V.A.M.P. Qualification & Valorization Toolkit

Transcription

1 V.A.M.P. Qualification & Valorization Toolkit

2 The rules of qualification have changed Companies no longer run the commodities type business models that BANT (budget-authority-need-timing), the original qualification method, invented by IBM in the 1960s was built to support. Most of us in B2B enterprise business development use CRMs with stage-gates (example stages in Salesforce.com). What is often missing are grades so that individuals and commercial leaders can address sluggish stages once proposals have been made or initial demos go dark. The term qualification is very one-sided, especially now that we have so many multi-sided platforms, recurring partnerships and often complex solutions. The real way to think about this is valorization. Think re-vamp as in hey let's re-vamp this old client engagement. Valorize (verb): to give or ascribe value or validity to (something).

3 Outcomes of Using this Framework Explicit Your B2B sales and success team will be using a common language and code when speaking and collaborating on new and existing customer deals You will have an instructional manual for scoring leads and partnering with marketing and customer success

4 Outcomes of Using this Framework Implicit You will get better at listening You will better balance your client stakeholder portfolio per account You will better manage the demands or commitments asked of you and drive decisions vs activities You will better refine frontline input to product team in systematic way using qualitative measures

5 Open with Customer Pain + Dream to get the conversation going

6 Both you and your client bring a unique personality and learning types to the negotiation table. Go ahead and bring your unique personality BUT begin the conversation where the client is. Are they coming from a place of current state or future state? Are they an optimist or pessimist? Are they talking facts and details or stories and people? Listen for VEX or VISION and fill in either gap for them and their colleagues. You might have to do some serious pitching here. Then place enough pressure on the current state so you can outweigh the cost of your solution with the gain of the future or pain alleviation of today.

7 Create Action = Creative Tension Current (avoid) Creative Tension Future (desire) Stake Vex Vision

8 Alignment of People & Problems link stakeholder pain + dreams to your solution

9 Alignment = Intersection of YOU and THEM Their Current Pitch Your client s game plan to address their current pain and or vision can range from totally lost to completely confident. Your client either a. knows they need help and are looking, b. knew they needed help and found it or c. don t know they need help at all. Your Current Pitch Sure, you have a great demo or pitch book, origin story but please don t bore us. Share the details that matter to my industry, function, pain or vision.. Their Story Shared Story Your Story Shared Pitch a shared story from the first call is important. This is the precursor to a shared plan and eventual partnership. You both have to be able to share and hold a combined story in your head because there will be a story. One that's told in both organizations. Partner Co-creating Focus

10 Find the Mobilizers with disproportionate influence to spread the idea

11 Find Mobilizers Whether you use terms like champion, decision maker influencer or maybe just users or partners you have to keep in mind that CEB reports there are 6.8 (average) stakeholders involved in the average B2B enterprise partnership deal today. Many of these are hidden in the SDR and Sales process (and mostly responsible for closed-lost opportunities but they certainly come out when customer success gets involved. Sellers need to know the type of partner and diagnose their unique styles. Sometimes you may really hit it off with a partner on a first call but things go south when others enter the picture. This is mobilizer management - Example, CEB Challenger Sale

12 Diagnose We use 6 commercial archetypes to highlight the fact that while we don t it into boxes we do exhibit behaviors and negotiation styles that often can be. Take our assessment and see what profile you come out as. This can be a great starting point to improving your coversions and storytelling.

13 Get Everyone Clear on the Plan Making your shared story a Shared Plan

14 Shared Plan = both agendas Your Plan A shared plan is about ASSERTION When people say sales is about assertiveness they are right to the extent that you need to assert your organization s agenda into the conversation and you need to get them to assert theirs. Sometimes that means being a tad aggressive and/or passive. Shared Plan *Note: It is possible both of you are weak at one aspect of this balancing act. Tip: Getting here with others in a conversation often sounds like curiosity : I m curious, could you help me understand (XYZ) or I ve got some details on your request, but I m curious about or what about us are you curious about? Their Plan I like the language of love here. Think about getting married. When merging your respective agendas you should also be using language like: Thanks for your proposal or Do you have a proposal Here is my/our proposal

15 (V) Vex/Vision What is the pain and what is the vision (A) Alignment What resonates, what happens without? 1. What are critical priorities underway? 1. Based on what s at stake, what are you proposing? 2. What is challenging about them? Why are they these critical priorities? (Who is driving them?) 4. How are they prioritized? What is difficult about the prioritized issue? 6. What does success look like? 7. What is the time frame to get that right? What are the resources allocated to address the priority within that time frame? 9. Are there gaps / vulnerabilities in those resources? (Under-resourced = no time, strategy, people, dollars, buy-in) 5. (M) Mobilizers Go-getter, Skeptic, Teacher, or Friend? (P) Plan What is the timing and budget and final step? 1. Is this a contact or 1. Were you invited to executive that will engage in a next step? drive the decision How would you work 2. Are next steps qualified as to buy or explicitly or implicitly to necessary to advance the influence it? augment / complement sale? the prospective partner s 2. What role does 3. Have we mutually agreed current resources? this person s boss upon next steps that result play in the Has the prospect in advancing the sale? decision? confirmed that perceived 4. Is the objective of the plan 3. What role does or established value is to: equal to or exceeds the this person s team a. Get clarity on issues contribution you are play in the (i.e., understand proposing? decision? resources, timeline, etc.) Has the prospect shared 4. What role does C ways they plan to the budget person b. Demonstrate our value advocate your (whatever) play in the proposition, in order to in quantitative process? gain commitment to (dollars/time) ROI for 5. From what part of advance the marketing them? the budget do cycle (i.e., prove it)? B Can the prospect they hope to fund c. Gain commitment from a articulate (pitch) our us? new group? value proposition?

16 CRM Grades (addition to stages) F (dead) dddddd C (lackcvalue) A (lack decision) Q (Qualified) Goal: Kill or resuscitate Goal: Get alignment Goal: Get Plan Goal: Urgency This is either a bad fit, wrong department and/or horrible timing but its a logo you love you are lacking the right person, project, interest. Commitments were made but you are missing alignment on their Vex/Vision and your pitch. You are 75% of the way there but are missing a final yes, signature, deadline, budget release, etc. No other hurdles. ID mobilizers V+A+M+P = A qualified opportunity. Now get that last signature, invoice, pilot, orientation, kick-off call, etc and get the project started! F C Plan: Measure these. Reprospect in ABM Plan: Find the right issue/project/budget, etc A Plan: Relentlessly track and close this final step Q

17 QPE Grades Further Defined F: Resuscitate. Assuming this a company you will chase as long as your firm is around then just collect the data point and move on for now. Nothing should sit in a given stage for more than say days and these will be the most likely candidates to clog the CRM plumbing. Re-prospect, re-engage at a later date or with other people and gain commitment to present and learn about the big ideas and insights. Example 1: A small construction or distribution or manufacturing plant with 20 employees at HQ who only care about crunching numbers for HR, which they have an outsourced consultant to execute. Example 2: We had an off proposal or follow up. It was a decent lead but we never built value and the quote was too high. C: Get Alignment: You may have discussed involving the team or been asked about sending the slide deck or maybe send an offer but until you are confident things are moving forward, this is where you stand. Ask yourself if you have an understanding of the potential partner s pain around the timeline, what success looks like, what s at stake if this doesn t work or existing resources to resolve the issue. Are you even looking to solve the right issue? Is this a vanity purchase? Is this a person who can make or heavily influence a decision? Example 1: The issue is (insert simple XYZ organizational thing you ve done before) but you lack a lot of other details like who else is involved, if competition is being looked at and maybe where this project ranks in favor of other things going. Or maybe they don t know how a technical aspect of your solution fits into their corporate hierarchy or org change. You need to understand the upcoming deliverables your prospect must produce or exactly what s at stake (people, resources, timelines), or how much time it will take the prospect to get it done. Remember, you will need to be able to confidently say that buying from you outweighs the risk of working with you to solve the vex/vision. Example 2: You took them at their word (like a trusted advisor) that they love you, the product, the demo, the conference (whatever) and would love to buy your product/service but the time isn t right (and might not be for a year or 10). You still don t have alignment! A: Get the Step Complete:. Example: Head of Strategy is new to position, loves it, has the money, team is excited. She just needs to wait until an assessment but you don t want to wait that long (and maybe don t have to). If all you need is a stamp of approval or simple request to purchasing this is where you need to be the listening ear and offer to help as much as possible. Q: Order the wedding cake: This is a partner that is just one little step away from prime time. Go ahead and mark that tag in your CRM Qualified! Or Valorized (if you dare). If you are a recurring B2B or consulting or SaaS group you need to think urgency. This is a logo you want in the stable. They are in, now WOW them. Bring all this data to Customer Success. If this one slides you need to mark the stage but it will close with 95% certainty.