Chapter 18
Choosing the Right Topic for Your Whiteboard
If your objective is to embark on a serious whiteboard design project, you will no doubt have already put some thought into what your objectives are for the whiteboard. You probably have finite resources, and you probably want to respect the time and effort of your working team, once it is formed. So you need to think carefully about the topic you choose for the whiteboard. The topic will then drive the type and scope of the whiteboard, tell you who should be on the working team, determine the materials and key whiteboard ingredients you'll need, and define the project timeline.
Selecting a Whiteboard Topic
A PowerPoint presentation can be built rapidly, in a vacuum, and distributed to sales to be used tactically. A whiteboard is the basis for a well-conceived campaign that touches a x-functional group and has high visibility. What might seem like an obvious first candidate whiteboard topic may not be aligned with the needs of the sales force. When considering the topic and objectives of your whiteboard, you should test your assumptions by asking and answering these 10 key questions:
1. Can the majority of customer-facing personnel communicate the “elevator pitch” of your organization in a consistent and compelling fashion? If not, this is a clear indication that the right place to start—above all else—is a higher-level Why Change Whiteboard.
2. Are salespeople investing sales cycles in poorly qualified opportunities? Qualification and Discovery Whiteboards can help field personnel better prioritize which opportunities are worth investing sales cycles in.
3. Are sales opportunities being lost to “no decision” or “the status quo”? If so, a Why Change Whiteboard will help create a buying vision for your customer.
4. Are the near-term revenue goals and objectives of your organization disproportionately driven by a particular solution or product set? If so, a whiteboard directed at this solution will be well received by executives and sales leadership.
5. Are there particular solutions or products that salespeople gravitate toward based on how they are compensated? If a whiteboard story can help reps close more business for solutions that pay higher commissions or give them more quota credit, then the whiteboard's uptake will benefit.
6. Are there high revenue potential solutions and products that currently have low visibility among sales? If so, a whiteboard has the potential to raise awareness and open up or enhance new revenue streams for underserved products and solutions.
7. Is your sales organization pursuing new vertical markets or do you have a vertically aligned sales organization? Whiteboards designed to discuss solution value in the context of a particular vertical will address this alignment.
8. Have there been any recent acquisitions or mergers for which the rationale is unclear to either your sales force or customers? Whiteboards can be effectively used to educate salespeople and customers about how an acquisition, merger, or partnership makes business sense and benefits end customers.
9. Have a large number of new hires recently joined or will be joining the organization? We've worked with many organizations that rely on whiteboards as a mainstay of instructor-led new hire training.
10. Is there a particular competitor that is stealing market share or coming up over and over again in sales opportunities? In Chapter 14 we demonstrated a number of competitive whiteboards, which are often extremely popular with salespeople selling expensive solutions in highly competitive markets.
With all of the above options for whiteboard topics, how do you decide where to start? You could make a case that salespeople could derive significant benefit from any number of them. One of the easiest ways to decide is to survey your sales force using a web-based survey service. Your organization may already have a license to such a service.
The survey only needs to include a few questions. Here are some suggestions:
1. Would you like to see whiteboard stories developed that you can use in front of customers instead of slides? (Yes/No)
2. Which of the following topics would you like to see a whiteboard designed to cover? (Select three)
(a) Solution A
(b) Solution B
(c) Solution C
(d) Competitor A
(e) Competitor B
(f) Competitor C
(g) Elevator Pitch
(h) etc.
3. What other topics would you like to see covered by a whiteboard? (freeform text)
4. Do you have any whiteboard examples you currently use in sales situations? If so, can you please send a video, photo, or schematic to: (your e-mail)?
Question 1 can provide valuable data to garner executive support for whiteboard projects and initiatives. And question 4 will help identify any existing whiteboards that are being used “out in the wild,” and that may provide valuable input into your efforts.
