April 2nd, 2003
Turbo charging the sales team
Speaker: David Hickman, Product Line Manager, TIBCO Portal Products

Download Presentation

David Hickman delivered an engaging presentation with broad audience participation on Turbo Charging the Sales Team at the April 2, 2003 SVPMA meeting. David manages the ActivePortal Product Line for TIBCO Software where he is responsible for both the product management and product marketing functions. He shared many of his methods for ensuring sales success at TIBCO, which has 1800 customers, over 100 sales people, and 30 offices worldwide.

David’s first recommendation was to spend time in the field with the sales force. The purpose is two fold. First, you get to know your sales force and show your commitment to their success. Second, you get direct customer feedback for which there is no substitute. Further, customers will feel valued that the product manager visited them.

David emphasized that when the sales team needs assistance, they need it now! Since he cannot always be available to help, he formed a “SWAT” team. The team consists of members from product management and marketing, engineering, support and QA. In addition, each region gets a Product Ambassador, from presales staff, who received in-depth training on the product and assists both their region as well as others. The team holds a weekly conference call to keep everyone informed, share new leads, discuss opportunities, and review outstanding issues. Further, David established an email alias for incoming sales support requests that any team member can access, avoiding any single point of failure. Emails sent to this alias then go into an archived discussion group to create a knowledge base.

Having an open communication channel open, keeps remote teams engaged. David achieved this through frequently soliciting needs and enhancement request and providing prompt feedback. Although answers should not be sugarcoated, let the team know they are making a difference. All requests are stored in a Siebel CRM (customer relationship management) system, making it easy to track requests back to individuals or customers for follow-up. Lastly, give credit to contributors.

One timesaver is to help sales help themselves. Sales materials are maintained on the corporate portal. The portal contains a document repository, discussion groups, a “tips and tricks” section, an area to upload presentations and projects for re-use, demos, collateral, competitive information, and reference accounts. Getting this to work requires a change in behavior for sales, so you may have to direct them to the portal even when you know the answer to their question. A Master RFP (request for proposal) document is updated quarterly by Product Management and Engineering to provide answers to the most frequently asked RFP questions.

Another area of success has been priming the partnering pump. David organizes at a regional level “meet and greets” between the local sales force and a handful of select regional partner teams. The meeting focuses on opportunity recognition (e.g. Bring TIBCO into the deal if the customer mentions “portal”, bring partner X in if they mention “document management”) and relationship building. Secondly the compensation plan must be win/win to motivate both parties. This might require paying a higher combined commission. Most importantly, the arrangement and compensation plan must be simple to articulate and administer.

Sales boot camp is a favorite for improving sales performance. These are two-day seminars to train the sales force and the solution consultants. To ensure high participation, conduct these early in the quarter and travel to each region. Sales receive a shorter course focused on messaging, customer targeting, and the competition. The training extends for the solution consultants to include a hands-on lab. Avoid PowerPoint overdose and repeat the boot camp as needed based on product introductions and the number of new hires.

Lastly, make demos easy and accessible. David now has a hosted demo that may be accessed by any sales member from anywhere in the world. There is also a library of recorded demos that can be reused. By creating more robust demos, Tibco has reduced the number of Proof of Concepts by 40%, reducing sales cycle time and cost.

The product manager is ultimately responsible for the business success of his or her product. By implementing the techniques above, you can make a positive impact on sales output and create your own turbo charged sales team.