{"id":51912,"date":"2022-10-27T12:35:01","date_gmt":"2022-10-27T19:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/?p=51912"},"modified":"2022-10-27T12:35:04","modified_gmt":"2022-10-27T19:35:04","slug":"incenting-software-solutions-reward-awaits-the-patient-account-representative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/feature-articles\/2022\/10\/incenting-software-solutions-reward-awaits-the-patient-account-representative\/","title":{"rendered":"Incenting Software\/Solutions: Reward Awaits the Patient Account Representative"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Not all dealers embrace a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to incenting software and solutions sales. But every account representative has an overall number he\/she must hit to fulfill their quota so that they can pack for that president\u2019s club trip to Aruba or the Bahamas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regardless of whether a certain percentage of the overall pie is dictated to be software\/solutions, dealers don\u2019t want to leave money on the table due to a missed opportunity with, say, PaperCut or uniFLOW. Thus, as we wrap up this month\u2019s State of the Industry report on software, we canvassed dealers to see how they incentivize their reps to focus on these solutions, which often require a longer selling cycle and may not be as lucrative dollar-wise as hardware brethren.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Sean Bell, Solutions YES<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Time is the true enemy of solutions sales, as there is never enough of it to capitalize on all of the opportunities to leverage a dealer\u2019s portfolio, notes Sean Bell, president of Solutions YES in Portland, Oregon. This bottleneck is somewhat mitigated by the advantage of having solutions experts on staff, eliminating the need to be overly fluent with any particular title or application.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSolutions, if sold correctly, can enable sales to close deals quicker, so they can move on to helping another customer and close more transactions per month,\u201d Bell said. \u201cOur salespeople have one revenue target that can be met through selling solutions and hardware. We pay the same for [both].\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MRR Focus<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Brad Rozmarynowski, Impact<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Impact Networking of Lake Forest, Illinois, takes a packaged approach to incenting, with an eye toward generating five-year monthly recurring revenue deals. According to Brad Rozmarynowski, executive account manager and partner, reps are compensated directly on the value of a single monthly payment, which scales based on seniority (e.g., if an entry-level rep sells a five-year accord for $10,000 a month, the commission is $10,000).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the dealer provides three- and four-year client engagements, the shorter-term pacts net the rep a percentage of commission: four years provides 80% of the commission that would\u2019ve been realized on a five-year deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a good incentive for them to bring in the kind of business we want\u2014large, recurring revenue over a longer term,\u201d Rozmarynowski said. \u201cWe only track the total monthly recurring revenue that they bring in. How they do that doesn\u2019t matter to Impact whatsoever; it could be from any services, software or hardware maintenance. We have clients that will buy document management, IT services, security and print management all on a single contract together. So it’s very powerful stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Dustin Bonn, Marco<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

An aggressive approach is required when it comes to incenting reps on solutions, even when the margin of revenue isn\u2019t substantial. Otherwise, it will be difficult for the dealer to realize the growth it seeks, according to Dustin Bonn, solutions sales director for St. Cloud, Minnesota-based Marco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you pay your sales team right away for any software sale they make, they will make another and another,\u201d Bonn said. \u201cYour business will reap the rewards three to five years from now, gaining recurring revenue without recurring expenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhenever possible, we try to coordinate customer incentives, aggressive marketing, and accelerated compensation to drive a surge in revenue. It works very well. The hardest part for us is aligning sales leadership around what product or service to focus on at any given time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Solutions Selling<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Dean Swenson, TSG<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Like many dealers, sales reps for The Swenson Group of Livermore, California, have a hardware and software quota. President Dean Swenson believes the key is stressing the importance of not going into a prospecting call with an agenda. Selling to a pain point entails listening for the keywords a prospect may utter that should dictate the course of a conversation. Very few clients will talk about poor color quality with a given MFP, but they will share a lack of satisfaction with an incumbent provider\u2019s service performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you can change the conversation from speeds, feeds and price to we can help you with your challenges, our winning percentage increases significantly,\u201d Swenson said. \u201cReps will buy into the fact that the revenue is going to increase, profit will improve, and that it enhances the stickiness of the relationship. That\u2019s when we become more of a partner than a vendor.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also requires patience on the reps\u2019 behalf, as the solutions side of a deal can often place a drag on writing up the order. But engaging the IT or solutions experts will ultimately make for a more lucrative deal. Swenson pointed to a takedown with a health care client where a compliance software component added $100,000 to the overall take.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur model is to uncover pain and problems,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we make a commitment to solving that problem, we bring value and that breeds trust. Our whole goal is to reach the partnership level, but it doesn\u2019t happen overnight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Scott Schnabel, FBP<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The best path to ensure reps are adding a degree of focus to software\/solutions is to make it a part of their quota and the president\u2019s club trip incentive. For Frontier Business Products of Aurora, Colorado, it also involved a transition in the sales process that allowed for solutions to take front and center in client\/prospect engagements, according to Scott Schnabel, chief operating officer. Constant support from a solutions specialist who provides ongoing and relevant training can help reinforce the dealer\u2019s goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cComp programs and quotas definitely dictate behavior,\u201d Schnabel said. \u201cWhen a trip to Honolulu is on the line and the rep is getting close [to qualifying], there seems to be a tremendous focus on some of those [solutions] buckets. They want to achieve that network services or software number. It will drive the behavior for those who are close.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Setting Foundation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Justin Drabouski, Fraser AIS<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

When a dealer employs a collaborative sales process that involves subject-matter experts for every discipline (solutions, MPS, production, etc.), accounts executives are more comfortable than ever in introducing solutions to client discussions, notes Justin Drabouski, director of managed services for Fraser Advanced Information Systems of West Reading, Pennsylvania. Its leadership team maintains that the way to create stickiness with customers is to be a valued partner that solves challenges as opposed to merely a copier leaser. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith the implementation of our project management group, solutions implementation and service have become standard procedures,\u201d Drabouski said. \u201cMost dealers in our area don\u2019t have the capabilities of our project management team that walks clients through projects every step of the way. This has truly redefined our processes with installations and the client experience.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not all dealers embrace a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to incenting software and solutions sales. But every account representative has an overall number he\/she must hit to fulfill their quota so that they can pack for that president\u2019s club trip to Aruba or the Bahamas. Regardless of whether a certain percentage of the overall pie is dictated to be software\/solutions, dealers don\u2019t want to leave money on the table due to a missed opportunity with, say, PaperCut or uniFLOW. Thus, as we wrap up this month\u2019s State of the Industry report on software, we canvassed dealers to see how they incentivize their reps to focus on these solutions, which often require a longer selling cycle and may not be as lucrative dollar-wise as hardware brethren. Time is the true enemy of solutions sales, as there is never enough of it to capitalize on all of the opportunities to leverage a dealer\u2019s portfolio, notes Sean Bell, president of Solutions YES in Portland, Oregon. This bottleneck is somewhat mitigated by the advantage of having solutions experts on staff, eliminating the need to be overly fluent with any particular title or application. \u201cSolutions, if sold correctly, can enable sales to close deals quicker, so they can move on to helping another customer and close more transactions per month,\u201d Bell said. \u201cOur salespeople have one revenue target that can be met through selling solutions and hardware. We pay the same for [both].\u201d\u00a0 MRR Focus Impact Networking of Lake Forest, Illinois, takes a packaged approach to incenting, with an eye toward generating five-year monthly recurring revenue deals. According to Brad Rozmarynowski, executive account manager and partner, reps are compensated directly on the value of a single monthly payment, which scales based on seniority (e.g., if an entry-level rep sells a five-year accord for $10,000 a month, the commission is $10,000). While the dealer provides three- and four-year client engagements, the shorter-term pacts net the rep a percentage of commission: four years provides 80% of the commission that would\u2019ve been realized on a five-year deal. \u201cThere\u2019s a good incentive for them to bring in the kind of business we want\u2014large, recurring revenue over a longer term,\u201d Rozmarynowski said. \u201cWe only track the total monthly recurring revenue that they bring in. How they do that doesn\u2019t matter to Impact whatsoever; it could be from any services, software or hardware maintenance. We have clients that will buy document management, IT services, security and print management all on a single contract together. So it’s very powerful stuff.\u201d An aggressive approach is required when it comes to incenting reps on solutions, even when the margin of revenue isn\u2019t substantial. Otherwise, it will be difficult for the dealer to realize the growth it seeks, according to Dustin Bonn, solutions sales director for St. Cloud, Minnesota-based Marco. \u201cIf you pay your sales team right away for any software sale they make, they will make another and another,\u201d Bonn said. \u201cYour business will reap the rewards three to five years from now, gaining recurring revenue without recurring expenses. \u201cWhenever possible, we try to coordinate customer incentives, aggressive marketing, and accelerated compensation to drive a surge in revenue. It works very well. The hardest part for us is aligning sales leadership around what product or service to focus on at any given time.\u201d Solutions Selling Like many dealers, sales reps for The Swenson Group of Livermore, California, have a hardware and software quota. President Dean Swenson believes the key is stressing the importance of not going into a prospecting call with an agenda. Selling to a pain point entails listening for the keywords a prospect may utter that should dictate the course of a conversation. Very few clients will talk about poor color quality with a given MFP, but they will share a lack of satisfaction with an incumbent provider\u2019s service performance. \u201cWhen you can change the conversation from speeds, feeds and price to we can help you with your challenges, our winning percentage increases significantly,\u201d Swenson said. \u201cReps will buy into the fact that the revenue is going to increase, profit will improve, and that it enhances the stickiness of the relationship. That\u2019s when we become more of a partner than a vendor.\u201d It also requires patience on the reps\u2019 behalf, as the solutions side of a deal can often place a drag on writing up the order. But engaging the IT or solutions experts will ultimately make for a more lucrative deal. Swenson pointed to a takedown with a health care client where a compliance software component added $100,000 to the overall take. \u201cOur model is to uncover pain and problems,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we make a commitment to solving that problem, we bring value and that breeds trust. Our whole goal is to reach the partnership level, but it doesn\u2019t happen overnight.\u201d The best path to ensure reps are adding a degree of focus to software\/solutions is to make it a part of their quota and the president\u2019s club trip incentive. For Frontier Business Products of Aurora, Colorado, it also involved a transition in the sales process that allowed for solutions to take front and center in client\/prospect engagements, according to Scott Schnabel, chief operating officer. Constant support from a solutions specialist who provides ongoing and relevant training can help reinforce the dealer\u2019s goals. \u201cComp programs and quotas definitely dictate behavior,\u201d Schnabel said. \u201cWhen a trip to Honolulu is on the line and the rep is getting close [to qualifying], there seems to be a tremendous focus on some of those [solutions] buckets. They want to achieve that network services or software number. It will drive the behavior for those who are close.\u201d Setting Foundation When a dealer employs a collaborative sales process that involves subject-matter experts for every discipline (solutions, MPS, production, etc.), accounts executives are more comfortable than ever in introducing solutions to client discussions, notes Justin Drabouski, director of managed services for Fraser Advanced Information Systems of West Reading, Pennsylvania. Its leadership team maintains that the way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":51913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1650,82,87,1638],"tags":[2738,4084,4135],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51912"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51912"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51914,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51912\/revisions\/51914"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.enxmag.com\/twii\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}