This picture is not uncommon in #b2b
When you are trying to win a decent size enterprise or mid market deal
You have put your best foot forward, killer demo, connect with executives
Yet deal is dragging, there seems to be something missing, but you can’t tell what?
Sales is eventually responsible
But can rarely succeed without the support of product and marketing teams
If things work out, there is celebration
If things don’t then there is some blaming
Either internally or against customer or third parties
Independent of whether the blame is correctly assigned
The more troubling thing is that none of the teams usually come out wiser
Why does this happen?
Most of the teams are not armed with the right intelligence to win in a complex environment
- Account Intelligence
– what is happening with the company
– what are their customers saying about them
– any recent events, changes that are relevant
– what other related tools and competitors are already present in the account
– are there things they are unhappy about for them to engage with you
- Competitor Intellligence
– who are other key players that could be working on the same deal
– who is already present or entrenched even if its for a different use case
– what are some “kill points” against each of these competitors
– what are some of the shortcomings of your product and how to overcome
– which of your differentiators/capabilities are likely to matter most
- Buyer intelligence
– can you find and cultivate a champion
– what are the personal and professional interests of buyers, influencers and gatekeepers
– what are the things you need to assure them of to get the deal
– what can you arm them with to lobby internally and weed out competition
Off course there is more.
Not only is it tough to gather all this information but perhaps even harder to present it to the #sales team in a manner that can be easily consumed and used.
Is there a way to #competewiser?
What do you think?