March 16, 2010
Customer Success Story | Steve Harper Uses Glance to Increase Sales Efficiency
A Glance Customer Success Story
Steve Harper started selling in 1992 and hasn’t looked back. He has used his knowledge of sales dynamics, sales tools, and effective selling to develop training curriculum as a consultant and sales training facilitator. Most recently, he has focused on how the Sales 2.0 world has altered the sales process – for good.
What He Sells
Plan2Win develops software to fill the “tool gap” in most CRM systems around territorial strategy and key account planning. Plan2Win guides users through lists of questions on contacts, customers, competitors and geography, and creates territorial sales plans from the information.
“It asks questions we know most sales people have little time to consider. By working through the answers, sales reps gain valuable insight into the way they do business,” Steve said.
Steven’s Sales Challenge
Technology and economics have conspired to compress the sales cycle so radically that sales people typically must accomplish in one call what would have required several calls and an in-person meeting as recently as two years ago.
“Buyers no longer take meetings,” Steve said. “Every company today is smaller than they were a year ago, so decision-makers are much busier and they’re getting calls from more sales people than ever. You don’t have a call to introduce yourself and sound them out, then another to make your sales pitch and start talking about your solution. When you get the prospect on the phone and they show interest, you had better be able to show them something or the sale is going to the next person. If you don’t have me at hello, you’re done.”
Web-based conferencing and traditional demonstration tools, however, weren’t designed with this pace in mind. Most of them are complex, unreliable, and require the hassles of software downloads, pre-scheduling and registration, which won’t work with today’s harried buyers.
How Glance Helps
Steve has a Glance sales demo ready to go whenever he calls a prospect. If the prospect is interested, he can instantly transition to showing what’s on his desktop and enhance the engagement immediately, with little to no effort on the prospect’s end.
“At my seminars I always ask, if you think sales is a process, why do you treat it like an event? “Most screen sharing tools treat sales as an event, where you have to schedule a session in advance. By using Glance to make screen sharing part of my process, I can ask my prospect if they want a quick demo, and within 48 seconds they’re looking at my screen.”
Results
Steve says Glance gives him the “two degrees of improvement” that provides an edge over his competitors.
“A constant challenge in sales is what can I do differently from the other guy so I can be more successful,” he said. “Even a one or two percent efficiency increase is going to get me more attention, and I’m getting way more than that from Glance.”
About Glance
Glance is a simple, quick-connecting screen-sharing tool designed to help sales pros maximize every conversation within all steps of the sales cycle; prospect, demo, close and support. The Arlington, Mass.-based company’s technology is used by thousands of companies worldwide. For more information, or to sign up for a free, 7-day trial, visit http://glance.net or call 1-888-945-2623.
Who
Steven Harper
CEO and Founder, Plan2Win Software LLC, and
Sales Facilitator, The Bridge Group
Steve Harper started selling in 1992 and hasn’t looked back. He has used his knowledge of sales dynamics, sales tools, and effective selling to develop training curriculum as a consultant and sales training facilitator. Most recently, he has focused on how the Sales 2.0 world has altered the sales process – for good.
Plan2Win develops software to fill the “tool gap” in most CRM systems around territorial strategy and key account planning. Plan2Win guides users through lists of questions on contacts, customers, competitors and geography, and creates territorial sales plans from the information.
“It asks questions we know most sales people have little time to consider. By working through the answers, sales reps gain valuable insight into the way they do business,” Steve said.
Steven’s Sales Challenge
Technology and economics have conspired to compress the sales cycle so radically that sales people typically must accomplish in one call what would have required several calls and an in-person meeting as recently as two years ago.
“Buyers no longer take meetings,” Steve said. “Every company today is smaller than they were a year ago, so decision-makers are much busier and they’re getting calls from more sales people than ever. You don’t have a call to introduce yourself and sound them out, then another to make your sales pitch and start talking about your solution. When you get the prospect on the phone and they show interest, you had better be able to show them something or the sale is going to the next person. If you don’t have me at hello, you’re done.”
Web-based conferencing and traditional demonstration tools, however, weren’t designed with this pace in mind. Most of them are complex, unreliable, and require the hassles of software downloads, pre-scheduling and registration, which won’t work with today’s harried buyers.
How Glance Helps
Steve has a Glance sales demo ready to go whenever he calls a prospect. If the prospect is interested, he can instantly transition to showing what’s on his desktop and enhance the engagement immediately, with little to no effort on the prospect’s end.
“At my seminars I always ask, if you think sales is a process, why do you treat it like an event? “Most screen sharing tools treat sales as an event, where you have to schedule a session in advance. By using Glance to make screen sharing part of my process, I can ask my prospect if they want a quick demo, and within 48 seconds they’re looking at my screen.”
Results
Steve says Glance gives him the “two degrees of improvement” that provides an edge over his competitors.
“A constant challenge in sales is what can I do differently from the other guy so I can be more successful,” he said. “Even a one or two percent efficiency increase is going to get me more attention, and I’m getting way more than that from Glance.”
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About Plan2Win
Plan2Win Software was founded by sales veterans and former vice presidents of sales to provide tools for real territory sales strategy and key account sales planning. The company’s software and sales training push sales people to think like business people. They learn to think analytically, methodically and strategically about their industries, their selling techniques and their sales territories. More importantly, Plan2Win makes them think in new ways. To be successful in today’s environment, sales people have to have business acumen as well as sales skills. For more information visit http://www.territoryplan.com/About Glance
Glance is a simple, quick-connecting screen-sharing tool designed to help sales pros maximize every conversation within all steps of the sales cycle; prospect, demo, close and support. The Arlington, Mass.-based company’s technology is used by thousands of companies worldwide. For more information, or to sign up for a free, 7-day trial, visit http://glance.net or call 1-888-945-2623.
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