Building Sales Tools

Problem

While a leading global provider of client-server software knew that its products were used across many industries, the client believed that its best opportunity to grow was to focus its energy in key markets that exhibited the most potential. The client asked Go To Market Partners (GTMP) to identify the best vertical markets for its expansion strategy and then devise unique go-to-market plans for attacking each. Though market penetration plans were certainly a key component to success with this approach, the software provider also sought more tangible resources to facilitate its sales force’s transition into these new markets.

Action

Working together with the client’s sales and marketing executives, GTMP used historic sales data and industry structures to identify telecommunications and insurance as the most promising industries for increasing market penetration. GTMP also selected target geographic areas that exhibited the most growth potential. To assist the client’s sales force and channels in selling to these industries, GTMP created a complete “market penetration toolkit” for each.

GTMP consultants provided extensive front-end research that involved interviewing hundreds of IT professionals and purchasing managers from top telecommunications and insurance companies in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Switzerland, and Finland to identify the purchasing processes within each vertical industry and geography. In addition, GTMP examined how companies within these industries were currently using the software product.

Based upon primary and secondary research collected, GTMP created a series of “tools” to enable the sales and marketing executives of this software company to be better equipped to attack the marketplace. Sales “tools” created during the course of this effort took on several forms:

• Industry Specific “Playbook” - GTMP created a comprehensive “playbook” for each industry that detailed the trends, needs, buying behaviors, and stakeholders unique to the specific market. The playbooks were designed to quickly and efficiently educate busy salespeople and channel representatives about each industry, identify likely “points of pain,” and describe how the purchasing and technology adoption processes occur within telecommunications and insurance companies.
• Customer-facing Presentation Tool - GTMP consultants developed presentations to assist salespeople in explaining its products to potential customers. These “solution guides” explained how the client’s products address and solve specific issues facing each industry using terms and language that the customers would be able to comprehend and relate to.
• ROI Model - GTMP consultants worked with the client to develop ROI (Return on Investment)/TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) models tailored specifically to the insurance and telecom markets. As each ROI model detailed the financial outcome for each industry-tailored solution, it was easier for the customer to understand the benefit the purchaser would see with each dollar invested in the solution offered.
• Lead Qualification Tool - Consultants from Go To Market Partners crafted a unique lead qualification tool to assist the software provider in each phase of the sales process. This “decision tree” allowed members of the client’s sales force to differentiate between qualified and unqualified sales leads, handle objections appropriately, and subsequently, move the potential customer further along in the sales process.
• Market Opportunity Sizing - GTMP analyzed the potential market for the client’s software products in the telecom and insurance sectors to provide sales management with a tool to understand the market’s potential, and provide an incentive to their sales force for further penetrating the market.

Result

The client’s use of sales tools has yielded dramatic results for this software provider. In the 12 months following this project, approximately 75% of the firm’s major account sales came from the telecommunications and insurance industries.

The success of this project marked a strategic shift for the client. It moved its major account sales from a one-size-fits-all selling model to an industry-specific approach, focused on solutions-based sales in the most promising industries. Sales Tools including Industry Playbooks, Customer Facing Tools, ROI Models, and Lead Qualification Tools allow the current sales force to approach new industries and markets with confidence and overwhelming success.