WhiteboardSelling Prevents "Death by PowerPoint"
Sales enablement company emerges from stealth with powerful new solution for high-impact sales communications
Software AG, Borland, Avnet Technology Solutions, CA, Blue Coat and Symantec among early customers
Austin, TX – May 18, 2009 – WhiteboardSelling emerged from stealth today with the introduction of a sales enablement solution that is transforming the way sales teams communicate with high-level buyers. WhiteboardSelling gives salespeople the ability to convey their organization's message and value proposition visually -- on a whiteboard or any other writing surface -- in a compelling, confident and consistent fashion. The WhiteboardSelling solution combines whiteboard message development services, training and certification technology, and online tools to manage the WhiteboardSelling sales process. WhiteboardSelling has already enabled more than 10,000 field personnel in over 20 countries to use visual storytelling in their sales process; early customers include Software AG, Borland, Avnet Technology Solutions, CA, Blue Coat and Symantec. To date, WhiteboardSelling customers have designed and developed more than 100 whiteboards using WhiteboardSelling’s unique methodology and technology platform.
WhiteboardSelling addresses one of the primary challenges in enterprise sales: how to effectively engage high-level buyers and move them into action by communicating in business value terms instead of talking products and features with dozens of slides. Whether using a whiteboard, a flipchart, the back of an envelope or a tablet PC via desktop sharing software, sales teams can integrate the WhiteboardSelling visual storytelling model into their existing sales methodologies and apply the approach as a powerful differentiator in competitive and complex selling environments. WhiteboardSelling customers report better knowledge ownership by their salespeople, increased sales team confidence in delivering the value proposition to higher-level audiences, a significant boost in morale and shorter sales cycles.
"The phrase 'Death by PowerPoint®' has become a common way to describe the lack of interactivity and boredom engendered by slide presentations," said David Jenkins, co-founder and CEO of WhiteboardSelling. "Slide presentations are not only tedious; they can also become a crutch and reduce salespeople's confidence in their solution knowledge and their ability to communicate value in a convincing way. WhiteboardSelling's solution for visual storytelling allows salespeople to spark an interactive dialogue and communicate value in a confident, compelling and consistent fashion."
“WhiteboardSelling really opened up a dialogue among our sales teams about exactly what messages and value propositions are more critical to convey in order to close deals," said Joe Gentry, Senior Vice President at Software AG. “Instead of forcing our sales teams to sit through a boring PowerPoint presentation, we used interactive whiteboards from WhiteboardSelling to convey those key messages in a dynamic, engaging, and passionate way. The result is that our sales people are more confident in their ability to convey our company’s key messages, and they have the tools and skills necessary to present those ideas visually to prospects on whiteboards in meeting rooms around the world.”
A Turnkey Solution for High-Impact Sales Communications
The WhiteboardSelling solution combines message development services, training and certification in the WhiteboardSelling methodology, and the WhiteboardSelling Workbench®, an online application for managing the WhiteboardSelling process, to deliver high-impact and persistent results for enterprise sales teams.
Key components of the WhiteboardSelling solution include:
- Whiteboard Message Development Services: WhiteboardSelling works with “message owners” to define the scope of each whiteboard and understand key strategic and tactical goals, as well as competitive focus and other market elements. Whiteboards are developed and managed in the WhiteboardSelling Workbench®.
- WhiteboardSelling Symposiums: These turnkey, full-day and half-day enablement events include a variety of interactive role-play sessions to develop competence around whiteboarding skills. Field personnel walk out energized, empowered and ready to present the whiteboard to high-level audiences the very next day after training.
- Whiteboard Sales Certification Services: WhiteboardSelling enables customers to certify and document that every member of the sales organization executes on the whiteboard presentation in a professional, competent and consistent fashion. A secondary benefit of certification is that customers can gather data at the global, area, regional and individual level across fifteen different vectors of sales performance never before visible to sales management, and then use these metrics to make informed decisions about sales territory alignment, account coverage and training requirements.
- WhiteboardSelling Workbench®: The WhiteboardSelling Workbench® is an on-demand portal for sales message development, sales tools management, sales training and certification, and personalized skills assessment. This secure, hosted environment is offered on a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) subscription basis.
In addition to its core solutions offerings, WhiteboardSelling also provides options for online learning, inside sales training programs, and dynamic event and tradeshow whiteboards.
“The WhiteboardSelling sales training methodology enabled our sales teams to deeply connect with our new value proposition and messaging; they left these sessions knowing our core positioning cold,” said Steve Rowland, Vice President, North American Sales, Blue Coat Systems, Inc. “More importantly, they learned how to use whiteboarding to confidently and effectively communicate this key positioning to prospects in the field – with nothing more required than a whiteboard or even a pad of paper. My sales organization can now walk into sales meetings and recreate the whiteboard in an interactive way that really engages prospects in open dialogue. This enables our sales professionals to add differentiated value to our clients, prospects and partners.”
About WhiteboardSelling
WhiteboardSelling helps salespeople close more business by dramatically increasing their ability to deliver a compelling and consistent message to high-level audiences. WhiteboardSelling's innovative solution for visual sales communications includes message development services, training and certification in the WhiteboardSelling methodology, and the WhiteboardSelling Workbench®, an online application for managing the WhiteboardSelling process, to deliver high-impact and lasting results for enterprise sales teams. WhiteboardSelling has enabled more than 10,000 field personnel in over 20 countries to use visual storytelling in their sales process, including technology leaders such as Borland, Avnet Technology Solutions, CA, Blue Coat and Symantec. WhiteboardSelling is a privately held company based in Austin, Texas. For more information about WhiteboardSelling, please visit www.whiteboardselling.com.
WhiteboardSelling, Workbench and all other WhiteboardSelling brand and product names are service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of WhiteboardSelling, LLC or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. PowerPoint is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.
Contact:
Leyl Black
Marketing Alchemist
415-241-9921
