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Want to Sell Solutions, but at the Velocity of Transactions? Try “Destination-Based Selling” (Part 2 of a Series)
A common concern among sales executives is the “velocity” of their sales approach. In other words, how rapidly can the sales team engage with customers and close opportunities? The way many Tech vendors approach this problem is to focus on selling “transactions”, and they generally try to steer clear of adding complexity to the sales process. Why? Because it could slow “velocity” and reduce the Rep’s ability to control the sales outcome and timing.
For many Tech organizations, complexity is often equated to selling “Solutions” that often include products from other vendors and professional services (which they may not get sales credit for, take a long time to “deliver” and equal more complexity). But as we’ve talked about in many posts, selling solutions is often what is needed to be successful selling a particular product. Particularly if it falls to the right of the diagram shown in Figure 1 below. I shared these 3 indicators in my post, “What 3 Questions Indicate Whether You Need to Sell “Solutions”? (and when does selling “Product” work better?…)”
Figure 1: The 3 Indicators for “Solution Selling”
You can find more information on how and when to sell solutions in the “Solutions” section of the “GTM Best Practices page” on my blog.
What I am finding is that fewer and fewer products fit on the left side of the diagram. In today’s world, software and services drive customer value, and hardware is often not the lead message in the solution. But this situation leaves the organizations with a difficult choice –which one of these paths should they follow?
- Market and sell products as part of a “Solution”, to connect with customers and create more long-term revenue
OR
- Sell “Transactions” at a higher velocity, to meet their sales goals (and keep their job)
These two choices seem incompatible – or are they? (more…)
2 Alignment Problems that Destroy the “GTM Bridge” (and limit Revenue)
The challenge appears quite simple – How can a Tech organization set up and run their organization so that they drive revenue from their products and partnerships? But think about your experiences with partnerships – like Bus Dev agreements, with Alliances, and with Indirect Channels (such as resellers and integrators), and I bet you can think of more examples of performance issues than of realized potential. As I’ve talked about in many of my posts, many Tech vendors are set up to market and sell as if they were a direct sales organization – although many, even most, are heavily reliant on their partners to drive revenue.
The root cause seems to be “boxed” strategy and execution that results from organizations pursuing approaches that were developed in a different era, but no longer directly apply to today’s complex IT world of architectures, software-defined data centers and Hybrid Clouds. (more…)
Startup or New Product? When Should You Plan and Build Your Route(s)-to-Market (RTM)?
In my post last week, I talked about planning route-to-market for a startup, or a more established company launching a new product category. The framework for approaching the situation is that you need to “Build a Bridge” to connect your products your target customers. As shown in Figure 1 below, that bridge consists of 4 key elements (Solution, GTM Model, Sales Plays, Sales Channel) that every company needs to take into account – if they want to drive revenue for their products, and alliances…
Figure 1: Building your Foundational “RTM Bridge”
But the Focus of this post is WHEN you need to plan and build this RTM Bridge?
To be honest, it is always a bit surprising to me that when I talk to folks in the industry (even very experienced executives and folks that I consider to be friends), the assumption seems to be that this needs to be done AFTER the product is ready. I’ve had quite a few discussions with prospective clients or with clients talking about future needs, where they told me something like: (more…)
Startup or New Product? Building a “Route-to-Market (RTM) Bridge” as the Foundation for Revenue
In a number of my posts in the past year, I’ve talked about the importance and best practices for “Building a GTM Bridge” to create a repeatable approach to marketing and selling your products – and drive more revenue. This process is shown in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1: Building a “GTM Bridge”
Building a GTM Bridge – to Make Your GTM Approach More Effective
What I have seen is that within a vendor, many organizations are involved in supporting the marketing, selling and delivering of products and solutions through sales channels – but often this alignment does not occur. The dynamics of why this process breaks down is covered in more detail in my series, “Why do Companies Struggle to Build the GTM Bridge?”
Here are some examples of what happens without a repeatable “GTM Bridge”: (more…)
Are You Jumping to the “Product Sale” Too Early (and Missing out on Revenue Opportunities)?
If you are a regular reader of my blog posts the past year you have seen a lot of discussion about the importance of “Solution” messages to connect to customers (and sell more of your products). My most recent series provides a good overview of the issues and the best practices in connecting with customers with Solution messages.
- Does Your Messaging Work in the “Cocoon”- But Fall Flat with Customers?
- How to Build the “Hook” into Your Messaging to Create “Pull” and Accelerate Revenue
- A Case Study: Building a Message Map that Connects to Your Customers and Accelerates Revenue
By now, I’m sure there are some folks out there that are saying to themselves – “This is getting old, we all know that selling products works (why else would everyone be doing it?)” It is true that I’ve made the discussion too much of a battle between “right” or “wrong” approaches, when the reality is that the right time to sell Solutions is more nuanced. (more…)
Podcast: Driving Revenue by Bridging the Gap Between Your Alliances and Channels
Listen to the recent podcast – from Steve Andrews
Overview
Over the past couple of years, we have been talking about the challenges for vendors to drive revenue for their products and partnerships, and how many of current practices are based on old business models for selling hardware, then software, and now being misapplied for cloud.
But how can technology vendors change to drive revenue in today’s world?
- The Mission for the Andrews Consulting Group is to “Help Technology Vendors Unleash the Revenue Potential of their Products and Partnerships”
- To accomplish that goal, we’ve developed a new approach to “Climb Out of the Box”™: A New Approach to Drive Revenue for your products and Partnerships
Learn More
2 Common Mistakes in Defining the “GTM Wheel” that Limit Product and Channel Revenue
Last week I talked about an approach to driving revenue for products and channels in terms of “Three Layers of the GTM Onion” and defined the base layer of the GTM in terms of a GTM Wheel. A wheel is a good analogy for developing a GTM program because there is a center, or hub of the wheel that is the center of rotation for the “spokes “that define the critical elements of the GTM Program.
In today’s post I will talk about this base layer of the “Onion”, the GTM Program Wheel (shown below in Figure 1), and two common mistakes companies make in in defining and executing the “Hub” and the “GTM Wheel” that can lead to missed revenue. (more…)
What Causes Products and Alliances to Miss Revenue Targets?: Two Common Gaps in the “GTM Bridge”
In a number of my posts this year I’ve talked about the key elements of a GTM program for a product or an alliance in terms of “Building a Bridge” between your products and your customers. The “Bridge” analogy is an apt description because for a product or an alliance to drive revenue, companies need to complete all of the key pieces of the bridge (who wants to go halfway across the bridge and then fall in the abyss below). The Four Key Elements of the GTM Bridge are shown below in Figure 1.
- Solution
- GTM Program
- Field Readiness
- Sales Channel Execution
The question we are looking at in today’s post is where in this process do technology vendors generally have problems? In my experience there are two parts of the GTM Bridge that consistently cause problems and lost revenue in technology vendor GTM programs. These challenges are highlighted by the Red in Figure 1 below.
- Solutions are not clearly defined and messaging does not connect with customer challenges (often “product push”)
- GTM programs are not adopted by field marketing, sales and channels teams (and programs are perceived to be “thrown over the wall”)
Figure 1: The GTM Bridge and Common Gaps in Execution
Measuring Alliance Impact: Have You Moved Beyond the Stone Age of Deal Registration? (3 Steps to Monetize Your Alliances Series)
Part of a Series: Are Your Alliances Missing the Money?
- 3 Steps to Monetize Your Strategic Alliances
- Step 1 – Build a Complete ATM Bridge to Your Customers
- Step 2 – Set up your Alliance and Bus Dev organizations to both “hunt” and “farm”
- Step 3 – Choose the Business Model that Matches How Alliance Solutions are Sold
- Measuring Alliance Impact:
In last week’s post, Measuring the Impact from Your Alliances and Solutions, I talked about the options to measure alliance impact and how most alliances end up with a meet in the channel business model. In another recent post, Choose the Right Model for Your Alliance , I talked about when this model makes sense, and when you should look at other models like OEM and Resale. The challenge with the “meet in the channel” business model is that it is hard to measure since there is not a unique product sku that you can report on in your systems. The key to measuring revenue impact is to tie your alliance solutions to your deal registration system.
Before we talk further about the alliance nuances of deal registration, let’s step back and look at what forces led to the creation of Deal Registration programs, their wide adoption and the value to vendors and their channel partners have evolved. Figure 1 below outlines the drivers and stages of adoption.
Figure 1: The Evolution of Deal Registration
3 Steps to Monetize Your Alliances: Options to Measure the Revenue Impact
Part of a Series: Are Your Alliances Missing the Money?
- 3 Steps to Monetize Your Strategic Alliances
- Step 1 – Build a Complete ATM Bridge to Your Customers
- Step 2 – Set up your Alliance and Bus Dev organizations to both “hunt” and “farm”
- Step 3 – Choose the Business Model that Matches How Alliance Solutions are Sold
- Measuring Alliance Impact:
In recent blog posts, we’ve been talking about how to drive revenue from strategic alliances. It’s fair to say that for many tech companies, alliances tend to start with great promise but often have underwhelming results in terms of revenue impact. Earlier posts in this series describe the problem and the opportunity and outlined 3 key steps to take to assure that your alliances drive measurable revenue. As we discussed in last week’s post, most alliances are not well-suited to an OEM or resall business model and a better option is a soft bundle sale with a GTM model that is often called “meet in the channel”.
But how do you measure revenue impact for soft bundle through channels?
“Climbing Out of the Box”™ 