A few months ago my sales team and I experienced a major set back in an account we were pursuing.  We worked very hard on building the client relationship had met on numerous occasion’s.  We thought the deal was most definitely ours.  We got side swiped and the competition took the work that we thought we had in the bag.  We underestimated the competition and over-estimated the relationship.

We requested feedback from our customer on what went so terribly wrong.  It appears that the competition just became more creative and delivered a presentation that the customer couldn’t resist.  We simply became complacent.

I’ve been taught that a relationship is the most difficult element to sell against.  In this post I’m going to try to counter against that myth.  So here is my crazy thought:  relationships are very important but I would rather put my money into insights and how you can deliver your solution through your capabilities and how you demonstrate that.

The lesson I learned in this pursuit is that overestimating the influence of a client relationship can lead to complacency and can create a lack of the pure hustle you used to start that relationship to begin with. Maybe the client returns your calls immediately and gives you an audience whenever you like. But that level of access should encourage you to work even harder to make an impact. Some service providers check in with their top clients and use the time for informal conversations about the client’s issues. If you’re not ready to give your client two or three items of value for everything they share with you, that relationship will eventually lose.

Whenever I am faced with a brand new prospect or customer I study them up and down. I prepare, I create effective unique value propositions and develop memorable presentations and work at my utmost on that first impression.  Developing the relationship is also important but I’m recognizing that it is not the most important.  What’s more valuable is gathering useful insights and using that knowledge to demonstrate your capabilities to create strategic value.  A great relationship is gravy, but what the client really cares about is the meat and potatoes.

More than relationships your clients want your ideas, they want innovation that only you can provide, they want to sleep at night knowing that all is going to be okay.  They want to be competitive and are looking for an edge.  The critical value that must be recognized is that the relationship to the client lies in your ability to integrate your past experiences and your creativity to generate insightful guidance that create wealth and that supports achieving their strategic business goals.  Enjoying time and building relationships with the client is gravy.  Enjoy it.

CIS Revival Strategies

Reasons you need to revive or replace your CIS

Feel free to let me know what you think.

Thanks!

A silver bullet does not exist in the consulting sale. Selling consulting services is unique and remarkably different than selling a tangible product.  Products can be physicially held and touched.  Quality and value  can be assessed by mere observation and touch.   Consulting services are intangible and  inherently more complex.  The dynamic of winning a sale require proving trust and demonstrating a high degree of business process competency.  In this post I’ve outlined five elements that I leverage to assess when approaching a consulting opportunity:

1.  Tell a compelling story – paint a vivid picture of what your customer will achieve and articulate how they will get there but.  Focus on what you will do to help achieve that vision.

2. Develop trust -  Prove to the client you are an expert in your field, be honest and dependable. Always ensure your interests in the client are genuine and real.

3. Create a business case for change - use the story you developed to demonstrate why they need to change today by leveraging stories, testimonials and data.

4.  Look for opportunities to leverage value – Listening to your customers needs is critical.  Ask well thought out questions that speak to business problems and  the potential implications those problems can have on both a micro and macro level.

5. Look for every opportunity to help mitigate your clients risk – Put yourself in your clients shoes and think through all the area’s of concern they may have.  Consider talent, finanancial, operational risks.

This is a very highlevel list and I am sure we can collectively create a much larger list of potential elements that contribute to a winning consulting relationship with your customer.  What elements do you consider when developing your sales strategy and approach?

• Expanding the practice internationally
• Securing public sector accounts
• Establishing a growing Oracle Practice
• Built an industry brand via delivery of valuable niche products and services.

In the last four years I’ve experienced many challenges, obstacles and success.  My purpose with this post is identify six key lesson’s I’ve learned developing a scalable consulting practice from a business development perspective:

It’s all about the People! Selling technology and large software projects is complex.  Inevitably you will run into conflict and politics both within your internal sales pursuit team and from the client side.  Acknowledging that people have unique perspectives, insights, ego’s and agendas is a must.  In a software project, rarely is the technology the problem when things go awry, it’s the people that you have to develop, manage and lead.  The consulting sale is never a one man show, but rather a collection of experts that come together in a team that attempts to deliver a solution that will add value to your customers business.  Don’t underestimate the value of alignment, communication and relationships.

Your product or service must serve a niche: Trying to be all things to all people generally means you end up with nothing.  Every one of your customers has unique needs and there is never a one size fits all approach.  Gaining efficiencies in the way you sell and deliver your services will only occur if you sell to a niche.  Clearly define one product or service followed by clearly defining  your demographic or niche.  Next, create marketing material that addresses common inefficiencies you uncovered during your research and develop a list of comprehensive sales questions that speaks to your target demographic.

Don’t sell everything  to your customer: One of my Account Executives reminded me this week me that going into an account and selling your customer with every single service you offer is like coming to a meeting with a “machine gun and blasting them away with products and services hoping to get a successful hit”   The machine gun strategy  is ineffective because you can’t possibly be an expert at everything, your customer won’t take you seriously.  Put aside the machine gun and use a sniper rifle instead.  Carefully do your research, assess your clients environment and position a service that meets your clients unique needs by asking lots of questions.  Flush out where the issues are and use your sniper rifle to put a bullet in the specific problems your customers face.

Align your business around one common theme. At Waggware we tried selling our customers anything we had a hint of competency at.  We tried to sell everything!  Whether it was Customer systems, Operational solutions, Outage systems or Generic IT staffing services we tried selling it.  This lack of focus was ineffective and our customers didn’t take us seriously.  After a painful assessment of our our strengths and weaknesses, an evaluation of our competition we made the decision to stay close to systems that touched the customer of a Utility company.  We rallyed around the theme of “Equipping Utiliities, Empowering Consumers”.  As a result of our efforts we continue to get inquiries from Utilities across North America for information and are business is growing at a very rapid pace.

Network Network Network! Networking takes time, takes effort and you will not realize the benefits immediately.  Plan to network and you will reap fruits from the networking seeds you sow today.  I`ve developed a plan and a strategy that involves meeting and connecting with as many industry and technology professionals as I can.  I do this both in my own industry (Utilities) and in my own local community.   From an industry perspective I try to attend all the big conferences and participate in the social media forums.  Even though Waggware generally doesn`t do business in it`s own local comunity I make a committment to stay involved.  By way of local networking I stay on top of local talent, identify potential alliance partnerships and gain advice from professionals that are in similar non-competing industries.

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes: Failure is painful yet it is often the catalyst for generating great ideas.  I’ve heard someone say that “If your not making mistakes, your not trying anything new and your probably not creating great ideas or products.”  I agree with that statement.  I’ve made my share of mistakes but these failures have made me a stronger person, executive and leader.  The important point here is to fail fast, recognize that you’ve made a mistake and change course.

Developing a consulting practice is hard and challenging work.  You will face tension, fear, dissappointment, politics and frustration.  Take up an attitude of  faith rather than fear.  Faith in others is the number one factor in developing a scalable consulting practice.  When you trust in others abilities great things happen and great things only happen when ordinary people come together as a team and do extra-ordinary things.  It’s never a one man show.

My experience is that when going through tension, friction or conflict in life you need friends, family and God. Without them everything else falls apart.

That’s why I’m thrilled that Michael Hyatt has published an e-book titled Creating Your Personal Life Plan. Last night I read the book in one sitting. This morning I put pen to paper, and began my own soul searching. It’s the perfect thing to do when on a vacation rest from the daily grind. Good thing I have a week away from it all.

I tweeted a few statistics live about the event itself:

Here are a few more interesting stats:

• Oracle spends $4.3 Billion a year on R&D
• Has 340,000 customers
• Oracle Partner Network sells $3 billion in software licenses
• 4,300 transactions equaling $1 Billion of software licenses are co-sold in North America in the Oracle Partner Network

But clearly if your like me, we didn’t attend the Open World event because of the big numbers and the party. We attend the conference because it’s one of the most important conferences in the business tech world. Open World lay’s out the roadmap for the future and is a place where the big Silicon Valley players can have a debate on things that matter to the tech sector. This years debate was exceptionally fun, riveting and highly entertaining. I’m re-publishing a segment published by IDG which articulates Ellison’s view of the cloud. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a clip where Larry promotes Marc Benioff’s book “behind the cloud” which he retitles “Way behind the cloud” (if you find a short clip on Youtube – let me know, I’d love to share it)

Here is Marc Benioff of salesforce.com counter opinion on cloud computing

The cloud debate will continue to go on.  My belief is that there is no one size fits all, which makes me partially side with Larry Ellison.  A platform is more flexible than an application and allows for much more customization and functionality that meets my business needs.  And no matter how you look at it, salesforce.com still needs to be hosted on big server’s somewhere.

The Iron age revolutionized the way society functioned through productivity gains by way of better tools, agriculture methods and weaponry. Like the iron age the information age is advancing productivity improvements, enhancing interaction and changing the way our society wage’s war. Yet, just like in King David’s time the Iron Age never did solve all of human’s problems. Technology will never solve:

1. Human Evil
2. Human Suffering
3. Human Mortality

I encourage you to watch this video or download the podcast and reflect. Consider Thomas Edison who once said “When you see everything that is happening in the world of science and in the working of the universe, you cannot deny that their is a captain on the bridge”

In my current role as Director of Sales & Marketing, I serve as a principle in the various projects that we run and am ultimately responsible if the project succeeds or fails. From my vantage point the biggest reasons for failure is lack of communication which leads to missing the mark on meeting customer expectations.

Managing all of the stakeholder’s expectations is critical and great care should be used in communicating often. This includes listening, asking for feedback and constantly asking each and every stakeholder what their overall goal’s of the software project are so that those expectations are met. The following video is a discussion on what defines an IT failure, perhaps it will give you some ideas on what to do to avoid an IT project failure.

What do you do to avoid IT Project Failures?

I’ve developed a 9 stage framework that I assist my customers with when looking to implement enterprise software.  Depending on the size of the engagement or software investment I often scale up or down on the level of activity I conduct during the selection phase.  I’ve embedded my presentation below for your use and review.

1. Shadowing/Observation – Job shadowing allows an observer to study an end user perform their work in order to understand workflow.  Some business analysts will actually do the work to gain a solid understanding of the work.
2. Use Cases – a method that tells a story about how a system will be used to achieve a goal from the perspective of a user of that system.  The goal should be to help a technical expert and non-technical people alike understand how the behaviour should be.  Use cases should be used to organize and document the functional requirements of an automated system.
3. Storyboards – Stake holders and developers working together by drawing up the elements that are believed to be a part of the application.  By leveraging story boarding along with probing questions you will gain a good thorough review of your customers workflow.
4. Prototyping – capture the look and feel of the user interface by drawing screen shots, screen flows and so on.
5. Structured demonstrations – If your purchasing an application, getting the end users to use the system for normal tasks is a very effective way of finding out what is missing in an application.

Use a variety of these techniques and ask a lot of questions.  Gathering requirements is often tedious work, but is the most important activity that ensures your customer get’s what they want every time!