Why Solution Marketing is So Challenging for Most Organizations
Monday, July 20, 2009 at 8:00AM It is rare to find an organization where salespeople actually understand the key problems that the organizations’ solutions solve. This is normally a much larger problem the more solutions the company offers and the more technical the solution sets.
Feature Envy - Most of these firms have thrived off of the high growth, interconnected world of product innovation – a world centered on the concept of never-ending feature improvement. Each feature is really important. So important that an “impossible to understand” technical name is required or even, sigh, an acronym. These new features are then taken by marketing and twisted into an end-user benefit based on the logical extension of that feature. The benefit is the “goodness” of the feature. The rapid growth of the technology landscape has produced a “build it and they will come” mentality.
Lack of Real Product Marketing Experience – Most product marketers today were reallocated from product management/engineering or graduated from the help desk. They get the technology and get those features even better. They love PPT, technical diagrams, flowcharts and believe that more is in fact more. For the most part, these resources struggle to really “get” the customer problem or need by situation and across market segment and industry. They don’t think that way, never had to and in some cases may never make the leap.
Explosion of Mediums – Marketing now has to map all of their “messages” through a dizzying array of mediums which has done nothing more than make everyone busy propagating techno-jargon in as many places as possible. They have also sought to ensure that all of this information is available to sellers in whatever medium they want but can’t understand why sellers don’t ever find it , know where to start or even seem interested. The needle in the haystack would be welcome for most organizations.
That ADD Thing – Let’s face it, we are all somewhat attention deficit disordered in this new world, but no one more so than salespeople. They need big animal pictures, plain language and constant reminder of context. And please, let’s keep it short. After all I have to be calling on customers (or playing a round of golf).
Some of the best practices that we see from our clients include the following:
- Sales and service participation in messaging material creation
- Focusing on the 80/20 rule
- Creating constructs that center on Problem-Reason-Capability vs. Feature-Benefit
- Creating a “translation” function that sits between marketing and sales
Remember, most sellers would prefer to pick up the cliff-note version of Ivanhoe than actually read it.
Selling Into a Headwind – It’s the Process, Stupid!
The instinctive response in this scenario can be, like a panicked army, the tendency to attack anything that moves. Sometimes this activity-intensive behavior is defended under the guise of being “entrepreneurial”, but the ensuing chaos rarely produces consistent execution (or results).
Like other forms of crisis, the most difficult times are precisely when clear thinking and discipline are most critical. Taking a rational, well-defined approach to targeting prospects, account planning, and sales execution are more important than ever for sales organizations. In other words, truly understanding and implementing a sales process (and “how to” methodologies) is potentially the best economic insurance policy your company can invest in.
The Cold Hard Facts About Process
But how can you make this case with confidence? In short, the cold facts at two distinct levels support the compelling economics of successful process adoption. What does research tell us about this topic? First, let’s consider the findings at an aggregate level. For the past 13 years, CSO Insights has conducted an annual sales performance study of more than a thousand global companies. For the relatively small number of companies who have attained world-class levels of sales process adherence (by CSO Insight’s criteria), the outcomes are nothing short of compelling. These companies on average realize the following advantages over their peers:
But what about results at the individual company level? Many case studies that are presented at this level are often anecdotal, or fail to demonstrate a “cause and effect” relationship that is valid. That is, they fail to tie specific changes in seller behavior to a defined set of sales outcomes. Several studies have been independently performed by SPI clients to determine how the application of specific methods in the Solution Selling process correlates to key sales metrics. These analyses considered key elements of sellers executing the process, including the degree to which:
As one might expect, there was a consistent pattern of positive and statistically valid correlations to key sales metrics, including:
In other words, just as consistent diet and exercise almost guarantee improved health, the salespeople who most consistently adhered to the Solution Selling process improved sales outcomes in almost all areas.
The Process Challenge
If the rewards are so compelling, why don’t more companies invest in the development and adherence to a sales process? According to research by CSO Insights, only 14% of the companies in their annual study have evolved to a world class (Level 4 in their model) of sales process maturity. There are a number of potential reasons:
The Good News
In spite of these challenges, process-based selling is quite feasible for most sales organizations if they make a modest investment to understand their current state, and take a stepwise approach to steady performance improvement (just like diet and exercise). What is missing in the “noise of battle” for most organizationsis a practical model (blueprint) for understanding where you are today, and a logical implementation plan (roadmap) to make incremental improvements that are sustainable.