How to Sell a Whole Product
pg.5
By Chris Bohrson
Results
The strategy change resulted in the Division closing orders with several installed base and new customers during the next 18 months - in one case displacing a well entrenched competitor. This essentially "latched" the product into the market establishing a viable revenue stream for the division to replace the declining voice testing revenues.
Lessons Learned
While ultimately the division was able to successfully sell the system to multiple customers, there are two high level lessons to be learned from the experience:
- Whole product: the concept is critical to success. Had the group recognized earlier the need to deploy a product with capabilities for voice and DSL it would have cut down on the break-even-time as more of the product would have been sold earlier in its lifecycle.
- Demand creation: for a new market like line testing for DSL services, where no commercial product had been previously offered and no buying category existed, the group would have accelerated the product's ramp had it focused earlier on the funding decision versus the selection decision. Also, the group should have taken steps earlier to augment the sales and marketing teams' skills and tools in advocating the whole solution to include the deployment sale along with the operational and financial sale.
