Steve Hurley interviews Nina Hargus, VP of Global Services at EMC Corporation on some of the difficulties in enabling the channel to sell solutions
Everyone talks about "solutions" these days but few seem to invest in the changes necessary to move beyond the rhetoric. For example, truly developing, marketing, and selling integrated B2B solutions typically requires both a strong focus from the top down and a new alignment from the bottom up.
VMware, a software company focused on virtualization and cloud computing, recently faced a classic dilemma that many companies, especially technology-based companies, have encountered. The business model was to develop and sell software packages. These packages were created and sold as products -- traditional product development processes were applied, the portfolio was comprised of 60+ separate products that were sold separately, and the marketing programs and messages were designed to support each of the product categories independently. The reason for this approach can be traced back to its historic roots -- it started out as a single-product company. Through new technology developments, plus a succession of acquisitions, the company quickly expanded its portfolio with no shift in its go-to-market or sales strategy. In effect, VMware was doing what many software companies have always done -- focused on developing a broad portfolio of differentiated products, and then incenting the sales force to go out and sell licenses for all of them.
B2B companies committed to selling high value solutions often struggle where the rubber meets the road: the individual customer or prospect. Their websites highlight "solutions" and marketers pump out collateral that talks about their customers' business problem, but they have a much tougher time persuading specific customers that they are truly focused on delivering tailored solutions for their unique situations and challenges. The unfortunate reality is that generic "solutions" often need a fair degree of customization if they are going to deliver substantial business value to different customers even in the same industries.
B2B marketers focused on high value solutions know that customer evidence is like gold. Great products may sell themselves based on features or price. But when you're asking business buyers to invest serious money in a complex solution, typically involving a customized mix of products and services, they need to know you've done it before and that other customers have derived real business benefits.
Sales Enablement is a huge topic in B2B these days. You can spend all day every day and still barely scratch the surface of all the dialogue, debate, and events exploring the "real" meaning of sales enablement, who is doing it well, what tools are most useful, and how social media will revolutionize the whole process. (Forrester's upcoming forum is a great example.)
I was interviewing a Key Account Manager for a large tech firm the other day, and was struck by her comment that she wanted the firm's marketing people to be much closer to her customer. 
A friend recently had the good fortune not only to take over marketing for a successful B2B firm, but to do so with a mandate to build a new strategy that ensures a much greater impact on the business.
He's a bit like a kid in a candy store. He's got budget to spend, executive support for more ambitious marketing, and a relatively clean slate upon which to draw the new strategy.
Actually, I think Eloqua's new Content Grid is fabulous: it crams a complex story and a lot of information into an easy to understand infographic on a critical topic for B2B and solutions marketing. Nice job, folks!
My small beef is with the definition of "content marketing" that underlies the grid. Don't get me wrong: I'm a huge proponent of companies and marketing organizations getting much more serious about creating and executing integrated content strategies to support marketing and sales. Indeed, I make a decent part of my living these days helping companies make this happen.
About a month ago, the good folks at the Outsourcing Institute asked me to contribute some "lessons" for services marketers based on their web-based reality show, The Transaction. No cash involved, but it sounded like an quick PR hit for me while helping out a great organization.
HR, Kodak, outsourcing, recruitment, sales, selling, video in Other Solutions Issues There's little doubt any more that social media can play an important role in marketing B2B solutions. But exactly how that should happen is less clear. Although some solutions firms have engaged with social media for years now, many more are just beginning to take it seriously and explore what might work.
According to a recent ITSMA study of large technology and consulting firms:
