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Give Your Sales Team Access to the Collective Genius of Your OrganizationThe goal of every marketing and sales organization is to consistently articulate unique, compelling and credible messages to their customers throughout the sales process. While companies use both "air cover" such as advertising and "ground cover" such as field-based salespeople to deliver their messages, studies have shown that up to 85% of a company's brand image and the purchase decisions of their customers are determined by the direct interaction between salespeople and target buyers 1. Unfortunately, none of the stakeholders are happy with the interactions:
The job of front-line salespeople is not getting any easier. A recent study by IDC found that sales cycles have increased 24% and the number of decision makers involved has increased to seven7. Combine this with increasingly competitive markets, evolving end-user needs, and a growing bag of products, services and solutions that salespeople are asked to position and sell, and it is clear that front line salespeople and the marketing and sales organizations that support them face a daunting challenge. Salespeople and marketing and sales management need a tool that:
The field of "sales enablement" has emerged to fill this gap in marketing and sales, and a Chicago-based firm, SAVO Group, has distinguished itself with its award-winning on-demand application. Frank Lynn & Associates has partnered with SAVO Group to extend the application to organizations whose sales coverage models include indirect sales channels such as consultants, system integrators, VARs, manufacturer's representatives, dealers and distributors. In these sales models, the challenge for the corporate marketing and sales management team can be even more challenging than the one it faces with its own direct sales team because: - The sales enablement challenge is often bigger-a typical company may employ 10s or 100s of direct salespeople while their indirect channel partners can collectively deploy 100s or even 1,000s - The needs of the channel salespeople are different-the indirect sales channels' target decision makers, value propositions and sales processes are typically different from those of the direct sales organization and, therefore, their sales support needs are different - Channel mindshare is more elusive-sales professionals in the indirect sales channels are one step removed from their suppliers, and most of them sell products, services and/or solutions from numerous manufacturers and service providers. Therefore, suppliers must compete aggressively for the hearts and minds of the channel salespeople It is not surprising that in the 2007 VAR Business Annual Report Card, value-added resellers gave suppliers 65 out of a possible 100 when asked how effective vendors were at providing sales support8. If done well, the benefits of extending sales enablement to channel partners are numerous and compelling because it:
1Source: Bain & Company 2Source: Sirius Decisions, "Mission Critical Report: Executive-Level Selling: Segment and Vendor review" 16 December 2005 3Source: CMO Council, "Message Maps and Gaps Report" 2004 4Source: CMO Council, "Message Maps and Gaps Report" 2004 5Source: American Marketing Association 6Source: American Marketing Association 71Source: IDC, "IDC's Customer Experience Survey, June 2007, in partnership with IDG" 8Source: 2007 VAR Business Annual Report Card |
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