Notes From the Front Lines, an IT Sales Blog

I read a recent article that was pointed to from a Blog that I read regularly -

Jill Konrath’s Selling to Big Companies Blog.  In her current blog post One Sales Strategy That Really Works, she points to a good video that describes the use of White Paper marketing and how it can help your organization succeed.

Jill writes:

“Michael Stelzner used it to get 60,234 leads over a five year period. He’s a small business owner … a regular guy who stumbled onto this strategy that:

• Brought him high quality prospects virtually overnight.
• Established him as a thought leader in his market space.
• Kept on generating leads for years.

Using educational marketing, his company landed accounts such as Microsoft, FedEx and Dow Jones. Not too shabby a client base!

Today Michael is launching a series of videos on how he used these educational techniques to transform his business. ”

My current company uses this pretty effectively.  By having people in the organization that are respected in the local community as well as from Microsoft (our services are all based on Microsoft), we are able to leverage their status and knowledge in writing good quality, high value white papers that attract attention.  (more…)

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!

I usually stick to B2B selling, you know the “professional selling” however I am going to take a side track here.  I really can not believe how the retail sector in this country has such a low level view on their sales personnel.  This recently came to the front when I bought my new Motorola Q handheld smart phone.

I worked with the guy at the retail store.  He was helpful.  Telling me all the great things I can do with the phone - active sync to my corporate Exchange server, use it as a modem (I will come back to this), surf the web, etc.  Intrigued I asked about the modem part.  See I have a problem, I am on the road a lot!  I am always searching for free or paid WiFi connections at Starbucks, Panera, etc.  It is a pain.

So my PAIN/Problem is that I need connectivity anywhere, any time.  The solution was to use my phone as a modem.  Pain solved.  Well not quite.

I am told by the retial sales guy everything I need is in the box.  There was a cable, software, etc.  So I got it home, everything worked well except the modem.

So I called the company support from the phone service.  They told me I needed a package called Office Mobile Kit.  This includes software, cable, and instructions.  I thought I had the cable and the software!

So back to the store to be told again that it is in the box.  I mentioned that there was nothing in the instructions or on the phone that told me how to connect to the phone as a modem.  I am fairly technical so I usually can figure this out on my own.  But not this time, I was at a loss.

After 5 hours of on-line digging I found a user forum that directed me to needing a Software Upgrade on the phone, so I did that.  Wow, now there was a modem icon on the phone.  I tried to connect but as this is riding over a dial up I needed a password, phone number, and user name.

Again called the support line…on hold…10 minutes….20 minutes…click.

So I tried calling Motorola support.  I have to say…Awesome.  He hooked me up with everything I needed.  However I still could not connect.  He did however give me the number for the phone company support - direct to the Q support team…saving me endless hours of holding on the line.

I was pleased with the Technical Support team.  He told me that my account needed an add-on service and then the credentials I was given would work.  So he did the change, updated the phone and made sure I could connect.  DONE!  I told him about my experience and he said “yeah, those guys in the store don’t know much, you should call us here anytime you need anything”.  When I asked him why they did not how to solve my problem (just by updating my account) he said “they are the bottom of the barrel and turnover is high.  It is hard for them to know all this stuff and they never call us for support”.

Wow, bottom of the barrell.  When did an idustry as a whole decide that the people on the front lines, interacting with customers on a daily basis, driving revenue, etc., etc. are the bottom.  They should be the top.

I am personally fed up with having to spend countless hours trying to solve my problems when companies are out there telling me if I pay they can do it, but then DON’T Deliver!  If I did this on a daily basis I would be out on my butt, out of a job.  Why does the retail industry get away with this?

Is it our own fault?  After years of flocking to large national retialers with “low price” marketing messages, horrible service, and ignorant, rude employees - is this what happened?  In an ever increasing need to cut prices to compete rather than offering sevice we are left with self service stores where employees don’t have a clue.

Well I am one customer that would gladly pay extra for better service.  The problem is the service oriented stores are all shutting down.  When will the madness end!  I spent some 5 hours trying to solve a 2 minute problem.

ITSalesPro -.-