How to Sell a Whole Product
By Chris Bohrson
How Strategic Marketing Course Concepts Apply
The Division developed a completely new analog/voice testing system that included breakthrough technology to test copper lines for DSL service. The market was significant: to benefit from the DSL test value proposition, phone companies would need to install one or more of these systems in hundreds, or even thousands, of central network office locations. The Division touted the new system as a revolutionary solution to DSL service provisioning and prepared to respond to requests for bids in this new category.
Despite some success with an early adopting customer who used the new technology for both voice and data service line testing, sales stalled in this conservative mainstream market. The Division discovered that voice-centric phone companies were focusing investment on a variety of non-test related data service deployment issues. As a result, while voice test systems was an established procurement category, most phone companies had put in place some kind of rudimentary system to pre-qualify copper lines, and therefore did not have budget allocated specifically for DSL service line testing procurements.
The Division now concluded that although their DSL testing technology offered unique capability, positioning the system as a new technology category created adoption costs and perceived risks that were slowing sales. In order to advance along the adoption curve, DSL test capability needed to be re-positioned as an enhancement to the existing voice testing category, targeted at phone companies already considering new voice testing equipment, and sold as a whole product that addressed DSL test adoption costs in deployment and operations.
