AC

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MPLI

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MEN

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ABIL

ITIE

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SALES MARKETINGBUSINESS

DEVELOPMENT

U N I F I E D S K I L L S F O R D R I V I N G R E V E N U E G R O W T H A T A L L B U S I N E S S L E V E L S

STARTUP HIGH GROWTH ENTERPRISE

Section One

Development and Success Story Cases

Section Two

Skills & Abilities

Introduction

When all things look the same with

some slight variation, how do you

choose the standout?

Start with the foundation of

extensive training. Add to that,

significant first hand executive

experience. Throw in a recognized

sense of urgency and support of the

collective team. Then top it off with

the creativity that takes the good to

great.

Now that is a bean that rises above

the bowl.

marketing

business development

sales

INSIGHT APPLICATION EXECUTION

CONVERGENCE: Lead & Win the MarketWith the holistic experience of understanding how to effectively market using sales data and sell using market-defined data,my abilities extend beyond the traditional sales executive or marketing executive. This ability improves my close ratio andimproves our overall market message. I gain the insight that allows me to apply the findings to the sales/marketing processand execute a plan that delivers strong and consistent results.

Section One

Development and Success Story Cases

U N I F Y I N G M A R K E T I N G & S A L E S T H R O U G H D E E P D AT A C O L L E C T E D I N T H E S A L E S P R O C E S S

DEVELOPMENT CASE ONE

Market Challenge

Sales force was not being used todrive frontline marketing. Buyer andpain data was not being effectivelygathered and moved to marketing.This resulted in missing or poorlyperceived marketing data and salesdevelopment processes to drivemarketing message.

Two Islands that needed bridging

Sales was working at the front end of the clients problem butwas not often driving deep enough into their business to gaindeep marketing knowledge. Deep marketing knowledge isthat data that resides below surface challenges. Companiesoften find “work-arounds” to deal with challenges, neversolving them. Often marketing had no visibility to thesechallenges and value in the sales data collected and itremained on the sales island, where it died.

Meanwhile, marketing, on it’s own island was getting somefeedback from sales, but often it was distilled in togeneralities that didn’t provide good tactical marketing data.Marketing was forced to buy expensive marketing data orsimply follow competitors or guess on what the marketingwas really demanding. Marketing messaging was limited to apush style methodology where it became high level and lessfocused on specific certain challenges and more on overallmarket perception.

The relationship between the two islands becameantagonistic. Sales threw volleys of ineffective marketingtoward that marketing island and marketing returning fire bysuggesting that messaging was not being reinforced in thesales process. This made the messaging ineffective and oftenworthless.

The result was the development of Deep Impact

Designated Sales force is educated in a systematicprocess to driving deep into customer pain,challenges and intentions.

Data is collected weekly from all team assets andamalgamated monthly to determine trends,analyze data on market conditions andexpectations and create a gap analysis.

Marketing data is structured as go to marketmessaging.

Messaging is converted into questioning formatthat more quickly validates data, drives deeper andshortens the selling process while building clienttrust.

New data is fed back continuously and questioningis revised to drive deeper with each engagement.

Up Front Prospect Qualification

Discovery Meeting

Pain Points, Key Clients Challenges, Business Specific

Information Gathered

Marketing Provided Information &

Analyzed Next To Prior Data

Marketing Data Distilled To

Potential Client Pain and Market

Positioning to Insure Accurate

Messaging

SUCCESS CASE TWO

T R A N S L AT I N G C H A N G E T O A N E W L I N E O F B U S I N E S S

Market Challenge

Sales team had delivered two quarters in a row

of zero sales. The market the company was

approaching was suffering after the September

11th attacks. The company had a product for

airliner electronic flight bags (EFB’s) . Airlines

had the option of installing EFB’s but stopped

all new aircraft orders or trimmed back backlog

of orders, leaving the Astoria with minimal

market opportunity.

Solution

As the director of business development, I worked closely with aseasoned product manager in the company to determine what elseour software might be capable of doing in an industry we couldimmediately approach. It was determined there was some initial,incomplete work on a localization product. Immediately assessingthe ability to complete development and launch a product, werepackaged the product as the perfect product for localization.Creating specific marketing and getting into trade shows with thenew messaging and innovative approaches, we had very rapidadoption by all the industries' top providers in under three months– a monumental feat.

Result

The rapid market adoption of the software for localization and heresulting press and PR helped us position the company in front of alarge merger partner. The merger partner was specificallyinterested in the company because of the rapid growth and prestigewe had gained through the corporate repositioning in localization.Dissolution of a major partnership in the airline market would haveleft the company highly exposed, however, the rapid positioning ofthe company toward localization allowed the company to grow andthrive through a very turbulent time.

Market change delivered the

company from two zero sales

quarters to doing business

with the top three global

providers of localization in

less than three months.

THREE

Market Challenge

Company leaders are tasked with managing

more with less. Sales teams often report to the

company President or CEO who has very little

time to manage these assets and assure sales

team health and productivity. This being so,

even though the sales team is the revenue

“portal” of every company. The officer of the

company was often unaware of individual sales

challenges, close percentages, sales

methodology or trends. This left the company

open to catastrophic sales results or recurring

personnel changes.

The Solution Solved an Internal Growth Problem For Achievex

Beyond the challenge we solves for clients, we were also solving achallenge we had at the time. Because of bad economic conditions,more corporations saw our core offering of sales training as a non-essential spend, opting to hold onto cash for slowing revenue. Theproblem of low producing sales teams that had little to no oversightwas a concern. The loss of sales managers due to down sizing hadcaused the sales team to become unmanaged and unmotivatedresulting in losses of sales team talent and salespeople that werebecoming less effective when sales needed to increase.

Developing this product helped us access more revenue from adifferent perspective than our core business alone would havedelivered.

Solution

I interviewed senior sales managers and corporate officers to

understand their challenges, expectations and deliverables for their

sales assets. We then crafted a solution that assessed the skills

inventory of every sales asset, and analyzed and reported the results.

After determining if the salesperson asset had the characteristics of

top performers, we wrote a prescription plan for the salesperson and

provided management with a plan we would use to fill the undesirable

gaps.

Afterward, we entered each salesperson into a system developed to

manage their activity, behavior and assess their attitudes weekly.

Additionally, we entered the salesperson and their teammates into an

advanced level selling course to get all team assets selling on the same

system. Managing the team closely and giving management and the

board an insightful view of their sales team’s progress, weekly,

provided a much better platform to predict results.

Result

Our conversations netted far greater interest

and our engagement quality and quantity

increased significantly . We closed our first

client under the new program which gained

us our largest customer in over 12 months.

The solution solved a problem that

concerned them for some time, allowed the

CEO to focus less on sales and more on

strategic oversight of the company.

SUCCESS CASE Four

The Whale the size of a Minnow

Market Challenge

A new company in a fast growing space with

only one employee, eShipServices needed to

look like a high-powered fulfillment operation

in a world of big warehouses and even bigger

expectations. The perception of the company

needed to be that we were moving substantial

product and were skilled artisans at what we

provided in the ecommerce space.

Solution

I worked immediately to start building brand and

messaging. Went to key industry trade shows, got on

panels and got trade press, including two cover stories

on the state of the ecommerce fulfillment industry.

As the only employee engaged in building the brand

from marketing to sales and strategic development, it

was critical to constantly resonate a bigger feel. We

immediately developed new branding for the services

of our sister company and created a sense through all

communications, activities, seminars and other

outward development, that our organization was well

positioned to handle any sized customer operation.

Results

We discovered the industry perception was that

eShipServices was large and capable. This helped us

gain quick credibility and allowed us to focus less on

proving our ability to service their needs, instead

focusing more on whether their product was the

right for us. Through well placed branding, strategic

visibility and placing ourselves in front of hundreds

of buyers as an expert, we became the whale in the

eyes of our marketplace.

Section Two

Skills & Abilities

S O C I A L M E D I A E X P E R T I S E & S T R A T E G Y

• Early adopter• One of the first to advertise employment

services on MySpace.• Early days of blogging. Had one of the first

blogs on sales and marketing integration.• First Sandler Group on LinkedIn• Creation and current manager of San Jose

Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce Groupon LinkedIn

• Strong familiarity with Tools• Facebook – have created groups, done

promotion and advertising on Facebook• LinkedIn – use many of the tools LinkedIn

has offered.• Twitter – user of many third party

optimization applications.

• Knowledge Sharing and Evangelism• Have given four speaking events on social media. First

to engineer the use of participants in the explanation ofSocial Media.

BLOGGINGWhile the ability to transfer relevant knowledge to

engaging writing is critical in blogging, it is the technical

ability to get it in front of people that makes the

successful blogger. Having been a blogger since 2006, I am

keenly aware of the importance of mastering the

technical while leveraging my skill as an engaging writer.

Early Adopter

• Very first wave of users on Google – early advertiser during PPV advertising. Days Expert at Google AdWords system, Overture etc. Very familiar with PPC model that most search engines operate on currently.

• Used keywords, active media and links very effectively early on to drive traffic.

• Gained top positions on Google, MSN and Yahoo

• Over 92% First page categorization

Expert Level user

• Deep understanding of inputs/outputs of system

• Aware of providers and vendors who can assist in the process.

Press & Media Capabilities

Trade Show Capabilities• Booked, produced and attended over 45 trade shows• Experience in design producing and setting- up booth• Created engaging booth messaging and attraction• Obtain optimum location for booth• Obtain speaker positions • Staff booth• Drive booth staff to book appointments on the floor• Quick and effective follow-up contact and marketing of attendees

Greg has personally created over three quarters of a billion

dollars in revenue volume in his sales career.

He has been professionally trained by top programs including

expert level training in Sandler Sales Institute, Integrity Selling,

Dale Carnegie, Ken Blanchard and various other programs. Over

500 hours of completed courseware in the concept, theory and

practice of sales and management. Greg has also facilitated

extensive training of Sandler and Integrity Selling.

Selling is a key element in successful marketing. Getting to the

root of why clients buy, the pain they are trying to cure and

the validation of what solving the problem will do to their

career, has helped me to look at marketing more successfully

than many other marketers or sales professionals.

Mastery of a Best Practice Sales ProcessM a s t e r y o f a s a l e s p r o c e s s i s l i k e t h ef u n c t i o n a l o p e r a t i n g s y s t e m o f t e c h n o l o g y .W h e n d o n e i n p r o c e s s , t h e r e s u l t s a r ec o n s i s t e n t , m e a s u r a b l e a n d r e l i a b l e .

• Transportation for Entertainment Industry and High Profile Clients

• College Campus Transportation Company• College Campus Consumer Goods• Executive Consulting• Sales and Marketing Consulting

• Third Party Logistics• B2B Networking Groups• Executive Best Practices Groups• Employment and HR Service Company• Sales Management Consulting

SUCCESSFULLY

T h e a v e r a g e b a d s a l e s h i r e c o s t s a c o m p a n y b e t w e e n $ 3 0 0 , 0 0 0 a n d

$ 1 , 0 0 0 , 0 0 0 d u e t o l o s t w a g e s , b e n e f i t s , o p p o r t u n i t y a n d f u t u r e r e l a t i o n s h i p s .

K N O W Y O U R O U T C O M E

P R E D I C T Y O U R R E S U L T S

Do things 180° from the competition and find a better market success developing

stronger revenue.

Ask the question “how do I sound different and how do I become trusted”. Crowd

sourcing and building a community of buyers is a skill of creativity and execution.

For the Start-UpGreg simply can do more with less

For the High Growth CompanyGreg drives the business to the next level

For the Enterprise CompanyTeam contributor committed to competitive success.

Greg Holsen

C o n t a c t

• 408-685-1008• Greg.Holsen@gmail.com• www.gregholsen.com• LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/holsen• Twitter: TheSalesSensei • Blog: http://nottheotherguy.com