Relaunching Beyond Revenue – Part One

May 20, 2013 by Leave a comment

We’re back…

This is part one of a series I’m doing about our company relaunch and some thoughts about how to help your company to move beyond revenue to true customer success.  If you have been following this blog, you have probably noticed that we have been dark for a while.  Ok.  To be completely honest, it has been about two years.  Well, I’m pleased to tell that we’re back and we are better than before.

There are a lot of twists and turns in the Beyond Revenue story that I won’t share with you right now.  However, I will say that we suddenly lost our business partner and long-time friend, Doug Berry, last June.  Doug was a caring friend and a talented business professional.  He is sorely missed.

Obviously with any change in partner structure, Rick and I were faced with a decision…keep going or shut it down.  What we decided to do was go back to our roots.  With almost 50 years of enterprise software experience between us, we decided it was time to rethink Beyond Revenue as a consultancy and reimagine it as a software company.

Moving beyond revenue…

From the beginning, our goal at Beyond Revenue was to help companies solve revenue problems.  We routinely see companies who are so focused on making new sales that they neglect other key areas of the business.  And, why not?  Revenue is the lifeblood of the business, right?

I would suggest that the answer is “no”.  Instead, I would suggest that happy customers are the lifeblood of business…not revenue.  We’ve seen many examples of companies who do a great job marketing and selling products but are still losing money because they are producing terrible products that their customers end up resenting.  And, we’ve seen the opposite scenario where a company has great products that are loved by their customers but they are doing a poor job getting the message out about those great products.

When faced with these types of problems, many companies have a knee jerk reaction.

  1. Replace key executives and find a “new vision”.
  2. Layoff workers to save money.
  3. Start a new marketing campaign to tout a new “change in direction or attitude”.

What we rarely see is a commitment to analyzing and improving business processes using facts not feel.  In fact, most process improvement initiatives are relegated to the IT department where they become technology evaluation projects instead of continuous quality improvement projects that involve the entire organization.

Our goal is to help companies solve real business problems starting with sales and marketing.  By doing so, we think we can help companies move beyond revenue by creating a customer focused culture that attracts, retains, and delights customers.

In part two, we will talk about a different approach to using technology to improve sales and marketing processes.  Look for that post on Tuesday, 5/28/2013.

Filed under Business Process, Customer Success, Sales Operations Tagged with , ,

Cloud Computing for Sales and Marketing Teams

September 29, 2011 by Leave a comment

“Our IT group doesn’t seem to be serving our Sales and Marketing teams very well, and we don’t know how to fix it.”   (Stephen M., C.E.O., Technology Company)

 

We have heard this complaint many times, and we at Beyond Revenue believe the solution is not to ‘fix’ IT.  Frequently the problem is not with the IT group, but with the systems and infrastructure they are forced to manage and the Sales, Marketing, and Customer Support teams are required to use.  In a number of cases, we determined that a Cloud based Software as a Service (SaaS) solution would ameliorate most of the issues.  Let’s examine some common problems and learn how a SaaS solution can be a powerful improvement.

Multiple Teams Need Unique Deployments:  Many companies have multiple sales, marketing, professional services and customer service teams.  Their CRM system requirements vary based on product lines, pricing and discount policies, geographies, roles and responsibilities, job requirements, languages, work locations (office, field, customer site, home base, etc.), and other factors.  Likely, each team requires a different library of formsets (screens they work in) to enter and manage different kinds of information and data.  Most CRM systems have role based logins that provide the user with those formsets required to do their job, but even within work teams there can be variations.  For the IT group responsible for administering that software, it can be extremely difficult when multiple on-premise client-server installations are required to run the CRM software.  All multiple location software applications require far more IT effort and are more likely to falter or fail at a much higher rate.  To modify, integrate, upgrade and maintain multiple deployments of any system is expensive in the beginning, and remains a high risk variable in managing fluid and successful customer relationships.  Cloud based SaaS systems allow IT teams to deploy, manage and update/upgrade multiple versions and iterations of a robust CRM application while making the Cloud provider responsible for all server functions and availability.  All software application tasks are executed at one site by a team trained to manage the deployments, integrations, modifications, upgrades.  Further, the server infrastructure maintenance is handed over to the Cloud vendor, removing a significant portion of the IT load.  That alone allows the IT resources to focus on the business execution, rather than the functional execution.  Where do you make money?  In customer acquisition and retention? Or on server room and software maintenance?

Prospects and Customers Need Your Company to Respond at the Speed of Business:   Lead development, demand generation, and successful opportunity execution all require mobility, flexibility, swift responsiveness, and team coordination.  As market conditions change, product marketing and sales tools need to adapt to the new environment.  The best and most effective way to push new and tailored sales and marketing information to your teams is to do so from a single administration point of a SaaS application, at the speed of the Internet.  The same is true for any data about YOU and your competition that makes you most valuable in your markets.  Because the whole process of gaining and retaining customers is founded on the ability of your company to understand its customers and their needs, anything less than that will hinder your success.  Any changes to product specifications, pricing, and market requirements (think HIPPA in the medical field as an easy example) require your company to push this information to your teams and partners immediately, and an on-premise system are hard pressed to do that.  A CRM tool that does not allow you to be aware, trustworthy, open and useful –immediately- is no longer acceptable.

Cloud Based Applications Are More Secure and Reliable than Yours Are:  A common concern is and has been that Cloud based applications are vulnerable to security ricks, hacking incursions, and down time.  While this was true years ago, the typical Cloud data center today is far more secure and reliable than your on-premise system.  Yes, there are notable examples of failures we have all read about, but the overall fail rates for security and availability are amazingly and admirably small.  We suggest that you do your own research on this issue, with a portion of your research devoted to the track record of businesses with internal data centers that experienced system availability failures, security breaches, customer confidentiality incidences, and public humiliation.  Yes, humiliation and also costly fixes.

Social Media and Its Impact Require You to Change Your Business Model:  There is a rich and useful conversation going on about YOU at this very minute, and you may not be aware of it, or its impact.  It is between your customers, your prospects, your competitors, and even your employees.  The content of the conversation will shape the future of your company in either a good way, or a bad way.  This dialogue is very helpful if you can hear it and share it with your teams, and very likely you are not taking full advantage of what social media conversations are offering.  Most SaaS vendors have been cognizant of the need to tap into these resources for some time, and they have built all the integrations and links to various sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter et al.  You can manage the way this information is used and shared in your company to make the most of this knowledge.  Because of the architecture of Cloud systems and SaaS applications, this information is, again, immediate and thus useful.  While the experience of joining this conversation can be humbling and sometimes daunting, it is necessary and can be compelling.

We at Beyond Revenue hope that this information proves useful.  Much of our professional lives has been devoted to making companies fluent and profitable.  Cloud computing and SaaS applications are provocative and compelling topics for any company, large or small, into which you may invest time, thought, and energy.  We wish you a productive outcome.

Sincerely,

Doug Berry

Managing Partner

Beyond Revenue Partners, LLC

www.beyondrevenue.com

Filed under Sales Management, Sales Operations Tagged with , , , , ,

The Customer is changing how they buy! Have you changed how you sell to them?

April 1, 2011 by Leave a comment

It should come as no great surprise; technology has changed almost everything in our lives, and it has dramatically changed how our customers buy from us.  Today, our customers have a tremendous amount of second and third-party buying information available to them through various websites, social media sites and third-party consultants.  Buyers are using this information to frequently dis-intermediate your sales team.  If a product evaluation and buying decision can be made without professional sales intervention, buyers will likely choose that path.  Today’s most common scenario: your expensive sales professional is engaging the buyer much later in the buying cycle.   This change in the customer buying behavior cannot be ignored.  Engage your customer with your 20 year old selling strategy and you risk missing revenue opportunities, and wasting sales expense dollars. 

Today’s CRM platforms and marketing automation tools have created an excellent opportunity for you to change how and when you engage your customer, and to transform outdated sales processes.  How you embrace the new customer engagement process today will be directly reflected in how well you generate revenue tomorrow.

Lessons learned from Revenue Performance Management

The most basic principle of Revenue Performance Management (RPM) is that all corporate communication, marketing efforts, and sales activities must be planned and executed together as a single process for winning new customers.   Sales and marketing must work together to create a cohesive buying experience for the customer.   Many very good companies, with strong sales cultures, tend to focus only on the sales cycle and view marketing as a separate lead generation activity.  However, in a world where the buyer is waiting much longer to engage sales, primarily because they don’t need them for information any longer, marketing must take more responsibility for prospect communication and engagement.  

Today’s most successful companies are managing their revenue generation process in measureable stages, and tracking movement through those stages over time.  If you have a single integrated revenue cycle as a foundation block of your management framework then you can embark upon meaningful, continuous process improvement to obtain both greater revenue and profit.  This may require management to rethink how your company is organized, and how various stakeholders are compensated and evaluated.

 How this affects your future CRM strategy

While CRM was created in the 90’s it must continue to play catch up to the Web 2.0 World.   If your buyer lives in an instantaneous and interconnected world, so must your CRM processes and supporting technology.  With the acceptance of CRM as a software service platform, you will need to accelerate your leverage of social media, mobile location and global availability to fully benefit from it.  Web 2.0 dynamics create new requirements for managing, and facilitating buyer and customer interactions.  Self-service strategies will need to gain more prominence as you attempt to engage buyers earlier, and for longer periods, before they are handed off to your sales force. 

You may want to consider utilizing technology to facilitate cross-communication among buyers and customers.  Online social networks provide companies with a wealth of information about how their buyers think, act and feel.   They provide fertile ground for Lead Generation and offer additional points of contact to interact and strengthen relationships with customers in an informal environment.  Going forward, your social media strategy needs to be compatible with your CRM strategy and technology.  Only then will you fully understand what your customers think of you, and what your buyer’s preferences and behaviors are.

 How to tackle this kind of transformation

You can start by conducting a Revenue Performance Audit.   A Revenue Performance Audit (RPA) is designed to determine the current state of your sales and marketing performance, and its effectiveness.  Audit the fundamental areas crucial to your success including, but not limited to, Personnel, Processes, Products, Measurement and Leadership.  Gather knowledge about your team’s critical job functions.  Interview key team members, analyze the processes related to your sales and marketing efforts, review your customer lifecycle paradigm, collect all relevant data, and map the behaviors and functions of your revenue lifecycle team members.  The resulting findings about your organization’s revenue lifecycle should be detailed with clear suggestions for improvements and actionable next steps.  You should now be able to answer two key questions for your company’s future success: How do our customers want to buy from us? And how are we engaging them in the selling process?

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The Importance of Mastering (Sales) Fundamentals

March 24, 2011 by 2 Comments

Staying inside the ropes for a moment, Tiger Woods is arguably the greatest golfer in history.  The influx of great young players from around the world, combined with, uh, Tiger’s distractions in the last 15 months seemingly challenges that argument until you look at even one more unbelievable statistic.  The current top twenty “up and coming” professional golfers under the age of 30 have won a combined total of 19 tournaments worldwide.  Tiger Woods won 55 tournaments all by his lonesome before he hit the age of 30.  Case closed (sorry Golden Bear.)

Woods’ accomplishments seem all the more remarkable when you consider the way he has gone about it.  Who else with the talent and record of a Tiger Woods would re-tool their swing from the top of the backswing all the way down to his spikes four times, the first three of which led to progressive improvements and breakthroughs in an already masterful game.  The answer is simple:  nobody.  No one else would even contemplate such a radical and risky approach to their golf game, much less to their approach to any profession.

So what motivates Woods to do this?  An absolute belief that the basic fundamentals must be perfectly in place before building the rest of the business (in this case his golf swing.)  And an unquenchable desire to break through all barriers, be number one and dominate his profession.

Wouldn’t those be nice characteristics to have across your sales force . . . .

In business, and more specifically in sales, as in Woods’ golf swing, an adherence and a mastering of sound fundamentals is the key to success.  What are these fundamentals to success in sales?

  • People/Personnel
  • Sales Methodology/Process
  • Systems/Measurements
  • Customers and Products
  • Leadership

 Let’s break these down a little bit:

  • People/Personnel:  each individual sales rep’s ability to perform at a consistently high level and win the business.  There are some given’s which must be worked on and improved, and some intangibles which must be exploited
    • Skill sets:
      • Proven Sales Performer
        • Desire and Attitude
        • Sales Activity and Time Management
        • Sales Skills
        • Product Knowledge
        • Sales Strategy
        • Generic Attributes
          • Integrity
          • Intelligence
          • Energy
          • Decisiveness
          • Execution
      • Savvy:  Street smarts to go along with book smarts
      • Likability:  People buy from people they like
  • Sales methodology/Process:  what is the sales cycle path laid out for your sales team to take their prospect through on a consistent basis
    • Needs to map to what works with sales reps’ skill sets and type of business
    • As detailed (or not) as can be managed and reported against
  • Systems/Measurements:  what systems are in place and/or need to be in place to gather meaningful data and provide the ability to measure that data against a series of pre-defined metric benchmarks in order to gauge necessary improvement 
    • Ability to capture key data points during the progression of the sales cycle and provide territory management measurement and analysis for continuous improvement
    • As automated (or not) as can be implemented and adhered to across the sales team
    • DO NOT automate your sales methodology, system workflow and feedback analysis until you have mastered the fundamentals and all “manual” processes are in place and adhered to by your sales team
  • Customers and Products:  sounds obvious a company needs to have customers and products, but there are many fundamental questions and decisions to make before building a sales and marketing strategy
    • Do I have a defined target market to capture the types of customers that make sense and are profitable for my business?
    • Product(s) must be at least “adequate”
    • Product(s) must be “believed” in by the sales team as providing legitimate value
    • Does not have to be the “best” product on the market
    • More importantly must be fully understood and believed in by the sales team
  • Leadership:  consistent leadership built upon fundamentals that can be relied on by sales team for guidance, attitude, motivation, measurement and continuous improvement
    • Speaks for itself

 As Tiger Woods has demonstrated over and over again, the bottom line is until or unless your sales team fundamentals are in place, you cannot build the rest of the structure and expect to ascend to and maintain world class sales performance.  All the marketing programs and lead generation in the world will not make one bit of difference without perfect fundamentals which will lead to breakthroughs in sales performance.

Ask yourself this question:  Does your sales executive leadership have the vision of building a team of Tiger Woods’?  Or a team of Happy Gilmore’s . . . . 

First, the fundamentals – then the breakthroughs.

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How do you hire a world class sales team?

February 17, 2011 by Leave a comment

Hiring a world class sales team (WCST) is undoubtedly any organization’s desire and is in fact necessary to survive and thrive in these challenging times.  Breaking down the general category of “hiring” into a measurable and achievable process is vital to achieving the goal of building your WCST:

1.         Candidate Characteristics

There are arguably a finite number of basic qualities to look for which serve as a starting point and common ground for whittling down a larger talent pool to the finalists you would choose from to build your WCST.  One could argue that there are two parallel lists of desirable characteristics:  those for selecting a proven sales performer, and a more generic list that may be used for any hiring model.  Combined they cover most of the innate and learned skills needed to be successful in today’s competitive environment:

  • Proven Sales Performer
    • Desire and Attitude
    • Sales Activity and Time Management
    • Sales Skills
    • Product Knowledge
    • Sales Strategy
  • Generic Attributes
    • Integrity
    • Intelligence
    • Energy
    • Decisiveness
    • Execution

In order to find the best sales candidates during the hiring process (and it needs to be a well thought out process) to maximize your chances of building a WCST, a case can be made to dig even deeper than these necessary qualities:

  • Trust/”normality”:  Integrity is an admirable quality, but will your customer/prospect truly trust your sales candidate?  Will he consider his sales rep “normal”, i.e. can he visualize being a friend with your sales candidate beyond just being a transaction?
  • Street smarts vs. Book smarts:  While a high degree of gray matter is absolutely necessary, a healthy blend of street smarts with book smarts is vital to gauge in your sales candidates.  There is no substitute for common sense and instinct in your sales candidate beyond just having a high IQ or a high GPA. 
  • Attitude:  Attitude is not just desire or aggression.  It’s the entire way your sales rep carries himself in the prospect’s eyes.  It’s the perfect blend of confidence and competence in their product knowledge and sales craftsmanship.  Despise, yet respect your competition.  Believe and convey you hold all the cards in winning the deal.  
  • Consistency:  To guarantee success in a given prospect situation and across their entire territory, your sales candidate must have consistent practices and processes deployed so that no step in the sales cycle is missed and therefore your sales leadership is confident that repeatable processes are practiced across the entire WCST.
  • Creativity:  Assuming a given sales candidate shows strength in the above mentioned categories, heavily weigh perceived candidate creativity in winning business using methods that are outside the norm.

2.       Interview Process

  • Questioning preparation and technique:  Start by developing a list of customized questions around agreed-upon desirable characteristics from the lists and arguments above to challenge sales candidates.  A consistent questioning approach with each candidate will ensure a fair comparative before your final selection.
  • Stop and listen:  Make your candidates do nearly all the talking, listen intently, take notes and compare answers across all candidates.
  • Layered approach:  Once a list of “finalists” has been established, have a consistent team approach to cross-interview each candidate.  Ideally, have a nagging naysayer on the interview team that will challenge conventional wisdom on who best to hire.

3.       Candidate selection

  • Don’t just rely on your gut:  Ideally, you will have multiple thoroughbreds to choose from.  Discipline yourself against a “gut level” decision, but rather scientifically dissect your finalists’ skill sets and create a consistent tiebreaker question or theme in the event of a too-close-to-call situation.
  • Pedigree does not always win the day:  If you have developed insightful questions, and scientifically analyzed candidate characteristics and responses, then do not revert to purely prior experience or scholastic pedigree to take the easy way out in your decision to build a WCST.
  • Don’t assume you will be 100% right:  You won’t always hire the exact right candidate to build out your WCST despite developing and adhering to the perfect process.  In the event of a hiring misstep, be fully prepared to pull the plug after a quarter or two and reload.  There is no greater mistake than carrying dead weight on your WCST.

 

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Is product bundling an effective sales tool and sales incentive? – Part One

February 14, 2011 by 2 Comments

This is part one in a series of posts I’m going to be making about pricing strategies that provide great value to your customers while also helping to increase sales.  As we move to a mass customization economy where the consumer wants what they want (read John Bernard’s blog post called “Shifting From Then To Now” at http://www.massingenuity.com/2010/now/shifting-from-then-to-now/), we have to rethink pricing strategies to create a more flexible and engaging experience where the customer gets exactly what they want.

I had an interesting discussion with one of my clients last week about using product pricing bundles in their product marketing strategy.  I define product pricing bundles as groups of products that are sold together for a single promotional price.  The basic goal of the bundle is to encourage customers to buy a group of products together rather one at a time.  Companies usually implement bundles for four main reasons:

  1. Pair highly profitable items with less profitable items to increase the overall profitability of the sale.
  2. Make it easier for salespeople to cross sell products by offering attractive pricing for the bundled sale.
  3. Sell predefined configurations that help customers derive more benefit from the full line of products by bundling recommended solutions together based on need or industry.
  4. Create more perceived value so that it’s possible to charge more for the combined set of products.

All of these reasons make complete sense to me.  Maximizing profitability, cross selling, customer satisfaction, and value selling are great objectives.  However, if we take a closer look, it quickly becomes apparent that the bundle itself puts these three goals at odds with each other.

One of the best examples I can give comes from my local cable provider.  They offer a bundle that puts cable television, broadband, and telephone services together for a very attractive price.  On the surface, the bundle seems to meet all three goals defined above. 

  1. Digital telephone is a very profitable service for the provider because it requires an additional long distance plan that is not included in the bundle price.  It is a natural choice to pair with television and broadband.
  2. They’ve done a great job of selling it as “one low price”.  In fact, it is really the only option.  It is much easier to buy the bundle than to purchase a la carte services.
  3. They tout “one number to call” as key selling point.  For the most part, they are right.  Their customer service is great so having all three services with them is probably easier for the customer in many cases.
  4. They do a great job of positioning the bundle as the best value for the money even though it is ultimately a way for them to actually charge more for the group of services.

Unfortunately, I’m a technology guy and I know that most VoIP services have no long distance charges.  Since the cable company’s digital telephone service requires a fairly expensive long distance plan, why would I want the phone service when the fast broadband connection is more than adequate to support VoIP service?  The answer is simple.  The price for buying digital television and broadband separately from the digital phone is much higher than buying the bundle.  So, I went ahead and bought the bundle… added an outside VoIP service…and we simply don’t use the bundled phone service for long distance calling.  Even with the extra cost of the added VoIP service, we still save $60-$120 per month!

My point here is that the bundle itself did very little for me, as the consumer, other than provide a way to buy television and broadband service at a discounted price.  Yes, this is valuable to me.  And, I do get some value from the provider’s customer service.  They have fast response times on the phone and they maintain one installation in my home.  I remember the days when I had to go to the infamous “phone company” for voice and the cable company for cable.  It is truly better to have one point of accountability.  However, I would derive a lot more value if I could:

  1. Either simply save the money by not having the cable provider’s phone service and still get some kind of discount on the other services.
  2. Have the choice to add additional bandwidth to the broadband service as a replacement for the phone service.
  3. Have a lower priced VoIP option with the cable company and the additional bandwidth.

In conclusion, I would rate the overall effectiveness of the bundle as low because I have to make a series of concessions as the buyer to finally get what I want.  It would be simpler if I could start with the bundle and then have the ability to switch out certain components with other options – like my additional bandwidth.

However, this is a simple example involving 3 services.  Imagine how this looks when you have a much more complicated product line.  In the case of the client I was working with last week, they have 3 main product lines with between 200 and 600 products in each line.  They now have something close to 100 different pricing bundles in just one of the product lines.  How many bundles are enough?  How do you educate your sales force on how to effectively use the bundles?

In part two, we’ll discuss a different approach to bundling that meets our four goals but allows the customer to customize to get what they want.  In part three, we will discuss how to implement flexible bundling as a part of a needs based or consultative selling strategy.

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What do all great sales professionals have in common?

February 10, 2011 by Leave a comment

One of the most frequently asked questions by our sales performance management clients is: How do you identify and hire great sales people? 

Before we attempt to answer that question, it is important to identify and analyze what characteristics almost all great sales people share that makes them outstanding performers.  This of course is best done by examining the habits and techniques of your company’s top performers.  When we examine the ‘best practices of your company’s top sales people we are able to identify product or service specific techniques that will benefit the entire sales organization and help you develop your sales hiring profile.

However, when answering the question in more general terms, five key characteristics emerge:

1.       Desire & Attitude

Salespeople cannot succeed on desire alone but they will not succeed without desire and the right attitude.  This characteristic, unlike the others, hasn’t change over the years.

2.       Sales Activity  (where they spend their time)

Successful sales people have adapted to the faster pace of information consumption by their target prospects in today’s Web 2.0 world.  Sales activity today has become very technology driven.    Sales Force Automation, social media and a plethora of Web 2.0 tools have changed how a great salesperson manages his/her activity and therefore their time, but they are not slaves to it.  Successful sales people drive technology and use it to improve their efficiency; they see it as a tool to direct and focus sales efforts.

Today’s successful sales people are utilizing social media and the web to replace yesterday’s sales activity such as cold calls, meaningless first appointments and a never ending barrage of prospect letters.  Your company’s marketing automation should generate leads and nurture them until it is efficient for the salesperson to actively manage the opportunity.   Sales activities must be about opportunity management, there simply isn’t enough time for salespeople to be engaged in manual lead generation.  

3.       Sales Skills

Sales skills are still an important ingredient to successful selling however the nature of the skills has been changing as prospects have become more demanding.  They expect the sales professional to go beyond the basic problem solving.   The prospect interaction is no longer about out witting and masterful handling of objections; it is about creating value for the prospect through professional competence.   

The best salespeople are skilled at listening and understanding their prospects needs, including the how and why the prospect will buy.  Yes they still have the basic sales process methodology in place but they also interact at a high emotional IQ level, a requirement to be consistently successful today.

4.       Product Knowledge

The highest sales achievers not only know their product or service but their competitor’s as well. They are very familiar with their customers’ businesses.   Good news; bad news!  The effective salesperson needs to absorb a lot of information quickly, but the good news is that so much more is readily available on the internet today.

5.       Sales Strategy

Every great salesperson has a well thought out game plan.  You just cannot expect to win a competitive evaluation today without a sound strategy.   Strategies most often are developed at the account and opportunity levels and involve all relevant ranks of both the prospect’s and your organization.

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