Growing revenues

Revenue Acceleration

Bring Value to Customers

John Akbari
john@JohnAkbari.net
JohnAkbari.com

May 2012

Scaling to enterprise sales

Buyers…
 Risk averse
 Not open to change
 Prefer to keep status quo
 Not interested in “science projects”
 Not buying
 Not investing
 Not looking

Image http://www.healthdump.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Brain-Power.jpg
www.JohnAkbari.com

Buying changes...
Time & money

P&L Barriers to Buying
Research ...including “no sale”
Run the business
Grow the business Selection
Improve the business

Cash flows Explore
Risk Problem
Payback
Hurdle rate Investigate
IRR What is technology x? I need x.
Solution
Analysts Use Cases
Research Metrics
Benchmarks What product I need a
should I use? vendor.

Solutions RFI
Tools PoC

www.JohnAkbari.com

...so selling changes
Time & money

P&L Barriers to Buying
...including “no sale”
Run the business
Grow the business
Improve the business
Prospects are
Cash flows
Risk
Payback Not aware of solutions
Hurdle rate
IRR Not aware of good solutions
Not aware of your solutions
Not aware of you

www.JohnAkbari.com

Consultative selling  ?

Images from amazon.com
www.JohnAkbari.com

Improve your customer's business
 Add value to your customers, not your product.
 Your real value is cash flow improvement for your customer.
 Approach potential customers with a way to improve revenue.
 Find potential customers you can help – before they find you.
 Work with the customer, for the customer, on shared goals...revenues
follow.

www.JohnAkbari.com

Barriers to Buying…

 Your competition is not your (only) competition
 Other business drivers
 Other investments
 P/E ratios, cash flow, profitability
 Your offerings will be ranked by
 Investment required
 Timeframes
 Risk
 Payback

www.JohnAkbari.com

…must be overcome

 Focus on your customers’ business first, then the technology.
 Suggest how you can help the business.
 Approach the business early-on to create budget.
 Predict your impact, with specifics:
 Results
 Time to results
 Investments
 Payback
 Risk of execution
 What the prospect needs to do to achieve results

www.JohnAkbari.com

Convey confidence through competence

Sell to installed base and new customers by focusing on
 Customer's revenues
 Customer's risk
 Customer's timeframes

By showing
 Your knowledge
 Your experience
 Your performance
 Your commitment

www.JohnAkbari.com

Help customers invest to achieve results
 Avoid “no sale” – approach all stakeholders early
 Business, financial, technical, operational, end users
 Leverage them as your internal sale team
 Avoid “we'll get back to you”
 Partner with prospect through an investment process
 Qualify upfront (improve close rate)
 Compare prospect's metrics with other customers' metrics (value)
 Proof of Concept as Proof of Value (reduce prospect's risk)
 Avoid surprises (reduce your risk)
 Win over other investments and create budgets by predicting
 How much? (cost and payback)
 How long? (time to results)
 How sure? (implementation risk, costs, partners)

www.JohnAkbari.com

Consultative selling  revenue improvement
Suggest Ask

Discover
Revenue
improvement
project

Diagnose Deliver

About
possible
projects

Design

Concept adapted from Exceptional selling, Jeff Thull
www.JohnAkbari.com

Sell with revenue improvement projects…

delivery
?

Value

proposal Hit and run

deal signed

Time
Concept derived from The innovator's dilemma, Clayton Christensen
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…repeated over time…

Cumulative
Value

Short-term results
over the long term

Time
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…to grow margins, deal size, close rate…

Cost of
sales

Project 1 Project 2 Project 3

Time
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…and success

Customer
and Vendor
Cumulative
Value

Project 1 Project 2 Project 3

Time
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Revenue improvement is a cycle...
Suggest

Discover
Revenue
improvement
project

Diagnose Deliver

Design

Concept adapted from Exceptional selling, Jeff Thull
www.JohnAkbari.com

...for both vendor and customers

Trusted Revenue
advisor improvement

Vendor Technology

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Begin with customer and end-customer KPIs

 Metrics on your customers and their customers
 Proof of Concept should be Proof of Value
 Financial, technical, business, operational
 Analyze how a new prospect's metrics compare with metrics of similar
customers
 Customize metrics per use case
 Approach prospects with those metrics
 Help your customer by helping your customer's customers

www.JohnAkbari.com

Before/after KPIs are key
Metric Before After (Your impact)

Deals per year
Sales cycle
Close rate
Revenue per client per year
Revenue per sales exec
Global pipeline
Revenue to investment ratio
(cost of sales)
Avg margin

www.JohnAkbari.com

Accelerating sales

Use case 1 Use case 2 ...
Analysis

 Sales, marketing, support
 Win/loss
 Financial details (ROI,
RoR, TCO...)
 Customer feedback
 Competition
 ...

www.JohnAkbari.com

Repository

 Selection criteria
 References
 Demonstrations
 Sales tools
 Technical documents
 Qualification matrix
 ...

www.JohnAkbari.com

tC
ec
tB
Approach customers and

t
ec

p
c

os
p

pe
A os
prospects

Pr
os
Pr

Pr  Warm calls
 Leverage partners
$ $ $  Demonstrations
 Qualify
 ...

Factory image http://www.flickr.com/photos/loryraffa15/4038160902/sizes/m/in/photostream/
Catalog image http://www.flickr.com/photos/theinspiredheart/5347766844/sizes/m/in/photostream/
Concept adapted from Consultative Selling, Mack Hanan.
www.JohnAkbari.com

Selecting revenue improvement projects

 Easier to quantify cost-savings than revenue increase
 Cost-savings
 Cash flows
 RoR = Σ NPV year

 Payback
 Profit
 Revenues
 Evaluating future potential, not actual
 Many uncontrollable variables

NPV expected from revenue projects
Profit index = -------------------------------------------------
investment

Concept adapted from Consultative Selling, Mack Hanan
www.JohnAkbari.com

Triggers for new revenue improvement projects

Competitive
analysis

Partners Consultants

Financial
filings

Contacts Annual
reports

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Evidence shortens the sales cycle

 Technical buyers  Business buyers
 Architecture  References
 Demonstrations  Value delivered
 Evaluations  Time to deliver
 Technology press  Risk
 Benchmarks  Press coverage
 Endorsements

 Operations buyers  Finance buyers
 Time to deliver  Market share
 Migration  Vendor financials
 Training  Risk
 Risk  Third party support
 Third-party support

www.JohnAkbari.com

Core competencies + partners
Supply
Core products Solutions

•Product 1 •Core technical
•Product 2 •Client-specific
•With partners

Partner
Leverage
Delivery Support

•Professional svcs •Core product
•Training •Client-specific
•Partners •Partners

Apply
www.JohnAkbari.com

Image: http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1998-09-06/

Resources

For recommended books and blogs on value-based selling, pricing, and
competitive analysis, visit

http://www.johnakbari.com/resources/

John Akbari
JohnAkbari.com
john@JohnAkbari.net
+1 (917) 675 3197

www.JohnAkbari.com

Growing revenues

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