Like a caterpillar transforming into a butterfly, I’ve seen many copier dealers try to transform their company and find their way to the future. The natural progression is to morph their business offerings to include deliverables that involve technology services. Although, I have seen some offshoots into other areas like office water systems, where the dealer leases, installs and services a range of purified water systems. It’s not copiers for sure; however, these water systems do fit within the dealer’s existing business model structure as far as it delivers to the same target and they’re able to use their hardware, service and supply skillset to drive new revenues from their existing clientele.
I wouldn’t argue that water systems or any other non-office technology deliverable can’t make money, and on the positive side, they could complement your account penetration strategy. But this type of offshoot would most likely NOT help the total transformation to strategic C-level deliverables and services that your business may require to survive.
As Captain James Kirk used to say, you have to “boldly go where no man has gone before,” which means you have to completely redesign a new market strategy and then raise your sales team’s ability to successfully deliver your values to a higher level. For most, that means they’ll have to start to educate themselves around their C-level target and what they are about. It is continually my experience that most sales reps can spell CEO or CFO but few really KNOW what they do or how to approach them.
The truth is that most reps don’t really know, nor are they comfortable dealing with the C-suite. If that’s true, how will they ever deliver enough value on the phone to get that C-level to accept an appointment with them? Don’t you wish there was a Rosetta Stone for the C-level language?
The facts are you probably do have within your marketplace a competitor or two that are doing a good job transforming their business and successfully selling C-level deliverables like managed services. If you’re not careful, they’ll enter your accounts above you and take your business.
Lately many dealers have shared stories about the challenging economy and their declining hardware and service revenues. They’ve asked me what is the shortest, easiest path for transforming their business. The honest answer is it’s different for every single dealer; however, the sooner you get your transformation going the better. So I want to provide a short list of the obstacles I continually see preventing successful transformation to managed service sales.
The lack of leadership in defining the market strategy continues to remain one of the largest deficits for transforming the business. I find very few dealer principals who have actually put a plan together defining the full values and benefits to help their sales organization transition successfully. My experience is that until the dealer principal and their sales leaders walk step by step through the sales process, experiencing the pain, the rejection and delays, they’ll never be able to build a plan that works. It’s pretty tough trying to get C-level appointments. So there has to be some compelling value and benefit created that draws the C-level prospect. Being able to deliver a comprehensive value statement and presentation is a mandate and your sales team must know their target so completely that no matter what concerns they have your sales reps know how to address them with the values and benefits of your company.
At a recent onsite training session I had the sales team present their best approach to me as if they were on a first call appointment. What immediately became clear was that most of them had no real understanding of the C-suite prospect or sharing things that would actually be important. The facts are, in our industry we call on anyone with a heartbeat and because of that, some of the presentations are nothing more than pitching stuff on a wall and hoping something sticks.
Articulating value is a significant challenge. Saving money seems to be the phrase that everyone jumps to when prospecting. That probably comes from the hardware world, as price is a major focus there. Ask Sony if they’d rather save money on their technology spend or spend more to have the greatest intrusion and firewall solution available. I think you can clearly see that it’s not always cost savings that’s important. Imagine making your call into Sony the day after their network intrusion and you mentioned “saving them money”—how fast do you think they’d hang up the phone?
From that example you can easily feel the need for your reps to have a deep comprehensive business understanding. I don’t believe that great sales reps have to learn the bits and bytes of technology to relay business value to C-level targets. They must understand strategic business concerns and be able to share values and benefits that are impactful. So how do you elevate your sales team’s business intelligence? I would highly recommend that you task your sales reps with research homework that’s due each week at the sales meeting. I would drive them to find C-level targets that have hit the news or have shared challenges that they’re facing and bring that to the sales meeting for discussion. Also choose a book about “Strategic Selling” and have someone read the first chapter and present it to the group at the next meeting. Go through the book and chapters allowing each rep to take a turn and make sure they’re presenting to the group, not just explaining the chapter. Continue this process and with each book you’ll be raising the business intelligence of your sales team which should enhance their prospecting and presentation capabilities. In order for your transformation to be successful you have to transform your sales reps’ business intelligence.
Another gigantic obstacle in transforming your company to managed services seems to be the great “bailout” that I see sales reps do when the client takes too long and their month is too short. Dealers who just throw their services into the sales bag along with hardware set themselves up for this collision. This goes across our industry and is a very popular deterrent for successful transformation. You can’t keep your quota on a monthly basis and expect your sales reps to sell managed services within that time frame.
We didn’t create the outsourcing model (MPS/MNS) but at times I think that there are dealers who think we did. Outsourcing has been going on for hundreds of years. If you don’t introduce this right, your sales reps will stick with your plan until they see their income drop. Then they’ll head back to hardware renewals where they know they can make some money. Help them help you build a go-to-market strategy that works and transforms your business.
Another key point of failure for strategic sales deliverables and the transformation of your business model seems to be the lack of executive sponsorship inside your sales funnel. This certainly could be from the lack of training as I’ve already covered but it is also a matter of discipline. Without executive sponsorship each deal becomes a roll of the dice and closing those sales is almost impossible. It will also destroy your sales cycle timeline, as you’ll have deals bouncing in and out of your forecast based on the lower titles you’re actually dealing with.
With the sponsorship of a C-level executive you have someone on the other end that wants the same thing you want and is willing to push from his or her side to advance the deal, especially if your deliverable’s benefits align to his or her current business objectives. By mandating the C-level target only, your sales reps become very good at getting into the top of accounts and although some may argue that they’ll get less appointments, I would argue that most managed services sales are way larger than a copier sale so it should pay off in the long run.
If your sales reps are allowed to set appointments with just anyone and you don’t mandate the C-level target (for managed services), your transformation will most likely fail.
When I mention this I do get a lot of feedback from dealers who tell me, “I got a deal from my IT contact at XYZ Company and they weren’t a C-level!” That’s true, you will find dealers and deals out there that were created and developed from below the C-level suite. But what I’m explaining in this article is the shortest, most successful path to transformation that will create a sustainable C-level sales opportunity funnel.
The great news is that today you get to change your future and the success possibilities of your transformation. This article is all about a dealership’s transformation to success in the services marketplace, but it’s really not limited to just a dealership. Anyone who can make the necessary adjustments when it comes to leadership, training, education, and discipline has every opportunity to change their future. So take your stand, move up to the plate and make your swings count.
