Category Archives: Career

“Service” After the Sale?

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There is an old adage in the sales profession that states, “nothing kills sales faster than post-sales support”. There is an equally old and true adage that states, “nothing ensures repeat business like service after the sale”. So which is it? Does spending time with customers who have already purchased your products keep you from selling more to new customers? Or does ensuring that customers are getting the maximum value out of their investment in your technology increase levels of customer satisfaction, your reputation, and an increase in sales? Certainly, there are many consumer and business to business industries in which time spent with customers who have already purchased products can reduce the time spent acquiring new customers (and by extension, new revenue). For enterprise technology providers operating in the business to business space, however, the answer lies somewhere in between.

Business relationships between suppliers and their enterprise customers often involve long-term arrangements in which the customer has access to a wide variety of the supplier’s offerings. This is particularly true in the enterprise software business. In order for these arrangements to provide the maximum economic and strategic value for both the customer and the supplier, both parties must focus on ensuring that the customer is taking full advantage of the technology to which they are entitled. As the investing party, it is ultimately up to the customer to take advantage of their investment and ensure that they are getting value for their business. But there is much the supplier can do to assist. The technical sales professional is often best qualified to remain deeply engaged in a post-sales relationship with the customer to ensure successful implementation of the supplier’s solutions.

The effective technical seller can categorize their efforts to enable their customer’s success into the following focus areas: 1) Information; 2) Implementation; and 3) Infusion.

Information

This is the most basic of the three categories. The technical seller must ensure that the customer fully understands the products and capabilities that the customer has purchased. This includes not only which products the customer has access to, but the functionality those products provide, how they interact, and how they can best fit into the customer’s existing IT and political environment. This also means partnering with the individuals at the customer who will be responsible for communicating the details of their investment to the rest of their organization. It means spending time with the customer’s business and technology leaders to understand their priorities and how their investment can be leveraged for those priorities. In many ways this effectively means that the technical seller will spend a great deal of time re-selling the solutions that the customer has already purchased, but such is often the nature of strategic business-to-business relationships.

Implementation

This is the true execution phase in which customers often require the most assistance. It is where the effective technical seller can make a significant difference to the business relationship between supplier and customer. The technical sales professional should strive to be a member of the customer’s project teams and ensure that the customer has everything they need to take responsibility for implementing their investment. This means providing the customer with access to education, training, and any additional implementation services (from the supplier or their partners) that may be required to install, configure, and build solutions. By remaining engaged with the customer’s implementation teams, the technical sales professional can provide all of the necessary care and feeding throughout the customer’s implementation lifecycle to address any issues that may arise. The technical seller’s continued involvement also provides a deeper understanding of the customer’s technical infrastructure, political environment, and business history. This deepens the relationship for both parties and leads to a more effective partnership for the future.

Infusion

Activities in this category enable the customer to manage and realize the true business value of their investment. It requires the technical seller to have a relationship with those at the customer who are responsible for both strategic IT planning as well as enterprise asset management. For example, the customer’s enterprise IT architects and their procurement or cost accounting organization. The technical seller should help the customer in the planning, tracking, and, to some extent, the financial management of their investment. This is done via regular checkpoint meetings in which both customer and supplier discuss the status of implementation projects, future plans, and how the customer’s ownership of the supplier’s technology is being communicated across the enterprise. The technical seller can help the customer with total cost of ownership and return on investment aspects to ensure that they are effectively managing their investment. If done properly, the technical sales professional can help to infuse the customer with a culture of effective asset management and a focus on the attainment of business value.

“Nothing kills sales faster than post-sales support” may still be true in some industries. But in the enterprise-class information technology industry, long term, business value focused partnerships between customers and suppliers will provide the greatest economic value for both parties.

Book Review: “The Challenger Sale”

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I recently “re-read” Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson’s book, “The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation” via an Audiobook during a long drive to and from meetings with customers and employees. I found the refresher even more appropriate for how we are all looking to transform our businesses and the value we provide to our customers. The authors have developed a compelling case that sales professionals who are most effective at putting new ideas in front of their customers have been and will continue to be the most successful. They build their case by describing five types of sales reps, the names of which are self-explanatory:

  1. The Hard Worker
  2. The Challenger
  3. The Relationship Builder
  4. The Lone Wolf
  5. The Reactive Problem Solver

They cite much data from the recent economic downturn that demonstrates exactly how much more successful the “Challenger” sellers were in driving revenue for their companies and new solutions for their customers. And that word – solution – provides the key focus, as Challenger sellers are those who teach their customers about new ways of running their business and provide them with solutions to their business problems rather than mere products. Many will recall Lay, Hewlin, and Moore’s March 2009 article in the Harvard Business Review, “In a Downturn, Provoke Your Customers”, as proposing a similar approach to consultative selling.

How does this specifically apply to the technical sales profession and the manner in which technical sellers engage with their customers? This is particularly interesting to consider given that initially one might expect that the primary responsibility of many technical sales reps is to focus at the product level rather than on the larger solution. They are charged with having deep skills in a limited set of a supplier’s products, as they are the ones responsible for telling customers how the product works and how the customer can use it. The authors establish that a core behavior of the Challenger seller is that of a teacher. A Challenger seller provides insight and value that enables the customer to use the supplier’s offerings in new and innovative ways to run their business. With a solid foundation in the technical aspects of the products, the motivated technical sales professional should be able to raise their level of thinking and interaction with their customers to provide this sort of value. In a complex enterprise selling environment, this sort of behavior can become a true differentiator for a vendor.

The Mission of Technical Sales

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I was recently having lunch with a customer who is early in his career as an information technology professional. We were meeting for the first time to discuss elements of his company’s business, his role in ensuring their business applications were always available, and how I could get him connected with the right technical expertise in my company. Upon examining the title from my business card, he asked,

“What exactly is technical sales?”.

I told him that I was responsible for the team of professionals who help him and his colleagues design and deploy solutions for their business based on my company’s technology. I have always thought that this was the most direct and complete description of the role. I also told him that our industry also often refers to the role as “sales engineering” or “pre-sales”, but the primary purpose of the role remains the same.

The exchange got me thinking about the mission of techincal sales professionals and how our role helps to drive business for our respective companies and business value for our customers. We work with customers in an often complex sales environment to understand their business and technology requirements, gain support amongst the customer stakeholders & project sponsors, and eliminate technical barriers that may be inhibiting the sale. Despite the occasionally maligned and often parodied nature of the sales profession as a whole, enterprise-class technology suppliers and their customers recognize the true value and innovation that trusted partnerships bring to their business.

The following graphic outlines the primary common and unique responsibilities of sales and technical sales professionals in an enterprise-class customer environment during a typical opportunity sales cycle.

SalesTeamResponsibilities

Progressing from left to right, both sales and technical sales professionals are responsible for the foundational aspects of customer relations, business development, and client satisfaction. This includes understanding the customers’ business, technology, and political environment, prospecting by looking for opportunities to contribute to the customers’ success, and building relationships. Ensuring that customers are successful with their existing investment in the provider’s solutions is critical as well.

As specific opportunities begin to develop, a division occurs in which the responsibilities for the sales professional focus on ensuring that the business requirements that are driving the customers’ investment in the technology are being met. This occurs by working with customers to determine the business value of the investment via a deeper exploration of the business needs and ensuring that the project stakeholders are in agreement. Similarly, the technical sales professional is focused on ensuring that customers are comfortable with the technical aspects of the solution. This occurs by working to determine how the solution meets the customer’s technical requirements, that the customer is prepared to implement the solution, and that it integrates seamlessly within their existing IT environment.

As the opportunity cycle approaches conclusion, the responsibilities converge once again to ensure that the appropriate proposals are developed and delivered to the customer, progression activities are reported back to the sales management team, and the opportunity is closed. During implementation, both roles are then responsible for ensuring that the customer is successful and, once again, the business value of their investment is constantly being realized.

Executing the sales function via a customer-focused model of shared responsibilities and teamwork such as this ensures optimal effectiveness of the sales organization and the satisfaction of customers. It demonstrates that both suppliers and their customers have a great deal to gain by a partnership-based relationship.