Value Selling Tools and the Buying Lifecycle

With two economic downturns in the past ten years, buyers are more frugal than ever, demanding that each investment help them do-more-with-less, provide a bottom-line impact, and deliver superior value. Alinean calls this new age-of-austerity Frugalnomics, and it forever changes the way B2B sales and marketing needs to connect with, engage and sell to buyers.

To address the frugal buyer, leading sales enablement groups and marketers are now providing tools to help buyers diagnose their issues, justify solutions, and compare to prove superior value.

As today’s buyers are empowered by the Internet to do their own research and drive their own purchasing due diligence – engaging sales later than ever, or not at all – easy to use versions of these diagnostic tools need to be on-line, readily available, interactive and personalized to empower self-service research. For sales teams, more advanced versions can be used to empower sales led workshops, helping to make sales more valuable again, and elevate perceptions from product sellers to valued consultants.

But how can you best develop and deliver these tools effectively to fight Frugalnomics?

It is best to look at what tools are needed to address each stage in the buying lifecycle, and have tools specifically designed to help move the decision making from initial engagement to delivery.

Diagnose

It is essential to engage executives and key decision makers as early as possible in the buying lifecycle, when strategies and budgets are set. However, it is getting harder to connect and engage effectively with these overloaded, skeptical and frugal executives. These buyers need a reason to engage – and delivering personalized, proprietary and consultative benchmarks, insight and advice is essential. Providing the decision support early in the buying cycle is essential to engagement success- illuminating issues, identifying improvement opportunities and delivering strategic roadmap recommendations.

Advice > Interactive on-line diagnostic tools from Alinean can empower better connection and engagement in early stages of the buying cycle, helping to change the relationship from seller to trusted advisor.

Diagnostic Example: Microsoft Infrastructure Optimization Assessment
Microsoft wanted to provide analysis and roadmap advice to help get more C-level engagements, engage earlier in the sales cycle, and shift customer perceptions from tactical product provider to strategic partner.

To address this opportunity, Alinean developed the Microsoft Infrastructure Optimization Assessment tools, which are used to diagnose customer’s most pressing capability & maturity needs, delivering a compelling 20+ page assessment report including an illumination of issues, peer comparison benchmarks, prescriptive roadmap of improvements and advice.

The assessment tool has been available since 2008 and is generating more than 600 analyses per month, driving significant evolution of Microsoft’s relationship with clients, and empowering significant partner marketing campaigns. view the tool

Justify

With two economic downturns over the past decade, B2B buyers are focused more than ever on what solutions are available to enable “doing-more-with-less”, driving savings and realizing quantifiable bottom-line impact. For most buyers it’s easier to do-nothing, than to change.

Now, over 90% of B2B buyers require quantifiable proof of bottom-line impact from any significant purchase, and over 81% expect vendors to create and deliver the financial business case for most proposed purchases (IDC). Even with a continued recovery and more financial optimism, the shift to frugality is fundamental and permanent.

Advice > ROI tools from Alinean can quickly and credibly help quantify opportunities, estimate benefits of proposed solutions, prove ROI and demonstrate quick payback, essential to prioritizing proposed projects and justifying the sale.

Justification Example: EMC Documentum Case Management Benefits Calculator

EMC Documentum needed to educate frugal buyers on the value of their solutions, one a Case Management solution for Public Sector customers.

To address this opportunity, Alinean developed a suite of online benefit calculators for each EMC Documentum solution, allowing customers to discover opportunities and quantifying the value propositions of each solution, resulting in compelling and credible 20+ page assessment reports.

The tool suite results in over 1,000 leads per month, with estimated 4 to 5% conversion rate of leads to sales. view the tool

Differentiate
Sales and marketing has worked hard to make the case for change and convinced the buyer that the solution is justified, but now the buyer has a choice: purchase your solution, or perhaps find a lower cost alternative. But up-front purchase price isn’t everything.

Advice > Using Alinean powered TCO Comparison Tools, sales and marketing can prove lower ownership cost over the useful lifecycle, comparing derived cost savings, value and features to justify the selection and purchase.

Differentiate Example: ShoreTel TCO Tool
The Unified Communications market is extremely competitive, and an emerging leader, ShoreTel, needed to demonstrate head-to-head cost advantages.

To address this opportunity, Alinean developed the ShoreTel TCO Tool to compare total cost of ownership (TCO) for various unified communications systems, and quantify the advantages of ShoreTel solutions.

Partners and enterprise sales professionals have adopted the tool significantly more than prior in-house developed programs, driving significant multi-million dollar customer deals. view the tool

A webinar on this topic can be found at:

https://alinean.webex.com/alinean/lsr.php?AT=pb&SP=EC&rID=44424232&rKey=435a40c76fd43920

For more information on Value Selling Tools:

• Demand-Generation (Marketing)
• Sales Enablement