The document summarizes a webcast on using thought leadership as a sales strategy. It discusses how providing credible points of view can help salespeople educate customers on unseen opportunities. It then gives an example of how one company helped a city reduce energy costs through an LED traffic signal project. The webcast advises developing industry knowledge and advanced dialogue skills to implement this approach.

1. SMA Webcast
Thought Leadership as Sales Strategy
Building a Sales Force That Customers Find Credible
14 June 2012
Presented by
© Copyright 2012 The Sales Management Association.

2. About The Sales Management Association
A global, cross-industry professional association for sales
operations and sales management.
Focused in providing research, case studies, training, peer
networking, and professional development to our membership.
Fostering a community of thought-leaders, service providers,
academics, and practitioners.
Learn More: www.salesmanagement.org
© 2012 The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 2

3. Today’s Speakers: Jeff Baker and Adrian Logan
3
© 2012 The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 3

4. Agenda
• Welcome and Introductions
• Point of View Selling Overview
• Siemens Customer Case Study
• Advice for Sales Managers Implementing
Point of View Selling
• Questions and Answers
4
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 4

5. Increasingly Challenging Sales Environment
INCREASED COMPLEXITY
OF MARKETS
VUCA: Volatility, Uncertainty,
Complexity, Ambiguity
SMARTER, MORE GLOBAL, MORE
DEMANDING Selling SOPHISTICATED
BUYERS Organisation COMPETITORS
Impact on Your Business
• Longer selling cycles
• Greater pressure on
prices/lower profitability
• Higher cost of sales
5
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 5

6. Polling Question
Which one of the following describes your
sales organization’s strongest response to
today’s challenging selling environment?
o Working harder
o Working smarter
o Providing new incentives
o Using thought leadership selling
o Other or no changes planned
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 6

7. The Customer Business Continuum
Guiding the executive’s decision making allows you to get involved early in the
customer business planning process
Setting Needs
Enterprise Unit Generating Analyzing & Sourcing Implementing
Planning and
Planning Options Selecting Suppliers Solutions
Specifications
Point of View Selling Traditional selling
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 7

8. Point of View Selling
A key to this approach is understanding how a senior level customer makes
decisions – including potential purchase decisions
Who?
What? How?
Who can best
What are the issues What are the
deliver the right
we should address? possible solutions?
solution?
Entry point for a Entry point for
Point of View Selling-based traditional selling
approach
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 8

9. Basic Needs of a City
• Efficient transportation of people and goods
• Reliable and efficient supply of energy
• Health, security and comfort
• Low emissions
Requirements are drastically changing from siloed solutions
to interdependent and intelligent infrastructure solutions
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 9

10. Case Study: Energy Reduction Yields Cash
 City energy consumption growing
– Significant percent of budget
– Crowds out other programs
 65,000 sets of traffic signals in city
– Significant energy consumption
– Annual maintenance expenses for frequent bulb replacements
 Compare current energy use and annual maintenance to LEDs
 Finance LED replacement using energy savings
 Results:
– Zero cash expenditures by city to convert to LED
– Increased free cash flow in years following LED conversion
– “Green” success story
– Increased traffic safety due to reliability and longer life LED
"What we have achieved is something that will effectively cut our energy bills by
almost two-thirds, and which will also result in some of the latest technology being
installed on our network that will offer real benefits in maintenance and reliability.”
- Chief Executive for the Integrated Transport Executive
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 10

11. How Does Point of View Selling Differ?
Traditional Selling… Point of View Selling…
Respond to the customer’s point of Lead with your point of view
view
Ask questions to uncover the Educate customers about their unseen
customer’s needs opportunities
Seek to understand known “pain Advocate capturing lost or hidden
points” value or identifying and mitigating risk
Meet budget constraints Establish investment frameworks
Align with the customer Challenge the customer
Assure the customer Provoke the customer’s interest
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 11

12. Sources of Rep Credibility
• The power of the point of view itself
• Industry knowledge and customer specific business
knowledge
• Business acumen
• Executive teaching skills: ability to quickly convey a
powerful idea linked specifically to relevant business value
driver
• Advanced dialogue skills to withstand the inevitable
challenges to the idea
• High confidence
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 12

13. Polling Question
To what extent does your sales force
demonstrate these aspects of credibility
today?
o Our sales people are masterful now
o Our sales people are fairly good
o We have some of the basics in place
o We have a long way to go
o We are not going there
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 13

14. Implications For Sales Leaders
Developing New Skills
Ensuring your sales people are equipped with the necessary skills to develop
compelling points of view and educate customers
Point of View
Traditional Selling
Selling
 Discovering needs  Thinking innovatively
 Solving problems  Generating insight
 Matching product features and  Educating customers
benefits to customer needs  Engaging in skillful dialogue
 Testing validity of ideas
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 14

15. How Provocation Changes the Sales Cycle
Source: “In a Downturn Provoke Your Customers.” Harvard Business Review, March 2009
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 15

16. Implications For Sales Leaders
Managing the Opportunity Pipeline
The cadence of the selling cycle changes in Point Of View Selling so requires a
shift in how sales leaders monitor the health of the sales opportunity pipeline
and help their sales people to find and advance deals
Traditional Point of View
Selling Selling
 Responding to customer  Initiating new value conversation
trigger events  Confirming value
 Confirming needs & budgets  Guiding decision framework
 Proposing solutions
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 16

17. Implications For Sales Leaders
Obtaining Internal Support Resources
Point Of View Selling requires additional resources to support sales people
Traditional Point of View
Selling Selling
 Product expertise  Customer industry experts
 Research about and positioning  Research and analysis of
against competition customers’ business
 Pricing support  Business case support
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 17

18. The Point of View Selling Approach is Appropriate In
Complex Selling Environments
Situations Where Point
High of View Selling is
appropriate
POV SELLING • Large-ticket, complex
solutions often involving
Opportunity multiple products and
for Educating Full
Business services
Client about
Business Solution
Medium CONSULTATIVE
Opportunities SELLING • Target buyer is an
and Risk Single executive who can find (not
Product/ just manage) budget
Bundled
Service Offer
Services/
Products
• Ultimately, the solution has
TRANSACTIONAL a significant impact on the
SELLING
customer’s strategic
business objectives
Low
Low Medium High
Seller’s Knowledge of Client’s Business and Industry
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 18

19. From Educating to Provoking: Questions for Sales
Leaders to Consider
Selected questions from Forum Corporation’s POV Selling Maturity Assessment*
1. Business Fit: The degree to which you have a sales strategy and value proposition
adequately focused on engaging senior level decision-makers and guiding their
thinking.
2. Compelling Points of View: The degree to which your sellers have available to
them fully developed and compelling points of view that they can use to educate and
engage senior-level buyers.
3. Foundational Skills: The degree to which your sales reps have the necessary
foundational business and selling skills for effective POV Selling
4. Advanced Selling Skills: The degree to which your sales reps have the necessary
skills required by sales people who engage in POV Selling
5. Sales Structure and Support : The degree to which your sales structure and
supporting resources are sufficient for the successful deployment of POV Selling
* contact Forum to arrange for a POVS Maturity Assessment for your sales organization
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 19

20. From Educating to Provoking: Questions for Sales
Leaders to Consider
1. Business Fit:
– You are able to target customer decision makers who can find budget, not just manage
budget
– Your target buyers are interested in novel ideas for improving business performance
– Your solutions have a significant impact on a customer's business value drivers
– Your solutions and POVs are sufficiently differentiated so that you become the obvious
“supplier of choice.”
2. Compelling Points of View:
– You have client-ready POVs that educate the market about ways to generate or capture
new/more value and which differentiate you as industry experts.
– Your client-ready POVs allow the customer executive to quickly understand the
opportunity/risk that your idea addresses.
– Your POVs address quantitative business drivers (e.g., revenue, cost, quality, time) as well as
qualitative drivers (e.g., brand value, customer loyalty, employee engagement).
– Your POVs give an estimated range of the size of improvements that are possible for key
business drivers
– Your POVs compel immediate action from your customer
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 20

21. From Educating to Provoking: Questions for Sales
Leaders to Consider
3. Foundational Skills: General Business Acumen, Industry Knowledge, Customer Business
Knowledge, Products and Services Knowledge, Consultative Selling or Solution Selling Skills
4. Advanced Selling Skills: Your sales reps:
– Can generate insight for creating new business value or managing major risks for customers
– Understand how an idea/point of view impacts relevant customer business value drivers and
performance
– Can develop methods to test with customer the validity of the new pov/idea
– Know who to go to in your company to help them develop new povs and create ways to test
validity with each customer
– Have the ability to develop and convey a brief and compelling narrative about a new point of
view.
– Can graphically illustrate (draw) essential ideas of the point of view
– Have the ability to develop and consider with customer viable solution options.
– Can influence the establishment of customer’s buying decision framework and criteria.
– Have the ability and confidence to guide the customer team through a complex decision
process
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 21

22. From Educating to Provoking: Questions for Sales
Leaders to Consider
5. Sales Structure and Support:
– You will use POV Selling as a way to differentiate our company and our sellers in the
marketplace and/or for positioning new solutions
– You are prepared to redesign your selling processes and pipeline management process.
– You are prepared to establish a new resource model to support sales efforts (e.g., create
collateral material or provide subject matter expertise)
– You have internal resources who can develop new POVs (e.g., Marketing, Product
Development, Business Intelligence resources)
– Your performance measurement system and rewards systems can accurately measure and
reinforce POV selling (e.g., pipeline metrics, performance-based compensation metrics)
– Your Sales Managers are capable of coaching POV style selling skills
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 22

23. Your Questions
?
© 2012 The Forum Corporation. Used with permission by The Sales Management Association. All rights reserved. Slide 23

24. Strategy Accelerated Contact:
Forum mobilises people to embrace
the critical strategies of their Call: +44 (0) 20 7017 7150
organisation and accelerate results. Email: steve.barry@forum.com
When you need to swiftly align your
people to tackle an opportunity or
tear down a roadblock, Forum is an
essential business asset.
www.forum.com
www.forum.com 24

25. Thank You.
© Copyright 2010 The Sales Management Association