In his inaugural address John F. Kennedy famously turned a common question around: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” [Surely good advice today, with both sides of political spectrum explaining what they will do to create jobs and opportunity for waiting citizens, who wonder, not what they should do to create a better nation, but which elected officials will do so for them.] Answering the right question is often critical to success.

It seems logical, after all. “Let me introduce myself,” is a pretty natural way to open a conversation. The majority of company presentation slides start out this way with often one, two, or more slides explaining “who we are.” ‘We’ve got to explain how great our technology or experience is, don’t we? That’s our selling feature!’ Unfortunately, no, it isn’t. Your selling feature is not about what your business can do, but what you business can do for the customer.

I worked with a firm that had an exciting, innovative technology and they are rightfully proud of it. Initialy, the company presentation started out explaining that they were a well-funded organization with patented technology, and then took a few brief moments to explain this innovative technology before showing examples of how it might be used. Sounds reasonable, but the audience never seemed to be listening. And why should they? What’s in it for them?

We turned around their presentation, describing instead typical problems customers might have encountered that the technology could address. Presenters could ask questions about which of these seemed the most appropriate and tailor the rest of the presentation to fit the customer’s specific interests. Armed with this new information, success stories illustrating different applications and results how a customer might save money, or avoid costly maintenance. Suddenly the audience is interested, and they start asking questions about how this technology works. Doesn’t that seem a more logical, to tell them about your products, after they’re convinced that it might do them some good?

Websites often suffer from the same problem. Instead of focusing on how products and solutions might benefit the customer, we have pages describing how our companies and products are different, better than the competition. (Eye On Technology suffers a bit from this, but that’s what this blog is supposed to do–show our benefits.) Customers have little patience to learn about why you’re important when they haven’t figured out why they shouldn’t just click another link. You have very little time to answer this question before they’re gone—don’t waste it.

Whatever you do, don’t ask your sales team if they want to enter more data into a computer. Customer relationship management (CRM) software has been around for decades but continues to gather more attention, especially since the advent of cloud-based services such as Salesforce.com. As you can read over at Sales Machine, not everyone, particularly not sales people, think that’s such good news. The claim is that tracking your sales process and forcing it into some automated system (he’s referring to a rigid pipeline of sales steps) really just amounts to busy work and data for managers to spy on sales people.

Sales people may have their own styles and they rarely include sitting at a computer instead of talking to potential customers, but, since when is flying by the seat of your pants always the best strategy? For that, a cell phone and voice mail is the alternative Geoffrey James is offering.

Some of the problems that can cause CRM to fail:

• a weak database of contacts and titles
• requiring data be collected that you don’t use, or worse use, but with no value-add
• a pipeline that doesn’t meet the typical sales experience in your business
• demanding that sales people follow every step in the pipeline with every customer

Let’s quickly address those points. A weak database is a chore to work with and drives sales people away from using the tool rather quickly. If you don’t already have one, consider purchasing a database of contacts for your market. They’re usually a few thousand dollars, which isn’t so much when you consider the investment in your sales team’s time of not having to enter names for everyone they meet. I’ve had teams rave about the CRM system: “wow! my customers are already in there!”

If you collect data, use it. Keeping track of information just to make reports is busy work. If management is using data and demanding sales people collect it (which, remember, doesn’t result in new sales for them!) then the team has got to see the benefit. If the reports you gather aren’t pointing you toward some action, don’t bother, that’s a waste of the sales team’s time and management’s too. Professionals will appreciate that there are tasks they’ve got to perform that don’t contribute to their own bottom line, but only if they can see a point and better, some results.

One of the biggest failures of the systems that Sales Machine seems to be objecting to, is forcing a series of steps, like an automated industrial process, onto sales.  Realistically, I can’t imagine denying there are some steps that nearly every deal goes through. Contacting the customer and identifying who has purchase authority sound like two that pretty much apply everywhere, don’t they? A well-tailored pipeline gives a sales person the chance to reflect during the process (which in some cases is long enough to ask: where are we here?) and ensure that they’ve done whatever they need to close the deal. Sure, good sales professionals keep all this in their head. They ‘just know’ what they have to do next and specialize for each opportunity. Frankly, we’ve seen both seasoned professionals and newbies alike claim they new exactly when, and how many of, their opportunities would close, yet still miss their forecast. Maybe ‘just knowing’ isn’t enough. Don’t force a one-size-fits-all approach to your business instead, work with those sales professionals and develop one that makes sense. We’ll try to focus on that in another article.

Finally, let’s face it, all the preparation and customization of your sales tool, and at the end of the day it’s just a tool The goal is sales, not activity. It’s surprising how often companies lose track of this. Management has invested in a sales tool, and they expect you to use it. Sales says they don’t need to do this, but they’ve got to do that, but where are the sales to prove it? Not every opportunity is going to play out the same and at the end of the quarter, the only thing that really matters, to everyone at the company, is that you’ve closed the deals. Using these tools can help a team to discover what went wrong if they didn’t meet their goals, and give them insight into what went right if they did. Using software is just another tool to reach those goals, nothing more.

The comments on Mr. James’ article point out that there are many ways to measure success. (Mr. James’ short sighted ‘are they spending less money on sales?’ is one way. Either he was hoping no one would notice the flaw in that, or he isn’t wise enough to see it, but if reducing costs were a good measure of performance, every out-of-business company would be a perfect success). Our experience with CRM has given us the chance avoid some common obstacles (and we’ve personally set up a few ourselves!). We can help your team avoid them and maybe make sure that investment doesn’t leave you wondering where the money went.

CRM software will require some extra effort from the sales team. The more data collected the better the systems perform. The only way to encourage sales people to do that extra work is to make sure they’re getting something out of it. Poor Mr. James has decided that since he’s seen the systems fail and he doesn’t like entering all that data that they don’t work. He thinks you can’t automate the sales process (he’s right) but he denies that there are any similarities from one opportunity to the next. Implementation isn’t easy. It’s going to take some time, and investment, to get it, and it might even have to change over time (hint: it will) but if you really think a carpenter can build a house with only a hammer, then go ahead, and limit your sales people’s tools to voice-mail alone. The rest of use are going to use whatever we can to makes our jobs easier.

More than once in my career, I’ve been asked to help sales people to sell a product that just wasn’t as important to them as it was to me. The sales team was talented and motivated, but they still struggled to sell ‘my product’ no matter how much I’d done to ensure they understood the technology. During customer visits with them, I came to realize that the problem wasn’t that they weren’t talking to their customers enough, or that they didn’t know what the technology we were offering did. Instead, they just didn’t really know what questions to ask to discover if this customer really had a need or not. In each of these situations, the sales team was responsible for a wide range of products and part of what is commonly called a ‘matrix sales organization’.

It’s rare that smaller companies even have to worry about the complexity of matrix organizations, but, as soon as your company starts selling multiple products or adapting its offering to multiple markets, organizing a growing salesforce is a critical challenge. Small companies find themselves in pseudo-matrix sales style when they hire representatives in different geographical regions. Managing them will put up some of same roadblocks I encountered. Serious obstacles stand between you and a successful matrix organization, and many companies don’t get the most out of them. With liberties from a famous quote by Winston Churchill: ‘It has been said that a matrix organization is the worse form of selling except all the others that have been tried.’ (Sorry Mr. Churchill….)

In most every large company, the sales department is organized in some sort of a matrix. Here’s how it works: Acme Corporation sells so many different widgets that no sales person could be an expert in all of them. Acme could send a specialist to each customer, who really knows the right questions to ask to close a deal, but the customer is going to wind up meeting dozens of different Acme sales people, maybe one a week, and getting pretty tired of seeing Acme business cards. Plus, it’s embarrassing when the customer asks about a specific product or service and the sales person looks blankly back and states that it’s not his area. It’s not a good way to treat the customer and, likely, a pretty big waste of time for everyone involved.

Instead, Acme can hire product managers for each of their product lines and it becomes their job to train the sales team and go with them to appropriate sales meetings after the individual sales people have identified a lead. It’s called a matrix because the sales people will divide up geographical, or market-based territories, and the product managers will go the other direction, dividing up products or applications. Where the difficulties lie, like almost everything, is in the incentives. Typically, sales people are commissioned on sales volume. If one product, for example, sells for much more money than another, taking only a bit more work to sell, then the lower revenue product is going to have a difficult time getting much mind-share from the sales people.

Good product managers recognize that they have little control over the price and that really, they need to market to set prices anyway, not the sales team, so they have to come up with other ways to motivate sales people. Usually this will be somewhere around that ‘effort’ part mentioned above. If the product manager can make it so easy enough to sell his lower revenue product such that sales doesn’t find it a distraction, then there’s a good chance numbers will increase.

Sales managers and other members of the organization can address this problem as well, by adjusting incentives. Perhaps the lower revenue product is strategically important to the Acme Corporation. Sure they don’t make as much money on each one, but maybe selling that low revenue item might keep an important competitor out of the market. One losing way towards increasing these strategic sales is simply to explain this critical strategic decision to the sales team at a regular sales meeting.

Professional sales people aren’t stupid. Of course, they may very well understand why the company is so keen on this little orphan product, but they are there to earn money and feed their families. No matter how professional or generous a sales engineer might be with her time, when push comes to shove, she’s going to go where the opportunity is—and it’ll be the one that maximizes her commission.

Many options are available, and it will depend on the situation at each company. Incentives might kick in only after a minimum number of the strategic product is sold, or maybe specific sales work as a multiplier for commissions earned on more ‘interesting’ items. Alternatively, an aggressive product manager might be given more leeway to approach customers that normally would be the sales person’s responsibility. In some cases, it makes sense to just raise the price of a related offering and throw in this new feature as a differentiator. Whatever is appropriate, what we’re looking for is some system that takes advantage of the focus of a small company with a tiny offering, while using the reach of a vast network of sales people.

Sales people, whether they work for a small company, a separate division, or a separate representative company, want to be successful. They want to prove to themselves and to everyone else they’re selling better than anyone. The question is, do we all agree what “better” means? Understanding the incentive system, in detail, is the key to making sure the sales team has the same idea of success as the people paying their commissions.

It’s like the dot.com days all over again. Tech start-up LinkedIn just had their initial public offering (IPO) and pocketed something like $130 million for the company. The stock (LNKD) was set to open at $45 a share, but it opened closer to 85 and shot up to a high of around $120 before the day was out. (As of this writing it’s down around $90 again.) That sure sounds exciting, but who really profits when a stock pops like that on open? One thing’s for sure, it isn’t LinkedIn.

Morgan Stanley and Merril Lynch were the investment bankers who supposedly did the due diligence for the LinkedIn board. Lot’s of folks are taking note of these shenanigans, this oversight, but few are mentioning some of the reasons it is allowed to happen.

The investment banks are hardly incentivized to offer the maximum amount the stock will fetch to the newly traded company. If they don’t come up with that cash, it’s likely to come out of their pockets, and there won’t be much to reward their investors with before the IPO if those investors get the same price you and I get. The disturbing thing is that the executives at LinkedIn aren’t incentivized much either. When the company is valued very low and pops like this one did during it’s IPO, the stock options that executives hold shoot up like crazy and make them rich (on paper anyway; they can’t sell for a while) over night.

So where’s the harm? Who gets hurt? Well, LinkedIn for one. Instead of over $300 million to expand their business, they only get $130. Hardly pocket change, but missing out on all that value may be the make-or-break for them over the long run. You can bet that some of the better dot.com ideas might have survived if they’d actually gotten what they deserved on the stock market.

Of course, investors are hurt as well. They are led to believe they are investing in a company with a chance to grow, but the company is hampered from the first moment as $100 million of stock buyers cash is pocketed by pre-IPO investors on opening day. It’s buyer beware and savvy investors know it. Hopefully, they weigh their chances before acquiring the stock. Still, it certainly sounds like a flaw in the system, doesn’t it?

It’s the goal of many small tech firms to go public, and it’s a sound one at that. If your company’s goal is not only to get rich, but to ensure that your world-changing idea gets out in to the world, an IPO may be the only way to reach a big enough market. Just remember, people perform to their incentives. Think first about what’s motivating your board, your executives, and your investment bankers.

Differentiation crops up more often than you might think. Most anyone can recognize that whatever product or service you’re selling will be easier to get into customers’ hands if they can distinguish how it’s different from other offerings. It’s just that differentiation doesn’t stop there.

I often find it easy to file competitors into two categories: those who do what you do, and those who solve the same, or even similar, problem. The first one is obvious, but the second is just as important. It’s easy to identify the people who make the same thing you’re offering, but dangerous to miss the folks competing for the same money.

A classic example I once heard goes like this: who are the Denver Broncos biggest competition this year? The Steelers? or the Saints? Hardly. It’s the Denver Nuggets or the Colorado Rockies. When the Broncos play another football team, win or lose, they make money. It’s other entertainment choices, such as local teams from other sports, that make up their real competition. Money spent on baseball won’t be spent on football at all, whether you root for the local team or someone else.

Sometimes selecting how you advertise is influenced by how your product is differentiated. Suppose you’re a contractor painting houses. Once choice, ServiceMagic, is a web-based advertising product that generates leads from interested consumers. That sounds better than advertising in the paper alright, but you have to look closely at how they do their business. In order to avoid overwhelming the consumer, ServiceMagic provides only three vendors at a time, chosen at random from their pool of contractors. You compete with these three to get the business. No problem, you’re the quality leader and you are confident you can win over your competitors. Except this isn’t a typical playing field where the consumer compares from a wide range of offerings including national companies and mom and pop shops. If your bid just happens to be included with two low cost leaders you look hopelessly expensive, even though, in reality, you’re right in the middle of the range. Your ability to differentiate yourself only works if the consumer gets to see all of the choices. ServiceMagic is going to work well for the big names (they can afford to miss a few deals and look awesome compared to the mom and pops) and small names (he’s that much cheaper? wow!) alike, but the guys in the middle might look worse than they should.

Tech startups face both of these kinds of differentiation problems. They are often offering a first-of-its-kind product, so they may forget that they still have other competition. How many other ways are there to skin a cat! Furthermore, they have to get the word out somehow that is most favorable to their offering and not try to out-shout their competitors. It doesn’t take a genius to think all this through, but it does take some effort. That’s where Eye On Technology can help. We’d love to work with you to identify your issues and make your business development efforts as effective as possible.

Typically, small technology firms are founded by incredibly talented engineers-turned-entrepreneurs. They have the vision to develop a product that people will need and they’ve been successful enough finding customers, otherwise, they wouldn’t have gotten as far as they have. While they’re not marketing people, they are smart enough to have an idea how to get the word out about their products. If they’ve tried advertising, or worse, engaged an advertising company or consultant, there is a good chance they’ve been turned off.

“My customers find me by word-of-mouth, I don’t need to advertise.”

Well, for many businesses that is absolutely true. The problem many advertising companies and marketing firms have is when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. There are excellent companies out there with experience in print advertising, web marketing, or search engine optimization. When faced with your company’s needs, they figure what’s worked for other clients should work for you. Since most companies offering to help small businesses with their advertising needs know, well, advertising, that’s what they recommend and often it ends up  leaving that smart entrepreneur wondering why she engaged a consultant in the first place.

In fact, for some businesses, advertising in leading journals and industry publications works, and for some it doesn’t. If word-of-mouth is working for you, what are you doing to get more word-of-mouth? If you think trade-shows are too expensive, are you considering other ways of using them?

Have you thought of motivating people to spread the word? Do you have a vehicle for them to do so? Maybe they can comment on your company blog, or present a paper at a trade conference? Print advertising and web banners may not be the best thing for your business, but that doesn’t mean you should sit back and wait for people to hear about you. Eye On Technology can work with you to identify the best channel to communicate with your customers and then develop the tools to do it. If you don’t have the time to edit a blog, we can be a resource. Whether it’s downloadable PDFs on your website or a simple content management system customized for each prospect, these modern tools provide value long after your customers have turned the page past your last, expensive, print ad.

There’s no question that, for some companies, print advertising is a critical part of their business. It might even play a part in your business now or in the future. Just don’t complain if the one-size-fits-all solution you get from some advertising firms and market consultants didn’t make you look as good as you thought.

Ever seen one of those exhibitions at a hip gallery downtown? Maybe it was a photography exhibit and it was a series of pictures of…well, anything. Garbage cans, hubcaps, people with their back to the camera, trees, rocks…it really doesn’t matter. How, you might sometimes think, did a bunch of pictures of rocks make it in to the gallery? I take a lot of pictures as a hobby and I know I can take better pictures than some I’ve seen in galleries, so I certainly wonder this sometimes.

The answer is focus. Not how well the photographer adjusted the focus of the camera of course; the series could have been a several blurry images, after all. Instead it was the artist’s focus on something in particular. No matter how many lovely photos I’ve taken while traveling around the world, all they ever amount to are very fine snapshots and post cards. If you check out my stream of photos, you’ll likely click away, satisfied that you’ve seen some nice images, but remembering little.

For years I’ve had a travel blog too. (That’s the second, and last plug, in case you’re counting.) Really, it’s my own blog and I figured I could write whatever I want there. While I am proud of my loyal fan base of, I don’t know seven readers? it too suffers from lack of focus. (My web stats tell me that many more people get lost there per week, but I am just assuming that only around seven are repeat customers.)

What shall friends, who’ve enjoyed what they’ve read, tell their friends about my blog? Is it really a travel blog, or a tech blog, or ramblings of some guy? How would Google’s ad words target the right content? How will people describe your business? Starting here, this new blog at Eye On Technology brings some focus to my other blogs topics, but more importantly, seeks to become a resource for our customers at the same time.

Companies founded on technology are often struggling to find a home for their amazing work. They take just about everything that looks like an application, hoping that one of them will hit. Small firms have little choice, but focus can at least enable them to make the best of the applications they already have.

Focus is a what turns pictures of a bunch of rocks into art. Focus is what turns a blog about cooking recipes into a book and a movie. Focus is what can change your business from a struggling garage shop into a successful venture.

Meanwhile, here, we’ll try to focus on technology topics, and ideas that might help your business. Please help our team out with your comments now and then.