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Get a sales rep who's an expertIn my role as a consultant, I frequently sit at the table with two other parties - the dealer/integrator/consultant/developer who is trying to sell his or her services, and my client, who I'm advising on how to buy those services. Being the third party at the table allows me to observe the interaction between them. This article will give some tips for selling technology services. But it will also provide buyers with some helpful ideas about how you should deal with the sales/purchase situation. In sales school, they taught you to be coy. If you spent more than 50% of your time talking, you weren't doing your job. You were talking too much. You needed to let the customer talk, and then adapt your presentation to what their needs were. You were supposed to ask questions - lots of questions. And you were only to offer information and opinions when you were well-armed with knowledge about your prospect's hot-buttons and what it would take to close the sale. Based on my experience as the observer in these sales situations, I can tell you that it's possible to carry that philosophy a little too far. Sales reps, your first meeting with the prospect should not only be a fact-gathering mission. You MUST give the customer confidence that you can solve the problem. And you can ONLY do that by providing them with valuable information about you and your organization. Of course, you must spend time at the beginning of the meeting asking questions to assure that you understand the problem. You need to avoid any hidden mine-fields that are going to trip you up. But you're never going to know everything in a first call. Just get a sketch of the problem and the project parameters so that you don't step on your tongue when you open your mouth to make your presentation. What you MUST do, however, is knock the customer down with your capabilities. Asking a lot of questions and failing to make the customer comfortable with your capabilities will not set you up as the favored vendor. In almost every session I've been involved with, the sellers who made it to the next level in the selection process asked appropriate questions to make sure they had an overall understanding of the project, but also did a LOT of talking. They talked MUCH more than 50% of the time - maybe 80% instead. They recommended solutions. They bragged about their capabilities and successes. They named-dropped their best clients. They assured the customer that they would be able to solve the problems with little effort and explained why. They did a "core-dump" of data. Dealers and consultants in the audience might think, "But I might be telling the customer things they don't need to know or care about." Frankly, what the customers DO care about is that you have the skills and the confidence to solve their problems. They want to hear YOU talk. Obviously, you should have assimilated the knowledge that you gained from the initial part of the meeting and you should focus on their needs. But you must be expansive. You must convince the customer that you're the company that can solve their problems. If you spend too much of that first meeting asking lots of questions, making no recommendations (even off the cuff) and then make an appointment to come back later with a recommendation from your engineers, you'll lose the momentum and probably the sale. Unfortunately, in the information technology industry, sales reps come and go and it's tough to find one who knows their business well enough to be able to blow you away. But when you find such a sales rep, you've probably got a decent potential partner on the other side of your desk. Here's an interesting spin. In most of the situations where the dealer DID blow the customer away with their confidence and abilities, it was the OWNER of the company who did it. They knew their company well. They knew their successes. They knew their technology. They could make on-the-spot commitments and recommendations. And they had the experience to listen to the customer and keep their discussions focused on what the situation required. They definitely weren't coy. Another interesting concern frequently raised by vendors is "We don't want to give the customer too much information. We're in the business of selling that information." Hogwash! If you really can give the customer enough information in one sales call to solve the problem themselves, then it wasn't a big enough problem for you to bother with. Buyers, I promised there would be some guidance in this article for you as well. The advice is to take control of that initial meeting. Demand that the vendor provide useful information and answers to your questions. Encourage them to bring a technical person along. Beware of a vendor who offers a recommendation without sufficient information. However, the dealer should have enough expertise and technical knowledge to rough out a solution based on the background you provide. They should be able to give you a few ideas you hadn't thought of. And they should be able to brag about their company and tell you things that will make you feel comfortable with them. Also pay attention to who the dealer sends. Was it the owner or sales manager, or was it a novice rep who couldn't give you the comfort level you needed? Those folks may not make it to second base, and probably shouldn't. Good sales reps should have the skills to ask the right questions during the initial stages of the meeting, and then launch into their presentation, improvising based on the customer's needs, body language and questions. The sales rep should hope that the customer leaves with the feeling that she's found the right company. If she's thinking, "Well, that wasn't very enlightening. Now I'll have to wait until the next meeting to see if they're any good," the sales rep has failed.
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