Strategic Deal Solutioning

Fresh out of graduate school (MBA), much to the ?? surprise of my classmates, I accepted a job as a systems engineer with a Boston based computer software company. This was a corporate role in the organization’s Executive Sales Team. Essentially, I demoed software to client senior leaders when they visited headquarters to meet our CEO/CFO/COO prior to signing a big contract. While it didn’t sound exciting, and it certainly wasn’t Wall Street or Silicon Valley or product manager for a household big name brand, it was an absolute thrill spending usually an hour at a time with so many of these big company leaders. It was continuing education on what was on the minds of these executives.

In particular, I recall one such demo I began with the question, “to help me structure a relevant demo, what challenge are you hoping address, what opportunity are you attempting to pursue” – yes consultative selling 101. Equipped with an answer, I went to a flip chart and drew a continuum. On the left side of the page I wrote, stay put, do nothing, keep on keepin’ on. On the right side of the page I wrote, acquire our software, and made a short list of benefits they would likely see. I spent the next 20 minutes as our COO squirmed, walking the prospect along this continuum and exploring the various decisions that could be made from left to right. I then demoed the software demonstrating how it delivered on the benefits they were targeting.

Later that day, our COO stopped by my cubicle to say they signed the contract on their flight home and to share that he was squirming in his seat anxiously during my hour “on stage” when my first idea to the prospect was essentially do nothing and spend the potential investment elsewhere. ?? The prospect communicated that we were the first provider who attempted to stand in their shoes and evaluate all the alternatives available to them – including spending on something else. Phew! Wish I could say I went in with a plan. I didn’t.

Fast forward a lot of years later selling hardware, software, and services, and I even more firmly advocate for a real consultative selling approach beginning with a robust client development plan that itself starts with what is the firm’s mission, vision, values and strategic imperatives. Add to that, reflect on what is going on in the market (demographic shifts, cultural trends, environmental developments, technology advancements, legal unfluences), what are the firm’s tactical challenges and opportunities surfaced through conversations with senior to middle management (what keeps them up at night and why), standing in the shoes of the client and looking at the client’s competition and in those same shoes, business solutioning before technically solutioning. Sounds simple, but for some reason it isn’t. All too often, client and strategic deal development planning, even in 2023, begins with or quickly devolves into, what can we sell, to whom and how fast. Ugh! It should start with what is the client trying to achieve. So, the steps I have found useful over the years include:

Appreciate the client’s (or prospect's) mission, vision, values and review the firm’s strategic imperatives.

• Listen to earnings calls.
• Read financial reports / press releases / news coverage. Pay particular attention to the footnotes in those financial reports.
• Listen to executives’ conference speeches.
• Review the LinkedIn? profiles of the executives – especially blog postings.
• Procure securities analysis and reports on the company.
• Talk with the executives as possible.

Evaluate the client’s competitors, their positions and moves in the market, their financial reports, et al.

Understand the market in which the client is providing its products and services.

• Listen to the business news.
• Follow the relevant political landscape.
• Read and attend education forums, meetings, and conferences.
• Analyze industry whitepapers / reports/ trends.

Identify both the challenges and the opportunities of the client.

• Honor the demographics and psychographics of the client’s customers.
• Mystery shop the experiences the client renders in market.
• Read the company’s job postings – Glassdoor? reviews.
• Conduct focus groups of the client’s customers.
• Ask for and review customer satisfaction surveys and call center stats and transcripts.
• Talk with the senior and middle management as possible.

Evaluate our competitors, their positions and moves on the market, their financial reports, et al.

Business Solution then technically solution across a prioritized set of the client's challenges / opportunities. This is the first real creative step – attempting to solve for a business challenge or opportunity with a business solution. For example, if the company’s business challenge is promotional content accuracy and global timely syndication, the business solution may be a right shored content curation and translation team. The technical solution underneath is a content management system with an appropriate set of bells and whistles.

Craft a business case / value proposition demonstrating the tangible and intangible benefits. If it generates top line – great, if it improves efficiency and reduces costs, great, if it does both even better. And wait for it, wait for it, if it can be acquired as a service predicated on a set of outcomes – pay for performance – best of all.

?While books and more books have been written on consultative selling, even to this day, it is all too easy to sell from the bottom-up – what’s in my bag and to whom might I sell some set of those goods and services – essentially trying to create demand. I have found it a lot easier, a whole lot easier, investing up front and selling top down, and I don’t mean cold calling the CEO. I mean starting at the top with the client’s mission/vision/values, strategic imperatives, goals and objectives, challenges and opportunities and solutioning to address a prioritized set of those. And then shopping the value prop with prospective inside sponsors which if you have none per se, might mean cold calling the CEO. ??

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