How a $23M Deal Died, Was Revived, and Closed

This post will detail how using an on-demand ROI/TCO sales 2.0 tool can help you sell more, at a higher ASP, with a shorter sales cycle and get your customers to “own the deal”.

Now that is sales 2.0!

Here is a true story.

The largest deal so far this year at EMC Corp. is for $23 million dollars. The reason this deal closed was because of an invaluable selling tool — an ROI/TCO web-based tool that is made available to all account teams.

Without the ROI/TCO tool this $23 million dollar deal would not have closed because the IT group initially shot the deal down with cost objections.

Case Study: A leading virtualization solution provider needed to create an easy to use ROI Tool for customer self-assessments, channel partners and sales professional use. Alinean ported and integrated three existing spreadsheet models into a powerful online tool which is directly responsible for over 1,000 qualified leads per month with record high campaign conversion rates.

The ROI/TCO tool opened the deal up again when the purchasing department reviewed the ROI/TCO analysis. It started more conversations between functional groups, pulled the deal through the organization to a successful close.

The rep made his number for the year with this one deal — good for him!

Here are some benefits that can be directly attributed to the ROI/TCO tool:

• Four other deals in excess of 1mm dollars have closed because of the tool

• The ROI/TCO tool when used properly has built hyper levels of credibility within the account

• It has enabled sales reps to move into an advisory role with their customers — not order takers

• Customers that have participated in the ROI/TCO analysis end up “owning the analysis” and driving the deal

This is all easier said than done — sales do not close just because you put together a credible and accurate ROI/TCO tool. The account team still needs to invest the time up front to learn how to use the tool and work with the customer to get the right inputs and information.

These challenges alone are enough for most account teams to shelve using a ROI/TCO tool — not the smart ones though.

While this may take some effort, it is far better than the alternatives:

• Not using an ROI/TCO tool at all

• Losing deals to your competition

• Not making as much money as you could

• Forced to differentitate on price versus TCO

• Being seen as a commodity sales rep and not an advisor

In a world of similar features, benefits, and information overload it is important to help your customers focus on their business requirements/goals and how you can help them achieve them.

If you understand the customers business and provide them with solutions that lower their cost of doing business (operational or capital expense, etc.) or increase efficiency/productivity (do more with less) you will be in a position of strength.

The benefits of this type of sales process are huge:

• Sell on value and not price = more margin

• Expose competitors that rely on “me too” solutions that differentiate on price

• Get access to high level decision makers and have a different, valuable conversation

• Close more deals at a higher ASP

Keep in mind — what I have outlined here is from an outbound sales and marketing perspective. The same ROI/TCO tools outlined here can be used as interactive inbound marketing tools to drive qualified leads and capture information on your customers.

To learn more about Alinean the leading provider of on-demand sales tools click here.

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