Landslide Customers - Aethon Case Study

Landslide Customers - Aethon Case Study

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AETHON CHOOSES SWM OVER SFA/CRM

Size of company: 60 employees

Size of sales team: 18

Sales cycle: 4-5 months

Average deal size: $300K

Target Market: Hospitals with more than 100 beds

Titles sold to: CFO, Department Director, End User

Departments sold to: Pharmacy, Dietary, Distribution, Labs

Selling Process:

• 19 step selling process
• Prospecting done by salespeople
• Heavy ROI analysis
• Key Milestone in process: Blessing Meeting with economic buyer to establish NTB

Competition: Status Quo; no direct competition

When Aethon closed its most recent round of $11 million in funding, Peter Seiff, its VP of Sales, knew things needed to change in his sales organization. Aethon’s flagship product, the TUG, a robotic transport system designed for hospitals, was seeing rapid market adoption. The company needed to increase its workforce, especially its sales organization, to meet the growing market demand.

Traditional SFA does not help

Aethon’s TUG product represents a technology breakthrough for automating the distribution of meals, medicines, lab samples, linens and other essential items in hospitals. Being the only product of its kind on the market, establishing the need for a TUG and showing savings large enough to be meaningful for hospital CFOs requires careful presentation and in-depth ROI analysis. A successful sale involves getting buy-in from end user as well as the economic buyer. Even more importantly, because of the significant up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, each customer continues to be a valuable source of continuing income streams after a deal is closed. As is common in small companies, Aethon’s initial tightly knit sales team of 6 was very familiar with all its customers and how to sell its products successfully. All the sales people were in close contact with the company’s founders and senior managers and understood exactly how to position its offering and explain its value proposition. Each followed the company’s unique selling process without it being formally defined. As the company started to scale its sales organization and triple it in size, Peter knew the old methods of using Outlook and excel spreadsheets would not be sufficient to effectively manage the larger sales force, prospect pipeline and customer base. With a high ticket item that is an ‘off-budget’ purchase, Aethon’s new sales team would need a lot more than automated contact management to consistently close deals.

Peter not only wanted to capture comprehensive data about each prospect and salesperson’s progress but also wanted to proactively help salespeople close more deals. Peter investigated traditional SFA offerings on the market, but was not impressed. These systems provided no effective way to communicate the selling steps/practices that had proven to be successful in establishing the value of the product. He needed a solution that provided help in closing complex deals that require selling at several different levels in the organization.

The Solution – Landslide Sales Workstyle Management

Landslide caught Peter’s attention because it bundled the ability to quickly define a sales process unique to Aethon, with meaningful report to measure effectiveness of the sales team, and easy access to sales resources and documents.

Clearly Defined Sales Process

With Landslide, Aethon’s selling process was formally defined within days and made clearly visible for every new hire to follow without requiring intensive training or repeated instructions. The company has adopted selling practices that helped reduce the sales cycle by more than 25%. Landslide ensures that each and every salesperson is aware of and following these practices.

Reduced New Hire Training & Ramp-up Time

Landslide also reduces new hire ramp time by incorporating critical sales resources such as ROI analysis, process and availability of implementation personnel, reference customers and usage data within the context of the sales process. The solution allows Aethon salespeople to easily access the most relevant resources for each selling step without having to spend time looking for the most recent versions.

Increased Effectiveness of Customer Communication with io Channel Peter decided to select Landslide primarily because of the ability to define a customized sales process and generate sales effectiveness reports. He was not convinced that two additional elements of the Landslide solution, namely the io Channel and the VIP service, would add value to Aethon’s sales organization.

The Landslide io Channel is a unique capability that allows each salesperson to create a dedicated portal or website for each prospect. The salesperson can post all the information relevant to a particular deal to this portal. Instead of searching through emails and desktops, a prospect can access this centralized repository at any time from any location. They can also provide other members of the buying team access to this portal so that everyone knows the exact status of the project. Most importantly, the salesperson receives immediate notification whenever a prospect downloads a document or posts any comments allowing them to follow up in a timely fashion. The io Channel provides a unique view into the buying cycle, the composition of the buying team and the level of interest in the purchase.

Peter was concerned that salespeople will use the io Channel to by-pass in-person visits to customers thus losing the opportunity to build deeper relationships. However, this issue was resolved quickly once site visits were defined as a key component of the selling process. After four months of using Landslide, the sales team is beginning to use the io Channel to communicate more effectively with their prospects and Peter expects the usage to go up significantly.

Increased Accuracy of Sales Data while Reducing Data Entry

Every Landslide subscription includes access to a live VIP assistant for every salesperson. This service is offered at no extra charge and is provided to offload the administrative work from salespeople giving them more time to sell. Like many VPs of sales, Peter initially felt that these administrative tasks are a part of the salesperson’s jobs and should be done by them. However, after seeing the rapid adoption of the VIP service by his sales team and realizing that it frees up time for them to think strategically rather than tactically, he is now convinced of the value of the whole solution.

Additionally, Peter has discovered that the VIP assistants are critical to keeping all the information in Landslide up to date. Salespeople are calling in updates on their drive home, rather than waiting to do it all at the end of the month. As a result, he has a better assessment of where they are in the sales cycle and can make more strategic decisions. For example, based on the buyer trends he was seeing mid-cylce, Aethon decided to offer a new lease program. Having the flexibility to make that kind of quick decision is typically unheard of in capital equipment sales to the healthcare market.

Landslide SalesWorkstyle Management

Landslide is not a Salesforce Automation (SFA) or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) offering. It is a sales Workstyle Management service built for salespeople by salespeople to increase the effectiveness and productivity of their work. It helps salespeople in doing what matters the most - closing deals - without forcing unproductive administrative tasks on them. Landslide provides salespeople help in key areas crucial to their success:

• It helps them follow a proven sales process to close deals
• It helps them differentiate themselves by providing a one-of-a-kind buying experience
• It helps them qualify prospects and focus attention on realopportunities
• It drastically reduces their data entry time so they stay in the selling mode, not administrative mode
  

Give it a test drive and see how Sales Workstyle Management can provide a jolt to your sales team.