B2B Conversations Now

My first Demand Generation Summit was fantastic.  MarketingSherpa’s Senior Reporter, Sean Donahue kicked off the session with the “Top 5 Challenges for B-to-B Demand Generation Marketers”:

1. The Growing Committee
2. Use the Right Content at the Right Time
3. Getting Landing Pages Built and Tested
4. Being Everywhere
5. Handing off the Right Leads

I thought I would tackle 1 and 2 together since Jon Miller at Marketo has written a good piece on 3-5.

1. The Growing Committee and 2. Use the Right Content at the Right Time

My perspective comes from having sold enterprise technology to the US Federal Government for years; believe me, there is no larger “committee” than is found in the large Government agencies.  It extends beyond the internal sale, it must also hold up to future, competitive steps where your project will be under tremendous public scrutiny.

Here is the key: Stop giving prospects your product information in the form that you think is important and start asking them how they need it.  For example, when your sales team is engaged with a prospect have them ask: “What type of materials do you have to produce to present to your fellow co-workers to move this project forward?”  Then, create that document for them and deliver it in electronic form.

I learned this lesson years ago when selling high-end data storage solutions to the Military.  I had a strong product that fit perfectly with what this particular Military customer needed at the time.  I was combining both a top-down (HQ) and bottom-up (base level) approach trying to meet in the middle with a large enterprise deal.  I still remember closing a presentation to a smart Gunnery Sergeant and asking, “So Gunny, do we have a deal”?  He replied with “We like your stuff and really need it but my problem is that I have to write an ASDP to justify it.”  An ASDP?  I had not heard that term.  “Yes, it stands for Abbreviated System Decision Paper” and we have to write it for any large IT procurement.”  I said “Do you happen to have one that you have written for another product?”.  He said “sure, here is one I did for the HP printers we bought”.  I took that ASDP document back to my office and 2 days later was back with the Gunny and a floppy disk…with an ASDP template for my products all ready to go.  We closed that deal and 20 more in the next 6 months generating over $2M in revenue.

One of our clients, Federal Appliance, has done a great job of this.  In their library you will not find the typical white papers with features and functions.  Instead, they provide document and powerpoint templates that prospects can use to promote internally.  They have also created a complete RFI/RFP document; all the prospects need to do is pick the features that are important to them and release it to potential vendors.

Summary: Group selling has always been with us, it is just more obvious now.  Get back to the basics of putting yourself in your prospects shoes and don’t assume what you are giving them is what they need.  Ask them exactly what they have to present/assemble to move the deal forward and then give it to them.  Don’t expect them to spend the time to extract your value proposition and put it into a form they can use.

Tags: B2B Marketing, B2B Sales //