Mastering Technical Sales

Winning The White Board Wars

2012-02-16T13:59:00.000-05:00

My lawyer friends tell me that whoever tells the best story in court usually wins. The same is true of being a Sales Engineer. Using a white board is a fantastic way of personalizing a story for your customer. Before you even think about the story - what are three basic things you should remember to help yourwhiteboard pitches?

1. Stand on the correct side! If you are right-handed like me,you should be standing on the left of the board (as the audience sees it) –just like the picture. That way you obscure only a small part of the board whenwriting and I can step away and use my left hand to point. Although it may seem counter-intuitive as you’d think you want yourwriting hand closest to the board – it doesn’t work that way! The mechanics ofyour shoulder joint dictate that you’ll have neater and straighter diagrams doingit my way.

2. Chunk your diagrams into 8-10 segments. That wayyou talk, pivot to the board, draw for 8-10 seconds, pivot back, and talksome more and so on. It reduces dead air time and means you don’t rush becauseyou’re conscious of having your back to the audience all the time. Try it!

3. Take your time. Seriously! There is some kind ofspace-time warp that distorts reality when the average SE gets to a whiteboard.It makes 5 seconds seem like 10. That makes you rush – your writing getssloppy, your straight lines get bent and your icons are unrecognizable. You can’ttell the best story if you don’t give it your best efforts. A sloppy whiteboardis worse than the most atrocious bullet-laden product-marketing slide you canever imagine.

For more about whiteboarding visit the MTSWhiteBoard Page.

(The photo was taken of me giving a WB seminar in Beijinglast year)

Passion And Presentations

2012-02-14T09:19:00.000-05:00

February 14th seems an appropriate day to write about the intersection of passion, presentations and business. Last week I ran a workshop focused on remote demos and webcasts. It was an interesting format - we actually conducted some face to face training and then sent people out into a different rom to present "remotely" to the rest of the class. Very effective!

I was struck by the contrast between two of the presenters. Presenter Steve (names changed to protect the innocent) was a 8-year veteran. He gave a very polished but unemotional pitch on his solution. Looking at it dispassionately I scored it highly on my checklist - say he got a 86/100. Later in the day we had Presenter Violet who was a 8-month rookie. Violet's presentation was, being generous, a little rough around the edges -- yet, wow! Did she have passion and enthusiasm for her product. Her score was a 66/100 - a big difference from Steve's.

At the end of the day I gave each participant a sheet with the names of everyone in the class, and asked them to write down what each presentation was about and what they remembered. Violet made the top 3 of everyone in the class (even Steve!). Steve was below the middle of the pack.

Even accounting for the fact that Violet did already gain some points, and Steve lost some, for their respective passion - there was still 20 point difference. Or was there? If you judge a presentation by what people remember and did they take away the key points - you can make the case that Violet "won".

Wasting Time

2012-02-09T09:59:00.001-05:00

One of the most valuable resources an SE has is their own time. You can approach how this time is used in multiple ways. Two extreme approaches are :

1. Throw your hands in the air, play the victim and declare that you are not in control of your own schedule.

2. Measure every minute that you work on something and justify the use of that time.

OK - those are extreme "strawman" viewpoints - yet I'd say we've all worked with SE's who have that mindset. I've always believed that the key to effective time management is moving things off your task list as well as doing the things that are on your list more efficiently. How do you move things off your list? Here is a great example, written by the Time Management Ninja - of "10 Things I Am Not Going To Do Today". I love this article - it certainly applies to me as a small business person, as well as "back in the day" when I was a VP, CIO or an individual contributor.

In fact - I just put points #3 (checking email) and #10 (starting before I finish) into practice. My email beeped and my phone chirped at me. Now it could be one of those PO's I'm expecting, but the 3 minutes I need to finish this blog isn't going to impact what I do with those emails - so why interrupt and read them? Good point...

Organize your time and say "no" to a few more unnecessary things in your life.

February , February ...

2012-02-08T08:06:00.001-05:00

The February MTS Edge Newsletter went out to 12,392 people yesterday. If you are not a subscriber you can read it here and subscribe to the newsletter on the Mastering Technical Sales site.

This months lead is the Demo GPS RoadMap. Ever had one of thise demos where the customer gets confused, perplexed and ultmately lost? All the questions are about where you are in the demo flow, what you just did and smaller technical details? There is a solution to that - the Demo RoadMap. Use one of these and your customer (onsite or virtual) will never get lost again!

Manager's Corner covers how to lead and motivate remote employees when you don't see them face-to-face every day. I apply the BEEP test that elite level athletes use for measuring their fitness to your management skills.

Ask John deals with Turning Soft Evidence into Hard Numbers during the Discovery process. We all have those situations when it's really hard to get quantifiable numbers for a ROI. Here's another way to try it. Book Of The Month is Marshall Goldsmith's Mojo - it's an OK book, but not at the top of my must-read list for Sales Engineers.

And don't forget to check out the MTS Demo Workshop class - if you want to apply best practices (no matter what your methodology is) to your demo/presentation/whiteboard for a particular solution - here's a way to do it.

Good Selling!

Gotcha!

2012-02-02T16:03:00.003-05:00

Great idea from one of my customers. “John – I love yourRecommended Reading List for Sales Engineers and we now distribute it to all ofour new hires. However – I think you are a victim of your own Curse Of Knowledge. Instead of reading the review and interpreting your comments, itwould be great if you’d just rate the books from 1-5 or A/B/C. That way we’dknow where to start.”

Guilty! I just updated the Reading List for February toinclude Marshall Goldsmith’s “Mojo” and included the ratings of three checkmarks for must-read , one check for include in your library and a big red "i" for useful information.

Hope this helps - and thanks to Susan for the idea.

The Discovery Channel

2012-01-31T09:26:00.001-05:00

I've spent a lot of time this month at Sales Kickoff events talking about the art and science of the Discovery Process. One of my key statements is that Discovery is a continuing process with a customer and should NOT be regarded as a single event. (Just as the Discovery Channel is on TV 24x7).

The point of this is that if you focus on a "Discovery Meeting" as the only opportunity to conduct discovery then you are missing the opportunity to learn way more about your customer. It doesn't matter what you call it - Discovery, Needs Analysis, Business Issue Discussion, Business Drivers etc..

The other interesting discussion point revolves around where the transition occurs from the salesperson to the presales person when conducting discovery. Since I rarely hear presales complain that they do too much discovery I'm fairly certain where the line should be drawn. Yet every sales/presales relationship is different, and strictly defining the cutoff can limit the talents of the pairing. The best solution seems to be general guidelines, which each sales/presales group can mutually adjust based on their respective skills. Usually most presales engineers will want to be engaged earlier rather than later - as long as the deal is qualified (budget, timeframe, approval process, do they have a pulse etc..).

In return - presales need to make themselves more accessible to sales for discovery calls, and not bury them (the reps) in paperwork or process to get "a resource". Otherwise presales becomes a resource instead of a partner - and we know where that leads us!!

Good selling.

Too Much Information

2012-01-17T20:56:00.002-05:00

An interesting post by Jack Derbytitled "There's Nothing Easy About Sales"reminded me of my standard lecture at the start of my workshops. Jack proposesthe 1-2-3 Rule - in short - "Attend anything-a seminar, sales meeting, orboot camp-, and you should try to walk away with no more than three things thatyou’re going to put to work almost immediately."

My standard pitch is that I speak tomy class about Monday Morning Behavior. I explain that means that once this course has completed– what behavioral changes are you going to make once you are back in theoffice? Then I tell them (having spoken with their managers) that they need tomeet with their manager next week – and commit to what they are going tochange, by when – and how to measure it.

It works really well.

My pitch with themanagers is to focus on no more than 3 changes at a time (as in 1-2-3!!) . Myanalogy is my golf game. I’m bad at golf and always play with friends betterthan me. After 3-4 holes, they take pity on me and give me tips. Those tipsmake me better and better until I get to about the ninth hole. Then I am tryingto remember to many things at once – and my game falls apart again..

So three things toremember.

One - write down andcommit to change from any training you go to.

Two - your customersfeel the same way (overwhelmed) if you present or demo too much.

Three - you can makeserious money playing me at golf!

NEW - The Demo Workshop

2012-01-09T10:04:00.002-05:00

I'm announcing the first of a set of brand new workshops for 2012. It's the simply titled "Demo Workshop". I've actually been doing this for years, and it seems such a common request that I've finally packaged it up. But it's really about customizing your demos, presentatuions and whiteboards.

It’s a simple idea– bring a team of Sales Engineers together, plus their current set of demos,presentations and whiteboard pitches. Share these pitches with us beforehand sowe can do our homework. Optionally add in a representative from sales, productmanagement and marketing.

We spend a coupleof hours covering the Mastering Technical Sales Perfect Pitchconcepts and best practices of presenting for the Sales Engineer. Then take theremainder of the day to deconstruct and rebuild those same demos, presentationsand whiteboards based on these best practices.Theresult is a set of highly memorable customer-facing artifacts that the SE teamcan immediately use to grab the customer’s attention and drive the sales cyclefaster.

Click here to learn more about the workshop and see what some of my customers, and their customers, have been saying about the results - and it doesn't matter if your team has already been through some demo or presentation training classes, as this is focused on you.

Kodak And Dinosaurs

2012-01-05T14:16:00.002-05:00

The impending bankruptcy of Kodak is a handy reminder about adaptability.

Now, as Sales Engineers, we are continually forced to adapt as the technology, the business and the competition all change. From what I see in my travels around the globe, we're pretty good at doing that - often faster than our sales and marketing brethren. If we don't want to go the same way as the Dinosaurs, Kodak, Buggy Whips, 5 1/4" Floppy Disks and so on - we need to continually change.

With 2012 rolling in I think it's a great time to reflect on what adaptations you made last year and what you'll need to do this year. If you continue to present/demo the same old things you've always done - you'll fail. Maybe not immediately - but you will fail. It is inevitable. So grab a sheet of paper or your trusty iPad and write down what changes you actually made last year - in terms of technology, business and your professional skills. However long that that list is (and I hope it's a long one) it will need to be even larger this year - otherwise you'll be your company's equivalent of the last shop to develop 35mm film. Not a good place to be unless you are sliding into retirement!

January 2012 Content Posted

2012-01-03T14:37:00.000-05:00

The first content for 2012 is now available. This month I have the now traditional New Year's Resolutions For The PreSales Engineer. A collection of 12 positive and 6 non-so-positive resolutions to help an SE improve his/her Promotability, Performance and income Potential. These are three things which YOU are responsible for - not your boss, not Human Resources and not the Sales Force. It's all you!

The second article is a little different. Over the years I've had to make sales presentations and run seminars in countries all over the world. Most of the time I present in English and the audience "speaks' English. Sometimes they don't! On those occasions I've used an interpreter - and wow is it a different and humbling experience! Learn from my mistakes. One day you will need to know how to present in your native language to a "foreign" audience.

The 'Ask John" covers Demo Interruptus. I received a question from an SE who was continually being interrupted during his demo - by the customer, by the rep, by his colleagues. It's probably not all their fault. Read why.

Book Of The Month is David Sibbet's Visual Meetings. Great first 90 pages, tough going (unless you are a consultant) for the last 160 pages. Yet .. the first 90 pages are worth the price of the book.

One of my New Year's Resolution is to blog and post more. I'm also starting on Twitter soon as @PreSalesMTS. Watch out later this week for some ideas as to what I'll be working on for 2012.

Meanwhile - all the best for 2012 and Good Selling!

What If Meetings Were Fun AND Productive?

2011-12-19T10:20:00.002-05:00

After the amazing success I've had with my "WhiteBoarding For The Sales Engineer" class I've been looking at extensions to the methodology. As research for putting the class together I've been reading many of the books out there about using pictures, graphics and visualization.

I've always been puzzled by the way the worldwide educational system values words over pictures from the age of about 8 upwards. My wife teaches at an elementary school (Kindergarten through 11 years old). If I walk into one of the K-classes and ask how many kids can draw, almost all of them put their hands up. If I ask the same question of 5th grade (the 11 year-olds) less than half of them put their hands up. By the time we're 16-17 only 10% of students will self-identify as a "drawer". Which is strange - I don't know about you, but I learnt to read by identifying words with pictures. Chemistry was made easier by understanding the Periodic Table drawing, Geology was made easier by remember the strata/layers of rock etc.. where do we lose this ability to visually represent life?

I think it's because expectations are too high. The most common objection to using a whiteboard in my classes is "I'm not an artist/I can't write neatly". Yet once we get halfway through the class, most people are coming up with creative representations of products/architectures/problems and so on - using a variety of interesting, and simple, icons and constructs. I'm now looking at how we, as Presales Engineers, can apply all these techniques to a variety of internal and external meetings - not just when you are explicitly selling something. So stay tuned. It's fun and colorful!!

The Frictionless Sales Call

2011-12-04T20:16:00.001-05:00

The December MTS Edge Newsletter will go out on Tuesday December 6th. Most of the content has been posted onto the Mastering Technical Sales website this weekend.

December Features:

The Frictionless Sales Call. I've met with a number of senior level Presales leaders over the past few weeks to look at 2012 requirements. One very consistent comment is that they believe 75% of their teams still don't have a good grasp of the basics when in front of the customer - particularly for demos and for asking questions. That's where the concept of a frictionless sales call comes in. Th eonly thing you want to stick in your custmers brain is your message - yet SE's spend a lot of time creating districtaions and "noise" that prevent the message sticking. To apply physics - th eharder you have to push your message, the more friction is generated, whiich causes heat - and eventually something catches fire - hopefully NOT your deal! The article lists a number of crimes to avoid when demo-ing or asking discovery questions.

The Seven Deadly Sins Of Presale Leaders. Continuing the theme of crime and other bad things - I list out 7 sins that I "created" during a workshop with a large group of first-line presales managers.

Ask John - Making Introductions. I've been called every title under the sun (and a few more) by salespeople over the years. If part of your credibility hinges on your technical qualifications and experience then the proper introduction becomes an important start to a sales call (particularly for a webcast).

Blah, Blah, Blah is Decembers SE Book Of The Month - and it's an absolute contender to get into the Books Of The Year list - if you read Dan Roam's Back Of The Napkin then you'll love this follow-up ; which explains what to do when words don't work!

And finally - a reminder that I've recently revised my highly successful "White Boarding For Sales Engineers" class and updated it for the 2012 sales kickoff season. Email me if you are interested.

November MTS Content is posted

2011-11-08T13:28:00.003-05:00

The MTS site was updated over the weekend - a few days late because of the "World Tour". This month I spend some time looking at why the best SE's often give the worst demos and blame The Curse Of Knowledge (see previos post). The second article is about Personal Agendas - and why as an SE to need to determine what the personal agenda (i.e. "the win") is for every person that deal with in a customer account. It's an important, but overlooked part of the sales process - and is one area where you can add unexpected value to the sales team.

The month is rounded out with Ask John's response to Help I'm Being Acquired! and the Book Review of 10 Steps To Successful Virtual Presentations. Enjoy The Read!

Next month's review will be focused on Dan Roam's (author of Back Of The Napkin) latest book - Blah, Blah, Blah - why words don't work. I've read the first section of three and so far, so good.

Good Selling.

The Curse Of Knowledge : Why Demos Fail

2011-11-03T18:30:00.001-04:00

In 1990, Elizabeth Newton, a Stanford University psychology graduatestudent studied a simple game in whichshe assigned people to one of two roles: “tapper” or “listener.” Each tapperwas asked to pick a well-known song, such as “Happy Birthday,” and tap out therhythm on a table. The listener’s job was to guess the song. How well did they do?

Amazingly poorly!Out of 120 songs that were tapped out, only three were guessed correctly – a2.5% success rate. Yet the “tappers” estimated the success rate would be 50%.Why the big difference – because the tappers were cursed with the knowledge ofthe song title and found it impossible to imagine what it was like for thelisteners to hear and interpret the isolated taps. That is the Curse OfKnowledge!

So why were the scores so bad and what does this have to do with being a Pre-Sales Engineer?

We understand andknow our solution. In fact we know it reallywell because in many cases ourjob depends on it. However – we find it extremely difficult to place ourselvesin the situation of the customer who is seeing our demonstration for the veryfirst time. The more familiar we become with our topic, the more implicitassumptions we make about what our customer should know as opposed to what theyactually do know. The result is a knowledge gap, which your customer fills inby assuming either that your product is complicated (because they don’tunderstand something) or that you are a poor presenter (because they don’tunderstand what you are doing).

In a largeproportion of the demos I have reviewed since starting Mastering TechnicalSales, the Curse Of Knowledge has been apparent. I put on my “dumb CIO” or“typical businessperson” hat and list all the assumptions that the sales teamhas made in the demo. That list usually stretches into double digits.

For ideas on how to fix the Curse Of Knowledge read here.

Piranhas and Presentations

2011-10-12T06:25:00.001-04:00

In my standard workshops I try to focus on changing thingsto have the maximum impact on customer facing activities (like betterdiscovery, more focused and simpler demos, telling stories etc.) I often referto some smaller changes as being part of the “Piranha Effect”.

As background, there are many things that we do as an SEthat have a small effect on the “stickiness” of our messaging. They may cause again, or loss, of say 1-2% in overall stickiness. Barely worth bothering aboutyou may think. Yet once you’ve fixed the big things, these Piranhas can have atelling impact on your delivery. I call them Piranhas because if you getattacked by a single fish, it takes a small bite and you move on. Get attackedby a twenty piranha and they can do some serious damage.

The same thing applies to your presentations. If you thinkyou are an A+ presenter then I challenge you to take a video of one of your pitchesand conduct both a self- and a third-party assessment. Look out for the piranhas(minimal eye contact, pointing, pacing back-and-forth, small font sizes etc.)and kill them off one-by-one. The result will be a better presentation withless distractions for the customer and it will now be safe to step into thewaters!

Being A Team Player

2011-10-04T10:01:00.001-04:00

This month's recommended book, John Maxwell's The 17 Essential Qualities Of A Team Player, sprang out of a conversation had over the summer with a pair of new SE Managers. The topic was teamwork - and we spoke for many hours before, during and after dinner. One SE Manager had to build a brand new team, the other had inherited a poorly performing team.

I recall telling them a story about my son back when he was 11 or 12. Matt was, and still is, a very good footbal (soccer) player - his team won many championships and he played Division-1 college soccer for 4 years here in the US. But that's not the story my young son taught me.

One season, years ago, Matt was voted the Most Valuable Player on his team. Yet he didn't have a single statistic on the books - no goals, no assists, nothing ... He played in defence, was often the last line of defense - but he was awarded the MVP over kids who had scored 20+ goals that season. Being the proud father I was convinced that he deserved the award, so I asked him why he thought he had won it.

His response?

"It's the way I play. I always give 100% and never quit. But the other players do that too. It's because I am a good player and can make a difference in the game. But the other players can do that too. The real reason is because I try to make everyone else on my team look good and play better. When a team-mate is in trouble on the field - I'm there for him to pass the ball to; I let them know when they have time or when they are under pressure and I give them an escape route. Sure I can make tackles and stop goals being scored against us, but if I make everyone else on my team play better then it's like we have 12 players and the other team still has 11. That's why we win!"

Wow - now is that a definition of a team player?

Breakfast In Bangalore

2011-09-13T00:09:00.000-04:00

I just finished breakfast with one of my customers out here in Bangalore. He runs a 90 person Asia-Pacific SE team. It's insightful, yet also disappointing, to hear about the apparent global mismatch between sales and presales during the middle of the sales cycle.

Now we both want the same thing - great success for our customers and great revenue for ourselves. It's the speed of the salescycle which causes the discord. Presales views sales as charging through the sales phases as quickly as possible, short-cutting or omitting steps where possible. Sales views presales as an anchor to the process, always slowing things down with questions and yet more questions.

Both sides (and maybe that is the root cause - that there are sides instead of a true single team) believe their approach is correct. Since sales usually trumps presales in >90% of companies - speed rules. The resultant chaos keeps people like me in business. So where is the middle ground? What is the balance between speed and caution? How do we avoid "the dash to demo" yet get the deal done in the shortest time possible?

Many questions . interested in hearing what you do in your company to strike the appropriate balance?

September Updates

2011-09-06T17:00:00.001-04:00

The September Issue of the MTS edge will be published tomorrow (Wednesday Sept 7th) because of the US Labor Day holiday. The focus this month is on Discovery. The lead article looks at Six Magic Questions to ask, once you have covered the First Law of Discovery. It's a little like Newton's First Law - in that customers at rest tend to stay at rest until an external force (that's you) is applied.

You have to understand what the appropriate force is (money, time, regulations, competition, risk etc..) and then how to measure it.

Ask John looks at dealing with an SE who has spelling and grammar issues. It's not as easy as it might initially seem.

The Book Review is John Medina's "Brain Rules". Which not only provides scientific proof that we all have a Jennifer Aniston neuron, but also explains how and why we pay attention and learn things. Very insightful and a good read for an SE.

And The Last Word showcases some examples of whiteboards being used in the "real world" - ranging from UPS to the White House to VMWare.

Enjoy The Read!!

Fun With Numbers

2011-08-15T15:44:00.000-04:00

IDC published an updated report a few months back about the explosive nature of data growth within corporations. They had previously predicted a 44x (yes - forty-four times) increase in data in the next ten years. That projection has now been revised to a 50x increase by 2020. Amazing numbers!

The trouble is, the human mind has a big issue in dealing with large numbers or multipliers. There is no real diference between a 40x growth and a 60x growth - except that one is bigger than the other. The point is that they are both BIG, almost unimaginably big!

At least three of my clients are quoting that number in many of their presentations - but here is a better way to help humanize 50x. Imagine you are up in front of the customer using a white board. It's a standard whiteboard of 42 by 96 inches (3.5 by 8 feet ; or approx 1 by 2.5 m). Multiply the size of the board by 50 - the board turns into something the size of a full football field - and it doesn't matter if it is American or "real" football!!

NOW you get an idea of just how big the growth is. Try some other comparisons, put them into human terms, and see what happens!

Getting An "F"

2011-08-04T14:30:00.001-04:00

The next edition of the Mastering Technical Sales Edge will be out on Tuesday August 9th. It's a week late so I give myself an "F" for Time Management. Which is ironic as that is one of the topics which gets raised in almost every seminar and workshop I run.

Now I know why I am running late - and that is a mixture of extending a business trip to take in some additional vacation, a last minute customer project and too many sunny days. BUT .. Do you know why you never seem to have enough time in the week and hours in the day? The first question I always ask is "How do you spend your 40-50 hours per week? What do you actually do?". Rarely can anyone account for all their time in the week, even if their company has a time tracking system. The reason I ask the question is that it is tough to impact time management and efficiency if you don't know where that time is going.

You don't even have to divide it into too many buckets. Just split it a few ways. Measure it as customer/non-customer-facing time. Measure it as reactive/proactive time. Measure it as "A" vs "B" and "C" customers - and finally measure the time with a grade. For every chunk of time you spend on something give yourself a grade in terms of timeliness, quality and even quantity. You will surprised at the results - we often gravitate to those areas we find the easiest. So if a large part of your day is spent on activities where you give yourself an "A" - you are probably (a) not stretching yourself out of your core competencies and (b) you are ignoring other activities you may not be so great at.

Measure, Monitor and then Change - but only if you want to.

Wisdom Through Beach Reading

2011-07-17T10:53:00.000-04:00

I spent most of last week visiting St. Kitts and Nevis down in the Caribbean. Relaxing and not working – a very pleasant experience. My intent was to sit on the beach and catch up on all my reading using my trusty Nook. All went well until mid-week, when I discovered that Barnes & Nobel will not let you purchase and download any eBooks if you are physically outside the US or Canada. At that point I was out of easy beach books, all my wife had to offer were romances, so I turned to the collection of business books I had stored and dived in. That’s a long way of saying I will be reviewing several books this month.

I started with David Siteman Garland’s Smarter, FasterCheaper. It’s a book reminiscent of one of those self-improvement shows on American TV at 4am and put me to sleep faster than sunshine and a few rum punches. It should be titled Boring, Verbose and Obnoxious – now I have to admit I only got ¾ of the way through it and there could be amazing pearls of wisdom in the last ¼, but I doubt it.

Next was John Medina’s Brain Rules. I quote John several times in my seminar so I enjoyed reading the whole book in which he cites 12 rules for the brain to function perfectly. It’s relevant to the SE because it deals with teaching and remembering – both on the giving and receiving end.

Finally I’m partway through Getting To Yes by Roger Fisher and I’m really enjoying the book. It’s effectively an introduction to negotiation and seems to apply both professionally and personally. I have already made notes about how an SE can better negotiate with a salesrep, a sales manager, their immediate manager and the customer - never mind friends, family and significant others! I think it’s going to be the best of the three.

The moral of all this is having spent six weeks reading about mistakes and how to correct them, I neglected to be fully prepared for my vacation and ran out of trashy beach reads so was forced to start thinking about business again. A steep price to pay!

Thoughts for July

2011-07-06T07:36:00.000-04:00

I've spent a lot of time the past six weeks thinking about mistakes, errors and omissions - especially as they relate to the role of the Sales Engineer. During that time I read Alicia Turgends "Better by Mistake" (which was just OK) and Atul Gawandes "The Checklist Manifesto" (which is July's highly recommended book). All that thought prompted me to write the Talking Point for this month which is Eliminating Mistakes In The SE Sales Cycle - A Quest for Perfection.

There are really two major forms of mistakes we make as an SE - the first comes from ignorance when you simply don't know something (and you may or may not know that you don't know it - if you follow me!). The swcond is where you definitely know something, but you show poor execution. You may forget to take a vital step or choose to ignore it. Each of these manifests itself in an error that slows the velocity of a deal through the sales cycle.

So I'm a big believer in process, checklists and pre-launch charts. Not to the extent that they take up hours of time and pages of dead trees - but certainly to the extent that they catch the obvious errors which we and others have made. (Ever given a demo and forgotten to sign-on, or cache some data, or clean out a screen, or link to the wrong database etc?)

So the July call to action - especially for smaller SE teams - is to build simple one-pager checklists and drive mistakes out of the cycle. And for larger companies - look at the checks and balances that you have, because over time they become too brdensone and then people skip them anyway!

Good Selling!

Making Mistakes

2011-06-05T08:17:00.002-04:00

I just finished Alinia Tugend's Making Mistakes as the review book for June.

It was tough reading. The basic premise is that mistakes are good - as long as they are non-fatal, are found and corrected rapidly and are learning experiences. This is all dependent upon the prevailing social or corporate culture that we live in. So far , so good - although like many business books nowadays it has one central theme and just beats you over the head with it for several hundred pages.

My viewpoint on mistakes, as far as the Sales Engineering community is concerned, is that they are healthy. Einstein was once quoted as saying that if you didn't make mistakes you weren't really learning and trying. Yet as SE's - we demand perfection - perfection of ourselves, perfection of our software/hardware and perfection from the rest of the team. Not too realistic. Throw in a demanding sales manager and that's not an environment that is going to be adaptable to change.

As a manager I always tried to differentiate between a MISTAKE - such as failing to prepare adequately before a demo or missing a key business issue, with a mistake - such as a slide that didn't get quite get the point across, or pressing the wrong button on a screen. Why is this of interest to me? I'm in the business of making people change - change the way they perform Discovery, change the way they present, change the way they design PPT, change the way they structure and design demos. None of that is going to happen without a few mistakes in front of the customer - yet in the long run my customers tell me about increased win-rates, fewer demo do-overs, better POC conversion rates etc - all because someone was wiling to take a (measured) chance.

The morale of the post is try something different. Practice it, think it through, and then add it to your customer-facing repertoire. (And when it works - share it with your peers). It's what will make you a better SE.

A Vent: The Player/Coach

2011-05-11T18:58:00.000-04:00

I just read a job posting that is looking for a PreSales Engineering Manager - responsible for 10-12 individual contributors in a more or less central location. The job description looks fairly standard - then I got to the piece about "this is a player/coach position - the manager will have an individual quota as well as the team quota".

So let me get this stright - this poor guy/gal is supposed to not only develop, mentor and manage 12 pople - but they also have to go out and "sell" stuff themselves. Amazing. This is an organization which probably still hasn't fully recognized the potential and the promise of dedicated presales leadership. I can guarantee that somewhere in the org there is a person saying "well -this position takes away a direct customer-facing SE; they'll have to contribute something."

Why does this drive me nuts? Well - one is the disparity; you rarely see a sales manager position beng advertised as a player/coach if they are managing a dozen reps - and secondly - what this org will get is exactly what they are asking for - a manager instead of what I suspect they need - which is a leader.

Maybe it's just because I'm cranky at the end of a long day, but ..

Something Old, Something New

2011-05-05T10:07:00.001-04:00

I’ve been following a number of interesting discussions on LinkedIn over the past few weeks. Many of them are on the same theme as this one – which is “What Are The New Rules of Selling…?”. My response is that other than some technology differences in speed-of-interaction – there are no new rules. They are the same old rules, just rediscovered. If you converse with your customers instead of preach to them; if you discover how they buy instead of forcing the sale; if you focus on value instead of features; and if you focus on results instead of products and solutions – in short, you understand your customer – that’s selling! Old or new.

I often say as a senior IT executive that I never ever bought a solution, I bought results and outcomes. I preferred conversations that focused on revenues, expenses and risk. So I chuckle when I read about the newest Value-based selling, or Curiosity-based selling or any of the other New-old methodologies. In essence, as pre-sales engineers we understand this – it’s rare to find an SE who wants to conduct less discovery and needs analysis; not always something you can say about our sales brethren.

What other sales ideas have come back into fashion?

May Content and Updates

2011-05-01T18:11:00.000-04:00

The website has been updated for May.

This month features Baseball Bats and Breadcrumbs as the lead article. This peculiar title is a result of some frustrations I used to experience as a senior IT executive, so it is written from that viewpoint (and thanks to Mike Lohr from Tripwire for "tripping" that memory last month). I talk about how you need to blend directness (the baseball bat) with some subtlety (the breadcrumbe/candy) when presenting.

The second article deals with how to set up Presenter Mode in PowerPoint. When following the rules of decomplexification that I preach, you often have to cut and paste text from the slide into your notes. Presenter Mode allows you to access those notes, plus a bunch of other useful stuff, when you are making your PowerPoint Pitch. Every SE in the world should know how to do this!

Ask John looks at my response to an interesting question from Lacey down there in New Zealand. She has been looking ta improving her time management and asked how I started the day. Not that I am a time guru in any shape or form - but it's always interetsing to see how someone else does it. Especially as I tend to break a couple of the weel established rules about handling your time and email anyway.

This months book is "Proactive Selling" by Skip Miller. At first I thought it was going to be another formulaic sales methodology book - but it wasn't; well - at leats not entirely. I learnt three interesting things from the book which made it well worth the $12. It gave me another way of suggesting how accounts can be prioritized from the SE viewpoint, a reminder about PowerHour (which I talk about in my Ask John column anyway) and then an intriguing analogy about speaking Spanish, Greek and Russian to Techies, Managers and Executives.

Enjoy the read and good selling!

The Multimedia Marathon - Do The Math!

2011-04-28T09:53:00.000-04:00

Those of you who have ever attended one of my workshops know that my primary message revolves around simplification and focus. I was recently working with a highly analytical and technical SE team so I challenged them to do the math. We looked at a standard one hour sales call and calculated the amount of information that would typically be relayed. Here is what we came up with.

Presenting/Telling:      10,000 Words
Presenting                   30-40 PowerPoint slides   =or=
Demoing                     30-50 distinct screens

Now put yourself in the place of the customer. How, out of all those words and screens, do I figure out what is most important to me? How good a job are you, as the Pre-Sales Engineer, doing in guiding your customer towards the technical and business nuggets of gold they need to make a decision to buy your stuff?

If your #1 value proposition and differentiator in how you fix their #1 business problem takes you 25 words to explain - then the statistical change of that being top of mind with the customer is 25/10,000 or 0.25% if you don't help it along.

Scary odds!

WhiteBoarding The Chinese Way

2011-04-14T11:06:00.000-04:00

Proof that presales is presales the world over! I just finished a workshop in Beijing with 25 Chinese presales engineers. I feel that I learnt as much as they did about whiteboarding in their particular business environment. For example - I learnt that Chinese customer are as tired of PowerPoint as the rest of us; I learnt that whiteboarding is easier and faster in Chinese script; and I learnt that you don't draw the competitors solution in red as that is a lucky color!

We also developed a neat trick of putting current state within the top third of a poster board along with some economics, the bridge in the middle third and the desired/future solution state in the bottom third. To make the comparison even more forcefully at the end, fold the paper to eliminate the middle 1/3 bridge and directly align and compare the current and desired state data. Different colors, comparative numbers = awesome presentation results.

Great job everyone!

April in Asia

2011-04-03T22:29:00.002-04:00

I'm just starting my Asian tour - a week in Singapore and then four days in Beijing. Both are new cities for me so I'm looking forward to some business and pleasure during the ten days. The April MTS content has been posted on the website and the newsletter will be distributed on Tuesday April 5th morning (EDT).

This month I came up a dozen great ideas for SE's at the start of a quarter. Since most companies have just finished Q1 (with notable exceptions) it's typically an occasion for a few days of down time before the constant drumbeat of presentations, demonstrations and POCs start up again. So it's a great time of the year for an SE to not only catch-up on overdue tasks, but to plan ahead for some self-improvement. Read The Quarter Is Done - Now What? for some ideas.

I've also heard a lot this year about the constant drain that internal meetings take on the time of an SE. Some of these meetings are beyond our control and are scheduled by people several levels up the food chain - but hey - some aren't. You can get control back over your week by shaving some minutes from each meeting - here are some ideas to do that - beyond the standard "set an agenda" stuff.

This month's Ask John deals with an SE who has just been given a team lead position in a new small business "run-and-gun" operation and the difficulties he is facing in getting the reps to focus on the requirements given the in-and-out nature of the business.

Finally , the course highlighted for the month of April is a management workshop designed to help SE Managers mentor and give feedback to their teams. It's the #1 job of any manager to develop and serve their staff - not something that too many SE managers always focus on given the revenue demands.

Good selling!

Profiling The Sales Engineer

2011-03-23T09:29:00.002-04:00

Over the last year I've been involved in several personality profiling exercises conducted with teams of Sales Engineers. Right now one of my customer projects is developing an interview/personality profile for potential new hire presales engineers.

Most profiles seem to be built either on the Myers-Briggs (MBTI) system or on DISC - although it seems to me that DISC is easier for people (i.e hiring managers) to pick up and understand than MBTI. I also discovered an interesting variant on DISC that involves colors instead - so someone is a high Red instead of a high D - which is Dominant (quick , fast, get to the point type of person).

Although there is obviously no perfect profile - it is apparent that some personality trends lend themselves better to some types of SE jobs over others. Even if it as simplistic as different behaviors for strategic, big account solution-sell SE's versus transactional run-and-gun SE's.

I've settled on using DISC with the colors variant for those who are more visually driven - and my question is - are there any SE organizations out there who have profiled their teams? And would you be willing to share your results if I share the data I've gathered over the past 5 years with you?

A Brief Debrief : Self-Improvement for the Sales Engineer

2011-03-21T09:21:00.000-04:00

Last week I wrote a guest article for executive recruiters J. Patrick & Associates. It's a simple method for Sales Engineers (in fact, for anyone) to get feedback about their performance and improve themselves. As I state in the article I have always been amazed how little time is spent on the debrief after a sales call. And usually what is covered are the sales essentials like next steps, follow-up.

So how is an SE supposed to get better? especially when you get feedback like 'great demo - John'. Well - what exactly was soooo great about it. Read the T3-B3-N3 summary methodology and find out how you can get better with just a few simple questions.

Shooting MTS Videos

2011-03-08T20:24:00.000-05:00

For the last couple of days I've been in Boston shooting a series of video vignettes for one of my newest customers. I now have the greatest respect not only for the professionals behind the camera and sound equipment, but also, and it pains me to say this, for all the product marketing folks who have produced videos over the years for me when I was running a presales team.

It's hard work! Mainly because you have to generate all the energy by yourself as there is no audience to feed off and interact with. Two days of doing this feels like a full week on the road running seminars. To date I've cut "White Boarding 101", "The Perfect Pitch" and "Telling Stories" - all designed for the Sales Engineer. Tomorrow's session is specifically for Managers. I must admit I could really get used to being called "The Talent"!

What have I learnt? For as much as I talk about simplification, presentation mechanics and using PUNCH in your pitches - that's all doubly important when cutting a video. It's a humbling experience - particularly when watching the playbacks. If you think you're an ace, A+ presenter - try shooting video.

What's an SE Worth?

2011-03-06T07:25:00.000-05:00

The lead artice for this month is "What's An SE Worth?". It looks at different ways of calculating the ROI of a Sales Engineer. I believe it is impossible to calculate the ROI of an entire organization, but it is possible to calculate the ROI of the last, or better yet the next, SE hired.

With the help of some friends (Sean Culen, Mike Lohr and Jim Sargent) out there in SE-land I look at the costs, the direct and indirect benefits of an SE. Mix that in with a sneak peek at my ROPE (Return On Presales Effort) methodology and you get a pretty good idea on the return for making your next hire - as well as some compelling soft benefits for the SE org that most HR/Finance folks never think of.

By using a mix of potential revenue, pipeline, utilization, revenue/head and winrate across the dimensions of geography, solution and actual activity you begin to see a different view of the economics of the SE.

The ultimate answer is - unless your sales are in the tank - there is usually a compelling economic case for one more hire.

Wall Street Journal - Students Struggle With Words

2011-03-03T16:46:00.000-05:00

Todays Business Education section in the Wall Street Journal is titled "Students Struggle With Words: Business Schools Put More Emphasis on Writing Amid Employer Complaints".

The main point is that the course teaches students to unlearn bad behavior - such as using complicated words over simple ones. I call this "decomplexification". This is a bad behavior I see all the time in customer facing product/solution decks. A corporate recuiter is quoted as saying "MBA candidates tend to talk about their analytical methods to show they are good at their job. What we really want to talk about are the implications of the research."

In the words of a naval officer friend of mine , "Be Brief, Be Bright and Be Gone". Give it a read!

Making The Most Of Your SE Investments

2011-03-01T10:39:00.001-05:00

Last month I participated in a webcast sponsored by the Sales Management Association about "Making The Most of Your SE Investments". The program featured Sean Cullen from SAP and John Littleton from Cisco plus yours truly - all giving their different perspectives about the efficient running and operating of a modern presales organization. We also had a healthy Q&A session - bearing in mind that most of the audience was sales and operations managers!

Big thanks to Bob Kelly, chairman of the SMA, for allowing me to hotlink straight to the webinar. While you are there check out the rest of the SMA program website.

February Newsletter + Content Scheduled on Tuesday 8th

2011-01-30T18:18:00.000-05:00

The February Edition of the Mastering Technical Sales Edge newsletter will be published on February 8th. This month I'll be looking in detail at two aspects of how to make your presentations better - going back to the series about The Perfect Pitch.

The lead article deals with How to Practice a Presentation/Demo, and the inside page provides some interesting ideas about how to apply the theories of imrov to the craft of an Sales Engineer. You'll learn some intriguing team games and icebreakers for those quarterly team meetings.

My review book is Drive by Dan Pink. It's a fascinating look into what motivates us and why - I found it to be a great read and highly recommend it. You'll probably want to give a copy to your boss and to your compensation analyst!

Handout Happiness and Horrors

2011-01-21T18:37:00.000-05:00

Back in September 2010 I wrote an article about Handout Happiness, which dealt with best practices for hand-outs and that eternal question of “do I hand-out my handouts before or after the presentation?” The topic has been getting some play around the globe. Oliver Adria of ReThink Presentations over in Germany riffed on the slide-ument model of handing out a hard-copy of the slide deck before the presentation – he’s not a fan. (I’d recommend his weekly newsletter – it’s short, sharp and to the point).

Meanwhile – Olivia Mitchell from New Zealand writes a Speaking About Presenting Blog. Also back in the summer of 2010 she published 13 Best Practices for Handouts – many of which are amazingly similar to Oliver’s and mine – proving that handout horrors are global!

I believe that handouts can be a powerful weapon in the arsenal of any SE – particularly when conducting a remote demo or presentation – if only they were used correctly. Check out my article, and Oliver’s and Olivia’s and decide for yourself.

Now On Google Books

2011-01-12T08:17:00.000-05:00

For those of you who have been asking about the electronic availability of the MTS Book - Good News at last. Mastering Technical Sales: The Sales Engineers Handbook is now available at the Google Bookstore. Also - according to my publisher - it is now with Amazon in the process of being Kindle-ized. Stay tuned.

Welcome to 2011

2011-01-02T16:06:00.000-05:00

OK. One of my New Year's Resolutions is to increase my blogging frequency over 2010 - which shouldn't be too difficult. First up for 2011 is the January website update and newsletter. The newsletter will be distributed on Wednesday January 5th due to the holiday in the US.

For a sneak preview of the content I'm featuring an updated list of Sales Engineering New Year Resolutions for 2011- all focusing on your personal Performance, Promotability and income Potential. After five years of Newsletters and Talking Points I'm finally touching on the art and science of Discovery. I reveal the one thing you need to know about Discovery - which is Care's First Law. The January "Ask John" deals with the topic of handling high salesrep turnover and what to do when you are introducing the ninth salesrep to handle an account in six years (hey - maybe the sales manager should actually be doing that?).

All the best for 2011 from Mastering Technical Sales

Newsletter & December Content

2010-12-04T19:00:00.000-05:00

So much for my 2010 New Year resolution of becoming a better blogger. Oh well - there is always 2011. The Mastering Technical Sales Edge Newsletter for December will be distributed on Tuesday December 7th. To get an early view of the content you can visit the MTS website where it is already posted.

The lead article for this month is "So You Really Want To Be A Sales Rep?" which looks at the pluses and minuses of moving across from Pre-Sales to Sales; also known as Going To The Dark Side. There are many things to consider before making the move, or even planning for the move - not least of which is truly assessing your motivation.

I also have a section about "The Overview Presentation - Why It May Be Killing Your Sales". I personally hate overview presentations as they are usually boring, too shallow and in a single customer situations it usually implies that soemone failed to perform adequate discovery.

With the holiday season approaching - Ask John provides my answer to "what are the top 3 books that a presales manager should give their teams for Christmas/Hannukah etc.."

Enjoy the read - and I'm looking for feedback and ideas for 2011 about articles, services and new offering I can provide to you all.

So You Really Want To Be A Pre-Sales Manager?

2010-10-31T09:49:00.000-04:00

Based on the great feedback about last month's pre-sales career article - The Super Senior SE, I decided to continue the theme for November. This month's lead article is some advice to pre-sales engineers who want to go into management, and how they can prepare themselves for the job. It's way more than training - it's about attitude, willingness to learn, and a willingness to give up a little of the things (like technical ability) that got you to where you are right now. It's written from my perspective as a former VP of Pre-sales so enjoy the read.

The November Mastering Technical Sales newletter will be out on Tuesday Nov 2nd - Election Day here in the US. Most of the content is already up on the site.

In particular I updated my Recommended Reading List for the Sales Engineer.

Power Point Presenter Mode

2010-10-16T17:08:00.000-04:00

Every time I give a workshop or a seminar at least half the class is unaware of "Presenter Mode" in PowerPoint. It is a handy-dandy way of getting the inside track on a presentation while the audience just sees your slides. It enables you (see picture) to see:

1- Your Notes
2 - Zoom the size of your notes
4 - The next 4-6 slides in your presentation
5 - The current time, and how long you have been presenting
6 - (of course) a variable window showing the actual slide your audience is seeing.
7 - back/forward and pen options.

How do you do this? Well - it only works when you have an external monitor or projector hooked up to your laptop. Plug in the 2nd monitor and extend your desktop (it is one of the "Graphics Properties") . Then in PowerPoint under the Slide Show tab you select the options as shown below. Press F5 for slide show and ...

MAGIC!

The Super Senior Principal Distinguished Architect Sales Engineer

2010-10-02T14:29:00.000-04:00

How do you become the creme de la creme, the top 5%, one of those SE's that everyone in the company (and the industry) looks up to, admires and respects. This months Talking Point details a conversation I had with an ambitious up-and-coming SE who wanted to know the answer. So from my viewpoint as a former VP of Pre-sales, I told him what I would do and what I would look for.

The executive summary is to be active instead of passive, network ferociously, volunteer for stuff and close big deals. Oh - and find yourself a mentor or two. It is more than just being a very very good SE and executing on the core skills, it becomes more about what you give back to the rest of the SE community and the company. Enjoy the read.

Practice.

2010-09-27T19:54:00.000-04:00

"If you don't practice - someone else will!"

"You always perform at the level you practice"

I just finished watching a remote (webcast) demo of a "revolutionary new software product" that will "change the way companies do business". Maybe it will - but it felt like it was the very first time the SE had ever seen the product. Nothing worked as it was supposed to and the demo gave a very poor first impression. What happened? The SE made a "minor upgrade" to the software a few days ago, checked a couple of basic functions - and never practiced his demo script.

This is elementary SE 101 best practices - so why am I blogging about it? BECAUSE IT IS NOT UNCOMMON. Are we getting lazy? Are we getting crunched for time? What possible excuse can there be for not practicing? I have to add that the salesperson ad-libbed his introduction and forgot to cover one of their key business issues.

Practice. That's why there are so many quotes about it!

Let Go Of Perfection

2010-09-15T04:27:00.000-04:00

Last week I was helping a friend prepare a speech he was going to be making at a school board meeting. A little different from a classic sales call - but he wanted to persuade the board to make a particular decision.

He had a great speech outlined with a terrific structure. It was clear, concise and persuasive. But he wasn't happy. Why? Because he was wedded to perfection. I told him to let go, which may seem like strange advice - but here is my reasoning...

When I put together a new presentation, I work hard to come up with the exact words and phrases to get my points across. And so I get stuck to these specific words. If I don't use those exact words it feels like a failure. Yet during the presentation, it's far better not to worry about finding the perfect words and instead be natural and focus on your audience. As long as you have rehearsed , you'll be able to communicate your points clearly even if you don't use the "perfect" words. Because the audience never knew what your perfect words were anyway.

How Do I Get Promoted?

2010-09-12T19:11:00.000-04:00

The September newsletter generated a lot of feedback, especially the Ask John section about "How Do I Get Promoted (at a small company)?"

It's made me realize that I should spend some time for the remainder of the year looking at career development as it relates to the role of the Sales Engineer.

The lead article in September was The Post Sales Puzzle, which examines just why Pre-Sales gets dragged into Post-Sales activity. The soft skills piece looks at Handout Happiness, a much neglected tool of the SE.

So outside of the standard HR definitions, what really makes the difference between a staff, senior and principal Sales Engineer ?

Five Pieces of Bad Power Point Advice

2010-08-06T17:33:00.001-04:00

Courtesy of Jon Thomas

1.That font is too big.

2.I realize this graph is confusing. How about we make it so small and have it appear and disappear so quickly that the audience only gets a glimpse of it.

3.I know the presentation looks better with images and less text, but I need my bullet points to remember what I’m talking about.

4.Don’t worry about the number of slides. If I can’t get to them all, I’ll just skip the last few.

5.Make sure my logo, website, and phone number is on every slide.

Do You Feel Like A Job Description With Legs?

2010-07-31T20:30:00.000-04:00

One of the great things about being a Sales Engineer is that you have considerable flexibility in how you perform your job. Unfortunately it takes many SE's a long, long time to come to that conclusion. Ultimately it comes down to are you building up a career or waorking at a job.

In Great Work Great Career, Stephen Covey and Jennifer Colosimo work on the premise that you will spend much of your life and your energy on your career, so doesn't it make sense eo envision and design a great career for yourself? This book, and in particular the many stories it contains, will not give you an immediate flash of blinding insight. However, it will cause you to sit down and put a little more thought into the design of your career and how you can personalize it.

As an SE there are many paths available to you. You can progress up the management path, the technical path, move across into product management and marketing, and even cross over to the dark side and carry a quota as a salesperson. If you work for a large enough company you can seek out rotational assignments in other departments, other divisions and other companies - but you do need a plan. If you don't know where you are going, you'll never know when you arrive.

Also see The Complete Recommended Reading List for the SE

July Newsletter

2010-07-05T11:08:00.002-04:00

Hullo all - the July Mastering Technical Sales Edge newsletter will be published on Wednesday July 7th because of the US July 4th holiday. This month features:

The lead article is the conclusion to "How Many Sales Engineers Does It Take To Sell A Solution?". In Part II I look at some possible solutions and best practices to reduce the total number of sales and presales people involved in getting a deal done. There are also a few controversial ideas in there about the long-term practicality of overlay positions.

The second article is "PowerPoint Makes Us Stupid" - which briefly lays out the case for why we need to radically change the layout and design of our PowerPoint slides. Next month I'll show you how to include more images and visuals in your decks so they are more memorable, but still business appropriate.

The "Ask John" question is from a reader whose company is pushing the SE team to leave PowerPoint behind and embrace the whiteboard. He wants to know how to get started. I'm now beginning to believe that the second half of 2010 will become the year of the White Board and over the summer I'll gather a collection of best practices and create a new page on the website just for WhiteBoarding.

Along that theme of White Boarding, the Final Word tells you about some neat software that lets you capture professional looking images of a whiteboard drawing.

June MTS Content Posted

2010-06-06T16:22:00.005-04:00

The June Mastering Technical Sales Newsletter will be published on June 8th. This month's lead article is "How Many Sales Engineers Does It Take To Sell A Solution?" Part I. In this first part I look at the typical history of a vendor (software/hardware/services) as it grows from a start-up in a multi-channel, multi-solution company. It's a "How Did We Get To This Point?" lesson.

The July conclusion will examine the potential solutions to reducing the size and complexity of both the sales and pre-sales organization.

The personal skills article this month is about "Pricing and the Sales Engineer". Although SE's shouldn't talk very much about pricing (if at all), there is plenty they should understand.

How Many Sales Engineers Does It Take...

2010-05-11T07:16:00.003-04:00

"How many sales engineers does it take to sell a solution?"

This seems to be a question that many sales and sales operations leaders are asking pre-sales leaders this year. For the middle to larger sized companies in software, hardware, services and engineering appliances the days of having a single SE working with a single salesrep on a deal have passed us by. The portfolios have now become so broad and complex that once you get past the basic discovery stage, no single SE can reasonably cover every single product/solution. This plays havoc with conventional coverage models, 1:1 or 3:2 ratios, geographically-based SE's and so on ...

It is fast becoming the norm that a complex deal may involve a half-dozen SE's - all with their own area of expertise (especially for a POC or complicated integration demo). This usually brings about thoughts of greater cross-training, better enablement and eventually re-organization of the pre-sales team; because something must be wrong if this many people are needed to sell the solution! So the question becomes - is this a fact of life as organizations grow and expand, or are there actions a pre-sales (and sales) leader can take to head off this issue? Of course - the dirty secret is that the same thing happens on the sales side when you introduce three levels of sales management, legal, support, services, a partner and several sales overlays to the process.

This is leading up to the June Talking Point which will be cover the "how many SE's does it take?" question. Probably a multi-part series. And a little controversial.

2010-05-08T15:08:00.003-04:00

50% of presales engineers who go through my workshops admit that they have been told they speak and present too quickly. It’s very rare ( less than 5%) that people are consistently told to speed up. The two primary reasons for being a motor mouth are firstly too much content and secondly a mixture of nerves and excitement. Both of which you have under your control.

The May Talking Point from Mastering Technical Sales is all about speaking too quickly, and gives you some real life techniques you can use to calm down and slow down your presentations. Just remember that the most comfortable listening speed for an audience is around 150 to 160 Words Per Minute – which is about half the average reading speed of an adult. By speaking too quickly you both lose your audience as it is hard work to listen to a fast speaker and you lose the focus of your message as you are obviously trying to cover way too much material in a set time.

Read the full Talking Point here

The Best Time Of Day For A Sales Call?

2010-05-04T17:38:00.003-04:00

Now there's a question that had been debated throughout the ages. This isn't about cold calling, but about what time of day, and even which day to choose, for a sales call with the customer. it may or may not include a demo or presentation.

That's the subject of this month's Ask John question. The executive summary of the response is make it first thing in the morning, or over lunch (on the basis that the best sales call of all is usually when your laptop stays in the car). As a postscript to the answer, I should also add that Tuesday-thursday seem better than Monday or Friday.

Thoughts?

The Back Of The Napkin

2010-05-02T16:45:00.002-04:00

In my quest to dramatically increase the usage of Whiteboards and relegate Power Point into the hole in the ground it truly deserves - I've now discovered a book which explains how to accomplish that amazing feat. "The Back Of The Napkin" by Dan Roam explains how to use pictures to solve problems (which is mildly interesting) and sell your ideas (which is highly relevent to the Sales Engineering profession. The first four chapters explain how to use a whiteboard/napkin/sheet of paper even if you have the handwriting of a doctor, while the final two chapters explain how to get your ideas across in a simple yet effective manner.

Absolutely worth the $16 it costs to buy this on Amazon - and a big thanks to reader Bill Weinberg for suggesting this as SE Book Of The Month.

2010-04-13T07:35:00.003-04:00

I've often wondering why certain things (facts, songs, people..) got "stuck" in my brain, and others didn't. Surely if there was a way to harness that information in a sales situation it would give you a major competitive advantage. Made To Stick by the Heath Brothers attempts, and for the most part, succeeds in explaining the stickiness of ideas.

I've long been a fan of doing something different to make my product and services stand out and be memorable. After reading this book I can now put a little science behind the differentiation. The book isn't directed at salespeople, in fact it's really directed at anyone who needs to communicate more effectively - which would be about 99.9% of the population. I'm adding this book to my Recommended Reading List For The Sales Engineer as its probably going to be the best $20 you spend on yourself this year.

New April Content

2010-04-08T15:59:00.003-04:00

The new content for April has been posted. There is an interesting Q&A about handling Questions and Answers during a presentation and demo. This is based on a session I participated in last year during a guest appearance at an MBA Technology class. We also take a look at Why Sitting Down Is Bad - which encourages Sales Engineers to get up from behind their laptop and move around to establish control of the room.

Enjoy the reading - and I'll blog later about an interesting book I highlight in this month's newsletter.

Telling Stories

2010-03-22T17:31:00.006-04:00

Last night my wife and I went to a Chris Botti concert. Besides being an outstanding jazz musician and trumpet player, I also discovered that Chris is an outstanding teller of stories. Although his music was enough to engage the audience for a full two hours, he kept people totally riveted in their seats by providing context and background to his pieces.

Think about it - most concerts you go to the performers will say something like "here's a new song from our latest album, titled <....>, we hope you like it". Chris provided an entertaining story about the song. His finale featured a Frank Sinatra tune, but he wrapped it in a story about how he dropped out of college his senior year for the opportunity to play with Sinatra for two weeks as his first professional musical gig. He segued into a story where he asked all the young musicians in the audience to stand up and then wrapped that back into how his parents felt when he quit school. Then and only then did he play.

Telling stories is important. As a PreSales Engineer it is one of the most important things you can do during the sales cycle to boost your credibility and reduce the perceived risk of the customer. It also helps to make your message "stick". Practice your stories, share them with your colleagues and personalize them - it's way better than reciting speeds and feeds!

New March Content

2010-02-28T19:29:00.003-05:00

The March edition of the MTS Edge will be going out on Tuesday. To get an early view of the main content you can read about Apologies and What Goes On The Last Slide?

There seems to be some unofficial rule of speaking that you should never apologize (unless you are a public figure who has been "caught"). I'm not in agreement that its 100% correct, but I do know that we, as Sales Engineers, apologize far too often when we we shouldn't. This one-sheet deals with the pros and cons of Apologizing - and maybe I should say "Sorry" right now that it is written from a US/European point of view!

What Goes On The Last Slide looks at how we end our presentations or demos. We put a lot of thought into the start, but rarely wrap the end back around to the beginning to gain closure on a topic. Read on to see why ending with a "Thank You" or a "Q&A" slide is a really bad idea. See what works instead.

Supporting Partners

2010-02-09T19:39:00.005-05:00

One of the more interesting challenges facing small to midsize companies is how to provide technical (pre-sales) support and help to the partner community. Unless you are extremely channel-centric, partner support is usually conducted on an ad-hoc basis.

This is because, due to organizational size, you cannot afford to dedicate an SE to the partners unless there is real revenue at stake. partners can go to public classes to learn your product or services - but who teaches them how to 'sell" it? A couple of studies conducted by smaller ($50-250M) software companies found that nearly 15% of their SE time was being directed towards partner activities. That means that once you pass the point of six SE's, you should consider dedicating one of them to the channel.

But can you really afford to do that? Well - if you have anyone on the sales side who cares (and is therefore paid on) partner sell or pull-throughs they are incented to absorb as much "free" SE support as they can. In fact - it pays to have one or more partner SE's to protect the time and integrity of the rest of the SE team.

Risk And the Sales Engineer

2010-02-01T16:55:00.003-05:00

RISK!

So technical validation, demos, presentations, answering RFPs, trials, evaluations and Proof of Concepts are all important parts of the sales process. But let's lift it up a little higher and examine what the real role of the Master Sales Engineer is in the Buying Process. I'd submit that it is all abour reducing risk - from the customers viewpoint. We are always facing competitive risk, but we also face "do nothing" risk and "alternate use of capital" risk. So our job is to reduce the risk of our solution, while raising the risk of all the alternatives.

So how does the Master SE mitigate risk and increase the winrate? Read February's MTS Talking Point about Risk And The Sales Engineer. (pdf)

More On Blackberry Sales Etiquette

2010-01-11T18:16:00.002-05:00

Heard from Steve, an old SE acquaintance, yesterday about the Blackberry thing. He tells the story about walking into the office of a mid-level Wall Street executive for a meeting in early December. The exec places his Black Berry on the desk and says "you have five minutes to convince me to listen for twenty-five more minutes - otherwise I'll leave the room and you can just present to my team".

Steve took it as a challenge, stopped his rep from still opening with a form of corporate overview, and got the exec's attention. He feels the whole email/attention disorder thing can be used to your advantage if you are brief and to the point. I wholeheartedly agree, and believe this is an example of the law of unintended consequences.

Step Away From That BlackBerry

2010-01-03T17:59:00.003-05:00

Have you ever found yourself part-way through a presentation or a demo; looked out to interact with your audience; and found some of them heads-down reading email on their laptop or mobile device? It is becoming an extremely common situation nowadays, both for internal meetings and sadly for external sales calls.

How do you handle this kind of situation? Do you call out he offender? What if he/she is the sponsoring executive for your deal? What if it is your boss? What can you do before and during the meeting to lessen the chances of your audience straying?

That is the subject of this months Mastering Technical Sales Talking Point , being published this Wednesday Jan 6th. Stay tuned - and I'd love to hear your ideas, comments and feedback on in-meeting BlackBerry usage.

New Years Resolutions For The Sales Engineer

2009-12-31T10:05:00.002-05:00

Every year I publish a list of New Year's Resolutions for the Pre-Sales Engineer. Since one of my resolutions for 2010 is to use this blog way more than I did in 2009 I figured I would get an early start. So .. here for your enjoyment .. is a list of do's and don'ts for 2010.

New Years Resolutions For The Pre-Sales Engineer

The Bull Is Back

2009-12-10T16:48:00.002-05:00

An example of branding and what happens when you mess with it.

Overheard at the local Starbucks this morning - two financial advisors from Merrill Lynch, bouncing up and down like six year olds (or maybe as if the Dow was up 500pts). The reason?

After Bank of America "rescued" Merrill they decided to put the ML bull out to pasture as part of a cultural remake. The most recognized icon in US finance was being killed. ML brokers whine, complain and bitch for months (so maybe they are six year olds). This week, BofA management relents and allows the brokers to place the bull on the back of their business cards.

The morale - even though what got got you here won't get you there, what got you here will stop you being dragged back to the there you were before. Crystal clear.

Really - it's protect the brand. So in your personal quest to be the best possible SE, which usually means learning new technologies and new markets - still keep up some of the old skills for a while to act as a bridge. Just in case.

You Know You're in Pre-Sales When ..

2009-12-07T15:49:00.003-05:00

Someone gave me the idea to use this at the end of a recent speech, so .. with apologies to David Letterman - here are the Top Ten Reasons You Know You're in Pre-sales When ..

10: Everyone in the room waits for you to nod your head after the sales rep finishes speaking.

9: You have more email addresses than pairs of shoes.

8: The custom demo you worked on all week wasn’t the product the customer was expecting to see.

7: You spend more time changing the settings on your laptop than using it.

6: The only people who call you after 3pm on a Friday are sales reps who need something urgently by 9am on Monday.

5: Every deal you are working on is going to be HUGE!! I promise!!

4: Your sales rep thinks “RFP” means Really Fast Paperwork

3: You have to use the showers in the customer’s gym to freshen up before that 9am presentation of the POC results.

2: You have more servers in your basement than your customer has in their data center.

1: Not a single deal will be signed in 2010 without the involvement and expertise of everyone in the Pre-Sales Engineering Team!

Next MTS Newsletter

2009-11-29T20:18:00.003-05:00

The next MTS Newsletter will be posted on Tuesday December 8th.

I will be featuring a Talking Point about "Working With the Difficult Sales Rep" , an article about male-to-female and female-to-male presentations and a fun Top Ten List : "You Know You're In Pre-Sales When .."

November Updates

2009-11-01T16:19:00.003-05:00

The November content is now available. The website has been updated and the newsletter will be published on Tuesday (11/3) morning. I will be travelling this week in Europe and running a Perfect Pitch workshop in Amsterdam.

For November, the main Talking Point article is Activity Tracking for Pre-Sales Engineers. I make the case that time tracking is a useful tool, but only if sales and pre-sales leadership know how to use that tool. It should be used for driving changes inside and outside of pre-sales, not as a club to beat people with. Reminds me of a boss I used to have, who practiced “kiss up, kick down” leadership. I also (re)introduce a change methodology known as SCAMPER! If you are looking at a complex internal process or infrastructure which needs updating – this could be a resource for you to use.

Ask John covers what to do with a sales rep who constantly interrupts your demo with “show them this, show them that, why don’t you bring up that screen …”.

Safe travels, safe demo and much discovery!

Time Tracking For Sales Engineers

2009-10-26T20:51:00.001-04:00

I overheard a lively conversation between a group of Sales Engineers and their manager last week. The topic wasn’t compensation, bad salesreps, lousy technical support, endless RFPs or any of the usual suspects. The conversation was about the requirement that they track their time and enter it into a CRM system by activity.

“Why do I have to record my time? It’s like Big Brother watching over me. Don’t you trust me to do my job?”

The manager immediately became very defensive, and replied “it’s now a job requirement. You better get used to it.”

The conversation kept going for a few minutes more without a satisfactory conclusion. It occurred to me that it would be a great Talking Point article for November. Why is it so important that the SE organization tracks its time when Sales doesn’t? So stay tuned.

The Trade Show Tango

2009-10-10T11:15:00.002-04:00

OK – so how many of you really enjoy staffing the booth at a trade show? Once you have been in a pre-sales for a few years it feels more like a punishment than a reward, even if you are sent to some exotic location. If you are sent to run a trade show booth for day or two, how do you maximize the return on investment for both your company and your career? Here are some personal best practices for the Sales Engineer to get the most out of the Trade Show Tango.

One addition to this list of best practices is to take notes on every “A” and “B” prospect you meet. Don’t rely on your memory to make notes afterwards, take them on the spot so you can pass them on to the rep or marketing department.

31 Tips For Webcast Best Practices

2009-10-06T17:21:00.004-04:00

The Mastering Technical Sales site has been updated with new October content. Of special interest is a one-pager which lists 31 actionable tips to make your remote demos more watchable and to compete more effectively against people doing their email while you are presenting. If you want to learn how having a photo of a group of people on your desk, and your photo on the title slide can make a difference – read on!

This month's "Ask John" deals with the difficult salesrep. You know the one who always does his/her email at the book of the room as you do your "technical stuff". How do you get the rep to pay attention and help you to perform at your best?

Certification for the Pre-Sales Engineer

2009-09-21T16:55:00.003-04:00

There have been a few questions about certification programs for Sales Engineers bouncing around the LinkedIn discussion boards recently. I started wondering about whether it would be practical to have a national, or even global, certification program for SE’s.

Over the years I have designed, in full or in part, at least a half-dozen company-specific programs, but never gave much thought to the applicability of the programs outside my company, or whether there would even be any value to the certification. We could set up SCAPE – the Society of Certified American Presales Engineers, and then add international chapters! I challenge you to come up with some other acronym…

Musings aside, there are many common skills required of the pre-sales engineer – whether they be in software, hardware, services, finance or heavy industry. The most basic skill is Discovery – understanding exactly what your prospect needs, why they need it, and then figuring out why you are uniquely qualified to solve that business need. Next you need to place that skill in the setting of some sales methodology such as Solution Selling. There are Presentation and Demonstration skills – in various flavors such as Whiteboard, PowerPoint, Story Telling, Short Demo, Long Demo, Web-Based Demo, Competitive Lock-Out. You have precursors like responding to RFIs and RFPs. Potentially handling Trials, Proofs of Concept and Evaluations. Business skills around Finance, ROI, Asset Management and Vertical-specific Subject Matter Expertise. Throw in some optional classes around “handling the salesrep”, “Global accounts”, “buyer psychology”.

You’ll notice we haven’t even touched the technology of your product/service/solution yet.

This is why being a Pre-Sales Engineer can be the greatest job in the world.

POC Provisioning & Demo Delivery

2009-09-06T23:02:00.003-04:00

A few months ago I was working on a project looking at how to completely reconfigure the entire demo creation, setup and distribution capabilities of a large software company. While doing some research I came across a SaaS solution from start-up company IT Structures.

They effectively allow you to instantly provision Proof-Of-Concepts and deliver demos with just a few set-up clicks. When I think of all the frustrating hours SE's spend doing exactly those tasks I realized these guys were onto something. If your company is struggling with the infrastructure around the distribution of demos both internally and to customers/partners, or with provisioning a POC environment, setting up standardized training environments I'd encourage you to investigate their solution - it may be a real time and money saver for you.

The Dash To Demo

2009-08-05T12:21:00.002-04:00

After a lot of feedback from my readers about creating a special page for advice about demos I decided the customer is always right. So ..

The art of the demo and the presentation is key to the success of a Sales Engineer. Yet is is not completely an art - there is a considerable amount of science involved in making The Perfect Pitch. Here is a collection of tips, techniques, checklists and other resources designed to help you become a Demo God. You can obtain even more detail from the book or from our classes and workshops.

SLAM SELLING !!

2009-07-28T20:05:00.002-04:00

After spending so many days every year training pre-sales engineers and salesreps how they can successfully "Solution Sell" I decided it was time to have a little fun with the subject. So I put together a number of Worst Practices - things no self-respecting rep or SE would ever do - and titled it SLAM SELLING. It's the sales methodology for product pushers.

Tired of having to go through a nine month sales cycle for that million dollar deal?

Fed up with cumbersome and bureaucratic sales methodologies?

Exasperated because solutions are for chemists?

Read more here.

Money. Money, Money

2009-07-08T19:59:00.004-04:00

Makes the world go round. The topic of Pre-Sales Engineering Compensation Plans is always an interesting one.

If only most companies would put half the effort and thought into the Pre-Sales Engineering compensation plan that they put into the sales plan we'd all be better off and motivated.

Here are some best practices, insider tips and lessons learnt over the past twenty years through my experiences of designing, implementing and then defending Pre-Sales Engineering compensation plans. Even if you are an individual contributor at some massive software or hardware company it is still worthwhile to understand the behavior your plan is trying to incent, and if you are aligned with the expected behavior of the salesforce.

Complexification

2009-07-07T20:42:00.002-04:00

Complexification: If it isn't a word then it should be. I'd define it as the natural tendency of technical pre-sales engineers to complicate what should be a simple topic. Aided and abetted by product marketing it is the questionable talent to transform a simple solution into a complex web of products, features and functions.

Symptoms are excessive use of bullet-points to highlight every possible capability, embedded and almost illegible screenshots, liberally sprinkled with polysyllabic explanations expounding upon flexibility, scalability and expandability. Complexification also causes three-minute answers to a simple question that just needed a Yes or a No.

If you or one of your colleagues has this disease the cure is simple.

1. Remember you are not paid by the spoken or written word - but by the deal.
2. Remember the job is to sell the customer, not educate him on how to use your solution.
3. Throw away any marketing slide with a colorful screenshot
4. Throw away any marketing slide with a bullet list of features
5. Use the whiteboard
6. Try answering questions with a Yes or a No first.

Repeat as necessary

What vs Why?

2009-06-11T19:47:00.005-04:00

Why use What?

We are all taught that the best questions in the discovery process are open-ended questions which can kick-start a conversation. They are way better than closed-ended questions which elicit a "yes" or a "no". Closed questions have their place at the start and end of conversations, but open-ended questions are the way to go.

Almost every sales methodology teaches the utility of "Who, What, Where, When, Why and How?" So is one of them better than another? Today we'll look at Why vs What. Now maybe it is my classic British education, but I find What to be a far more open and smoother conversational pivot than Why? Using Why always seemed to be more confrontational and questioning than using a What? Take a second to think about it and examine these two variations.

1. Why do you think that?

2. What do you think about that?

I prefer option #1, as do most people in my unofficial poll. In fact, to borrow a line from Scott Eblin, the only bad what question is "What in the hell were you thinking?"

So the lesson here, especially if you are one of those people who mentally prepare their questions beforehand, is to prefer the What over the Why when you are trying to build a relationship in the initial phases of the sales cycle.

The Technical Win

2009-05-31T19:14:00.004-04:00

Has the Technical Win become redundant in the modern world of Solution Selling? Ask any group of Sales Engineers to define their job, and the phrase “we’re responsible for winning the technical sale” will be heard. Many SE organizations measure and publish their Technical Win Rate for RFPs, Proof of Concepts and Trial/Evaluations. This month I’ll examine the Technical Win (TW) and determine if it is real, if you should care, and what the metric tells you.

The concept of the TW has always bothered me, as no-one actually gets paid for a TW. All that matters is the full business win which involves th etransfer of money from the customer to your company and eventually to you. The TW rate is usually at least 20-30 % points higher than the Business Win (BW) rate - so publishing the TW rate is equivalent to telling sales that they stink at their job. There is a use for the TW, but only if carefully measured and then judiciously applied in the field.

For more read the fullt Talking Point : The Technical Win : A Pointless Metric?

Training Wheels For Politicians

2009-05-15T16:44:00.003-04:00

Over in the UK there is a growing scandal about the outrageous expenses claims submitted by the MPs (Members of Parliament). These claims have been made public and are infuriating the British public.

On the practical side of the equation it is worth noting that David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary (Hilary Clinton’s equivalent) , has received over £7,000 (Nearly $11,000) worth of presentation training since June 2007. Interesting that a career politician felt it necessary to obtain these skills – you would think they were par for the course. The debate has been going on with regard to whether he should have had these skills before the Prime Minister appointed him to the position - as a requirement of the job. The more balanced view is that everyone has the “right” to receive on-the-job training to make them more effective and more efficient. In fact that balance is really between your current skills and your potential to do your job (and possibly your boss’s) better.

So then circling back to your job as a Sales Engineer – have you had that discussion with your boss about the training and development you need over the next 12-18 months? Even with tight budgets and travel restrictions your company needs to invest in you as much as you invest in it.

Have that conversation today.

Averages and Superstars

2009-05-11T17:22:00.004-04:00

Every business is looking for efficiency gains and improvements in productivity. Your company is no different. So how can you, as a Sales Engineer, contribute towards those efficiency gains?

Firstly, some background on labor efficiency. As a rule, the more complex the job the greater possibility there is for a larger variance between the average and the superstars. For example, in manual labor, a superstar may be able to carry 25-30% more bags during a day, unload a truck that much faster, pick grapes etc.. In sales, especially in this economy, many reps will end up the year at 60-75%, a few stars will finish the year at 250-300% or more.

Simply being able to conduct one more presentation, demonstration or sales call a week will put you in the minor productivity gain arena – so how can you leverage your Mastering Technical Sales skills to fully maximize your productivity. Here are a few ideas:

1. It’s not just you. By building a new demo, sharing competitive data in a new way and generating Pre-sales ready messaging you can make everyone more efficient. A 10% gain applied to, say 50 people in your company, results in an overall 500% gain based on your hours.

2. Look back on all the sale calls you have participated in over the past six months. How many of those have required “re-do’s” when you needed to set up another call to cover some technical or business point that was omitted? How often do you need a “recovery” call because you missed something in discovery? How many pointless RFPs or POCs have you completed, knowing that you weren’t going to ever get the business. THOSE are the sales activities that you need to fix – because that is where you can claim time back from the demo gods, and accelerate the sales cycle because you execute perfectly.

Think about it.

He Said What ? - and other May content

2009-05-04T13:11:00.002-04:00

The MTS website has now been updated with new content for May. We’ve added :

The Three-Hour Demo : how to shorten a long, boring demo.

The MTS Reading List : Suggested Reading for the Sales Engineer who wants to Master Technical Sales.

He Said What? – This month’s “Ask John” features that eternal question of how and when to correct the sales rep when they say something horribly, horribly wrong.

And a reminder to sign up for the Monthly Newsletter on our main Web Page.

Sales Call Debriefs

2009-04-15T17:59:00.002-04:00

Nothing, absolutely nothing, used to upset me more than a salesrep who would rush out of a sales call and refuse to take the time to debrief. "It went great, great job. Thanks! You were great..".

Aside from not really advancing the sales opportunity along - how does that kind of feedback help you to improve as a Sales Engineer? It doesn't! Even when reps would sit down with you to debrief it was often a haphazard affair without much structure for personal feedback. So after a while I came up with the T3-B3-N3 system. It's very, very simple. Try this:

"What were the Top 3 things I said or did that you really liked and I should do again? What were the Bottom 3 things I said or did that I should never do again? And what are the Next 3 things I should consider in a similar situation that I didn't do this time?"

Be prepared - you may not always like what you hear, but it is great feedback. Once you get this feedback you need to act upon it, and not let it fall upon deaf ears. You'll also find that about 25% of reps will reciprocate and ask you the same question in reverse.

So give it a try : T3-B3-N3!!

New April Content

2009-04-06T09:29:00.002-04:00

New content has been posted on the Mastering Technical Sales website for April. As a reminder, the electronic newsletter is released on the first Tuesday of the month (i.e tomorrow April 7th).

This month the theme is "The Power Of Three's". Over the past three weeks I have had three different articles pass through my inbox about the powerful use of three's or thirds. One dealt with framing in visuals, the second with messaging and the third with words and phrases. So I decided to put them all together into a summarized single document - in three sections of course.

The usage of triplets is nothing new, as in "blood, sweat and tears" , "wine, women and song" etc. I was just amazed by how prominent the concept is within everyday marketing.

Our one-sheet primer for April is Eye Contact - The Eyes Have It! The eyes are called the Window into the Soul for a good reason. If you fail to make eye contact with your audience (from 1 to 5,000) you will have a very tough time connecting and getting your message across. It is an essential skill for any Sales Engineer to master - for both their business and personal life.

Enjoy the piece. And should you have missed the early 2009 Talking Point about Selling In A Down Economy then make sure you download that and read it too.

My Sales Manager Hates Account Plans!!

2009-04-04T17:31:00.004-04:00

The April "Ask John" column deals with

I am a Pre-Sales Engineering manager with a difficult situation. Our company is really embracing Solution Selling, yet my Sales Manager partner is violently opposed to any kind of formal strategic account planning - either verbal or documented. this makes life very hard for my dedicated team of SE's. How can I get him to adopt this proactive and sensible practice?

Aside from conducting some psychoanalysis I provide three strategies for dealing with this very common situation. Read the full response here

I am amazed by how often this happens. Given the situation with the Down Economy, and almost every company, whether software, hardware or services trying sell Solutions instead of Products - salesreps still refuse to conduct any kind of formal planning. And their management chain allows this to happen.

If the rep was crushing his number at way over 100% I could possibly live with it - more than likely he is doing some form of innate informal planning anyway. But for folks at 25% , give me a break and get with the plan.

Bullets

2009-03-31T23:51:00.002-04:00

I was flying out to California today - minding my own business on the plane. Then the two folks next to me crack open their laptops and start working on a presentation. Curiousity being a natural human habit, I kept sneaking a peek at their efforts.

Finally the guy (VP of Sales for a SAP VAR) challenges me and says "so what do you think?".

Never one to be a shrinking violet I responded with "it looks really boring and you have wayyy too many bullets". His companion smiled and then she gave me a quick smile.

"How would you do it?" she asks

So I tell her. We cut and paste the eight bullet points on each slide into the notes. We insert a couple of appropriate visuals and include a small amount of text relating to the two most important points on each slide. Voila. It's cleaner - and even the sales guy nods in approval.

So Marcus and Heidi - if you are out there - let me know how the big presentation goes today in Palo Alto.

Hope Floats

2009-03-15T16:13:00.002-04:00

We are in the business of selling hope!

So said a relatively well-known politician speaking to a collection of business-finance-economics students at a local college last week. I'm not sure how to categorize my initial reaction - except that i resisted the impulse to hurl my shoes at him. Yet after a few minutes I thought .. "well, yeah!". It's really a classic case of current state (misery), desired state (happyness and security) with hope as the bridge to get you there.

Of course, when you look at the bridge of hope in more detail ..

My point is that using good ol' Solution Selling terminology - we are in pain. Some of us have latent pain, most have real pain, and a distinct few have the vision as to how they may overcome their pain. So Selling In a Down Economy does need to focus on economics, tangible ROI, extensive differentiation - but don't forget to throw in that little shining nugget of hope.

March Content

2009-03-04T07:17:00.006-05:00

The March updates to Mastering Technical Sales were published over the weekend. You will note that I am doing a lousy job of updating the MTS Blog. So March will be better!

New content includes

The Stress-Free Demo

BLUF - Bottom Line Up Front

Ask John - Rewards with no cash.

Last month's talking point Selling In A Down Economy is still generating a lot of interest and is the most downloaded file from the site this year.

Over the course of March I'm going to be updating the Leadership section, as well as working on a project I'm calling S3e - Solution Selling for Sales Engineers.

Stay tuned.

New February Material

2009-02-04T20:32:00.002-05:00

The MTS Website was updated over the weekend with some new material.

Selling In A Down Economy : A guide for Sales Engineers to make the most of the current economic state, featuring six strategies for success.

Customer Stories: "Tell Me A Story" : We all know customer stories are important, but how do you go about informally collecting them in a sales organization, and how should they be structured?

Follow The Money : A handy-dandy one-pager which lists all the really useful sources for gathering key business initiatives and financial metrics for publicly traded companies.

Enjoy - and as always I would be interested in your thoughts and feedback.

First Or Last ?

2009-01-31T12:19:00.008-05:00

You are involved in a four-vendor bakeoff. You have the opportunity to choose whether you present first, last or in the middle - what do you choose?

In the absence of any other data, I always say "go first". Why? Here is my logic. For even more details visit the MTS Website.

Now let me walk you through my reasoning. Firstly I look at the experiences and habits of other very successful sales organizations. The example that comes to mind is Siebel Systems in the late 1990’s – no matter what the situation was, Siebel always found a way to go last. There were often suspicious circumstances surrounding their request due to passing away of some distant relative, travel plans or vacations. However, better than 80% of the time the Siebel sales force went last to show their stuff. This pattern was echoed by Oracle and Sybase in their hey-days. My friends in the consulting and media/advertising business also tell me that they always prefer to go last.

Secondly is the matter of education versus selling. I have often found that the first vendor is often placed in the position of having to educate some of the people in the room about everything, ranging from the general marketplace to specific product functionality. Although that may appear as consultative selling, it detracts from your overall message as it can make your solution hard to use or understand. On the other hand, you can make the point that you get to set the stage and drop competitive landmines for the following three vendors without having to defuse any yourself. Should you have an extremely strong product and are confident of your superiority then going first is the place to be. It allows you to cover off the checklist and agenda items requested by the client, and then add in a few extra credit items of your own. When going first, work with your inside coach to make sure that some general literature is made available to everyone before to mitigate the educational impact discussed previously.

The third point is differentiation. Going last as vendor 4 of 4 means that you need to shake things up and present a little differently. I like the image of Mental Velcro. Can you tune your session to such a degree that it just sticks in the customer’s mind? Proceeding with the standard corporate overview, followed by this is what we know, this is how we’ll fix it, here is the product/solution/services , here are the financials and this is why we are different and unique is NOT going to make you different and unique. So going last will allow you to make points that the other three vendors cannot immediately rebut, plus your pitch, if sufficiently different yet still laser-focused on solving their business problem, will remain in their brains as the selection committee sits down to rank the four performers.

Finally, unless there are exceptional circumstances around timing, customer attendance or your own team’s availability, I have yet to come up with a defensible position as to why you should go in the middle. Good selling!

Fixing The Garage Doors

2009-01-27T21:00:00.001-05:00

Last week one of the large springs on my garage door broke – resulting in much wailing and grinding of metal as the one remaining spring took up the load to lopsidedly raise and lower the door. I know from previous experience that (a) I have to replace both springs and (b) it is a much easier job to do with help. Replacing the door springs single-handedly is about a 90 minute job, replacing them with my son’s assistance would be a 15 minute job. Swallowing my male pride I asked for help and everything went smoothly – plus now my son knows how to replace a garage door spring (or how much to reasonably pay someone else to do it for him).

The moral here – mentoring can help both sides of the relationship, AND, sometime admitting you really need help of any kind can make you stronger, wiser and save you time in the long run. Think about that the time you are gamely struggling through a RFP, a new demo or a troublesome installation.

Tough Talk For Hard Times

2009-01-21T22:22:00.002-05:00

Thomas Hoffman's cover story in the Jan 19th edition of Computerworld is subtitled "Nine Ways To Get More Out Of Software Vendors in 2009".

Now, I'm all for customers driving a fair and reasonable bargain and always asking for a little more. Indeed, in these hard times I am all for the customer and the software supplier to renogiate a contract if both sides get something out of it. Yet this article takes us back twenty years to when a vendor was exactly that - a vendor. No thoughts of partnership, trusted advisor or strategic supplier - just a miserable old vendor. It is a very one-sided view of the relationship with nothing in there for the vendor, except, eventually, some revenue. I thought we had gotten past that by now.

Nortel and Better Days

2009-01-20T16:36:00.000-05:00

Nortel filing for bankruptcy really brings closure to the dot-com era for me. Back in 1999 I worked for Clarify – a growing CRM company. Nortel acquired them for what effectively amounted to $5bn (and two years later sold the remnants to Amdocs for $200m). With the screaming stock price in 2000 I have no complaints and many of the material things I have today were bought with NT stock.

Somehow over the years I lost track of 12 shares sitting in a brokerage account. That became 1 share and a few dimes after Nortel made a reverse stock split. I decided to frame the stock certificate and it has pride of place in my downstairs bathroom. I keep it there as a reminder of the good old dot-com days, and to humble me because it is a $1,000 mistake. What was once worth $1,000 become several dollars, then fifty cents, and is now worthless. Except it really isn't because it teaches me to enjoy what I have, and to appreciate the not-so-material things in my life even more.

The New MTS Blog

2009-01-15T21:13:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the new home for the Mastering Technical Sales blog. Over the next few weeks we'll be transitioning across to Blogspot from Yahoo. The original blog can be found here.