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 You have the power beat your competitors. Your global sales team is more than a match for any other....and yet you lose. Not always, but sometimes - more often than you'd like.
You've got a great product. You've hired a top-class sales team and trained them well. You've armed them with a great CRM system and yet .... you still don't win every deal you should. Worse still, you look at some of the deals you lost and you want to scream. "Surely we could have done better that that". "We should have won!" You might think the answer is "more training" but its not. Or "more incentives" but it's not that either, or "better management". No - Your sales team need help.
On a daily basis they confront difficult customer problems (some of these may be very technical), which they cannot be expected to fully understand. And yet they need to find a better solution than your competitors can offer. They don't need to understand, but they do need Insight - so that they can beat your competitors and offer the best solution for the customer and you. What's more, they need that Insight right now, and at any time of day or night. Your sales team is like everyone else's. You've made sure that they are motivated, informed and eager, but they still have a patchwork of skills, and even your best people don't know everything. This patchwork might be useful in other types of team - but not in your sales team. Why? Because your sales team is not really a team like others. Your sales team is collectively trying to beat your competitors; but in reality they work as individuals and they all need the highest level of skills and knowledge to achieve the best results. And none of them can know everything, so even the best miss opportunities to win more business, or to win at higher margins. Deep down you know this. That's why you invest so much time and money on training and coaching and man-management. And yet, you still can't get everyone up to the level of the best. Your training and coaching and management, great as they are, cannot give you the coverage you need. More training is not the answer. They need help, and they need insight, and they need it NOW. So .... is there anything that can be done? Well yes. Of course! I am sure that you've heard that the internet can have the effect of shrinking the globe and reconnecting communities - and its true. There are hundreds of web based systems that offer ‘collaboration tools' for teams that are widely dispersed like yours. There are hundreds of solutions, but they won't work. You see, they are created for teams and communities, and what you have is a sales team - which is neither a team nor a community.
There is, however, one web based collaboration system that is designed specifically for sales teams like yours. It has been built from the ground up with sales teams in mind and it is proven to improve sales results. It is just over a year old, and is still (officially) in beta stage - but already at least one worldwide corporation* is using the system across the globe. The solution I am talking about is The Power of Insight.
Ha! I can hear you say "but what if our experts don't want to share what they know". It's a good point, and it's a fact that collaboration efforts often fail for lack of interest and engagement. But The Power of Insight has been developed with this problem in mind. Firstly, the system is;
That's not all, The Power of Insight does much more. Firstly The Power of Insight is a true collaboration system that extends way beyond your sales team. Your Marketing, Service, Operation and Development teams have lots to add. After all some of these people have probably worked for your competitors, and know how they tick. They can often know just what you need to help prove your solution, undermine your competitor and close your deal. The Power of Insight engages these teams too, creating a real corporate knowledge-base with one aim - selling more.
Users have found that Marketing output is much more focused than before, because Marketing gain direct feedback on what they have done. Users can contribute, improve or comment upon market positioning, brochures, pricing etc. Constructive and informed debate** is enabled and the output is 'Insight'. Say goodbye to bland Marketing documents that talk of 'market potential' and 'competitive position' and get your teams working on a number real hard hitting sales documents such as the 5 key reasons a Customer should buy your product X when they need Benefit Y and when you are competing against Competitors A or B. And there's even more. The world around you is changing and The Power of Insight keeps you abreast of those changes by hooking into hundreds of news streams so that your users can be updated within minutes of things happening in your markets, which will affect your customers and you. Think of it as your own news service, you set it up inside The Power of Insight and it then runs automatically, making sure that your team are the best informed in your industry. The The Power of Insight also takes in your win and loss data. Which sales did you win, and which did you lose - and why? Sales teams will always celebrate wins and sometimes it may be painful to reflect on losses, but understanding both gives you the knowledge to make sure you win next time. If you use Salesforce.com as your CRM system this data can be drawn in automatically, but the output of other CRM systems can be used too. And I almost forget. The Power of Insight works as a repository for all your sales, product and market literature too. One central library to find everything. But its not just a library, because your users can read, search and question everything that's there. If they find something that's really valuable they can say so, and point others to it. If they don't understand or don't agree they can say so and get the answers they need. Finally, The Power of Insight is easy to get hold of. It's sold as a service, fully managed and supported. Your own IT department have nothing to do. There is no software to load or systems to manage or integrate - its all done for you. This means that you don't have to wait, you can be up and running next week! And as for the price - well that's easy too. You don't have to buy a massive site licence, just pay for the number of users you need. AND it will cost you less for each user per than you spend on their mobile phone bills. Now that's not much to pay to give your sales team "the power beat your competitors every time". ------------------------ PS: That corporate user I spoke of. They trialled The Power of Insight, and then they signed a 3 year contract. During the trial they won a sale to a new customer worth over £1,000,000 which the salesperson openly attributes to what the learned by using The Power of Insight and the contacts which he found. Had he not used The Power of Insight he would not have entered a bid at all - as he did not think he could win. What a result! All of their 3 year costs are easily covered from the profits of one incremental deal. Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites         Comments (0)
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