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Year after year, more skill is required to close complex transactions. "Learn how to sell to the CXO" has become a mandate delivered to sales teams globally. Whether selling directly to the CIO or to the IT department looking for CIO & CFO approval, the right message (value, risk mitigation, peer acceptance) must be conveyed clearly.
Technology Finance Partners has spent the last decade working with technology sales teams as financial sales engineers - whether rationalizing pricing for new markets or complex transactions, justifying the value of products and solutions or providing financial options to facilitate the sale. We understand the challenges our clients' sales teams face because we live them on a day by day, deal by deal basis.
Based on our tactical involvement in the financial sale, and at our clients' request, TFP, in partnership with The Office of the CIO, has developed two sales training programs to fill an immediate need and void in the market:
1. Selling to the CIO
2. Financial Fluency - the Language of Business
In preparation for both the "Selling to the CIO" and Financial Fluency trainings, Technology Finance Partners will perform an audit of a vendor's sales and marketing messaging, collateral and available tools. TFP will identify potential improvements if relevant and ensure that all currently available tools, programs and methodologies are incorporated, grounding the training program in their sales environment.
The first, "Selling to the CIO" was created in partnership with the Office of the CIO, a consortium of veteran CIO's and Partners of Big 4 consulting firms dedicated to improving the intersection of business and technology.
"Selling to the CIO" sales trainings:
a) Focus on the differentiating elements of each vendor's solution (not
generic "technology")
b) Leverage and reference actual internal sales methodologies,
programs and tools
c) Target and reference actual vendor initiatives (new markets,
new products, new messaging)
d) Provide templates and checklists that assure more effective sales
presentations and proposals
e) Contain a strategy for continual reinforcement (for information on
receiving our on-going Financial Sales Series, click here)
"Selling to the CIO" is an interactive engagement combining the technology message (does it resonate?) with the financial justification (does this make sense from a business perspective?) and other considerations important to CIO's. Would your sales teams benefit from 'practice selling' to one or more seasoned CIO's?
In these trainings, which can be delivered live or in a series over the web, we bring together a team of CIO's and your sales force to discuss:
 What's important to a CIO vis a vis your technology - this can be
targeted to specific verticals, products or target markets
Key criteria all CIO's considers when making a buying decision - and
specific considerations related to your technology
How major technology initiatives (and purchases) are prioritized,
funded, and approved in most enterprises (small, medium and large)
The checklist of critical deliverables in your sales proposals &
presentations, and how to pull these deliverables together within
your organization
While developing this curriculum, TFP and The Office of the CIO's interviewed dozens of leading CIO's to get a sense for what mattered most to them when making a technology decision. Can your sales teams clearly illustrate to a CIO or other C-level buyer how your solution maps to CIO's top 5 initiatives for 2010? When the CIO's were asked where vendors were falling short, they identified 3 key tactical issues. Is your sales force one of those still falling short?
In preparation for both the "Selling to the CIO" and the Financial Fluency trainings, Technology Finance Partners will perform an audit of each client's sales and marketing environment. TFP will identify potential improvements if relevant and ensure that all currently available tools, programs and methodologies are incorporated, grounding the training program in their sales environment.
The second TFP sales training, "Financial Fluency: the Language of Business" provides sales teams with a financial sales foundation. Financial concepts (specific to sales) are finite and can be learned easily and retained if taught in the appropriate context. The language of business is taught through pre-study, classroom lectures and role playing. Getting sales teams to verbalize the message is the only way to internalize the content.
Does your sales force know how to qualify budget objections? To ask
for the specific budget triggers? And then what to do with that
information?
What alternatives, other than the 3 'D's: discount, delay or
downsize, does your sales force leverage as part of standard budget
objection handling?
What is your standard protocol for elevating your sale in the CIO's
list of projects? For moving your technology sale up the customers
priority ladder?
Financial sales skills result in:
improved sales negotiation effectiveness
improved ability to communicate with financial decision makers
increased credibility within the account
ability to structure transactions to fit into customers available
budget or to 'create' budget
Sales teams handle the relationship side of the sale with ease, but need support crafting the message and the proof points that will resonate with the technology, business and financial buyers. Technology Finance Partners and the Office of the CIO sales training and coaching teach your sales force how to speak the language necessary to win the complex sale.
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"Third party arrangement allows for us to receive expanded expertise that would be limited if brought in house. TFP is bringing best of breed and latest concepts to financial packaging especially in newer areas such as SaaS and MSP. If brought in-house, the program would lose focus and be torn to other priorities."
VP Business Development, +500M Software Company
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 100 State, Local & Education Markets
101 Objection Handling
102 Budget Objections & Qualifying Q's
103 Tax Incentives (2009)
104 Improving Metrics with Pmt Terms
104A Improving ROI with Pmt Terms
104B Reducing Payback with Pmt Terms
104C Increasing NPV with Pmt Terms
104D Increasing IRR with Pmt Terms
105 Facilitating Compliance w/Pmt Terms
2009 YE - Fin Positioning to Max Rev
ARR Act 2009 - Icentives to Invest
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