Business Strategies (Products, Technology, Marketing & Sales)

Sales discovery call is an important event in the sales process. Assessing and gaining an in-depth understanding of the prospect’s real challenges, mapping that to our offering to demonstrate positive outcomes, all will have a big bearing on how (if at all) you close the deal. While everybody involved in the sales process knows the […]

Customer References are the best way to get credibility for your product. While the eventual decision by the prospect might be more dependent on your value proposition and how painful of a problem the prospect has, references could push the deal past the goal post. Providing references that can vouch for the product has become […]

This is a complaint I have heard a few times from the sales guy in one of the companies I am involved with. But this time I thought I will do some digging into it. Here is some context.  We routinely do role playing in the company before a sales meeting with a new prospect. […]

There are partnerships and there are Partnerships. Software companies routinely explore partnerships to gain edge in the marketplace. It makes sense too in some cases. But in majority of the cases partnerships can prove to be a big distraction and/or misdirection in terms of execution. The earlier stage you are, as a company, the lesser […]

Sales Demos are challenging no matter what. You get an hour and you need to accomplish a whole lot of things in it. You research about the prospect, the participants in the demo and try to cater the demo to them only to find that come the demo time few new insurgents get in. That […]

Channels have long been a staple of software sales.  To meet the global and industry specific needs, software companies have relied on channels to reach the elusive customers. As luck would have it, I was involved in two instances, last week, where a channel strategy was being adopted as a predominant sales strategy, albeit in […]

As a Marketing lead or an executive that is not directly responsible for Sales, you must have been called to interview a sales candidate frequently. I have had my share of those interviews. Sales is one skill that I don’t profess to have any expertise on. The ability to create new relationships, manage them on […]

Sales demos are tricky no matter what. Unless your product is a well-known brand like Band-Aid solving, a clear and distinct problem. Sales demos need a whole lot of strategy to go into it. If yours is a software product, a early version of your product and a unique product that falls in between the […]