August Newsletter Interview

Interview with Kevin Renner: FEI - Director of World Wide Programs

This month we interview Kevin Renner, Director of World Wide Programs at FEI on the topic of nurturing leads for organizations with complex products and lengthy sales cycles. FEI, Inc. is a $500 million dollar, 1800 employee global organization, and one of the world leaders in enabling nanoscale exploration, discovery and engineering.

Joyce: What is the typical length of your Sales Cycle at FEI?

Renner: It varies between 3 and 18 months. We have a complex business-to-business purchasing cycle, for products and services priced between $500,000 and $5,000,000.


Joyce: How many players on the prospect side are typically involved and how different are their roles?

Renner: This depends on if we are selling to universities, government, or commercial industry. Usually there are several technical influencers, several end users, and at least one economic buyer - the decision maker. In commercial accounts such as semiconductor companies, the economic buyer is likely to be the Fabrication Manager.


Joyce: Do the people with these different roles engage with you at different times in the sales cycle?

Renner: Absolutely. Early on in the buying cycle the technical influencers engage. In semiconductor firms for example these would be lab managers or failure analysis engineers. He end users engage next, and towards the end of the purchase cycle the economic buyer gets engaged.


Joyce: In terms of the marketing assets you use, such as Webinars, whitepapers, etc., do the needs of these people differ?

Renner: Yes! The technical people want to see the product specifications and they want to see images! The end user is most interested in the ease of use characteristics, and the economic buyer is interested in understanding the business value in the purchase. We have to win them over at the brand level!


Joyce: Do you help direct them to the best content tailored to their needs?

Renner: Certainly, we have very specialized content on the website organized to help them find what they want quickly.


Joyce: About how many interactions does marketing have with these folks before they launch into their buying cycle?

Renner: Usually two or three interactions, anything from press releases to trade show meetings.


Joyce: Do you see a shift in what they need from marketing as they progress through the buying cycle?

Renner: Absolutely. We have five distinct phases:

  1. Explore Phase - Early in the purchase cycle, aware of their need, want to take imaging to the next level. They look at our advertising, PR, events, seminars. They get into the market and do some online searching for information.
  2. Solution Phase - Understand now what sort of solution they want to meet their needs. Start to explore solutions from several companies. Look at the corporate collateral, the web sites, and dive down into the market specific materials.
  3. Evaluation Phase - Look closely at the product collateral, application specific materials. Research specific tools and leverage demonstrations. For this phase we also offer demo center access to prospects. They get to bring in samples of materials and look at them in our "Nanoport" labs.
  4. Specification Phase - The prospect issues an RFQ, they examine our detailed technical specifications and all the documents that explain the merits of the various features and capabilities. These documents are a really important part of the process in this phase.
  5. Post Purchase Phase - We have a set of tools and documents that are targeted to customers, a user group and so on.


Joyce: What are your plans going forward, and how will that improve the results from a sales perspective?

Renner: Three major marketing efforts are underway. The first is a global brand effort to drive our value proposition and difference into our target markets. The second major effort has been in reorganizing the company around markets instead of products. And the third is an increased focus on lead generation and nurturing because of the importance of customer lifetime value. We have seen online marketing increase in importance substantially and we are responding quickly to this shift.

Thanks Kevin for your great insights!