Harnessing the power of the brand

The 21st-century world has become very brand savvy, especially with consumer products. Brand champions have appeared all over the place, but what is a brand and how do new business sales harness its pulling power? Hundreds of books explore the power of the brand, and Branding For Dummies, 2nd Edition, by Bill Chiaravalle and Barbara Findlay Schenck (Wiley), is one of the best if you want to read up on this subject.

In terms that you need to understand for winning new business, branding differentiates products and seeks to create an aura of desirability for a product or service. It warms up your audience and gives them a powerful set of expectations before you even begin to talk to them in your new business role.

Branding is often the very first thing that comes to the public’s mind when they think about a particular product, and they’re predisposed to have a view about it, rightly or wrongly. So the brand is powerful. If you’re selling a solution with known brand attributes, then you should, in theory at least, have a head start in terms of your prospects knowing what to expect. For example, when prospects look to buy personal computers, they are likely to recall the “Intel Inside” branding over some generic brand, so if your solution uses Intel chips, then marketing has given you a head start.

Working with sales, not against it

If the marketing function is about discovering the needs of prospects and working to stimulate the potential customers by making them feel the need for your solution, then the role of new business sales is to take this and show the prospects how your solution fits into their unique situation and deliver the results and benefits they seek.

If marketing and sales don’t work together for the common good, it’d be like one part of your organization telling prospects that they need a blue solution and another saying that all they can have is a red one. As a new business salesperson, it’s your responsibility to understand how your solution is positioned in your prospects’ minds before you even set foot in the door. Everything that you say and do in a new business sales situation needs to align with your company’s public information flow or marketing communications.

The marketing function, especially in larger companies, is likely the custodian of the CRM system, which is so important in new business sales. Irrespective of who “owns” the data, it’s your responsibility to ensure that all customer feedback and sales experiences are logged so marketing staff can view them as needed. (Flip to Chapter 9 for more about CRM systems.)

You need to keep abreast of new initiatives and new products or services being planned so that you’re not taken by surprise, of course, but also so that you can begin to consider how to introduce new solutions into your prospect and customer base and to be aware of the effect of solution changes in your existing sales pipeline deals.

However frustrating you may find working with a marketing function that doesn’t seem to understand your day-to-day new business sales needs, it’s your responsibility to work with them to close the gaps. Don’t be tempted to do your own thing contrary to the marketing plans.

Having worked on both sides of the sales and marketing divide, and having seen firsthand the in-built suspicion that each has for the other, I can only conclude that time spent battling your colleagues is time wasted, and that the time would be much better spent in being in front of your prospects. In your new business sales role, try to spend some time with your marketing colleagues and share firsthand experiences of working with the positioning messages that they produce. Give open and honest feedback, but don’t provide it in a confrontational manner; your objective is to help get a better understanding of your solution in the minds of your prospects, and by working together with marketing, you can influence this process.

Equally, be generous with your time and experiences when marketing colleagues ask for help. The old adage of “I’m from marketing, and I’ve come to help” as salespeople fall on the floor laughing has no place in the modern-day process of winning new business. Take the responsibility on yourself of providing feedback and building relationships with marketing colleagues. It will be worth your effort in getting the end result to work better with your prospects.

Developing strategic and tactical approaches

Strategic and tactical approaches are both necessary and complement each other:

• Consider a strategic approach as being the grand plan — the “What are we going to do?” For example, it may include ways of ensuring that all the decision-making unit roles are covered (see Chapter 19 for more about the decision-making unit).
• A tactical approach is more about the “How are we going to do this?” It’s the actual on-the-ground plan of who does what and when.

Another way of looking at this is to consider the strategy as defining the outcome and the results of implementing your solution, so, for example, a senior-level salesperson perhaps focuses on those people in the prospect’s organization who don’t have day-to-day involvement in using your solution. Tactics involve operating at a features and benefits level with those directly concerned with the detailed implementation of the solution. As a new business salesperson, you need to be able to handle both types of situations, switching from strategic selling to tactical selling depending on your audience. Your marketing colleagues provide the necessary information to enable you to talk knowledgeably at both strategic and tactical levels.

Marketing functions define the overall strategy and positioning messages that reflect your solution and generally are the first things that your prospects come into contact with. Your roles in winning new business are to understand this positioning and to be able to articulate it in terms of how the solution addresses a prospect’s business needs.

You need to understand your audience on each occasion that you meet with them and ensure that you’re approaching the sale in the correct way, covering all the bases of the decision-making unit. Different sales approaches cover different buyer influences and must work hand in hand to succeed, so it really is important that you understand how to position your solution in both a strategic and a tactical way.

As a new business salesperson, you need to be able to address strategic issues, such as the direction that your prospect wants to move his business toward, and to have an understanding of why your solution will enable him to achieve this objective. Your role is not just to get a product or service sold to a prospect regardless of it being a good fit for him; your role is to ensure that whatever you’re selling is a good fit for him and will assist him in moving in the right direction as he pursues his strategic goals.

A tactic that often works well is to involve a marketing manager directly in your sales cycle, arranging for him to present to a group of your decision-making unit to perhaps cover long-term plans for your solution and ways that the prospect’s industry is having to adapt to change, along with the steps being taken to ensure that your solution is at the leading edge of this change. A presentation along these lines is a good example of the fusion between sales and marketing and also delivers a number of significant benefits:

• It demonstrates to your prospect that he’s important enough to be given a view of future direction.
• It enables a perceived expert to deliver some selling messages on your behalf. Because they come from an “expert,” they may carry more weight in the eyes of the decision-making unit.
• It helps your marketing colleagues gain firsthand feedback from real customers.

I’ve personally used this tactic many times to great effect in my new business role. And when I was working in a marketing role, I was often brought into such a sales situation, so I can confirm that it works well from both a sales and marketing perspective.

Knowing what marketing can’t do

Marketing will be a great help to you in your new business sales role, but you need to understand that it’s not a panacea. Marketing is no more the magical solution to every possible problem than sales is. Keep in mind the following:

• On its own, marketing isn’t going to deliver sales on a plate. You need to work with its output and turn it into your selling advantage. Don’t just take marketing material as it arrives; take the time to read and understand it, ensuring that your sales message is consistent, and make any changes as necessary.
• Marketing isn’t always in front of the prospect in the way that you are, so your input to the marketing process should be valuable as you build those internal relationships.
• Generally, marketing isn’t driven by today’s activities; it’s not at the very cutting edge of new business sales, which is your domain. A prospect is unlikely to get very excited if you show him a copy of your latest ad. It’s your job to help the prospect see the benefits to his situation as a result of you interpreting the ad’s message in his terms and demonstrating how he can benefit from the solution. (Chapter 10 builds on this tactic as a way of overcoming objections.)

• Marketing is unlikely to dig you out of a hole that you’ve gotten yourself into by failing to understand or communicate the right messages. You need to take responsibility for yourself.

Don’t reinvent the wheel

Marketing likely has well-researched and thought-out reasons for defining a set of solutions and associated brand attributes, so don’t reinvent the wheel by putting your own spin on them. Take advantage of the marketing work that has been done for your benefit, and put it to maximum use by making sure you understand it thoroughly.

I was once a product marketing manager for an international technology firm and had a fantastic new product to work with; I thought it was going to walk off the shelves when prospects saw it. The problem that developed was that some members of the sales team were more excited by the brand name, which was catchy, than by what the product actually delivered. The product was an integrated spreadsheet and data management system, well ahead of its time. Some of my sales colleagues took the brand a bit too literally and were telling prospects that it would give them perfect insight into any data they used it on. While it was good, it wasn’t that good! When they took the time to read the marketing literature that was produced for them, it was obvious what the benefits really were, and having understood the product, they were able to sell it successfully.

Some years later, I switched sides from marketing to sales, and I always kept the lessons I learned from my marketing role as I helped my prospects see the real business benefits of solutions I was selling them.

Marketing materials — brochures, ads, websites — set up prospect expectations long before you get in front of them. Use these resources in your sales cycle and give feedback to marketing on the relative success and usefulness of each of them. You’re a key resource to your marketing colleagues because you’re the one who sees the real day-to-day impact of the work they do. Build these relationships and forge close links to help both functions deliver stronger marketing communications and make your role easier in the process.

Find your own way of communicating the marketing messages in terms that your prospect can accept and desire, but don’t make it up as you go along; that is simply a recipe for disaster that any professional new business salesperson won’t want to be associated with. My earlier story of introducing an integrated spreadsheet and data management product provides a good example of how a simple message can be misinterpreted by new business salespeople who make it up as they go along instead of taking the time to learn and understand.

Understand your branding

Earlier in this chapter, I cover the importance of the brand. I can’t overstate the importance of taking the time to understand your branding. I don’t just mean remembering a strap line but also being able to articulate the brand values in your prospect’s eyes and being able to explain how that benefits his unique situation and why it’s a better fit than any competitive offering. If you don’t understand this positioning, then make sure that you fill in the missing knowledge before you go anywhere near a prospect because this will kill your sale better than any competitor can.

The following are some guidelines for better understanding your brand:

• Make sure that you read, understand, and digest all the internal communications regarding your brand and its positioning. Don’t dismiss it as “marketing hype”; it’s part of your toolkit, and you need to know how to use it.
• Understand how your solution fits into the bigger picture of your prospect’s business and what role it plays for him. You need to be able to understand the bigger picture rather than just the narrow niche you may be selling into at any given time. Understand how different parts of the solution tie together with your prospect’s unique way of working and demonstrate to him that the real benefits are there for the taking.
• Take the time to keep up-to-date with the contents of your website and blog or news items. Your prospects will, and you need to be better informed than they are about your own business. Make it a matter of routine to spend time each week refreshing your understanding of current messages, campaigns, and client-facing communications.

Taking responsibility

As far as your prospect is concerned, you are your business. You are the point of contact, and you are the one who is championing his cause. You are the one who is going to provide the solution to his needs, and you are the one who will hold accountability and take responsibility. Lead from the front, show your prospect that you always have his best interests at heart, and build that trusting relationship that I discuss in Chapter 3.

Internally, you’re the one who delivers today’s revenue that enables your company to thrive. Don’t wait to be spoon-fed leads and marketing messages; get out there and do your own prospecting and build those relationships using your knowledge and experience. (Don’t know where to start? Get the full scoop on prospecting in Chapters 9 and 23.)

Revisiting prospects after a marketing change

Over time, your company’s product line and marketing strategy will change — that’s a fact of life. The need for new business success will never change, though, because new business is the lifeblood of a company.

Today’s product or solution may not be right — indeed, it won’t be right — for all your prospects, but solutions yet to be delivered could change that in the future, so never give up on a prospective opportunity if it’s not right today. Add the details into the CRM, and revisit it in the future. (Flip to Chapter 9 for an introduction to CRM systems.)

Supporting and feeding back

Give your marketing function the benefit of your experience with prospects and customers. You have an obligation to keep them abreast of how their work, branding, positioning, and communications are being received where they really matter — by your prospects.

Find your own case studies and, when relevant, feed them into marketing. Have them make these studies into formal case study material, but don’t wait for this to happen. Talk about your customers’ successes with implementing your solution, and make sure your prospects get to hear about successes in using the solution. Nurture your own references so that if you’re asked to provide a user reference, and you decide it is the right thing to do, you have people ready and willing to assist you. Chapter 5 covers some of the issues around user references.

Keep your relationships between new business sales and marketing both open and strong, and you’ll reap the benefit in having the right tools provided for your sales tool bag.

In smaller organizations, you’ll often find that sales and marketing fall under the remit of the same person, and that person could even be you. If that’s the case, then wear your different hats accordingly. Being able to differentiate strategic work from tactical work will be your greatest asset. And, of course, you have no option but to work closely with yourself!