Sales Laundry

efm Events and Symposium sponsor, ThinOps Consulting, today announced that Jay Kerley, Corporate Vice President and Deputy CIO of Applied Materials has joined the Advisory Board for the inaugural Austin IT Symposium.

“To bring maximum value, this Symposium has to have a solid Advisory Board.  Veteran IT executives like Jay help guide the event and work with us to make sure the topics we are discussing in the Symposium are front-of-mind issues for the executives in attendance” said Gary Payton of efm Events.

“We are looking forward to working with Jay to make this inaugural event in Austin a success” said Tom Moreno, CEO of ThinOps Consulting.

About Jay Kerley

As Corporate Vice President and Deputy CIO of Applied Materials, Jay Kerley has responsibility for Global Information Services strategy, planning, operations, infrastructure, and development.

He has 20 years of industry experience across business verticals including pharmaceutical R&D, global logistics and high-tech leading IT transformation and globalization. Kerley co-led Applied’s IT Transformation, consolidating 17 decentralized IT groups into one, shifting contextual work to strategic managed service partners, and reducing the number of venders from 50 to two.

Prior to joining Applied Materials in 2006, Kerley led Global Operations and M&A Integration for DHL Americas.  In 2009, he was named to CIO magazine’s One’s to Watch list and honored for his role as a change agent.

About ThinOps Consulting

ThinOps Consulting specializes in assisting organizations streamline costs and manage risk associated with IT expenditures with two business units.  Business Advisory serves C-level management by assessing where the company is, where the company wants to be, and developing a roadmap to help executive management reach those objectives.  Technology Consulting serves IT organizations primarily through virtualization and remote access technologies designed to improve efficiency, lower support costs and ultimately deliver IT as a service.

About efm Events

efm Events, a division of Executive Functions Management, Inc. www.efminc.com is an information technology-focused event management and production company with 18 IT Symposiums across the Midwest and Rocky Mountain Region.

“We are very excited about working with efm Events to bring an event like this to Austin.  We are committed to do everything we can to make this event successful for the Austin technology community.” said Tom Moreno, President and CEO of ThinOps Consulting, Inc.

The Inaugural Austin IT Symposium is designed specifically for CIO’s and their executive management teams. This event will provide an unprecedented opportunity for the region’s IT leadership to gather and explore new ways to maintain a competitive advantage in a global economy, and allow collaboration across the region’s Information Technology population.

“The focus of this event is to connect IT executives together, provide an opportunity to meet their peers, and expand their depth of knowledge so ultimately they can be more effective at delivering value for the organizations they serve.  It is a natural extension of goals we strive for in our Business Advisory practice.”

The Symposium will feature interactive breakout sessions with regional executives and industry leaders addressing the convergence of IT with other business imperatives. Exceptional keynote speakers and a CIO panel discussion on the latest IT trends will also be featured.

About ThinOps Consulting, Inc.

ThinOps Consulting specializes in assisting organizations streamline costs and manage risk associated with IT expenditures with two business units.  Business Advisory serves C-level management by assessing where the company is, where the company wants to be, and developing a roadmap to help executive management reach those objectives.  Technology Consulting serves IT organizations primarily through virtualization and remote access technologies designed to improve efficiency, lower support costs and ultimately deliver IT as a service.

About efm Events

efm Events, a division of Executive Functions Management, Inc. www.efminc.com is an information technology-focused event management and production company with 18 IT Symposiums across the Midwest and Rocky Mountain Region.

Ten years ago I got to experience a great technology event in Kansas City.  The event was for CIO’s, CTO’s and their direct reports.  Vendors were at a minimum and Value was everywhere for those attending the event.

The value came in the form of something you rarely experience at a tradeshow-type event, real life experiences and lessons learned.

In every breakout session there was a CIO or senior IT guy representing a larger local company explaining a difficult problem they uncovered and what they did to fix it to a room full of CIO’s and senior IT guys.

Just walking past the rooms you could see all the light bulbs going off as new ideas bounced off the attendees foreheads.  After breakout sessions were completed, little pods of executives were scattered around the room taking a deeper dive into an they heard and the new ideas that those ideas sparked.

There was instant learning, instant ah-ha moments, instant connections between people with a specific problem and the people that had already put that problem to bed.

In short, there was instant value for everyone in attendance.  Well, everyone except me.  I did not get it right away.

At the time it was just a great event and I was of single mind to find new clients for our company as an event sponsor.  It was not until I got away from the event that I began to understand its value.

Looking back, it is easy to see how that one event shapes the way I have tried to build every event and seminar since.

Build an event that delivers value and is respectful of the time the attendees.

I don’t want anyone to decide to spend half a day with me and not find the experience worth their time.

Build an event that can be greater than the sum of its parts.

This year the world comes full circle for me as I am helping setup the inaugural Austin IT Symposium with the same guys that setup that first event a decade ago.

My focus is finding the right people to put in the room to make it an event that won’t be forgotten.  I will keep you updated.

Want to know more about the Austin IT Symposium?

Q&A’s are excerpts of questions I have answered as part of Sales Laundry or other forums that I am apart of. If there is a relevant sales message for the masses I post it here to share, gather feedback and discuss.

Q: What do you do when your client tells you that your proposal is twice the price of your nearest competitor?  My client just called me and told me that my quote was 2X more expensive than the highest bid received from other companies.  What do I do next?

A: First, don’t panic.

At least your client is talking to you.  They could have just as easily thrown your proposal in the trash and never contacted you.

This could just be a ploy by your client to get you to lower your price or it could be a legitimate question about why your price is so high.  Either way, your next move is to contact the client as soon as possible.

Your client is theoretically trying to make the best decision possible for their business and that is how you should approach this problem as well.  Be a resource to truly help them figure out the best course of action.

If your price is 2X your nearest competitor, either:

A.  You misunderstood the requirements.
B.  Everyone misunderstood the requirements except you.
C.  You are offering something of additional value that your competitors are not offering.
D.  You are priced too high for your market.

If you have a great relationship with your client, I would ask to meet with them and help them compare the competitors proposal to your own to make sure it is a fair comparison.

I would do the following:

1.  Review the specific issues that the client said was important to have addressed in the proposal.  If you can get the client to rank the issues in order of importance, that would be even better. (See point #8.)

Doing this exercise should tell you if you and your client are in agreement on what all of their issues are that should be addressed in the proposal and help you identify if the problem with your client is A, B or C above.

2.  If you have a unique service or offering that would be of value to your client that your competitor is not capable of matching, you can try to get that service included on the “important issues to address” list, though you should have done this the first time around.  I would just say make sure you keep your clients best interests in mind when making this decision.

3.  Once you are certain you and your client are in agreement on what issues need to be addressed in the proposal, ask to review the quotes.

4.  Compare your quote and the competitors quote to the ranked list of issues and point out the specific spots where the proposals differ from each other or the list.

5. If you have addressed issues in your proposal not on the list or that the client does not want it is up to you to offer to remove the item or convince the client that they need it and to pay the additional cost associated with it.

6. If your proposal has addressed everything on the list, but your competitors proposal has not, ask the client if the item the competitor left off is important.  If it is important, the competitor needs to add it, if it is not truly important, take that item off your proposal and adjust the price accordingly.

7.  If your competitor has offered a very low price to get the business that you do not think they can honor, explain your concern to the customer and offer a fixed price or a guarantee to meet the price you quoted to eliminate the advantage such a tactic might give your competitor.

8.  If the client did rank their issues in order of importance and price seems to be their ultimate concern, you might offer to remove the lowest ranking issues from the proposal and reduce your price accordingly.

9.  OPTION: Offer up a discount/rebate or refund if you are wrong.  You could offer to charge a lower rate if your actual costs are lower than what you are predicting in your proposal.

Good luck!

Q&A’s are excerpts of questions I have answered as part of Sales Laundry or other forums that I am apart of. If there is a relevant sales message for the masses I post it here to share, gather feedback and discuss.

Q: We have a strong sales guy, excellent with Small/Medium Enterprise accounts, but is obviously struggling to land large enterprise accounts and failing to sell them on our services.  He has not closed a single large enterprise opportunity.

I would appreciate any help in steering this guy in the right direction, any issues you feel they may have with these account types, and what plans/procedures/proposals may be put forward to resolve this issue. Thanks

A: The absolute best way to get to the bottom of the problem is to go with him on some SME account calls where he is excellent and some large account calls where he is struggling and see first hand where the challenges are getting the best of him.

The good news…

He is able to at least get an appointment with the Large Enterprise accounts, so he is able to convey value over the phone (I assume) to a viable company contact and get the meeting.

The fact that your sales professional is excellent with Small/Medium Enterprise accounts tells me he does have the ability to convey your products value to a prospective customer and secure a signed contract.

Areas to look for an answer…

The fact that he is struggling to land a Large Enterprise account does suggest some potential problem areas worth investigating.

1. SME accounts will almost always have fewer decision makers involved in making the ultimate decision to purchase your product while large accounts may have a handful of individuals scattered across the organization that need to be collectively convinced.

Look at who he is meeting with at the large accounts, is he uncovering all of the potential people involved in making the purchasing decision?  He might need help identifying who the key players are in large corporate environments and developing a successful strategy to get in front of all of them.

2. While he may be getting meetings at the large enterprises, I would evaluate his efforts at qualifying the person he is meeting with making sure they can make a purchasing decision vs. being an internal advocate that cannot influence vendor/product selection.

3. The problems of the SME customer may not be the same as the large enterprise customer.  If he is selling to the same pain points in a large enterprise as a SME account, he may be missing the mark by trying to solve problems the large enterprise does not have or are of too low a priority to garner immediate attention.

Ask him what pain points/problems he is trying to solve for the large enterprise and evaluate his answers with other sales professionals successfully landing large enterprise accounts.

4. Look at your historic sales cycles.  It is not uncommon for a sales cycle to be longer with a large enterprise account vs. a SME account because of the bureaucracy and volume of departments and decision makers that have to be won over to your offering.  Benchmark the sales cycle you went through to land your other Large Enterprise accounts and SME accounts and compare them to this sales professional’s benchmarks.

From my experience, the answer you are seeking is most likely somewhere within these four suggestions.  If, however, none of these seem to address the problem, pinpoint the specific areas (from first call to signed contract) where your sales process differs between your SME and Large Enterprise accounts.  Systematically work through each one of those identified areas with your sales professional as it is almost a certainty that one or more of them are the source of his struggles.

Sales Literature.  Do we really want to read and internalize two pages of multi-colored marketing surrounded by stock photos of people that do not work there?  Nope.  Not me.  Not your customer.  Not you.

(I bet you did not get past the first two paragraphs of your own sales literature before you started scanning the page.)

That is why I am a huge proponent of sales literature that is concise and written in terms of what the customer gets out of the experience.  Recently I found an example I thought was worth sharing.

While not exactly an apples for apples comparison, look at how each of these two companies try to sell you on their shipping service.  Which one communicates their message the quickest?  Which one helps you, the customer, understand the value you are going to get out of the service?

More importantly, which one do you think is more effective and which more closely represents the sales literature you are handing out?

________

Example 1

Have You Ever Lost a Canadian Customer?

If you every had a customer on the phone asking how much would it be to get the product delivered to Canada – you should find the situation very familiar.

________

Example 2

BigShipper delivers seamless cross-border solutions to the U.S.

Why choose BigShipper International Ground service to the U.S.?
BigShipper makes cross-border shipping easy. BigShipper International Ground is a cost-effective, door-to-door service from Canada to the U.S. that includes:

Day-Definite Delivery

We deliver within 2 to 7 business days, based on the distance to the destination, for packages up to 150 lbs. (68 kg) each, with a maximum length of 108 inches (274.32 cm) and a length plus girth of 165 inches(419.1 cm).*

BigShipper Ground Brokerage-Inclusive Service
To help facilitate your shipping, the brokerage-inclusive service is pre-selected on all BigShipper Ship Manager™ electronic shipping solutions. If the brokerage-inclusive service is accepted on our electronic shipping solutions, then BigShipper Ground will arrange for the customs clearance of your shipment. A Clearance Entry Fee may be charged, and will be reflected on your transportation invoice.**

Select Your Own Broker
If you already have your own broker, simply select “Broker Select” on our BigShipper Ship Manager electronic shipping solutions and enter your broker information, and it will be printed on your electronic Commercial Invoice. Additionally, our electronic shipping solutions will support a customizable database for storing broker information, enabling you to save time when shipping to the same recipient.

Shipment-Status Tracking
You have access to around-the-clock shipment-status updates.

Flexible Billing Solutions
If you accept the BigShipper International Ground Brokerage-Inclusive Service, you will have the option to bill duties, taxes and ancillary fees to the sender, recipient or a third party.† You will know the responsible party for each shipment beforehand.

Single Point of Contact for Resolution of Customs Delays
If you accept the BigShipper International Ground Brokerage-Inclusive Service, BigShipper customer service representatives will be your single point of contact for customs-clearance inquiries and will work directly with trade experts to help answer your inquiries quickly.

Money-Back Guarantee
If you accept the brokerage-inclusive service for your shipment, it will be supported by a money-back guarantee.*

BigShipper Electronic Shipping Solutions
Our electronic shipping solutions make shipping via BigShipper International Ground easy.
Please note that BigShipper International Ground brokerage options are also supported by BigShipper Ship Manager Server and BigShipper Web Services.

*Some restrictions apply. See Terms and Conditions for details.

** When BigShipper Ground arranges for customs clearance services, a Clearance Entry Fee may be charged to cover processes required to check the Commercial Invoice submitted with the shipment, to complete entry preparation procedures required by either U.S. Customs & Border Protection or the Canada Border Services Agency, including calculation of applicable duties and taxes for each type of commodity included in the shipment, and/or other customs clearance processes and activities. Clearance Entry Fees must be paid by the party paying the related transportation charges. Additional charges may apply. If you do not designate a specific broker on the BigShipper Electronic Shipping Solution and on the Commercial Invoice, BigShipper Ground will arrange for customs clearance and all applicable charges will be reflected on your transportation invoice.

†Clearance Entry Fees must be paid by the party paying the related transportation charges.

________

If you find reading your sales literature a painful exercise, so will your prospective customer.  Why did your last 10 customers buy from you?  Call them and ask.  My guess is the four or five sentences you get from them would make for a more compelling read than what you are handing out today.

If you have great sales literature, send it to me.  I always like reading the good stuff.  If it is awful, let’s fix it.

Q&A’s are excerpts of questions I have answered as part of Sales Laundry or other forums that I am apart of. If there is a relevant sales message for the masses I post it here to share, gather feedback and discuss.

Q:  What is the interrelationship between a sales process and the sales person’s natural style?

A:  A “Sales Process” should simply be a sales tool designed to get the greatest number of potential prospects successfully converted from “leads” to “landed” in the most efficient manner possible.

A “Sales Process” becomes overbearing at the precise point that it stops being a roadmap defining the most likely path for sales success and becomes an overriding dogma that must be adhered to regardless of customer, personality, situation or circumstance. When adherence to the process becomes so important/rigid that the sales process itself becomes an impediment to the sales of the very product the process was built to serve, it is time for a change.

Conversely, a “Sales Process” becomes ineffective at the precise point that it stops being a roadmap defining the best path to sales success and becomes an exercise in “style independence” with so loosely a defined process that the process again becomes an impediment to product sales. The rigidity of the sales process needs to be tuned to the product being sold.

Very knowledgeable customers making repeat purchases of commodity items could benefit by a very clear and rigid (to the point of being automatic, even) process. The floor of the NYSE being one example. Products being sold to customers with varying depths of knowledge or with wide ranging customer specific variations and infrequent purchase patterns require a more broadly defined “guiding hand” type of sales process, where listening, asking situation specific questions and conversation become more important than blindly following a rote process.

A well defined sales process should be malleable enough to bend to the needs of the product being sold and potentially the personalities selling it, as the product moves through its life cycle, anything else adds unnecessary friction.