The Nomad Story:
Imagine this scenario. A few thousand years ago, a nomad is
stranded in the desert without food or water. An intelligent human from the future has created a
vitamin that can provide the nomad with enough energy to stay alive for one
week in the desert without food or water. This intelligent human has transported
the vitamin back in time along with another individual from the future, deemed
the adviser.
The adviser’s job is to convince the nomad to eat the
vitamin so that the nomad can stay alive. Because the vitamin does not look or smell appetizing, the nomad will not eat it without outside influence. First, the vitamin creator has to
convince the adviser why the nomad should eat the vitamin. Does the vitamin
creator say “this piece of matter contains the proper amino acids to decompose
within an indigestion system to sustain proper nucleus nourishment?” No, the
vitamin creator tells the adviser, “This pill will keep that man alive for the
next week.”
The problem arises from the fact that the adviser and the nomad
do not speak the same language. What does the adviser do to ensure that the nomad
consumes the vitamin?
The Analogy:
In this story, the nomad is the client, the adviser is the
sales team, the vitamin is a company product, and the vitamin creator is a large organization with vast resources.
How Large Organizations Fall Short of Empowering their Sales Force:
The first step in the process is for large company (vitamin creator)
to convince the sales team (adviser) to sell their product (the vitamin). Most large organizations take the first approach in this story by telling their sales team abstract and vague descriptions, such as
"our product is smart, brilliant, and sophisticated, which will allow it to increase revenue and market share while decreasing costs."
When in reality, the large corporation should really be telling the sales team a more concrete story, such as
"our product helps clients with large
amounts of activity during peak occasions, such as an increase in online
traffic for a retailer during Christmas.”
Its real, its direct, and it includes an
example.
Large organizations dress up their products when speaking internally as if
their employees are clients. Their message needs to be short, sweet, and directly
to the point. The sales team is responsible for dressing up the products when
speaking with clients. Going back to the story, the answer to the solution is
that the adviser wraps the vitamin in bacon and hands it to the nomad.
Once the sales team understands the true nature of the
products they sell, then they can wrap them up in bacon and sell them. However,
they can’t do this unless they truly understand the product itself.
