Miracles Are Hard to Come By in UC
I knew I was probably asking for a miracle, but I didn’t realize what a big miracle it probably is! I recently posted a blog about the challenge of getting telecom dealers and VARs to act like real sales professionals as they advance into selling UC solutions – it’s going to take a miracle, in my opinion! I talked about a proposal that I had been asked to evaluate – and my evaluation was pretty brutal. Boilerplate about how good the reseller is, how much their customers love them, blah, blah, blah. What the proposal totally missed was any indication that the reseller understood the customer’s specific business needs and long range goals.
So here’s Act II in what’s turning into a sad saga…… The customer went back to the reseller and took the time to tell them that he wanted to know why they were recommending that system. How did it fit his company’s specific business needs better than other products? How would it fit into the customer’s overall evolving UC strategy? What business benefits could the customer expect if they implemented that recommendation? Get where I’m going with this……?
Guess what! The customer received a second proposal from that same reseller – this time for one of the other 20+ remote offices. Great opportunity for the reseller to show that they really were listening to the customer, wouldn’t you think? Oh, no! The second proposal was exactly like the first – 80% self-promoting boilerplate, 10% product boilerplate and 10% cost figures (no ROI, of course).
Telecom dealers! VARs! Listen up! Especially in these challenging economic times, customers are only buying when the purchase will have a positive impact on their business – reduce expenses, increase revenue, improve customer service, etc. They ARE NOT making buying decisions based upon how great your company is! Or how much you are loved by your other customers! If you have ever wondered how to make your own business more successful, this is a great place to start – begin focusing on your customers’ business needs and stop focusing on the products that you have to sell. In a recent video presentation on The Inside Advantage: 4 Steps to Unlocking the Hidden Growth of Your Business, Robert Bloom stated quite clearly that “sellers have to think like buyers” if they are to succeed. I totally agree with him, based on my own experiences in sales! So get yourself into your customer’s head and start seeing better and bigger sales as a result!
What? Pam, you mean sellers need to ask the customer/prospect questions? And, you mean it matters what business the custoimer is in and what their problems might be and how the solution (box to most sellers) can help?? How novel an idea in this world where most sellers only flip out their ppts and cringe if they get asked a question, let alone ask the customer questions about their business … Selling 101 would go a long way to help … Cheers!
Pam,
I also think that part of the responsibility for this rests with the numerous equipment vendors who ‘help out’ their channel partners by providing them with “sales training” on their products. We have something called the Trades Descriptions Act in the UK that aims (amongst other things) to prevent misleading labelling of goods, and it should be rigorously applied to these so-called trainings!
What is actually delivered is a ‘Product Briefing’, extolling the features and ‘benefits’ of a (set of) product(s), but with no real guidance on the skills needed to go out and actually sell them to customers. Everyone thinks they’ve been trained, but 6 months later revenues are flat-lining…
UC is an extremely consultative sale, and without some pretty advanced business sales skills its a tough one! The economy may not be great, but now is the time to get yourself some real sales training in how to sell UC.
Pam, I read your first blog on this subject and took it to heart. I represent a distributor who is working very hard to get their resellers to expand into consultative selling. Before we get too far down the road of “they just don’t get it” let’s remember that since the dawn of technology it has always been a feature/benefit story. Add to this an overly distributed market where you get thirty resellers presenting the same vendor solution and it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the customer gets the ‘ol “look how good we are” sales pitch.
As you pointed out in your articles, UC isn’t your average technology and has had its own share of issues. (confusing value proposition as an example) and resellers have been fairly successful at making money the old fashioned way. I do think there needs to be change, but to expect something to change quickly isn’t going to make it happen. Keep up the articles as I do believe we all need to hear the message…but let’s give ‘em a break and help them with the value proposition…eventually the message will find a place in their selling strategies.
I think step one in getting the industrry to shift gears is to stop using the term “resellers!”
Just because the technology tools have been developed by someone else, doesn’t mean that the sellers can simply dump them on the customer’s organization. As I have frequently stated, “If I gave you all the UC technologies for free (installed), do you know what you would with them?”
Unfortunately, as pointed out by the others, customer organizations may not really even know what their operational problems are, let alone what technologies solutions will work cost-effectively. With the rapid growth of mobile devices, business organizations can’t even control their communications as easily as on the premise-based desktop days.
“Solution providers” really have to take UC from the “operational top,” not the “technology bottom.” It will usually require more customized and personalized implementations, not a cookie-cutting approach that worked well when we all knew what a simple telephone was, good and bad.
Great article and reference to “The Inside Advantage.” As a Dallasite, I was fortunate enough to know about Robert Bloom and read his book right at the same time my partner and I started our business - coincidentally somewhat in this category although we focus on UC solutions, communication services, and managed services. We have been fortunate enough to buck many of the trends over the last 12 months primarily due to our focus on our clients business. Our ROI and value-driven model has helped us grow to over 25 employees in 18 months and our clients reap the benefits of our hard work while we reap the rewards. Again, great article and rest assured I will continue to stress this point as we continue to work with each and every client.