Virgins Sales Clinic

1. Virgins Sales Clinic Leeds - Q2 2001

2. Objectives - 03/11/04 • After this session you should be able to: • Know how to prepare for an executive meeting in order that you can advance the sale quickly • Understand the type of questions to ask to identify MEDDIC • Communicate the core competencies of Pro/E to an executive • Have a framework for handling objections • After this session you will not: • Know anything more about Pro/Engineer

3. Agenda – 03/11/04 • Before the Meeting • SPIN Overview • Getting Answers to SPIN • Some Basics • At the Meeting • What questions to Who? • Communicating Pro/E’s core competencies • Corporate Overview • Objection Handling

4. SPIN - An Overview • Situation Questions…... • …..Finding Facts about the customers existing situation • Problem Questions….. • …..Questions about a customer’s problems, difficulties or dissatisfactions • Implication Questions….. • …..Questions about the effects, consequences or implications of the customer’s problems • Need Pay-Off Questions….. • …..About the value or usefulness of a proposed solution

5. Situation Questions…... • …….Finding facts about the customer’s existing situation • What products do you make? • What markets do you sell to? • How is business? • What CAD software do you use now? • How many users do you have? • Do you manufacture on site? • What is your position? • How long have you been here? • How are you measured/What are your goals within the organisation? • Did you purchase the existing CAD software?

6. Situation Questions - Some Facts • An essential part of the sales process but must be used in a focused manner. • Buyers quickly become bored or impatient if asked too many Situation questions. • In successful sales calls, reps use fewer situation questions than in calls which fail. • Inexperienced people ask more situation questions

7. Problem Questions….. • ……Questions about a customer’s problems, difficulties or dissatisfactions • How long does it take your company to make a drawing? • When do you typically start the drawing creation process? • How many drawings does your company make on a typical project? • How much time does your company spend editing drawings because of design changes? • Who at your company creates the bill of materials? • What is the process for creating the bill of materials? Is it a manual process? • How many design alternatives do you evaluate before you decide on a product? • Do you make prototypes of proposed products? How many? How are they used? What do they cost? How long does it take? • How are product concepts communicated to company management and customers? What are the time and costs associated with creating such presentations? • How many changes do you make each month?

8. Problem Questions - Some facts • More strongly linked to success than Situation Questions • In smaller sales the link to success is even stronger • In larger sales this is not the case. • The ratio of situation to problem questions asked by salespeople is a function of their experience. • Uncover Implied Needs (problems/difficulties)

9. Implication Questions • …. Questions about the effects, consequences or implications of the customer’s problems • What effect does that have on output? • Could that lead to increased costs? • Will that slow down your proposed expansion? • What happens if an inaccurate drawing is released and sent to a manufacturer or a supplier • How long does it take your company to produce a drawing? • What impact do the ECN’s generated by your organisation have on the company?

10. Implication Questions - Some Facts • Strongly linked to success in larger sales • Build up customer’s perception of value • Harder to ask than Situation or Problem Questions • Uncover Explicit Needs (wants/desires)

11. Need-Payoff Questions • …….About the value or usefulness of a proposed solution • How would that help? • Why is it important to solve that problem? • What benefits do you see? • Would you be interested in a way of controlling the number of ECN’s within your company? • Why is that important to you? • Would it help if the drawings issued to manufacturing were automatically updated whenever engineering made a change?

12. Need-Payoff Questions Some Facts • Strongly linked to success in larger sales • Increase the acceptability of your solution • Particularly effective with influencers who will present your case to the decision maker • Reduce Objections & focus the customer in solutions not problems • Rehearse the customer for internal selling

13. What Questions to Who? • Secretary - User - Mgr - TD/ED - FD/SD - MD • S P I N • Product Customer • Knowledge Knowledge

14. Questions for Key influencers • What type of questions should we be asking in meetings with key influencers? • - Implication and Need-PayOff Questions • Why? • - Key Influencers can give us MEDDIC • How? • Implication questions enable us to: • - Quantify pain - $$$$$$$ • - Identify potential champions • - Assess/grow the importance of solving this issue in the customers mind • Need-PayOff questions enable us to: • - Generate ROI’s / metrics • - Test champions • - Qualify the decision process • - Qualify the opportunity (early)

15. Getting Answers to Situation and Problem Q’s before the meeting • So, getting answers to situation and problem questions before the meeting is crucial • HOW DO WE DO IT? • Group Exercise • You have secured a meeting with a Director of a prospect or customer • In order to advance the sale quickly, you need to minimise the number of Situation and Problem questions during the meeting • What do you do next?

16. Getting Answers to Situation and Problem Q’s before the meeting • Where might you look for information on the company? • - Web site • - Annual Report • - Company Newsletters • - Trade Magazines • - Competitors web-sites • Call wide in the account • - Their sales guys • - Get an AE to call some users • - Student call? • - Call Other Managers/Directors

17. Some Basics • Every call should have an Objective….…..What is going to make you sayYES!!! after the call • Objectives should be realistic but should advance the sale. For example: • - Qualify the decision process • - Understand their decision criteria • - Quantify the impact of the problems you have already identified in the account (generate ROI) • - Get sponsorship to meet Economic Buyer • - Get sponsorship to undertake a validation • - Set Benchmark criteria • - Test your champion • - Get the order!!

18. Some Basics • Qualify the Opportunity • “I just bought 12 seats of UG 6 months ago, there is no way I’m throwing that out” • What do you do? - Qualify in or out? • Probably qualify out of the Pro/E opportunity but consider: • - Product View - MockUp • - Mechanica - Manufacturing • - DeskTop

19. Some Basics • Every call on an executive should have an Agenda • Send to customer 2 days prior for approval. Call his secretary to make sure he has it • Don’t jump in with the solution…………consider the following example……….

20. Some Basics - Don’t Jump In! • Seller: Do you create a large amount of Engineering Change Notices in your development process • Buyer: Some, but no more than is normal in our line of work. • Seller : Do you find this impacts your time to market? • Buyer: Yes, but ECN’s are a fact of life. We have learned how to get around them and still meet deadlines • Seller: We could solve that issue for you with Pro/Engineer, with xyz company we reduced the number of ECN’s by 75%. • Buyer: What does your system cost? • Seller: For 10 seats around £150k • Buyer: (Amazed) £150,000 !!! just to make meeting my deadlines a little easier. You must be kidding! • Sound familiar?…..consider this alternative……..

21. Some Basics - Don’t’ Jump In! • Seller: I understand from your annual report that one of the key issues your company currently faces is driving cost out of the product. • Buyer: That’s right. Our competitors are killing us at the moment, they are buying market share. • Seller: What plans do you have in place to combat this? • Buyer: We are much bigger than our competitors and do not believe they can sustain this price pressure indefinetley. However, our finance department has focused us on reducing costs. • Seller: I understand from speaking with your senior designer that you create a large amount of Engineering Change Notices in your development process • Buyer: Some, but no more than is normal in our line of work. • Seller: What department do the ECN’s impact? • Buyer: Various departments but mainly mine (Engineering) • Seller: Approximately how much time is spent by your people responding to ECN’s

22. Some Basics - Don’t’ Jump In! • Buyer: It varies but on average I would say 6 hours per ECN. • Seller: And approximately how many ECN’s are generated per year. • Buyer: In the region of 500 • Seller: How is the morale of the department. • Buyer: Pretty low right now. My designers are designers, they hate redoing work because of what they perceive as inadequacies of other departments. • Seller: Does this affect staff turnover. • Buyer: Absolutely, I lost 4 of my best designers last year because of the amount of rework they had to do. • Seller: So I imagine you had to recruit and train 4 new people. • Buyer: Yes and that is a costly exercise, my FD tells me it cost £10k in training and lost productivity for each new employee. • Seller: What other challenges are you facing right now. • Buyer: Well, the other reason I believe we are losing market share is that we do not get products to market quick enough.

23. Some Basics - Don’t Jump In! • Seller: Why is that? • Buyer: We are simply not given enough time in engineering to respond to requests. This is what I am really unhappy about. Sales just don’t understand I have to maintain existing products, not just design new ones. • Seller: So, from what you have told me ECN’s are costing your department 3000 hours of time per year, they are directly impacting the morale of your team which has led to £40k of additional costs and they are impacting your ability to meet your goals in terms of new product development. These factors are directly impacting the company in terms of loss of market share. • Buyer: When you put it that way, ECN’s are creating a very serious problem. I guess you are going to tell me that you can help me with them? • Seller: At company xyz, we managed to reduce the number of ECN’s by 75%………………………..

24. Communicating with Executives Pro/E Critical & Unique Capabilities • Industrial Strength Modeling • Industrial Strength Assemblies • Breadth of Product • Embedded Best Practices • Concurrent Team Data Management • Intuitive User Interface

25. …In Other Words • The ability to drive product designs regardless of component complexity and detail associated with the assembly. The development and deliverables needs to be accurate 100% of the time all the time. • The ability for multi user concurrent design and large assembly manageable changes through Top Down Design and other Power Tools. • The ability to have all product changes reflected in all of the product design and manufacturing deliverables. One solution from one organization. • The ability to retain intellectual capital and have reusable, high quality models for productive downstream and future use. • The ability to enable multi-user design change including safeguarding and sharing valuable design data across the globe. • The ability to learn the technology easily allowing for reduction in training costs and implementation for widespread deployment quickly and effectively for everyday and casual users.