Peter Cohan, principal of The Second Derivative.

Objective: Learn how to collect, organize and utilize one of the your most valuable, yet under-used resources to improve your sales, marketing and professional services results.

What might be the single most important asset for your sales and marketing toolkit? The answer? Customer Success Stories.

Knowledge of how existing customers were able to address their business problems using your software enables you to engage, present and sell to other customers who have similar situations.

Customer Success Stories that have received official sanction are posted on our websites and in our literature - these are our Formalized Success Stories. And yet, these jewels are a small fraction of the wealth available to us. What's missing?

In the course of our careers, each of us collects Success Stories from our customers. The Success Stories we glean we re-use when we speak with other customers or prospects who are in similar situations. Most of this information is never formally "blessed" by legal and is often used anecdotally. These are Informal Success Stories - and they are the lifeblood of a software company!

Speaker bio:
Peter Cohan is the founder and a principal of The Second Derivative, a consultancy focused on helping software organizations improve their sales and marketing results. In July 2004, he enabled and began moderating DemoGurus®, a community web exchange dedicated to helping sales and marketing teams improve their software demonstrations. In 2003, he authored Great Demo!, a book that provides methods to create and execute compelling demonstrations. The 2nd edition of Great Demo! was published March 2005. Before The Second Derivative, Peter founded the Discovery Tools® business unit at Symyx Technologies, Inc., where he grew the business from an empty spreadsheet into a $30 million operation. Prior to Symyx, Peter served in marketing, sales, and management positions at MDL Information Systems, a leading provider of scientific information management software. Peter currently serves on the Board of Directors for Collaborative Drug Discovery, Inc. and the board of advisors for Excellin, Inc. He holds a degree in chemistry. Peter has experience as an individual contributor, manager and senior management in marketing, sales, and business development. He has also been, and continues to be, a customer.

Register for monthly webinar newsletter.