Growth in the office technology business isn’t simply about finding more products to sell. It’s about understanding the market and your customers well enough to recognize where opportunities exist, what problems need solving and how to approach them with solutions that make sense for their businesses.
There’s no shortage of new technology for office equipment dealers to consider. The traditional hardware business has expanded to include software, workflow, security, managed services and other technologies. For dealers, that’s good news. More capabilities can create more ways to help customers and more opportunities for growth. But adding something to the portfolio and creating a market for it are two different things.
The real opportunity begins with understanding the customer.
Think about a good salesperson who’s worked with the same account for years. That rep probably knows far more than when the lease expires. They know the business, the people, some of the frustrations the customer has dealt with and probably where the company is going. When they introduce a solution, it’s because they understand why it matters to that customer.
That’s the essence of a customer-focused, problem-solving approach to sales: understand the customer’s business and its challenges first, then determine what equipment, software, services or combination of solutions can help.
Sometimes the answer will be the newest thing in your portfolio. Sometimes it won’t. What matters is knowing the difference.
Staying with the Customer as the Business Changes
Customer needs don’t stand still. Businesses grow, contract, add locations, change workflows, adopt new technologies, encounter new security concerns and face challenges that may not have existed a year earlier.
A solution that doesn’t make sense today may be exactly what that business needs later.
Instead of thinking primarily about the next equipment replacement, the dealer can stay connected throughout the customer’s business journey. What’s causing problems today? What’s costing the customer time or money? Where’s the business headed next? The better you understand those things, the better chance you have of being there when a need emerges.
Knowing an individual customer is only part of the equation. Market research and voice-of-the-customer insight can help dealers and OEMs understand broader market trends and changing buyer priorities. That intelligence can help determine where to invest, what capabilities to develop, which opportunities deserve attention and how to approach the market. And it can help create new accounts.
Opening the Door to New Customers
With an existing customer, a salesperson has history. A prospect is different.
Without years of account knowledge, broader market and customer intelligence can provide a starting point. What challenges are businesses facing? What matters to buyers? Where might unmet needs be creating opportunities? That knowledge gives the salesperson a better reason to knock on the door. Instead of opening with a product, the rep can open with an issue.
Market intelligence shouldn’t replace discovery. It can make discovery smarter by helping the salesperson know where to look, what questions to ask and which issues are worth exploring. If an issue is relevant, there’s a business conversation to have.
From Knowing the Opportunity to Acting on It
Good intelligence doesn’t automatically produce a good sales conversation. A rep still needs to ask the right questions, understand the business implications of a problem and connect it with an appropriate solution. Product knowledge matters too, but knowing every feature on a spec sheet isn’t the same as knowing which features matter to this customer.
Then comes the message. Even the right solution can miss the mark if it’s presented the wrong way. Customers don’t necessarily need to hear everything a product can do. They need to understand what it can do for them. The conversation moves from, “Here’s what this product offers,” to “Here’s how we can address the problem you’ve told me about.” Once the need is identified, salespeople also need the intelligence and tools to move from opportunity to execution.
Keypoint Intelligence’s sales-enablement tools support different parts of that process.
- bliQ provides independent product and competitive information to help evaluate possible solutions
- quote iQ supports configuration, pricing and quoting
- UVERCE extends the customer interaction online
- Keypoint Engage supports sales, marketing, customer support and operations with AI-driven capabilities that help put intelligence into action
For sales organizations, Keypoint Engage includes smarter prospecting, qualified leads, AI-assisted outreach and sales preparation, helping move from identifying an opportunity to engaging it more effectively.
The point isn’t that every dealer needs every tool. It’s that a customer-focused sales strategy doesn’t end when a need is uncovered. The opportunity still has to be researched, approached, communicated, developed and managed.
The Relationship May Be the Biggest Opportunity
When you continually help customers solve problems, you give them reasons to talk to you that have nothing to do with a lease expiration. Over time, that can build trust and move the relationship beyond being simply the company that provided the copier or printer.
That creates a different position when a competitor arrives with a new product. The competitor may have an excellent solution, but the existing dealer already understands the customer’s business, what it’s trying to accomplish and the people making the decision. The conversation can begin with the customer’s problem rather than the salesperson’s product.
That’s a valuable position to earn, and it also creates a cycle of opportunity. The better the dealer understands the customer, the better positioned the sales team is to recognize when needs change and another opportunity to help emerges.
Where Keypoint Intelligence Fits
At Keypoint Intelligence, we see our role as helping OEMs, dealers and their sales teams build the intelligence, skills and capabilities behind this kind of growth.
Our Advisory Services team provides market research, analyst insight, surveys, market sizing, trackers and voice-of-the-customer research that can help clients understand what’s changing, why customers are making the decisions they do and where opportunities may be developing.
Custom consulting goes deeper when an organization has a specific opportunity or business challenge to investigate. We also provide training to develop consultative, problem-solving sales skills and sales-enablement resources that help put intelligence into action.
Taken together, the objective isn’t to tell a dealer the next thing to sell. It’s to help OEMs, dealers and sales teams understand where opportunities are developing and give them the intelligence, skills, tools and approach to act on them.
There will always be a next new thing. The more important question is whether that new thing solves a problem your customer, or your next customer, has.
Understand the market well enough to know where to look. Know the customer well enough to recognize the challenge. Understand the solutions well enough to recommend the right one. And communicate its value in a way that matters to that business.
Do that consistently, and growth becomes less about finding somewhere to sell the next product and more about becoming the company customers turn to when they have the next problem to solve.
For more information about Keypoint Intelligence’s Sales Enablement solutions, visit https://keypointintelligence.com or scan the QR code.
