Marketing
The Power of Storytelling
The discussion of data and goals in business is very common. Unfortunately, it is so common that it becomes routine. There is no heart, no excitement, and, generally, a lack of real motivation that limits the likelihood of success.
Stories evoke emotions, and emotions often trump logic when it comes to getting buy-in and creating excitement. Stories also help with visualization, and visualizing success is proven to enhance goal achievement. That leads to mutual success. Just think about the power of TED Talks to help with the understanding and retention of ideas.
Steve Jobs realized that people are drawn to engaging stories that evoke emotion. He created relatable scenarios that helped people understand the benefits of a technologically advanced solution without having to dive deep into the technology. He spoke about things that were fun, exciting, and useful. He was visionary, but just as important, he was able to share that vision and create demand. Relatability and engagement, when done right, create an emotional attachment that drives action.
When my team and I were selling a leading-edge vector analytics database years ago, our Marketing team and other experts wanted us to focus on what later became known as “speeds and feeds.” Our product was more advanced than the competitors’, but our message was undifferentiated. That is not a good place to start when your competitors are larger and better known.
I created a weekly webinar that we called “Why Fast Matters.” We started by discussing common issues around the complexity and inflexibility of Star Schemas, Fact Tables, pre-aggregation, specialized hardware, and more. The focus was on agility that created a tangible business advantage while saving money. One of the stories I would tell was around a beautiful, multi-layered cake. It is a thing of beauty, taking a lot of time and skill to create. It was also fragile and expensive.
The story concluded like this:
“Now, picture yourself taking a bite of that amazing cake with your eyes closed. Think about how rich, flavorful, and amazing it is. Then someone hands you a fork, and you take another bite. It is just as amazing. You open your eyes and see a plated piece of the amazing layer cake alongside a cupcake. They were both delicious, and with your eyes closed, the results were the same. But one was complex and fragile, and the other was simple, quick, and inexpensive. There is a time and place for each, but when you are betting your success on an outcome, do you really care how you get there?”
We closed with a brief explanation of the technology, real-life proof points, and a call to action to prove its effectiveness in their environment using their data. The close helped demonstrate that this was not just a made-up story, but rather, something that could become their own success story. This was a straightforward approach to getting people to try something they might never have considered otherwise.
Essentially, you are shifting the audience’s mindset from how something gets done (means objective) to what matters and why it needs to be done (fundamental objective). People tend to have preconceived ideas about how the solution should work, often based on what they are familiar with. Once the audience begins to visualize a desirable outcome, they become more open to different approaches.
I have successfully used these approaches with more complex products, such as an advanced Kubernetes platform, object databases, a multi-platform data integration product, and the world’s first commercial JDBC driver. It is also an effective way to motivate teams. Create a vision of the successful execution of a plan, how good it feels to achieve your goals, and what it could mean for each person—an area they develop as their minds elaborate and personalize the story.
Some of the most effective and engaging people that I have known are skillful storytellers. Not everything has to be a story, but when leveraged at the right time, it can mean the difference between moving closer to your goal and being just one of many ideas or solutions.
You may not be the next Steve Jobs (I’m certainly not), but you could easily stand out from your peers and competition. Share your story in the comments below!
Sales Discussions that Work
Selling is challenging work, and often, “we” (sales and marketing teams) make it even more challenging than it has to be. How many times have you seen a selling script, elevator pitch, or initial presentation that is long, boring, and undifferentiated? People have a short attention span, and nobody wants to interact with someone who does not listen to them or is pushy.
Your initial discussion is crucial to your success. Instead of going over a list of features, reading a slide deck, and telling why you and your product are so great, let’s try something else.
1. Understand why people buy. Any change has the potential to be difficult, risky, and painful. So, the pain they are facing has to be even greater, or they won’t bother changing. Your main job early on is to listen and try to understand their concerns. You may have a perfect solution, but if it doesn’t solve their pain, it holds little value to your prospect. This initial meeting is all about them.
2. At the start of the meeting, ask, “What would make this time well spent for you? What would you like to walk away from this meeting with?” Get them thinking about their problems and the value you may be able to provide, even if they don’t fully articulate them to you.
3. Ask questions and follow-up questions. People don’t lead with their significant issues, and someone unwilling to divulge anything likely isn’t a buyer. The more the prospect talks, the more you learn. So many sellers do not understand this simple concept. They want to dazzle you with features and demos – even if those things are not what the prospect needs.
4. Once you think that you have identified a pain, qualify and quantify it. For example, “You mentioned that your product release cycles are too long and complex. What is the business impact of that, and what would the impact be if you could reduce that time and effort by 50%?” Write that down, in their own words, because it could be vital later. If you manage to identify several pain points, review them and ask the prospect to identify the top three issues from the list, and ask why those three?
5. If you are giving a presentation, pull up the most relevant slide (customer problem/benefit slides work well here) and ask if this sounds similar to the problem they are facing. It can be a good starting point for getting the discussion moving in the right direction.
6. Don’t worry if you are not able to cover everything you intended, as long as the meeting is productive. I’ve also seen salespeople cut someone off and move on to a new slide rather than discussing something of substance. I was actually told once by a sales leader that five minutes of discussion is all that is required in an initial 30-minute meeting, because our goal is to pique their interest. That just doesn’t work.
7. Next steps. Keep in mind that your time is valuable, and qualifying out a prospect who is not a good fit is essential – it helps you avoid false hopes and lets you focus on people who might genuinely need your help. There are many ways the next meeting could go, but it’s best to ask the prospect. Would they like to expand the audience? Is there a specific issue they would like to address? Would they like a product demo or a technical discussion? Is something like a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) keeping them from opening up? Lack of engagement on their part is a huge clue. Be direct and ask the tough questions now to avoid wasting valuable time and effort later.
Here is a mini success story. In 2010, my team and I began selling the first commercial vector high-performance analytics database. There were several products already out that claimed to be 70x-100x faster than other products. Our pitch was supposed to be that we were 70 times faster than other products. That was self-limiting from the start and likely prevented people from contacting us.
After two months of minimal success (I closed a deal with a small hedge fund, which was the only sale in all regions), we started a weekly webinar called “Why Fast Matters.” The focus was on positive business outcomes rather than specific technology and features (“speeds and feeds”). We opened with some “What if?” statements, such as: What if you get answers from complex queries faster than your competitors? What if you could do that without the cost, complexity, delays, and limitations of a Star Schema or pre-aggregated data? What if you could do this on commodity x86 hardware? We would then briefly cover the breakthrough technology (which was a precursor to Snowflake) and offer a free half-day meeting with a consultant.
Within the first two weeks, we met with a company that was later acquired by PayPal shortly before eBay acquired PayPal. This company was about to spend $500K on a proprietary hardware expansion that would have only provided additional capacity for the following year. Their customers bought advertising based on queries against the last six months of their data. I asked the question, “What if they could query against five years of data and get answers faster than they do today? Do you think that would help them buy more advertising? Do your customers ever ask for this?” The response was that their customers frequently ask for 12 months of data and would be willing to pay more for these capabilities. Still, they did not have a way to do this cost-effectively.
I closed a $250K ARR subscription deal in two weeks, and they purchased $140K of commodity Dell hardware for our software to run on. They saved 20% over their planned purchase, and more importantly, they rolled out advanced querying capabilities (against six years of data) in less than a month. There was incredible value to them and their customers, and it generated more business for them. We would not have identified this need if we had primarily focused on features and technology.
As an aside, I was initially chastised for going off message, but after the Australian team adopted our approach and began closing deals, it became the new corporate standard. If something isn’t working, focus on finding ways to improve it. Even incremental change can be meaningful.
In the words of Tony Robbins, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”
Six Ways AI Can Become a Sales Management Enhancer
As a VP of Sales, I would spend the first 60-90 minutes of every day reviewing a dozen different news sources, looking for information about new technology, competitor announcements, proposed legislation, and M&A news. I looked for anything relevant in critical industries, news about our customers or their top customers, and staffing changes within their companies.
My goal was to identify anything that could negatively impact deals in play, threaten the customer base, disrupt the run rate business, as well as seize opportunities to break into a new company or displace a competitor. You feed your findings and speculations back to your team, along with suggestions, talking points, or specific directions to help them maintain or increase their success for the current quarter plus the next few quarters.
You look for trends and leading indicators that could help your team and your organization achieve greater success. Winning feels good, and the rewards make you want to achieve even more.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be able to do all this and more. It will be more consistent, analyze information without bias, and do so on a more timely basis.
1. Automated Intelligence Gathering
Focus your efforts where they add the most value. AI can automate the collection and analysis of data from multiple sources, including news feeds, legal updates, social media, and competitor websites. This automation can save considerable time and minimize the chances of missing relevant information. Natural Language Processing (NLP) can identify, categorize, and correlate relevant information, providing actionable insights without the need for manual review.
2. Enhanced Lead and Opportunity Identification
In addition to the correlations above, Machine Learning (ML) models can analyze trends and patterns in data to identify potential leads or opportunities for expansion. By understanding market movements, customer behaviors, historical behavior, and presumptive competitor strategies, AI can suggest new targets for sales efforts and highlight areas where teams could gain a competitive edge.
3. Improved Internal Communication and Collaboration
Sales is not just about selling but also about collaborating internally to create the best possible products and services to sell and identify the best approaches to generate awareness and interest in your offerings.
AI systems can serve as a central hub for information that benefits various departments within a company. By integrating with CRM, marketing, support, and other internal systems, AI can distribute tailored information to different teams, ensuring that everyone has the best insights to perform their roles effectively and promoting a more cohesive and coordinated approach to achieving long-term business objectives.
4. Forecasting and Predictive Analytics
With the ability to process vast amounts of data, AI should significantly improve forecasting accuracy. Predictive analytics can estimate future sales trends, customer demands, and market dynamics, providing businesses with more opportunities to make better-informed decisions—better resource allocation, optimized sales strategies, and, ultimately, higher revenue will be the result.
5. Increased Efficiency and ROI
By automating routine tasks and providing deep insights, AI can free up sales and management teams to focus on strategic activities. The efficiency gains from AI can result in significant cost savings and a higher return on investment (ROI) as teams do more with less, capitalize on opportunities faster and more effectively, and ultimately make more money for themselves and their company.
6. Continuous Learning and Improvement
Machine learning models will improve over time as they process more data, meaning the insights and recommendations provided by AI will become increasingly accurate and valuable, helping businesses continuously refine their strategies and operations for better outcomes.
Future Perspectives
While it’s true that AI may not yet be ready to take over complex roles like enterprise sales, its potential to enhance these roles is undeniable. As AI technology continues to evolve, its ability to provide highly accurate forecasts, improve win rates, shorten sales cycles, and enhance competitiveness will only grow. The future of AI in sales and business management is not just about automation but about augmenting human capabilities to create more effective, efficient, and thriving organizations that are better able to compete in an increasingly competitive global landscape.
So, what do you think? Will this work? Will it be good enough if everyone is doing it? Leave a comment and let us know.
What are you doing to improve CX today?
In challenging times, small frustrations may result in harmful long-term negative sentiment. Your approach to Customer Experience (CX) matters more than ever during this pandemic crisis. Your business needs to protect relationship capital and see this as an opportunity to appeal to your next generation of loyal customers.
Recently I sold a few gold coins on an auction website. The transactions were great and concluded quickly. However, the payment arm of this organization seems to have a bug in their tracking system related to USPS Registered Mail. The status of the transaction displayed “shipped,” but when you pressed the “Tracking” button, it was clear that the package had been delivered a few weeks earlier. Still, they were holding a significant amount of money without a clear release date.
While that was a little frustrating, what happened next changed how I felt about this company. I sent several emails to Support and received canned responses. I used their chat option and spoke to a couple of “people” who were either chatbots or who should be replaced by chatbots because no matter what information I provided, the response was always the same, and it was not helpful. Interactions that are positive and consistent matter!
Now, think about tens, hundreds, or even thousands of customers or prospects having problems getting information about your products and services, getting assistance with questions or support for problems, and working with your company in general. In this time of increased stress and uncertainty, it is important that the customer experience for each anticipated archetype be as ideal as possible in order to increase engagement and loyalty. BTW, those things lead to increases in lifetime customer value, repeat business and overall business growth.
I‘ve always told my teams that “People buy easy,” so as a group or organization, we aim to make conducting business with us as efficient and frictionless as possible. By doing that, being fair, and acting with integrity, we are rewarded with loyal customers who help our business grow.
Relationships develop over time, and each interaction helps determine the eventual outcome. Understanding what differentiates your company and products in the eyes of your customers and prospects can help you create more meaningful, consistent, and useful interactions. People appreciate a positive customer experience, so those efforts may ultimately lead to the creation of Customers for Life.
Now is the time to evaluate your processes, procedures, guidelines, and interfaces. Be extremely critical as you ask yourself, “Is this how I would like to be treated as a customer?” By setting CX as a strategic priority, your business or organization will focus on eliminating friction and ensuring that your customers are treated well. Moreover, you are building a more loyal install base by supporting the activities that comprise the customer’s journey.
Investments in CX today have the potential for an immediate payback as well as increased long-term growth.
What are you Really Selling? (hint – solutions)
It is interesting to see Sales and Marketing people still focusing on features, performance, cost, and even value without creating a linkage to what that means to a company from a business perspective. Once you understand what your prospect is buying and why they need it, you can connect with them meaningfully to increase your win rate.
A sales adage from the 1940s (source) asserts, “No one wants a drill. What they want is the hole.” Today, that basic understanding of why people and companies buy is often lost in sales and marketing messages. Sales success is all about solving problems and satisfying needs.
Several years ago, my team and I were selling a new Analytics Database that was genuinely different. Still, our message was identical to every other database vendor – “70% – 100% faster than every other product.” It is nearly impossible to differentiate your product using a non-differentiated message. Don’t treat your product or service as a commodity if it is not one.
I flipped the messaging to focus on business needs. We created a weekly webinar focused on Why Fast Matters. Query response time is important, but responsiveness to customer needs and requests is essential. What if they did not need to wait a week or two to have new indexes created or a month to have a Star Schema updated? They could just run queries as-is, maybe wait a minute instead of a second or two, and have what they need then and there. That message resonated; we sold the first 50% of that product globally. When the Australian team began using our messaging, their sales also increased. Funny how that works.
Effectiveness is all about results and intended outcomes. Efficiency is about achieving those results with the least time and effort invested. It doesn’t mean that we are looking for a lazy approach to find a win. Instead, it is about identifying repeatable patterns that circumvent unnecessary activities, accelerate the sales cycle, and minimize related costs.
The way to help yourself understand what you are selling is to view things from your prospect’s perspective. What struggles are they likely facing? Where are the greatest opportunities to help their type of business? Are you analyzing data to attempt to assess their unmet needs? Your insight can become a huge differentiator, especially if you can teach them different and better ways to do something (ala the Challenger Sales Model).
What is the difference between your prospect company and its main competition? This analysis requires a general understanding of the problem space and a more specific understanding of the prospect company, its history, and 2-3 main competitors. It also requires an honest account of how your company and products compare to the competition so that you can play up your strengths and limit your investment in areas where the fit is not as good.
The next item to focus on is messaging. Below are a few examples from my career –
- Analytics & Big Data – The focus here is often on data volume, the currency of the data, speed of queries, cost, maintenance, and downtime. Those things become essential later in the sales discussion, but initially, companies want to know what problems their product or solution will solve.
- Some of my fastest deals sold because I demonstrated ways to make better decisions faster and/or identify minor problems before they had the chance to become major problems. Avoiding problems and unplanned outages were critical elements of the messaging.
- In one case, I closed a significant deal in less than three months by focusing on how a company could provide customers with five years of transactional data. Those customers could use the data to make better purchasing decisions in less time than it took the current system to analyze six months of data. Their sales increased after implementing this modernized system. Helping their customers make better buying decisions faster was the winning message.
- Embedded Products – While many companies focus on APIs, features, or cost per unit, I would focus on how the product I was selling made things better and easier to manage for improved Customer Support and Customer Satisfaction.
- I closed a $1.1 million deal in less than two months to a medical device company by focusing on the life cycle of those devices (often 10-15 years) and how their customers needed consistency from machine to machine. Consistency over time was the winning message here.
- After being approached by a Defense Contractor for a relational database product for a new Flight Simulator system, I changed the discussion to the complexity of flight control systems, the need to correlate 30+ operational systems in real-time, and the importance of taking a verbal command and translating it to specific commands for each related system. That led to selling a NoSQL product ideally suited for this complex environment. Letting our software handle the highly complex workload helped us win this deal.
- Consulting Services – These were not contracting or body shop services (commodities) but actual Business and Technical Consulting services with high visibility and impact. In these cases, expertise, experience, and having a track record of success in different but demanding scenarios provided confidence. These were often multi-phase engagements to prove our value before making a significant commitment.
- In a bid against two well-established competitors, we won a deal with a large Petroleum company worth nearly $500K. The proposal included information we uncovered about the system and use case and later verified with the prospect, a section on our people and past projects, and a high-level project plan with firm-fixed pricing. We won the bid, and I later discovered that our cost was $50K higher than the largest competitor and $100K more than the other competitor. The customer told me, “Your proposal demonstrated the understanding of who we are and what we need, and that confidence provided the justification to select your company and pay a premium to have the job done right the first time.”
- My first million-dollar deal was with a company where we demonstrated our ability to solve problems. They knew they needed assistance but were not exactly sure where. I created a “Pool of Days” concept that provided flexibility in the work performed (task, deliverables, and scheduling) but had minimum monthly burn rates and an expiration date to protect my company. The winning messaging this time was that flexibility and the ability to accommodate changing needs without introducing significant risk or additional cost were better ways to buy consulting services. This approach led to many other deals of a similar nature with other companies.
The common theme is helping companies solve their specific business problems from these examples. Even when technology was central to the message, focusing on better outcomes for that prospect and their customers was essential. Value matters, but positive results and better outcomes matter even more for purchasing decisions.
Nobody wants to be responsible for taking a chance on a new vendor and be responsible for a high-profile failure. Helping instill confidence early on makes a huge difference, and following through to successful implementation results in happy customers who become loyal customers who provide references and referrals.
Success starts with selling what you can do from a business perspective for your Prospects. You are solving their problems with solutions they need and avoid getting lost in the noise of the unfocused messaging from most of your competition.
Good Selling!
Where Ideas, Experiences, and Lessons Learned Intersect 