The "Impact" Process

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You can't understand where you're going until you know what market you're in.  Spending some time researching your markets, your ability to execute and where your competition's abilities lie will give you a better view of the immediate, medium and longer term opportunity for success.  Just because you think you have something valuable does not mean that either the market is defined or the solution is "sales ready".

Customer requirements need to be quantifiable to prioritize focus. Future value aligned to emerging markets should be timelined to identify the strategic waves of addressable opportunity.  The goal is to identify the capabilities that in turn drive customer value in markets which define need today and show extensibility for tomorrow.  Don't be the science project education company, be the company that delivers impactful measurable value.

Customers buy based on needs.  Needs are defined by the pain that drives them.  To create impactful messaging we need to strip our understanding of need back to the pain drivers.  Only then can we truly understand what improvement value or conversely regressive decline in performance looks like in the eyes of the customer.  By focusing on the impact drivers that define our go-to-market we can construct the messaging and differentiated statements that align to product and solution capabilities that in turn highlight our the competitive value that both prior and future customers have and will associated with.

An impactful "story" weaves a message in a way that syncs the value to one or more human senses. Visualizing a message isn't about what you can put on powerpoint slides, it's about helping customer facing people, tools and processes in our organization relay our value in a way that penetrates the minds and hearts of our customers.  We remember stories in more than one sense, sight, sound, smell, touch and feel.

Our impact message needs to tell a story that resonates in more than one sense to be effective. Sure, there's a time for templating the message on powerpoint, but first first lets focus on a  impact story that we can whiteboard, talk about verbally, or promote interactively with other like minded recipients. We need to build a story that talks to the journey our customers can travel from today to success and at the same time highlight transformation in individual career success whether related to promotion or ambition.  Doing both shows a much greater degree of value. An impact story that puts our customers in touch with the consequences of achieving success elevates our messages to a different level of visualization and impact.

So you have the impact message, you know your buyers, you know what creates value and where you differentiate your solutions.  The question now is how do I enable the sales team?  If I have a sophisticated product how do I template the sales process as to not confused my direct sales and channel? If I have a simple solution packaged for low market volume sales how do I not make my go-to-market soley about price?

The goal is to create an impact sales blueprint that templates our revenue acceleration strategy so that sales people can understand how to build revenue and its in a format they can follow.  Think GPS for the sales team and you'll be thinking like us.  The template itself is based on an stepping stone approach to the adoption of solutions and products by specific buying communities.  It builds on a financial modeling that incrementally drives reduced TCO and increasing ROI.  The ultimate goal - more pipeline, more opportunities, happy and rewarded customers, within a defined time period.

This is the practical side of sales enablement.  Ensuring that everyone has the right skills, tools and process to be successful, from the most junior recruit entering the organization to the more tenured individual looking to continually repeat success.  None of this happens in an evolving and fast paced organization without constant enablement.  Getting something that works for you and that you can evolve and adapt is a big challenge.

The translation of impact messages, methods and tools into an enablement  program for sales and partners is the key milestone and something we will help you to deliver.  Whether it's how and what to communicate, worst and best stories, using tools and process to the best advantage, or negotiating for financial success not price reduction we'll enable it. We'll even get into role play, coaching and fun methods of seeding sales skills to build the right program for and with you from battlecards to bootcamps.