Is your service or product Free?
March 16, 2007 at 4:59 pm 2 comments
Jill Konrath writes about why Free is not selling in her blog: http://sellingtobigcompanies.blogs.com/selling/2007/03/why_free_isnt_g.html
She points out two reasons why nothing is free:
“Everything that’s free ultimately requires two things:
- An investment of time.
- And a decision – which also takes time. “
She is correct. If you look at things outside of their financial investment nothing is free, everything takes time. She mentions that people just don’t have time today.
Jill goes on to write:
“So even if your company has something it gives away for free – don’t lead with it. Instead, focus on the business value. Unless decision makers know that it will reduce costs, increase productivity, shorten time-to-revenue or such, they won’t clear time on their calendar for you.”
My company sells IT project based services. We are tasked with working with clients to understand their business challenges, map those to a technology and set of services that can solve those, and ultimately get them to sign a deal for us to do the work.
It is very difficult to get time from the people we sell to. They are so busy running their IT shops that they have little time to meet with vendors. One of our larger Partner Vendors likes to try to have us do Free Assessments. Companies are not receptive to this. They are tired of free assessments…why? Because nothing is free. They take too much time and energy and the results are often worthless.
So what works. We request and recognize that getting to know each other and understanding what it is they do and how we can improve on that takes time. We put our very best resources in front of qualified leads. Why waste your very best resources on something that is just a lead? Because the client gets value from these people that a sales guy could never deliver. The client is investing time, why should we not make their investment worthwhile. Companies that lead with sales people all the way to close miss this point. Unless of course their sales people are truly the best and the brightest in the company.
If you offer value, your prospects will make time to meet with you. If you want to pitch how great your company is and talk the whole time, you will not get much time.
ITSalesPro -.-
your comments are welcomed!
Entry filed under: Blogroll, Business Development, Computer Sales, IT Sales, Microsoft, Oracle, sales, selling, Software, Uncategorized.
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Notes From the Front Lines, an IT Sales Blog 
1.
Greg Alexander | April 7, 2007 at 9:49 pm
I enjoyed this post. Thank you for sharing. The question that needs to be answered is “What is a qualified lead?” The best predictor of future success is past success. Therefore, a qualified lead is a company that is displaying the same actions that previous clients displayed at that point in the sales cycle. Organizations would do well if they took the time to learn what these actions are.
2.
itsalespro | June 8, 2007 at 9:42 am
Greg,
I could not agree with you more. Many firms I have worked with in the past just don’t get this. If you can not identify your core qualification criteria you are destined to spend time and energy on prospects that could never or would never use/buy your solution.