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[Music] hi I'm Richard Bradley and I'm the author of the training course on how to sell technology to businesses this is the introduction overview video for modu or three the initial evaluation and researching background information this is a really important step that forms part of a structured sales process however a lot of salese tend to overlook this step or they try and Wing It by doing the bare minimum possible but the reality is that research shows time and time again that when you lose deals to competitors more often than not they've done a much better job of understanding the customer organization their needs and also their key business requirements and you've typically been outsold by those competitors it doesn't matter whether you're looking to break into Tech sales or whether you're already in technology sales you need to improve your business acument so that you understand the customer's business so what can you do as a salesperson to help overcome this key issue and dramatically improve your chances of success you need to spend more time upfront prior to Discovery working through an initial evaluation and once you're engaged in Discovery you need to go deeper and wider inside the organization and break down the business in more detail for the benefit of this short overview I want to focus on three main areas that will help you understand the customer organization and the environment that they're operating in I Do cover these areas off in more detail in the full technology Sal training course also don't worry too much about the speed of the transitions again in the full technology sales training course you will find cheat sheetss at the end of each module the cheat sheets are included in independent videos therefore you don't have to repeat the whole course to cover off the key points that I've discussed the first area of focus is researching background information prior to engaging on the Discovery process and why do we need to do this well when you engage on that initial Discovery call you have a very limited amount of time if this is a telephone call it may be less than 5 minutes minutes a video conference maybe 5 to 10 minutes and if this is a face-to-face meeting with a new cold business contact you may only have anything from 5 to 15 minutes to cover an awful lot of ground so we need to make sure that we get up to speed as quickly as possible and we don't burn up valuable time asking situational questions at the start of that interaction for information that's readily available in the public domain had we spent a little little bit of time researching background information that's the first thing secondly when we get on that call we want to establish credibility as quickly as possible and one of the best ways to establish credibility is understanding a little bit about the customer organization once you're on that call of course you can start filling in the gaps but a lot of prospects will be more open to you if you do understand a little bit about their organization and you're probably more likely to be able to build rapport and by building Rapport you can open them up and start asking some of those probing questions to get access to the information that you require to make a more informed assessment as to whether this is a good opportunity that you want to get into or whether this is a bad opportunity and you want to qualify out and you're going to focus your time and resources elsewhere the other reason for researching background information prior to engaging on the Discovery process is that you may have picked this lead up from let's say the marketing department or a sales development rep or it could be a referral that you've received let's say from a partner you want to be sure that this is a good fit for your organization not all business is good business there is a huge risk that you take on board organizations that are not a very good fit for your organization and what you sell in terms of products and services if you take on Bad Business it can be detrimental to the organization further down the line because the customer is never happy you're constantly firefighting issues you having to burn through resources in terms of customer support staff customer success managers account managers maybe even Executives that have to get involved to get them back on track to make sure that they're satisfied and also protect your brand and reputation in the marketplace you're much better off focusing on organizations where there's a higher degree of fit because they're more likely to be satisfied with your products and services so this is certainly an area where you need to go back to your ideal customer profile that you created as part of sales prospecting for the benefit of performing a short and efficient overview prior to engaging on Discovery I would focus on three main areas the fundamentals of the organization so what the organization does the products and services that they sell how they get those products and services to Market and how they generate a profit the size of the organization where they're located the number of employees but also the financials are they growing as an organization are they profitable and are they solvent are they can service the longer term debts how efficient are they as an organization and this is where we'll dive into the financial statements that I cover in more detail in the full technology Sal training course in addition to understanding the fundamentals of the business you need to understand the industry that they operate in what are the industry Trends what's everybody focused on in that particular industry what are the pressures within that industry the competitive rivalry and how are they competing are they focused on cost leadership or are they focused on value and differentiation are they going for the wider Market or perhaps they're focused on a niche what is important to them as an organization to be able to compete in that particular environment what's everybody focused on in that particular industry in terms of key business drivers and how is that industry using technology to modernize for example industry 4.0 blockchain artificial intelligence machine learning and anything that's relevant to what you provide as an organization in terms of Industry related Solutions do you actually have experience in that particular industry so references case studies use cases maybe even solutions that you've tailored for that specific industry this will be important further down the line it's much better to establish your experience and capabilities within a specific industry earlier on rather than go through a sales process and you put under the spotlight further down the line and you qualify F out because you don't measure up are they seen as a leader or an innovator in that particular industry or maybe a fast follower when it comes to adopting new technologies or are they the lagard an organization that typically does nothing at all until the very mature stage of the product life cycle and they're continually playing catchup it's important to understand this at this stage because you really want to establish the appetite certainly for new and Innovative Technologies if that's what you're looking to take to them as an organization if this is a new industry and you're looking to break into that industry is there a commitment within your own organization that this is a market that you're looking to get into for the Long Haul the third area of focus is understanding the macro environment so what's going on in the external environment that could directly impact that organization that is likely to be causing them problems pains and challenges the global economic environment geopolitics maybe political issues and environment Al regulation that are coming Downstream that could directly impact that organization there are an awful lot of opportunities when it comes to regulation and compliance and this is where technology can play a leading role helping organizations overcome those problems those pains and those challenges so that they can move forward in line with the Strategic goals and objectives when it comes to efficiently researching background information for both new business prospects and also in certain cases existing customers there are number of main sources where you need to focus your efforts the first Port of course should be CRM what information is already within the CRM system and what is the interaction history why have they actually not purchased from your organization in the past do you know anything about the competitive environment so who's already selling into that organization do you know anything about their existing environment the infrastructure the systems the business processes anything to help you understand who's potentially already operating behind the scenes either the incumbent providers once you've been at the CRM The Next Step would be the customer own website go to the About Us section or the investor section and download a copy of the annual report this will be the 10K report if it's a US company IFRS for a non9 US company these are just two different accounting standards and I cover this in more detail in the full technology Sal training course once you've downloaded a copy of the annual report I would recommend that you read the executive summary you usually find a statement from the chairman and this will introduce the organization the products and services that they sell the markets that they're focused on and also highlight some of the challenges this could be geopolitics supply chain issues and anything else that they see as a headwind in the current environment they may also make reference to specific opportunities for the organization and outline some of their key priorities including key performance indicators you also need to focus on the Consolidated list of accounts in the full technology sales training course I cover off the financial statements in more detail so the income statement the balance sheet what the company owns or what the company owes at a point in time and also the cash flow statement I talk through applying key ratios so that you can work in between those financial statements and understand both the financial health of the organization but also their business performance once you've been through the annual report and you understand a little bit more about the fundamentals and the organization itself I would recommend that you focus on market research reports this will help you understand the industry that the customer is operating in let's assume you've performed your initial evaluation you've conducted your initial Discovery call and you've decided to qualify into that particular opportunity and this is a strategic opportunity so you have to cover off multiple high level decision makers across different parts of the organization then you're going to have to go into an awful lot more detail when it comes to Gathering background information and understanding their organization therefore the second area that I want to discuss is working through more detailed situational analysis and this is where you would focus on the five C's so the company itself their end customers their competitors the collaborators so the partners and suppliers that they engage with as part of their business operations and also their climate I.E the environment that they're operating in and this is where I begin to introduce the MBA Concepts models and Frameworks to help you break down those organizations so that you can understand the business in more detail why use MBA Frameworks in more strategic and higher value opportunities you need to understand the customer's business in an awful lot more detail you need to be able to identify symptoms of problems and diagnose the underlying cause of those problems and propose solutions to help the customer overcome those problems in line with the Strategic goals and objectives this is really important this is also an area that you need to focus on when it comes to account management and you're looking to nominate high value Target accounts why because when you're working through account planning you're looking to break down the organization to try to identify areas of opportunity where you're looking to put time and resources behind those opportunities certainly in the medium to longterm you're going to have to justify internally why you require those resources and what the potential payback is over a period of time so for that reason you need to focus on more detailed situational analysis therefore if you're focused on account management you need to come back to this module and review some of the concepts the Frameworks and the techniques to break down those customers so that you can understand their organization in more detail the third area of focus is planning your sales call prior to engaging on the Discovery process it's extremely important that you have a plan of how you're going to open the call what you're going to cover off and how you're going to close the call when you're interacting with those highlevel decision makers you want to be sure that you get off on a positive note so introductions and background to the call the objective of the call what you know about the organization to help you establish credibility ideally communicate your value statement so who you are as an organization the markets that you serve the problems that you help solve why customers typically choose you as an organization the outcomes that they receive and in addition to that make reference to other similar organizations that you've been working with that may be relevant and specific to the opportunity that you're focused on you need to plan the probing questions that you intend to ask so high yield open questions to understand the opportunity in more detail including Advanced qualification you'll also need to prepare a closing statement so in the event that you're going to qualify into the opportunity what are the next actions that you need to agree with that Prospect to move the cell forward if you decide to qualify out you'll thank them for the time and hopefully at some point in the future you may be able to engage on another op opportunity one final point that I wanted to touch on is as you're working your way around high value decision makers and more complex opportunities make sure you go back and research background information on areas that are going to be important and specific to their part of the organization so for example if you're meeting the VP of sales have a look at the financial statements in particular the sales revenues for the most recent quet if those sales revenues are positive this is something that you can allude to in your conversation and complement them on the success if you're meeting with an operations director maybe you make reference to a new facility that they're about to open if you're meeting with a Chief Financial Officer you can reference the recent stock price and growth in earnings per share assuming that this is only a positive trajectory this all helps you establish credibility to demonstrate that you've bothered to take the time to research that background information and you're coming on the court prepared you've now earned the right to ask some of those more difficult question questions to understand their internal business operations in more detail to help you determine whether there is a good FP between your organization and what they're looking to achieve and also the products and services that you offer as an organization I cover all of this off in the full technology Sals training course I recommend that you join me on the next short introduction and overview video for Discovery and Analysis