The Polycom Story
The challenge
Polycom is the global leader in telepresence, video, and voice solutions. Following its acquisition of Spectralink, a provider of enterprise wireless telephony solutions, it was faced with preparing a large, fragmented salesforce to sell an unfamiliar set of products.
As part of this preparation the original Polycom salesforce received product training from the acquired Spectralink Product Marketing group. “The Polycom salesforce went through a product ‘boot camp’, informing them ‘what’ they were selling, but we quickly realised they would need more than this if they were to understand the ‘how to’ part ” said Steve Adams, Vice President and General Manager, Wireless Business Unit, Polycom Inc. Following an initial meeting with Solutions for Sales (SfS) Steve realised that its Strategic Sales Program (SSP) would help them achieve this. With Steve’s help SfS completed a series of web meetings with key stakeholders to gain their buy-in and determine which elements of the SSP were required.
Action
SfS’ first deliverable was its Marketing Workshop. This brought together Product Management, Marketing and Sales stakeholders from the US and European operations. Polycom found that working together to produce integrated, cohesive sales messaging improved the team’s ability to exchange information, debate and align differing points of views. Through the Marketing Workshop SfS and Polycom determined the key business challenges of its customers, how they aligned with the strengths of the Polycom product set and the sales best practice that the salesforce should follow.
The Marketing Workshop output enabled SfS to produce the Polycom Wireless Solutions Interactive Sales Kit (ISK), a web-based sales tool that gives each salesperson all of the information they need to identify, create and run a sales opportunity to a successful conclusion.
Results
The Marketing Workshop facilitated a shift from just understanding the functionality of the products, to understanding the business challenges faced by the customer and how these could be aligned to the Polycom Wireless Solutions capabilities and benefits. In addition, the involvement of multiple stakeholders enabled Polycom to discover unknown facts and capture information that was previously diluted, misunderstood or lost during the post acquisition phase.
“The workshop was a key factor in realising the value of the acquisition,” said Steve. “We are now able to gain from the benefits of being a large company, as well as retaining the advantages of the smaller, more nimble company.
“The Marketing Workshop helped us to formalise the ‘tribal’ knowledge we had and the ISK has enabled us to share this deal winning knowledge with the salesforce.”
The ISK contains all the information that Polycom salespeople need, in one place. The salesforce had been taught about the product functionality, and with the help of the ISK they can now align this to customer needs and use best practice to manage each sales opportunity efficiently and effectively. Thanks to the ISK, Polycom salespeople only need to go to one place to get all the information and tools they need to achieve more sales.
“The SfS Marketing Workshop enabled our salespeople to rise above the daily noise and pressure of their sales target and focus on collecting the critical information needed to successfully sell our Wireless Solutions.
“The facilitation from SfS captured the vital knowledge that had been hidden or lost. Their skill at applying a ‘no tell, just ask’ manner extracted the messages that the Polycom salesforce need to engage with customers. This would not have been possible without the involvement of a third party. SfS provided the skills, know-how and proven processes needed to draw out from us exactly what was required.”
Steve Adams, Vice President and General Manager, Wireless Business Unit, Polycom Inc.
The Strategic Sales Program is only available from Solutions for Sales Ltd.
For more information please email or call +44 (0)1702 586742.