First, it’s hard to argue with anyone who advocates bringing doughnuts :-). That should be under ProTips! Once you find those early adopter “Champions” you can leverage them more as your product and solution set expands. They’ll more than likely enjoy being “insiders” and helping you flush out additional offerings.
This is so foundational and so often neglected or misunderstood! Thanks for this post and for bringing up this topic!
I really like your advice on using your Champion to find more Champions!
Here's one thing that I have observed as usually mismanaged in the aspect of creating/finding true Champions:
Often time the Postsales Team (AMs, CSMs, Implementation Engineers, etc.) forget to sell this from scratch.
The 'conveyor belt' system doesn't work (credit to Eric Winslow my friend for that term). Everyone has to be selling and delivering value, obsessively.
Here's one of the many reasons (and you refer to this in your post clearly): a deal was just closed, but more often than not it comes from a decision maker that sees the bottom line, NOT from the day-to-day users that now find their routines disrupted. What usually happens is that those day-to-day users are not sold, do not agree, and see this as a nuisance. We find ourselves 'begging' for a bit of time of their days to train them. When in fact what we need to do is sell them from scratch, making them understand WHY AND HOW this is a WIN for them, for them PERSONALLY - how incorporating this (new solution, etc.) into their daily practices will be good FOR THEM in their careers and in the eyes of their bosses.
Sell to the person in front of you to better THEIR LIVES. True Service. Then, since what they want is to impress their bosses and grow their careers, you will automatically (if you selected that group of people well) be achieving your goal of meeting the buyer's goals.
No matter who you are, you are selling value, but catering to the person you are working with.
Do not take for granted the fact that since Company A has bought your product, the person you are working with gets why it will help THEM or even agrees with the decision.
First, it’s hard to argue with anyone who advocates bringing doughnuts :-). That should be under ProTips! Once you find those early adopter “Champions” you can leverage them more as your product and solution set expands. They’ll more than likely enjoy being “insiders” and helping you flush out additional offerings.
This is so foundational and so often neglected or misunderstood! Thanks for this post and for bringing up this topic!
I really like your advice on using your Champion to find more Champions!
Here's one thing that I have observed as usually mismanaged in the aspect of creating/finding true Champions:
Often time the Postsales Team (AMs, CSMs, Implementation Engineers, etc.) forget to sell this from scratch.
The 'conveyor belt' system doesn't work (credit to Eric Winslow my friend for that term). Everyone has to be selling and delivering value, obsessively.
Here's one of the many reasons (and you refer to this in your post clearly): a deal was just closed, but more often than not it comes from a decision maker that sees the bottom line, NOT from the day-to-day users that now find their routines disrupted. What usually happens is that those day-to-day users are not sold, do not agree, and see this as a nuisance. We find ourselves 'begging' for a bit of time of their days to train them. When in fact what we need to do is sell them from scratch, making them understand WHY AND HOW this is a WIN for them, for them PERSONALLY - how incorporating this (new solution, etc.) into their daily practices will be good FOR THEM in their careers and in the eyes of their bosses.
Sell to the person in front of you to better THEIR LIVES. True Service. Then, since what they want is to impress their bosses and grow their careers, you will automatically (if you selected that group of people well) be achieving your goal of meeting the buyer's goals.
No matter who you are, you are selling value, but catering to the person you are working with.
Do not take for granted the fact that since Company A has bought your product, the person you are working with gets why it will help THEM or even agrees with the decision.