all from the same country, group – or company, but if you are, a diverse group, who </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">each have their own “language”, then you have the need for a<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca" target="_blank"> lingua franca</a>. The best </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">examples, are probably the use of English in the airline industry and in technology, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">where people from all over the world work together. Without a consensus way of </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">communicating, we would be in a mess, and would not have made the huge progress </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">that has been made in both sectors. The alternative is to try and live and work in a sort </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_franca" target="_blank">“Tower of Babel”</a> . It would be chaos.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wherever we have diverse groups working together or even technologies working </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">together it is a really good idea to have a common hub to work together or a lingua </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">franca. Very often we have a “de facto” language to work with – like the English </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">language example in airlines and technology, but there are places where “the </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">languages” that are available, are, first of all, too diverse, and secondly, do not fit the </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">purposes of the diverse community. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indirect Channel Sales is very interesting “community”. It is a huge community that </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">transacts billions of dollars, but does so without a consensus way of working together. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It consists of vendors, consultants, resellers, distributors, etc, who all work together, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">but they all have their own way of doing things, and because there is no “consensus” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">or specialty system, the systems are normally VERY basic, or systems built for direct </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">sales – and they are specifically NOT to be used for collaborative working with “non-</span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">employees” or even employees who are not approved. The truth is that the problem is </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">even worse in the channel sales because the community is not only large and diverse, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">it is also dynamic - the people who are working together are doing so on a deal by deal </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">basis, and every deal can have a different mix of people, companies – and </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">systems! </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Can </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">you imagine how much more we could do if there was a specialist </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">system </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">that was </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">built </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">for the needs of the indirect channel sales community AND built </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">for </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">collaboration </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">AND </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">to act as that hub, where everyone can share the system and </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">data </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">they </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">generate?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Taking the metaphor to an extra level, many people regard pidgin languages as lingua </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">francas because they take elements from other languages. In the case of Sales </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tracking </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and Management systems there are many elements that are part of all </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">systems, </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">and </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">IndirectSales.com is intended to have those elements – be familiar - </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">have </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“stages”, </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">pipelines, etc. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Indeed, the final dimension that we think is important is to have shared </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">best practices, </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">even when you allow customization. You can fully customize the </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Questions you ask in </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">your </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">sales tracking forms, but we aim to promote the use of the </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">SCOTSMAN </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">methodology </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">through our system – that could be the “English language of </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">airlines and </span><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">technology” – but </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">that is subject of another article from a guest who is a </span><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">specialist </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">on </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">the </span><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">subject.</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6429858947756503558.post-24604692784748792712014-08-20T15:43:00.000-07:002014-08-20T15:43:00.765-07:00Sales is always the most expensive, wasteful and mismanaged department in every company
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">As bad as that statement is, the real irony lies in the
fact that Sales is also the most important department (once you have a product to sell), and holds the potential
to most drastically impact both the top and the bottom lines of any organization,
with the least amount of effort.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">A typical technology company will spend 50% or more of every
revenue dollar, feeding its Direct Sales force. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s an amazingly inefficient metric, and
yet it continues year after year without any significant innovation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There are a few dirty little secrets
associated with why Sales continues to trudge through the Valley of Dysfunction
while the rest of the major business disciplines have undergone
transformational change over the past 20 years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Executive
Sales Leaders are typically powerful “type A” personalities who have risen to
the top based on charisma, competitive drive and reliance on their own
intuition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They trust in themselves and
what they’ve always done to succeed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In
their minds, “It ain’t broke, so don’t fix it”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They also tend to look out for their own, and paying multiple levels of
high commissions to maintain Sales organizations is, in their minds, the way
business has always gotten done.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Control
and Visibility are rightly viewed as essential components of a successful Selling
Organization.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Utilizing any one of the
many leading CRM’s or Sales Automation tools on the market provides Executives
with both the ability to control the process and track the progress of deal
flow, within their own Direct Sales teams. </span><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Indirect or Channel sales are much more
efficient, from a cost/benefit perspective (typically consuming just 30-35% of
revenue), but many Sales VP’s who cut their teeth carrying a bag Direct selling
are loathe to give up control of their revenue to the wild unknown of the
Channel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>CFO’s, who live and die on the
predictability of their monthly and quarterly numbers seem willing to trade
30% in profit margin delta (Direct Sales costs vs. the Channel) for the deal visibility that comes with a purely Direct
selling strategy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt 0.5in; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";"> </span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Leads
and deals that are passed onto Partners, Distributors, VARS and Integrators seem
to disappear into a “black hole” from which no “light” (information) can
escape, until the deal is either magically closed, or the word comes back that it has been lost entirely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most large technology vendors will privately
admit that the only methods they have to track the progress of big deals in the
Channel are manually pestering their partners with phone calls and emails, and then
filling out spread sheets with whatever information they can extract.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">This archaic state of affairs seems incomprehensible in the age of the internet,
the cloud and ubiquitous mobile computing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But the truth is, the big CRM vendors have little to no motivation to
integrate with their competitors, and the nature of a channel ecosystem are no
common processes and wildly varying systems. How does a vendor enforce
visibility, control and common sales processes among a completely heterogeneous
partner organization?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">The time has come for true innovation in the Sales world.
Rightsizing and optimizing the mix of Channel and Direct to reduce costs,
increase profit margin and drive overall revenue are the changes that can mean
the difference between barely surviving and dominating your market.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: "Calisto MT","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p>Soon we will be able to show you how real companies are utilizing this kind of innovation to transform their businesses.</o:p></span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6429858947756503558.post-6327540356324578902014-08-18T17:01:00.003-07:002014-08-18T17:04:20.991-07:00<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">View from the Front Line<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This week a user is going “live” albeit in a small and
controlled way.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We have been working with this company for a number of
months, and we are very grateful for their support and patience with our
evolving products.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We have now reached the point where our software is robust
enough that it can be deployed and will deliver sales channel automation.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Like all good implementations the software is going in a
controlled and managed way. The user’s staff have been trained and briefed with
the Sales Director as the product champion leading the way.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Our consultants have been working closely with her during
the past few weeks to make sure that deployment will be a success and will
immediately add value to their business.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Implementing any CRM is a non-trivial process, and with a
new product with revolutionary capabilities it’s even more important to get the
change management and the cultural shift correct.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">To a large extent though because IndirectSales.com talks in
the language of the channel manager and other sales and marketing
professionals, and because it has an intuitive interface, user acceptance of
the system is remarkably swift, you just need to make sure you have underpinned
the implementation with good planning.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">This first phase of this implementation is relatively
straight forward in that IndirectSales.com initially is working only within the
users company, however the plan is to extend this deployment very rapidly to
their reseller base.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">We will let you know how this project matures through future
postings<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
Jonathan Hopkins<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 8pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri;">Professional Services Group – Indirect Sales<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6429858947756503558.post-50966535625212294852014-08-13T08:56:00.001-07:002014-08-13T08:56:57.659-07:00IndirectSales.com Live<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">It’s been quite a ride but at last our pre-production
IndirectSales.com web service is live. We’re working on final testing and a few
tweaks but if you have a need to get greater visibility of your Channel Sales Automation
process then we shall be happy to show you around, let you kick the tires and
see what IndirectSales.com can do for you.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">The sales landscape has changed dramatically in recent
years. Once, the majority of sales were driven by a direct sales force but now
over two thirds of all sales go via the channel including retail, the web and
local and regional distributors and resellers. Not long ago, you could track
leads from your marketing programs through to end user sales. You knew when and
why a customer purchased your product and what had caught their interest to do
so. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Now, with so many leads and opportunities going through your channel and the
lack of visibility of them, you’re often flying blind when it comes to making sales,
marketing, production, logistics and even product decisions. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">This is the issue that IndirectSales.com addresses. To bring a collaborative approach to channel
sales and marketing; where you get to see what happens to your leads, you can
better manage your sales and you can understand how effective your marketing
programs are. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">And what does the reseller get for all this? They know that you are with them every step
of the way. They know that you are invested in helping them close the sale and
will reward successful collaboration with more and better targeted programs in the
future.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">But what of the overhead of setting up and using the system?
IndirectSales.com follows tried and tested sales processes that should be
familiar to every successful sales person. It uses simple tailored Q &A
menus to determine how far along the sale has moved and assigns probability of
closure so you can achieve better forecasting and alignment of resources. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">And to minimize the overhead for
the salesperson on the street we have developed a mobile app which allows them
to update the sale status as and when the information becomes available in real
time.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">
</span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;">Why not get ahead of the game? Take a look around
<a href="http://indirectsales.com/">IndirectSales.com</a> to see if it can help you regain control and be able to
conduct your business like you want to conduct your business.</span></span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6429858947756503558.post-79148110262764354712014-08-11T14:10:00.000-07:002014-08-11T14:10:24.018-07:00Time to Partner - join us!
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over the past few months, we have
been investing heavily in the IndirectSles.com product and in our pioneering
customers. The experience has been good and highlights just how diverse the
world of indirect channel sales can be. However, everyone has the same fundamental issues in common, especially
the need for collaborative selling – and we use the word “partnership” without
thinking about what it really means. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everyone wants data to run the
business; processes they can understand and agree on. They want their own
businesses protected and maximized but don’t particularly care about the other
guys business.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s a unique world, but there is a
very large and important business community, looking for a common process.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To reflect this, we have decided
that this blog, which is about Channel Sales Automation, will be open for outside
contributors to share their experiences and views. From an IndirectSales.com
perspective, we will be inviting people with views on how technology can
provide new features (that did not exist even 5 years ago) to allow such a
product to be put together – an engineering view; how Direct and Indirect Sales
teams can and should work more effectively – a sales view. We’d like your thoughts on how the very
existence of sales best practices, such as SCOTSMAN, can work really well for
companies looking for ways to collaborate properly; a lingua franca. We believe
that anyone can and should understand a system like SCOTSMAN that encompasses the
underlying principles of most sales methodologies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Vendors looking to work with Partners;
Partners looking to work with Vendors; Channel sales and Marketing looking to
work with both, separately and together. Distributors, equally straddle the two worlds and can bring a
unique perspective to the world of channel sales automation and the need for
something beyond spreadsheets. If this is your world, we want to hear from you.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We welcome everyone to join the debate. If you have
something to say, just contact us. And please, subscribe to the blog and share
with people you know who might be interest. It should be an interesting ride.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6429858947756503558.post-89559304515301180612014-03-05T10:46:00.001-08:002014-03-05T10:50:42.956-08:00<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Progress Report</span></b><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Although the primary intention of this blog is to talk about
“the Channel” – the Indirect Sales process and community, it is also the blog
of IndirectSales.com. Three months ago we received our first external funding
and we have been VERY busy, and, as it turns out, too busy to blog! So to plug
that gap, we thought it would useful to give some idea of what we have been doing,
and some of the things we have encountered along the way. Don’t worry, we do
not intend to go into the system step by step but we are going to talk about things
we have seen as we have been piloting the system, and running it in parallel to
some good projects.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is important to understand that we are truly pioneering
an approach to Indirect Sales that will allow all members of this community to
benefit – obviously the Vendors and Distributors sells more, but also the
“Channel” now has its own process so they can be part of a better collaborative
selling environment.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We have found some interesting things, and in future
articles we shall discuss in more depth.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The system is working for 3 classic situations:</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> 1) </span></o:p><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">Small companies building a channel. The sales
tracking is important but having a single version of the truth on joint deals,
on partner management is so difficult. Everything is buried in emails and
spreadsheets – and there are many spreadsheets.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">The ability to put them on Drive or Dropbox seems to do very
little to improve the situation for the simple reason that this is not a
process. It is just storage of a problem that has existed for years. What is
needed IS a common process for all personas. We think we have got that working
really well now.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">2) Medium size companies, who already have a
channel, but managing it is a problem. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"> </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">Again everything is done in spreadsheets and email because
that is a format that everyone is used to, but once again there is the need for
a process that is as effective as Salesforce, but for Indirect Channel Sales.
Deal control, forecasting, performance indicators are all difficult when
everyone involved in this loosely connected community does not have a process
they feel part of. It must be integrated with the corporate CRM, but the CFO
will not allow Partners to directly use that CRM – it is part of the Finance
system.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;">3) Perhaps the most surprising is the fact that
these problems exist at the level of major companies – Vendors AND
Distributors. Even they rely on spreadsheets and email, which is a surprise.
However, the reasons are the same – the lack of a process that could produce
the data needed to improve the business. In fact, the universal push to a
lighter footprint sales organization, without loss of momentum is making this an
area of future investment. We need to get this right. A major difference with
this community, though is that universal adoption of the tool is never even
discussed (yet :-)</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -0.25in;"> ). Each and every exercise to bring controlled collaborative selling is being
done on a funded Campaign basis.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Inevitably, our experiences over the past few months in each
of these situations has broadened the feature set, so we can be used by the
broad base of vendors a VAR might come across. In future blogs we can talk
about some of these. The focus right now is get the API finished and tested against
a dedicated mobile app for the Partner – but more on that another day.</span></div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6429858947756503558.post-50747155537276840732013-11-25T14:25:00.000-08:002013-11-25T18:56:44.914-08:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Using Direct Sales Management systems for the Channel</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Let’s face it, Salesforce.com has done a superb job of
making CRM a SAAS product. It has also done an even better job of marketing
itself. Many believe that Salesforce (and others like them) “does everything” – and that includes “channel management”. They certainly have
processes that cater for Partners – but are they really "Channel Sales Automation Systems"?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is an evolving classic approach to how you handle
Direct and Indirect Sales processes. This is not every company but it certainly
applies to the huge majority of companies that use the channel seriously. The
diagram below shows the main elements of this approach.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I2rEFXY1HRI/UpQNAGbrUJI/AAAAAAAAAFo/aPtr-sztb6k/s1600/indirect___before+(3).png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="190" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-I2rEFXY1HRI/UpQNAGbrUJI/AAAAAAAAAFo/aPtr-sztb6k/s400/indirect___before+(3).png" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="mso-no-proof: yes;"><br /><!--[endif]--></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The workflow is basically the same as it has always been;
leads go in one end and come out the other end as orders… we hope. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The tools we are using though, are
evolving. On the left, you see “Marketing Automation Tools” and Partner
Resource (or Relationship) Management systems. They perform some great values
in terms of trapping interest from your website and other marketing initiatives
and creating leads (as well as brand control, etc). For Direct Sales they feed
into a proper tracking system like Salesforce – and control = success. However
the Indirect picture is still messy. Leads are fed into spreadsheets or made
available through portals. If you are lucky, the “Vendor” will let you register
your deals through another portal into the corporate CRM system, but, of
course, that’s as close as the reseller is allowed to get. The actual tracking
is done on the corporate CRM by an assigned Direct rep or by the Channel sales
team (who usually maintains a spreadsheet). The Vendor lives in a world of
spreadsheets, email, and constantly dialing for updates.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hopefully at the end there will be an order placed somewhere
that tracks back to that original lead – that usually cost a lot of money to
generate. The truth is that deals are often lost through poor sales processes,
that effective sales management and tracking could have helped with – this
stuff really does work. Even worse, the partner can just as easily switch-sell
to another Vendor and you have no real way of controlling that. Perhaps even
worse than that, you might have really great partners who are doing everything
by the book, and you have no real way of recognizing that. You should be building
around those great partners; they are the ones you should be nurturing, giving
leads to; they are the ones that make you a professional business.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The truth is that we are still not fully evolved. The thing
that is good about Salesforce is that it is “multi-tenant” and for almost all
things that is good. It means that your system behaves like it is in your
datacenter – locked down and restricted – but instantly available; maintenance
free. Unfortunately, it still operates in that way for Partners; by definition
they are not allowed access to corporate systems – even though they share a
common business process. Your relationship with your Indirect Sales team is
more like a network process – a collaboration process that transcends
firewalls. Systems for the channel ARE unique, but the good thing is that the
workflow is almost identical. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
can fix this.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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In the next article in the series we will talk about how
these clues have inspired a real Channel Sales Automation system, that helps
users of systems such as Salesforce evolve that next critical step by using the
Channel’s own Sales Automation system. </div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6429858947756503558.post-27020274364203481552013-10-31T15:47:00.001-07:002014-01-15T13:49:29.561-08:00<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">What is the Indirect Sales Channel?</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There is an assumption that all sales take place through a directly employed sales team, and/or, more recently, through the web. The problem with having a Direct Sales team is that they are notoriously expensive to run. In IT Enterprise Software Sales, for example, many companies use a number of $420K pa, as the standard loaded cost of a rep. Having global coverage with such an overhead is, to say the least, not something you can do instantly. On the other hand, "the web" gives you global coverage at VERY low cost, which is great if you have products that sell themselves. Put them on Amazon and watch the money flow? The trouble is that a lot of the time you need "people" as part of the mix - consultants, integrators and business people who know customers needs - Sales people, Resellers, etc.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4tMuZpWnDqY/UnLY-8kbWYI/AAAAAAAAAEk/Z67P_5OcE44/s1600/indirect_sales_channel+(1).png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4tMuZpWnDqY/UnLY-8kbWYI/AAAAAAAAAEk/Z67P_5OcE44/s400/indirect_sales_channel+(1).png" height="209" width="400" /></a></span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many companies have a diverse mix of "Channels". The diagram above gives a simple view of how a typical Sales Ecosystem might work. The right and balanced approach to your overall sales strategy is vital, not only to saving costs, but to increasing sales - and reach - and supportability. The area to the left has been the focus, because it has been the most tightly controlled. However, the entire ecosystem to the right is clearly of a scale that few companies can ever reach. The goal of Channel Sales Automation is to provide that framework and realize that potential. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The examples, listed, of companies that have leveraged the channel to create their empires are all classic tech companies, but this model applies to almost any business type, especially when the product needs "people" as part of the process.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6429858947756503558.post-10632583951830618592013-10-24T17:28:00.001-07:002013-10-24T17:28:05.061-07:00As we get close to the launch of the formal beta system, I intend to use this medium to explain some aspects of what we are doing. There all sorts of terms for all sorts of services in around Sales and Channel Sales, and we are something very precise and understandable - I hope! We really are a Channel Sales Automation System. We are not a PRM or a CDM. We are to Indirect Sales what Salesforce.com is to Direct Sales - a system that allows all the personas in a Channel Sales process to use a common Sales system. They can be the Reseller, a Services partner, a distributor, and several personas from the Vendor. They can be doing Leads screening, or leads nurturing, but they are ALL part of the same process.<br />
<br />
It's just that in the world of Indirect sales, the players are brought into the Deal on a JIT basis, and paid on a performance basis. This means that the Vendor can extend his virtual sales organization far and wide but keep a common process for everyone. At the same time it really is a system for the Channel - the Vendor effectively sponsors the use of the system by the Resellers, so that they only ever have one system to work with. The Resellers can then invite their other Vendors to use this common system, and this makes life more consistent and professional for the Reseller.<br />
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In turn, each Vendor can use their own preferred systems - Netsuite, Salesforce, Zoho, Oracle, etc, etc for CRM, or Mailchimp, Marketo, Constant Contact, Pardot, etc for Marketing automation - and indeed the existing systems for PRM, CDM, etc that make sense of derived data, can now work with our pure data, to give even better value to their customers. Indeed, these customers are likely to be shared customers. The Vendor can treat biznet3.com as their channel sandbox which gets fed by Leads from Silverpop and sends updates to Netsuite - or whatever tools you prefer as a Vendor, Distributor, etc.<br />
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In other words, a rich ecosystem is evolving to catalyze specialization in Sales, and the magic of the API will be the way to make it all work for us.<br />
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Over the next few days, I will start to expand some aspects of this new and needed approach. I have used some diagrams that explain some of the dynamics pictorially, and I will share them too. I think this helps. If you want to be part of our private beta, you can go to our "embryonic" landing page, find the Contact us at the bottom and send us a note. We WILL follow up. The time is now!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6429858947756503558.post-36667211991162721212013-09-27T13:29:00.001-07:002014-01-28T10:13:32.959-08:00<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This blog is sponsored by IndirectSales.com from Biznet3 Solutions Inc, and is aimed at catalyzing the most powerful business network in the world: the Channel.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is basically just a "Hello World".</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hello World!</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0