Revenue marketing

p 1

Gary Schmidt – Marketing Plan

BIO

Gary SchmidtProfessional Background: Gary is a senior business executive with over 15 years of experience in technology and mobile. He brings experience in marketing, developing and selling complex global solutions. (This includes senior management executive with extensive experience in developing new markets, P&L and revenue growth through all stages).

Areas of expertise include:

• Mobile, Technology and Digital Media Marketing and Sales Programs• Customer Analytics, Market Segmentation• CRM, Customer Acquisition and Retention• Brand Architecture and Positioning Strategy• Leadership and Change Management• Digital/mobile/social business models for legacy companies and start-ups • Leveraging new technologies for product development, marketing and sales• Customer segmentation, customer insights + messaging strategy through quantitative/statistical and qualitative/ethnographic analysis• Real-time social content strategy and analytics• Alliance and new business development

Work Experience: Founder/Chief Executive Officer of AirCloud, Inc. where he created the company’s vision, products, financial and operational functions. Before founding AirCloud™, Gary served as Managing Director of Wescom Capital where he was responsible for managing and structuring strategic partnerships, joint venture and alliance relationships, funding, mergers and acquisitions and business development efforts. He also managed all marketing, external communications worldwide and client services activities. Gary also took on senior roles within his portfolio assisting with sales, marketing and business development in addition to his duties managing and growing his perspective portfolio of investments.

Prior to Wescom Capital, Gary held several senior roles at Activate.net which later merged with Loudeye and sold to Nokia. He was responsible for developing the sales group and aided in overall marketing efforts and business partnership. He was also responsible for managing the overall sales/marketing objectives and worked with brands such as Sprint, T-Mobile, Microsoft, Google, Apple, AT&T, Verizon, Sony, Universal, BigFishGames and Comcast .

Before Activate.net/Loudeye Corporation Mr. Schmidt held various roles in telecommunication sales and sales management at Sprint and Qwest Communications.

Gary has a BA in business from Washington State University. He is based in Seattle. Email: [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

p 2


Background – Summary of My Experience High growth companies have explosive growth early in the company’s life typically driven by common factors –

strong technology or differentiated offerings; strong technology and sales teams; and strong demand for their offer from early adopters

Most companies believe that successful marketing warrants extensive spending models like Samsung and Apple

I disagree and have utilized a bootstrap model predicated on social and SEO as being the foundation for:

Search results, ad spend, brand awareness, social awareness and consumer education/adoption

Based upon highly curated and unique content directed at specific subsets of consumers

Highly targeted and measurable so you can utilize a/b testing – know your audience

The key question for most of these companies is how to build the capabilities to sustain their growth and not stall that growth prematurely – e.g. how to extend the revenue growth “S curve”

As these companies grows beyond the early adopter customer base, the successful companies build sales, marketing and channel capabilities that will allow them to scale their products into the mainstream

They connect their sales and marketing – and focus on verticalizing their offering – typically into whole solutions

They leverage their early adopter advocates – as evidence and advocacy communities– to drive successful new product launches, demand generation and Voice of the Customers

They design, develop and build partner ecosystems that help them scale sales and/or deployment

They design, develop and execute a sales excellence capability that targets the right people, readies them to accelerate their onboarding and provide targeted resources through the sales stage that increases the success rates and onboarding of new sales staff

These are the fundamental issues that you must get your arms around in order to formulate and execute a scalable and accountable sales/marketing platform. These are the strengths I bring to a sales team.

p 3


Examples: Device Strategy

Embedded Devices

Objective: Capture OS opportunity on emerging specialized devices

Output: Segmentation, Opportunity Definition, To/Through-Enterprise Marketing Plan

Tablets / Phones

Objective: Deposition / stall competitor market gains

Output: Foundational Product and Marketing compete content architecture

Appliances

Objective: Drive Appliance / Private Cloud Sales

Output: Direct and Channel Sales Motion

FUHU F3S™ BRANDING STRATEGY

3Screen strategy including & Leveraging existing FUHU relationships in the wireless marketplaceReview of handset collection & deployment plansurFOOZ - Leveraging this existing technology in the personalized UI Spinlets - Integrating & managing WIDGETS on f3s™ hardware devices urSPIN - Content management consolidation strategy FUHU UI expertise and development discussions

Example Project for FUHU, ACER and Vizio

FUHU CARRIER STRATEGY

Worldwide wireless carrier development planDeal structures with wireless carriersWireless carrier delivery & billing platformsHandset strategy for each targeted wireless carrierWireless carrier revenue modelsDeck programming and management strategyWireless carrier strategy & deployment

Example Project for FUHU, ACER and Vizio - Solution

6 © 2 0 1 2 A i r C l o u d , I n c .

Example Project - AirCloud Solution

Accesses existing wireless network

AirCloud monetizes Wi-Fi networks by providing facilities with a turnkey platform including premium content and advertisingFacility

Owner

• Advertising• Content• Couponing• Merchandising• Promotion

Monetized Content

7 © 2 0 1 2 A i r C l o u d , I n c .

167M mobile device users access the Internet on-the-go U.S. ONLY

Market Penetration in 18 month – run rate of $18M with over $3M EBITDA

1,926,300 POTENTIAL U.S. SITES

14,000Airports

3Hotels

2Hospitals

30Brick &Mortar

U.S. mobile content and advertising market estimated at $64.85 billion; set to triple by 2017

2Trains

1Air fleet

50% of mobile these users conduct shopping activities from mobile devices

How much of this goes to the facility owner today?

8Airports

Featured Artist

Program

Featured Artist Program

TOP-LEVEL promotion

Custom featured artist WAP site linking all content product lines

together (ringers, calltones, graphics, video and full-tracks), creating

a united marketing platform

Top-level link to featured artist personal site and social channels

Feature folder with link to featured content of user specification

Full feature folder with link to Product personal site

Marketing messages, text alerts, website banners and Social Media

The achieved goal - to create an environment that will allow

consumers access to all content types in a unique and compelling

buying experience that can be shared virally and through social

media. This attracted new users while driving increased data usage

and revenue for content-related products.

PinCard v1Confidential

Sweepstakes Sample

Confidential

Pin Card Sample

Sprint Case Study

ChallengesOver 50+ content partners with multiple points of contact to manage on a daily basis

Zero social elements and viral sharing opportunities

Contract negotiation and ongoing management

Lack of standardized process for content ingestion & management

Limited resources to focus on deck placement and overall deck structure

Limited ability to promote existing and new content due to current deck structure

Reduced promotional opportunities due to lack of resources

Programming based on minimums commitments and obligations

Inconsistent, delayed and reduced reporting

Sprint offers a comprehensive range of wireless communications services including personalization

through music, games, apps and entertainment. Sprint/Nextel is widely recognized for developing,

engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including two wireless networks serving nearly 48.1

million customers; industry-leading mobile data services; and a global 3G/4G Internet backbone.

Sprint Case Study

SolutionContent partner consolidation

Social media management

Contract negotiation and ongoing partner management

Streamlined content submission process

Deck analysis and restructure

TMarket research team identifying programming opportunities on a weekly basis

Enhanced promotional opportunities through key relationships in the games, apps, music & entertainment industry

Unbiased programming model based on analytics

Enhanced reporting through secure reporting site

Money saved by reducing staff dedicated to content submission, programming and partner management

Doubled sales and profit margin in month three

Allow existing staff to focus on higher priority functions

Streamlined submission process reducing time to market

Ability to promote more content on a weekly basis

Higher overall quality of content

Higher quality of service to content owners; overall higher satisfaction from content partners

Higher quality reporting resulting in less confusion and inquiries to Sprint’s accounting department

Impact

p 13


Revenue Marketing Defined

Revenue Marketing

Drop sales-ready quality leads into top of the funnel

Accelerate sales opportunities throughthe sales pipeline

Measure marketing based on repeatable, predictable, and scalable contributions to pipeline and revenue

Improve ROI – net combined sales and marketing engine is more efficient

Source: The Pedowitz Group

p 14


Revenue Marketing Brings Measurement and Accountability for Driving Growth

Big driver post-recession

• Move away from awareness/branding with questionable measurement

• Accountability of Marketing to revenue

• Sales needs to grow without adding heads

• New tools and technologies available for tracking: SFA is now Marketing Automation + CRM

• Growth of social media and communities for information gathering (‘We are smarter than me’)

New metrics and KPI’s were born

• ROMI Return on Marketing Investment

• Measuring Marketing conversion to revenue – SiriusDecisions “Waterfall”

• New role: Demand Generation

p 15


The Buying Process Has Changed

Source: Hubspot 2012; IDC 2012 EAG Buyer Experience Survey

Sales are self-initiated and start online

Customers are social buyers

Easily targeted and mapped

of buyers initiate the buying cycle (not sales!)

90%

of the C-suite have selected a vendor by the time they engage sales

43%

inform their decision via support forums/discussion groups

60%

claim social channels influence their decision making process

88%

The number of ‘touches’ a customer makes to a vendor before making a purchase

11times

p 16


The Evolution of B2C and B2B Buyer Profile

Information no longer disseminated by a company representative only

• “Tech buyers are using web and community resources to complete nearly 70% of their buying journey before they ever engage with a sales resource.” Forrester Research Catching Up To Tech Customer Communities 2011

Content drives demand

• “IT buyers consumer on average 8 pieces of content generated by the vendor or for the vendor .” IDGE Customer Engagement Study 2012

The buyer moves back and forth between Marketing content and Sales content

• They don’t care where content comes from

A recent Gartner assessment states that the CMO will outspend the CIO on technology by 2017

p 17


Network driven brand protection and demand generation

Maximize impact through digital and social media channels:• Understand digital conversations• Amplify positive messages• Brand Protect against negative messages• Expand conversations to reach target audience and segments

A proven 5-step process:

Design Programs

• Engage in most relevant digital conversations

• Increase number of on-message postings

• Maximize reach of positive / minimize negative messages

Drive Results

Strategy and Targeting Comprehensive and Integrated Process

Use social media analytics

Listen Triage Engage

Where/how to engage

Reactively and proactively

Escalate

Define process and target SMEs

Measure

Analyze and track metrics

p 18


Drive brand awareness/protection and intent to purchase through social media

ENGAGEMENT ENGINE

Content Engine1 Broadcast Engine2

Targeted Digital Engagement 3

Community (Customers & Partner)4

Measurement Engine5

Editorial Calendar

Customer and Partner Evidence (Ignite)

IT Pro Marketing Assets (Feature, BV and Better together)

IT Pro Social Media-specific content (e.g. Tweets, blog articles)

Monthly Report

GeneralThru – ISV Influencers

Springboard, SB&D, SBS, others Blogger @ ISV

Corp SB Sites (SB Summit site)

Field SB Social Media sites

SB&D Community @ Yammer

Elite Blogger Network

Customer and Partner Communities

• SB Expert Forum• Idea Generation• News Room

Community Conversation Engine

• Sponsored communities (AMEX SB community)

• Influential communities (vertical associations)

• Word-of-mouth( (Bloggers, forums, wikis)

• Social Networks (OEM SB fan page, ISV Lounge Facebook page)

DLA(Digital

Landscape Analysis)

Height (Qty), Width (Amply),

and Depth (Qlty)

Traffic (e.g. visits to IT Pro properties,

click-throughs to Editorial

Calendar)

Targeted Influencer

Measu-rement(TIM)

Engagement(e.g. # of

members in Elite

Blogger network, webinars)

Surveys(e.g. Pulse

survey)

Sentiment(e.g. # of

positive and

negative comments)

FY H2 Focus

Blogs

SB Site

ShowCase

Channel

Community site

ISVPro siteLanding

page

Thru – External Influencers and To SB Customer/Partners

Influencer’s Content (Articles, Blogging, PR)

Digital Marketing Alias

Mass social media

Self-hosted

Others

OwnIT Pro

Monitors & Listen to SB online conversations

Partnerships (e.g. Acqua contest, joint Editorial Calendars)

Tactic-Specific

p 19


Key Questions to Address Preliminary: To be refined

Category Key Questions

Customer Profile and Purchase Process

• What are the unique “Needs Based” segment characteristics (e.g. unique requirements and specific ways they want to consume a particular offer) of Customers?

• How large are each segment? Which segment have the best fit with Base CRM regards to the solutions unique differentiation?

• What are their purchase process and steps? Are there key differences by company size, vertical or usage?• Where do they get their information during their purchase process and who are their key influencers at

each step?

Connected Marketing & Sales Approach

• How do they “find” Base CRM, research Base CRM and make the decision to use the product? • Any complimentary applications in place or being purchased that can influence/drive choice of Base CRM

over other solutions?• What % of the total available customer(s) base gets access to Base CRM information at each step? From

what source? And how effective is this approach? What is the “White Space” that is no being addressed?

• What other efforts are needed to systematically address this “white space” at each step?• What should be the high level sales and marketing approach for Base CRM? Both for the inbound and

outbound flows?

Sales / Marketing Exec Excellence Profile and Target for Recruiting

• What are the characteristics of a successful sales / marketing executive to drive Base CRM sales?• What is the Executive’s Excellence Profile? What experience and characteristics are key to Base CRM

success? What are other key successes needed (e.g. SMB sales models, CRM space, applicable verticals)?• What are some companies and roles in those companies who have similar characteristics?• Which companies and role profiles would make the best environment for recruiting the Base CRM Sales

and Marketing Exec? Where can you get the greatest leverage for recruiting?• What are some key interview questions that will help to identify the right candidate?

p 20


Framework for sales and marketing – all pulling in the same direction

Target Segment Profile (Size, Vertical, IT Proficiency,

Geo)

• Customer’s Purchase Process by segment (needs based, early adopter/mainstream, vertical (E.g. early adopters represents only a small percent of market , to get to the mainstream customers, Base CRM may need a vertical approach to access the remaining customers)

• By segment - where and who do they go to for information (physically, digitally, socially)? Who are their influencers and mavens??

• What percent get captured based on reach (exposure) and effectiveness (messaging, value proposition, channel, etc.)?

• What model provides the greatest leverage and close rate?

Connect Marketing and Sales

• Where are the white space opportunities by purchase decision step?

• Where and how do we get greater reach with “white space” ?

• Where do we need greater focus to increase effectiveness of each step (e.g. close rate due to competition, value prop, etc.)?

• Are there easy ways to drive outbound sales to current marketing and maven digital assets?

• What is the best approach to get access to white space – e.g. depth “assisted” self serve, direct inside telesales, telesales + SMB channel, inside + select outbound reps, mix of outsourced telesales?

Connect Sale and Marketing

Track, Measure, Identify Opportunities, Test New Concepts and Institutionalize (e.g. Rollout)

p 21


Sources of Information and Influencers / Mavens for Purchase Process

Aware Research Decide Purchase Use Renew

TV/Print 10%

Network –Pro/Soc

30% 20% 30% 30%

Service Provider

30% (depend on size)

20% 30% 40% 30% 40%

Industry Assoc

20% 20% 20% 20% 10% 20%

Category SME

10% 10% 10% 10%

Search 30%

Company 10% 40% 20% 40%

Segments(Vary by Needs

Based, Size, Vertical)

Total Available Market (TAM)

Size


TV/Print 10%

Network –Pro/Soc

30% 20% 30% 30%

Service Provider


20% 30% 40% 30% 40%

Industry Assoc

20% 20% 20% 20% 10% 20%

Category SME

10% 10% 10% 10%

Search 30%

Company 10% 40% 20% 40%


TV/Print 10%

Network –Pro/Soc

30% 20% 30% 30%

Service Provider


20% 30% 40% 30% 40%

Industry Assoc

20% 20% 20% 20% 10% 20%

Category SME

10% 10% 10% 10%

Search 30%

Company 10% 40% 20% 40%

Total Available % minus % Reach x % Effectiveness = White Space

p 22


World class marketing capabilities framework

Marketing Capabilities

Marketing Operations – Org Development, Communications, Metrics, Feedback, GovernanceSales Channel Enablement – Training, Process , Programs & Tools

Partner & Alliance Management – Identification, Recruitment, Retention, Policies & Programs

Business Orchestration & Enablement

• Environmental Scanning• Competitor Intelligence• User & Buyer Understanding• Market Opportunity Identification• Core Competency Identification• Brand and Positioning• Marketing Mix & Planning

Strategy & Planning

• Value Proposition Development• Offer Development• Pricing & SKU Management• Sales & Delivery Strategy• Offering Life-Cycle Management

Offer/Portfolio Management

• Brand Communications• Demand Generation• Lead Management• Partner Communications• Influencer Relations (e.g. PR, AR)

Market InfluencingCommunication

• Customer/Partner Insight• Customer/Partner Experience• Engagement, Adoption & Loyalty• Account/Audience Based Marketing

Lifecycle Management(Customer & Partner)

Customer Centricity

Brand Stewardship

Operational Excellence

p 23


Market Influencing Communication : Target Capabilities

Brand Communication

• High brand awareness and recall

• Emotional attachment to brand

• Willingness to consider offer(s) associated with the brand

• Product-level communication; somewhat consistent over time/product generation

• Product-level communications consistent and distinct from competition

• Some style and tone consistency across products

• Brand-level style and tone established

• Customers can identify company ads/communication when prompted

• Communication framework creates and maintains brand level consistency…

• …while enabling product-level messaging and differentiation

• …for existing and new products

• Consumers can identify company and product ads unaided

• Unique, well-recognized style, voice and campaign

• Consumers communicate brand and product values unaided

• Provides benchmark for Peers and Competitors

Demand Generation

• Awareness, Consideration, and Preference

• Increased volume of customers who have offering in consideration set and have a preference for or intent to purchase

Lead Management

• Lead efficiency & effectiveness: high volume and quality of leads generated, and high speed through the sales process

• Demand-gen activities occur sporadically; disconnected from primary business motion

• Leads are nor tracked

• Marcom activities are targeted to specific points in the purchase path

• Little understanding of demand-gen results/impact

• Most leads are acted-on, but without systematic outcome tracking

• Campaigns are created to reach target users at each step of purchase path with an appropriate message

• Leads are tracked systematically and consistently linked to sales pipeline

• Lead creation tactics are understood and relative impact of each is measured

• Specific programs target increased conversion at each stage in the decision/purchase path

• Campaigns get more target users into the funnel (i.e., grow the category)

• High conversion rates from Aware to Purchase

• Self-regenerating lead-stream from existing user referral

p 24


Sample capabilities recommendation

Capability Current Issues Change RequiredU

ser

& B

uye

r U

nd

ers

tan

din

g • Not customer centric - Internal orientation - Missing a “Culture of Customer Insight”

• Infrastructure (data, connections, sharing) is fragmented and unsophisticated

• Limited Market Intelligence resources,• Research is BU focused vs. segment

• BU mind shift to get local insights• Cultural Change – Reward listening• Better infrastructure (Taxonomy, segmentation, data, toolset, Wiki,

web, partner research)• More Marketing Analytics roles• Area and local Market Intelligence funding

Bra

nd

C

om

mu

nic

atio

ns

• Brand confusion – many brands, many messages• Campaigns lack clarity/alignment with brand• Brands focus on the product, not the customer promise, or

emotional connection

• Communicate clear brand architecture• Build campaign messaging leveraging the brand promise and

customer segment plan• Brand health scorecards for all brands• Communicate value of brand to all employees

Val

ue

Pro

po

siti

on • Value props excessively functional - product, rather than user-

centric• Fail to drive beyond acceptance to loyalty• Too attached to latest product release• Value obscured by complex pricing/licensing

• Holistic focus on customer needs • Emotional/identity connection• Span product silos• Leverage insights profile from planning to MarCom

• Stronger segment customization, fewer, larger offers

Mar

keti

ng

Pla

nn

ing

• Plans are product vs. Customer centric and siloed by product and segments

• Plans follow (constrained by) budgeting• 1 year horizon and reset lacks continuity• Plans encourage invention vs. renewal• Poor/fragmented data leads to poor insight

• Customer clusters, pains, and future needs drive plan• Set Customer priorities before budgets• Refresh/grow/handoff plans - customer lifetime view• Integrate planning – Segments define need/trends then BUs design

holistic strategy to address• On-going customer marketing vs. product campaigns

p 25


2

3

4

5

6

7

1

New Customers (e.g. New Verticals)

New Products and Services (…Existing Customers)

New Delivery Approaches (e.g. Cloud)

New Geographies (e.g. Localization)

New Industry Structure (e.g. eCommerce, Cloud)

New Competitive Arenas (e.g. Social Networks)

Helped growth stage companies and high growth business in large companies sustain growth

Existing Products to Existing Customers (Vertical Specific)

GROWTH STRATEGIES

SAMPLEGROWTH PROGRAM EXPERIENCE

DropboxF5

T-Mobile

Fluke

Microsoft

p 26


Four key service offerings to help drive sustainable sales growth

Advocacy Community Driven New Product Launch and Demand Generation

Rapid Partner Ecosystems Design and Development

Sales Excellence and OnRamping

Connected Marketing & Sales and Verticalization2

1

4

3

• Challenge: How do you take customers and get them to be advocates for the company’s product live and digitally? What do I need to do to leverage this group to drive demand?

• Program: Design, launch and manage Advocacy community for product launch and demand generation

• Challenge: How do make sure that my marketing investment takes full advantage of my sales force and drive revenue? What do I need to do to drive sale into the “early mainstream customers”?

• Program: Align sales and marketing objectives, messaging, verticalization and landing campaigns with sales force

• Challenge: How can I get leverage and extend our sales efforts? What do I need to do to rapidly create a partner program that will drive results but is designed for the long run?

• Program: Perform a quick strategy / plan assessment, design a rapid partner program, develop “stake in the ground” resources, develop rollout plan and execute pilot

• Challenge: How do I build and grow a highly productive sale org? What do I need to do to quickly on ramp new sales staff and drive sales?

• Program: Define excellence profile to drive recruitment and staff development, identify and develop key readiness and resource needs by sales steps, and design and execute sales training

p 27


Case Study: New Product Launch and Demand Generation

Background & Situation

Approach ResultsDeliverables

1

• A software company was preparing to have a successful version launch of their product to the SMB and Consumer markets world-wide after a weak version launch 2 years earlier

• Given the weakness of the previous version launch, the focus of the current launch was to create early, viral advocacy with customers and partners world-wide pre-launch – leading up to a strong launch and then to sustain the advocacy world-wide to drive demand generation with SMB and Consumer customers world-wide

• The launch needed to take into account the differences in countries e.g. development maturity, vertical characteristics, channel characteristics and segment profile

• The strategy was develop 12 months before the launch and the pre-launch advocacy and evidence program was started 9 months before the launch

• Design program based on business and project objectives

• Develop and recruit target portfolio of customers and partners based on geo, segment, vertical and usage scenario mix

• Activate and nurture the community with “give” and “gets” and regular interactions

• Map SMB and Consumer Customer purchase process to information needs and sources

• Identify and feed evidence to target “influencers of influencers”

• 120 Customer and Partner case studies world-wide

• Over 80 viral videos world-wide• Over 40 exclusive “stories”

placements with influential PR, media and events world-wide

• Evidence assets database with thousands of quotes by feature, vertical, geo and compete

• Localized world-wide plan, guidance, resources and “evidence assets” database

• Managed WW community of Customer and Partner Advocates

• The most successful SMB and Consumer product launch in the history of the company

• The advocacy community remained active well into the life of the product and was key to driving demand generation by “pointing” potential users to the companies digital properties -significantly increasing “Intent to purchase” metrics WW

• Program used by the companies other software and cloud product launches WW with great success

p 28


Case Study: Connected Marketing & Sales and Verticalization



2

• As a large and successful high growth technology company was targeting to grow beyond $100M in sales, the management teams key focus was on how sustain their growth

• For the sales team to sell larger opportunities, they need to sell at a higher level than the IT Director to Line of Business (LoB) Exec

• What they needed was marketing collateral and resources that was more focused on the specific needs of the customers (e.g. vertical use cases) versus broad technology features

• The marketing team was in full support of what the sales organization wanted, but needed help with the capabilities to tightly align the marketing efforts with needs of the sales organization

• Specifically , what was needed was to identify and define the vertical use cases and then to message and develop resources for the sales organization

• Assess the needs of each target vertical and positioning the companies offer relative the needs and competitive environment

• Develop a joint sales and marketing business and project objectives

• Develop a joint messaging and positioning framework

• Define and develop the resources for the sales organization

• As needed, support the testing and pilot of approach and resources

• An assessment of the target opportunity and priorities for the company by vertical

• Joint sales and marketing; business and marketing objectives

• Joint messaging and positioning framework

• Target sales resources specification

• Target sales resources developed• Target support for testing and

piloting

• The sales team receive the guidance and resources to effectively compete for the larger LoB vertical deals – increasing the sales team’s satisfaction of the marketing team’s support levels

• The company was able to rapidly increase the close rate for larger vertical LoB specific opportunities

• The company uses the “connected marketing and sales” and verticalized approach as best practices and uses it to identify and drive new opportunities

p 29


Case Study: Sales Excellence and Onramping



3

• A software company was starting to shift their business model with cloud offers• However, their sales organization was organized and focused on selling software license directly and through partners• The executive team knew that to effectively sell cloud offers, they needed to sell to Line of Business Executives and CTOs

versus CIOs and IT Directors• What the company needed was a composite profile of what type of sales staff (looking at the marketplace as well as

internally) were the most effective at selling cloud “solutions” to these LoB Execs and CTOs – in essence a sales excellence profile

• Then they wanted to understand, design and develop the sales methodology, role guidance, resources and training to help these senior account executives rapidly and successfully onramp in their role and start to drive sales

• Target and benchmark best in class competitors and market organizations

• Assess and profile the best characteristics for the senior sales role

• Design and develop a sales methodology – highlighting objectives and activities at each step as well as the key customer and internal team interactions

• Define and develop the role guidance, key sales resources and training

• Benchmark of competitor’s sales role and characteristics

• Profile of excellence for the sales role

• Sales methodology leveraging industry standards, but refined for the company’s unique processes

• Sales role guidance and playbook• Key sales resources e.g. pitch

deck, verticalized solution demo, competitive positioning, customer economics / ROI model, PoC, etc.

• Online, desktop and field based training

• Executive approval to implement the new senior executive role

• Successful launch of the new sales role – including the targeting, recruitment, readiness training, resourcing and deployment of these new senior sales executives world-wide

• Rapid sales of the new services offer into key major accounts –and a sales / biz dev platform to sell other cloud “solutions”

p 30


Case Study: Rapid Partner Ecosystems / Program Design and Development



4

• A high growth SaaS company with a large and rapidly growing Consumer base, recently launched an SMB offer that is expected to drive a significant portion of their revenue growth

• Sale management believes that a partner program is critical to extend the sales capabilities of the company – given the strong unsolicited inbound interest from prospective partners

• However, given the “consumer” and technology oriented culture of the company, the size of the opportunity, importance of the SMB space and the appropriateness of a through-partner approach to SMB customers needed to be articulated and bought in by senior management

• What was needed was the ability to provide rapid proof points and results to get senior management to shift resources to the through-partner SMB resell approach

• Perform a quick assessment of the company’s partner program or plan relative to their business and objectives

• Roughly size the opportunity based on various partner program and capabilities options

• Select an option and migration path and design the partner program pilot

• Develop “stake in the ground” set of resources

• Target, recruit and manage the partner program pilot

• Quick assessment of the company’s partner program or plan

• Rough sizing of the opportunity• A rapid design of the partner

program• A select set of “stake in the

ground” partner program resources

• Partner targeted and recruited• Pilot partner program launch and

managed

• A pilot partner program designed, developed and launched in months

• Pro forma of partner ecosystem and revenues exceeding initial plans and expectations

• Executive presentation highlighting the importance of the SMB space and the partner program for driving the enterprise value of the company

p 31


Thank you!

Gary Schmidt (206) 679 – [email protected]