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Working 4 Engineers or Selling 2 Engineers?

February 28, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Regardless of where we sit at the table, we see the same things differently. Do you appreciate those different perspectives? These differences fuel collaboration, not disagreement!

For those of us who generate business, selling solutions provided by engineering-intensive companies, how can you create more value for your organization that also results in a decrease in your marginalization within that organization? The cultures in technically-intensive companies perceive business development specialists to be like hunters; they are sent out identify prey and possibly kill those saber tooth tigers and bring them in-house (identify opportunities and win contracts). The gatherers (technical folks) take it from there.

The problem is, the market may be hungry for some other type of offering which your company is perfectly capable of providing. But you haven’t let your hunters/business development experts in on this revelation, so they continue to track the same prey rather than expanding your (and your clients’) pallet.

Business development professionals are well-positioned to tune into industry trends. After all, they are out there talking with potential customers who may not be aware of the breadth and depth of your company’s capabilities. How is your organization incorporating business intelligence into new customer acquisition? If you don’t feel the business development folks are smart enough to extrapolate this information into current and new markets, do you end up short-changing everyone?

Let’s flip the table around and consider how difficult it is to sell solutions to engineering-intensive companies.  Your company may have trained you to sell solutions, but the engineering mindset will spin your solutions out into an endless algorithm of “what if” to see how robust your solution actually is. And the engineering mindset really is smart enough to figure out how to create the solution you are selling, as well. As a seller, you hardly ever feel you “have the engineering company at ‘Hello’”. In fact, the company may enjoy making you feel downright uncomfortable.

Treating the business development folks like a team sport – no matter whether these folks work for you or are selling to you – serves no productive function other than reinforcing how smart everyone is in their respective professional silos. And, let’s face it, the engineers win that contest hands down. Problem is, the engineers suffer from a lack of soft skills related to communication of value, relevance and business-building to and for their clients. And the business development folks are the ones who perhaps are less impeded in their ability to take risks and walk your engineering talk.

It doesn’t make sense to perpetuate the Us-versus-Them status quo mentality that our academic training, institutions and companies tend to develop and perpetuate. You can’t have each others’ backs if you are, theoretically and behaviorally, at each other’s throats.

It’s up to you to catch yourself falling into these status quo habits. Yes, we all lose patience trying to communicate with our technical or non-technical counterparts. Dial yourself down a notch or two and teach as you communicate. Engineers are usually great communicators when it comes to explaining the details and extrapolating into a broader context. Business development folks are usually great communicators when it comes to relating the solution to the big picture. What happens when you arrive at that same endpoint, pulling together?

I’m seeing complement here. It’s just a matter of taking the time to test it out. Do you have a professional colleague from the “other / Them” discipline with whom you are comfortable working? Make an appointment to figure out “what they say” and “what they mean” and how it relates to what you are saying and what you mean. You just might find yourselves on the same page.

I’m guaranteeing it will change your perspective. It will move you 1 millimeter outside your comfort level and you won’t want to go back to the way things were.

Well, there’s a lot to be said about being comfortable. But comfort is not a guarantee for being secure. In today’s global economy, it makes sense to be poised for your next manager, promotion, or job with another company.

Make yourself as robust as possible. Think about working with the guys and gals sitting across the table from you.

 

Go to www.doyoumeanbusiness.com to learn more about technical/non-technical collaboration and receive a complementary download of Chapter 1 of Do YOU Mean Business?, coming out in April 2012.

Filed Under: Angels, Venture Capital, Private Equity, Entrepreneurs and StartUps, Professional Development & Social Selling, Sales, Pitching & Business Development Tagged With: , , ,

Nancy Nardin and the scoop on software tools

February 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

 

Nancy Nardin, Founder of Smart Selling Tools, is passionate about sales tools and the impact they can make on business, because it’s hard to separate the two these days. Smart Selling Tools is the interface between software buyers and software providers. It’s a destination website for any individual involved in business development for their company: they can find software-based tools to help them remain productive throughout the business development cycle.

I spoke with Nancy recently about how today’s business owners need to develop greater understanding about software tools and how these tools impact revenue generation – regardless of the size of your business. This blog post summarizes the top talking points of our discussion.

To listen to the audio download of our conversation, click here.

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Talking Point 1: The biggest issue for buyers is that they don’t really care about buyer tools.

Nancy Nardin and Smart Selling Tools is in a unique position: she works with vendors to enhance communication to buyers and she works with buyers to better articulate their needs and increase their knowledge base of software selling tools. 

Businesses are busy. And Nancy perceives it’s hard for them to keep up with running their business while staying on top of technology trends. Technology isn’t what they turn to first, as a solution, because it’s an unknown and they aren’t comfortable.  Nardin feels that businesses turn to their reps (or engineers who sell) first and try to squeeze more out of them: make more calls, get good leads, see more people, generate more revenue.  It’s an old model.

Talking Point 2: There’s this little thing called sales capacity.

Nancy emphasizes there are only so many hours in a day for a squeezed sales rep to remain engaged and productive. There is a limited capacity. If you want to increase productivity, you have to look at it from the perspective of capacity. If you want reps to go on more calls, you can’t ask them to get more involved filling out sales reports.

In addition, entrepreneurs and small businesses usually have one person covering multiple functions. The owners and employees are constantly running out to sell their services or products, design or produce output, assemble the final outcome and ship it, and invoice their customers. They lose the flow of business development while they are “doing.”  Nancy feels that sales productivity tools can help with this situation.

Entrepreneurs and start-ups tend to be risk-takers by nature, so they may be more apt to try sales tools. On the other hand, they have fewer resources. These companies tend to focus on the basics, such as setting up email and perhaps online meeting services or collaboration platforms. Nancy encourages them to think about appointment scheduling tools that do away with all the back and forth “busy” activity, as well as marketing automation tools which identify trigger events, create content marketing, and generate leads.

She doesn’t think certain industries are more savvy than others in using selling tools, but everyone needs to start looking at how business tools can help them – no matter how small your company is.  In the next year, companies using these tools will have an advantage over those that don’t.

Talking Point 3: Sales Tools are software productivity services that help you develop business.

Most entrepreneurs are technologists and engineers: they have brilliant minds to create amazing products (even software applications!) but they don’t understand the sales environment. Nancy feels that sales productivity tools help small business owners and start-ups learn about the sales process. 

Most of what is coming out is Cloud-based, where you subscribe vs. own the software outright. Most people think of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) when she talks about sales tools, but there are a lot more out there.

Automating even the appointment-setting process or CRM, allows you to keep your fingers on the pulse of leads and where you are in terms of the sales cycle. It’s not about waiting for people to call your company. You have to define a way of being proactive and reaching out to potential customers.

Talking Point #4: Sales productivity tools help you identify where companies are in the buying process

People are busy. There are sparse opportunities to sell face-to-face.  Nancy feels that  pressured vendors end up pitching products rather than determining what product will solve a business issue. Many buyers come to the vendor already having researched what it is that they want to buy. As a seller, you want to avoid this situation because, otherwise, you don’t have any power.

Nancy suggests implementing  marketing automation technology. It puts code on every page of your website. Then offer content, say a webinar, something to entice someone to complete a web form. Once completed, you can track when the visitor returns to your website and where they searched. If you visitor has visited your website three times in the last week, and the last time she went to the pricing section,  you can set up alerts so this visitor becomes a high priority.

Talking Point #5: Be aware of trigger events.

Nancy offered the example of OneSource software, which allows you to set up alerts based on triggers. If you sell office furniture, you may want to set up alerts when your best accounts set up new offices, for example, so you proactively contact that company before they start searching for a supplier.

(Babette’s note: let’s say you are a custom manufacturer of aerospace mil-spec components, and company X was awarded a sizable contract from company Y. Now you can contact them and congratulate them before they create their component vendor specs. Spec yourself in!).

Trigger events allow you to be ahead of the trends and on top of industry information. It becomes a differentiator for you. So instead of showing up and starting to pitch away to the customer, you can offer insight from the buyer’s perspective, instead.

Talking Point #6: There’s a chasm between where businesses “are” and where vendors think they “are.”

Nancy emphasized that vendors (even entrepreneurial start-ups) think differently than buyers do. The vendor is thinking about their solution. The buyer is thinking about their business problem. Vendors think they should sell electronic solutions software. Buyers are thinking: “Why are my contracts taking so long to close?” Vendors have so little time with buyers that they are trying to squeeze too much information into these meetings.  Instead, take the time to understand the buyer’s perspective instead of prematurely pitching your solution.

Nancy feels a big disconnect is that vendors think buyers know what their technology needs are. They don’t. Vendors rush to tell all about their product,  but they don’t do so much showing, to determine if the software even meets a buyer’s need.

Talking Point #7: Nancy Nardon’s “Show and Tell” series bridges the buyer-vendor knowledge gap.

Remember how exciting “show and tell days” were in kindergarten? Why? People need to see how something works before they have “aha!” moments. Since Nancy receives so many demos from her vendors, she thought: why not offer them to buyers? In her virtual online show-and-tell webinar series, she asks vendors questions and buyers can ask questions online.

Nancy thinks the sales process is a lot like dating. Vendors are ready to sell their product now! Sellers are pressured to close sales quickly without establishing a relationship. Buyers aren’t ready for that. First the buyer has to acknowledge they even have a problem, and then that it’s urgent, and then that there’s a downside to doing nothing.

Register for upcoming Show and Tell webinars at this link: 

February 21st:   Front Row Solutions – Easy sales activity reporting by mobile phone with 95% compliance

February 23rd:  DocuSign – Have customers sign your orders electronically. See how easy it is to get deals signed faster.

Nancy Nardin, and Smart Selling Tools, is giving away $100,000 of software licenses in 3 different categories generously donated by six different vendors.There are 12 month licenses with no strings attached via random drawing. Go to her site and register. You may win  software for your company!

In serving the technical and IT communities, I’ve found there is a gap in what these communities know and don’t know about the various sales tools out there to drive revenue. It’s one thing to design software solutions, it’s another thing to implement them for your own revenue generation! We can all learn from one another. Sales Aerobics for Engineers blog will feature updates to the “Show and Tell” series, so stay tuned! The fulcrum leveraging innovative business development is collaboration between technical and non-technical professionals.

 

Filed Under: Entrepreneurs and StartUps, Sales, Pitching & Business Development Tagged With: , , , , ,

Are You A Bench Player or A Field Player?

February 12, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Many of you know I’m an NCAA basketball fan. And after watching the games this weekend, some of my friends agonized to me about how practice team players are brought onto the court with 19 seconds left on the clock, even though their team is 18 points ahead. Why aren’t they given more playing time, with that kind of lead?

Because they are bench players, and not even the 6th man or woman. They aren’t field players unless they make the most of opportunities (yes, think Jeremy Lin of the Knicks- now that’s a story).

So what role do you take in your company? Even if you are the sole proprietor. Do you prefer sitting on the bench, rather than pressing forward to win a contract? Knowing you are going to have to get right back out there again and repeat your efforts, over and over. There’s no time to get comfortable back on the bench.

For many technically-oriented professionals – in both engineering and business – the thought of being a field player is daunting. The bench seems so comfortable, so secure. Yet after the meltdown of 2008, technical expertise and degrees aren’t insurance for job security. You have to develop what it takes to contribute to your company’s revenue stream.

Where do you think your salary comes from? You know as well as I do that bench players don’t get paid as much as field players. First string and fourth string are light years apart.

It’s about the value and relevance we contribute to the throughput and output of our associates that makes all the difference. And it’s about our desire to be valuable and relevant as well.

Being a bench player has many merits. You get to observe the process of how to get things accomplished. You get to become a student of the game. You get to observe group behavioral dynamics. You get to develop that 10,000 eagle’s eye view of how throughput and output contribute to generating revenue – or points on the board – for your company or your team. A lot of bench players who understand this aspect of their role become great coaches.

If you currently are that bench player, how are you utilizing the opportunities available to you for observing and learning? You get to ask the coaches and owners questions about what you are observing, you know. And in establishing dialogue, you are moving yourself 1 millimeter outside of your current professional comfort level as well. In sharing their perspective with you, the coaches and owners begin to perceive you as an engaged bench player who is interested in all aspects of the business of making points in the paint and driving revenue.

How you use your current job to develop an enhanced, collaborative functional role for your team and company is up to you. Make the most of the opportunities that are available to you, instead of feeling boxed in. You just may end up becoming that 6th man or woman, for starters.

 

Filed Under: Professional Development & Social Selling Tagged With: , ,

Are Mature Small Businesses 2nd Stage Entrepreneurships?

February 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I had coffee last week with one of my colleagues, the CEO of a venture capital firm.

We compared our experiences working with student and adult entrepreneurs and ended up wondering out loud if mature small businesses were similar to second stage entrepreneurships.

Read on….

What would you show me if I asked you for your business plan? If you have one, it’s probably the document you put together to gain initial funding from a financial institution (compared to an angel investor or a venture capital fund, as is the case with high tech entrepreneurs, for example). Is this crucial document, the manifesto of your idealism and business passion, now collecting dust? Many mature small businesses figure that if they have a positive cash flow, are winning contracts, have a back log of work and can make payroll, they are in good shape. And so it goes.

Perhaps you own a business or are thinking about starting one. Some of you have been in business for 10 or more years, and have weathered – and successfully survived – a financial storm or two. Well done! So what is/was your business plan, other than a great idea that has some durability?

A business plan is a diagnostic tool for your business, like an annual physical exam. It lets you know whether your company is in good shape to move forward, diversify your product mix, purchase capital equipment to target a new market or technology, or partner with another company on a larger project.

Flash forward 3-5 years. When I ask clients what their “business looks like” they describe the environment built up to support their habits so they maintain positive cash flow – whether it makes sense or not.

They describe their status quo, not a business plan.

And if they have a business model to begin with, guess what it looks like now? Yup, their status quo, or the way things function to maintain their current rate of cash flow. What happened to that start-up passion and idealism?

Once cash starts rolling in, that status quo mindset is preserved at all costs – even if it prevents growing your business to the next level.

Second-stage entrepreneurial ventures have been in business for a while, too. Investment groups require these companies to fulfill milestones to protect anticipated return on investment. Their business plans are not allowed to collect dust and their business models pivot during this process. Ideally, these companies are coached to stay on task.

These second stage entrepreneurial ventures have products, sales coming in and peaks and valleys in cash flow, focus, marketing, business development, supply chain, and just about every aspect of running a business. The CEOs of these mature start-ups wear their sales hat to win business, swap that hat for the engineering hat to design the solution, put on the General Manager’s hat to outsource for production, and put on a firefighter’s hat when there’s a quality issue or when they have to take their place on the assembly line to get the product out the door. Oh, and then they put on their accounting hat to invoice their customer, pay bills and create payroll. It’s not always smooth sailing.

Does this sound like your own company – and I’m talking about small businesses with 3-20 employees and annual gross revenue of less than 1– 7.5 million USD.  That’s a wide business range, but the profiles are similar.  If you looked at your financials and business model for the past years you’ve been in business, would you find yourself in the same place or ahead of the game…. And by how much, really?

We can all learn a lesson from the technology start-up community. These companies are coached so they don’t fall into those bad habits  reinforced when cash starts to flow. Yes, they still get tsunami’d by all the stuff they have to do to stay afloat. But their business plan and model is always part of the goal.

Perhaps you should be asking yourself “what does the status quo look like for my business?” You may find your loyalty to preserving the status quo holds you back from achieving the next stage of business growth.

Your thoughts?

Interested in learning more about how the status quo may not be the formula for perpetuating your career or your company? Go to www.doyoumeanbusiness.com and sign up to receive updates for my book, Do YOU Mean Business? Technical/Non-Technical Collaboration, Business Development and YOU, scheduled for release March 2012.

Filed Under: Angels, Venture Capital, Private Equity, Entrepreneurs and StartUps, Sales & Engineering Collaboration, Sales, Pitching & Business Development Tagged With: , ,
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