“An ecosystem maturity model is a simple way to paint a picture, further qualify your prospects and engage even more stakeholders.” – Chris Ortolano in today’s Tip 185
Do you have your own ecosystem maturity model?
Join the conversation below and let us know!
Chris Ortolano on LinkedIn
Outbound Edge
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Chris Ortolano. Chris is a sales productivity and enablement consultant based in Seattle Washington, who works with fast-growing companies to help them eliminate the “muddle” in the middle of the sales pipeline. Here he is with today’s tip:
Chris Ortolano: Buyers are building technology stacks. Yet many sellers are still only pitching single-point solutions as if their own solution is some type of standalone product. Then after the demo and before the proposal, an endless series of emails are exchanged to determine whether the stakeholders in the buying group are ready to make a decision. This sales process does little to help you understand your stakeholders, clarify their concerns, and demonstrate how your product actually improves upon their existing technology stack. There’s a better way. An ecosystem maturity model is a simple way to paint a picture, further qualify your prospects and engage even more stakeholders. Workflow solutions allow you to quickly diagram where your product or service that’s in the technology stack and understand the other types of tools your prospects are commonly using. Once you’ve diagrammed your ecosystem, here’s four questions you can use on your prospecting calls. First, many of our customers use products A, B, and C to solve problems 1, 2 and 3. How are you solving these types of problems? Two, our solution captures data specific to the X and Y parts of the Z process. How are you solving these types of problems? Three, executives use our dashboard reporting to understand critical KPIs and changes over time. How are you currently submitting progress reports to your executive leadership team? Four, our product also provides robust APIs with products A, B, and C, which allows for less context switching and more comprehensive department-wide reporting. How much time would that save you each week? Now, take 10 minutes to live role-play using your own ecosystem maturity model to help you get really comfortable using this new prospecting approach. By showing your stakeholders how your product fits into their ecosystem and listening closely to how they respond, you start to understand their most important business requirements. You’ll close the deal faster than you would have otherwise and faster than competitors who are still generically pitching a demo with only features and benefits. Use your ecosystem maturity model to develop more contexts for your stakeholder buying groups. Listen for their unique questions and concerns, then propose a solution they are ready to use.
Scott Ingram: If you’d like more from Chris click over to DailySales.Tips/185 there you’ll find a link to his Outbound Edge website where you can learn more about the 6 step middle funnel approach that is proven to help you engage more stakeholders and reduce sales cycles by highlighting the business process with your sales process.
You can also connect with Chris on LinkedIn and he’ll share a complimentary Lucidchart template to map your technology ecosystem, and then you can start using the 4 ecosystem prospecting questions today.
Thanks for listening and be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip!