Whiteboard Selling: Empowering Sales Through Visuals

Chapter 7

When to Use Whiteboards in the Sales Process

You may not need all of the whiteboard types we discuss in this book. How many and which ones you need depends on the unique sales situation or sales process you use. While we are clearly strong advocates of using whiteboarding instead of PowerPoint, in some cases slides—and not whiteboards—may play a useful role at various points in the sales process.

We will review each whiteboard type in detail in Chapter 18, but generally speaking you use Qualification and Discovery Whiteboards early in the sales process, and Closing Whiteboards later. But you can use Why Change, Solution, Competitive, and Business Case Whiteboards situationally.

The figure above identifies where in the general flow of the sales process you would typically use each type of whiteboard. The “Dead Zone” is the part of the sales process that, we hope, can be removed altogether. It involves in-depth product evaluations, proofs of concepts, and “bake-offs.” This is a place where PowerPoint can be effective in demonstrating product features and functions, and complex schematics, architectures, or workflows that whiteboards are simply not well tailored to.

Your goal should always be to use whiteboarding as early in the sales process as possible. This positions you as a thought leader and trusted advisor. That, in turn, compresses the sales cycle, removes the extra ...