“It’s a framework and process that works”

Earlier in the month, I ran a Discovery Deck as a sales process workshop with Stephen Howe of Appliant, to look at how one of his clients might implement a CRM system. Appliant help growing small and medium businesses simplify their IT, increase cloud productivity and optimise their business. As we progressed through the workshop, it revealed that while a CRM was important, there were actually many things that need to be in place before you’re ready to implement one.

When asked about the Discovery Deck process, Stephen said:

“It’s a framework and process that works. It creates a distilled, qualified set of actionable steps, to help you achieve your objective or overcome your challenge. It brings clarity and focus in every area.”

Stephen loved the physicality of the cards. When comparing it to other sessions he’s done with clients, focused around white boards or post it notes, he said:

“Rather than having a whiteboard session, where you’re shooting off on tangents, while trying to control and list everyth

ing, suddenly we’ve got tangible cards that people can pick up and hold, but also see as isolated focal points.

“I can pick up the five cards at the end, and I now know what I have to do, who I have to talk to. There’s a pragmatic approach to growing my business.”

He also loved the stage of Discovery Deck which looks at your market.

“The free gift is the stage you look at the market, and focus on we are reaching them? It asks ‘Am I reaching my market? Does my perceived market deliver what I’m trying to achieve?’

“If my sales target as a social media company is to grow from £1million to £1.5 million over next 5 months, then targeting one person bands isn’t my target market. I should be targeting the brand managers managing big brands and who have a budget. It makes me check that I’m positioning correctly to the market. Your most profitable customers are not always who the business owners perceive them to be. This process help you discover that.”

Stephen clearly felt that Discovery Deck did something very different to your average sales process workshop. Rather than endless lists or unstructured ideas, Discovery Deck creates actionable tasks.

“Right now I’m looking at the sales process card, and it’s not lost on a list on a white board amongst all this other stuff. I can literally pick up this one card, and I go right, sales process, what is that? The cards are now ‘to dos’. If I’m now the stakeholder, I can allocate all these cards to different people. So I can create lots of projects and things to do to enable that growth. ”