Sales Force Transformation in Information Technology: Part Two

I think vendors in the IT field have started to take notice. At first, an IT person would sell to an IT person. They would speak the same language, they would speak the same terms. You care about the same things, gigahertz and MTUs and what happens. All smiles. Then came the shift where IT vendors had to start talking to business leaders: CEOs, accountants, administrators. Neither are database administrators. People who didn’t care about the technical side… but did care a lot about eliminating steps in processes, better access to information, freed up resources. Oh darling. The IT vendor had to learn a different language. In my opinion, very few got it right. There’s some talk about ROI (but in some regions I’ve worked in, it wasn’t about ROI anymore…), and “achieving business goals”, but it’s weak. As a business listener, those terms ring hollow when spoken by an IT person. Sorry, I’m skeptical.

Now, IT vendors at value-added resellers (VARs) work to sell and service accounting/CRM/ERP packages. They have some programming sheets geared towards OEM features and benefits. Sure, there’s a dash of ROI and other buzzwords in there. However, listening from a buyer’s perspective, I’m just not… uh, buying it.

This is where I’m sure IT vendors have started to take notice: they’re making their calls and getting reactions. Endurance. It’s not working that well. Especially if they have been living off of OEM prospecting, which has now been phased out, and have now been forced to jump into the ‘hot seat’ of prospecting. For many, it has been a meat grinder. They discovered that they need to do their job in a very different way than it did just a couple of years ago if they are to survive and succeed. However, they don’t know what that would be like.

What is needed is a sales process that transforms the VAR salesperson from a driver of feature and benefit products who uses ROI as one of many sales tools into a trusted advisor welcomed into the prospect’s organization with relief. of “Finally, here’s someone who can really help us.”