OVERVIEW

Over the next month, we will engage in a skill-building simulation. For the simulation, you will take on the role of a direct sales person. The good news is that technical expertise in is not important. We are merely using a technical product and scenario as an anchor to cover the types of situations you may encounter as a sales person.

Your job is to get a prospective customer to agree to a new contract with TLA. TLA is the company you work for and your are selling the new DFI (Database Framework Initiative). The customer is Gobster, Inc, a relatively new entry into the database arena that sells their own technology platform that uses a framework like TLA's. They are growing significantly and are looking to expand heavily in this market. In fact, they just purchased to new buildings in Mountain View. They beat out Google for the land lease. They are oriented toward vendors who already worked with them and also work with their clients. It makes their integration easier. The good news is that TLA does both. But, in order to get this new contract, TLA will have to put together a slam dunk demo and proposal.

Gobster is very, very cost conscious and looks to keep expenses to a minimum. Part of that is they are ultimately a low margin business with an intent to sell volume licenses to large enterprises.

DFI is the perfect solution... at least from TLA's perspective. But according to Gobster, in order to meet their needs, you will have to add on several features DFI lacks to meet their specifications. And to top it off, the perceived bugs from your current engagement have already decreased Gobster's confidence in TLA. Ideally, we would love to make DFI the right package, but some of their requirements aren’t available in our current platform. To make it work, we would have to customize several parts, and frankly, this will be a total pain in the you know what... for all sorts of reasons-- internal and external.

Gobster is also specifically interested in parts of DFI that would integrate with other programming platforms, especially how it supports OOPL (Object-Oriented Programming Language). Gobster has so many legacy languages in play, they need something that will work with all of them. Our contact at Gobster, Lorelai, has just informed us that they have decided to open up the bidding to an RFP process. You know Oracle, Microsoft, and Salesforce are going to be all over this as well. And, they all have the develop firepower to give Gobster what they claim they want if the money is right. They are also going to claim they have fewer bugs (and that may be true). They are going to argue they can do it for less. And, they will attack us from so many other angles, as well. Or, they just may consider TLA so small, they may just ignore us (a possible benefit).

Gobster claims they will have to spend about $100K annually on bug fixes and customization on top of fees. Not sure if this is true, yet. This is obviously a ploy to get us to reduce our cost to them. We hope. In either case, they are going to nickel and dime us down and down.

Aparna says we need to bid and kick butt doing so. She says we need to do anything and all to nail this one down. Sid, from Finance, says the margins stink at the outset and not to give away the farm. Both are probably right.

You have been trying to bag Gobster since they showed up on the scene. Right now they are doing some marginal work with TLA for about $1MM. The Lead Gen team provided the initial contact over a two years ago and it really has been a good one. You must satisfy the needs of a cross-section of leaders in TLA, though. Politics will play a heavy part in how you navigate this account-- both at TLA and Gobster. You must manage the relationships of other groups in TLA so they help you put the customer first. You must engage the customer so they feel they are indeed being put first. And, of course, you need to ensure that TLA delivers an exemplar service to Gobster. All efforts fail, though, if they don't sign-up. Yes, as far as missions go, it will be legendary! Stakes are indeed high.

Remember, while the simulation will use Gobster and the contract signing as the context, you will not actually deal with the spreadsheets, negotiations, legal mumbo jumbo, or the minutia of the deal. You will be asked to engage in multiple activities, delivering outcomes that help you develop your sales analytical skills, sales communication skills, agility in managing the account, and overall influence and engagement skills.

REPEAT: As a cautionary note, be careful not to spend too much time on the technical aspects of the deal or you will miss your key deliverables throughout the days.

BACKGROUND

There are several key players you will interact with over the next couple of days. The simulation will take place over multiple months, but we will accelerate through that time in a single month. You will interact with five character officially in the simulation. But, as you personally go through it, you may have to engage with others, as well.

Some fictional characters you will deal with:

Lorelai, Sr. Product Manager for Gobster, Inc.

She works for Ted. She is your day-to-day contact with Gobster. She is brilliant, tough as nails, and a bit neurotic. She is very detailed oriented. In fact, she requires quite a bit of hand holding to get her to see things the TLA way. She probably favors TLA’s competitor, but she isn’t saying. There is a good chance she doesn’t like you… and in fact may be using you to help her negotiate with the TLA competitor. She can’t stand Ted—has little regard for him and would love to step into his shoes—preferably over his dead body. Bill “accidently” has also made contact with her and the two seem to have hit it off. You are not happy about this. She is in her 30s... you think.

Ted, VP of Product Development for Gobster, Inc.

He is the buyer. Although you deal day-to-day with Lorelai, Ted is her boss and holds the purse strings. Suave, charming, and very political. He is smart enough to have done well, but thinks he is much smarter than he really is. Although charming, he is also quiet and holds his thoughts to himself. Lorelai doesn’t like Ted. Ted doesn’t really notice Lorelai exists. He looks up to see which way the wind blows. Late 30s/ early 40s.

Aparna is your boss. She is highly competent and very corporate. She speaks in acronyms and her office is littered with motivational pablum and posters. She wants to do better than any one else and strives to figure out the best path. Sometimes in doing so, she forgets to be sensitive to others needs. On the surface she is friendly, but often you will see her smile a big smile while her eyes are driving stakes through you.

Internally, Bill is your competition. He is your peer, but in reality you experience him as your arch-nemesis. He is gregarious... so outgoing and friendly, you hate him. When in a room with him, people just flock to him. He is one of those people that others just love to be around. There isn't a mean bone in his body-- just lots of inconsiderate bones. It would never occur to him to be supportive or helpful. He is just out to promote Bill. And, if he does that Taye Diggs joke again...

She is the engineer who prepares and conducts the tech demos for the account team. Beth is introverted, extremely process oriented, and very sensitive to any disrespect from the sales team. Although she can get angry, she reacts passive aggressively. Snark can sometimes be heard under her breath. She never smiles. Some have argued Beth doesn’t have a smile. She is in her late 20s.