This is culled from a follow-up email to a company I gave a comprehensive (well the post contradicts that a bit) sales training class on complex solution selling. Omissions by design, and yes, I revised my preso.
One of the most interesting blogs I read regularly is Marc Andreessen’s titled; blog.pmarca.com. In it he explores a wide range of topics for business and entrepreneurialism. One topic of late caught my eye as it appears to relate to how positioning and selling a software product is similar to being open to different kinds of luck. Hear me out on this.
Fast forwarding through the research aspect of the four kinds of luck (a good read by the way) I will start at the end and go from there. The role luck plays in any successful endeavor is an interesting and oft minimized catalyst to success, and as start ups are measured this is building a successful business or building to a successful exit. Luck in Marc's blog post comes in 4 types:
· Chance I is completely impersonal; you can't influence it.
· Chance II favors those who have a persistent curiosity about many things coupled with an energetic willingness to experiment and explore.
· Chance III favors those who have a sufficient background of sound knowledge plus special abilities in observing, remembering, recalling, and quickly forming significant new associations.
· Chance IV favors those with distinctive, if not eccentric hobbies, personal lifestyles, and motor behaviors
Where I saw a common theme with respect to how as sales person operates to create luck as I define it; where preparation meets opportunity is in Chance II and Chance IV.
That is a prerequisite of selling a software product is to have a persistent curiosity to assemble solution building blocks into an overall solution that delivers an aggregate value higher than the individual parts. After being subject to and participating in constructing successful customer use cases it seems to play out.
By this I mean that the persistent study of how a software product resolves a larger problem as a component of a solution is paramount to expressing the overall value of the software component to the solution paradigm. Even the platform and total solution plays do not go it alone. Enterprises have a lot of SW from a lot of vendors in an attempt to optimize their operations.
One sales training preso I gave at a sales kick-off earlier this year I talked about, and heavily emphasized, to get sales people "Thinking Strategically" about how using their software product to create value for the customer over and above the competition.
What I completely missed is listening to how a customer synthesizes how any software product provides value to their business.
This dovetails (completely by accident) into using persistent sales curiosity to understand how their software is a component to creating “luck” in a transaction.
In a recent customer engagement my C-Level contact stood out as a unbelievable synthesizer of technology. I spent hours asking him questions listening to him synthesize the value a software product can add to a Fortune 50 business. He obviously is bright but his level of persistent curiosity is off the charts. Study, discover, iterate, socialize, validate and propose. This is a true C-Level exec with a persistently technical curiosity for synthesized solutions that are durable and bring tremendous value to a company.
Now for Chance IV, in order to create durable enterprise (read: large $) sales opportunities a sales person must “act” ergo; keep at it.
Enterprise software sales is a task of taking and iterating solutions based typically on a sales person's personal creativity. Now using my new "Lucky Sales Person Synthesizer" (TM pending viral adoption) a sales person will actually incorporate their customers view of how their software product can positively impact the customer's domain specific solution.
These customers have so many more IT related life experiences than the sales person does, especially in large $ solution opportunities, that a sales person must exercise their personal curiosity to add their customer's knowledge to their curiosity bank account and personal experience.
It is so simple, now go make some luck.
One of the most interesting blogs I read regularly is Marc Andreessen’s titled; blog.pmarca.com. In it he explores a wide range of topics for business and entrepreneurialism. One topic of late caught my eye as it appears to relate to how positioning and selling a software product is similar to being open to different kinds of luck. Hear me out on this.
Fast forwarding through the research aspect of the four kinds of luck (a good read by the way) I will start at the end and go from there. The role luck plays in any successful endeavor is an interesting and oft minimized catalyst to success, and as start ups are measured this is building a successful business or building to a successful exit. Luck in Marc's blog post comes in 4 types:
· Chance I is completely impersonal; you can't influence it.
· Chance II favors those who have a persistent curiosity about many things coupled with an energetic willingness to experiment and explore.
· Chance III favors those who have a sufficient background of sound knowledge plus special abilities in observing, remembering, recalling, and quickly forming significant new associations.
· Chance IV favors those with distinctive, if not eccentric hobbies, personal lifestyles, and motor behaviors
Where I saw a common theme with respect to how as sales person operates to create luck as I define it; where preparation meets opportunity is in Chance II and Chance IV.
That is a prerequisite of selling a software product is to have a persistent curiosity to assemble solution building blocks into an overall solution that delivers an aggregate value higher than the individual parts. After being subject to and participating in constructing successful customer use cases it seems to play out.
By this I mean that the persistent study of how a software product resolves a larger problem as a component of a solution is paramount to expressing the overall value of the software component to the solution paradigm. Even the platform and total solution plays do not go it alone. Enterprises have a lot of SW from a lot of vendors in an attempt to optimize their operations.
One sales training preso I gave at a sales kick-off earlier this year I talked about, and heavily emphasized, to get sales people "Thinking Strategically" about how using their software product to create value for the customer over and above the competition.
What I completely missed is listening to how a customer synthesizes how any software product provides value to their business.
This dovetails (completely by accident) into using persistent sales curiosity to understand how their software is a component to creating “luck” in a transaction.
In a recent customer engagement my C-Level contact stood out as a unbelievable synthesizer of technology. I spent hours asking him questions listening to him synthesize the value a software product can add to a Fortune 50 business. He obviously is bright but his level of persistent curiosity is off the charts. Study, discover, iterate, socialize, validate and propose. This is a true C-Level exec with a persistently technical curiosity for synthesized solutions that are durable and bring tremendous value to a company.
Now for Chance IV, in order to create durable enterprise (read: large $) sales opportunities a sales person must “act” ergo; keep at it.
Enterprise software sales is a task of taking and iterating solutions based typically on a sales person's personal creativity. Now using my new "Lucky Sales Person Synthesizer" (TM pending viral adoption) a sales person will actually incorporate their customers view of how their software product can positively impact the customer's domain specific solution.
These customers have so many more IT related life experiences than the sales person does, especially in large $ solution opportunities, that a sales person must exercise their personal curiosity to add their customer's knowledge to their curiosity bank account and personal experience.
It is so simple, now go make some luck.
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