Miller Heiman 2009 Sales Best Practices Study - Thoughts

Miller Heiman just released the results of their October 2008 study, which defines “World-class” sales organizations as being much more likely to achieve their targets.

The study shows that in World-class sales organizations:

- Sales and marketing are much more aligned to customer needs
- Consistently follow standardized processes to qualify opportunities
- Have a formalized, compelling value proposition
- Clearly understand customers’ issues before proposing solutions

In my experience, these same attributes apply to demos:

- Sales and marketing are much more aligned to customer needs:

Product roll-out and other marketing demos match well with real-life customer situations and are customer problem/solution oriented, as opposed to product/feature focused.

- Consistently follow standardized processes to qualify opportunities:

Software demos are viewed specifically in terms of (1) Vision Generation and (2) Technical Proof, as opposed to Harbor Tour Demos; demo need and preparation are carefully reviewed prior to presentation.

- Have a formalized, compelling value proposition:

Specific, tangible “Delta” measurements, based on customer specifics, are much more compelling than “This will save you time and money…” platitudes.

- Clearly understand customers’ issues before proposing solutions:

Thank you thank you thank you…! How can you possibly demonstrate a “solution” if you lack a sufficient understanding of the customer’s problem?