How To Sell To Your Prospects Most Critical IT Challenges
As an IT professional there are a lot of potential problem areas which you can help your customers find solutions. The challenge is to understand and identify which of these problems are most critical to the business and how to offer your product as a solution to the problem.
Anyone in the business of IT sales (or the business of sales at all, for that matter) is actually providing something far more valuable to their customers than the product or service itself which they are attempting to sell. I’m speaking of course about solutions. Any effective salesperson or marketing professional looks at the process of making a sale as identifying a need which is not being filled and then positioning their product or service as the answer to this need.
There are a number of areas in which you can offer your wares as a way to streamline operations, lower costs and improve the bottom line of your customers. Read on to see a few of the best angles to take when trying to get potential customers interested in what your offerings can do for their business.
Probably the most important thing to emphasize to a potential customer is the thing which is (or should be) the number one concern of any business – their customers. The emergence of the internet as an always-open global market place means that customers are used to having a lot of choices. While this is a great thing for business and consumer alike, it means that consumers have also become accustomed to receiving very quick and personalized customer service – something which takes having the best tools available to provide to them. Don’t neglect to mention this; if your potential customer hasn’t thought about not being up to date technologically in terms of lost business, this will likely get their attention.
Having the ability to provide service to their customers (and in some cases, even their services and products) online gives businesses a lot of flexibility and the capacity to serve more customers in less time – something sure to appeal to any business owner.
Another solution you can offer to business owners is efficiency. Every business is always on the lookout for ways to do more than less; this is exactly what you are trying to sell! Businesses know that more efficient operations translates directly into a better profit margin; never miss the opportunity to emphasize that your job is to make their job easier. No matter what sort of IT solutions you have to sell, they are designed to simplify the operations of businesses and save them time – AKA money.
This efficiency may be in the form of quicker access to critical business information, giving the business enhanced mobile options for employees on the road or in the case of some software, even doing most of the work of some employees, allowing the company to save on personnel costs.
Upgradability is another potent selling point – be sure to convey that your product or service can be easily upgraded and is scalable to meet the needs of the business as it grows; after all, every business likes to think of itself as a growing business; and with your software, they can grow even faster, right?
Increased security and regulatory compliance are also factors which can influence a potential customer to become a paying customer. Every business is concerned with data security. If the company still maintains extensive paper records, be sure to point out how your product or service offers a solution to the great security vulnerability that these paper records present. With proper network security measures and file encryption, their data will be far more secure on their hard drives than it would be in a file cabinet.
Regulatory compliance can also sway some customers – an automated system makes keeping up to date documentation a simple matter, rather than the headache it can be to do so with hard copies.
A savvy IT sales person has plenty of ways to position their product or service as the answer to one or more critical business problems which are common across any sector of the economy – and it is this ability to present your products or services in this light which can drive sales.
About the Author
John Tanner is a marketing consultant and founder of VAR
Strategy.
After a career in military intelligence John helped grow businesses in various
industries through sales and marketing, eventually finding a passion for
challenges and opportunities for business development in the IT channels.
VAR Strategy is a product of this passion and was created to provide
helpful information and resources to assist VAR's in growing their businesses.
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