1. You are by now convinced that visual storytelling is a better way to foster a two-way dialogue, build trust, and communicate unique value to your customers and prospects compared to slides (if not, go back and reread Parts 1 and 2, or put down the book).

2. You are familiar with the various whiteboard types (No? Please turn back to Part 3.)

3. You've put in place the resources (content and people) required to be successful with a whiteboard project.

4. You have confirmed your existing messaging and broken it out into the necessary whiteboarding ingredients using the Working Team Template.

5. You've spent about a month iterating with your working team to ensure your story is on point and achieves the whiteboard objectives you established at the beginning of the process, and you've gotten buyoff from higher level executives and stakeholders that the whiteboard narrative is consistent with their view of the organization's overarching strategic objectives and initiatives.

6. You have designed and packaged one or more of the whiteboard examples showcased in earlier chapters, and perhaps even videotaped yourself or a colleague delivering the whiteboard.

1. Trusted partners

2. Existing customers

3. Other third parties or industry analysts

4. Sales

1. Trusted Partners may include resellers, affiliates, or other closely associated individuals and entities that represent your organization, solutions, and services. These people sometimes know your solutions better than your own sellers, and they may have a unique perspective on customer buying criteria, market trends, and your unique differentiators. In fact, some customers we have worked with include business partners on working teams, although this is the exception rather than the rule. At the very least, partners may be asked to provide input during the design process in the form of one-hour remote web conferences or other informal meetings, to ensure you are on the right path with your whiteboard design, key themes, and content. Partners will be brutally honest about your whiteboard deliverable, and will help you calibrate design elements and scripting. Getting partner feedback can be done in person or remotely.

2. Existing Customers. Once you have incorporated changes suggested by business partners, it is time to informally showcase your whiteboard with a trusted, existing customer who you know can provide honest feedback. This is best done in person, not only so you can gauge reactions, but it is also an opportunity to get some face time with your customer and perhaps do some cross-sell or up-sell. In our experience, existing customers are most useful in providing input around your whiteboard's key market trends, typical challenges, and unique differentiators. They can also provide guidance on typical objections and key questions to ask. Rarely do we find that customers will completely reject a whiteboard design structure and story flow. More often, in addition to validating and suggesting changes to your existing whiteboard, they will suggest other whiteboard topics and types that you can put in your future whiteboard design plans.

3. Third Parties and Industry Analysts. Depending on the type of solutions and services you sell and your industry, your organization may subscribe to the services of an analyst firm or other third-party ratings organization, and you may have regular access to their experts. In this case, you may elect to run your whiteboard by them, as you would any other sales and marketing messaging you are in the process of developing. In many cases, analysts are regularly briefed during the message creation process, which typically occurs before a whiteboard is designed, in which case they will most likely not have any major objections from a content perspective. Keep in mind, however, that many industry analysts have distinct points of view and strong opinions, and they could suggest taking a completely different approach to your whiteboard. Take this feedback with a grain of salt, since your whiteboard has already gone through a lot of focus testing. What you are looking for is similar to the feedback you might get from a customer. Most important, you are looking for any type of violent reaction to your whiteboard messaging, themes, story flow, and other components.

4. Sales. Now that you have input/validation from partners, trusted customers, and in some cases third-party analysts and other firms (and have incorporated their suggested changes or additions), you are in a very strong position to organize a limited pilot whiteboard training of between 8 and 12 sellers. Your pilot program will exactly mirror the enablement session you plan to roll out more broadly, as will be discussed at a high level in the next chapter.