The Secrets To Winning GSA Contracts
As a small business owner you may have heard of a General Services Administration Federal Supply Schedules contract, more commonly known as a “GSA contract”, but what is it exactly? How does it work? Is it difficult to obtain? Is it worth the time and effort to research, submit and manage?
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Sign up for our Email NewsletterMake Your Business 1st Choice at Four Decisive Customer Moments
Throughout the history of buying and selling, purchase has been a challenging experience for both buyers and sellers because purchase is a lengthy progression with three phases: consideration, negotiation, and transaction.
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Conquering the Communication Challenge with a Whiteboard
One of the greatest challenges managers and CEOs face is effectively communicating with their employees, clients and stakeholders. Whether by email, phone call or conference room presentation, the corporate world is inundated with more communication input than ever before. We’ve all become complacent to the noise. We’ve all heard it before, but it bears repeating: a key player in the communications challenge is the PowerPoint presentation. This presentation go-to is often a crutch that leads to glazed eyes, big yawns and undeniable apathy. Let’s look at how we got to this point.
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At the root of all workplace activity lies the organization’s message. Whether positioned to sell, convince, persuade or educate, an organization’s message must be reflected in internal and external communication. Key messages are used to develop strategic and tactical goals that tell a story of value, competition, and success. To the detriment of effectively communicating a company’s purpose, PowerPoint became a handy “receptacle” into which we could simply dump the key messaging from Word documents. Ironically enough, this messaging made its way into Word document from – you guessed it – whiteboards used in brainstorming sessions!
In the interests of returning the key messaging from whence it came, a simple process can lead to powerful whiteboard stories used to uncover new opportunities and close larger deals.
Designing a whiteboard story to be used by salespeople begins with the message owners: key members of sales, marketing, product management, professional services and training professionals. Message owners understand their organization’s message and can work as a team to develop a concise, powerful and entertaining story. The best stories communicate unique value and articulate over-arching purpose. This process allows managers and their employees to look at the way they communicate, and develop an organizational story that thrives in the competitive and volatile marketplace.
Many companies have complicated messages to communicate in easy-to-understand ways; Blue Coat Systems, Inc. being a prime example of this. Blue Coat’s greatest sales challenge was communicating its forward-thinking value proposition to customers and prospects in an effective, engaging, and exciting way. Using the whiteboard sales approach, Blue Coat created one interactive whiteboard conveying the company’s new corporate story, as well as three “level 2” whiteboard that dive more deeply into solution capabilities.
Sales reps felt the whiteboard activity increased their comfort level in selling Blue Coat solutions and articulating the company’s message. In just a few months of using the whiteboard sales approach, sales representatives have reported more follow-up sales calls and more closed deals.
Using a whiteboard is certainly not a new concept, but using a whiteboard to tell a visual sales narrative in a structured and consistent way is. And while the economy is unpredictable and technology is always changing, one thing is for certain: the need for interpersonal communication is constant. The digital world may be quick and convenient, but the power of conveying a clear, convincing message lies in the ability to tell a story.
About the Author
Corey Sommers is Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer of WhiteboardSelling, a provider of tools, best practices and technologies that enable field personnel to communicate and demonstrate core business value propositions to C-level buyers in a confident, compelling and consistent fashion… all without slides. Corey has more than 15 years experience in sales and channel enablement, account manager certification and training, and competitive intelligence. He is passionate about bridging the gap between marketing and sales within large organizations. Prior to founding WhiteboardSelling, he developed and executed VMware’s channel enablement strategy globally, across VARs, OEMs, Distributors, ISVs, and Corporate Reseller channel segments. He had shared responsibility for sales enablement and training for BMC Software’s world-wide direct sales organization. Corey also founded Ventaso, a leading provider of sales-ready messaging software and tools. To read Corey’s complete biography, click here.
Leveraging “Fifth Screen” Affordability To Improve Customer Engagement
It started with the silver screen, over a century ago. And while the advent of TV, personal computers and mobile devices as the second, third and fourth major screen technologies have clearly changed life as we know it, Digital Out Of Home (DOOH) technology – the “fifth screen”, as it’s known – has created amazingly influential opportunities of its own.
Today’s digital networks are easier to design, present and deploy than ever before, in part because of the price drop in flat panel displays and Content Management Systems (CMS). We’re also seeing an increase in education and technology advancements, as well as manufacturers and suppliers taking a more holistic approach in supporting those who want to get into the DOOH business. Read more
StrategyDriven Podcast Special Edition 39b – An Interview with Sharon Drew Morgen, author of Dirty Little Secrets, part 2 of 2
StrategyDriven Podcasts focus on the tools and techniques executives and managers can use to improve their organization’s alignment and accountability to ultimately achieve superior results. These podcasts elaborate on the best practice and warning flag articles on the StrategyDriven website.
Special Edition 39b – An Interview with Sharon Drew Morgen, author of Dirty Little Secrets, part 2 of 2 explores a new decision facilitation model that helps buyers (and those seeking change) manage the behind-the-scenes decision issues they have to handle privately before they get internal agreement to make a purchase. Sharon Drew also explains why the traditional sales model – that only handles needs assessment and solution placement – creates overly long sales cycles and loses such a high percentage of sales. During our discussion, she shares with us her insights and illustrative examples regarding:
what sales professionals need to understand about the internal changes buyers deal with as a part of the buying decision
- business systems and how they fit into the buyer’s decision-making process
- how sales professionals should deal with buyer’s assertions that a lower price is needed before the sale can be closed
Additional Information
In addition to the invaluable insights Sharon Drew shares in Dirty Little Secrets
COMING SOON!
Look for our upcoming six-part StrategyDriven Podcast series on Making Change Work. These insightful podcasts will help you and your team understand the steps to gaining the buy-in and committed effort needed to implement change successfully. We’ll cover topics including:
- What is change? and Why is change so hard?
- What are systems, and how do they influence change?
- The Problems of Change Management: bias, resistance, and push
- If decisions are always rational, why are changees resisting?
- Why is buy-in necessary and how to achieve it?
- Putting it all together, a radical approach to change management: real leadership
Final Request…
The strength of our community grows with the additional insights brought by our expanding member base. Please consider voting for us on Podcast Alley by clicking here. Casting your vote for the StrategyDriven Podcast improves our ranking and helps us attract new listeners which, in turn, helps us grow our community. Thank you again for listening to the StrategyDriven Podcast!
About the Author
Sharon Drew Morgen, author of Dirty Little Secrets
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:00 — 45.4MB)
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