September 10, 2003
Reference customers built on relationships - Ottawa Business Journal
Terry Ledden is the managing partner for Sales aboutFACE Inc. His advice to companies looking for their first reference customer is to centre conversations with prospective customers on business issues with which the company or individual is dealing. A sales pitch will only turn off a prospective customer, whereas asking questions about business issues will create the relationship necessary to sign a deal.
"By getting the prospect to tell you what their problems are, the relationship will be much more collaborative, leading to potentially some co-development effort to finish the product design." (Read the whole article)
June 9, 2003
It's about sales stupid: Experts join debate about sales talent - Ottawa Business Journal
OBJ: How do you assess sales and marketing talent in Ottawa?
LEDDEN: I believe our local tech community is facing a challenge with respect to defining talent. There's no consistent or common context within which to assess talent. In the U.S. market, where many of our local tech firms compete, strategies have been shifting. Yesterday, U.S. players placed a heavy emphasis on having a better product or technology in order to win. Now, product superiority is no longer the name of the game. The highly competitive U.S. market "our battleground" has been shifting toward an approach to winning based on how they're selling, not just what they're selling. Our local talent tends to represent a cross-section of the traditional approach that typically relies on the need for some product, price or industry advantage in order to win. (Read the whole article)
January 1, 2001
Hi Terry:
I just came out of another meeting to prepare ourselves for the strategic alliance visit we worked on with you last week and I noticed throughout the discussions the strong positive influence you have on the team and their new approach to selling. I can recommend your coaching and training to anybody, especially if one (like me) doesn't have the money to pay for previously proven "A" players and believes in the strength and potential of his people.
In my mind, to sell high tech stuff, one doesn't only need to know how to sell (which is so well taught by you) but also how our product works, the latter takes at least 2 years (believe me, I know this from many examples). Therefore, if I evaluate my internal people first (using your evaluation) who already know our product very well, then I train them to sell well (again using you), I can cut out about 18 additional months of the technical training program that I would normally need to get to market with a new guy. That's a major time to market advantage! All I have to do is make sure that the internal people we use have the innate aptitude and potential to sell, followed by the right sales training. By the way, I have followed several other sales training courses and it was rarely more than a (contrived) procedure to get to close. I really think your approach is quite different and a lot more.
Franz Plangger, CEO - SolaCom Technologies