Whiteboard Selling: Empowering Sales Through Visuals

Chapter 4

The Power of the Pen

Let me assure you here and now, that I have been using this new approach to whiteboarding since returning from New Hire Training in the past two weeks—with a 100 percent success rate. As you can imagine, walking into strong competitor incumbent accounts, the clients are very hostile and apprehensive, but every time I have run through the whiteboard, the walls start to crumble and break down, and our organization is seen in a very different light.

—Major Accounts Rep, Asia Pacific Region, large data management firm

Since you've made it to Part 2, there's a good chance you agree there's no better way to torpedo a sales call than to plug in a projector and start presenting a bunch of slides—the proverbial “show up and throw up.” There's no second chance to create a first impression. You only have one opportunity to differentiate yourself, to stand out from the crowd, and be someone who can add value and solve problems. So how can you become a partner with your customers rather than a salesperson to them?

The answer is the power of the pen—the power of a salesperson of any tenure or experience to get up in front of a C-level buyer and deliver a visually rich and interactive presentation with complete confidence and command of the material.

“Power of the pen” isn't a term we created; in fact, it's been around for centuries. It comes from the age-old adage, ...