Company: XO Communications, Herndon, VA
Company Description: XO Communications is a leading communications services provider to businesses in more than 75 major metropolitan markets across the United States. It employs 4,000 employees in more than 40 locations nationwide and has more than $1.4 billion in annual revenues.
Nomination Category: Sales Achievement Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Sales Lead Management System of the Year

Nomination Title: XO Communications Sales Playbook

Tell the story about your organization's sales lead management program since the beginning of July last year (up to 500 words). Focus on specific accomplishments, and relate these accomplishments to past performance or industry norms. Be sure to mention obstacles overcome, innovations or discoveries made, and outcomes:

Since 2008, XO has been undergoing a transformation to dramatically accelerate
its overall performance.; Creating tools that radically improve sales
productivity was one of the critical transformation initiatives. To that end,
in June 2009 XO launched the Sales Playbook, a dynamic, web-based tool that
integrates sales process and methodology, prospective customer data, industry
intelligence, marketing messaging, and more.; The Playbook is not just the
separate pieces and parts; it organizes them in a way that allows the
salesperson to be disciplined in his approach.; When the salesperson uses
everything in the Playbook together on a daily basis, she attacks the market
in a thorough and consistent way, sells more and thus builds market share for
XO.

The XO Playbook is organized into three areas.; The first area is the Sales
Resource Center which includes presentation, email and other templates along
with the Playbook anchor, the XO sales methodology.; The sales methodology was
defined by the XO sales leadership team, so it makes sense for XO,
incorporates the best thinking of the XO sales leaders and thus, gained
immediate acceptance by the XO sales force.;;

The second section provides in-depth Industry Vertical information.; Through
graphs, charts and examples, the vertical information provides insight into
prospects’ business trends, pain points, regulations and typical network
topologies.

The third section gives the sales professional all the talking points,
diagrams, pricing and collateral he needs to sell XO Services and Solutions.;
Content includes how each solution works, target markets, and guidance on
positioning value, fielding questions and handling objections.

In September, the Funnel Accelerator was added to Playbook.; Funnel
Accelerator drives XO to a consistent account planning approach. Business
prospects were loaded into Funnel Accelerator for easy access by the assigned-
to salesperson.; Additionally, company intelligence from two third parties,
Harte-Hanks and Dun & Bradstreet, was appended to many of these prospect
records; it includes details about the prospects’ network topology and telecom
spend along with a calculated propensity to buy the top 10 services offered by
XO.; With this additional insight, coupled with dynamically-created
questioning strategies that focus the salesperson on understanding the
prospect’s business and technology needs and decision-making process, sales
professionals are armed with the information they need for effective account
planning.

The latest addition to Playbook is a Solution Calculator.; The Calculator,
launched in October, helps the salesperson determine the best solution for the
prospective customer.; The salesperson can also price a multi-location
solution, present savings to the customer in a graphical format and produce a
service quote.;

More exciting additions are coming to Playbook soon.; In January, Playbook
will include a Presentation Builder that a salesperson can use to generate
customer-ready presentations with just a few keystrokes.; And in May, a
Proposal Builder will be launched.; The Proposal Builder will give the sales
professional the ability to generate a proposal containing information about
XO, its network and products, account team, and solution design and pricing in
minutes vs. hours.; Playbook continues to evolve to address the sales
professional’s needs.

List hyperlinks to any online news stories, press releases, or other documents that support the claims made in the section above. IMPORTANT: Begin each link with http://, and enclose each link in square brackets; for example, [http://www.youraddress.com]:

Provide a brief (up to 100 words) biography about the leader(s) of the nominated sales organization:

Suzanne King is the Director of Sales Operations for the Business Services
division of XO Communications. She is responsible for enhancing the sales
productivity of its 500 sales personnel through analysis, training and tools
that increase the sales force’s capabilities and effectiveness.; One of the
productivity-enhancing tools includes the dynamic, web-based Sales Playbook.

Ms. King has been with XO for six years where she has held various positions
in the Marketing organization.; Prior to joining XO, she was with Accenture
for 12 years where she specialized in assisting clients in their
implementation of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions.