In Tech Sales, Be a Trusted Advisor

In my humble opinion, tech selling and sales leadership can be so much fun, rewarding, and financially pleasing particularly if your clients view you not only as a vendor,but as a trusted advisor. If you’re questioning the validity of this, let's do a deep dive and see how you’re showing up and what you are focused on. Here are some examples of the focus some well-meaning sellers may have, see if any sound familiar.

Closing the Deal

If you’re only focused on closing the deal, getting it wrapped up so you can move on to other opportunities to close and make your number, that can be an issue. Clients are smart, they can sense when a sales rep doesn’t seem to be focused on their needs. They know this because they can feel the following: you’re disinterested in their business, you’re not sharing their company pains with them, their business is just a means to an end, you want them to just buy the product or products you’re peddling.

Intent on the Commission

Bagging the big deal. Building a collection of your products into one solution with no care to the length of time it will take to close with laser focus on getting a big commission. There are challenges such as, does your client truly need everything you have assembled (with imposed discounts of course), the need to hold countless meetings (time no one will ever get back), and experiencing at least one, two, or more quarter slips. You have banked everything on this deal and after that first slip, you probably now have your management banking on it too. For the client, it imposes many meetings trying to get final approval. Many times, this is typically an opportunity that began focusing attention totally on an influencer in the organization vs. a decision maker which is exactly why it is taking so long and if the sales Gods are with you, it may eventually close, but the forced effort and time it takes may steal you away from several good size deals elsewhere.

The Competition

Whether it’s a displacement or a new opportunity where the client is looking at both you and your competitor, know it can come down to a variety of things. Price is a factor but there’s also others like whether one’s product is ranked higher than another or if the reputation of a company’s service or support is negative. Perhaps the executive suite has had positive feedback about a particular company. I recall a senior VP at a large telecommunications company admitting to me as he noted he wasn’t fond of our pricing and noted a meeting with the competition where they provided a lower price “but,” he said, “the team likes X” and he named our product. Mind you, it wasn’t him, it was the users vote of confidence after years of use. Another experience left me and my colleagues dumbfounded. Due to a large acquisition, the now parent company who had been using our technology and was familiar with it decided they would takeout our competitor across the board. I made a plan to introduce our product to new users at one of the acquired sites. When we walked in, our competitor’s collateral was all over the place, it seemed everywhere we looked, we saw their logo and ours was not to be seen. The manager of the data center stood and began to thank us for taking the time to review our technology. He haltingly stated they were not happy give up our competitor’s products and as he continued to speak on this, he actually wiped tears from his eyes. The disappointment was real, we were not wanted or liked, in that moment we were viewed as a negative in the overall part of the acquisition. We already had won over those at the top, we now had a lot of work ahead of us to win over the users.

Management On the seller’s side, management and leadership is more than likely asking on a regular basis the status of this deal and if it’s a large deal and it’s in the pipeline, you’re being asked about this opportunity a lot and many on your leadership team want to know how they can help get it closed this quarter. On the client’s side, there’s stuff going on as well – how critical is this solution to their business…is there budget…What are other vendors offering… and if it’s a very large expenditure, what’s the approval process and how long can that take.

Despite all this, carrying a bag can be a lot of fun! While you can’t avoid everything mentioned above, there are some ways you can work with clients where they can come to you when they know there is a need and your company just may have the right solution.

“Sellers who listen to buyers carefully and then give them the missing ingredients – those are the ones who stand out.” – Deb Calvert

As a sales leader,I learned it was more valuable to my employees to coach instead of manage. This was the result of my initial not very positive experience in management. Unfortunately, I had a manager who believed in autocratic management and insisted I do the same. It was very uncomfortable for me and I’m certain my team thought I had a split personality – one minute I was the person they had worked with and the next, this demanding individual. No doubt I was miserable and could not confide my true feelings that the demanding came from another source. In due time we all finally escaped that manager and I became the type of leader I was much more comfortable being. As I began to adopt more of a coaching style (with no formal coaching training at that time, mind you), I found much more success because I finally began to understand leadership. Leaders need not try to change the individuals they have the privilege to manage, the role is to coach and nurture these individuals to bring out their best talent and leadership qualities.

As I moved on to executive roles and began to join sellers on customer visits, I always requested to meet with a C-level or an executive(s) with decision making responsibilities.I did so for two reasons - one, I wanted to speak with an individual who knew the business and had the power to green light or halt the sales process and two, I wanted to stretch a seller to do what it takes to bring us in at that level and build their network.

On a regular basis I always remained close to the technical team on our offerings because if you’re going to speak with an executive of a company, it’s pretty much a fact they will likely have some technical skills. Many began as a developer or have technical backgrounds so I felt it crucial to have technical acumen. My discovery was from a past experience when I asked a seasoned systems engineer to give me lessons on MQSeries after a technical colleague got a date wrong and did not show up to our seminar which had an audience of both new and existing customers – that experience alone made it clear to me, I had to have more than selling and marketing skills. It’s important to have more than a basic understanding of your company’s portfolio of products. If the company has a multitude of offerings, it’s best to focus on the knowledge of your company’s strategy and understand their portfolio of offerings. If there’s an area you can master, all the better.

My preparation for a client visit began by finding out as much as I could about the company and the individual(s) I was scheduled to sit down with, which led to Googling the client and reading about them, viewing the seller’s meeting notes, understanding the current sales stage, along with the rep’s personal insights of both the company and the executive we were scheduled to meet (if they knew) - either way, I was looking at LinkedIn and if they wrote any articles, I read them. This gave me background data which was very helpful. I recall getting a silent senior VP to start talking when I mentioned his company’s website was listed as best in a magazine – he had no idea and it really broke the ice.

After pleasantries, my meetings always started with asking about the client’s business and strategy. Where they were today, where they saw themselves going,where would they be in 5…10…15 years. This was important to me because I wanted to know and understand the company's direction as well as how might their strategy affect their technological environment in the future. I always took copious notes & placed an asterisk on areas where I needed to probe deeper. One observation, I found customers like to share their knowledge when someone remains quiet and listens. I try to remain silent to gain a better understanding, it tended to be quite helpful to both me and the seller long term.

Knowledge of the company strategy allowed you to identify matters of importance to your client's business and sometimes, I ranked them high to low in my notes. Doing so, I found the client did all the talking with me only asking occasional follow up questions which fostered more company information… so much so I would become comfortable challenging them by asking, what would you do next? why is that so important to the business? if you do that, will it give you a competitive advantage? My meetings tended to always run over but honestly, I was always extremely grateful that these senior executives granted me so much of their time and in many cases a bond was formed which remains to this day and bonus…the team and I typically had a view of future sales opportunities on the horizon.

Ultimately, I look to build a strong relationship between myself and the client, I find that’s key because I have a strong belief in driving recurring revenue. Big deals come and go, are few and far between but if you can get the customer to call on you because they trust and feel you’re in this with them, that you know their needs and want them, their business to succeed, recurring revenue from that client can over time thrive and escalate into greater revenue overall because ultimately, that's what both you and your company should really want...right?

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