Selling Financial Value

Selling Financial Value Financial and business acumen sales training to improve sales performance. http://www.fastpartners.com/financialselling 2013-05-24T20:17:33Z Joomla! 1.5 - Open Source Content Management Subscribe with My Yahoo!Subscribe with NewsGatorSubscribe with My AOLSubscribe with BloglinesSubscribe with NetvibesSubscribe with GoogleSubscribe with PageflakesSubscribe with PlusmoSubscribe with The Free DictionarySubscribe with Bitty BrowserSubscribe with Live.comSubscribe with Excite MIXSubscribe with WebwagSubscribe with Podcast ReadySubscribe with WikioSubscribe with Daily Rotation The Challenger Conundrum: What If Marketing Isn't Up to the Challenge? 2012-08-13T19:45:23Z 2012-08-13T19:45:23Z http://www.fastpartners.com/financialselling/2012/08/13/43-the-challenger-conundrum

You want to become a Challenger Rep®, but your company’s marketing organization is not supporting your personal aspiration. Houston, we have a problem. Reading between the lines of the The Challenger Sale (authored by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson of Corporate Executive Board or CEB), a sales rep acting alone faces almost insurmountable odds of becoming a Challenger Rep. Marketing’s strong support is an essential prerequisite for transitioning a sales rep into a fully-credentialed Challenger Rep. According to CEB, “Challenger Reps are made, not born”. “Challenging is about organizational capability, not just rep skills." To reinforce the “organizational capabilities” messaging theme, CEB walks the talk and offers a provocative insight directed squarely at the marketing organization. “It’s one thing to tell reps ‘Be a Challenger’. It’s another thing altogether to tell them exactly what you want them to do.” A Challenging Conundrum You’ve read The Challenger Sale , and on your own, made the decision to drink the Challenger Kool-Aid. Or perhaps your manager has told you to “just go out and do it, be a Challenger”. Your company may have even officially embraced the Challenger Sales Model and kicked off a multiple-year implementation journey recommended by CEB. But you observe a potential problem: your company’s “organizational capability” to support a Challenger implementation is weak or worse yet, missing altogether. Your marketing and product groups are stuck in a rut spewing out product-centric collateral and late-to-the-buying-process leads which do little to support a true Challenger transformation. Instead what you need from marketing are a series of “commercial teaching pitches” and “provocative insights” that could help you deliver tailored customer conversations that will change how your customer thinks about their business and ultimately your company’s solutions. If you are a territory rep, you need these teaching pitches and insights to be scalable and repeatable across a customer segment defined by need. And, if you are a named-account sales executive (or a major/strategic/key account manager), you need customer-specific teaching pitches and provocative insights - not generic one-size-fits-all insights. After all, your named-account customer deserves, and expects, sophisticated customized insights and perspectives. You face a challenging conundrum; what’s an aspiring Challenger Rep to do? Be Assertive and Take the Lead Challenger Reps are, by their nature, assertive. If your marketing organization isn’t currently up to the challenge of helping you become a Challenger Rep, I recommend you take the lead. Resist the temptation to whine and complain. Instead, re-direct your energy to more constructive actions that will move you closer to achieving your personal goal. Consider this temporary roadblock a personal challenge, a test of your discipline and creativity. Challenger Reps are tenacious; they constantly push customers (as well as their own company colleagues) to think and act differently. Use this situation to practice Challenger skills and behaviors. Recommendation 1. Form a team – Four eyes are better than two and six eyes are better than four. Find at least three other like-minded colleagues to informally join you on this journey. One of them should be a well-respected sales colleague who best exemplifies the skills, knowledge, and behaviors inherent in a Challenger Rep. Another team member should be recruited from the marketing organization, products group, or sales enablement team. Your marketing organization as a whole may not be providing the right support, but there is a high likelihood that a true ally is sitting somewhere amongst their midst. The third team member is crucial: someone from your finance organization who thoroughly understands the financial benefits of your solution and who is recognized as an advocate of your sales organization. In my experience, all finance organizations have these sales support superstars. You need a financial person on the team to help you elevate the financial content of your commercial teaching pitch. 2. Select a target account and identify priorities – Resist the temptation of starting with your solution and how you articulate its business benefits. Instead, first select a target account. Conduct research and identify the company’s emerging business initiatives. Then, solve backwards to identify the solution(s) that will help them accelerate their business outcomes. 3. Select an under-appreciated solution – Identify a relevant solution(s) that is generally misunderstood and undervalued in the marketplace. The attributes of this solution create competitive differentiation, but your customers don’t fully recognize its uniqueness and value at this point in time. 4. Craft a commercial teaching pitch – Get creative and leverage your team members for this critical step. Craft a unique company-specific insight and point of view that the customer likely hasn’t heard before from your competition. Incorporate a strong financial element to your insight and point of view. Outline a conversation guide that demonstrates your customer acumen and factually supports your point of view. If done well, the customer conversation, when executed, will eventually lead to the under-appreciated attributes of your solution. 5. Practice, test, and implement – Practice delivering the commercial teaching pitch as a fluid customer conversation, not a formal presentation or a deadly interview. Use role play simulation and story-telling techniques, and make it real. Try it out on internal colleagues; get their reaction and refine it. Then, implement it in the field with your target account. 6. Document and socialize - Document the process and customer reaction and share this information with your sales and marketing organization. Encourage others to join your effort to become a Challenger rep. Create a central repository of example unique insights, commercial teaching pitches, and best practices. About Jack Dean: Jack is the co-founder of FASTpartners, a sales training company focused on helping sales and marketing professionals gain customer executive sponsorship, influence investment decisions, and accelerate customer business outcomes and financial performance. A former Fortune500 CFO, Jack has over a decade of experience working with sales and marketing professionals to improve their business/financial acumen, customer acumen, and executive selling skills. For more information on FASTpartners, go to www.fastpartners.com or contact Jack at jdean@fastpartners.com.

Recently a technology sales manager posted a series of interesting questions on 'Selling to Executives', a LinkedIn discussion group I moderate. His company is a leading provider of pricing optimization and management software. I wanted to share his questions (and how I responded in the group discussion) because I consistently see the “access” issue as a major focus of sales reps trying to develop executive-level relationships. In my view, “access” is just the tip of the iceberg; without solid, executive-relevant messaging, the “access” mechanism is doomed. Here are the questions and my responses. Question #1 As someone who is constantly trying to reach the C-Suite, I have a question: Do executives of large companies ($500 million+ in my definition) actually listen to voice mail? My Response As a former C-suite executive at several multi-billion dollar companies, I definitely listened to voice mail messages so long as they were tailored to me, my role, and my company. I still remember the best voice messages (e.g. SAS Institute, Bottomline Technologies, ProBusiness, Hyperion) because, at the time, they motivated me to act. I deleted the majority of voice messages because there was no compelling message from my perspective. However, sometimes I forwarded the message to a peer or a person on my team. Other times I saved the voice message and waited for the next move on the part of the sales person (yes, I was testing the sincerity and tenacity of the sales person). Occasionally, I returned the call solely based on the strength of the compelling message. Question # 2 My company provides predictive sales guidance (pricing recommendations and account penetration guidance) for the B2B space. So, whereas all B2B manufacturers and distributors could be potential targets, I have struggled with a value proposition that is believable and makes one want to listen to the rest of the message. My intro is something like, "We help similar companies (dropping names if appropriate) increase top- and bottom-line 5% to 10% or more through data-driven sales guidance that helps them price more profitably (without risking revenue) and sell into existing accounts more productively (increasing wallet share and reducing churn)." Would that be something that might cause you to listen more? Are there more impactful words/phrases that could be substituted? My Response Your voice message wouldn’t motivate me to return your call, but I definitely had some reactions. My initial thought was disbelief that your pricing optimization software could impact revenue and income growth for manufacturers and distributors “by 5% to 10%”. That claim didn’t pass my CFO smell test – especially for revenue growth. When I hear “financial impact hyperbole”, I discount anything else you say in the message. I know you’re just repeating the marketing value statement on your Company’s website, but it sounds too good to be true in this economic environment. A recent National Association of Manufacturers’ survey forecasted only 2.8% top line growth in 2012 for small manufacturers while large manufacturers are predicting only 4.4% revenue growth. It may be counter-intuitive, but your “5 to 10%” claim for revenue growth severely diminishes your credibility. My second reaction was to check out what your main competitors were saying about financial statement impact. Competitor A and competitor B avoided making any broad claims, but competitor C boldly proclaimed a “10% to 30% impact on income”. However, none of your competitors went out on the limb like your Company did on revenue growth impact. The last thing I did was check out Gartner’s report on price optimization and management software providers. Gartner said, through 2014, investments in your category of software will “help increase gross margins by more than 2%”. As a former CFO, I think gross margin is the KPI you should focus on when describing your solution’s impact. A 2%+ impact on GM% will catch my attention and is much more believable, so I would suggest you use their analysis and assessment in your voice message. Advice for Crafting a Voice Mail Message to a C-Level Executive Here’s my advice for a voice message directed to a senior decision-maker (no more than 45 seconds): 1. Start by demonstrating a glimpse of your “customer acumen”. (For publicly-traded prospects, mention a revenue growth or gross margin figure reported in the most recent quarterly earnings release. For private companies, mention a direct competitor’s figure.) 2. Briefly tell me something that I don’t already know about pricing optimization – something I’ve never thought of. (This will not be found on your website; your marketing organization should help you develop this insight.) 3. To size the opportunity, use Gartner’s (or a similarly objective 3rd party) claim for gross margin impact of 2%+. You don’t need to bring your company’s solution into the message at this point. Your prospect needs to first figure out they need to change their pricing optimization strategy – and you can help advise (not sell) them. Then, in a subsequent conversation after they’ve decided to think about changing, you can steer them to your unique solution capabilities. (By the way, if you don’t thoroughly understand the various levers that impact the gross margin KPI, you should seek help to shore up your financial acumen competency.) 4. Ask for a phone conversation. (This should be the goal of a successful voice message.) Once you leave your voice message, I suggest you immediately follow with an email repeating your message and asking again for a phone conversation. I hope this gives you some food for thought. Voice mail messages can be a productive mechanism for prospecting, even at the C-Level. Your messaging must differentiate you by demonstrating your “customer acumen” and your ability to initiate thought-provoking dialogs that could help accelerate your prospect’s business outcomes. About Jack Dean: Jack is the co-founder of FASTpartners, a sales training company focused on helping sales and marketing professionals gain customer executive sponsorship, influence investment decisions, and accelerate customer business outcomes and financial performance. A former Fortune500 CFO, Jack has over a decade of experience working with sales and marketing professionals to improve their business/financial acumen and executive selling skills. For more information on FASTpartners’ services, go to www.fastpartners.com or contact Jack at jdean@fastpartners.com.

Today, the new sales reality is that the buying process is more convoluted and confusing than it has been in the past. This “buy-side” complexity manifests itself in a number of dimensions: More stakeholders, greater caution, higher levels of scrutiny, and numerous signature approvals. Most of the B2B sales professionals I work with in sales training engagements report longer customer sales cycles and growing levels of personal frustration. In the past several years the customer’s world has evolved: Technology has been harnessed and “vendor management” workflows have been automated. Today, your customer is much smarter about how it spends money and how it “manages” you. From my perspective as a former Fortune500 CFO, here are 3 reasons why you must engage at the executive level in your customer’s organization. Reason #1: When the Economy Goes Down, Decision-Making Goes Up As a rule of thumb, executives intervene more frequently in the decision-making process during periods of declining or stagnant economic conditions. For some companies in a down economy, spending money is a make-or-break proposition, so investment decisions quite naturally get kicked up to the C-suite. In this post-financial crisis environment, companies are scrutinizing decisions as they allocate scarce capital expenditures and operating funds. For executive decision-makers, never before has the value of being right or the cost of being wrong been so large and consequential. The financial margin of error has narrowed in this slow-growth economic environment. Not surprisingly, more stakeholders in higher places are getting involved in the buying process. Evidence of this trend was revealed in a 2011 Gartner Survey which reported that CIOs acting alone have authorized only 5% of recent technology investments. This same survey also revealed the rising importance of the CFO: In 42% of companies surveyed, IT now reports to the CFO while 33% of IT organizations report to the CEO. In this weak economy, decision-making is most certainly “going up” … in many cases right up to the C-suite. Reason #2: The Cost of Capital Investment Hurdle Rate is Rising, Not Falling Even though companies have trillions of dollars of cash on their balance sheet, it’s getting harder to justify spending it on new investments. The hurdle rate, or minimum required rate of return on investments, is rising not falling in this post-recession period. This fact is counter-intuitive to most sales people who think that the investment hurdle rate is equivalent to the absolute level of interest rates on borrowed money. A lower “cost of debt” most certainly helps to reduce the hurdle rate, but it is being more than offset by a rising “cost of equity” which is the other key component of this investment threshold. The liquidity crisis of 2008/2009 has prompted many companies to pare their debt levels. As companies de-lever they are left with less “low-cost” debt financing and more “high-cost” equity capital financing. The cost of equity capital is more difficult to understand, but in general reflects the expectations of company investors for a fair return on their investment. In today’s slow-growth economy, equity investors have elevated their return expectations, even as interest rates on debt capital have fallen. For example, consider the plight of FedEx as depicted in this chart. In a recent investor presentation, FedEx disclosed that its investment hurdle rate or WACC (weighted-average cost of capital) rose from 6.8% in FY2009 to 8.5% in FY2011. That’s a massive 25% increase in the hurdle rate most likely driven by the de-levering of the FedEx capital structure. A rising hurdle rate or WACC means that new projects will need to have larger financial benefits if they are to be accepted. Because the margin of error has shrunk, it also means that investment analyses will be scrutinized by decision-makers higher up the food chain in the customer’s organization. It’s always been a fight for the allocation of scarce capital, but now the fight has escalated to the C-suite and only the proposals with the strongest business case and ROI will survive. To make your best case, you must engage at the executive level to influence the investment analysis. Reason #3: You’ve Got Competition for Your Job If you are still selling the same way to the same lower-level people you sold to five years ago, you better start looking over your shoulder. Someone with better executive selling skills, fully capable of doubling your current level of sales productivity, is vying for your job. Ready or not, your comfortable world of selling transactions to lower levels in your customer organization is going to end. Transactional selling has been commoditized thanks to the internet and your employer cannot afford to continue subsidizing a high-cost direct sales channel for a low-value non-strategic selling motion. Executive selling skills are a clear personal differentiator in this competitive job market for B2B sales professionals. The best action you can take is to commit to a personal development plan to acquire the specialized skills required to achieve relevance with your customer executives. Your plan should focus on how to sustain intellectual dialogues with C-level executives in order to gain their sponsorship. In most cases, this will involve elevating your business/financial acumen and ability to communicate solution value in the context of your customer's business. For B2B sales people, never before has the value of executive selling skills or the cost of not having them been so large and consequential. About Jack Dean: Jack is the founder of FASTpartners, a sales training company focused on helping sales and marketing professionals gain customer executive sponsorship, influence investment decisions, and accelerate customer business outcomes and financial performance. A former Fortune500 CFO, Jack has over a decade of experience working with sales and marketing professionals to improve their business/financial acumen and executive selling skills. For more information on FASTpartners’ services, go to www.fastpartners.com or contact Jack at jdean@fastpartners.com.

This is a guest blog post from Karen Dean, CEO and co-founder of FASTpartners LLC, a sales training firm that specializes in helping sales professionals improve their business/financial competence and executive selling skills. I’m not a big fan of the proverbial New Year’s resolutions. That said, I do take an opportunity at year-end to assess what I need to do in the new year to make progress on personal and professional goals. Whether you’re making resolutions or just planning ahead to better yourself in 2012, now is the time to start that process. It’s much more fun going into the holidays with a clear mind and a solid plan to execute in the new year. Broadening Skills Throughout my professional career, I’ve searched for ways to broaden my skills and differentiate myself. I started out as a financial analyst but was always a “marketing wannabe”. In the early years, my “personal improvement plan” involved getting exposure to the marketing side of the business. As part of the finance group, I rallied for opportunities to assist our marketing department in their pricing and investment analyses. While working on these projects, I observed that some of the most brilliant marketing minds had a solid grounding in finance and used it to their advantage. These folks were the ones who understood what levers to pull to get a new product launched or an expensive marketing campaign funded. Over time, I was able to parlay my finance background into a variety of marketing and sales positions. I believe I got these opportunities because my financial competence differentiated me from others and enabled me to execute differently from many of my counterparts. I used my financial competence to communicate financial value to my “customers”, both internal and external to my company. Financial Competence is a Differentiator In our sales training business, we are seeing a surge in interest from companies who want their sales and marketing professionals to broaden skills and develop differentiated financial acumen competencies. Many companies have invested in “soft” skills training, but their sales people continue to struggle articulating the business and financial value of their solutions. They’re worried that their sales professionals are avoiding the solution financial value subject altogether and sounding just like the competition. In a sales environment where customers are consolidating vendors and choosing suppliers based upon the “business and financial value impact” of solutions, sales people need to be perceived as business savvy and different. If you are in a sales or marketing position, I believe you have a window of opportunity to differentiate yourself by improving your financial competence. The cards are stacked in your favor for several reasons: Most sales and marketing professionals lack even the most fundamental financial acumen skills (as evidenced by assessments we administer to prospective clients). An incremental improvement in your financial competence will get noticed. It takes discipline and a commitment to improve your financial competence. Many of your colleagues aren’t willing to make this investment. Your customers are looking for business advisors who are capable of understanding their financial performance and proposing solutions to impact their business results. The customer-side demand for financial competence has never been higher. To reinforce point #3, it’s important to keep in mind that the reason for improving financial acumen skills is to make a difference for your customer. It’s not about being able to recite what’s on an income statement or balance sheet. It’s about understanding how your solutions can impact the income statement and balance sheet to improve the financial performance of your customers. Getting Started Although a formalized learning experience will “jump-start” your financial competence, there are a number of self-help steps you can take to improve your skills. One idea is to select one of your customers that publish annual reports (publicly-traded are best, but some private companies also publish annual reports) and download it from the customer’s website. Go to the financial statements and start exploring the income statement and balance sheet. Look at what line items are included in Cost of Sales and SG&A (selling, general, and administrative) expenses. Calculate some growth rates to see if these expenses are growing in line with revenues. If you find that expenses are rising faster than revenues, dig deeper into these areas as they may provide opportunities for your solutions. Use the MD&A (Management Discussion & Analysis) section within the annual report to learn what management is saying about their revenues and expenses. You don’t have to be a financial expert to gain credibility with your customers. Based on my experience, I think most customers will be impressed to know that you’ve “studied” their financial statements and are incorporating some of your observations into your conversations with them. If you want to be viewed as a “business advisor” rather than a vendor, take some initiative in gaining an understanding of your customer’s financial performance and what key performance indicators (KPIs) are top-of-mind with customer executives. Happy holidays to you and your family. And get started on those personal improvement plans for 2012!

In his book The Speed of Trust, Stephen Covey says trust is not built solely on integrity, but on competence as well. For sales people wanting to become trusted advisors to customer executives, I believe business competence is an essential personal capability. In my view, business competence is more important than “softer” communication/negotiation skills or detailed product knowledge. I also believe that financial acumen skills, knowledge, and capabilities are the foundation of business competence and that most sales people underestimate the importance of financial competence in building trust with senior decision-makers. According to Wikipedia, “Financial literacy is an important tenet of business acumen, but is not a synonym. Ram Charan, the influential author and consultant, suggests that financial knowledge is the foundation of business acumen, and has described business acumen as, "…the art of linking an insightful assessment of the external business landscape with the keen awareness of how money can be made — and then executing the strategy to deliver the desired results.”” Customer executives want sales people who understand how money is made and how financial value is created. They want sales people who appreciate the intricacies of setting a business strategy and executing initiatives to deliver the desired financial results. And most importantly, they want sales people who can help them make the business and financial investment case and win the internal allocation battle for scarce CapEx and OpEx. This involves a demonstration of how the sales person’s solutions can be inserted into the mix of business priorities and performance metrics in order to accelerate business and financial outcomes. Missing in Action or Missing Altogether? In my experience as a former buy-side executive, financial competence was rarely “on display” with sales people. My hunch at the time was that it was missing in action due to a fear of inadequacy which would damage credibility. However, in my subsequent experience working with sales professionals in a learning environment, I’ve found that financial competence may not just be missing in action - it may be missing altogether. My company administers an online assessment of financial acumen selling skills as part of our blended learning framework and we’ve found that over 90% of sales professionals don’t get a passing score. The financial competence of most sales professionals is nowhere near the level required to successfully sell at the executive level. Actions to Build Your Financial Competence If you feel that financial competence is your Achilles’ heel of sales capabilities, the good news is there are a number of actions you can take to improve your skills. Start paying attention to the quarterly earnings announcements of your own company. If you work at a private company that doesn’t report financial results, start paying attention to the quarterly earnings announcements of a publicly-traded competitor. Read the press release, review the financial statements, and list the key performance indicators (KPIs) favored by your company (or your company’s competitor). Track these KPIs over the next several quarters and observe the trends. Find a trusted finance associate at your company and designate this person as your personal ‘financial competence coach’. Many finance professionals are itching to help others, particularly sales and marketing professionals, improve their financial acumen skills. Start your relationship by getting your personal coach to answer questions about your company’s financial results. Each week, commit to reading a couple of Shareholder Letters written by CEOs. These documents can be found in the Annual Reports of publicly-traded companies which are available online by going to the company’s website under the Investor’s tab. Normally, these letters are a fairly quick read (unless you happen to select Jamie Dimon’s 32-page monster letter in JPMorgan’s 2010 annual report). Shareholder Letters are chock-full of financial terms, KPIs and performance metrics, charts and graphs, and explanations of financial performance. Identify the key financial themes, jot down some questions, and schedule a coaching session with your personal financial competence coach (see 2 above). Start to transition your focus to your publicly-traded customers and prospects. Review their quarterly earnings announcements and annual Shareholder Letters. As you continue to build your financial competence, ask your coach to provide an overview of a recent investment analysis performed by your company. If you sell technology, the example should be a financial justification for a technology project. If you sell a service of some kind, the example should analyze a service offering provided to your company. This overview should include an explanation of the financial analyses conducted, a description of the benefit and cost categories and assumption used, and a summary of the investment metric calculations and hurdle rates. This exercise will help you gain insights on the process used to evaluate your solutions. For the adventuresome, go to the SEC form 10K of your customer (outside the U.S. go to the Annual Report). Locate Item #7 which is called the Management Discussion & Analysis or MD&A (outside the U.S. go to the section that discusses financial performance). Review this section, list the KPIs, record your questions, and consult with your coach. If your company has a more formalized approach to sales learning and development, seek help from a qualified person from this organization. These professionals are familiar with tools and training (both formal and self-help) that can be customized for your particular situation and learning needs. Applying Your Financial Competence Hard financial acumen sales skills are required to analyze customer business performance, articulate solution impact, and influence investment decision-making. In a future blog post, I will talk about how to apply your financial acumen selling skills to maximize your credibility and build trust with executives within your own company and within your customer organizations. Stay tuned. About Author: Jack Dean is the co-founder of FASTpartners®, a sales training company that specializes in helping sales and marketing professionals gain customer executive sponsorship, influence investment decisions, and accelerate customer business outcomes and financial performance. A former Fortune500 CFO, Jack has extensive experience working with sales and marketing professionals to help them improve their business/financial acumen and executive selling skills.

Customer testimonials are a widely used prospecting tool by most of you who sell technology solutions. I’ll let you in on a little secret … most of your customer success stories aren’t “executive sticky”. They don’t provide sufficient business value insights or compelling financial reasons to dig deeper into your solution. They don’t act as a catalyst to make your executive engagements, well, more “engaging”. Today’s executives know a lot about your company before they ever agree to talk with you. As a buy-sideexecutive, I did my homework to get ready to meet prospecting B2B sales professionals. If they piqued my interest enough to get on my calendar, I intended to get a ROI on the meeting. My Standard Meeting Preparation Routine The first step in my pre-meeting due diligence process would be to perform a quick assessment of the financial viability of the seller’s company. Normally, I checked out three financial metrics: (i) gross profit margin (to assess my price negotiating flexibility in case that subject came up), (ii) debt-to-capital ratio (to assess the financial leverage and long-term viability of the vendor), and (iii) free cash flow (to assess the ability of the vendor to reinvest in new products and services). The second step would be to contact my peers at other companies to validate their experience with the company and the sales representative. The third step would be to scan the company’s website. Was the key messaging product-feature-function-centric or customer-centric? Was the messaging burdened by internally-focused arrogance and hyperbole or lifted by examples of customer centricity and business impact? Were the value propositions muted and mundane (with soft ROI “waste words”) or compelling (with hard ROIs and KPI impact)? “Executive Sticky” Messaging One of the most important steps in my due diligence process was the review of the publicly-disclosed customer success stories archived on the company’s website. These testimonials told me a lot about the culture, business value-add, and customer-centricity of the organization. Unfortunately, many sellers take the view that the QUANTITY of success stories archived on their website is more important than QUALITY of those testimonials. I take the opposite view. You only need a handful of high-quality case studies to make a compelling argument at the customer executive level. When I review a seller’s customer success stories, I want concrete, not abstract, examples of how their solutions helped other customers accelerate business outcomes (e.g. expand internationally, integrate acquisitions, speed new product introduction). “Concrete” also means financial implications are spelled out clearly in detail. If you want to see examples of high quality customer testimonials check out SAS Institute Inc. (a large privately-held business analytics solutions provider) and Accenture (a publicly-held management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company). For the most part, their customer success messaging is “executive sticky”. An “executive sticky” message is one that a buy-side executive understands when they read it, that they remember it later on, and that changes the way they think or act going forward. Importantly, an “executive sticky” success story can set a very positive tone for a prospecting sales professionals about to meet with a customer executive who has done their homework and reviewed it. Question: Are Your Company’s Success Stories “Executive Sticky”? What do you think of the customer success stories archived on your website? Are they suitable for buy-side executive consumption? Are they business compelling enough to promote curiosity, or better yet, action? Do they fully support your efforts to articulate solution value when you are face-to-face at the executive level with your customers and prospects? Are they “executive sticky”? The 7 Traits of Highly Effective (and “Executive Sticky”) Success Stories Suitable for Executive Consumption – Were they written in business language for an executive audience, or are they a “one-size fits all” or “technical-level” type of communication? Concrete Language – Do they contain interesting stories that convey concrete examples of business value impact, or are they constructed using abstract language and “waste words” (e.g. our solutions enhance collaboration and accelerate time-to-market)? Hard Financial Value – Do they describe solution value in “hard” financial terminology (e.g. DSO was reduced by 10% resulting in a 3% increase in Operating Cash Flow), or in “soft” terminology (e.g. efficiency was enhanced and productivity was elevated)? % Range of Financial Impact – Do they translate financial value into percentage ranges of improvement (e.g. product returns were reduced by 10-15%), or in discrete $/€/¥/£ amounts, which offers no scale relevance to the reader (e.g. product returns were reduced by $500,000)? Complete the Math – When describing financial value, do they complete the math to connect to a higher-level key performance metric (e.g. time-to-market was reduced by 10-15% which accelerated current period revenues by 2-3%), or do they stop short (e.g. labor productivity was increased by 10%)? Customer Executive Quotes – Do they contain statements of support attributed to “executive-level” supporters, or are they the statements of “lower-level” supporters? Catalyst Effect – Will a buy-side executive UNDERSTAND it, will they REMEMBER it later, and will it cause them to THINK or ACT differently about your company going forward? If you want a second opinion on whether a particular customer success story is ”executive sticky”, send it to me at jdean@fastpartners.com. About Jack Dean: Jack is the co-founder of FASTpartners®, a sales training and consulting company focused on building financial acumen sales skills to help sales professionals accelerate executive engagement outcomes. A formerFortune500 CFO, Jack has extensive experience working with sales and marketing professionals in an action learning environment. For more information, go towww.fastpartners.com or contact Jack at jdean@fastpartners.com.

If you are a B2B sales professional who aspires to achieve trusted advisor status with your customer, gaining industry insight is a critical success factor. But a surface layer of generic industry knowledge won’t be nearly enough to establish relevance with a sophisticated decision-maker who is looking to gain competitive advantage in the marketplace. It won’t pass the “smell test” that buy-side executives deploy to screen the business acumen of sales professionals. A Veneer of Industry Knowledge A veneer of industry knowledge may impress your internal colleagues and sales managers, but it won’t move the needle with your customer executives. You won’t last five minutes eyeball to eyeball with a performance-driven business executive who is strategizing to win market share from industry challengers. And, don’t even think about asking customer executives to describe their industry; your credibility will suffer. That shows no preparation and understanding on your part. I haven’t met a business executive who doesn’t feel strongly that their company is unique. Most of them spend the majority of time devising strategies to differentiate their companies in a competitive marketplace. The worst thing you can do as a B2B sales professional is to lump them into some generic, simplistic vertical industry “bucket” of knowledge. Go Deep and Narrow to Gain Insights Instead of skimming the surface of your customer’s vertical industry, reallocate your time to understanding the specific business priorities and key performance metrics of your customer and their top competitor in the industry. If your customer is a private company, select two of their top publicly-traded competitors and go deep. By narrowing and deepening your focus you will build more practical, useful insights that can provide business value to your customer executives. These strategy setters are in a fight to win in the competitive marketplace, so you’ve got to demonstrate knowledge, understanding and insight into their “battlefield”. If your research hasn’t uncovered at least three specific business initiatives or performance metrics that differentiate your customer from their top competitor, you aren’t ready to engage your executive sponsors. You’ve got more homework to do. Let me give you a couple of examples of going deep and narrow to gain customer industry insights and achieve executive relevancy. Pharmaceutical Industry: Pfizer versus Merck Acknowledging that its R&D efforts haven’t paid off, Pfizer recently reported (in its Q4FY’10 earnings conference call) that it would reduce previously planned R&D spending in 2012 by 23.5%. Pfizer’s new CEO said, “This is a fundamental change in culture. We have to fix this innovative core.” The new strategic direction involves a network of partnerships that will help Pfizer leverage its investments in discovery and early-stage drug development. By contrast, Merck recently announced (in its Q4FY’10 earnings conference call) its decision to strategically increase R&D investments in 2011 and beyond. They have prioritized their pipeline and plan to focus mostly internal R&D resources on a narrower group of therapeutic areas. Here are two companies, operating in the same industry, but planning to executive very different strategies in 2011 and beyond. These are significant implications for your executive engagement planning. Financial Services Industry: JPMorgan Chase versus HSBC Executives from JPMorgan Chase held their annual Investor Day presentation last month. The CEOs of their six lines of business described an aggressive global growth strategy (think “revenue” growth as in net interest income and fee income). Three of the businesses (Investment Banking, Asset Management, and Treasury & Security Services) are planning major future investments in their Global Corporate Banking initiative. The target for Return on Equity (ROE), JPM’s preferred performance metric, has been maintained or raised in these lines of business. By contrast, HSBC announced its quarterly financial results earlier this month. ROE target ranges were lowered by 300 basis points and the business strategy focus is primarily on cost reduction, not revenue growth. HSBC’s CEO said during the earnings conference call, “The cost ratio (otherwise known as the overhead efficiency ratio) is unacceptable to me” and HSBC needs to “re-engineer the business to remove inefficiencies”. Again, here are two top-tier financial institutions, operating in the same industry, but planning to execute very different business strategies in 2011 and beyond. Gain Industry Knowledge One Company at a Time An “industry” is nothing more than the sum of its competitors. For a B2B sales professional preparing for a customer executive engagement event, the best way to gain essential industry knowledge is to focus deep and narrow on the target customer and its top competitor. Having spent a career as a buy-side executive, I can assure you that your executive customers will appreciate (and value) the preparation, perspective and insights you will bring to the discussion table. You’ll gain credibility with your executive sponsor that you understand their primary industry dynamics. And, you’ll earn the opportunity to articulate how you can add business value and help your customer gain competitive advantage. Avoid the generic industry knowledge trap and you’ll pass the customer executive “smell test”.

During my career as a buy-side executive, B2B sales professionals rarely expressed interest in my company’s strategic planning process. That surprised me. In my current role helping sales teams understand customer executive mindset and perspective, I’ve confirmed my fears: most B2B sales professionals are not engaged in their customer’s strategic planning cycle. In my view this represents the ultimate missed opportunity to influence the customer’s investment decision process. So, why are B2B sales professionals M.I.A.? Perhaps they don’t comprehend the transformative significance of the strategic planning process. They may perceive it as an “exercise” with no apparent consequences on their relationship with the company. Or, they may confuse it with the budget planning process performed at year-end (sometimes referred to as operating planning). Perhaps they’re more obsessed with standardizing their own sales cycles, processes, methodologies, and sales force automation platforms. They’re focused on the sales planning cycle (chasing opportunities and attempting to create demand) instead of the customer planning cycle (transforming processes and creating shareowner value). Perhaps they don’t see the opportunity for potential influence like I do. What a missed opportunity! Timing is Everything … WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? Why do you think I’ve chosen to write this post in mid-February? Any guesses? If your customer has a year end of December 31, they will be kicking off their strategic planning cycle in the next few months. The second fiscal quarter often represents the sweet spot for strategic planning activities. It’s a perfect time to synchronize your internal account planning process with your customer’s strategic planning cycle. Of course, this assumes you can disconnect from the rigid schedule of your internal sales planning routine. The proactive B2B sales professional who succeeds in inserting themselves into the customer strategic planning cycle enters an emerging window of influence and gets the once-in-a-career opportunity to work along-side “strategy setters”. Talk about gaining competitive advantage. How great would that be? Dirty Little Secrets about Strategic Planning Sure, strategic planning is, well, “strategic”. When done well, it incorporates contingency planning and scenario planning along with strategic analysis. But it is SERIOUS BUSINESS for most companies and it carries major implications for B2B sales professionals and their customer relationships. Traditionally, everything is on the table and becomes subject to inspection, discussion AND CHANGE! There are many different approaches to strategic planning, but in general, companies start the process by developing a “desired future state” – by company, by line of business, by process, by function, by department. Then, they assess current and projected external factors (demographics, customer preferences, competitor strategies, economic forecasts, regulatory implications, technology trends, geo-political issues, etc.). Finally, they analyze the “present state” of their current business model and determine the “gaps”. These “gaps” present the ultimate opportunity for B2B sales professionals to educate and influence “strategy setters” with best practices in technology roadmaps, process innovation, employee engagement, productivity improvement, team collaboration, new product development, customer experience, supply chain, forecasting, outsourcing, learning and development, business performance management, business intelligence, globalization, etc. In many companies, the CIO, CTO, CFO, and COO create their own strategic plans that later get integrated into the overall company plan. These C-level executives (and their staffs) are very dependent on their internal knowledge and understanding of future trends and directions as they prioritize projects, perform risk analysis, and analyze the likelihood of change in their industry and in technology. This situation presents an excellent platform for B2B sales professionals to share their understanding of future trends and observations of best practices being implemented in the marketplace. Success story testimonials and white papers are particularly effective resources. Be Proactive, Reach Out and Offer Assistance If you aspire to be a trusted business partner, it’s important to gain customer executive sponsorship to work along-side their organization during the strategic planning cycle. Your“sales planning cycle” is irrelevant to your customer, so you need to get in step with theirtimeline. In my career, I only had a handful of B2B sales professionals who proactively reached out to me during the strategic planning cycle to offer advice and assistance. I “sponsored” most of these people because they were proactive and seemed to be different than the traditional sales herd. They had prepared. They knew what “best practice” looked like. And, they were trying to be strategic and helpful. Most importantly, they were focused on my planning cycle, and not their sales cycle. So get going. What are you waiting for? About Jack Dean: Jack is the co-founder of FASTpartners®, a sales effectiveness training and consulting company focused on helping sales and marketing professionals gain customer executive sponsorship, influence investment decisions, and accelerate customer business outcomes and financial performance. As a former Fortune500 CFO, Jack has extensive experience sponsoring major capital investments and managing enterprise business transformations. This “buy-side” executive perspective is reflected in FASTpartners® customizable blended learning framework. For more information, go to www.fastpartners.com or contact Jack atjdean@fastpartners.com.

We’ve come a long way back from the depths of the global financial crisis. There have been many lessons learned on both sides of the buy/sell equation. For B2B sales professionals, this much should be abundantly clear: it’s a changed sales environment. A Changed Sales Environment The business-based, economic buyer has emerged as a dominant force in this changed sales environment. Buy-side executives (VP level and higher) are increasingly involved in influencing purchase and investment decisions, taking over the reins from lower-level buyers. Never has this been more evident than in the technology investment decision-making process. In a November 2009 report directed to IT sales professionals, Gartner Inc. said, “This deep and prolonged recession has the potential to create a new market environment with stronger spheres of financial and business influence in many industries’ IT buying centers. Vendors should develop and/or expand financial models for project justification and sales training on selling to the financial buyer and business leader.” For B2B sales professional, selling to “financial and business influencers” presents a very interesting opportunity for competitive differentiation. If you can establish a reputation for helping companies accelerate business outcomes and financial performance, you’ll be given a seat of influence at the customer executive table. Of course, the personal development challenge for B2B sales professionals is building the requisite business credentials to actually do that. B2B Sales Competency Requirements Are Evolving Over the past few months, I’ve had a number of conversations with learning and development (L&D) professionals about their B2B sales competency models. These models codify the skills, knowledge and behavior traits deemed present and highly-desirable in high-performing sales reps. They’re used to set new-hire requirements, establish sales management promotion criteria, and create training and development curricula. Sensing a changed sales environment, L&D professionals have sought my perspective as a former buy-side executive. They were curious about how the post-financial crisis environment has impacted B2B sales competency requirements. My advice to them was entirely consistent with Gartner’s: “Vendors should develop and/or expand financial models for project justification and sales training on selling to the financial buyer and business leader.” In my view, the required competencies for B2B sales professionals should now include the skills, knowledge, and behavior traits necessary to demonstrate deep customer business insights, apply financial acumen, and build collaborative business partnerships with customer executives. After all, if the ultimate goal is helping customers accelerate business outcomes and financial performance, sales competency models need to lighten up on traditional vendor-centric elements and refocus on developing highly customer-centric, business-savvy sales professionals capable of building collaborative business partnerships with their customers. Transcending “Informational”, “Solution”, and “Needs-Based” Selling Competencies and Methodologies The disintermediation of the traditional role of the B2B sales professional has been ongoing for decades. The informational sales call (“Let me tell you about my company and our products”) has long been viewed as irrelevant (and disrespectful) by buy-side decision-makers, particularly those at the executive level. Yet, amazingly, many sell-side executives keep doing it when meeting with their customers. In my view, buy-side executives want more business value from B2B sales professionals. They want a business partnership relationship (for the purpose of accelerating business outcomes) and that goes well beyond simply fulfilling a current “need”. It also transcends traditional “solution” selling methodologies. In fact, I’m convinced that customer executives don’t respond well to solution selling techniques. Many of these formulaic “discussions” are very painful for buy-side executives. Customer business partnerships transcend ‘selling’ as we’ve traditionally come to know it. In a post-financial crisis environment, customer executives don’t have patience for traditional sales methodologies that don’t ultimately hold the partnership promise. The Ultimate B2B Sales Competency Model – Giving Customer Executives What They Want In a post-financial crisis, customer executives are seeking B2B sales professionals with the competencies to enter into business partnerships for the purpose of accelerating their business outcomes and financial performance. Sales thought leaders who command the customer-specific facts and analysis will rise like cream to the top. These next-generation B2B sales professionals embrace the notion of helping their customers achieve results – financially, operationally, and personally. They also understand the nature of the performance pressures on their customers and they leverage that knowledge to bring best practices that have meaningful impact on business priorities and performance metrics. A post-financial crisis B2B sales professional leverages customer business insights and applies healthy doses of financial acumen to home in on the specific emerging strategic initiatives that are on the radar screens of their customer executives. These business priorities are usually funded and budgeted. Importantly, executives accountable for success are under pressure to perform and the next generation sales professional aligns with that results-oriented mindset. Take Charge of Your Personal Development If you believe, as I do, that the financial crisis was a trigger point for change, I encourage you to act now to improve your future value to customers and prospects. Here are three specific performance improvement areas for becoming a fully-qualified, post-financial crisis B2B sales professional. Improve Your Insights of Customer Business Priorities and Financial Performance Metrics – Start by identifying emerging business priorities and performance metrics for your customer. If you want to review examples, subscribe to a complimentary resource offered by my company, FASTpartners®. It’s called the Customer Catalyst Quarterly newsletter. In the most recent issue, our research identified 63 specific sales catalysts (emerging funded business initiatives) in 22 companies operating in 9 vertical industries. Improve Your Financial Acumen Skills – Before you take any action to improve your financial acumen, seek recommendations from your learning and development colleagues. They are in the best position to match your current skill level with the appropriate learning solution. To keep your learning relevant, make sure to apply newly acquired skills to your customer’s financial disclosures. The good news is you’re not expected to be a financial expert. But you are expected to interpret customer financial performance and be fully capable of articulating the financial value of your solutions in language understandable to your customers. Improve Your Customer Collaboration – First, collaborate with your internal account team to improve the collective understanding of your customer’s business priorities and performance metrics. Consider how you would map attributes of your solution to both elements. Then, implement a “learn by doing” strategy by setting up a planning collaboration session with one of your trusted customers. The goal: building a partnership to help them accelerate business outcomes and financial performance. About Jack Dean: Jack is the co-founder of FASTpartners®, a sales effectiveness training and consulting company focused on helping sales and marketing professionals gain customer executive sponsorship, influence investment decisions, and accelerate customer business outcomes and financial performance. A former Fortune500 CFO, Jack has extensive experience working with sales and marketing professionals. This “buy-side” executive perspective is reflected in FASTpartners® customizable blended learning framework. For more information, go towww.fastpartners.com or contact Jack at jdean@fastpartners.com.

An Executive Encounter Sales Professional (SP): Thanks for agreeing to meet with me. I understand you spoke to Robert, a mutual friend. Executive (Exec): Nice to meet you. Yes, Robert spoke highly of you and suggested I accept your invitation to meet. SP: Well, I want to respect your time so I’ll get right to it. What I like to do when I meet with a C-level executive is to ask some questions to clarify your needs. As you know, we have many end-to-end solutions that solve numerous problems, but we like to diagnose before we prescribe. Exec: Sounds painful. Are you a doctor? SP: (Laughing) This won’t hurt, I promise. In your position as Chief Operating Officer, what are your biggest pain points? Exec: Excuse me? SP: You know, issues that keep you up at night: needs, problems, challenges — PAIN. I have a list of generic pain points that align with a Chief Operating Officer if you want me to list … Exec: No, that’s not necessary. Why are you asking about my pain? SP: Because we’ve been trained to probe for ‘needs’. It’s part of our sales methodology. You know – our motto is ‘no pain, no change’. Our company is expert at solving problems and we need to know what challenges and problems you will acknowledge. This is step one in our sales methodology, you know. Of course, latent pain is even better if I have a solution, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Exec: You are a doctor, Dr. Doom N. Gloom. Just kidding. Yes, I had another sales person in here last week who asked me what my ‘wants’ were. When I asked him to clarify, he said ‘wants’ were more important to talk about than ‘needs’. I didn’t really understand what he meant. SP: Oh yes, ‘wants’ are even better than ‘needs’ because they are greatly influenced by FUD factors. Exec: What’s a FUD factor? Is that a new virus strain? SP: You know, fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Exec: Interesting. Will you excuse me? I’ve got to take this phone call. Pain Doesn’t Get Executive Lips Flapping Ouch! From a buy-side executive perspective, this conversation is painful. Unfortunately, many sales professionals have inextricably linked pain with solution selling — even selling at the executive level. While this approach might be effective at lower levels in the organization, it rarely works as you move up the executive ranks in your customer organization. Put yourself in the shoes of the executive. What’s in it for them? Why would they want to answer probing questions about pain from a sales professional who knows little about their business? Nothing personal, but these kinds of conversations are reserved for business colleagues or business partners who have earned trusted advisor status. I understand your dilemma as a sales professional. I even feel your pain. You want to get executive lips flapping about an issue that is important to them that happens to be solved by a solution that you offer. The problem is getting the executive lips flapping. They don’t tend to be talkative, especially with a sales person not adequately informed about their company. Asking a bunch of questions doesn’t work. Executives don’t like to be interviewed. Throwing a bunch of solutions against the wall to see if anything sticks is a low probability game. Whipping out a generic listing of pain points and assuming they apply is a certain death sentence. You may have only one chance (and a few minutes) to make a favorable impression. Hope is not a strategy, and neither is pain. Straight From The Horse’s Mouth Recently, in order to validate my views on executive-level pain probes, I surveyed a network of fellow buy-side executives. I asked them two questions. The first question: How often do sales professionals probe for pain when meeting with you? Their answers included: A lot. They almost seem robotic, brain-washed. All the time, they all do it. Over half the time. Very unconstructive and a complete waste of my time. Many times. They even talk about a so-called ‘pain chain’! The second question I asked my network of buy-side executives: Would you advise the sales professionals reading this blog to continue “selling pain” at the executive level? Perhaps, but amp it up. They have to know A LOT about me to pull it off. No, it doesn’t add value to me. I don’t do interviews and I don’t like negative people. No, they need to come up with a different approach — something that sets them apart from the herd. Never. Just focus on my company’s business priorities. Seems pretty simple to me. Business PRIORITIES Instead of PAIN There’s a better way for sales people to engage at the executive level. It’s a more positive, constructive way to gain credibility and obtain sponsorship for your solution. It’s not rocket science, but it does require research and preparation. Keep positive and focus on the business priorities of executives, NOT PAIN! Business priorities, especially those recently announced, are a favorite subject for most executives. They are the strategies, initiatives, goals, and objectives that promote change which represents opportunities for your solutions. Business priorities move the needle for executives. By definition, they are the funded action plans appearing on the radar screen. Business priorities are unique to each company. And the best news is that they are frequently disclosed in public sources. You just need to know where to look and how to read between the lines. Start a dialogue by demonstrating your knowledge of the executive’s business priorities. You have a limited time to converse with a customer executive. An executive engagement is a high-risk, high-return moment. Every word counts. You will either sustain a two-way conversation or send it into a deadly monologue spiral. Do you really think an executive is going to ‘open up’ and willingly talk about what keeps them up at night? As a formerFortune500 CFO, I rarely answered that question which was posed to me numerous times. Oh sure, some business priorities implicitly address pain. But many business priorities directly support competitive market opportunities and advances in technology. Steer the focus to business priorities to set a positive, constructive tone. Examples of Business Priorities Let me give you a few examples of publicly-disclosed business priorities. Reliance Industries, India’s largest private sector company plans to invest $10 billion to $12 billion to expand in the U.S. market. Their “business priority” is to find local partners who could best help them support this growth. NIKE, Inc. is planning to make significant capital expenditure investments ($500 million to $600 million) in the global Direct-to-Consumer business which consists primarily of the NIKE-branded retail store format. Their “business priority” is to accelerate time-to-market for this channel expansion. And Walgreens is ramping direct sourcing resources and capabilities in the Far East. A new office was recently opened in Hong Kong. Their “business priority” is to build the private label business which carries a higher front-end gross margin. The executives of these companies don’t dwell on pain, problems, and challenges. They are driven by business priorities which represent the best opportunities for your solutions. Of course, if your target customer publicly acknowledges ‘pain’, go for it. This doesn’t happen often, but occasionally the ‘pain’ is too much to hide. Sprint represents a good example. As the 4G race tightens in the smartphone market, Sprint has struggled to accelerate the rollout of its Evo 4G phone. In a conference call in mid-2010 Sprint’s CEO, speaking to a shortage of phones to sell, publicly acknowledged, “The supply issue is a big deal for us.” Now there is a pain point to pursue with vigor! Remember: Priorities, Not Pain The next time you instinctively reach for the P-word when engaging an executive, pull out ‘Priorities’ instead of ‘Pain’ and see what happens. Got pain? No thanks. Got priorities? Let’s talk.