what sales forces need to win - pragmatic institute · what sales forces need to win six...

Vo lume 2 Issue 3 M a y / J u n e 2 0 0 4

WhatSales ForcesNeed to Win Multiple Products,

Multiple ProductManagers

How to MakeSelling ComplexSolutions Simple

Ten Things ProductManagers ShouldKnow About Sales

Using Force FieldAnalysis to Listento Customers

All too frequently I hear froma product manager that his CEO just doesn’t “get it.” The value of Sales andDevelopment are self-evident.

They both produce tangible results.When it comes to marketing, theeffects appear to be nebulous at best. In fact, we see a lot ofcompanies try to quantify the valueof marketing with metrics like leadsgenerated or market awarenessscores. That is better than nothing,but unless these metrics are trackedto sales, you are still left guessing.

Recently, I was able to demonstratethe value of marketing in a veryshort period of time, using eBay®.In preparing to sell an unusualpiece of heavy constructionequipment, I researched my market.I knew the range of prices for thisitem was between $8,000 and$10,000. I decided I would sell my item for $9,500.

When I checked eBay to see if anywere already listed, I was surprisedto see an identical unit currentlyavailable with a minimum bid of$9,500. It was one year newer thanmine, and in better overall shape. Ithad been listed on eBay for severaldays with no bids.

So, here was the challenge. Howdo I out-market this competitorwho has a better product, whichwasn’t selling, and still get the same price? I looked at thecompetitor’s description and foundmy opportunity. Although technicallycorrect, the description was boring.All the seller talked about wasspecifications. His marketing messagepretty much consisted of height,width, range, and lots of features.

In contrast, I wrote a positioningstatement that spoke in first personabout the problems this equipmentsolves. I described how you couldtow this equipment to your job siteand be up and running in minutes.I emphasized why my unit was easierto maintain than more conventionalunits. Instead of talking aboutspecs, I just included a link to themanufacturer’s specification page.At some point, the buyer may wantthat info, but I don’t want to cluttermy marketing message with detailsat this stage of the sales cycle.

As I write this column, my“competitor” is just finishing hissecond 7-day listing. During 14 days,

he had no bids for his $9,500 itemwith no reserve. During my listing,I had 377 hits, 15 people added itto their watch list, and three bidders.I sold the equipment in just overfour days and for my target price of $9,500.

Can the effects of marketing bedocumented? You bet! Prove yourmarketing approach against a knownentity (either a competitor or evenyourself). With the internet, you canget results at light speed. Once youhave tangible results, you will needto promote your findings within the company so the skeptics will“get it.”

Craig StullPresident and CEOPragmatic Marketing, Inc.

2 • productmarketing.com • May/June 2004

Measuring Marketing


productmarketing.com • May/June 2004 • 3

Inside this issue:productmarketing.com

16035 N. 80th Street, Suite FScottsdale, AZ 85260

President and CEOCraig Stull

Pragmatic Marketing, Inc.

Managing EditorKristyn Benmoussa

Contributing WritersSteve JohnsonAndy McGinn

Barbara NelsonDaniel Shefer

Stephanie Tilton

No part of this publication may be reproduced, storedin any retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying,recording or otherwise, without the prior writtenpermission of the publisher.

productmarketing.com™ is available free of charge to qualified subscribers. For subscription or back issues call (480) 515-1411; or visitwww.pragmaticmarketing.com/resources/subscribe.asp

To be removed from mail list, send email to:[email protected]

For advertising rates, call (480) 515-1411.

Other product and/or company names mentioned in this journal may be trademarks or registeredtrademarks of their respective companies and are the sole property of their respective owners.productmarketing.com™, a Pragmatic Marketing, Inc.publication, shall not be liable regardless of the cause,for any errors, inaccuracies, omissions, or other defectsin, or untimeliness or unauthenticity of, the informationcontained within this magazine. Pragmatic Marketingmakes no representations or warranties as to the resultsobtained from the use of this information. PragmaticMarketing does not warranty or guarantee the resultsobtained from the use of this information and shall not be liable for any third-party claims or losses of anykind, including lost profits, and punitive damages.

productmarketing.com is a trademarkof Pragmatic Marketing, Inc.

Printed in the U.S.A.

All rights reserved.

About Pragmatic Marketing, Inc.Pragmatic Marketing, Inc. was formed in 1993 toprovide product marketing training and consulting to high-tech firms by focusing on strategic, market-driven techniques. Pragmatic’s trainingcourses emphasize business-oriented definition of market problems, resulting in reduced risk andfaster product delivery and adoption. Since itsinception, Pragmatic Marketing has successfullygraduated over 25,000 product managers andmarketing professionals. For more information, visitwww.PragmaticMarketing.com or call 480-515-1411.

™

2 Measuring MarketingA letter from Craig Stull,Pragmatic Marketing President and CEO

4 Multiple Products, Multiple Product ManagersWhen a company expands to multiple products and product families, firms must integrate a broad set of skills among multiple product management professionals. Read how toaddress the challenges of multiple products and product managers.

8 Competitive Information and Sales Guides: What Sales Forces Need to Win

Six field-tested, salespeople-approved best practices to help you put competitive intelligence to work for your sales force.

11 Ask the ExpertWhat is the job description for a product manager?

12 Ten Things Product Managers Should Know About SalesProduct managers routinely support the sales process but many times lack enough knowledge to do this.This article discusses ten things that product managers need to know about sales, the sales process, and the role of the sales rep.

18 Using Force Field Analysis to Listen to Customers Force field analysis is a technique that elevates a painful exercise into powerful feedback. Learn to use this simple tool to quickly brainstorm and prioritize ideas with a group of customers.

24 How to Make Selling Complex Solutions SimpleExplore why product training fails and what can bedone to succeed in this area.

29 Case StudyMicro Focus Unlocks the Value of Marketing

32 Calendar of Upcoming Pragmatic Marketing Seminars

Volume 2 Issue 3May/June 2004


Product management covers a widearray of activities from market analysisto on-going sales support. In a smallcompany, product managers often act as a product release expediter, ensuringthat all the scheduled work has beendone and that nothing has fallen throughthe cracks. As a company gets larger,product management takes on additionalstrategic duties previously performed bythe senior executives, such as marketanalysis, writing business requirements,and defining positioning. When acompany expands to multiple productsand product families, firms mustintegrate a broad set of skills amongmultiple product managementprofessionals. How does a companyaddress the challenges of multipleproducts and product managers?

MultipleProducts,MultipleProduct

ManagersBy Steve Johnson


Product management is all aboutscalability. As products and companiesgrow, so do the time demands; oneperson cannot do everything. So oneproduct manager becomes two orthree, each attempting to do whateveris necessary for product success. Themore people we add, the more we findtwo people doing some things and noone doing others. Communicationsproblems are the result of unclearspheres of responsibility. Let’s exploresome techniques for ensuring clearcommunications when there aremultiple products and multipleproduct managers.

Requirements reviewsMany companies are now runningrequirement review meetings, achievingthe same benefits as developers’ designreview meetings. Requirement reviewscan be implemented instantly withoutimpact on the current companyorganization. Bringing together productmanagers from across the companyputs an incredibly diverse set of skillsin one room. Are the requirementswell-written? Have they clearlyarticulated the problem (and not aproposed feature)? Can they be verified?Are there cross-product opportunities?Requirements reviews provide a forumfor integrating products and featuresby leveraging the skills of all productmanagers.

The product roadmap is a criticalplanning tool that communicates thedeliverables of the suite and of theproducts. By reviewing productrequirements with the group, thisforum intercepts many of themiscommunications that occurwithin a product team and acrossproduct lines. Read more about

product roadmaps online athttp://www.productmarketing.com/magazine/2/2/0312sj.htm

Product management triadFor large products or product lines,the span of activities quickly becomemore than one person can realisticallyperform. Requests for productmanagement attention exceeds thetime available for one person. Butwhen there is more demand thansupply, product managers usuallyspend their time in their personalcomfort zone. A sales-oriented productmanager will support the sales channelwith better presentations and salestools, while a development-orientedproduct manager will spend time withthe product features. In this scenario,companies frequently assign multipleproduct managers to a single product.An ideal organization is one thatseparates the roles of productmanagement and product marketing.Often called inbound and outboundmarketing, product managementfocuses on market requirements andworking closely with Development,while product marketing defines a go-to-market strategy and worksclosely with Marcom and Sales. Thesetwo categories of activities usuallyinvolve vastly different skills, so it’slogical to split the job in two.

Many companies go further to define a third, business-oriented, strategicrole staffed by a senior person. Calledthe product management triad, this

triumvirate works as a team to meetthe product needs in the areas ofbusiness, technology, and marketing.Read more about the productmanagement triad online athttp://www.productmarketing.com/magazine/1/2/07sj.htm

The Triad works best within a singledepartment. There is an incredibletemptation to move the technicalproduct manager (TPM) intoDevelopment and the productmarketing manager (PPM) intoMarketing. But this usually fails. The TPM becomes a gofer forDevelopment; the PMM becomes thecompany “demo boy.” By reporting to a senior manager responsible forstrategy, these three are bondedtogether with a common goal. Astrategic view of the product family is critical in large companies. Theproduct management triad encouragesstrategic thinking in concert withproduct planning and launch.

Multiple product managers in a product suiteLarge product families have manyproducts and features that requireproduct management attention,particularly in identifying the links and cross-product opportunities. Tomanage a large product line, productmanagers are assigned to each majorproduct in the family with an additionalproduct manager ensuring consistencybetween the various products.

To manage a large product line, product managers are assigned to each major product in the family

with an additional product manager ensuring consistency between the various products.

Multiple Products, Multiple Product Managers

Imagine an enterprise implementationwith a server-based architecture, variousclient components, and implementationservices. Coordinating these componentsinto a coherent release plan is incrediblychallenging. For example, an enterprisenetwork fault management system hasserver-side monitoring and responsemechanism running on a third-partydatabase. There are various clientsincluding an error-correlation display,various map views of the network,and an operator console showingoutstanding faults pending correction.Installation and implementation servicesare a critical aspect of the offering.Each of these must be defined, built,and launched. Releasing these as a single coordinating offering is a nightmare.

In a simplified example, consider how multiple product managers mightapproach Microsoft® Office, a suitemost of us are familiar with. Assign aproduct manager for the Office familyarchitecture including APIs, commonlook-and-feel, shared features such asdictionaries and themes, and variouscross-product opportunities. Then adda product manager each for Word,Excel, PowerPoint®, Access, Outlook®,Sharepoint™, and any other productsin the suite. Each individual productmanager focuses only on the needs of his product while the suite productmanager reviews the requirements foreach of the products. PowerPoint needsto have tables; so does FrontPage®—the suite product manager realizes thatshe already has tables… in Excel. Soshe requires a grid-tool API from theExcel team and mandates that any teamrequiring tables in their product shallinvoke the Excel API. This ensuresconsistency across products, is betterfor clients, and is better for theDevelopment teams, allowing them tofocus their energies on new functionality.There is no need to reinvent a featurethat already exists.

Frequently, companies attempt tocreate architectural services and alsoimplement those services in the clientin the same release. This is terriblydifficult and beyond what mostcompanies can realistically achieve. A more reliable technique is toemploy frequent, staggered releases.Architecture features in release 1 areimplemented in client components inrelease 1.1. In other words, completethe basement before you build ahouse on top of it.

In the Office example, the Excel teamcompletes the grid API in one release;the other products use that API in theirnext release. This way, the API doesn’tbecome a critical-path for a productthat relies upon it. Of course, in theideal, theoretical world, the API wouldbe available as planned and could beincorporated into the current project—but this rarely happens in real life.

A product roadmap for the family ofproducts provides a simple view of allthese intricacies. Release schedules forarchitectural services are shown in theroadmap and can be incorporated intothe distinct products that need thoseservices. The roadmap explains theneed for staggered releases, each releaseof one product building on the priorone of another.

Industry-focused product managementHow can one product be marketed to multiple industries? After all, thefeatures needed for automotivemanufacturing may be different thanthose needed by financial services. In this scenario, industry productmanagers gather industry-specificrequirements for all products in asuite and deliver them to the suiteproduct manager.

An industry product manager mustknow the requirements of the industry.Domain knowledge in the industryallows the product manager to convertfeature requests to the root problem.Domain knowledge is also necessaryto define a go-to-market strategy.Typically, the industry managerperforms both inbound and outboundfunctions although larger companiessplit these roles into the same basicproduct management triad describedearlier. The industry manager isresponsible for identifying industryproblems in a Market RequirementsDocument (MRD). The industry manageralso modifies the product positioningto make it resonate with the industryand defines a go-to-market strategybased on the positioning.


Where some companies have definedindustry-specific versions of theirproducts, others prefer to deliverindustry-specific releases to theirmarkets. An industry-specific releasedelivers a necessary feature set designedfor an industry. Release 2.1 deliversthe features needed by automotivemanufacturing; release 2.2 deliversthe features needed by financialservices. Again, a product roadmap is the tool to use showing delivery of features by industry.

International productmanagementAren’t product requirements and marketmessaging the same for every country?No! Just as some verticals need afeature that others don’t, differentcountries have different requirementsand different go-to-market strategies. A company serious about sellingworldwide, has product managementand marketing resources in each majorgeographic market. To do it right, eachcountry needs professional marketers—not the office admin, a goodsalesperson, or the local generalmanager. For companies with aninternational strategy (and shouldn’t

that be all companies?), localproduct managers

gather requirements and deliver themin the form of an MRD just as theindustry product managers do. Thechallenge of bringing all these togetherin a coherent release falls to the productsuite manager.

How many product managers? The Pragmatic Marketing® Frameworkserves as a vehicle for defining productmanagement. Review these activitiesby product, by industry, and bygeographic market. Does your companyneed product management attention in all of these areas? If so, who will be responsible? And how many hoursper week should be allocated?

The typical product manager hasworldwide responsibility for threeproducts. This can’t possibly be a successful allocation.

Does it sound like we need moreproduct management? Here’s how to find out.

For each product management activity,estimate the hours per week that theproduct manager should spend byproduct, by industry, by geographicmarket. Add it up. Divide by thenumber of hours in a typical week.Voila! That’s the number of productmanagers you need. The typical U.S.-based product manager works

67 hours per week. For planning

purposes, 40 hours/week is a morerealistic estimation amount, leaving27 hours per week for all theunplanned activities.

After staffing to the needs of theproduct, industry, and country, aproduct roadmap ensures that allproduct teams are in sync. The productroadmap is a critical planning tool thatcommunicates the deliverables of thesuite and of the products.

Large products have large needs.Multiple product managers ensure thatall products, industries, and marketsget the corporate attention that theydeserve, that Development understandsthe product requirements, and thatMarketing has coherent positioning.Multiple product managers needcommunication tools, such asrequirement reviews and productroadmaps, to ensure that all teams are in sync, so that we can deliverintegrated products that people want to buy.

Multiple Products, Multiple Product Managers

Steve Johnson is an expert in technologyproduct management. He works forPragmatic Marketing® as an instructorfor the top-rated courses PracticalProduct Management™ andRequirements That Work™. Steve is also a frequent presenter for varioustechnology marketing forums throughoutthe United States and Europe, author of many articles on technology productmanagement, and is the webmaster of http://productmarketing.com—a website devoted to technologyproduct management. Contact Steve at [email protected]


Sales forces expect sales guides to arm them with information they needto confidently sell your company’ssolution, including ways to handle the competition. Yet some sales guidesgloss over the competition, or provideweak competitive positioning. This notonly harms chances of closing deals,but also undermines the marketinggroup’s credibility with the sales force—sales representatives will think youdon’t understand the competition or the sales process.

So give the sales force what they needto win. Following are six field-tested,salespeople-approved best practices tohelp you put competitive intelligenceto work for your sales force.

1. Tap “insider” sources ofcompetitive intelligence Much of the competitive data you needis right at your fingertips. Your salesforce is a valuable source of competitiveinformation. After all, they face thecompetition daily and know how thesecompanies are positioned against youroffering. If you are selling a technicalsolution, don’t overlook your technicalpre-sales engineers. They have probablygained significant insight into thestrengths (and flaws) of the competition based onfeedback from prospectsduring technicaldemonstrations. The key

is to tap into allthis data and turnit into informationthat the sales forcecan use. Unless aprocess exists to collectthis information, it will gounshared. Most sales forcesand/or marketing teams conductwin/loss analyses—this offers alogical place to capture competitiveinformation gathered in the field.

2. Translate data into a sales toolA competitive matrix that is organizedaccording to major feature setsand pricing is one of themost common ways ofpresenting competitiveinformation. Thisformat enables the

...to ensure you are notsetting up your sales force for failure, provide strongpositioning against the

competition’s strengths...


By Stephanie Tilton

Competitive Information and Sales Guides:

What SalesForces Need

to Win

sales force, at a glance,to understand how your

solution compares to thecompetition’s offering.

These comparisons succeedin providing bite-sized chunks

of easily understood informationbut often lack sufficient context and

thoroughness. Specifically, comparisonmatrices typically fall short of providing

positioning statements that the sales-person can either use in a conversationor in written correspondence. Therefore,provide both a matrix and a set of “silverbullets” that the sales representative canleverage. These concise summariesshould highlight the main positioningpoints, provide reasons why thecompetition’s approach is inadequate,and finish with strong statements aboutthe unique business value that yoursolution provides. Whenever possible,support your statements with third-partyvalidation. And remember, to ensureyou are not setting up your sales forcefor failure, provide strong positioningagainst the competition’s strengths. Yoursales people are quite capable ofexploiting the competition’s weaknesses;where they most need your help is in undermining the competition’sstrengths.

Following is a “silverbullet” for a fictionalmasking tape vendor:

Selective “sticking.”Company XYZtouts the“unparalleledstickiness” of itstape as the main reason youshould choose their product. Whatthey don’t tell you is that three outof every five of their customersrequire surgery to remove the tapefrom their fingers. Our tape, on the other hand, uses a speciallyformulated, patent-pendingcompound that differentiatesbetween skin and all other materials,to ensure that the tape sticks toeverything but you.

3. Think big, just like your prospects Some competitive positioning fails to provide a “big picture” perspectiveof the competition. Remember thatcompetitive positioning is meant tohelp sales people overcome objectionswhile they guide prospects to chooseyour company’s solution over others.Prospects are not only assessing theproduct or service being offered, butalso the company with whom theywill be doing business. Details about a competitor’s financial health, industrystanding, and customer support policies

and track record are allimportant points thatyour sales force shouldbe able to address.Providing suchinformation in a briefcompetitive profile is avaluable tool that bothsales people and key

executives can utilize. (And don’t forgetto provide details about how your owncompany stacks up in these areas.)

4. Keep it legalBefore publishing any competitiveinformation, run it by your legaldepartment. Nothing sours a dealfaster than being hit by a lawsuit forfalse statements about the competition.Be prepared to provide your legaldepartment with sources for all claimsabout the competition. You may needto revise wording a few times beforethe legal department approves thecompetitive documents, so buildenough time into your schedule toallow for this. Your legal departmentmay also require you to include adisclaimer on the documents, statingthat your company believes allinformation is accurate, but that yourcompany will not be held liable if it isfound to be otherwise. This may helpindemnify your company should thedocument fall into the competition’shands. At the same time, clearly mark Your sales force

is a valuable source of competitive

information.


Sales representatives will quickly lose confidence

in the marketing group if competitive positioning

is outdated.

these documents as proprietaryand confidential, so your salesforce does not think they are forpublic consumption. Disclaimer:the preceding is not intended toprovide legal advice; consultyour legal department.

5. Stay up-to-dateSales representatives will quicklylose confidence in the marketinggroup if competitive positioningis outdated. If a sales representativeoffers outdated counterpoints to a prospect’s inquiries, theprospective customer is likely to assume that the salesperson(and by inference, the companyrepresented) is not in touch withthe market.

Keeping competitive positioning up-to-date requires a commitmentand well-considered processes.Your company’s intranet provides a centralized repository that iseasily accessible and can helpensure that only one version ofthe document is available at anygiven time. By including the dateof creation on each competitivetool, your sales reps can easilyassess whether or not they havethe most recent document—justmake sure the document doesn’tautomatically show the date thedocument is opened. You mayhave to complement this with atable that shows the latest versionsof all competitive tools.

6. Market your intelligenceOnce you have developedcomprehensive competitiveintelligence tools, ensure thatsales representatives and otherinterested parties are aware ofthem. This can be accomplishedby sending out an email messageto announce major updates. Somecompanies highlight new intranetcontent with a home page bannerad—if this mechanism is availableto you, take advantage of it.

Ambitious companies can developa competitive update emailnewsletter to be sent every week,bi-weekly, or monthly, as needed.A newsletter conveniently capturesall relevant content for a certain

period, and can provide briefsummaries with links to furtherinformation on the intranet.Some competitor news needs to be acted upon quickly, andMarketing can supplement thecompetitive update newsletterwith an email blast that providesdetails on timely events whilealso guiding the sales force on a sanctioned response. Yoursales force will appreciate yourongoing involvement, and yourmarketing department can ensure that all sales people useconsistent messaging.

Competitive positioning is anintegral part of any successfulsales guide. Collecting anddisseminating the information ina timely fashion is key to stayinga step ahead of the competition.At the same time, synthesizingthe data and presenting it in amanner that the sales force findsuseful is no small challenge. Ifyou outsource the developmentof your sales guides and/orcompetitive tools, make sure thevendor has a solid backgroundin competitive positioning. Writerswith a strong understanding of competitive analysis canquickly distill a large amount of information down to itsessence, while also providingconcise, compelling statementsthat help your sales forcesuccessfully compete.

Stephanie Tilton ([email protected]) is a senior marketing consultant for Hoffman MarketingCommunications, Inc., a business and technology writing company that specializes in developing salespresentations, white papers, and other strategic marketing collateral. Claim your Hoffman-authored free best practice articles on how to avoid the most common (and uncommon) sales guide and white papermistakes by visiting http://www.hoffmanmarcom.com/best_practice.html

Copyright © Hoffman Marketing Communications, Inc., 2004. All rights reserved.

Competitive Information and Sales Guides: What Sales Forces Need to Win



As product manager, you willguide a team that is charged with a product line contribution as abusiness unit. This extends fromincreasing the profitability ofexisting products to developingnew products for the company.You will build products fromexisting ideas, and help to developnew ideas based on your industryexperience and your contact withcustomers and prospects. You mustpossess a unique blend of businessand technical savvy; a big-picturevision, and the drive to make thatvision a reality. You must enjoyspending time in the market tounderstand their problems, andfind innovative solutions for thebroader market.

You must be able to communicatewith all areas of the company. You will work with an engineeringcounterpart to define productrelease requirements. You will work with MarketingCommunications to define the go-to-market strategy, helping themunderstand the product positioning,key benefits, and target customer.You will also serve as the internaland external evangelist for yourproduct offering, occasionallyworking with the sales channeland key customers.

A product manager’s key role isstrategic, not tactical. The otherorganizations will support yourstrategic efforts; you won’t besupporting their tactical tasks.

Key responsibilities• Managing the entire product line

life-cycle from strategic planningto tactical activities.

• Specifying market requirements for current and future products by conducting market researchsupported by on-going visits tocustomers and non-customers.

• Driving a solution set acrossdevelopment teams (primarilyDevelopment/Engineering, andMarketing Communications)through market requirements,product contract, and positioning.

• Developing and implementing a company-wide go-to-marketplan, working with all departmentsto execute.

• Analyzing potential partnerrelationships for the product.

Requirements• 3+ years of software marketing/

product management experience.

• Knowledgeable in technology.

• Computer Science or Engineeringdegree or work experience a strong plus.

• This position requires travel (25%) to customer and non-customer sites in NorthAmerica and Europe.

“I’ve been a sales engineer for the last seven years and recently accepted a position as a productmanager. While I’m somewhat familiar with the role of a product manager—having workedalongside them for so long—no one is able to provide me with a ‘job description’ of a productmanager. Does such a thing exist? I’m primarily interested in knowing the high-level keyresponsibilities.”

Ask the Expert

Steve Johnson is an expert in technology productmanagement. He works for Pragmatic Marketing® as an instructor for the top-rated courses Practical ProductManagement™ and Requirements That Work™ as well as onsite courses. Steve is also a frequent presenter forvarious technology marketing forums throughout the

United States and Europe, author of many articles on technology productmanagement, and is the webmaster of http://productmarketing.com—awebsite devoted to technology product management. Contact Steve [email protected]

email your questions to [email protected]

This article discusses ten things thatproduct managers (PM) need to knowabout sales, the sales process, and therole of the sales rep. PMs routinelysupport the sales process but manytimes lack enough knowledge to do this.

“To be successful, product managersneed to be intimately familiar with howtheir products are sold. This is why

we encourage our PM’s to go out tothe field with our sales reps, andtrain them to be able to backfillan SE on a last-minute basis.”

— Tien Tzuo, SVP Marketing,SalesForce.com

1. What is a sales cycle?To better support the sales force, PMs need a good understanding of the sales cycle. The following is a basic description of the stages in a sales cycle:

Stage 1. ProspectingThe process where prospectivecustomers are identified. This can be achieved with market research,mailings, during tradeshows, via the website, etc.

Stage 2. QualificationThe stage where it is decidedwhether a sales opportunity existswith a specific prospect. To bequalified, several questions need to be answered:

a. Is there a basic fit between theprospect’s needs and the productoffering?

b. Is the prospect looking topurchase a solution within arelevant time frame?

c. Is the person who showed interestin the product really looking for a solution? Does he have a budgetand authorization to make a purchase?

Based on the answers to thesequestions, the sales cycle proceeds,shifts focus within the prospect’sorganization, or the salesperson moves on.

Ten Things Product Managers


Stage 3. DiscoveryThe sales rep collects informationabout the prospect:

a. The prospect’s pain. The pain iswhat drives the prospect to buy.

b. The political structure of thecustomer’s organization—whodecides, who is buying, who has budget, what is the buyingprocess, what are these people’sagendas, etc.

Stage 4. SolutionThe sales rep shows the prospecthow the product will solve theprospect’s pain. This is done with a demo, a pilot and/or a joint visitto a reference customer, etc.

Stage 5. ImplementationExecution of the sale agreementsand hand-off of the solution to the client.

Stage 6. Service, support and upsellThese actions are not necessarilymanaged by the sales rep but theyare critical to customer’s satisfactionand willingness to move to the next stage.

Stage 7. References and referralsSometimes, these can be moreimportant than the revenue itself.During this stage, the rep getsreferrals to other prospects andobtains the customer’s approval to be a reference.

Tip

The sales cycle is not complete untilthe customer goes through all sevenstages.

2. What is a complex sale?Most enterprise B2B systems sales areknown as “complex” sales. A complexsales is one where:

• There are multiple people involvedin the buying process. Some call this“buying by committee.” Selling tomultiple people—each with theirown agenda—can be very difficult.

• The purchase is part of budgets set aside for this purpose. Approvalof the purchase by a committee or a “higher authority” is usually a pre-requisite to placing an order.

• There is a lengthy period of timefrom the initial interest until adecision to purchase is made.

• It’s not uncommon for a complexsale to take 9-18 months.

Case in Point

A fault management companydiscovered a “camelback” buyingcycle involving a big time investmentin initial stages, followed by a hugelull waiting for budget approval,followed by a final time surge as the contract details were finalized.

3. Who’s your champion?One of the most important tasks forthe sales rep is to ascertain who willchampion the project, who willinfluence the buying decision andwho will make the final decision.These functions are not necessarilycarried out by the same person.

• The champion is the person who is aware of the pain and believes in the product. This person shepherdsthe sales rep through the politicalstructure of the company and thepurchasing process. The morepolitical strength the champion has, the easier it will be to sell.

• The decision maker is the personauthorized to make the purchasingdecision. This person must have a discernable pain that they want to resolve.

• The user is the person who will be using the product. If they are not the buyer, then they usually can influence the buyer.

• The purchaser works for thepurchasing department and acts as a gatekeeper protecting the company’sinterests by verifying that the price andterms are reasonable. The purchaser’sapproach has a big impact on thesales process. Purchasers can befacilitators when they feel positivelyabout the process and outrightobstructive if they don’t.

To close a sale, the sales rep has toengage with all of these stakeholdersand have a solution that takes intoaccount their concerns.

Food for thought

As a PM, you are probably excitedabout your product. Does yourprospect’s decision maker have apain to justify buying your product?


Should Know About Sales By Daniel Shefer

4. Sales reps need good personal skillsComplex sales involve multiplestakeholders in the buying organization.These usually include the champion,the decision maker and someone from Purchasing. Sometimes seniormanagement is involved, as well. Eachof these stakeholders has a differentand sometimes conflicting agenda. It’s the sales rep’s job to identify thedecision-making process, know theplayers involved in it, know how toinfluence the decision process towardsa decision and satisfy the needs ofeach of those involved. This requiresgreat personal skills. It’s not aboutknowing the features.

“The real job of sales is to get involvedin the buyer’s processes to help themcome to an informed decision.”

— Don France, PrincipalSalesNavigation

5. It’s all about relationshipsCustomers buy from people they trust. The larger the risk involved inthe purchase, the greater the trust thatneeds to exist between the prospectand the sales rep. The larger the risk, the more it becomes trust andcredibility rather than features.

Sales reps need to know the productonly as well as is required to gain theprospect’s trust. Sales reps can getaway with a lack of detailed productknowledge and still meet quota. Anexception to this rule may be technicalsales where domain expertise (regardingthe technology) is critical to the successof the sale because this expertise is needed to instill trust with theprospect.

Tip

Accept that knowledge of yourproduct’s features is not always criticalto the success of your sales reps.

6. The customer is less interestedin your product than you thinkCustomers are interested in what yourproduct does for them. They don’tcare too much how it works as longas the benefit to them is clear and thatthe product doesn’t cross any red linessuch as the opening of firewall portsand other security problems. Ensurethat your general approach, salesmaterials and training are all focusedon what benefits the product bringsthe customer. The product’s featuresare the “how” benefits are achieved,not objectives in their own right. Thisis why problem-oriented positioning is so important…

Food for thought

Many PMs spend much of their timeon “how it works” vs. “how it helpsthe customer.”

Where do you spend most of your time?

7. Sales reps don’t have vision,they have comp plans Compensation plans are what drivessales rep’s behavior. The comp plan is the company’s way of tellingreps “this is what we wantyou to do.” Sales reps willsell according to whatwill maximize theircompensation. It’s amistake to rely on otherways to incite them to sell,such as flashy new sales materialsunless the compensation plan issynchronized with your objectives.

Fact

Typically the best-performing salesreps earn the highest salaries in thecompany. This is both customary and necessary.

8. The sale isn’t over until the fatlady signs, and then some…

“Product managers must understandthat the REAL decision is made notwhen the prospect says he wantssomething, specifically a change tothe software, but when they sign onthe dotted line.”

— Don France, Principal SalesNavigation

The only thing that counts for Product Management is the customer’ssignature on the bottom line. Salesreps may come to you requestingchanges to the product in order toclose a deal. There are two issues to be mindful of:

1. Be very, very cautious about expendingresources before the customer signsthe contract. Should the deal close,no resources should be expendedon the product before thecustomer signs the contract,

regardless of how importantthe customer is. A salesrep’s promise that the

customer is “just about

Ten Things Product Managers Should Know About Sales


to sign” or that this is “a closed deal”should leave you unfazed. Many thingscan and do go wrong at the last minute.A sales rep’s word is not money in the bank.

2. If your company is a softwarevendor, it’s a mistake to customizethe product for a specific customer.The product needs to address amarket segment, not a specificcustomer’s needs. Adding featuresthat will help you in the marketsegment that the customer belongsto is one thing, customizing it forthem is another. Custom work canbe done as long as it’s done outsidethe R&D organization, as part ofProfessional Services. Use an API or product-specific developmenttools, which don’t change the coreproduct. Of course, the customershould pay for any work done bythe Professional Services group.

“If your company is a softwarecompany, it should NEVER buildcustom code for a particular deal. Yetmany companies do this because theylack maturity and discipline.”

— Steve Johnson,

Pragmatic Marketing

For the company, the sale isn’t overuntil the customer is implemented andreferable. It’s not about getting moneyin the short-term rather long-termmarket share. A deal that doesn’t buildmarket share is a waste of companyresources.

9. The win/loss analysisWin/loss analysis is critical to thecontinuing success of the company.This process is like any post-mortem.A “pathologist,” the disinterested third-party, independently assesses the “patient’s” treatment after it hasended. With companies, this process is the responsibility of the Marketingdepartment and PMs should beinvolved in the process, if not manageit themselves. The purpose of thewin/loss analysis is to understandwhat happened in the sales cycle and how to increase the chances of winning the next deal.

You should be looking out for things to improve that are within your domain such as:

• Messaging that was not wellunderstood by the prospect.

• Missing product functionality.

• A pricing model that might beimpeding sales.

• Sales tools that are not having their desired impact.

• Changes to the competitorspositioning and product.

All the sales cycles need to be analyzed.Sales reps tend to be reluctant toreport a loss especially if it occurredin the beginning of the cycle. Makethe extra effort to identify prospectsthat were lost at the beginning stagesof the cycle.

Tips

Don’t forget the “Win” part in thewin/loss analysis. Learning from theaccount “wins” is just as important aslearning from the losses.

Make it clear to the sales force what will be done with the results of the analysis. If you can point to a change in product, pricing, etc.as the result of a previous survey,the sales team will be moremotivated to help you.

10. What it costs to sellIt costs a lot to sell enterprise products.Marketing programs for generating leadsare very expensive. Generating a leadcan cost anywhere from $20 to $100for webcasts and mailings and up to thousands of dollars per lead attradeshows. After leads are collected,they have to be qualified. Consider the time spent by the rep speakingwith the prospect, traveling to meetand entertain them, etc. A sales calltypically costs $2,000 to 5,000! Currentresearch shows that it costs roughly$2,000 per day to send a B2B rep intothe field. Bringing an SE? Add $2,000.Taking a product manager? Add another$2,000. Then of course there is therep’s compensation. The bottom line is that fully-ramped sales reps can cost a company $200,000 to $250,000 a year and more.

SummaryTo be as effective as possible, productmanagers need to understand the salesprocess, understand what role the salesreps play and how product managerscan affect this process.

Ten Things Product Managers Should Know About Sales

Daniel Shefer is a Product Management and Product Marketing professional with eight years of productexperience in the software industry. Daniel specializes in VoIP, video, communications and collaboration,

applied networking and both the ASP and enterprise software models. During his five years with Interwise, he wasinstrumental in product design and establishing and managing the product management and the product marketingoperations. Additionally, he has also managed technical sales into Microsoft along with driving technology partnerships with vendors such as PeopleSoft and Docent. Contact Daniel at [email protected]

This article and its contents copyright ©2003 by Daniel Shefer.


Alan Armstrong, Director of StrategyWily Technology, Inc.

“Pragmatic is about developing your career.

It's about giving you the tools to get ahead.”

Mapping out a career path in high-tech Product Management is a

challenge. To be successful, you must lead through influence rather

than mandate. Since many product mangers begin their career with

a non-marketing background, they often lack the necessary skills

to perform the strategic aspects of the job. These same skills build

a solid foundation for becoming a market-driven executive.

Pragmatic Marketing offers a complete training program specifically

designed for dealing with all aspects of high-tech product

management and product marketing. Our framework, fine-tuned

by 25,000 attendees over 10 years, provides a market-driven model

for managing and marketing technology products.

– Alan ArmstrongDirector of StrategyWily Technology, Inc.

Visit www.PragmaticMarketing.com to learn more.

The Industry Standard in Technology Product Management Education


At a meeting of customers, such as anannual user conference, do you dreadthe “feature list haggling” breakoutsession? Does it seem to end up beinga complaint session, which is neverstrategic and never satisfying? It sendsyou running for the bar vowing neverto do one again.

Instead of haggling over features, try a force field analysis.

You’ll discover:

• What your customers think hascontributed to their success (as itrelates to what you do)

• How your products or services areholding your customers back

• Customers’ priorities (not only aboutwhat you offer, but overall prioritiesfor their business)

• Which “big ideas” your customersare thinking about

Force field analysis (developed manyyears ago by Kurt Lewin, a pioneer in the field of social sciences) is atechnique you can use with customersto elevate a painful exercise intopowerful feedback. It is a very simpletool that can be used to quicklybrainstorm and prioritize ideas with a group of customers.

For your product or service, what are the:

• Driving forces? These could befeatures, services, a way of doingbusiness with you, your channel,your website—anything that helpscustomers drive to success.

• Restraining forces? These might be quality issues, compleximplementation, convolutedprocesses, support, and unclearprocedures—anything that preventsyour customers from beingsuccessful.

This process can work with groups as small as 5-6 and groups as large as150 broken into round tables of 8-10.More than 150 people will result inchaos if you try to do it interactively.Try segmenting into smaller groups:industry, type of user (such as systemsadministrator, manager, analyst, dataentry), product line, or region.

[One caveat—if you currently have a lot of unhappy customers and fewhappy customers, this technique won't work any better than a featurehaggling session. It will quicklydeteriorate into “beat up the vendor”when you get to the restrainingforces.]

Assuming you have happy customers,decide what you're really trying tolearn before the meeting begins.

State the problem, goal, or situationwhere you want feedback. Make surethis is well thought-out or you couldend up eliciting feedback for thewrong things. It’s a good idea to havea separate discussion for long-rangeissues versus next release.

It is also important to set expectationswith the group. This is input into theprocess, not the final authority! (But if you never act on what you learn atthese types of sessions, don’t bothercollecting the information.)

Each table should elect a scribe and a facilitator (who will also act as aspokesperson for the group). Followthis entire procedure first for thedriving (positive) forces and then againfor the restraining (negative) forces.Each discussion (driving and restraining)should take about 30 minutes. Thetime it takes to report back to thegroup at large depends on how many groups you have.

1. The table facilitator goes around the table and asks each person to contribute one force. The tablescribe will record each new force (it is likely some items will berepeated).

2.Go around the table one or twomore times until everyone agreesthat their top three forces have been listed. Spend a few minutesdiscussing.

Using Force Field Analysis to Listen to Customers

By Barbara Nelson

3.Review the list with the group. Eachperson will get three votes for theirtop three forces. Read the list againand have everyone vote. The scribewill tally the votes for each force.

If you have multiple small groups,once every table has come up withtheir top three driving forces, have a moderator with a microphone goaround to each table (talk show-hoststyle) and ask for one driving forceper table. A meeting scribe candocument the forces in a spreadsheet,projected at the front of the room(make sure the resolution is set largeenough for people to read them). Go back around the tables one or two more times until each of thetable’s top three driving forces have been reported.

Leave the list up for a few minutes so everyone has a chance to review.Discuss any items needing furtherclarification. Then each person in theroom will get three votes for their topthree forces. Read each item and get a show of hands to vote on the items.The meeting scribe should enter thenumber of votes for each driving force listed in the spreadsheet. Whendone, sort the items by the “votes”column to rank them. Refer to oursample list of driving and restrainingforces. The scribe can report back tothe group at large what the top threedriving forces are.

Repeat all of these steps for therestraining forces.

Try this technique with a small groupto get the logistics down beforeattempting it with a large group. Youwill find it offers lots of application for eliciting feedback both internallyand externally.

Force field analysis is a simple tool to use to listen to your customers. But don’t forget to report back to the group later on about what youlearned. If you discover new drivingforces, these might be folded into your positioning (or might result incustomer case studies or references).As you begin addressing the restrainingforces through new features, products,services, or changes to your operations,let people know that you not onlylistened, but that you acted on whatyou heard.

The purpose of listening to ourcustomers is to continuously improveand refine our products and servicesto help customers solve theirproblems.

Barbara Nelson is an instructor for Pragmatic Marketing. She has 21 years in the software industry, including vice president of product marketing for a leading provider of business andaccounting applications for the middle market. Before her decadeof product marketing experience, she worked closely withcustomers in several capacities, which taught her the importance

of listening to the customer and solving critical business issues. ContactBarbara at [email protected]

Driving Forces Votes

Integration across modules 50

Excellent technical support 45

Extensive ecosystem of partners and other solutions 41

Excellent product customization capability 40

Excellent web self-service 39

Standards-based technology 38

Easy to do business with 27

24x7 global support 12

Strong industry expertise 8

Restraining Forces Votes

Consulting services are too expensive 70

Product quality is not always consistent 60

Difficult to migrate from release to release 40

User security is inadequate 30

Difficult for customers to integrate custom applications 25

Difficult to create ad hoc reports 25

Difficult to integrate data warehousing solution 25

Unsure of future product direction 15

Release 1 is not usable 10


Practical Product Management

RequirementsThat Work

STR

ATE

GIC

MarketAnalysis

TechnologyAssessment

Win/LossAnalysis Innovation User

Personas

CompetitiveAnalysis

ProductContract

ReleaseMilestones

BusinessCase Positioning

MarketSizing Pricing Sales

Process

MarketResearch

ProductPerformance

Buy, Buildor Partner

MarketRequirements

MarketProblems

ThoughtLeaders

ProductRoadmap

QuantitativeAnalysis

ProductStrategy

ProductPlanning

OperationalMetrics

DistinctiveCompetence

TM

TM

CompleteCurriculum for

High-TechProduct

Managers

Pragmatic Marketing seminars

introduce a framework that

gives technology marketers

the tools necessary to deliver

market-driven products that

people want to buy. We focus

on all practical aspects of

juggling daily tactical demands

with strategic activities

necessary to become expert

on the market.

Visit www.PragmaticMarketing.com to learn more.


Effective Marketing Programs

TACTIC

AL

SalesReadiness

ChannelSupport

Collateral &Sales Tools

ChannelTraining

BuyerPersonas

"Special"Calls

MarketMessages

WhitePapers

EventSupport

LaunchPlan

CompetitiveWrite-Up

AnswerDesk

LeadGeneration

MarketingPlan

AwarenessPlan

CustomerAcquisition

CustomerRetention

ProgramStrategy

Presentations& Demos

TM

Do you understand the relationship between product management and product marketing?

Does it seem that product managers are overloaded with tactical activities?

Are you getting the most out of your investment in Product Management and Product Marketing?

Does your Product Management function need more structure and process?

Are product managers spending too much time supporting Sales? Development? Marketing Communications?

Do your product managers and product marketing managers understand their roles?

Are your product managers trailing the other departments instead of leading them by six or more months?

Are requirements a moving target?

Do your product managers rely on the sales channel for product requirements, positioning, name, or pricing?

Are your Market Requirements Documents not providing enough detail to Development so they know what to build?

Do your product managers wander into design in the Market Requirements Document rather than provide the market factsthat Development needs?

Are you struggling to keep control during the product planning process?

Is there agreement between Product Management and Development on what to do?

Does Marketing need a consistent process to build and deliver market messages that influence each of our target buyers and markets?

Do you need a process for selecting and designing programs that produce strategic results?

Is Marketing disconnected from the sales process—generating leads and sales tools that go nowhere?

Can you accurately measure marketing’s contribution to the company’s goals for revenue growth, customer retention and positioning awareness?

Do the people who plan and implement go-to-market activities need to know how their individual roles fit together?

Practical Product Management™

Practical Product Management is for product managers and those who manage or contribute to aspects of product marketing and management. This two-day

seminar fully explores the role of technical product management, providing tools and a framework to help get products to market more efficiently.

I. Strategic Role of Product Management• What is marketing?

• Definition of the role of product management• Contrasting product management and product marketing• Assigning ownership of responsibilities• Identifying the “first steps” with gap analysis

II. Market Analysis• Distinctive competence• Market research• Market problems• Technology assessment• Competitive analysis

III. Quantitative Analysis• Market sizing• Product performance• Operational metrics• Win/loss analysis

IV. Product Strategy• Business case• Pricing• Buy, build, or partner?• Thought leaders• Innovation

V. Product Planning• Positioning• Sales process

VI. Case StudyVII. Delineating Responsibilities

• Communicating market facts to Development,Marcom, and Sales

• Drawing the line between ProductManagement and the other departments

DAY 3 Requirements That Work™

(For those who write requirements)

VIII. Building the Market Requirements Document (MRD)• Writing requirements• Implementing use-case scenarios• Programming for the “persona”• Determining product feature sets• Creating the MRD

IX. Analyzing Business and Technology Drivers• Reviewing specifications• Prioritizing the product feature set

X. Getting (and Keeping) Commitments• Product contract

• Getting the product team in sync• Getting executive support

• Communicating the plan in the company and in the market

Build Market-Driven

Products byListening to the Market

Pragmatic Marketing has

always focused on the unique

challenges of marketing

technology products and

services.

The framework we teach,

refined and perfected over

20 years, shows specific

processes to find and develop

profitable opportunities, plan

market-focused products and

create winning promotional

and sales campaigns. Each

seminar offers immediate

actionable ideas, templates

and tools.

Visit www.PragmaticMarketing.com or call (800) 816-7861 to register


Requirements That Work™

Requirements That Work is an intensive one-day coursethat introduces a straight forward method for creating

product plans that product managers can write,developers readily embrace, and that produce solutions

the market wants to buy.

I. Defining Roles and Methodology• Understand the source of conflict between

Development and Marketing• Define clear roles and responsibilities• Introduce a product planning methodology

II. Gathering Input• Channels of input to product planning• Organizing product ideas• Quantifying market needs

III. Building the Market Requirements Document • Writing requirements• Implementing use-case scenarios• Programming for the “persona”• Determining product feature sets• Creating the Market Requirements Document (MRD)

IV. Analyzing Business and Technology Drivers• Reviewing specifications• Prioritizing the product feature set

V. Getting (and Keeping) Commitments• Product contract• Getting the product team in sync• Getting executive support• Communicating the plan in the company

and in the market

Effective Marketing Programs™

Effective Marketing Programs is a two-day seminar designed for those responsible for planning or execution

of programs and tools that build market share in high-tech markets.

This course explains how the most successful high-tech companies plan, execute, and measuremarketing programs and sales tools.

I. Roles and Responsibilities• The Pragmatic Marketing® Framework• The Effective Marketing Programs Process• Role definitions & skills assessment

II. Buyer Personas• Positioning by type of buyer• Creating buyer personas• The sales channel persona

III. The Strategic Programs Plan• The business case for marketing programs• Supporting sales goals• Metrics that engender management support• Building the right marketing budget

IV. High ROI Sales Tools • Writing useful, high-impact collateral• How to generate success stories• Real thought leadership in whitepapers• Building a strategic website

V. Goal-Oriented Program Execution• Controlling lead quality and throughput• When to use online marketing• Measure results without CRM• Program priorities for each goal

VI. Start Where You Are• Prioritizing next steps• Start with existing programs• Setting measurable goals


IntroductionAny discussion of product trainingneeds to define two concepts, as these concepts hold sway in today’shigh-tech marketplaces. The firstconcept, not surprisingly, is “producttraining,” while the other concept is “solutions.”

Product training—or more precisely,effective product training, is definedas: distinct, proprietary content orknowledge about a product or servicethat significantly helps sales peoplesell more.

It is important to note that thisdefinition is independent of thedelivery mechanism—meaning,depending on circumstances and anorganization’s preferences, effectiveproduct training can be delivered in avariety of ways: one-to-one, classroom,seminar, e-learning, the companyintranet or a booklet.

The key is not how the product traininggets to the sales team, but what real,tangible value there is in the contentthey are given.

Solutions—The whole high-techindustry is obsessed with the idea thatthey no longer sell products, they sellsolutions.

Our definition of a solution is simply:any combination of products andservices that solve a customer’s problem.So cutting costs by moving HumanResources offshore is a “solution.”Improving productivity by providing a long-life laptop battery is also a“solution.” What counts for the customeris not how complex the solution is, butwhether their business problem wassolved and how well it was done.

If you’re into solutions in a big way,don’t worry. Product training isrelevant to the whole universe ofsales, which includes selling:

• Solutions

• Services

• Products

We’re not being lazy here. It’s just arealization that, in today’s world, salescategories have become increasinglyblurred.

New insights intoproduct training

By Andy McGinn

How to Make Selling Complex

Poor product training often results in low sales revenues and slow take-up of new products. The dilemma is that customer centric sales people (i.e. notproduct specialists) need to spend as much time as possible in front ofcustomers and not in training sessions. However, the more they know abouthow their company’s products and services solve their customer’s businessproblems, the more opportunities they’ll create.

Sales people often avoid any product training, feeling that it is a waste of their time. Product managers and marketers often feel frustrated by the lack of interest in training and poor results out in the field.

This article explores why product training fails and what can be done to succeed in this area.

comprehension


Why bother with product training?Why indeed. Especially when producttraining is viewed by most salespeople as a waste of valuable goldenselling hours and by most product ormarketing executives as the poisonchalice. So why bother with it at all?Because, when product training isdone properly, the business canclearly see and track three mainbenefits:

1. An increase in pipeline activity

2. A reduction in the time fromproduct launch to volume sales

3. Improvement in qualification of sales opportunities

These benefits, in turn, translate intohigher profits because of increasedrevenues and lower costs of sale. So,at this point, it is worth considering in more detail exactly what effectiveproduct training is, and how torecognize it.

Exploring effective product trainingIt’s one thing to claim that mostproduct training courses don’t work(and we’ll explore the claim in thenext section), but it’s important todetail some key characteristics ofeffective product training. Effectiveproduct training does the following:

• Increases the sales team’scomprehension of what the productis, how it will benefit their customer’sbusiness and robust methods foractually selling the product.

• Enables retention of the proposition,so that the sales team have enoughcredible information to identify orcreate a sales opportunity.

• Motivates individual sales people to actually go out and sell moreproduct.

Effective product training is built on three pillars of: comprehension,retention and motivation (CRM for short).

Comprehension is where producttraining simplifies the complexfeatures of the product offering, andfuses those features into a uniquevalue proposition(s) that the salespeople can understand and use.

Retention is the ability of good producttraining to create compelling productstories, appropriate product analogiesand memorable product metaphors.That takes talent and hard-won salesexperience.

Motivation is the key here. If salespeople believe that selling your productwill give them a higher return on theirtime (investment) than an alternative,they will “move heaven and earth” tounderstand and retain the informationrequired to make a sale.

Motivation is far more complex thanjust waving a $ sign in front of them.Experienced sales people especiallywill weigh that $ return against thelikelihood of a sale, the time neededto be invested, the risk to theirreputation, the risk to their customerrelationship, etc.

Solutions Simple

motivationretention

If there is any sign that your product or service won’t produce a goodreturn on investment (e.g. if theredoesn’t appear to be easy access tobackground information, etc.), theseasoned salesperson will just lookelsewhere for an opportunity.

The more choices your sales audiencehas to meet their target, the harder youhave to work at motivation (e.g. if youneed the sales team to sell softwarebut they can just as easily make targetselling hardware, you may need towork at motivation).

Why 95% of product training failsIt’s important to look at both sides ofthe fence when analyzing the successor failure of any sales effort. From the Product Marketing side and seniormanagement we often hear thesestatements:

• Our sales people can’t sell solutions!

• Our sales people just shiftlicenses/boxes/minutes, etc.

• Our sales people are lazy. Theynever seem to actually study the newproducts/services properly. How canthey expect to sell them?

From the sales people we often hear:

• I don’t go to product traininganymore. They are a waste of time.

• What I want is to understand how tosell it, not be a developer/systemsadministrator.

• They don’t give me what I actually want.

The reason that most product trainingfails needs to be explained at twolevels: The first level is, what is itabout the training that doesn’t tend towork? The second level is, why doesthat happen?

Let’s look at the first level first. Thislist of sales feedback to “traditional”sessions illustrates what it is aboutproduct training that doesn’t work:

1. Lack of comprehension

• I don’t understand anything here.It’s just too technical.

• I don’t understand the salesprocess. What are we actuallysupposed to do?

• I don’t understand what’s in it for my customer.

2. Lack of retention

• It’s clever stuff but I can’tremember all that.

3. Lack of motivation

• I don’t see how this will help memake target.

• I believe that the competitiveinformation is either unreliable orjust unusable. I’d get eaten alive if I tried to use that.

• I don’t believe in the proposition.It just looks like marketing hype.

• I think this will eat into revenuesfrom my existing products.

• I don’t think this will work withmy customer.

How to Make Selling Complex Solutions Simple: New insights into product training


• I can’t see any evidence of goodcollateral and I don’t want to haveto chase after it. I’m just too busy.

• I’ve heard that this product teamjust point you at “the web” andyou end up sifting throughhundreds of pages of uselesstechie stuff. I’ll leave it.

• I’ll end up looking stupid in frontof my customer.

So, what is it about the training thatdoesn’t work? It’s the insufficientattention paid to the key elements of comprehension, retention andmotivation.

Now that we have answered the firstlevel question, let’s move on and tryto answer the second level question.

“Why does that happen?”

There are two main reasons:

• Product managers and marketingexecutives are already too busy(superior product training is hardwork) and/or

• They don’t have the skills orknowledge to produce material forthis particular audience. Becausethere is a lack of information/documentation/interest groups, etc. about exactly how to produceproduct training for this audience, it’sunreasonable to expect product andmarketing people to be adept at this,and do their day jobs as well.

Neither of these are really the fault of product managers. They are oftenbusy trying to help sales peopleclose business and we’ve never comeacross a “how to do excellent producttraining for sales people” course atany high-tech organization.

Why does 95% of product training fail?Not enough attention is paid to thethree key factors that make it work,and the people who produce product

training are either too busy or don’thave the specific skills or informationrequired.

Obstacles to effective product trainingNo company deliberately sets out tosabotage its product training. But as theorganizational chart mushrooms, androles become specialized, somewhereNPD (New Product Development) andSales & Marketing split off into twodifferent camps.

While such division of labor has fuelledthe growth of commerce since AdamSmith and his “Wealth of Nations,” thatsame specialization is at the heart ofwhat stops effective product trainingin today’s hectic world.

Today, product teams and sales teamsspeak different languages, which thoughunderstandable (they operate in widelydifferent environments on a day-to-daybasis), makes communication verydifficult indeed. Consider just some of the following obstacles tocommunication:

• Product teams have “deep,” but not“wide,” product knowledge. Theyare fantastic on detail, but sometimesfind it difficult to see the big picturein the same way the salesperson

needs to (e.g. will this productcannibalize existing revenuestreams?).

• Most product experts make poorproduct teachers because theyassume everyone has a grasp of the fundamentals (like they do).Again this is not their fault. Ithappens to anyone who lives andbreathes a subject for long enough,including us!

• Constructing a product-trainingprogram is hard, creative and unusualwork. The demands of the salesteams and development cycles meanthat product training is relegated to the important, but not urgent file, and rushed at the last minute.

• Good, local case study material isnotoriously difficult to get hold of,as sales people are always off ontheir next opportunity and don’twant to be meeting with marketingexecs to discuss a “done deal.”

Now that we have listed some of thecommon obstacles, the role of effectiveproduct training becomes clear.

The job of product training is to be an accurate and sympathetic interpreterbetween the two camps—to be fluentin product-speak and sales-speak, andto fully understand, not condemn, thecultural differences of both parties.




What sales teams really wantWhat sales teams really want is producttraining that helps them exceed target.Basically they are very much like theCEO. He wants improved ROI to keepthe shareholders happy.

The salesperson wants the maximumamount of sales within the least amountof time. In product training terms, thistranslates into a demand for the mostuseful information in the minimumamount of time. This boils down to thefollowing list of “must-haves” when itcomes to product training courses:

• “What’s in it for me?”A clear, specific explanation of thebenefits to the salesperson of sellingthis product (especially if it is one of many)

• “What’s in it for my customer?”Clarification of product benefits. Sothey don’t have to go hunting forthe benefits in the thick forest ofproduct features

• “Why us and not the competition?”Accurate, realistic and verifiableinformation about the competitor’sproducts coupled with a trulyunique selling proposition(s)

• Take home facts and figuresWoven into easy-to-rememberproduct stories

• Background informationAccessible, useful information,specifically written for sales people

Putting it rightOne approach to improving producttraining is to conduct a six-monthassessment of the skills of the salespeople—their needs for producttraining, etc. However, by the time it’scomplete, most of what was initiallyexamined has changed and thecompany is back to square one. Theeasiest approach is to start with theseactions and then build from there:

1. Get the CEO involved. If you needto accelerate developments in producttraining, you need a high-levelsponsor who straddles both Sales

and Marketing. The language usedin “Why bother with producttraining?” is specifically gearedaround the needs of the board ofdirectors and should help you to getsome leverage when needed.

2. Ask a salesperson. You know thatsales people will tell you exactlywhat is wrong with what is beingdone currently, so just ask. Youdon’t need to conduct a huge survey(especially if you are a productmanager—just making sure yourpart of the empire is on target), 5-10views from sales people will giveyou a good basis from which towork. You can use the commentsunder “Why 95% of product trainingfails” to help build your mini-survey.

3. Develop a small network of like-minded colleagues within thecompany and share ideas on whatworks and what doesn’t. Althoughthis may seem obvious, one of themain benefits is it provides a supportstructure to help keep you focusedon better product training andultimately better product sales.

4. Develop a consistent approach. Onceyou and your colleagues have donethis enough times, you’ll have yourown company-specific methodology.This could be as formal as a miniwebsite, or informal as a long textdocument with ideas jotted downfrom multiple contributors.

Product sales are complex enough to start with—so the job of producttraining is to simplify the complex andto clearly show to the sales force theactual way your products deliver resultsto their customers, and the easiestways that they can articulate anddemonstrate such benefits.


Andy McGinn is the CEO of Reality Associates Ltd. Reality Associates works with companies such as OracleUK and BT to develop business centric product-training programs for their sales teams. Andy can becontacted at [email protected]

Micro Focus, Inc. is a company thatunderstands how to unlock the valueof legacy assets. Its software enablesorganizations to reuse and extend thelife of legacy applications written inthe COBOL source language. For MicroFocus’ customers, making the most oftheir existing enterprise systems resultsin reduced costs, increased agility, andminimal risk.

The same can now be said for MicroFocus’ global marketing organization,thanks to an aggressive plan to reinventits processes and galvanize the worldwideteam. According to Alan Holdship, vicepresident of North American Marketingfor Micro Focus, “When I looked overthe landscape of marketing, I realizedthat, in spite of our efforts, we werean island within the company. We hadnot figured out how to leverage the

skills of Sales or Product Management.Therefore, we were not firing on allcylinders.”

He adds, “At the same time, given thatwe are a global marketing organization,with people in Germany, Japan, Italy,BeNeLux, the Nordic region, France,Britain, Australia, and the U.S., wedidn’t have a sense of being oneworldwide unit. We were presentingourselves as several companies—notjust in our messaging, but the processesby which we were working andcommunicating. There was no singlemethod to take an initial thought andwork it through until we created aspecific result, so our efforts werescattered and inconsistent. Micro Focuswas determined to present itself as aglobal company. So it was importantfor the marketing organization topresent our solutions to worldwidecustomers with one face and onemessage, with a consistency thatwould run across the globe.”

Beyond that, the marketing organizationdidn’t have a clear picture of how itcontributed to the company’s success.It needed to establish a clear reasonfor being, a role that deserved therespect of the rest of the organization.“We realized that credibility comesfrom metrics,” says Holdship, “and wedidn’t have a way to measure ourmarketing programs. We couldn’t learnfrom anything we did wrong or benefitfrom the things we did successfully,and we couldn’t report our successesto our stakeholders.”

Answering the callToward that end, Holdship went insearch of a professional trainingprogram that would help Micro Focusbegin to unlock of the value ofmarketing. “I wanted to make surethat everyone around the world gotthe same, fundamental education


Micro FocusUnlocks the

Value ofMarketing

“Today, we can track everysingle program, from a smallonline demo to a major direct

marketing event.”

Case Study

about marketing and how it works. Ourgoal was to get everyone in one room,call in the best people we could find,and have them give us the insights we needed to succeed.”

The solution was Pragmatic Marketing®

and its Effective Marketing Programs™

seminar. “I was impressed with thePragmatic Marketing Framework and with the professionalism of theorganization,” he says. “I recognizedmany things within the programcontent that we needed in ourmarketing organization.”

Holdship brought 27 people togetherfor a planning meeting, including allof the members of his worldwidemarketing team and representativesfrom his advertising and PR agencies.The week started with the two-dayEffective Marketing Programs seminar,and continued after the seminar aseveryone worked on plans to implementthe new ideas. “The goal was to bindthe group together with specific skillsets and processes that we could alluse and benefit from. PragmaticMarketing offered that. They providedthe insight into the role of marketingand how it works with other parts ofthe company, along with best practicesfor delivering effective marketingprograms to our customers—bothinternal and external.”

For Holdship, one of the criticalelements behind the success of thesession was the skill of the instructor.“Adele connected with people. Herskill is steeped in this massiveknowledge and experience; she’s beenthere and done just about everything.But she took all of that experience,adapted it to our unique situation, andapplied it at the right level—to thepoint where she stretched our peopleto learn, but not where she lost them.

She gave us insights into where wecould take this in the long term, aswell as what we could do next weekto make a difference.”

Breaking down the barriersOne of the first things the team learnedwas how to prevent Marketing frombeing an island within the company—a very protective and defensive island.“As a group, we came to the realizationthat marketing was not exclusively upto us,” Holdship emphasizes. “Werealized we had help around thecompany. For example, ProductManagement plays a major andnecessary role in marketing. Withoutthem, we cannot be successful.Without us, they cannot be successful.Intuitively, you know that. It’s notnuclear physics. And it was the samewith Sales. But to see it on someoneelse’s slide presentation—a well-respected, neutral organization—wasan eye-opener for everybody.”

He continues, “We learned that thereare people within our company whonot only wanted to help, but essentiallywere supposed to be part of themarketing process. And that helped uscut through fears and conjectures suchas, ‘If we go to them, they will tell uswhat to do.’ Instead, we could view it as, ‘If we go to them, they will helpus do our jobs better.’ That was a bigplus. In fact, the biggest single benefitof the training was breaking down the barriers that stopped Marketingfrom communicating with ProductManagement and Sales.”

One company.One marketing team.Another valuable lesson from thePragmatic Marketing training was thatthere are best practices and structuresto follow for effective marketingprograms. “As a global marketingteam, we can all benefit from

following the same processes andworkflow—from idea all the way todelivery. With everyone on the samepage, we get increased consistency ofbrand identity across different cultures.Today, Micro Focus is truly a globalcompany, a much more integratedcompany. As a result, the company ispositioned to be more successful andincrease its revenue.”

An added bonus of the trainingsession was the team building thatoccurred. “Over two days, we cametogether as a unit under the auspicesof this professional training. We cameaway with a sense that we were all inthis together—regardless of languageor culture or market size,” remembersHoldship. “The team-building part was not planned. But in a pleasantlysurprising and very beneficial way, itdrew the group closer together. Now,the marketing organization functionsas a productive team, rather than as individuals working in differentdirections. And we can see elementsof the Effective Marketing Programsseminar in everything we do now.”

Response-to-revenue metricsA critical aspect of the training wasthe impetus to measure results. “Beforethe training, we had no credible metricwith which to measure marketing—whether good, bad, or indifferent,”explains Holdship. “Pragmatic gave usthe idea to measure and showed usthe value of that. It was the stimuluswe needed to develop our marketingmetrics and tools like our leadgeneration engine, our communicationsengine, and what we call our‘response-to-revenue process.’ Today,we can track every single program,from a small online demo to a majordirect marketing event. We can actuallydo closed-loop marketing—which wasjust a dream at the time we went tothe Pragmatic training.”


Case Study

As a high-tech executive, are you unclear about the strategic role of product management?

Does the role of product manager in your company need to be defined to the CEO so support can be given tostrategic activities?

As a product manager, do you strive to lead the organization rather thanreact to it?

This half-day session is a subset of the Practical Product Management™

seminar and introduces the industrystandard for high-tech marketing, the Pragmatic Marketing Framework.Refined over ten years and implementedby hundreds of technologycompanies, this framework showshow Product Management andMarketing personnel can move fromtactical activities to quantifiable,strategic actions that delivertremendous value to the company.This session includes immediateactionable ideas about how to best establish the role of ProductMarketing/Management and definemarket-driven products that make customers want to buy.

The Strategic Role of Product Management™

Seats are limited, so early registration

is recommended. Seeavailable dates on

back cover.

This seminar is open to anyonecurrently employed in high-techmarketing, including seniormanagement, product marketingmanagers, and product managers.

There is no fee to attend,but registration is required via our website.www.PragmaticMarketing.com

seminar!

The Industry Standard in Technology Product

Management Education

FreeFree

The ability to measure every marketing program andmake changes based on real data means the marketingorganization can predict success with much greateraccuracy. “We know how our programs are contributingto the company’s goals. I can now stand up in a companymeeting and say, ‘We are going to generate X numberof responses, and those responses are going to be worthY amount of revenue.’ Senior management knows whatreturn they’re getting on their investment in marketing,and how we’re contributing to the company’s overallsuccess. There is a growing sense that Marketing is anintegral part of the company and the way it acts andmoves and thinks.”

The ability to measure accurately and predict resultsreliably has also led to a quantum leap in the credibilityand respect the marketing organization now has withSales. “Marketing has gained respect through credibilityand results. The sales force now expects Marketing tobe part of the discussion and expects Marketing to deliver.They don’t demand anything from us any more. Nowthey come to us with a problem and ask us to find thebest solution. We have raised the bar. And we havegained enormous faith in ourselves.”

The turning pointHoldship is quick to point out that the changes did not take place overnight. It is a continuous process andtakes many, many months. And the process went throughperiods of ups and downs. “But I can always look backto the Pragmatic Marketing training as the starting pointof all these things, because that’s when we came togetheras a team and heard about all these great things wecould do. The seminar was the pivotal moment in how we changed the marketing organization. It wasthe cornerstone, the beginning of the new MicroFocus marketing.”

He concludes, “After that, it was up to our people toexecute and drive it home. There were no surprises—we could just get on with it. And we did. We still havea lot of work to do, but we’ve made significant progress.Now we have the tools, the processes, the skills, andthe support of the company to produce the right results with confidence.”

To feature the product management success at your company, contact

[email protected]

Practical Product Management™

July 12 – 14* ..........................................Cambridge, MAJuly 14 – 16* ..........................................San Francisco, CAJuly 26 – 28* ..........................................Vienna, VAAugust 9 – 11* ........................................San Francisco, CAAugust 16 – 18* ......................................Bedford, MAAugust 23 – 25* ......................................Minneapolis, MNAugust 30 – 1*........................................Toronto, OntarioSeptember 13 – 15* ..............................Santa Clara, CASeptember 20 – 22* ..............................Boston, MASeptember 27 – 29* ..............................Austin, TXOctober 12 – 14* ..................................San Francisco, CAOctober 25 – 27* ..................................Boston, MA

* Requirements That Work, Day 3

Requirements That Work™

July 14................................................Cambridge, MAJuly 16 ..............................................San Francisco, CAJuly 28..............................................Vienna, VAAugust 11........................................San Francisco, CAAugust 18 ......................................Bedford, MAAugust 25 ....................................Minneapolis, MNSeptember 1................................Toronto, OntarioSeptember 15 ............................Santa Clara, CASeptember 22 ..........................Boston, MASeptember 29..........................Austin, TXOctober 14 ............................San Francisco, CAOctober 27 ..........................Boston, MA

Effective Marketing Programs™

July 14 – 15 ..................Cambridge, MAAugust 11 – 12 ..........San Francisco, CASeptember 22 – 23 ..Boston, MAOctober 14 – 15 ....San Francisco, CA

Calendar of Upcoming Pragmatic Marketing Seminars

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31 1

AugustS M T W TH F S

1 2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30

SeptemberS M T W TH F S

1 2

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19 20 21 22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29 30

31

OctoberS M T W TH F S

* Requirements That Work, Day 3

1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31

JulyS M T W TH F S

Illustrates a practical process fordelivering programs that measurablyimpact revenue, market positioningand customer retention. Productmarketing and marcom professionalswill clearly understand how theycontribute to the company's strategicand tactical goals.

Call (800) 816-7861 or go to www.PragmaticMarketing.com to register!

Provides a repeatable method forproduct planning resulting in a MarketRequirements Document that othersread and use. Establishes clear rolesfor product planning team membersand teaches a process that creates anexecutable plan that delivers solutionsthat sell.

Introduces a framework that givesproduct managers the tools to delivermarket-driven products that peoplewant to buy. Focuses on the practicalaspects of juggling daily tacticaldemands of supporting the channelwith strategic activities necessary tobecome expert on the market.

16035 N. 80th Street, Suite FScottsdale, AZ 85260

PRSRT STDUS POSTAGE

PAIDPHOENIX, AZPERMIT 995

productmarketing.com™

The Strategic Role ofProduct Management™

Free

July 15 ................New York, NYJuly 23 ................San Jose, CAAugust 26 ..........Minneapolis, MNSeptember 16 ....Santa Clara, CASeptember 23 ....Boston, MAOctober 15 ........San Francisco, CA

A subset of the two-day Practical ProductManagement seminar, this session introduces the industry standard for high-tech marketing.

Shows how Product Management and Marketing personnel can move from tactical

to strategic activities.

Registration for this free seminar is required via our website:

www.PragmaticMarketing.com