Chapter 23

Packaging Your Whiteboard

Once you have a whiteboard design you are happy with, or a set of whiteboards aligned with each of the whiteboard types we have discussed, it's time to “productionize” your whiteboard so it is consumable by your field personnel and others intended to deliver the whiteboard in the course of business. You've written a script aligned with each step of the whiteboard as described in Chapter 22, but there are still five steps to make your whiteboard sales-ready.

1. Creating professional visuals.
2. Adding key questions to ask.
3. Adding Objection Reframes.
4. Packaging your whiteboard into sales tools.
5. Recording whiteboard videos and animations.

Let's talk about each of these.

Creating Professional Visuals

While we have the benefit of icon libraries, design templates, and professional whiteboard design software to manage content and generate whiteboard sales tools, a do-it-yourself approach to giving your whiteboard high production values is not insurmountable. Ironically, PowerPoint is an ideal platform to lay out your whiteboard text and iconography. Anyone with a pen-enabled Windows-based laptop/tablet running PowerPoint 2010 or later can take advantage of PowerPoint's pen annotation feature. Even those without a pen-enabled system can use the “Pens” Quick Access Toolbar command to draw pen annotations using the mouse. Here are the six steps required to do this:

1. Right-click on the Quick Access Toolbar (located either above or below the Ribbon) and select “Customize Quick Access Toolbar.”
2. Select “All Commands” under “Choose Commands” in the “PowerPoint Options” dialog box.
3. Scroll down to the “Pens” command.
4. Click on the “Add” button to move the Pens command into your list of commands.
5. Once it shows up in your Quick Access Toolbar, clicking on the Pens command allows you to select a pen color and width.
6. Using your mouse, draw your shape and notice the “anti-aliasing” feature that will smooth out jagged lines.

You aren't limited to using PowerPoint, and graphic designers familiar with professional design software can use pen tablets to draw iconography and other visuals. The key is to maintain a whiteboard drawing style for the visuals and create them in a fashion that is easy enough for a salesperson to draw without much practice.

Adding Key Questions to Ask

As mentioned in earlier chapters, it is critical to build interactivity into whiteboards for sales, which are designed to promote a two-way information exchange. The most effective way to do this is to write several questions that salespeople can ask during each step of the whiteboard conversation. Let's look at how questions can be integrated into the Today versus Tomorrow Why Change Whiteboard example we demonstrated in Chapter 12.

When presenting the Why Change section of the whiteboard, questions a salesperson might ask a customer could include:

“In what parts of your product mix are you seeing the most spoilage and revenue loss due to shipping delays?”
“How are temperature variations during shipping impacting spoilage rates?”

You will notice we try to avoid yes/no questions since they can lead to an opportunity for a prospect to simply roadblock the discussion. Open-ended questions can also be thought-provoking and get the customer to think about things they haven't yet assessed.

During the Why Now section, a key question could be:

“What alternatives have you considered to FTL (Full Truck Load) shipping for fresh foods from farm to store?”

This kind of question can get your prospect thinking about alternatives that play into your strengths. In this case, one of Cool Road's core competencies is Less Than Truck Load shipping, which decreases spoilage and decreases time-to-store.

When it comes to discussing the customer proof point, an obvious question would be, “We have customers who have seen decreased shipping times and reduced spoilage compared to traditional shipping solutions. Would speaking with them be useful in your evaluation process?” In this case, a yes/no question is appropriate because it is a direct question about a proposed action item.

Adding Objection Reframes

During any sales presentation or discussion—whether using PowerPoint, a whiteboard, or just sitting with your prospect over lunch—you'll always get objections. Seasoned salespeople usually know how to handle even the most difficult objections. But new hires and less experienced sellers can benefit from coaching, and accompanying the whiteboarding sales tools with objection handlers is a great opportunity to enhance the whiteboard dialogue. Effectively handling objections can only help build trusted advisor status.

Looking at the Why Now section of the Today versus Tomorrow Why Change Whiteboard, a typical objection might be,

Our shipping operations may not be the most efficient, but they've been in place for years now and there would be a lot of risk and potential disruption caused by a switch to a Less-Than-Truckload approach.

An appropriate reframe might be,

That's a valid concern, and Food-All-Right had the same fear before we moved them to a more efficient model. We have proven transition planning models that can gradually move you off an FTL model without any disruption. All you will see is gradually declining spoilage rates.

ACTIVITY
Using the Today versus Tomorrow Whiteboard example you put together earlier, create two questions and two objection reframes for each of the four motions of the whiteboard.

Packaging Your Whiteboard into Sales Tools

You should now have professional whiteboard visuals for each step or chapter in your whiteboard, as well as scripting, questions to ask, and objection reframes. You now need to come up with sales tools that encompass these whiteboard elements and make the whiteboard consumable and learnable by sales. You can use any of the Microsoft Office or Adobe products, or work with your creative team to come up with layouts and whiteboard guides to bring everything together. These tools should be easy to navigate and be usable in the hands of sellers as they practice at the whiteboard, and if possible should conform to the branding and color/font guidelines of other sales tools and materials distributed to sales. If possible, whiteboard tools should be printed on heavy stock or laminated, not just color copies on standard weight paper.

It is also important to note that whiteboard tools are typically used solely by sales to learn the whiteboard content before, during, and after whiteboard training, and are not intended for external consumption by customers and prospects.

Recording Whiteboard Videos

In additional to physical whiteboarding tools for sales, you may consider recording videos of the whiteboard being presented by a subject matter expert. You can also record a video of yourself drawing the whiteboard onscreen using digital paper (discussed in Chapter 27) and using a variety of screen capture programs.

These videos can be excellent training tools for existing sellers, and are especially valuable for new hires. They can be used as part of e-learning modules and may even be leveraged as external, customer-facing marketing assets for lead generation and other programs.

If you are going to video yourself or someone else presenting the whiteboard, the following are some practical guidelines to ensure the video is professional and ready for distribution. Even if you have a professional crew or video studio, these 17 guidelines will be useful.

1. Any low-cost HD video camera will do, even the Flip Video type devices mounted on small tripods. Just make sure you have plenty of storage space, either internal to the device or using an external SD card or Micro SD card storage.
2. Identify a quiet, well-lit conference room with a full-size whiteboard (wall-mounted or freestanding) within five feet or less of the conference table.
3. Do not wear stripes or pure black—solid earth tones and blue colors are preferred.
4. Using the tripod, use a straight-on shot/camera angle; experiment with angles to minimize shadows.
5. Stand perpendicular to the whiteboard.
6. Using your black dry erase marker, mark off four corners of the drawing space with four faint dots to ensure the whiteboard drawing remains within the camera frame.
7. If possible, avoid including whiteboard borders or metal frames in the camera shot.
8. Put a chair behind you to keep yourself from moving out of the video frame.
9. Put tape, a water bottle, or other object in front of your foot as a reminder to stay within the camera frame.
10. Use 720p video quality setting.
11. Experiment with audio settings to yield the best quality (you can optionally wear a clip-on microphone, either physically connected to the camera or wireless).
12. Film each clip associated with each whiteboard step, stopping the camera between each step; retake steps as necessary; mark each clip with “clip x, take x.”
13. Feel free to refer to your whiteboard sales tool in between takes to ensure you are following the structure, flow, and content (iconography, etc.) of the whiteboard story. However, memorization of the whiteboard script is not required, and in fact is discouraged. You want to demonstrate how important it is that presenters use their own language and presentation style when delivering the whiteboard talk track.
14. Important—take care to erase only what is drawn during a step prior to a retake of that step. Erasing previous step contents will require a complete reshoot.
15. Talk while you write (then turn to the camera and expand on the topic).
16. Put caps on whiteboard markers in between use to avoid drying them out.
17. Good penmanship helps, and slowing down 5 to 10 percent will work wonders.
ACTIVITY
With the help of a colleague, find a conference room and video yourself presenting the whiteboard.
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