Software Sales Enablement

Use Winds of Organizational Change to Drive Enterprise Sales

Enterprise software solutions have many benefits. They allow groups with disparate expertise to collaborate, leverage legacy data across programs for cost-effective re-use, enable process automation and workflow traceability, extend operational visibility to executive management, and much more- there's a long list.

But the broad applicability of enterprise software is also its Achilles heel. It increases the length of the sales cycle, the scope of the implementation, and the complexity of user interaction with the product. Most importantly, this breadth raises the likelihood that the sales initiative will meet impassable resistance somewhere in the organization.

So what can you do to keep the pursuit on track for a successful sale and deployment? Communicate driving forces that will help the customer start and sustain an organizational change.

How to Sell Software

I love a bake sale. Fresh bakery and hot coffee are wonderful treats on a Sunday morning. But I am a little jealous of the baked-goods seller. They've got everything going for them. Their customers know just what they want and approach them directly. The off-the-shelf product needs no modifications. Competitors steer clear (and often agree to produce only non-competitive offerings). The asking price is considered reasonable. And customers happily tell their friends about the great product they got.

That's not the sales world of my experience and I'll wager it's not yours either. None of the "bake sale" conditions hold true when selling enterprise software. Customers don't know what they want, so they don't come looking for you. Your product never quite fits, so they ask to modify it. They find your service rates too high and invite competitors to bid against you. Discounts are expected, while referrals are rarely given in return.

Maybe it would be better to bake cookies, right? Take heart! The answer could be simpler than you think. You might just be selling the wrong way for the right customer.

Great Salespeople Need Help

I was talking with a friend of mine about his entering the sales profession. He held a misconception about salespeople that's rather commonplace; the average person tends to think that a great salesperson is someone who can sell anything to anyone, like selling "icicles to Eskimos."

I don't think that's the case. It's tempting to believe that the sales "magic" is someone else's domain and that there's nothing that can be done about creating it, but that relegates authority away from the sales enablement organization and puts all responsibility for success on the "silver bullet" of great sales talent. Those of us in the sales enablement community know better.

The Three Levels of Client Acceptance

Sales is a noisy and confusing environment. Success can be elusive if you take your eyes off the ball - and there's so many to chase. In previous posts, we talked about the threat of multitasking your time away, discussed the importance of applying the 80/20 rule to intensify your focus, and even covered how to make change stick when you decide to implement a new behavior.

Now that you're focused, intentional, and empowered, it's time to talk about just what you should be doing. In this post, we get down to the essence of how and where you should concentrate your efforts to win client acceptance of software solutions.

The Myth of Multitasking and the Power of Focus

Multitasking is a myth. In last spring's issue of The New Atlantis, Christine Rosen delved into the developmental implications of multitasking on focus, thinking, and attention span for our current generation of young people. It's a fascinating read. But what caught my attention was something more immediate and relevant to my everyday life. According to Ms. Rosen, "workers [take] an average of twenty-five minutes to recover from interruptions such as phone calls or answering e-mail and return to their original task."

Imagine summing the costs of all those stops-and-starts over the course of a year. By one account, they top $650B annually in the United States alone. Can we really afford to be so scatterbrained? What can be done?