High tech start ups face a challenge as they begin to take their ideas to market. How can they get the market to buy their new product? They face a difficult transition from being R&D-led to becoming a business dependent on sales to fuel future growth. This is an extended version (the original had 7 slides and 38 words) of a seminar delivered to the Harwell Oxford Technology Entrepreneurs Forum. There is also an A4 handout on my web site http://www.salestransformation.co.uk/insights.html .

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Sales &
Art or Science?

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Electronic jewellery?
An extreme focus on customer experience
► Obsessive attention to detail
● Watch the video on the latest iPhone salivating on the diamond
tooling that produces the chamfered edges
► The thrill begins with the box before you get to your iPod
● Vastly over-engineered, with almost mitred corners
● A lid that overlaps the base so much that the box opens with a
natural damping effect
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...backed by a brilliant business model
►Everything you want in Apple’s secret garden
● Buy music on iTunes, you pay
● Buy music on iTunes, the artist pays
● It’s the same for the books, apps and the rest
everyone pays Apple
►Result!
● Apple had the highest capitalisation on NYSE in
2012 peaking at $646Bn
● (Exxon regained supremacy in January 2013)
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The “Mac Book Air” of the 1970s
►This was the portable typewriter of the 1970s
►Beautifully packaged
● Integral case in matching red
● Retracting keyboard to reduce the size
● Colour coded components
►I had just graduated with a degree in
Architecture
►I wanted one!
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How would you sell the Olivetti today?
►Collectable?
● Yes
►Practical?
● Oh come on, the Amstrad word processor can do
more than that
►Useful?
● Perhaps as a doorstop (or to prop up part of my
bookcase as my sad looking old Olympia does)
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►Don’t think like a businessman
►Think like the customer
►In this case think like a kid!
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© Consilium Consultancy Limited 9Thanks to Richard Seymour of Seymour Powell for this idea
Hey, that’s really cool,
no power cords to lose,
totally intuitive, you
don’t even have to wait
for it to power up; you
just put paper in at the
top and the words come
straight out.
I could use that while
I’m backpacking across
Bhutan on my gap year!

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Smartphone wars

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How they compare
► A real keyboard!
► Pushes email
► Really good encryption
… so good BBM is the
rioters’ smartphone of
choice!
► Designed to work with
corporate IT
► Lose it and you can
remotely wipe your data
► Really stylish
► Does email
► Loads of apps
► Loads of cool features
► Intuitive
► Designed to be an
object of beauty
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What it feels like: an unequal battle
► Logic
► Work
► The office
► Work at the weekend
or on holiday
► Lust
► Leisure
► Home and holidays
► Have fun while you
work
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But who wants this
written on their
gravestone?

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What?
Most high tech start ups start with “what”:
the product they have sweated to develop.
Unfortunately most prospective customers
are swayed by something else … this isn’t
the place to start.

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What?
How?
Nor is this,
even if you
sweat blood!

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What?
How?
Why?
YES!Be clear why you are in
business. Make it clear
your mission is to help
your clients solve a
problem, perhaps that this
is the first product of many.
● You will supply
additional services
where they are needed,
or forge alliances to deliver
“a whole solution”
● You are interested in
delivering a benefit to your
customers
● You are not just a
“one trick pony”
So start with why you are in
business, be prepared to explain
how you deliver the benefits, and
then explain what it is you are
offering

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Sales & Marketing Process
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Idea Develop Position Launch Sell
Generate
Enquiry
Follow up
Proposal
or Quote
Negotiate Deliver
Once initially with occasional refreshes
10s, 100s, perhaps 1,000s of times

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Marketing and the devil
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Having sweated blood, perhaps mortgaged your
house, you now have to get people to understand
what you are selling ‒ to the extent that they want
to buy. You’ve probably been advised to get a
marketing specialist to help position your product
and launch it. A good consultant will at times seem
like your enemy ‒ playing devil’s advocate denying
that your brilliant idea is obvious. Perhaps
suggesting that your product is incomplete.
Worrying about the semantics of the exact way you
describe things. Insisting on understanding the
culture and habits of the customer. Questioning
how many customers there really are.
Obsessing about customers and their requirements
pays ‒ think Apple!
Idea Develop Position Launch Sell
A good marketing advisor will act as Devil’s Advocate to test your ideas,
and then help you develop persuasive sales arguments.

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Six Sigma* Selling
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Hardly anyone makes the perfect sales call. Let’s
assume most of us are 60-70% effective. If we can
raise this by 10% at each stage over a five stage
campaign we would end up about twice as effective.
Getting the message correct is important, delivering
the message consistently can be even more
important ‒ you are going to do this tens, hundreds,
perhaps even thousands of times.
When you last lost some business did you call the
prospect to find out why? Better still did you get
someone independent to ask why on your behalf?
Continuous improvement really does work.
Try it!
*Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying
and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in
manufacturing and business processes. Source Wikipedia!
Generate
Enquiry
Follow up
Proposal
or Quote
Negotiate Deliver

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Art or Science?

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Pictures courtesy of Microsoft clip art, Wikimedia and others.
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