Product managers are constantly amazed at the things salespeople will do, from chasing long shot opportunities to promising impossible benefits and non-existent functionality to prospects when trying to close a deal. Even though we like to blame the sales team for behaving in this manner, it may really be the product managers' fault. Product Managers should own the message and then enable the sales team to take this message to the market. Unfortunately, sales enablement has become one of the most overlooked functions of the product management role.

1. Salespeople Do the Darndest Things –
And It Might Be Product Management’s Fault!"
Presented by:
Tom Evans
Lûcrum Marketing
March 3, 2010
Copyright 2010- LÛCRUM MARKETING

2. Presentation Agenda
• Typical scenarios
• Causes & impacts
• What you (PM) can do
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3. The Scenario
Product (Smart Credit) targeted for credit issuers to better
manage credit lines and interest rates based upon the
credit risk of their clients/prospects, resulting in more
balance build and less delinquencies and write-offs.
“The events depicted in this presentation are fictitious. Any similarity to
any person, product, or company, living or dead is merely coincidental."
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4. The Lead
• Sales meets an IT Manager of credit card issuer at a trade
show.
• IT Mngr – “I need a solution to detect payment fraud. Can
you do it?”
• Sales – “Yes we can!”
• Sets face-to-face visit
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5. The Prep
• Sales to:
– Marketing – create new collateral that shows “our
payment fraud solution.”
– Sales Engineer – create a new demo that shows “our
payment fraud solution.”
– Sales Engineer/Marketing – help me with a new
presentation about payment fraud.
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6. The Sales Presentation
• PowerPoint Presentation
– Let me tell you how great our company is.
– Now, let me describe our Evolutionary Statistical
Algorithm (ESA) and how great it is.
• Let me demo every conceivable feature (isn’t this neat).
• IT Mngr – “Do you have feature A, B, C?”
• Sales – “Yes we do” (liar)
• IT Mngr – “Here is RFP, Send a proposal”
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7. The Proposal
• Sales to:
– Marketing – create a new proposal template for
payment fraud.
– Sales Engineer - answer this RFP.
– Engineering – We must have features A, B, C in the
product now to win this deal. We have a final demo in
three weeks.
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8. The Close
• IT Mngr – “We think we are going with Competitor X who
has the exact solution we need (and is being used by
companies a, b, c).”
• Sales - Discount the price!
• Sales - Discount it some more!
• Sales - Send in the cavalry (executive team)
• Sales - Oops – we still lost it – Why?
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9. The Why?
• Opportunistic v. Targeted Opportunity
• Sales message was technical v. speaking to business
needs
• Never engaged executive that owns the problem
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10. The Impact
• Wasted resources on an opportunity that was a long shot.
• New features in the product that nobody needs.
• A frustrated and irritated executive team.
• Confusion in the market place on what the company does.
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11. Why sales people do the darndest things?
1. That’s just the way sales people are.
2. They were never properly enabled with the right
knowledge and tools.
PM
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12. Goals of Sales Enablement
• Ensures everyone (marketing, sales, executives) is
marching to the beat of the same drum.
• Defines clear target market.
• Communicates clear & consistent messages.
• Enables sales to talk with the right buyers.
• Pursue target opportunities that company can win.
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13. Sales Enablement (Base Components)
• Product Backgrounder
• Sales Questioning Guide
• Executive Level Presentation
• Message Driven Demo
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14. Product Backgrounder
• Target Markets / Segments
• Market Needs / Challenges
• Buyer Profiles - Personas / Needs / Challenges / Goals
• Market Messages
– Value Proposition
– Positioning Statement
– Key Messages
– Key Benefits
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15. Sales Questioning Guide
• Aka - Pain Sheets / Solution Development Prompters
• One per buyer role per market segment
• Challenges / Impact / Capability / Benefits
• Match to your sales methodology (if any)
• User buyer’s language/terms
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16. Executive Level Presentation
• Market / Buyer needs
• High level discussion of how your solution addresses
needs.
– Remember the key messages
• Benefits / Value Proposition
• Case Study
• 10 to 15 slides
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17. Message Driven Demo
• Communicates key messages.
• Show how buyers needs are solved.
• Build it as story.
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18. Examples
• Product Backgrounder
• Sales Questioning Guide
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19. Now What?
• How do you get sales to use these new tools?
– Have an executive sponsor (Sales VP/CEO).
– Train them and train them some more.
– Test them on their knowledge via certification process.
– Make the tools real (not ivory tower).
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20. Closing Thoughts
• Review on a regular basis.
• Make sure marketing and the executive team participate.
• Use for channel partners.
• Much of info should already exist - MRD, Market Plan, etc.
Enhances your role as market expert!
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21. Thank You
Tom Evans
Lûcrum Marketing
tevans@lucrum-marketing.com
+1-512-961-5267
Copyright 2010 - LÛCRUM MARKETING