How to use Web conferencing help your customers sell for you One of the great sales myths is that, somewhere in the customer organization, there is one person who can approve the sale. If the sales rep can only get access to that unique individual, so goes the myth, then a successful sales outcome is virtually guaranteed. If only it were that easy. In today’s highly networked and consensus-driven workplace, most companies have multiple layers of influencers and stakeholders, all of whom must be convinced before a big sale can go through. The job of the sales rep (at least the ones who aren’t still trying to locate that mythical all-powerful decision maker) is to work with as many as a dozen stakeholders, not to mention as many as a hundred influencers, in order to bring a sale to completion. That can be difficult when the throng is located in a single headquarters building, but it can be a complete nightmare when a corporation is geographically dispersed. Fortunately, Web conferencing can help reach all these individuals, not just because it allows a sales rep to make an online sales call to anywhere in the world, but because Web conferencing helps sales reps transform customer contacts into “assistant” sales reps. Here’s how it’s done: First, use your existing customer contacts to build a roadmap of the stakeholders and influencers whose buy-in is needed to complete the sale. Then, work with those contacts to craft a set of Web conference presentations, each targeted at a different variety of decision maker. Rather than attempt to contact and present to everyone yourself, have your contacts use those canned presentations to conduct Web conferences of their own. In effect, this technique allows you to “clone” yourself so as to bring all the different decision makers on board as quickly as possible. For example, according Neil Rackham, author of the sale classic Spin Selling (McGraw-Hill, 1988), important buying decisions inside most firms involve three primary types of decision makers: Access Owners. These are gatekeepers to other individuals who are part of the decision-making process. Access owners are generally interested in information and insight rather than in the specifics of your product or service. They want to know that if they send the decision up the chain, it will enhance their own credibility. Problem Owners. These are typically line managers who own a set of business challenges that your product or service might address. Problem owners are interested in how you can solve their problem, so your presentation must convince the problem owner that you understand the problem and have a workable solution. Budget Owners. These are financial types (typically CFOs or CPAs) who actually hold the purse strings and approve the final spending. Budget owners aren’t interested in product features, but how much your product is going to cost, whether the problem owner believes it will work, and how long it will take to achieve ROI. Working with your primary customer contacts, create three basic Web conference presentations, each customized to match the criteria that each of a different type of decision-maker applies to the decision-making process. Here’s an example, using Macromedia Breeze by Adobe as the enabling technology: Presentation 1: For the Access Owner. This presentation provides accurate information and insight about the industry, the customer’s role in that industry and how your company has successfully worked with similar firms. To make the point forcefully, it features testimonial videos from satisfied customers that illustrate how you’ll be able to help the customer achieve the customer’s business goals. Presentation 2: For the Problem Owner. Generic customer testimonials are less useful here unless the customer in the testimonial has the exact same problem as the current problem owner. To be effective, your presentation includes custom content characterizing the customer’s problem and illustrating the approach that your firm intends to take. In some cases you may find that the problem owners are in different departments, each of which has a different view of the problem and the solution, so you should create custom versions of this presentation, adapted to the requirements of each department that’s involved in the sale. Presentation 3: For the Budget Owner. With today’s tight corporate budgets, ROI has become an enormous issue, so you’ll want to be sure this presentation includes multiple, valid ways of calculating and expressing that impact. To dramatically and interactively show the ROI impact of purchasing your solution, use the ability of Macromedia Breeze by Adobe to display live spreadsheets and graphs. - by Geoff James To try a 15-day trial of Macromedia’s Breeze web conferencing solution, click here.