Overcoming a Sales Plateau Keith Charron, Regional President, EDS PLM Solutions

Challenge:
EDS PLM Solutions, the leading provider of Product Lifecycle Management software, wanted to overcome a plateau in sales revenues and improve interdepartmental cooperation.

"The process of how we created our presentations was pretty standard throughout our industry," said Keith.

"The salesperson was on his own to coordinate technical staff, management and product development people to pull together a presentation. Getting everyone to show up at the same time with the same message was akin to herding cats—total chaos. As a result, the salesperson was in ‘fire fighting’ mode most of the time with little room to execute a comprehensive plan."

Solution: In 2000, Keith and his staff attended an Articulus workshop featuring the Storyboarding technique.

"Traditionally in the technology selling industry, the goal for a presentation is to pack as much information as possible into a meeting, leaving the customer to sort out the key points after it's over," Keith said.

"Prior to the Articulus training, it would usually take three or four meetings with a prospect to get our key points across because it was so inefficiently done at the initial meeting."

Now, Keith says, by focusing on the key points before meeting with the customer, the presentation is clear, concise and, most importantly, memorable. The sales team only needs one meeting to get their point across, and the customer only needs one meeting to understand what the product can do for them.

Results: Keith has now trained all of his staff in the Articulus Storyboarding method and this decision has really paid off.

"In the 18 months since we implemented the Articulus storyboarding technique, the top 20 EDS PLM customers increased their spending by $12 million, or 117%—and, the quality of contracts and amount of business has more than doubled. Same presenters, same technology—Articulus training made the difference."

Keith and his staff continue to create successful presentations with the methodologies they learned at the Articulus workshop.

Seizing an Opportunity Bruce Black, Halliburton Energy Services

Challenge:
Halliburton Energy Services, the world's leading provider of products, services and integrated solutions for oil and gas exploration, development and production, was searching for a tool that would help boost the sales department's productivity.

Solution: In 2001, Bruce attended an Articulus workshop. Within two days of completing the workshop, he was able to put what he had learned to the test.

"One of my international clients from a major oil company requested a presentation and a tour of our equipment. The only day he had available for this was a Sunday, so we decided to keep everything as informal as possible. Applying the techniques we had learned in the Articulus workshop, my team researched the competition and decided to focus on Halliburton's experience, our ability to logistically supply and coordinate all services that might be required, and our industry safety record with these services.

On the day of our meeting, I had three slides with nothing more than a few logos and some photos. After a 15-minute presentation, we drove to where the equipment was ready to be shown. During the trip, I asked if his company would accept an unsolicited proposal from Halliburton. He didn't seem too keen about the idea at the time. Then we spent another couple of hours looking over and explaining various components of the equipment."

Results: At the end of the visit, the message Bruce and his team prepared for their client not only penetrated, it prompted definitive action on the part of his client.

"As the tour ended, my visitor turned to me and said, 'Prepare your proposal. I'll get it as high in my management as necessary for approval. I can't see how we can do this without Halliburton's experience and coordination ability. Halliburton's safety record will also be a great benefit.' I almost fell over! Our customer remembered our key message, and pre-empted a formal bid for this project, which gave our company a competitive advantage."

With more than 25 years of experience in sales, Bruce claims that the Articulus workshop is the single best sales tool he's ever received. He continues to incorporate ideas from the workshop to help transform his good sales people into great sales people.

The Storyteller’s Secret: How to turn “no decision” into committed action Greg Kozera, Halliburton Energy Services

Challenge:
In late 2001, Greg Kozera took a long, hard look at his recent sales performance, and he wasn’t satisfied with the view. As the account leader of business development in the emerging field of coal-bed methane (CBM) exploration, Greg and his team worked to convince energy companies to invest in this ready-to-be-tapped resource. While he was confident he had a compelling sales presentation to spur energy companies’ investments in CBM production, it became clear that something was missing in his team’s sales message.

“It was taking far too long to make the sale,” he says. “People who should have seen the opportunity just weren’t making the move. We’d give what we thought was a terrific presentation, but they wouldn’t call us back.”

Greg adds, “With one company in particular, we met three times before they truly understood our value. We kept asking ourselves: ‘Why don’t they get it?’”

Solution: The turning point for Greg and his team came in fall 2001, when he attended a Halliburton-sponsored training course on corporate storytelling conducted by Articulus, Inc. With help from Articulus, Greg found a fitting story in the inspirational book Acres of Diamonds written in 1915 by Russell H. Conwell, the founder of Temple University. The story tells of a farmer who sold his land to search the world for diamonds, never realizing that a huge diamond field existed beneath the farm he’d sold. The point of Conwell’s story hit home for Greg and his team.

"In the same way the farmer in the Conwell story didn’t realize he was sitting on a diamond bed,” says Kozera, “energy companies have been drilling through coal beds for years without knowing that the coal beds themselves are rich veins of natural gas. All they’ve really needed is an expert partner like Halliburton to help them see this. The Conwell story helps us get this point across."

As soon as he began leading off his presentations with the diamond story, Greg noticed a dramatic change in his audiences’ reactions. “Now people were getting excited and taking action,” he says. “They’d look for me right afterward and say things like, ‘We’re having a meeting of our oil and gas association next month. Can you come and do the same talk there?’”

Greg has since adjusted his whole approach to presenting. Today, in the opening moments of a talk, he’ll restrict his use of PowerPoint to showing photos to enliven his telling of the Conwell story. It’s only later—to provide evidence of his assertions—that he runs through the case studies and other fact-filled PowerPoint slides that had formerly dominated his presentation.

Results: “I really knew the diamond story was working,” he says, “when I met a familiar person at a meeting in Virginia. It turned out that months earlier he had been in the audience for a customer presentation I had made in Pittsburgh. He couldn’t recall my name, but he said, ‘Oh, I remember you. You’re the diamond man.’ That’s the power of a good story—it sinks into your memory and makes the point.

"Since we started telling the diamond story, we’ve doubled our annual CBM revenue. It’s amazing how something so simple could help to lift us out of a truly frustrating sales situation, where ‘no decision’ was the usual customer response. We’ve generated millions of dollars in new business for our company, and it’s largely thanks to the diamond story.

“It’s all about persuasion. Telling the right story, and telling it well, will move people in the direction you want them to go.”