Needless to say this is a critical, intensive and thoughtful exercise when done right. But meanwhile I wanted to share a set of very simple (perhaps simplistic?) and over-arching set of criteria I use in conducting this analysis. Hope you find it useful. And please write and tell me what you think!

What sort of technology and services do you buy?

We buy hardware (servers, desktops, storage, networking equipment and firewalls), software (SAP ERP and Business Objects, Epicore CRM, Microsoft Exchange) and telecom (Nortel for unified communication). We also buy services such as data center hosting, remote application monitoring, network management, and even applications delivered as a service (Droisys and Protera).

What are some dos and don’ts for selling to a CIO?

It’s important to recognize the CIOs are very different from sales people. We are more analytical not as emotional so we don’t respond well to rah rah stuff. We depend of facts and figures because we are very process oriented. If a sales rep wants to connect with me, he needs to do his homework and know what business I am in, what problems I likely have, and uncover my needs and only then should he pitch a product that solves a specific problem for me. And finally, respect the CIO’s time. Get to the point.

I would also strongly recommend that sales people stay engaged from the pre-sale phase all the way through to the implementation. I find it very frustrating when companies transition personnel from pre-sales, to implementation, and to technical support. The disconnects between these teams are very very obvious to me and disruptive. I find that some of the folks downstream of the sales rep are clueless about my business goals and all the needs I already expressed to the sales team. The sales rep does his song and dance then disappears. That’s very bad for the relationship and even hurts results.

What collateral or information do you find most valuable?

Vendors do, of course, need to do all the usual things like webinars, trade shows, datasheets, whitepapers, analyst briefings, etc. But I actually find the most valuable ones are opportunities to speak with fellow CIOs whether it’s on the golf course or in customer reference calls. I never turn down “lunch and learns” and events where I can have quality time with a peer. Remember the absolutely best thing for a CIO is word of mouth from another CIO. That’s why I have agreed to be an SAP customer reference. It helps them but it also helps me as I get to speak with peer CIOs. I like to ask colleagues “so how’s this working in your own shop” and “how did you solve this issue?”

How does a vendor get you to be a customer reference?

Well I have to be a happy customer first. Then they need to provide an opportunity to speak with other CIOs. You know, we CIOs are actually a very talkative bunch. Just get us together, let us react to your product roadmap, and facilitate questions. That’s it. I’m also a member of a CIO group called the Office of the CIO, and this group meets monthly share experiences etc. I’m happy to share more about this wonderful organization.

How important are analysts like Gartner Group, Forrester, and IDC to your in purchase decision?

Not very. I find that they do not have the hands on experience that we do. Of courses vendors do need to cultivate a relationship with them to keep their product visibility up.

Tell me a memorable story of a particular buying process?

Well I’m afraid my more recent experiences have not been too pleasant. I was recently working with a vendor in the iSCSI SAN market. They sent nice people seemingly very interested in our business. They tried hard to understand our needs, my urgency, and working within a tight budget. They helped me identify the right solution which I then bought. That’s when the frustration began. The vendor shipped us off to a completely separate business unit and even farmed out the implementation to a third party company. It got worse from there. The third party botched up implementation. I tried calling the sales rep but he was onto the next kill. I had to escalate up the flagpole to the VP sales to get the original pre-sales team back in here to straighten out the implementation. Ironically, I would’ve bought more if hadn’t been for the poor handoffs and transitions. This is why I feel strongly that vendors really ought to have at least one person stay in contact with the customer from purchase through to deployment.

So have you ever had a great buying experience?

Yes. My best purchases are with Dell for servers. We simply order what we want, they ship it out, and we plug it into the rack and it works. The best purchases are actually the ones that have no involvement with the supplier. The minute it requires vendor involvement and a system integrator then things gets convoluted and more chances for things to go wrong.

Who’s involved the purchasing process?

My team defines the technology roadmap. We identify, select, and negotiate with vendors. I take the contract to the CFO to ensure the contract has acceptable terms and risk. Then it goes to the CEO for signoff before purchasing cuts a purchase order.

How do you justify a purchase?

I justify purchases based on how it would increase or maintain our revenues. I look at the impact to revenue with and without this purchase. How does it reduce operations costs both capital and operating expenses? How does this mitigate risks? I look at risks such as PCI compliance, credit card theft, and especially risk of downtime affecting orders.

Copyright (c) 2009 Sridhar Ramanathan

I had a great lunch with my friend, Suresh Balasubramanian, who is a director in charge of a sales/field marketing team in a very large software company. He built a good sized team that spans 13 time zones. Listen in on our lunch conversation and I think you’ll find it both entertaining (see his funny story at the end) and highly informative.

I work in the worldwide field operations group of this large global software company and we are in charge of operating primarily in the emerging markets and look at new ways to generate demand and acquiring legitimate customers.

You mentioned high scores in an internal survey for team performance and manager effectiveness; can you tell us more about that?

Yes, we conduct annual surveys within the company to measure and sustain a high level of team effectiveness; we also take the opportunity to ensure the team gets to voice their opinion on manager effectiveness among other topics. In the recently conducted survey, my team “ranked” much higher on most dimensions of performance and effectiveness compared to our peer groups and the company as a whole. This is a key indicator of a highly motivated and high performance team. This is especially noteworthy since the team I manage is geographically and culturally diverse spanning over 13 time zones with NO two team members in the same office location

How did you create a culture that spans your highly distributed, global team?

From the very beginning when I got to this company, I knew that it was really important to have a common mission/vision a strong set of “values” that the team can get behind. We spent a lot of time discussing this and developing a core set of values and a mission statement. This exercise helped out quite a bit in developing a culture that focused on performance, success and recognition. The team naturally embraced these values as they are to some extent “universal”. I believe by doing this early on and communicating and demonstrating this as we operated and grew as a team it became a critical part of our success.

What were the important metrics that you use for your “dashboard” on generating sales and demand?

Given this was a highly distributed team, developing some key performance metrics was critical to our success. We created a set of 10-15 metrics that could be set and measured every quarter to ensure that optimal level of performance. By standardizing on a set of metrics for the entire team, it was also easy to compare regions and groups to detect over/under performance and take appropriate action. The metrics were both quantitative like revenue and also qualitative where it measured things like response ratios and press impressions for campaigns.

What are the do’s and don’ts that you’d pass on to executives who run a distributed, global team?

Do’s

• Do take the time to develop a clear mission/vision/charter and communicate this constantly to the team (and the external stakeholders the team interacts with)


• Do recognize the strong cultural differences that influence interpersonal behavior that will affect how you interact with members of your team across NA, EMEA, APAC and Japan. As a manager of such a diverse team you have to “flex” your working style to get the best out of your team.


• Do ensure you have a way to continuously monitor and collect information on key performance metrics. Especially with a global team, it is hard to do “last minute” things.


• Do take the time to use visuals as much as possible when communicating with a global team. Remember English is not their first language and visual communication goes a long way in ensuring clarity

• Don’t drop action items/deliverables on the team “last minute” and remember “last minute” for a global team is Friday morning Pacific Time


• Don’t assume emails are “processed” the same across the world. Some cultures like North America are an email happy culture and most people are on email and will respond right away. Same is not true for other cultures say like Chinese or Japanese, email is treated very differently there and response times/styles vary a lot


• Don’t take silence as “consent” especially when dealing with cultures where “speaking out” is not encouraged


• Minimize the use of “idiomatic” expressions in your meetings and presentations. Even something like “hitting the ball out of the park” or “carrot & stick” doesn’t always translate well outside North America!

You coined the term “asynchronous management” over our lunch. What does this mean and why is this important?

This concept of Asynchronous Management ™ started developing in my management style as the team scaled up and we reached a critical mass where there were managers in every manager time zone and region. Each manager had to operate within the parameters on that particular region’s go-to-market but at the same time they were part of this global team with global responsibilities and deliverables. Budget Data / Performance metrics and activity level information was needed from the entire team often at a moment’s notice (when I needed these back at HQ). By developing an interactive online dashboard and instilling a sense of discipline and routine within the team, we got to a point where each team member would update all their data/information during their business hours, yet the information was available to me (real-time) when I needed it. I did not have to “ping” the team last minute to get up to date information. This is the essence of Asynchronous Management™ where you have a global distributed team working on their own schedules/deadlines, yet through technology, business process and general discipline the team is able to present up to date data/information when called upon. This is extremely important in a fast moving field organization where decisions around budget and results are needed instantly. By utilizing this concept I have increased the effectiveness and efficiency of the team tremendously over the last 2 years.

How do you balance centralized control/direction with distributed authority?

Early on in the “forming” part of the team culture, it is critical establish the things that can be developed and executed at the local level and things that need approvals from HQ (myself). Getting to agreement on this helped in rolling out a planning process that balanced the local / regional needs against overall budget / revenue impacting decisions that were handled globally. Actual programs, content and execution took on a regional flavor and had a high degree of integration with our go-to-market activities, whereas budgeting decisions and revenue targets where done globally which ensured that in a given quarter the targets where set with the overall team goals in mind and budget decisions had enough flexibility to assign “optimal” budgets to the regional teams.

What is a memorable story that comes to mind when you think of the organization you built over the last 2.5 years?

My most memorable story will have to be one around the use of idiomatic expressions. I was going over a strategy slide with the entire team and talked about the “carrot & stick” approach. Very quickly I realized that I had lost a good portion of my team as they didn’t understand this expression and some of them did not want to speak up to ask me what this meant! Finally my manager from Germany said “ I don’t understand this , what does this mean?” Then I gave him the whole horse, carrot & stick story and he was still confused! He said “why would you beat the horse?” why feed it carrots, why not give it beer? I can still remember the laughter and if I had been able to see his face, perhaps his confused expression! ;-)

Copyright © of Aventi Group 2009. Asynchronous Management ™ as applied in the organization context is a trademark that belongs to Suresh Balasubramanian. Suresh is the author of the narrative responses to Sridhar's questions.

We encourage you to attend Bill’s webinar on Wednesday, August 19th at 8:00am PT. Click here to register for the event, and looking forward to having you join us.

So what do you do if you’re encountering these challenges? We recommend sharpening your product-level messaging which would include being able to answer the following questions:

• What is the pain point your target customers are experiencing?
• What does your product do to address this pain?
• Why does that matter?
• Who will care the most about addressing these pain points?
• What makes your product better than other options that customer has?

I’ll be writing more on this topic so stay tuned for more thoughts and recommendations on product-level messaging. Here are just a few examples of product-level messaging that I consider very well done: VMware, Citrix, Informatica, Timebridge, and Arena Solutions.

Please let us know your thoughts on product messaging, and examples of great work you’ve seen.

We’ve been blessed in Aventi Group by having the ear of many executives here in Silicon Valley. We’ve found that a few open ended questions with business executives can reveal much about their goals and needs while also creating an opportunity to add value to them. Here are some “high insight” questions that we found helpful:

Naturally, you can’t just pepper the executive without offering useful insights yourself such as sharing your own customer insights, intelligence on their competitors, and relevant (suprising) market trends.

Try just using two or three of these in your next executive level meeting and see how that works for you in identifying some opportunities for you to add value. We’d welcome your suggestions for other pithy, “high insight” questions.

Kearns writes about the time Lincoln was very angry with General Meade for not pursuing the confederates after beating them at Gettysburg. She reports that “Lincoln held back, as he often did when he was upset or angry, waiting for his emotions to settle. In the end, he placed the letter in an envelope inscribed: ‘To General Meade, never sent or signed.’” Lincoln saw that expressing anger in writing is never productive. He did convey his sentiments through his team but in verbal form not written. Lincoln got his point across, changed Meade’s behavior, and ultimately modeled for his staff how to handle conflicts.

Stick to the issue. Don’t personalize matters.

Lincoln selected cabinet members who were formidable rivals of his such as Salmon Chase (Treasury Secretary), Edwin Stanton (Secretary of War), William Seward (Secretary of State), and Edward Bates (Attorney General). Most of them excoriated Lincoln prior to his election because they felt he was not the best choice for the country. Conflict continued and tempers flared within his cabinet even up to his re-election. In speaking with one of his opponents, Lincoln states “You have more of that feeling of personal resentment than I. A man has not time to spend half his life in quarrels. If any man ceases to attack me, I never remember the past against him.”

Allow for the possibility that you are wrong

In a letter to General Ulysses S. Grant, President Lincoln admits being wrong on a strategic military route during the Civil War to capture Vicksburg, Mississippi. This was an important victory. President Lincoln wrote, "I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right, and I was wrong." Lincoln was exceedingly humble yet tenacious in finding the best solution even if it meant admitting he was wrong.

I hope this gives you a few tips that might help the next time you’re in conflict with someone in the business setting. Please share with us any stories or tips that you’ve found helps turn conflict into constructive action.

If you’re the VP of Marketing perhaps you might feel a little intimidated to have your peer voice opinions on the very topics for which you are the presumed authority. I would say to you that it’s better to debate all the topics above openly rather than having to deal with a VP of Sales later who is clearly not bought in on the strategy session outputs.

If you’re the CEO, I hope you found the reasons above to be compelling enough for you to invite your VP of Sales to the next planning session. You’ll be glad you did.

And if you’re the VP of Sales, do what you do best. Sell. Sell your CEO on how your experience in the strategy session is far more valuable in the long run than a day or two in the trenches selling.

The economy is causing many executives to drive their teams harder to produce results. With competitors aggressively chasing after fewer bucks there’s more pressure than ever for the businesses to change sales/marketing approaches and even to tune product strategy. That leaves department heads with the impossible task of having to deliver on prior commitments while accommodating requests from above on new initiatives. The only way out is to talk goals and deliverables not priorities. Here’s an example:

What if you only got agreement on the priorities and not the specific goals and deliverables? It would be very easy for the boss to change priorities or add new priorities because there’s not an obvious tie to the business in terms of outcomes. So instead, what if the Marketing VP were to “contract” to the goals and deliverables” above?

Naturally the Marketing VP can’t control all the elements in these deliverables but it will help tremendously if you could align peer VPs along concrete goals and deliverables. It’s in your interest to align your peers because your success will depend on it and your boss will value that far more highly than reacting to priorities du jour.

Talk tradeoffs not task lists

So going back to Richard’s predicament on handling changing priorities, a short list of deliverables helped him handle new requests by describing the impact on prior commitments. He asked his boss “So would you say that launching product XYZ by February 1 is worth slipping the website project by a month?” His boss didn’t like the parental technique of laying down options but understood better the implication of his requests. Richard now has a “plan of record” with concrete deliverables laid out for the next year. Anytime a significant new request comes along, he can now have a rational discussion on trade-offs to the current plan. He's in a much better position to negotiate a win/win.

Communicate results not activities

My friend, Walt Thinfin, CIO of Visioneer, said that he is like Richard in many ways because his boss, the CEO, will place new demands on him while expecting results from prior commitments. He’s practically being asked weekly what he’s done for the business lately. Walt’s solution is communicating results often. No one is ever remembered for having executed their priority list. Rather, executives are seen as heroes for having achieved specific goals and deliverables. Go back to the table above and ask yourself which ones would have a bigger affect on a performance review, bonus plan, or even just recognition among the executives? The key then is to keep your boss apprised of bi-weekly on progress on these goals and deliverables.

Please submit your comments and thoughts on how to handle a tough boss. Your peers will really appreciate your inputs.

"We're excited about the results that Aventi Group is delivering with SPINops," said Raju Chekuri, CEO of NetEnrich, a leader in remote infrastructure management (RIM) solutions. "We can now forecast revenue with much higher accuracy, track lead values and marketing ROI based on closed opportunities and focus resources on high value prospects. By aligning our sales enablement, marketing collateral and messaging to the SPIN Selling model, as well as our channel and partner programs, we can empower our sales teams to deliver more revenue while lowering our marketing costs."

Check out the press release here and let us know your reaction to this exciting news.

Proven Programs Increase Pipelines, Shorten Sales Cycles and Lower Marketing Costs

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) November 11, 2008 -- Aventi Group, a leading executive consulting firm that discovers and accelerates revenue for technology companies, and Huthwaite, the leading sales performance improvement company, announced today a formal partnership to deliver SPINops--a suite of proven programs and processes designed to increase pipelines, shorten sales cycles and lower marketing costs. SPINops combines Huthwaite's patented SPIN® Selling methodologies with Aventi Group's consulting programs for sales, marketing and business development. Together, the partnership will help drive more efficient results for Fortune 500 and leading technology firms.

"Most companies are leaving significant revenue on the table," said Steve Lunz, Huthwaite's VP of Direct Sales. "According to a recent CSO Insights survey, only five percent of firms exceed their forecast accuracy expectations, and just 1.3 percent of sales teams feel that leads provided by marketing are 'World Class.' SPINops provides companies with a scientifically proven methodology that dramatically improves the ability to engage clients with the correct strategy and message at the right time in their Buying Cycle™. The bottom line is that SPINops significantly improves lead quality, marketing productivity and revenue results."

"We're excited about the results that Aventi Group is delivering with SPINops," said Raju Chekuri, CEO of NetEnrich, a leader in remote infrastructure management (RIM) solutions. "We can now forecast revenue with much higher accuracy, track lead values and marketing ROI based on closed opportunities and focus resources on high value prospects. By aligning our sales enablement, marketing collateral and messaging to the SPIN Selling model, as well as our channel and partner programs, we can empower our sales teams to deliver more revenue while lowering our marketing costs."

SPINops is comprised of consulting programs available from Aventi Group which are based upon the SPIN® Selling methodology developed by Huthwaite. SPIN Selling builds upon decades of behavioral research and employs a problem-solving, diagnostic approach to selling. Over the past three decades, Huthwaite has trained thousands of companies using this methodology, and is the only firm that has irrefutable evidence that its methodologies provide proven improvements in sales results.

Aventi Group now delivers four SPINops consulting programs for sales, marketing and business development:

Pipeline Catalyst™ Program: Accelerates revenue via SPIN-based lead qualification, account profiling, Buying Cycle™ alignment, and optimized sales operations tools including a Dynamic, Prioritized Opportunity Pipeline (DPOP™) and customized SPIN Selling integration into Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems such as Salesforce.com.

Partner Catalyst™ Program: Offers comprehensive deliverables for channels & partners along with best-in-class program design, Dynamic Prioritized Partner Management and custom CRM integration.

Promotion Catalyst™ Program: Lowers marketing costs and shortens sales cycles via SPIN-based messaging, collateral, sales enablement tools and marketing operations aligned with The Buying Cycle, customer roles and sales team capabilities.

Product Catalyst™ Program: Helps discover new revenue sources via SPIN-based vertical market analysis, optimized product marketing and SPIN-aligned Marketing Requirements Documents.

"Our clients are seeing dramatic results with SPINops," says Bill Reed, General Partner with Aventi Group. "One client, a large technology solutions provider, is on track to double sales efficiency this year by realigning sales teams based on SPINops. Their account managers can now focus on prospect qualification and problem analysis and then funnel opportunities into one or more of a half-dozen solution areas. Core experts in those areas can then close deals twice as fast by focusing on customer implications and highly targeted solution offerings. Most importantly, marketing can more effectively empower salespersons by delivering SPIN®-based sales enablement tools and messaging."

SPINops programs are available from Aventi Group, which primarily services clients in North America.

About Aventi Group LLC:
Aventi Group is a leading executive consulting firm that discovers and accelerates revenue for technology companies. Formed via the merger of executives from BusinessLaunch and Pacifica Group, Aventi Group consulting executives have delivered significant results since 2001 for clients such as Adobe, Apple, Cisco, Computer Associates, Covad, Forsythe, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, NetApp, SAP, Seagate, Sony, Sybase, Symantec, and others. Offering a unique combination of Huthwaite SPIN®-based programs in concert with deep industry expertise across storage, security, mobility, wireless, networking, telecom, content management, and governance, risk and compliance, Aventi Group provides strategic planning and tactical implementation consulting combined with "roll-up-your-sleeves" executive overlay expertise to drive rapid results. For more information, visit www.aventigroup.com.

About Huthwaite, Inc.:
Huthwaite is the world's leading sales performance improvement organization. Founded on scientifically validated behavioral research, Huthwaite' s methodologies, which include the internationally renowned SPIN® Selling, guarantee sales success. Huthwaite assesses your organization's needs and develops customized sales performance improvement and coaching programs that drive real business results. The foundation of SPIN Selling is built on an unparalleled scientific study that identified behaviors of successful sales calls. Utilizing this proven methodology, Huthwaite has helped their clients achieve positive business results. Huthwaite's extensive client list includes Bank of America, Beckman Coulter, Boeing, Citibank, Google, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, MasterCard, Time Warner, and many others. For more information, visit www.huthwaite.com

# # #

What you'll learn:

• How to gain 50% or more of your best leads from Partners & Resellers


• How to focus lead generation resources and efforts on the highest quality prospects


• How to use Perfect Prospect Profiling & Buying Cycles™ to target the right prospects at the right time


• How to leverage SPIN®-based messaging and methods to motivate prospects to act now


• How to create CRM-integrated Dynamically Prioritized Opportunity Pipelines to shorten sales cycles


• How to ensure sales & marketing teams agree on the definition of a “qualified lead.”


• How to empower sales teams to close more leads with tools that align with their sales training

To help them, we conducted a detailed analysis – covering legal, operations, promotions, competitive, revenue and P&L factors – that was very revealing. Based on that we were able to make several recommendations about how they could optimize their program, make it operationally more manageable and more productive!

While I won’t share the specific recommendations we made to them, I do want to offer up some nuggets we learned as watch-outs in developing your channel:

1. Be sure to listen to Multi-Functional input: We found that programs are often developed and deployed without the proper inputs and this can result in unintended - and often bad - consequences. Legal, Operations, Channel marketing, Finance, Marketing (Promotions) and anyone else (even website managers who will enable any self-service online) who might touch partners should be invited to give their feedback to the proposed programs. What we learned was that you can circumvent many issues by doing this upfront. Don't reinvent the wheel. Someone in your organization already has one.
2. The evergreen KISS principle (Keep it Simple, Stupid): Incentives for performance should be easy to understand and uniform for all. While "kicker" rewards are tempting to offer, be sure to only institute them if you can offer something really powerful for a potent return. Offering kickers just for the sake of it only adds complexity. You will be surprised at how many partners prefer simplicity to meaningless rewards that take up mental "space".
3. Be Competitive – "holistically”: Ask what alternatives your partners have? What will they do if they do not choose to partner with you? How will that choice affect your competitive standing? Be competitive in your offering to tip the balance in your favor but look at the whole picture – not just the monetary offering. Is your company more or less stable from a partner's perspective? What's your credibility vs. your competition? What's been your history on partnering – real or perceived? Are there other strategic reasons (e.g., related offerings, geographical presence, strength of parent company?) why they might prefer to partner with you – or not?
4. Don’t think of Monetary Incentives as the end-all: It's true that partners are in it for the money but often they will forgo the last few dollars to partner with a player who makes their lives simple. So look at your whole offering, the whole experience you offer them (how complex are your contracts? how hard is it for them to sign up? get paid?) and make it attractive so that you're "easy/iest to do business with..."
5. Ensure Operations can support the program as it grows: Often companies make the offering very attractive so everyone wants to sign up - but then everyone cannot sign up because the company cannot support it. Automating repetitive tasks, enabling self-service and minimizing and planning for exception management are critical in these matters. As you develop the program and involve legal also involve the operational side of the company.
6. Ensure the Programs do not become a Millstone: Once the partner is inactive and/or non-performing what happens? One of our findings was that a large number of contracts could be interpreted to entail "evergreen" commission payments even after the partner was terminated. As a result a large number of partners were collecting very small checks forever – not efficient for our client or for the SMB partner. While we recommended a solution to ease this, the best way is that such eventualities should be avoided upfront.
7. Apply the 80-20 "prune" Rule – but smartly: As in all things we found that it was the top 10-20% of the partners that were delivering most of the value. However be sure to segment your partners by performance to see who is performing and who's not and try to understand why. A lot will be revealed by this segmentation. We found that the next 30% (below the top 10%) were not performing but collectively accounted for a huge portion of the business. They could not be terminated without careful consideration. With deeper analysis and further market research we recommended keeping them but modifying their contracts to reflect their business realities and the client's needs.

Any of this ring true? Write to us.

Who is going to help make the trade-offs in requirements that are needed to deliver a winning product on time and of acceptable quality? Product management owns this critical prioritization and trade-off task and it takes a lot of talent, skill and experience to know what to let go and what to not comprimise in terms of requirements and quality.

And that's why product management needs to be outside the engineering function. That does not mean that product management is not to be held accountable for developing requirements that are sensible yet market-worthy. It just means they need to be able to operate independently to negotiate with engineering in a way that is in the best interests of the customers - and company.

Write to me if any of this rings true -- or not!

I have a few key reasons for how and why I came to this conclusion and I want to share them with you. I will share the first one in this blog post and it has to do with the fact that the role of marketing is often misunderstood — or worse underestimated.

Marketing misunderstood: Strategy first!

In many hi-tech companies, Marketing is often misunderstood, sometimes even mistaken for being only marketing communications. But marketing should be much more...it starts with helping you define what business you're in, who you're selling to, what your offering is, how does it create value....and only then the nitty-gritty of promotion tactics you may employ. Of course you may decide that you can think through these important strategic marketing questions all by yourself. But whether you do it yourself or get help, you're indulging in marketing, properly defined, whenever you do so. More often than not it pays to understand and address these questions in a disciplined fashion. Successful companies know that these questions are the basis for their business plan -- for even the coolest of widgets.

What this means is that a person who can act as a strategic marketing sounding board should be intimately involved in your efforts before one serious line of code is written. Of course I fully understand the need for inventors to develop prototypes and show them around to gather some momentum before they seriously get behind an idea. But the sooner a sound strategic marketing brain is part of your team the better. One of the first orders of business for this (marketing) person would be to conduct a strategic assessment of the market you're going after — as well as of alternate markets and uses your technology could be applied to (I will talk about the content of such an assessment in another post). This exercise will only make your plan stronger and help you alter course if needed, while it's much easier to do so.

Following this marketing should be responsible for developing a solid market requirements document (aka MRD) which reflects the voice of your future customers — their desires, (unarticulated) needs, wants and aspirations — and not what engineering can build. That trade-off is critical but comes later. That's a key role for marketing: ensure that the voice of the customer is reflected in any product planning. And this is the second factor I want to talk about. Look for my next post very soon.... In the meantime, please write to me if you agree or see things differently