If you are looking for that competitive edge,
deploy your sales resources carefully as part of a plan based upon your
prospect's requirements and the value those resources can deliver. Odds
are that your competition isn't.
When coaching my clients on how to build an
effective sales operations infrastructure within their companies, I
always evaluate and discuss the deployment of sales support and other
internal and external resources.
More often than not I find that little or no
thought has gone into this aspect of selling, leaving the sales person
exposed and the resources under leveraged. This may leave the team
unable to differentiate themselves from their competition.
Over the years, I've seen sales professionals use
their resources extremely effectively and others miss the target with
what should have been deal-cinching impact.
Before I get into how each individual may
contribute to your efforts, you need to understand that all the
horsepower in the world isn't going to help you win unless you have
built the deployment of these resources into a strategic sales plan.
That will ensure that you are advancing your plan the farthest with the
efforts of each. Powerful sales support, executive, and external
resources are not only used to impress. They should also be used to
wrestle for some control of the buying cycle and to negotiate for
access, information, and advantage.
Another important consideration is the skills,
positions, and titles of these resources. I don't care if my boss has
"CEO" on his business card. If he hinders me in achieving my objective
for a meeting because his ego is big enough to block out the sun, I am
not going to ask for his help unless my prospect specifically requires
me to.
In addition, you are going to want to fully
brief
(and coach, when necessary) anyone you will be bringing into your sales
campaign. If the person isn't coachable, consider finding someone else.
In this article, I take you through some of the
likely functions within your organization and how you might deploy them
to contribute to your winning the sale: Board Member, CEO, CFO,
Functional VPs, Engineer, Subject Matter/Domain Expert, Customer,
Outside Expert -- Analyst or Consultant, and Business Partner. I then
make several additional points to get that competitive edge.
