Dave Govan (VP of Sales, Sailthru) - Aligning a Go to Market Strategy with Sales Execution Visit SalesHacker.com for more sales hacks, tips, and tactics.

1. Dave Govan
Executive Vice President, Sailthru, Inc.
Founder, G2 Strategic Advisory Services
Aligning Go to Market Strategy
w/ Sales Execution

2. The Problem
Sales Execution often lacks Alignment
Symptoms:
Smaller Sales Pipelines
Longer Sales Cycles
Smaller Opportunity Values
Lower Win Rates
Lower Revenue

3. Root Causes
Most Business Plans are:
Authored by Non Marketers / Non Sellers
Written for Investor Audience / Capital
Campaigns
Product / Technology heavy
Lack sufficient detail for successful Marketing &
Sales Execution

4. Solution
Include Go to Market Strategies with detailed
Market Maps in new and existing Business Plans

5. Market Map Components

6. Varying “Voices”,
Concerns / Needs

7. Voice of the Customer
Critical Starting Point (Must get it right)
Which one(s)?
When Messaging, One Size Fits All, only for B to
C and B to B simple tools
Enterprise B to B Marketing & Sales need
Message Platforms

8. Solution Strategy:
Competitive Alternatives
947 companies in 43 categories: the increasingly crowded
marketing technology landscape

9. Solution Strategy:
Competitive Alternatives
Whose customers are you going after?
Why?
Why will you win?
Will your prospective Power Decision Maker
agree?

10. Solution Strategy:
Differentiators
Crossing The Chasm, Elevator Pitch “Acid” Test; Geoffrey Moore
For? (target customers?)
Who are dissatisfied with? (current market alternative?)
Our product is a ? (new product category?)
That provides? (key problem-solving capability?)
Unlike? (the product alternative?)
We have assembled? (key whole product features of our application?)

11. Solution Strategy:
Vulnerabilities of Competitors
Which vulnerabilities are you able to exploit to defeat your competition?

12. Sample Competitive Matrix
Features FLL Strohl LDRPS Strohl PLANet
Sungard
Paragon
Recovery
Planner
MMT
Ease of Use /
Usability      
Total Cost of
Ownership      
Program
Management      
Business Impacts
and Risks      
Technology
Management      
Plan Management      
Incident
Management      
Reporting and
Dashboards      
Automatic
Notification      
Compliance
Management      
Vendor Management      
Customization      
 Requires Add On
 Not Available
 Poor
 Adequate
 Good
 Excellent

13. Opportunity Identification

14. Prioritize Targets
Your Prioritization “Sweet Spot”?
Who has the highest propensity to buy from you?
Who does your Solution benefit the most?
Where will you achieve the fastest traction?
Hence your Sales & Marketing Execution
Priorities

15. Marketing Execution
Ideal Prospective Account Characteristics?
Which SIC Code Sub Category Industries Align
with your Market Map?
Create and Pursue Universe of Accounts with
Suspects that Align
Create Unique Messaging Platforms to Attract,
Engage, Convert and Retain
High Impact / High Priority Deliverables

16. Message Platform: CFO
Pain Point Benefit Feature Distinct Competitive Advantage
Ability to Forecast
Results
During times of crisis or
business disruption I know
where I stand on my vendors,
clients, people, technology ,
etc. and can continue to
forecast results
FLL’s Modules:
•Compliance Manager
•Incident Manager
•Risk & Impacts Module
•Asset Management
•Technology Management
•Client Management
•People Management
Our integrated system is broader than other
vendors. It covers seven areas of your business,
more than a single or dual silo solution. The areas
are Risk, Continuity, Compliance, Vendor,
Technology, People, and Client
Maintaining morale
& productivity /
working capital
mgt
During a disruption FLL
provides you with a complete
view of your human resource
dependencies enabling you to
redeploy personnel to
maintain productivity. It also
enables you to maintain
morale by easily
communicating with your
employees either on demand
or automatically
People Management
Employee Communication Portal
FLL is one of the few solutions that automatically
communicates with employees and provides access
through a employee communication Portal
Balance-sheet
awareness
Having a Live Reports view of
Risk, Continuity, Compliance,
Vendor, Technology, People,
and Client during a disruption
contributes to improved
balance sheet awareness
FLL’s Features
Live Reports
We are the only vendor to offer “Live” Reports and
therefore we uniquely offer the broadest, most
consistent, & current info across departments
Attracting and
retaining qualified
employees
FLL will enable you to
manage risk more effectively
and minimize disruptions to
their business. Employees
are attracted to and remain
with firms who do the above
•Compliance Manager
•Incident Manager
•Risk & Impacts Module
•Asset Management
•Technology Management
•Client Management
•People Management
Our integrated system is broader than other
vendors. It covers seven areas of your business,
more than a single or dual silo solution. The areas
are Risk, Continuity, Compliance, Vendor,
Technology, People, and Client

17. Message Platform: IT Evaluator
Pain Point Benefit Feature Distinct Competitive Advantage
Job Security: FLL’s SaaS
architecture
minimizes many
traditional IT risks
associated with
new projects
FLL is a Software as a Service
solution
FLL is the only Business Continuity &
Governance, Risk, and Compliance system
available in a SaaS architecture
Keeping up w/ Project
Load
FLL’s fully
automated single
touch system is
faster and easier
to implement
System design supports DRII,
BCI, standards and integrates
CMDB from ITIL
One of the few products that integrates
business continuity best standards with
ITIL best standards
Staying within internal
IT Standards
Easily scales.
Easily integrates.
FLL is designed
on top of
common industry
technologies
FLL is designed around Microsoft
Sharepoint and .NET
One of two products built around
Sharepoint
Software Bugs and
Support Issues
FLL is high
quality software
Eg Gold certified
Microsoft
FLL is built on proven
methodologies using CMMI
standards. A dedicated QA team
ensures quality. Testing occurs at
module level and integration of
module into platform in customer
focus groups. Microsoft tested &
awarded Gold Seal of approval
Only BCP and GRC vendor awarded
Microsoft’s Gold Standard for software

18. Sales Execution
Align Sales Channels with Target Markets
Align Sales Human Capital with Selling Model &
Buyer’s DNA / Voice
Targeting: Identify ideal Job Title of Prospect as
your Entry Point and his/her Characteristics?
Pursue your Unique Qualification Criteria for
Business Fit? Solution Fit?
Align Pricing with Value Proposition
Methodology: Repeatable process for finding,
qualifying, managing and winning opportunities
Invoke Forecast Discipline
Data Centric Monitoring & Performance Coaching

19. Reassess & Optimize
Frequent Reviews of Strategy & Execution Alignment
with your short and long term objectives.
Identify external market changes impacting your go to
market strategy.
Determine if you are leveraging state of the art sales &
marketing tactics.
Identify potential additional resources, channels, and
opportunities.
Provide detailed recommendations to improve sales &
marketing execution.

20. Troubleshooting Questions
 Is the “Voice of the Customer” clearly understood and listened to?
 Is your Solution Strategy comprehensive enough?
- how are you different than your competitors?
- what is your unique value?
- what are your competitors vulnerabilities?
 Have you Identified and are you engaged with all areas of opportunity?
 Have you prioritized targets? Are you finding them, engaging with them,
converting?
- who has the highest propensity to buy your product?
- target verticals and suspects?
- are you connecting with buyers with acute pain as soon as they need a solution?
 Sales & Marketing Execution:
- How are you doing at ? Finding, Attracting, Engaging, Converting, and Retaining.
- Are you using state of the art best practices?
- Any breakdowns in Sales Execution?

21. Thank You
Dave Govan