This Is How You Sell Disruptive Technology
In this day and age, having a nose for great disruptive technology (like Spiro’s sales automation CRM, for instance…) is something that is mission critical to staying relevant. Start ups are rising and falling faster than the latest fashion trends, and sorting through the noise can be difficult to the inexperienced eye.
Enter Chris Lee, VP of Financial Services at Docusign. Chris has made a career of staying ahead of the curve (Siebel in the 90s, Salesforce throughout the 2000s and now with Docusign). He’s an expert at proving the value add of something – before the client even knows that something exists. Kind of like how Matt McConaughey was driving Lincolns before they were cool.
Chris knows a lot about establishing power at his opportunities. His advice reads almost like a manifesto on how a sales executive can knock down barriers to entry and make sales. And while he may not be able to teach us how to see into his tech industry crystal ball, he was nice enough to walk us through his top tips for establishing power and making the sale.
Organize Your Deals Into Buckets
Categorizing your deals will go a long way. This will help you figure out where you need to focus your attention for the coming year. Is your pipeline mostly smaller growth accounts or cash cows? Are they strategic for your company?
Once you figure out what you want out of an account, you need to understand the ways you can get in. This is crucial for gaining leverage into an account. Who do you know that works there? Do you have a relationship with any key contacts? Is your company in another line of business already?
Use That Org Chart
Chris mentions the org chart – an important and often overlooked strategic tool. If you can visually map out all of the players it will help you figure out who is crucial to involve when making an important decision. It’s totally possible that someone who looks important on paper could really just be nothing more than a signature in the process.
Figuring out the real stake holders and decision makers is very important. So is understanding how they relate to each other. Do they work well together? A poor dynamic between decision makers could prolong the sales process.
Read The Space Between The Lines
While the org chart is important, so is the space between the lines – the “white space.” A good sales professional will investigate who is in charge of the areas between the boxes. Are resources ever shared across lines? If something falls in the cracks between, who picks it up?
Understanding how the lines are drawn (and if those lines are blurred) is important to understanding the landscape. This does not just pertain to business units too but to geographic regions (especially when looking at trying to expand globally). How do different regions interact and draw lines in the sand?
Connecting Executive Sponsors
Understanding the key decision makers and leaders at a client is important, but so is involving some of your own executives. By connecting executive sponsors, you are showing the client that you care about holding yourself accountable. It shows that you have a plan and person to escalate to for your customer in case things go sideways.
It’s also a great way to build rapport with the customer. While as the sales professional you should be building rapport (maybe try a joke or two), having your own executives build relationships can strengthen the overall relationship between companies. If your executive is successful, there could also be a trickle-down effect that helps you out as well.
Have A Road Map To A Mutual Closed Plan
Chris mentions the importance of understanding the path to take to reach a mutual closed deal. Putting together a roadmap for success will show that you’ve put a lot of thought into this. When putting together this road map you need to understand the things mentioned before – the key contacts, the organization chart/landscape, etc.
In the road map you should also have plans/buffer for bumps in the road. Understand that last second executive hail-marys are always possible. Anticipate for the bureaucratic process to be a pain behind the scenes.
Once you have the roadmap, you can drop in all of the activities you need to close. By doing this you become a trusted advisor. You’re working together to get to the end of a vendor selection.
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Gaining power is important, but try not to sound too much like a sales guy while doing it. Keep your cool when talking to executives and stop leaving voicemails while you’re at it.
Use all these tips and soon you can sell disruptive technology successfully.
