Ever think you should be tapping into your sales team for market information? Well you should. This post is about the befriending method contained within the customer satisfaction category of methods within the Market Sensing pillar.

For context, consider the generic process below. I'd hate to say whether this was a Marketing, Sales, or Product Management method; everyone is involved doing these activities in one organization or another. If you're not involved in at least one of these steps now, then you'll be changing companies, and sooner or later you will be. So I guess I should explain the steps.

1.0 PROVOKING CONVERSATION

The primary objective of this step is to engage in conversation with someone that satisfies a target market criteria. Conversation is king! The output of this process step is an individual willing to talk with you.

2.0 BEFRIENDING

This is the subject of my posting today in context of a larger generic process. The primary objective is to develop a relationship of trust with those willing to communicate with us. The output of this process is relationships of trust. As an example, if your organization is having a difficult time converting web hits into meaningful sells leads, you might consider this method.

3.0 ACTIVATING

The primary objective of this step is to identify/develop a solution vision of your qualified prospect that your offering can contribute to in some way. This is referred to as “activating” because it's in this step that issues of your prospect are moved from latent concerns to issues they want to take action on. The output of this step is a prospect who owns a solution vision that they want to take action on.

4.0 CREATING SALES OPPORTUNITY

Placed here to provide context, this step is normally the first step of the traditional sales process.

Before I get too deep into the details of the Befriending Method, I'll try to provide a little insight into why this method advocates the unlikely teaming up of Product Management and Sales. First we must accept the axiom:

Market Sensing activities that touch the market

always leave a finger print.

Because of this axiom, the purpose of some Market Sensing activities are more for the opportunity to leave a fingerprint, than it is for what the fingers take away. Many customer satisfaction methods are inverted this way, where the activities of the method are more designed to create customer satisfaction than they are to measure customer satisfaction in the market. Why would an organization do such a thing.

1. It provides another touch point between the organization and the market. Specifically, this method provides a touch point when a prospect is in the Befriending stage and provides the organization with a systematic process for developing prospects.
2. This method provides the prospect with a clear and elevating objective used to form relationships between  themselves and your sales people; which is not perceived as a sales call. This facilitates the development of a relationship of trust. Sales people have a unique perspective of the Product Management team. They see hundreds of them. They see trends in the marketplace; they begin to see common issues, and approaches that seem to work better than others. This perspective is valuable to the individuals within your targeted market.
3. Now what does the prospect have that the Sales team wants, besides the sell? This method provides the Sales organization with a clear and elevating objective as well. It's to gather that very same information, but to the salesperson, it's just one more data point that improves their perception of the market. This information helps the sales person add value to the sell.
4. This same information, gathered and developed by the Sales team as they participate in the Befriending process, is also valuable to the Product Management team. As a source of market evidence, this method is used by the product management team to define market problems that drive the innovation process.

With the reality of social media applications, communities of practice and web forums, this is becoming easier and easier to implement. Bring the right people together in your organization and develop a charter for this initiative that clearly establishes guidelines, procedures, and success criteria. I'll have to get into the weeds of this method some other time, or maybe a webinar would be better at this point. Let me know if there is an interest in this type of approach and I'll see what we can put together.