Zefer moves in Internet Time 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Case Study: Zefer I
Case Study: Zefer II
Case Study: Zefer III

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Preview 

Ask someone in a fast-growing startup to give you the two-minute version of the company story, and you will probably walk away with a reasonable understanding of it. Ask 15 more employees in the same company, and you might get confirmation of the message, but you're just as likely to walk away wondering what industry the company is in. Remember playing telephone as a kid? 

Our experience working with startups confirms that getting the "elevator pitch" consistent becomes steadily more complex and important as the company grows in size and geographic reach -- every point of interaction with the external world represents who Zefer is and the value of what it sells. So we emphasize message training for all current staff. We distribute what we call our "cocktail conversation" sheet -- our answers to the questions we are most frequently asked, from what we do to why it is relevant and different. We don't expect -- nor would we want -- our employees to memorize and spout our messages like robots, but consistency is critical. A combination of individual personality and the expression of the same core message is what we strive for. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

PERFECT PITCH 

I recently spent a Saturday morning with Gerry Dubé, Zefer's new executive vice president of client development, to get his thoughts on how important having a company-level pitch is for effective sales management. Gerry came to us from Computer Sciences (NYSE: CSC), where he led $7 billion's worth of sales over a two-year period; before that he spent ten years at Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq: SUNW) in sales. "The lines between pitching the company and selling products and services are blurred," he said. "Customers want a relationship with you as much as they want the product or service that they're buying." 

Beyond the pitch, what makes for effective sales? 
We have learned that we must manage the sales process. Companies go through a series of steps with customers: from lead generation, lead qualification, proposal generation, negotiation, to close. A proven entity like Gerry will help us build a strategy that identifies the right target client and moves us through each step. If we analyze drop-off rates at each step we can determine if a problem lies in our ability to get to bat or in our batting average. When Zefer first started, our hurdle was not in closing, but in getting in front of enough clients that matched our Fortune 1,000 target profile. 
 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

TOUCH AND CLICK 

To get client doors to open and remain that way, we require relationship-driven professionals. As a service business, Zefer does not have spec sheets or product descriptions that allow skilled field representatives to engineer their pitch. Instead, we have discovered that our best company ambassadors are not silver-tongued sales reps but people who use value-added selling to create insight at each "touch point" with a client. Basically, they're good listeners. We hope that our client development staff will also focus on building and extending the relationships that they start. As Ken Akoundi, a partner at the risk-management consultancy RiskMetrics, points out on the Case Study message board, "It's only about the relationship. The easiest sale is to the person who has already bought something from you." 

Our goal is to build a portfolio of lasting client relationships that will serve as a self-reinforcing track record. As our clients become more sophisticated, and as the Internet industry matures, this track record will be determined by one thing -- our ability to deliver on our promises. That's this month's topic. 
 

Case study -Zefer I 
Case Study: Zefer II
Case Study: Zefer III