The document discusses various enterprise tools designed to enhance sales and client relationships, including the pursuit navigator, opportunity tool, and client-centric satisfaction tool. Each tool focuses on different aspects of the sales process, from assessing client needs and competition to planning and reviewing interactions, ultimately aiming to improve decision-making and drive growth. Emphasizing a collaborative and client-focused approach, these tools aim to maximize business opportunities and strengthen enterprise client engagements.

1. SES Tool Vignettes
Pursuit Navigator
In the enterprise world, you've got to be in it to win it. There is no halfway. It’s said that, quite often,
the heaviest burden is a great opportunity, because then you're on point, then you have to make it
happen. So, it’s critical to address this as early in the process as possible, because you're making
continual investments with every passing day. The inherent opportunity cost of having people
engaged in the pursuit team and pulled away from their other activities is huge.
Pursuit Navigator is an enterprise deal forum, bringing together functional entities from across the
organization to drive Go/No-Go decisions regarding pursuits. How extensive and involved the Pursuit
Navigator Process is can be a function of the gravity and the size of the deal. The process covers three
areas – Client Issues, Selling Team Issues and Financing/Contract Issues. Each issue is labeled as either
stable or requiring mitigation. If mitigation is required, the team identifies the respective mitigation
strategy and commits to communicating the results with to the other team members, providing
specific actions, names and deadline dates.
When all the relevant information is collected, the team works together to decide whether to
continue pursuing a deal or to exit the process. And either choice represents a valued and informed
decision to take.

2. SES Tool Vignettes
Opportunity Tool
The Opportunity Tool provides up-to-date snapshots of three critical aspects of an emerging deal - the
competitors involved, the client’s key pains/impacts and the action-oriented next steps most likely to
drive positive outcomes. Understanding organizational pain is critical to winning any deal.
This Tool helps you to develop a comprehensive understanding of what matters most to the
enterprise and it helps you create the action plan to deal with it. The competition is viewed by not
only tracking what they've proposed, but by identifying your competitive advantages versus their
offering. As we know “No Pain, No Sale”, we focus on the client's key pains and the related
implications. All of this feeds the action plan and the critical forward motion of the Tool.

3. SES Tool Vignettes
Client-Centric Satisfaction Tool
Typical customer satisfaction processes call for a sales rep to inform a customer, after an
engagement has begun, that he will return after a specified time and request that the customer fill
out a survey form grading performance. The criteria are boilerplate items chosen by the
selling/serving company as part of their rote process. The customer applies scores to the criteria
that likely have no meaning to him and returns the form. So, who gets smarter? The customer who
rated performance on criteria that likely had no relevance? The serving company who now has
ratings based on criteria that are likely meaningless? The answer is that neither gets smarter and a
huge opportunity is missed.
Client-Centric Satisfaction calls for the selling company to call on the client at the beginning of an
engagement, typically presenting a team of sales and delivery together. The client is given a list of
commonly chosen success factors from which to choose the five most relevant. If the client
chooses to go with factors of his own, not from the list, that’s great. The client then weighs the
factors chosen to dictate order of importance. The sales and delivery duo then promises to return
after a prescribed time to meet with the client to gain his ratings.
The serving organization now has an incredible insight into the client’s most important needs and
pains. And remember where we are in the process. The business has been won and, to a large
degree, the client and the duo are on the same page – they want the same thing – successful
performance. As such, the feedback given by the client is likely as candid and honest as it could be.
And, therefore, it provides great insights for the service delivery team about what they need to focus
on to satisfy the client. This by itself increases the likelihood that delivery will be successful. But
beyond that, this keen insight into the buyer’s psyche increases the chances that future business will
be won because the service organization now knows what’s most important and any future
proposals will be built around these themes.
So, who gets smarter now?

4. SES Tool Vignettes
Client2
Enterprise accounts are deep and wide with connections and touch points across a vast ecosystem of
opportunity. They are truly marketplaces in and of themselves, deserving of the same focus and
energy placed on territory marketplaces. The Client2
process enables the sales and delivery teams
to grow these enterprise client marketplaces through following a logical framework of activities.
Let's look at what typically happens in kicking off business with a new enterprise client. With the
start of the business relationship, the focus is always on delivery excellence and rightfully so. At the
same time, however, this very focus presents opportunity to sell more. And in addition to the
potential for new growth in the enterprise account itself, familiarity with the new environment
provides opportunities with other connected entities as well.
Client2 provides the guidance to help identify all these opportunity areas. You would be doing a
major disservice to the fine work done in winning new clients by ignoring the potential of having the
engagement you close become the catalyst for additional business, both within and beyond the
client. Of course, prior to taking advantage of new connections resulting from an enterprise
engagement, you must exercise due diligence and ensure that the service delivery is not in any way
compromised. Keep your eye on the ball. Assuming you're doing so, you've earned the right to use
Client2 as your growth vehicle. The focus is on five key areas: organic growth, partnerships and
alliances, family tree, alumni, and customer's customer. With these five focus areas as your targets,
you seek touchpoints that will grow your business.

5. SES Tool Vignettes
Team Storm
Team Storm is a rapid group brainstorming process and a critical tool for organizations serving
enterprise clients. Bringing together all relevant parties to work a problem or an opportunity is vital.
The SES Team Storm process provides a very effective vehicle to drive this collaboration to quick
results to sustain forward motion in enterprise environments. The Team Storm process also
provides a rapid way to drive actionable decisions to address issues and/or problems involving client
service. And the speed at which situations are addressed cannot be understated. The value of the
time of the participants in being away from client service is draining. And in positive situations of
service stability, where no pressing issues are on the table, the need remains strong for idea sharing
and collaboration. Team Storm can help enhance overall service levels, drive customer satisfaction,
accelerate expansion opportunities and improve all aspects of the relationship.

6. SES Tool Vignettes
Pre-Call Planner Tool
The Tool provides a simple set of steps to allow you to maximize the potential of an upcoming call. It
increases the likelihood of success by providing an organized planning framework to identify key
research items that connect you to people with whom you’ll be interacting. And it helps you design
the specific up-front contracts and the focused questions you’ll be using during the discussion.
All the individual clients to be involved are covered, their roles, history with your firm, DISC styles
and your LinkedIn connections with them. Selling side pre-brief issues in the areas of relationships,
business and roles are reviewed. Preparation and planning are covered in terms of supporting
materials needed for the call, also considering the goals. Also planned are our key questions to ask
and those we expect the client to ask us. And, of course, the up-front contract is structured and
planned as well.

7. SES Tool Vignettes
Call Debrief Tool
The Call Debrief Tool is a simple vehicle to help discover valuable lessons learned from a sales call
that has occurred. Debriefing on what happened – in relation to the goals, plans and lessons learned
is essential. The results will increase the likelihood of success with the current opportunity, but the
logical framework of the process will improve the chances of generating future opportunities in the
enterprise. Covered are new information learned, next steps planned, red flags identified and new
questions to plan for. All of this lays the groundwork for the next action steps to be taken to win the
deal including due dates and accountability.
The Call Debrief tool also provides an outstanding vehicle for the collaboration and communication so
critical to team selling. The sharing of the tool electronically with the other members of your team
keeps everyone informed and provides the platform for lessons learned and planned future actions.

8. SES Tool Vignettes
Positioning Tool
The Positioning Tool guides us to know not only our value proposition for an opportunity – what the
product/service is, what it will do for the client, how it will benefit the client’s business and how that
benefit will be measured, but also the value propositions of our significant competitors in a deal.
Covered are account and opportunity details, the list of client contacts involved including roles, DISC
styles and relationships with your firm. Your value proposition is clearly stated as are those of the
key competitors along with the identification of any advantages and key allies that they may have
in the account, setting the stage for the crafting of the key action steps to win the deal including
accountability names, dates and desired outcomes.

9. SES Tool Vignettes
KARE
KARE provides a powerful vehicle for profiling your accounts, both clients and prospects, but in a very
strategic way. Unlike the bundling of accounts into typical buckets based on vertical markets,
geographic locations, revenue size and others, KARE takes a much more meaningful and insightful
perspective, evaluating accounts by their traits and tendencies.
The four KARE categories are Keep, Attain, Recapture, and Expand - profiles into which all accounts,
clients and prospects, will fall. These meaningful and thought-based designations give you the vehicle
to segment and prioritize your accounts in a powerful way that drives actions. For each of the KARE
categories are based on customized attributes that align specifically to each selling organization. Once
the customized attributes are set, accounts are aligned into the appropriate profile. At that point,
common actions are crafted that map to each profile, saving valuable selling time and providing an
effective sales management framework. KARE also sets a common language so that there's a
vernacular about how accounts are identified, providing a base of understanding and clarity in team
selling. And KARE provides a platform for taking full advantage of selling team member strengths,
allowing for the alignment of individual team members to the types of accounts they are most
effectively positioned to win, serve and grow.

10. SES Tool Vignettes
Growth Account Booster
Growth Account Booster brings the key functional elements of the selling organization together to
collaboratively build an account plan. It is a collaborative vehicle that takes team selling to a
different level. Enterprise organizations are very complex and diverse, so it is critical to develop
team selling strategies that continuously earn and re-earn the right to serve, obtain, and expand
these significant accounts. Growth Account Booster provides the vehicle and forum for doing just
that and in a simple, sales-focused structure.

11. SES Tool Vignettes
LinkedIn Levers Tool
When it comes to the most valuable information required for research in individual enterprise
clients and accounts, LinkedIn is the best source available. As the gold standard, it's also a
mandatory element to review in your pursuits. You can be assured that the sophisticated
competition you face in the enterprise arena is focused on LinkedIn. And it's highly likely that your
prospects and clients are using it to research you and your company as well.
And remember to research the client company, as well as the individual. While corporate websites
have value, LinkedIn corporate pages often have deeper substance and more valuable perspectives.
The SES LinkedIn Levers Tool provides a simple way to get this most critical research information in
a concise, quick manner. It takes research up a notch, and provides you with the substance to build
competitive advantage.
®

12. SES Tool Vignettes
Relationship Builder Tool
The Relationship Builder tool provides a simple baseline to chart an account's key decision makers. It
identifies the personal goals and wins of each individual client along with descriptive data on each
contact's traits and specific relationship with the selling firm. Most importantly, it outlines individual
contact action plans to specify next steps to enhance the relationships – the SES focus on forward
progress. These individual client action plans are based on steps you take to enhance the value of
the relationship in the short-term and in the longer-term with each individual contact.
At the end of the day, if key client contacts are worth tracking, they are clearly worth the crafting of
individual action plans to increase the value of the relationships. Enterprise organizations bring
diverse and wide buyer networks and customized action plans are required to grow those
relationships over time. The Relationship Builder Tool provides the concise vehicle for this planning
and tracking.

13. SES Tool Vignettes
Three Opportunity Planner Tool
The Three Opportunity Planner Tool provides a clear focus on the three highest probability
opportunities that are likely to close within the next 60 days. Of course, larger and longer-term deals
are critical to overall portfolios, especially in the enterprise world. But the need for frequent wins
cannot be understated. Closing deals of any size earns you the right to turn a prospect into a client
by exposing new stakeholders within the enterprise to the power of your solution. On occasion,
sales reps can become complacent and focus on carrying only a few large, long term deals in their
funnels. Again, those large opportunities are vital but we still need to pay the bills while major
pursuits unfold over time.
The Three Opportunity Planner Tool focuses sales reps and sales managers on the need for frequent
wins of any size. Delivering your services successfully, even on a small scale, provides the potential
for new opportunities based on a client's high satisfaction with your organization. The Tool ensures
that focus is given to the highest probability short-term deals that can position your organization for
future business growth and profitability.

14. SES Tool Vignettes
QVR Tool
The SES Quarterly Value Review (QVR) Tool takes traditional Quarterly “Business” Reviews with your
clients to a new, value-based level. The point of the QVR is that, unlike the familiar quarterly business
review, which is typically just a small-scale trade show, it’s not about you. Rather, it’s all about how
the client defines and quantifies the value you’ve already delivered … and what the client needs to
see from you next. The QVR takes place at the very highest levels, and for good reason: If you’re
doing a good job of delivering value on the client’s terms, and you’re making sure the client
organization knows that at the very top level, then the client’s senior management is going to want
to continue to see you regularly. Not only that: They’re going to tell you exactly what they want from
your company and exactly when and how they want it – just what you want and need to know!
The SES foundational concept of continuous selling and is at the base of the QVR. In this model, Sales
is continually partnered with Delivery to bring value to the client in streams of transactions over time.
The QVR events that involve Sales and Delivery clarify the value you deliver and prompt information
from the client about what additional value you should be focusing on. It’s a never-ending process: a
win for the client and a win for the combined Sales and Delivery Team. By the way, the continued
involvement of the Sales team in the enterprise account well after the business is won is a key theme
of SES in general.
The QVR tool gives you a high-level forum for how you’ve measured up in the client’s world. And it
provides you with a pattern of continuous, scheduled discussions about exactly what form your
value needs to take in the time period to come. Fortunately, C-level people at the client organization
want to be at this meeting … because they get it! Value is what they’re expected to deliver to
shareholders daily and having you recognize this via QVR’s resonates for executives. And, of course,
the open forum that the QVR breeds allows for candid executive input about the value that’s
expected from you in the time to come, the genesis of account expansion and business growth!

15. SES Tool Vignettes
SWOT Accelerator Tool
With the fundamental market understanding you gain in market planning, the logical next step is a
practical, candid analysis to determine what your organization does well, what it does not so well,
and the resulting opportunities and obstacles to success. This positions you to develop effective
strategies to strengthen your competitive advantage and increase the likelihood of success.
Spending time in this disciplined analysis process will provide you with the focus and precision you
need to drive directed actions and build customized strategies for the targets you identify.
The SES SWOT Accelerator Tool directs this analysis by enhancing the traditional SWOT process and
building on it to drive action and strategic forward motion. The SWOT Accelerator process consists of
two key steps, the Build Step and the Action Step.
The Build Step brings together key team members to conduct a traditional SWOT analysis focusing on
a specific enterprise opportunity’s attributes in the fundamental four areas – Strengths, Weaknesses,
Opportunities and Threats.
With the Build Step accomplished, a great deal has been achieved. However, the real power of SWOT
Accelerator involves taking the product of the Build Step and driving strategy via the Action Step.
With the Build Step’s identified items clearly stated in each of the SWOT quadrants, you move to the
Action Step’s four simple, direct, and strategic categories.
• Action: The principal action to be taken to drive improvement
• Impact: The effect on the organization of the successful achievement of the results of the action
• Accountability: The one person accountable for making the specific action happen
• Date: The date by which the action is to be accomplished.
The SWOT Accelerator Tool can deliver value throughout the sales process and over the course of a
long and enriching client relationship. The tool’s versatility makes it incredibly valuable and useful in
many types of situations. Remember, the only way this tool can possibly add value to your efforts is
if you implement those action items you have worked so hard to identify and refine. Don’t let all
this work go to waste! Put your plan into action, using the RACI system.

16. SES Tool Vignettes
Competitor Impact Tool
The Competitor Impact Tool offers a simple and practical vehicle that helps you understand what
you most need to know about significant competitors. In enterprise selling, you face sophisticated
adversaries who come prepared. To be successful, it’s critical to get a clear picture of what you’re
up against. Of course, it’s important to know the basics of who they are, what their products and
services and what their business model is. -- but that just scratches the surface.
This Tool allows you to assume a “laser focus” on the truly relevant information – the information
that specifically affects you and your ability to win business. The Tool shines a light on ten specific
areas of detail. There may other situations in which you will need to do deeper and more exhaustive
research into competitors, but in the fast-paced world of enterprise selling, there is significant
strategic advantage to taking the nimble, agile approach the Competitor Impact Tool provides.
Each of the ten detail areas of the Tool highlight information that directly and specifically affects your
ability to win the business. For example, unlike other competitive analyses that cut a wide
swath, the Tool’s “People” section should not be blindly populated with the names of the CEO and
other C-Level operatives, unless, of course, they are specifically relevant to you and your efforts to
overcome this competitor. It may well be that one of the competitor’s sales reps is the most
strategically important person you face in pursuing this opportunity. If that’s the case, you need to
take this person into account. Or perhaps there’s a product specialist with specific vertical
experience who has been very active against you in past deals, adversely affecting your ability to win
this specific account. In such a case, this person absolutely needs to be considered.
As you will see, the same customized, strategic view of competitor applies to the other nine detail
areas as well. That’s the beauty of the Competitor Impact Tool. It provides a streamlined and nimble
view of the competitor with a frame of reference completely focused on your world.
In keeping with the Sandler Enterprise Selling theme of forward motion and action orientation, once
the ten sections are populated, your job will be to craft actions, in light of the tool’s findings, that
increase your chances of success against the competitor – or allow you to make conscious strategic
decision to exit a pursuit based on the knowledge gained through the tool.