“Have you got the updated sales deck”, shouted Dave across the office, “the one with the latest client logos for Financial Services?! We will need it for the meeting tomorrow at 9am.”
For someone who has been in the
technology industry for almost quarter of a century I have seen many things
come and go and all too often good things go and many bad things stay. One of
those things that has unfortunately stayed and which by now should have long
since evolved out of the window is the traditional sales manager approach with
their rather old-hat presentation pitches to clients framed perfectly against a
back-drop of inane ‘sales slides’ that clients continue to endure to this day.
What makes me see things from a
slightly unusual angle is that I have sat on both sides of the IT/Business relationship
fence, having been both the seller and the business buyer. Having spent almost four
years buying technology as a client I can tell anyone willing to listen that it
is not a pretty place to be. As a technology buyer when faced with daily and monthly cold calls from sales people followed inevitably by (when I have run out of excuses) the ubiquitous sales pitch, face to face.
“Do you have a projector?” requests Dave hopefully.
It is the general view of some that to sell a value proposition is to repeatedly call a client by wearing down their barriers and eventually winning them over. In today’s sophisticated marketed-to-hell-and-back society, buyers are
somewhat more sophisticated than they were back in 1855 (or 1985 for that
matter) but that does not stop the tried and tested method of bothering a
client until they sign that purchase order.
You know what I mean. It is
weekend, month end, quarter end, year end, or the edge of my sanity. Sorry it
has taken me three weeks to reply to your email as it has been quarter-end (if
you are selling to a seller) becomes “sorry
I have emailed you 13 times today” (if you are the buyer from a seller) as “it’s our month-end you see”, ah yes 13,
unlucky for some! If its quarter-end be prepared to take the phone of the hook,
turn on the answerphone and head for a holiday on the international space
station.
Every old trick in the book is
seemingly still thrown onto the field of sales play by the ageing sales
diehards including the free-lunch (I can buy my own lunches really), free sporting
incentives (I’m not ever going to be good at golf) and the ’drinks after work’
thing (being sold to in the pub through the pseudo friendship approach, that
old chestnut). I was recently hypocritically at a complimentary sporting event
for research purposes only you understand which, looking at the thousands of
people choking on mass-cooked steak and Chianti in hospitality, demonstrates
that corporate hospitality remains an (inter)national sales pastime for those
in the club and is very much alive and well. I actually went to watch the sport
and bought nothing.
It appears that the old adage, “If
you throw money at them or comp them they will buy won’t they as they will like
me for who I am and feel grateful?” Ehm no, not any more. Over the years these
tactics have all been tried and believe me I have been tested, to the very edge
of my patience. It is true to say that sometimes things are purchased simply
because there is a sort of need but you like the person selling to you enough
to buy. Therefore people buying from people is true, well kind of.
Going back to 1990 I remember the
IT Director of a corporate giant revealing how he had selected SuperCalc 5 as
the spreadsheet of choice for the global organisation because his son was using
it at school. I rest my case. I have
news: the buyer has advanced their approach to buying and being sold to in these
modern times and in part this is because purchasing decisions are made by a
wider landscape of business and IT personnel than before and they don’t know,
or want to know the rules of being sold to.
Why is it therefore that old
sales-presentation techniques have not adapted and modernised in parallel?
Whilst there will always be a few who fall for the outmoded techniques of
drinks, sports and the “what’s in it for me personally” approach , as if it
were part and parcel of some massive executive club, the majority have long
since moved on and do buy in a different way. What ever happened to purchasing
something because it simply is rather good and useful and beneficial and of
actual value to me and my business? Ah perhaps rather naively that would be far
too easy in this throw-away, try-it-now-and-bin-it-later global economy.
Perhaps some believe that people rather enjoy being sold to as it justifies their
superior position and the responsibility this bestows.
The purpose of this article is
not to bash the salesman, the buyer or indeed the act of ‘selling’ as everyone
is trying to sell something, even if it is just their own personas. One only
has to look at the nonsense promoted through personal profiles on social
network to appreciate that – brand generation Y (why) anyone?!
In fact the desire to write this
article was actually prompted by recently sitting through what I can only
describe as the most tortuous opening presentation of yesteryear and one that
sadly still haunts the vast majority of Microsoft partner sales openers today –
the ubiquitous (death by) PowerPoint slide deck, partner sales presentation
with accompanying rather hopeful, companion narrative, regarding uniqueness and
differentiation – or the ‘sales deck’ in short.
“On the next slide on the screen, we have a sales team of 12 and 14
developers, making us the largest partner in…”, extolled the salesman.
You have seen them haven’t you,
the people in sharp suits with the latest laptop or tablet and a dongle in hand
hurrying to a meeting whilst requesting a projector.
Let’s dig deeper. Deep down in
the psyche of some sales managers appears to be a dictat, some ancient rule set
in a tablet of stone or carved into a biblical granite rock from time
immemorial that before engaging ANY client in ANY useful way of ANY kind apart
from ordering a coffee with sugar, even if there are only 30 minutes available
in total, the client must first endure without ANY form of input, a PowerPoint slideshow
demonstrating ANY, some or indeed all of the following:
·
The Partner Company Title (with a name that is
frequently unpronounceable or Greek for something irrelevant)
·
The Partner Locations (often based on the
irrelevant value of convenience)
·
The Partner Owners/ Directors (who you will
never actually meet as they live in Nassau, Bahamas)
·
The Partner Background in bulleted form (with
phrases like ‘key milestones and “high bandwidth value’)
·
The Partner History in bulleted form (we will
come to that later)
·
The Partner Offerings to Market - (Microsoft graphics such as the segmented
pie included)
·
The Partner Differentiation in bulleted form
(which usually provides absolutely no clear differentiation)
·
The Partner Case Studies (in a generally
unreadable format - send them out later as PDF)
·
The Partner Website & Contact Details (the
client will have the details already, that’s why the salesman is sitting in
front of them right now)
·
And worst of all – Next Steps with the
Partner…..(rather optimistic at this stage I’d say)
Every sales slide all too
frequently contains any or most the following:
·
A peppering of Microsoft and other vendor logos
·
Any Silver or Gold competency partner logos
·
Phrases du jour (typically gobbledegook –
‘enterprise social’ anyone)
·
A consistent slide theme( irrespective of
whether the slides have any visual impact whatsoever)
·
A constant peppering of the Partner logo (as if
by repeating it everywhere subliminally the client will cave in and be
mesmerised. They won’t, trust me.)
·
Traditional & unqualified sales speak
phraseology (including classics such as “the Country’s leading…”
·
An Office 365 logo and a website domain name (now
with the word ‘cloud’ in it, it used to be the word ‘soft’)
For those on the sales team who have secretly seen through the sales deck, its long windedness,
lack of specific value, time wasting capabilities and its general inadequacies they
will still be forced to present it which causes further issues. You will have
seen the presenter, tab quickly through a number of slides muttering that they
are irrelevant or no use today and move swiftly on. In this instance, therefore
you are enduring a speed reading version of the slides but gaining absolutely
zero value except being slightly entertained by an annoyed sales presenter.
Even the act of tabbing quickly through the many irrelevant slides is already presenting
an image of client disconnection, even if the presenter is to be congratulated
by being their own person.
So let’s clarify tell what the
sales deck may have just revealed to me about the partner company:
·
The partner company may lack originality – there
is a ton of multimedia outlets and styles out there, much of which I can watch
before the partner salesman even arrives to see me and only one of which the
partner has chosen to use - slides. Where are the companion videos, animations,
podcasts and engaging reference materials that are interesting to watch, listen
to and read and could I view them on my new tablet or smart phone? If the
partner isn’t using the latest technologies to promote their company, how on
earth can they convince me they know how to work with the latest technologies
and bring the greatest value to my own organisation?! I have decided that they
can’t.
·
The partner appears to be the same as almost
every other potential partner as I have seen the same logos, messages,
templates, designs and images and presentation method time and time again on
other people’s decks already. Shakespeare could have written the sales script,
yes it’s that old. It is like reading an online dating profile where everyone
is 29 and everyone loves reading and swimming. Next.
·
The partner is typically NOT the ‘UK’s or US
leading..’ anything and if they say this without proving it accurately &
convincingly I cannot believe anything else they say either. It’s like using
the word ‘quality’ – is that ‘good quality’ or ‘bad quality’?! Therefore making
statements like the #1 cloud partner means nothing more that they believe their
own PR which worries me as a client from the very start and makes me not want
to buy. If they can actually evidence it, prove it and demonstrate it then good
and we can move on. Even if they are the world-leader in Office 365 sales, this
still doesn’t tell me that they are any good for my organisation; it just tells
me that they are good at selling online cloud seats. Being the oldest, longest,
largest doesn’t actually tell me anything except that someone somewhere is
being just a little bit egotistical. And as for ‘Partner of the…’, yes, it
really doesn’t mean anything at all.
·
In parallel, industry jargon really does start
to punch major holes in the good ship ‘partner’ and slides can be heavily
sprinkled with these as if they are some kind of marketing magic, fairy
dust. Consider some of the most overworked and over used phrases that
need a serious reality check. Phrases such as “mission statement” or “trusted
partner” are used to perpetuate a myth that in some way the partner is actually
the house of the holy, is separate from a larger heathen rabble which simply
cannot be trusted, whilst is simultaneously sponsored by NASA. There are over
half a million Microsoft partners and most can very much be trusted and almost
all have a mission statement, it’s called making profit whilst delivering good
service.
·
Organisational statistics in slides out of
context tell me absolutely nothing about the partner organisation as we all
know the phrase “there are lies, damned lies and statistics”. Telling me that the
partner organisations has 100 SharePoint Consultants, work in 13 countries,
have over 1300 clients and 5 corporate offices probably also tells me the
Directors drive Aston Martins and that I am about to be fleeced. I may add that
telling me they have three MVPs on the team doesn’t add to the value
proposition either, though it might. A tricky, fickle business this.
·
The slide-presenting partner has at this stage
demonstrated no clear differentiation to market because everyone and anyone can
and does present a technical demonstration of software features and functions
which I can be absolutely sure is what is coming next after these slides. Why?
Because there is someone silently sitting patiently in the corner tapping away
on their laptop not listening to a word their companion sales person is saying.
What I want is a quick view that the partner is indeed the de facto strategic
partner of choice as demonstrated by everything I am being shown. Instead I am now
going to choose a partner purely on price as I have nothing else whatsoever to
go on except ‘likeability’ and ‘cultural fit’. I have had four partner slide
presentations today and they all looked the same to me.
·
As an aside ‘cultural fit’ is usually based on
client budget which in turn means that you will ‘culturally fit’ if you don’t
appear too big, too small, too smart, too cheap, too expensive or too
frightening. You are going to struggle
preparing for that in a slide deck as the initial budget tends to be as random
as a roulette wheel.
·
The partner is clearly not a thought-leader or
perhaps leader in anything much at this stage simply because they have not
provided our client with anything in the deck that reflects originality or
uniqueness as demonstrated by the existence of the deck itself in the format it
is presented in. Perhaps the thought-leadership will show itself at a later
stage. Worse still the sales person feel able to waste time and that of the
team by dragging us through these slides knowing that they really don’t bring
any value at this juncture and if they REALLY believe that they do then you can
be sure they are not the partner for us.
·
There has been a recent trend to re-style
partner websites with lots of squares to make them feel very ‘current’, like
the Windows 8 and cloud (I am not allowed to say ‘metro’) interface. Because so
many websites have done this, what it actuals says is we lack originality and
copied everyone else. Which also puts a word into my client-orientated head, that
word is ‘avoid’. Any link between slides and any form of tile based graphics
makes me wonder if we live in a world where there is any originality left.
·
Worth mentioning is that if the partner presents
me with far too many client logos then I may start to believe that they do not
value client confidentiality of non-disclosure agreements which makes me rather
concerned? Similarly, sector specific client logos don’t necessarily tell me
what I want to know because I may like to know how their methods transcend
business verticals as much as can be accurately applied to any one in
particular. In other words it appears they are trying to second guess me and
make themselves appear relevant and I can see through it.
·
Having a ‘memorable’ company name or a domain
name with the word ‘cloud’ in it or anything Greek, or indeed anything else
intellectually pompous will not make us more likely to see the partner as cool,
techno-relevant and buy from them, no. Neither is the Director’s history or
background of any interest at all. The fact that they went to Harvard or Oxford
and started the company aged 23 with their college friend really doesn’t make
the slightest difference to the quality of the solution the partner is trying
to sell me.
·
“Established in 1994” doesn’t necessarily sell
me anything positive. Indeed it can also have negative connotations when a
slide spells out partner history and longevity. Now you might think this can’t
be true but a SharePoint practice established in 1994 means that the practice
was doing something else probably until around 2003 which makes any relevancy
only true since 2003. As it takes time to build case studies and history as
well as a decent client base the practice has been around since 1994 but really
been a full SharePoint practice since around 2005. In which case the first 11
years offered no value at all to the pitch. A practice of 2 to 5 years may
actually be more fresh, more up to date, indeed far more relevant for my
organisation. Therefore old is not necessarily good, it will depend if our
partner is offering a wider range of services or something more niche and
focused.
·
The inclusion of the SharePoint segmented
Microsoft pie (graphic) or anything remotely similar tells me that they have
nothing else and therefore no original business value proposition for me and
they will be leaving my office earlier than they thought therefore we can move
past the Next Steps slide right now. It certainly tells me that they have not
put in any effort and developed more suitable materials or considered a
business-aligned framework approach. If they seemingly won’t make the effort
now, what happens later?
By now you should be getting my
drift here and it’s all for good reason. Clients deserve great engagements from
the very start. It is quite remarkable why some sales personnel feel that
anything up to 30 minutes for a one-way, slide-deck introduction is acceptable
to drag and trawl everyone through as if it was some perverse engagement
right-of-passage. It isn’t, the only right-of-passage will be the passage
marked Exit. All too often these sales slide decks are composites created by
good natured marketing people who have never marketed their own way out of
their marketing office, together with sales managers who have wound up in IT
companies and who have failed to adapt a technique that was lasts seen selling
mainframes in 1979.
I prevaricate unnecessarily.
The purpose of the PowerPoint (it always is PowerPoint, isn’t it) sales-deck presentation
is to achieve what exactly? Is it any of the following?
·
Introduce the potential partner as the
knowledgeable, subject matter expert in the relevant field – in other words
demonstrate they know what they are doing and can prove it
·
Introduce the partner as professional,
established, preferable and distinguished in achievements and better than
anyone else out there who may do the work instead
·
Explain who else thinks they are the partner of choice,
worthy in what they do and will stand up
and say it independently and without meals, sporting visits or after work
drinks
·
Align the partner company with what the client
does to demonstrate that they understand what they do and how they work and how
they can fit right in
·
Display relevant badges of distinction that
demonstrate end to a degree prove, skills and talents and knowledge
·
Tell the client where the partner is, who they
are and how they typically engage
·
Make the client like them or want to like them
as well as believe them as well as demonstrate that they have something of real
value to offer at a price that ‘culturally fits’
·
Demonstrate history which literally means that
they have time to practice their speciality subject, know the answers and are likely to still be
around next year when maintenance and support is required
·
Offer some real, tangible, palatable evidence to
back every statement they make to reassure and address and provide confidence
in what they say is true.
Ask yourself this question: How
much of the above could actually have been achieved without having to say it
through slides but instead through web evidence and other materials that can be
consumed in advance of your meeting and without wasting valuable time or boring
anyone? I am sure the answer is that most of it can, should and therefore be
simply abbreviated and confirmed by email in advance of the session. In my own
experience, a partner wouldn’t get through the door if I hadn’t learned enough
in advance to invite them and establish an early value proposition. If they
could address these points without a face-to-face, sales-deck-pitch approach
then why didn’t they take the time instead to achieve those things and why instead
did they present the sales deck to me?!
As an aside, it always makes me
laugh when I receive emails and communication from sales people purporting to
be experts in SEO (search engine optimisation). “We have looked at your website and can assist you in getting to number
one in your sector and search engine phrase”. Really?! “Well I have looked up your company under the
term SEO and can’t even locate you by page ten of the search results, so
goodbye”.
Let me stress this for those
that do not yet wish to understand, the sales deck at the beginning of a
partner meeting more often than not undermines most things of value that you go
on to present and it eats into everyone’s valuable time, all too frequently wasting
the sales opportunity. From a Microsoft partner perspective what a sales deck
does more often than not is undermine the value proposition that a partner is
in fact trying to establish.
The sales deck all too often achieves
the following:
·
It can undermine the potential partner position
with negative connotations to the extent that potential clients are no longer sure
they want to work with the partner
·
It demonstrates that the partner company appears
to lack any real form of originality, creativity or inspiration due to its lack
of soul
·
It can undermine the partner company credibility,
not enhances it, due to wild, misleading, inaccurate or boastful statements or
ones that are simply unnecessarily audacious
·
It can accidentally define the partner as part
of the pack not leading the pack as it’s a version of the same deck that most
others present in many cases
·
It can easily waste time as the deck takes time
to go through when it could have been covered in a different format at a
different time e.g. in advance
Okay so let’s say that we buy
this argument and we are either going to cut down the opening sales deck pitch,
radically change its format to something far more useful or else drop it like a
hot potato (oh how I wish). Well what does the client really want instead?
In engaging with any client at
all as part of pre-sales, one may wish to consider and address the following:
·
All clients have limited time, just like resumes
and CVs so partner materials are selling the partner fast in a few headlines. Therefore
think about the format of your partner resume (website, multimedia, other
engaging collateral etc.)
·
Volume of clients doesn’t reassure the client,
but original, independent referencability does
·
All clients can see through boastfulness,
exaggeration, outlandish statements and statistics
·
Industry speak, jargon and techno-babble can
make a partner irrelevant rather than relevant
·
Overt sector alignment can actually often be
anything from a distraction to a complete turn off so be careful
·
Originality, creativity, thought-leadership and
strategy are all attractive propositions
·
Technical must always be replaced or at the very
least aligned with true business value proposition to succeed
As a final comment, the vast
majority of IT sales presentations I have endured (yes endured) over 25 years
have been dull, lifeless, too casual, sometimes overly-familiar but generally
lacking in engaging delivery and story-telling. It amazes me still how
relatively few people can actually present to an audience effectively, and
present in a thoroughly engaging way. Professional presentation skills-training
should be part and parcel of almost every practice with a sales or pre-sales
division with no excuses. Monotonous, monotone voices are not attractive or
acceptable in presentation scenarios. Clients really do want to buy and they most
likely do want to buy from you but from the moment that first sales slide
projects up onto the wall, the foundations inevitably start to crumble.
Surely this cannot be true you
may think, we present with our deck and we already win. Perhaps people already
like you or view you as the inevitable choice, or that you are currently being
recommended from a particular source or that there are only worse alternatives
or that simply that you are the cheapest. Nothing stays the same for ever
either, as off-shoring and the cloud have so ably proven in recent times.
Business failure occurs when sales strategy is slow to adapt and evolve.
Potential clients are frequently
desperate for a sales session to be valuable, insightful, thought-provoking,
engaging and dynamic, but sadly largely they are simply not. People frequently ask why the Salem™
framework sessions as pre-sales scenarios go down so very well with clients?
The answer is because Certified Salem™ Professionals practice what we preach
here. So here comes our own selling bit and without any form of sales deck! The
Certified Salem™ Sales Expert has been deliberately designed to teach sales
professionals exactly how to present SharePoint™ and the associated Microsoft
stack in a dynamic, engaging way that has meaning, huge quantities of
thought-provoking, thought-leadership and a logical, sequential approach to
services using business language that anyone can grasp fast.
The Salem™ framework is fun,
interesting, clear and insightful and it is as flexible, as dependable and as
adaptable as any potential client could possibly wish for. You couldn’t ask for
a better introduction to any Microsoft partner practice than that now could you?
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