Strategies for the “Sales” mission – in the Bowling Alley
For a tech company CEO, and the sales team (or person), new
technology products face a big challenge gaining a beachhead in
mainstream markets. The “bowling alley” strategy described by
Geoffrey Moore in his book Inside the
Tornado provides a good way to do the job. First gain
leadership in a niche market with a particularly painful problem
to solve. Then, tackle a series of adjacent niche markets
("bowling pins") one-by-one. The bowling pin metaphor aptly
describes how the niche markets, if well sequenced, can fall into
your camp through a cascade of adjacent pins after the lead "pin"
falls.
To implement this strategy, however, many issues arise. Here are a
few tips to help sales professionals as well as management
involved.
Tip #1 - Think Big to win the beachhead
The sales team will need education on the "Bowling Alley"
strategy, mission definition to include the points covered below,
and higher compensation for the current target markets than for
“any business.” This is especially important if the company has
strong mainline products that generate most of the revenue. New
products will not compete well for sales people’s attention,
unless explicit steps are taken with attention and incentives.
Also, sales people with diverse experience, such as marketing
product management, tend to be a quicker study to get the new
mission assignment under control.
Here’s some food-for-thought on “mission definition.” The sales
people must help with three things other than selling, and all are
critical to gaining market acceptance
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Market Profiling
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Product Definition
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Niche Leadership
Note that these are just starting points for your thinking – this
needs to be tailored to an individual company, product, and
market.
Tip #2 - Take time to Profile
The dialogue with each prospect must help confirm or correct how
we view market behavior. In the mind of the sales person,
representing the whole company, many questions need answering.
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Is this prospect in our target niche, or is it “opportunistic”?
The opportunistic leads must be treated with less priority, in
order for new markets to develop.
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If the prospect is in the current target “bowling pin” market,
what stage of the technology adoption life cycle are they at?
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What position / profession are we talking to?
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Are the key person’s interests and buying motivations consistent
with our “adoption stage” assumptions?
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Does this prospect give us any new information about the “Value
Chain” we are building? Typically this would focus on companion
products, or other suppliers with whom the customer has an
established relationship with.
Answers are shared with marketing and management to validate the
direction of the company, and ensure that resources are well used.
Tip #3 - Tune it to your Customer
Initially we may have a great “core product,”
but learn that, in the eyes of the prospect, it is not easy to
buy. Variables you can tune include packaging, pricing, support,
training, or even subtle things like the identity of the product.
Again, this is part of a “two-way” dialogue. We need to learn how
well our offer “fits” this target niche, and whether it is
perceived to be complete.
We need to learn about our competition, and slot them into “old
category” or “direct” or “other” to better understand our selling
position – are we competing against the older way of doing things?
Other ways of spending money? A directly competitive offer? If the
competitor has an offer in the same new product category, is he
focusing on the same niche we have chosen? It is very unusual to
find a competitor with exactly the same niche strategy, and any
differences must be exploited to sell our commitment to the niche.
This may include naming the product to suit the application for
this niche, and using other names for other markets. As soon as
you consider renaming the product, of course, you will think of
other product characteristics that could be “tuned” for each niche
– while you keep the core product standard for simplicity as you
grow.
Pricing deserves a mention – use value-based pricing and confirm
the value with each sales opportunity. Do not discount as a way to
deal with buyer resistance. Find out what the other hidden points
of resistance may be.
Tip #4 - Go Big in your own Niche
How big is the sector, or niche? How small is it?
Can we define the niche so that we have a market big enough to
give great payback, yet small enough that we can gain over 50%
share within 12-18 months. On the branding side, is the identity
of our offer attractive to this market? What category are we
perceived to be in? Can we choose our own words to define the
category – essentially defining a new category? Who are the
thought leaders in this, or adjacent, categories? The thought
leaders need to be contacted, so contact information needs to be
fed back to marketing, or an executive handling market
communication. We then need to declare that we aim to be a leader,
or are the leader, and do so at every available opportunity. Also,
when the prospect learns about us, what does he associate us with?
Are these associations positive or negative, and can we change
something to avoid the negative associations?
And finally, the “leadership” effort must be internal as well. The
product developers and all support staff must share the vision of
leadership. Sales people should watch for speaking and article
publishing opportunities within the target niche, and get internal
specialists involved. The payoff is confirmed when we become
perceived as thought leaders in the niche.
Then avoid
distractions until niche leadership has been established
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