The Planning Ghetto

The Planning Ghetto

TechTransform, June 18, 2001: Any company selling its First Big Sale in this climate will end up in the planning ghetto. The solution, then, is to bring about what are essentially impulse sales.

Building A Head Of Steam

These are initial low-level, low-commitment wedge offerings that lead to increased uptake through good customer management. It is really the way to build a head of steam for a product line.

For example, we have advised a network optimization company to open with sales of a smaller component that will pull the rest of their line. No muss, no fuss, and no issue of client trust either.

Marketing Alongside Sales

Essentially this approach puts marketing right in there with sales, experimenting tactically from hour to hour with what works and continuously revising pitches and approaches.

It also means creating as modular a product offering as possible, so that it's possible to do mass lead generation and channel building.

You can create visibility through marketing events and PR. But it means nothing without the rest of the process - a complete product sales funnel that leads to rapid, low-commitment purchase decisions.

Customers don't want to deal with new vendors right now; they are interested in getting more value out of what they have already purchased. The trick, then, is to become an existing vendor. Become a 'current vendor' with low-commitment tactical sales, prove your value, and build your way to the big ticket business.

Finding Traction Creatively

We focus on revenue. But revenue, especially in the enterprise space, is no longer easy to sell in big chunks on the 'hunter' model. Instead, you have to find your traction creatively. We're right there in the sales environment helping discover and build the right model on a now, now, now basis.

Of course, behind that, you have the instant marketing that is required to support sales (lead generation, interactive sales tools, etc.), which we are very good at putting up and tuning adaptively. We don't spend a lot of time on long lead marketing these days.

Overlooked Opportunities

Then we look at the company's relationship to its industry. Frequently we find that key synergies and revenue opportunities have been overlooked, and channel conflicts are frequent. One company was trying to build an entire turn-key product, when they could actually get better synergies and revenue from working with partners, which would let them concentrate on their core value. In fact, they were trying too hard, and in the process creating channel conflicts. No one wants you to do everything.

This brings us to product focus, product road map, quality, etc., and that's where our proven strength in product management & product marketing really shines. We do this in context of the immediate need to achieve business success out of the core technology.

Financial Capabilities

Finally, we have financial partners for deal-making and funding, with whom we can talk if we're in there helping to build (or rebuild) a company. The fact that we're in there gives us the basis for pitching the idea: they know we're building a lean, mean focused machine.

Let's find out how we could work with you as a partner or as a customer.

Riggs Eckelberry