Improving PreSales Quality and ValueAdd

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New Thinking Empowering Pre-Sales to Drive
Business
Improving Pre-Sales Quality and Value-Add to
Generate Compelling Revenue Phil Janus, CEO,
salesengineering.com
Pre-Sales Performance Excellence
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Agenda

• Empowering Pre-Sales to Drive Business
• Why Pre-Sales?
• Pre-Sales Process Maturity Over Time
• The Potential Business Impact
• How to Empower Pre-Sales
• Activities
• Case Studies
• Examples
• Exercises
• 4 Takeaway tools
• Giveaways

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Based on a True Story

• It Was Time to Meet the Royal Decision Committee

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Based on a True Story

• The Sales Rep and His Trusted Page
• Arrived at the Castle

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Based on a True Story

• The Meeting Was Called to Order

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Based on a True Story

• The Sales Rep Gave His Pitch

Prior year earnings were
We are the leading vendor of
Take it away techie!
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Based on a True Story

• At the End of the Meeting,
• The Committee Asked the Sales Rep to Leave

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Based on a True Story

• And Asked the Trusted Page to Stay (true story)

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Based on a True Story

• Having Gained the Trust of the Committee,
• the Page Proposed A Very High Value Solution
  with Clever Competitive Advantage

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Based on a True Story

• The Trial Was a Huge Success

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Based on a True Story

• A Success that the Sales Rep Shared
• with His Trusted Page

Ooops, some fantasy snuck in there
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Lessons

• And Asked the Trusted Page to Stay

Discussion Why Was the Consultant Asked to Stay?
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Case Discovery Web Ordering System
Case

• The customer tells the Sales Rep
• This is board mandated
• Funding has been secured
• Solutions are needed this quarter
• The technical sponsor tells the pre-sales
  consultant
• Two prior attempts have failed
• The project managers job is on the line
• The systems new data center is 6 months late
• Many execs dont believe the promised payback
• The board will pull funding if the prototype fails

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Customers Prefer Techies!
Wants to take my money
Wants to solve my problems
Why Not Reduce Reliance on Sales Reps, and
Leverage Pre-Sales?
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Yet
Sales Process Enablers for Sales Reps

• Sales Performance Intl (Solution Selling)
• Customer Centric Selling
• Target Account Selling
• Holden
• Sandler
• Miller Heiman
• Richardson
• Huthwaite (Spin Selling)
• Franklin Covey
• Corporate Visions
• Dale Carnegie
• ?
• ?
• ?

• Salesforce.com
• Siebel
• Netsuite
• SugarCRM
• Microsoft CRM
• Saleslogix
• ?
• ?
• ?
• 8.5 million google hits for sales training,
  sales consultant, and sales consulting

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The Void

• Sales Process Enablers for Pre-Sales

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Buehler? Buehler?
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The Forgotten Half of the Sales Force TM

• Consequences
• Well paid demo daemons
• Under orders from sales reps
• Weak selling mentality
• Executives consider pre-sales as an expense

• Inconsistency
• Redundancy
• Waste

The Best Improvement in Sales Operations Will
Come From the Sales Operation That Has Been Most
Neglected
Discussion What Has Been Your Experience?
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How Can Pre-Sales Drive Business?

• 1) Identify pre-sales metrics ? Impact revenue
  margins
• Technical funnel quality
• Technical decision time
• Solution list price
• Technical win rate
• 2) Perform activities that impact key metrics
• 3) Measure activity Quality. Why?
• Why is of Demos a lousy metric?

Example Hands-on Activity 1 Accelerating
Technical Decision Time
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Activity Puzzled?
Activity
Find the shortest path in the fastest time from
the Start to the End
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X
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Yes
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9
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No
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1
End on an exact count
8 Steps
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Quality Example 1 Reverse Engineering

• A Least-Cost path of execution
• Scalable
• Systematic
• Repeatable
• Consistent
• Teachable
• Transferable
• Predictable
• Measurable

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Pre-Sales Quality Improvement 1

• Reverse Engineering Technical Closure
• Produces a Least Cost Project Plan
• Accelerating Technical Decision Time

Consistent, Efficient, Forecastable,
Repeatable, Scalable, Teachable, Measurable
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Accelerate 5 weeks out of 16!
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Improving Pre-Sales Quality

• Incremental Bits of Process and Structure
• Project mgmt and Engineering
• Structured Analysis
• Checklist
• Model Visualize complexity
• Reverse Engineer
• Test Ideas
• Documentation
• Collaboration, Re-use
• Divide-and-Conquer
• Measurement
• Review
• Closed-loop Feedback

• Systematic
• Efficient
• Consistent
• Predictable
• Scalable
• Repeatable
• Teachable
• Transferable
• Measurable
• Improves over time

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How Pre-Sales Quality Evolves Over Time
Roles Processes Policies Procedures Tools
1 No Process
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Derived from QMMG, SEI CMMI, ITIL PMF, and CobiT
GMM
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Quality Levels 1 2 Traditional Model
Sales Methodology
Identify
Qualify
Develop
Close
Rep
SME
RFI/RFP . 4 Legged Calls . Demo
Custom Demo . Pilot
. Benchmark . Trial . Proof of Concept
Shows . Seminars

• Pre-Sales Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
• In-and-out. Under orders. Weak selling
  mentality
• Inefficiency, waste. No ownership for driving
  sales

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Quality Levels 3, 4, 5 Empowered SMEs
SME
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Activity Whats Your Process Quality Level?
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Results -- Case 1 1B Virtualization Co

• Problem
• Product centric sales transitioning to solution
  sales
• Wanted to expand deal sizes (ex via services)
• Activity Improvement Solution
• Pain discovery, qualification. 12 SEs, 5 months,
  25k
• Results
• Within 60 days
• A deal grew 33 -- 1M to 1.36M, and
• Closed 1 quarter faster
• Annualized new additional revenue 8.5M
• Time saved 10.5 work-months 1 FTE

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Case 2 2B Networking Solutions Co

• Problem
• Pilot equipment was depleted, no more allocated
• Pilots in bad deals, couldnt pilot good deals
• Activity Improvement Solution
• Activities across the board. 6 SEs, 6 months,
  25k
• Results
• of qualified deals 33
• Avg list price 75
• Technical Decision Time 33
• Win rate 33
• Annualized revenue 480k to 3.2M

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Activity Improvement Calculator
Activity

• Input an Estimate of Your
• of SMEs
• Average List Price
• of Qualified Deals
• Technical Win Rate
• Technical Decision Time
• Using Your Improvement Targets, It Estimates
• Current and future annualized revenue
• Revenue improvement
• Investment cost and Payback
• Lost opportunity cost with no improvement

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Discussion Ask the Audience
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Case The Ally Web Ordering System
Case

• The technical sponsor says he
• Loves our stuff
• Owns the project
• Has staff to evaluate the solution
• Can introduce us to key players in the org
• 6 months later
• We asked the sponsor for his decision
• He said he needed to ask his boss!
• The boss had a strong bias for a competitor
• 6 months down the toilet

Discussion What Went Wrong?
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Quality Example 2 Model

• Q Who Should We Prioritize Our Time With?
• A People Who Can Make Decisions Faster

• Influence (Advisoryship)
• Recommender No is binding
• Influencer Opinion is valued
• Not about Yes

• Power
• Ability to decide, Make things happen.
• Independent of job title
• High Self-empowered
• Low Consensus builder

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Get Faster Decisions Circle of Influence

• Model the Solution Decision
• Influence-centric
• Not an org chart
• of levels to the SDM
• About No, not Yes
• Prioritize the Influential
• Who stops the deal next?
• More High Power, Rs
• Less Low, Allies, Is

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Follow the Power and Influence
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Circle of Influence

• Is the Solution Decision Maker (SDM) Correct?

Who does the SDM bring their
recommendation to? ? Aaron, the BDM

• Can they say No for technical
  reasons?
• ? Yes
• If Yes ? Wrong SDM!

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Pre-Sales Quality Improvement 2

• Modeling the Technical Decision Process
• Visualizes How to Prioritize Time
• Accelerating Technical Decision Time

Consistent, Efficient, Forecastable,
Repeatable, Scalable, Teachable, Measurable
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Activity Visualize Priorities
Activity
SDM Lyle EVP Low
I
R
?
Nancy Consultant High
Mimi Director Moderate
I
R
R
?
Philip Manager Moderate
Otto Architect Ally, High
Get Faster Decisions Follow the Power and
Influence Who Can Stop the Deal Next?
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Pre-Sales Quality Improvement 3

• Checklist Pre-Sales Qualification to Improve
• Funnel Quality, List Price, and Win Rate

Consistent, Efficient, Repeatable, Scalable,
Teachable, Measurable
http//www.salesengineering.com/sloan
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Summary and QA

• Pre-Sales Operations is Ripe for Improvement
• Leverage the SMEs credibility to improve
• Funnel quality
• Deal size
• Decision time
• Win rate
• Margins
• Activity Quality ? Impacts metrics ? Drives
• Use Process, Project Management, Engineering
• Examples Reverse engineer, Model, Checklist
• Phil Janus, philj_at_salesengineering.com

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(No Transcript)
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Situation Room Acme Call Centers

• Background
• The Opportunity Acme Call Centers
• Now centralized Going global
• Bobby says he is the decision maker
• We lost the deal
• Discussion
• Why perhaps did they reject the roadmap?
• Why did we lose?
• What could we have done differently?
• What questions should we have asked?

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Quality Example 2 A Takeaway
Whats Happening Here?
Discussion Why Are They Doing This?
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Takeaway Qualification Checklist
Takeaway

• Seven Elements of Qualification
• What needs to exist for a deal to be sales-worthy?

1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) 7)
Checklists Ensure Completeness and Repeatability
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Takeaway Qualification Checklist
Use Scoring to Assess Quality

• 1) Quantified Pain Unknown 0
• 2) Need Identified 1
• 3) Driver Unknown 0
• 4) Budget Not Sure 0
• 5) Timeframe Identified 1
• 6) Owner Identified 1
• Fit Identified 1
• Must Do Yes 1
• 5/8 61.25

Something
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Pre-Sales Quality Improvement 2

• A Pre-Sales Qualification Checklist
• Improves Qualification Quality Impacting
• Qualified Deals, Win Rate, List Price

Consistent, Efficient, Repeatable, Scalable,
Teachable, Measurable
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Takeaway www.salesengineering.com/sloan

• Qualification worksheet

(more)
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Summary and QA

• Leverage the SMEs Technical Credibility
• Pre-Sales ops is long overdue for improvement
• Activity Quality drives proven results
• Enable empower SMEs to improve
• Funnel quality
• Deal size
• Decision time
• Win rate
• Use structured techniques to improve Pre-Sales
  Quality
• Process, Project Management, Engineering
• Phil Janus, philj_at_salesengineering.com

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Case 2 2B Automated Design Co

• Insight
• Leverage pre-sales to enable and empower partners
• Operational Change
• 100 SMEs enable thousands of partners
• SMEs provided a 5 level role maturity program
• SMEs clone Partner SMEs (PSME) into themselves
• Company co-funds PSMEs in same 5 level program
• Results
• Partners drive 1.4B of revenue (70)
• Productivity is 14M per SME

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Case 3 1.7B Power Equipment Co

• Corporate Commitment
• Resources and to enable pre-sales to drive
  revenue
• Operational Change
• 21 Pre-sales to sales reps
• SMEs have aggressive incentive plan
• Many sales reps only negotiate, receive orders
• 3 year pre-sales enablement program
• Goal Customers perceive high value in SMEs
• Result Some customers now buy on-site SMEs!
• Purchased on-site SMEs fish for business!
• Result Theyll never look back

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Consider This

• Who is the Sales Rep and Who is the Techie?

Who would customers rather work with?
Discussion Why?
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Customers Prefer Techies!
Wants to take my money
Wants to solve my problems
Why Not Reduce Reliance on Sales Reps, and
Leverage Pre-Sales?
4
49
Consider This

• Who is the Sales Rep and Who is the Techie?

Who would customers rather work with?
Discussion Why?
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The Forgotten Half of the Sales Force TM

• The Best Improvement in Sales Operations
• Will Come From the Sales Operation
• That Has Been Most Neglected

In Sales Ops, This is By Far Pre-Sales
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Pre-Sales Quality Metrics

• What Should We Measure?
• ______________________
• ______________________
• ______________________
• ______________________
• What Should We Not Measure?
• ______________________
• ______________________
• ______________________

Discussion What Should We Measure?
Discussion What Should We Not Measure?
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Measuring Activity Quality is the Key

• Consider This
• We do not lose weight by constantly
  weighing ourselves
• As a recent study showed, we lose
  weight by counting calories
  regardless of our choice of diet
• Likewise
• We do not grow revenue by
  constantly measuring revenue
• Rather, we grow revenue by measuring
  sales activity quality regardless of our choice
  of sales methodology

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Circle of Influence

• Incorrect SDM
• Add a level
• Drop everybody down
• Insert the new SDM

• Are You Not Sure?
• Add a level
• Add SDM Unknown
• Be honest with yourself

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Quality Example 2 Model

• Power

• Ability to decide.
• Make things happen, or not.
• Independent of job title.

• High Self-empowered
• Low Consensus builder

• Ask Who will make this project happen?
• How much do you/they depend on their opinion?
• How have you/they made past decisions?
• Who really calls the shots on the committee?

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