Read Part I for context…
After just two weeks of engaging with eight global prospective customers in our NextSteps pilot planning program, here are four of the most salient things we’ve noticed:
#1 We can’t do any planning with you, our prospective customers, until we gain your trust (duh).
Since we offer this on the cheap, and we’re not part of an onsite WOCFOY (Winnebago of Consultants For One Year), and we’re doing most of this remotely, you don’t really trust us right away. We’re basically Professional Services Lite, which is a new concept.
But, amazingly, trust happens quickly. All it takes is one kick-off web meeting, followed by a couple of days of prompt, thorough, and genuine responses to your questions, plus some questions of our own. We get to do this because it’s our only job. I think that is key. It also helps that we qualify prospects for this program – we can only work with folks who want to do the work (there are other qualification requirements, of course – our sales reps take care of all that, so don’t bother asking me – ask our sales folks).
#2 You love ditching direct, silo’ed email and using Clearspace for all communications.
You like having the entire education series and the technical and adoption strategy activities all laid out for you and available on demand, but you love abandoning direct email most of all.
There are two reasons this works:
1) Clearspace’s email notification feature keeps everyone participating – you get your answers in email, just like always, and Derek and I stay on top of your questions and requests just by reading and responding to email, like always. But, our conversations are captured in your private Clearspace instance for the rest of your team to read and participate in because, you guessed it, they get notified via email, too (you can opt out of all of this, btw). So, as you add more people to your planning team, they can read the conversations that have already happened. Plus, you get a consolidated history of how a decision was made.
2) We respond realistically and quickly. There is no marketing allowed. The way we see it, if you’re ready to engage with us at this level, we’re way past the marketing stage. I think my favorite part is that you pretty much have a direct line to Jive Engineering, because Derek, formerly of Engineering at Jive (and, incidentally, Oracle) is like employee #5 and has blackmail secrets on everybody. This means he can “effect change” quickly, if you know what I mean. The dude is not only a rockstar developer, he’s well connected.
#3 You’re not quite ready to do any of the adoption or technical planning we offer.
When we introduce these planning activities, they’re received well. But, you’re not quite ready to jump in, especially into the adoption piece. Number four explains why.
#4 Your greatest need is to figure out how to present your unique user stories on a Clearspace stage.
The point at which we engage with you matters here. Most often, it’s about a month or less before some Big Important Presentation you must make to some stakeholder.
I call this the Executive Gate. Nothing much happens until you pass through this gate.
This is the most important thing we do right now.
So, Derek and I have found that we spend most of our time co-creating your unique Clearspace stories with you. Really, our goal is to make Clearspace disappear, and discover the language your stakeholders need to hear, then help you tell those stories when you demonstrate Clearspace to them using your on-premise pilot instance. Derek customizes that instance to fit your stories, too.
The beautiful part of this is that you can reuse that work in your education and communication efforts, at the very least. Nice, yes?
That’s it so far. We’ve got quite a few Big Important Presentations coming up in September, so I’ll report back later this year with any new post-Executive-Gate patterns we notice.
