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Helping a Technical Team Gain Market Acceptance
| by Sandi Villarreal |
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| Categories: Case Studies, Value Proposition Tags: business case justification, Buy-In, Sales and Marketing, selling story, Value Proposition, value story | |||||
When our consultant first met the prospective Boeing spinoff, Advanced Tooling Solutions, the team had fabricated and tested a prototype tool that promised the automotive industry cost advantages and schedule flexibility. But the team was unsure about how to sell to the automotive industry.
Our first challenge was to develop a value proposition for the automotive industry. We documented the team’s assumptions about the economic challenges of automotive suppliers, thus documenting the team’s assumptions about the business pains that the new tooling technology was addressing.
By reviewing the value proposition with automotive manufacturers and suppliers, the team tested its understanding of the operational and economic issues as they existed at the time. The team learned that the issues varied depending on the position of who they talked to—manufacturers, suppliers, engineers or marketing executives.
In meetings with the major automobile manufacturers, it became clear that buy-in for the new tooling approach would have to come from their suppliers of major automotive body panels. Generally, automobile manufacturers buy automotive parts and assemblies, not tools that fabricate parts. The new tool would have to be proven in suppliers’ production lines.
Having gained concrete market intelligence through our process of value proposition testing, we could justify shifting the focus of the team’s value story from manufacturers to parts suppliers.
Our consultant led the team toward getting one or two suppliers to use the tool in suitable production runs. Discussing the value story with suppliers, we learned that small but sustainable cost and schedule advantages could help supplies differentiate themselves in the highly commoditized automotive component business. We therefore stressed the cost and flexibility advantages for suppliers that adopted the new method.
“We got into this as a technical team,” Smith said. “Not having made lots of sales calls, we did not understand the selling process. We did not understand what we needed at each step in the sale.”
But as our consultant and the team jointly engaged parts makers and automotive executives in discussion around their particular economic situation, the team gained the insight needed to tailor its sales approach. The focus shifted to the perspective of the audience.
“Our early pitches had too much information, too many details, and it was confusing for our audience. [The consultant] helped us be clear, simplifying key messages for the audience at hand,” Smith said. “It’s not just about feeling good about a meeting, and agreeing to meet again. It’s about actually getting something out of the meeting.”
Now focused on providing competitive advantage for leading automotive component suppliers, Advanced Tooling Solutions offered suppliers an opportunity to invest plant time and expertise in a test of the new tooling. Two accepted. The tests will help the tools become qualified for production-rate manufacturing.
The team is gaining valuable experience on live parts manufacturing lines that will validate the method for rate production and further refine the team’s sales and marketing focus.
Are you providing sales coaching and tools for your technical teams to succeed with customers? Or, will they become frustrated?
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