e-bda sales training

why did we design "selling to executives" seminar.

Back in 1993, I was a New Business Sales exec in HP's France South East branch (Lyon).

After some painful losses against competitors with better executive access, It didn't take me long to react and decide that we should only invest on the deals that we can close and subsequently disqualify quickly the ones that look too much like a Silver or Bronze medal.

By deciding to invest only on those with 50+% chances, I started creating tools to instrument this selective business selling approach. BTW the ones rated at 25% or less were only worked and progressed on Friday afternoon and "polite but concise" proposals were sent out to those prospect customers.

Reaching and establishing relationships at executive level became an obsession.

We tried hard to get access at C-Level (board level) very soon in the sales process. It actually worked quite well ( with some initial surprise from our counterparts), but proving the value of speaking to the executives of our prospects, understanding their Business issues and building their Business Initiative together opened us a fresh new avenue for being Creative at Right decision level!

Of course Selling to executives means you will break some Internal Taboos!! Have you got all clearance from your management to sell differently? Results came before I had to justify my thinking out of the box.

150% quota achievement spoke for me and my team.

We won more than 1/2 deals in the pipe. We also developed a great team spirit by having more focus on the real Business.

To help us keeping focus on the "good Business" ( the one with 50+% transformation ratio), we decided that if our efforts to access the Business decision level ( CxO, Board members) was not successful we would simply put the opportunity in Less than 25%.

Of course selling to Senior executive requires some practice, a lot of practice actually! and a great team to support you with technical decision makers at the same time.

Daniel V. , Philippe M. and Ian B. were key in getting there, they appreciated our effort to sell more politically, more aggressively and driving them to the right opportunities eventually.

Now Fujitsu Technology Services understand better CIOs.

To align FTS ( Fujitsu Technology Services aka Fujitsu Siemens computers) Value propositions with their customers top CIOs, we deliver in most of Europan countries a seies of workshops aimed at undersatnding the CIO world and being able to align with their current priorities and projects.

Our European team composed of Sales Consultants from the UK, Germany, Austria, France and Romania designed and prepared the delivery .

Jean-Christophe our Lead Program manager organised and delivered communication with local teams.

MBS France orders PAM & Partners' training

MBS France ( Dynamics) ordered from e-bda a series of Sales seminars to increase Microsoft partners Sales effectiveness.

After a recent survey Microsoft decided to equip the sales executives of their Dynamics partners with more effective Business conversation and value proposition practice.

Delivered by Nicolas these Sales workshop are very practice oriented and give an opportunity to each sales executive to practice in front of our executive and improve their ability to sell higher and better !

 

"Become a Public Sector Supplier" Virtual Class for Microsoft partners worldwide

Gilles and Andrew just designed & delivered succesfully the first of series of webcasts ( virtual classes) : How become a Public Sector Supplier ?

see also : http://cs.mseducommunity.com/blogs/educommunityblog/archive/2009/04/14/training-opportunity-become-a-public-sector-supplier.aspx

 

 

e-bda delivers 20% of all training using Virtual Classes

Speaking to PDMs ( political decision makers) presentation at Microsoft ISU

Microsoft invited e-bda to present how sales people of partners and microsoft should speak to Political decision makers.

Influencing is trying to capture the key initiatives of the political decision makers, understanding their KPIs and CSF in order to establish a partner+Microsoft Value porposition to answer the PDM current key initiatives.

 

more than 80 participants from EMEA and some from around the world did participat into this first day of the ISU.

White paper on the Value of Microsoft platform (in french)

Malik on request of Patrick Duboys (DMIT) wrote the following white paper on the value of Microsoft Plaftorm. (in french)

http://www.dmit.eu/france/Num%C3%A9ros/1/article8/default.aspx

Malik is heading the Microsoft Readiness Program Worldwide, he is a recognized expert of infrastructure optimization ( IO).

Malik joined e-bda in 2001, he is a telecom engineer, he headed over the past years more than 20 succesful readiness programs for HP, Microsoft .

 

near real sales stories

We will each week issue a new Near Real Sales Story.

Q: What is a Near Real Sales Story?

A: a story based on real facts, slightly modified in order to protect privacy of stakeholders.

Q: what’s the value of a Near Real Sales Story?

A: A Near Real Sales Story brings morale, and some lessons learned.

Q: what it will look like?

A: once upon a time the Jim, the General Manager of Swisstech (named changed), decided to increase the ability of his teams who are selling computer hardware, services & financing to target new decision makers in their accounts.

Jim, decided that Selling to Executives would require not only preparing and participating into another sales program, it will be a dramatic change in ways his teams and management would be selling in the future.

He took 4 key decisions:

1.       Actively participate to a pilot session with his management board composed of: HR , Finance, Services, direct Sales, marketing directors with clear objectives:

·         test and validate the program

·         have his management team changing mentality when considering selling to executives

·         Be sure that everyone would go in the same defined direction.

2.       Have everyone pre-sales, sales, account directors, marketing trained.

3.       Friday coffe talk would incorporate a specific “who is Selling to Executives?” session. This way an ongoing reinforcement that “this is the way to go!”

4.       A specific Selling to Executives “Key Sales Objective” has been defined: sales people only do what they are paid to do.

It is not a miracle that sales changed their approach Vis à Vis selling to new business decision makers. Results came very fast with everyone taking new C-Level appointments, keeping the usual business going on.

JR point of view: Jim took the right decisions, the one that do not cost much!! , by getting all his organization aligned, and through weekly reinforcement (Friday coffee speech), he became the central actor of the Change Management he wanted to happen. Old sales reps (25 years in the job), admited very soon after the seminar that “it works”, meaning they were able to get access to C-Levels in their accounts. Some C-Level even told Jim’s teams, “why didn’t you come before?  We are always open to discuss business with a well managed company like yours!!”

Morale: take the right decision , be sure your management is supporting the new sales strategy, demonstrate your real and sincere interest in the change you are imposing, measure it and pay people to do it !!, Do it yourself so no one will doubt of your determination and comitment.

welcome to our new sales associates

We welcome Andrew as our new International Sales Associates, Andrew is the founder and sales expert consultant of Vista Business Development Consulting:  www.vistabusiness.org . Andrew on top of being an excellent Sales Development Consultant decided to join e-bda internatonal sales team. Andrew already developped two programs with e-bda. Adrew worked for Cap Gemini, Sema and Atos.  

success stories

 

we are very proud of our refernces, they are the testimony that our workshops created value for clients and helped them sell better and higher !!

how Microsoft EMEA improved their servers sales : Download success_story_microsoft_emea.pdf

how SAS doubled the size of their opportunities :Download success_story_sas.pdf

how HP sells to executives : Download success_story_hp_selling_to_executives.pdf

fujitsu services sold a 15 million € outsourcing deal after their Selling to execustives workshop: download success_story_fujitsu_services.pdf

Thales creates a new passport for new hires: Download success_story_thales.pdf

Steria improves sales excellence with Selling to executives, winning when presenting and selling your value proposition programs:Download success_storu_steria.pdf

Unilog outsourcing case: Download success_story_unilog.pdf

microsoft trains their worldwide channel partners and direct sales in 60+ countries:Download success_story_microsoft_corporation.pdf

microsoft EMEA improves the sales excellence of the public sector teams: Download developing_a_value_proposition_in_denmark.pdf

good reading and please feel free to comment :)

Kevin Turner Microsoft COO strategy 100% aligned with e-bda offering

During the last WPC, Kevin Turner, the heavy weight COO of Microsoft ( mr. Transformation !), defined during the last day of the Worldwide partner conference his objectives for improving partners sales effectiveness. Kevin outlined the high priority for partners to understand "how their clients decide", and to do so it's key to execute this per Role and per Industry.

explore http://www.microsoft.com/digitalwpc/ for this keynote ( july 10th)

At e-bda we are very proud that Microsoft recognizes the importance of improving the effectiveness of partners by selling per vertical industries and by Roles. and because We built our strategy on our vision and by leveraging 20.000 participants feed back forms received over 8 years, we are very comfortable that Kevin Turner will boost the sales effectiveness of the Microsoft partner community.