Pursuing a complex, major sale is a sizeable investment for any company. It is vital that sales professionals work to an all inclusive plan that improves competitive positioning and delivers a return on investment.

Channel Enablers’ Major Opportunity Process (MOP) is a structured approach to qualifying and winning major sales opportunities. It combines a two day training workshop with a set of checklists and templates to guide partner sales people through each stage of a major sale.

MOP has been designed with partners in mind – it is not overly complex and is not seen as paperwork. Partner sales people can progressively add the levels of analysis required by the complexity of the sale, and need only invest the time that makes sense for the potential return.

MOP program content

When a sales cycle is long, complex and competitive, with more than one customer decision maker, partner sales representatives need to create a sales plan that can deal with this complexity and make their next steps clear.

Vendors, customers and partners all want to maximize their return on investment. It is important to:

• adequately cover buyers and their issues
• focus on competitive strengths and guard points of vulnerability
• clearly communicate customer value
• understand risks and resource requirements

Channel Enablers’ Major Opportunity Process is about winning these big deals. Participants develop competitive strategies and a clear understanding of their differentiation and value.

Initial workshop content

In the two day MOP training workshop participants work on live sales opportunities and develop winning strategies. The following topics are covered:

• The business opportunity funnel
• A tool to manage and set sales priorities.
• How prospects buy
• Looking at the buying process and points of sales influence.
• How to identify decision influencers and plan appropriate activity
• Understanding organizational structure and priorities at different levels.
• Identifying stakeholders, their buying roles, power, motivation and priorities.
• How behavioral style affects the sales relationship.
• How to uncover and cater for personal needs.
• Competitive strategies
• Analysing a competitor’s position and planning appropriate strategies.
• Executive selling
• Identifying executive priorities and planning strategies for gaining executive support.
• Action planning
• Recognising and dealing with competitive tactics.
• Preparing a strategy and an action plan for a current real life business opportunity.

In addition, comprehensive guides, templates and checklists are applied to current opportunities in workshop sessions.

MOP process tools

MOP is built like a toolkit. Simple tools can be used for a fast analysis on smaller or less complex sales opportunities. More sophisticated in-depth analysis tools can be used when the complex or large sale demands it. Such flexibility is critical to partner acceptance.

MOP Microsoft Word macro-enabled analysis tools include:

• A front page at-a-glance snapshot of the deal
  This records who is involved, the MOP version and last update, a forecast of opportunity revenue and timing, an assessment of the key qualifying questions, the competitors, the primary sales objective, and core value proposition.

• Stakeholder identification and coverage
  A one page at-a-glance view of all the critical people involved in the decision, indicating the degree of coverage of each person, their attitude and power, and the role they play.

• Opportunity qualification
  Two levels of detailed questions that really drop-forge an opportunity. A step-by-step, tick-the-box process helps partners and vendors answer the four main qualification questions – 1. Will the customer buy something? 2. Can we win this? 3. Is this good business for our partnership? 4. When will this happen?

• Critical stakeholder analysis
  A detailed look at critical individual stakeholders, developing the crucial selling messages on which to focus in complex deals. At times customer stakeholders don’t agree among themselves and it may not be possible to satisfy everyone’s needs. MOP helps to refine your sales message and focus on critical differentiating messages and issues.

• Specify your sales objective
  Not always just a simple choice. This section guides sales people through the development of their fundamental strategy for the opportunity, considering such questions as: How much of the opportunity should they go after? What and how much should they sell? Who is the real customer? In what stage of the buying process is the customer?

• ‘Winning story’ and value proposition
  Looks at the partnership’s competitive strengths and weaknesses, key selling messages, competitor claims and defence, and the partnership’s overall differentiating value proposition to the end-user customer.          

• Return on sales resources
  Identifies critical resources and plans to secure them, challenges the wisdom of planned resource allocation and looks for faster, cheaper ways of winning the sale.

• Activity planning
  All analysis tools prompt for action planning. Standard MOP templates include embedded action planning spreadsheets with macros, enabling sorting by status, due date and owner.

MOP benefits

• Increase revenues and productivity by winning more and bigger sales
  • Simple processes and checklists ensure that partners don’t miss vital people/issues.
  • Analysis tools help to formulate strategy in complex sales and make key selling messages clear.
• Improve partner and vendor profitability
  • Big deals are expensive to go after. MOP includes best practice processes for qualification of competitive position, likelihood of customer action, size of opportunity and revenue timing. Work on deals you can win.
  • Competitive Strategy - best action plan. Not all sales people have the same ‘instinct’ or experience. Structured processes help take the ‘magic’ out of deal winning strategies.
• Improve forecast accuracy
  • As part of an overall sales forecasting process, MOP helps you understand and better predict sales results.
• Build tighter more productive ecosystem teams
  • MOP is a common approach and communication tool. Productive forming and re-forming of ‘virtual teams’ is a crucial productivity and competitive success factor. MOP’s teamwork processes as well as use of common tools and language aids this process and helps specialist technical experts add value to sales efforts.
• Build closer ties with partners. Teach them to speak your language. Help them to become more ‘comfortable’ selling your products/services. Help them benefit from your tools and support.
• MOP is both proven and unique
  • MOP builds upon the theory from the best thinkers in the industry.
  • It has been successfully implemented by large groups.
  • It can be uniquely customised and branded to become the vendor’s own program. This builds a sense of field ownership and community with partners and is a unique competitive weapon in the market.

MOP format and media

Channel Enablers’ MOP program includes implementation consulting to customise MOP to fit the vendors’ own products, markets and routes. MOP is launched to partners in an initial two day kick-off workshop to train them in the use of MOP guides and macro-enabled MS Word templates. Customized MOP materials bear the vendor’s logo – identifying MOP as a competitive strength in a vendor’s partner program.