The Telesoft Story
The challenge
Telesoft Technologies Ltd is an independent company based in the UK, which has been using its in-depth knowledge of network technologies to solve some of the most difficult telecommunications problems for almost 20 years. The company has grown from its initial focus on SS7 solutions to the situation today where it supplies a wide range of equipment from telephony boards and protocol software to complete media and monitoring platforms.
Telesoft has expertise in both TDM and packet based systems, which it has applied to the development of a new product, the OKEFORD Media Platform. OKEFORD is ideal for service providers offering media based services from mixed IP and TDM, or all-IP networks. The new platform is built upon Telesoft’s proven technology but the company needed to sell it to business decision makers interested in revenue and network migration rather than to network engineers as a technology solution. In addition, Telesoft’s sales team needed to address both the telecommunications service provider market and a wide range of indirect channel partners that will integrate the OKEFORD into their solution.
Action
Andy Evripides, Telesoft’s VP Global Sales & Marketing saw that the Solutions for Sales approach could help the sales team overcome the barriers to selling at a business level. He appreciated that the Sales Guide would help his salesforce but wanted to ensure his team received some hands-on experience of using the material. Working with Andy, Solutions for Sales designed a programme of workshops which collected the information for the Sales Guide, refined it and then put it into practice with the sales team.
Results
The workshops were a success, gathering lots of information on the product, its application and success stories of initial sales. This provided Solutions for Sales with a challenge to focus on the key attributes, document the route to market, and identify how Telesoft can win against some much larger competitors. As John Green, Telesoft’s US VP Sales, said: “Traditionally Telesoft’s strength has been in the depth and breadth of our technical expertise. Now we have this fantastic high-level media platform to sell it is vital we raise our game and sell at business decision maker level”. The resulting OKEFORD Media Platform Sales Guide was used as the basis for a fully-interactive Sales Development Workshop where the salespeople were tasked with developing a sales engagement, starting with the first customer calls and using role play to hone their skills. At each stage they were challenged to consider the customer’s issues and the business benefits of the Telesoft solution rather than focus on the product, which had historically been the preferred sales approach.
Telesoft are now confident that they can build upon initial OKEFORD Media Platform sales successes in India and the US.
“We set Solutions for Sales a tough challenge to take a salesforce that were, for the most part, used to making a technology sale, and develop them so they could start to sell on the basis of our customers’ needs. In turn, Solutions for Sales challenged us to think differently. The result, after a lot of hard work on both sides, was a valuable step forward in our ability to sell at a business level, and much better understanding of how to work with system integration partners.”
Andy Evripides, VP Global Sales & Marketing, Telesoft Technologies
The Strategic Sales Program is only available from Solutions for Sales Ltd.
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