product excellence 2014 earnix (approved for release)
TRANSCRIPT
The Force of creating
Direct Customer Relationships from End User to CEO
Aviv Cohen VP Products and Marketing
EARNIX
Years in the trenches
• 15 years of building products
• Some of which are selling strong to date
• I did a lot of experiments
• …some worked
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Acknowledge the Barriers
Corporate barriers
Sales / Account managers
Travel budgets
Personal barriers
Fear
Uncertainty
Doubt
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All you need is
1. Integrity – you’re there to help them, don’t sell
2. Product knowledge – know your system
3. Market knowledge – a broader perspective
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Tips – Getting the Access
Tag along your CEO
Leverage your board members
Create a customer advisory board
Coordinate a roadmap roadshows
Leverage the VP Marketing / Community Manager
Direct approach (leverage the PA)
Conferences
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Tips – Running the Meeting
Agenda: e.g. roadmap, market trends, or specific solution
A little small talk, then straight to the point
Verify and address the customer challenges
Share market information, disruptive trends
Finally – ask 1,2 questions you need answers to
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Company has over $20B in marketing cap
Approached: Chief Actuary (20 yrs experience)
Worked in many of the prime insurers in Europe
We needed to create UI to a new product that models the customer risk analytics process and practices
Recipe:
1 Long & trusted relationship
3 meetings x 2 hours each
Shake well, serve with an olive
Results: PRD defined & verified
Case Study - Financial Arm of a UK Retailer
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PRD
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Case Study – Mellanox UFM Software
• Network Provisioning Product wasn’t selling
• Product Manager (Tom Thirer, Mellanox) went on an ‘around the world in 80 days’ tour
• Sit down with >10 customers
• Thru Europe and US
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Priceless Input
Vertical A Vertical B Vertical C
Monitoring & Root cause analysis
Device Management
Fabric Provisioning
• Result: shift from Provisioning to Monitoring
• Over 100,000 licenses to date and counting
• Couldn’t have done it without that input
Let’s link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/[email protected]