Three Pre’s of product sales:

My childhood days, I used to see MR (Medical Representatives), at our family doctor clinic. They used to carry huge bag “it used to be mystery for me, why the hell those people come to my doctor when we need him most and would go ahead of my token number”. Still happens while visiting DOC for my Kids.

(Our unknown Robinhood) 😉  However the surprise was doc would give some of the medicine for free, “AA HA this made me realize, those MR are “Robinhood” distributing medicines for free through our DOC”. Robinhood would preach their product and make sure doc prescribe those as they need to make number and doc made sure we are safe and healthy.

What does it take to be sales person in any organization…… MBA? Bachelors of Sales and Marketing? “Hmm are you sure those are the criteria? Let me see if I am not wrong”. Those degree and certification are just a way to know how this world operates. They would not give you practical knowledge for the products or solutions that you join to organization be a sales person.

What more do you need?

3 Pre’s: Prepare – Preach – Predict!!!

Prepare – “No you do not prepare product 🙂”, prepare yourself to understand product and ingress its features, bright sides and unique terminology,

How: go through product details such as documents or search engines. “Best part” be friendly with technical team in your organization, who breath, eat, sleep, dream about those products. If you have ready presentation GREAT, if not prepare yourself based on the information and technical details from team.

Have your inner ability to be confident about the product you are planning to sell. “Most important; you may need to be bit technical and tactical….no no no not a master, no need”

Have list of information handy, information on how, where this product would give advantage to customer. Tentative costing of the product “yes you heard it right TENTATIVE” best references if any and finally your instinct.

Preach – I had already mentioned in my earlier blog Sales Pitch Part 2 & Part 3 (Once again, do not read your presentation as prepared try and create your own story around presentation. Take your customer through virtual world of your product operations)

Predict – Prediction is most important for any sales person and or product organization. “No you do not have to predict how are you or your organization going to perform in future”. You must predict outcome of Preach. Maybe you call it intuition “you know who are the best breed in this area, any gusses….no not boss, no not your manager, no not even your astrologer. Its your wife or girlfriend gottacha…..prove me wrong on this 😛”. Concluding last three and half minutes of your meeting or presentation and based on queries, question or gesture by customer; will give you moderate prediction, you will have to master this.. “Yes Master it the more you meet the more perfect the prediction”.

Wanted to make more interesting, but both my wife and kids are not around for inspiration hence could not 🙁 .

Positive and Negative electrodes along with earthing do complete a circuit: Any guesses what in business??? Coming soon……

Posted in D-Guide Tagged with: Instinct, Predict, Product Sell, productivity, Sales, Santosh Dave, Sdave

Dave Guide: Product Sell VS Solution Sell:

 

Dave Guide: Product Sell VS Solution Sell:

I have a passion in both areas, I try to learn those from both the areas. Both of them are really important from any IT Service Organisation who wish to be known in the market.

I would define the tile as below:

Product sales is Easy to Sell Then to Say, Solution sales is Easy to Say Then Sell

Let me know how many of you agree. I have worked in both kind of organisations hence I would say the above. By the way “I didn’t mean any and all product in the market”, “Ya please do not misunderstand any an all product, I am talking about Majorly Accepted Technology brands.”

 During my 15 years of working experience I had come across many types of organisations that would like to be in the space of IT Organisation. The quotes do not go that easy as I had mentioned above. It takes lot of efforts to mention the same with my understanding so that you all can relate.

How does the above quote differentiate?

 Product:

1. Organisations with product sales are called as box movers. Their ultimate goal is to sell as much boxes as possible.
2. Those organisations brand does matter.
3. However, the brand is they would like to sell those and look forward to be exclusive partner for those boxes
4. They want their sales people to be well aware about product in and out to make sure they understand more to sell more
5. They try to build channels to make sure they have extended arms across region or global
6. Finally, sales people are robots who would sell those boxes day in and out
7. Technical teams are always on toes as they see lots of boxes moving around
8. They as well are robots, they do what is told, nothing creative. (It depends on organisation what type of team they envisage to be within organisation)

You wont believe they are at their best only if they stick around, they would move around organisations with same sales verticals. They can’t sell solution they cant even envisage to look further to boxes. 😉 Pssst “in case if they would wish to move to IT solution selling organisation they would mess up their gut feeling”. (By the way this is my personal experience).

Solution:

1. Organisations that sell solution are always at the mercy of product organisations (Brands).
2. They have to build solution across brands and present to customers
3. Talking about solution is much easier then implementing.
4. If organisation does not have specialised team for execution then the organisation is as at the mercy of brand principles
5. Sales or Marketing in solution organisation does not see sun rise if they don’t educate themselves
6. Actually for solution oriented company does not need sales or marketing people to sell solution.
7. Those organisations need Techno Sales team; they are the one who develop ideas to sell solutions
8. Before all, Solution based organisations has to excel step by step rather then taking all and everything in one basket

Sales people in Solution organisation can survive in any IT organisation. As they are well aware about their surroundings. They have been working in and around difference products (Brands) have been designing and discussion with customers. They are the best of breeds to understand customer (End Users) requirements.

The most beneficial people in solution based organisation are the technical team. They get a chance to make their hands dirty on any technology. 😉 Pssst, “Head of service or solution should be able to sell any solution they would wish their technical team to work on. Build their solution portfolio but make sure they have excellent technical team to support them”

 By the way in both kind of organisations the team members who benefit a lot are 🙂

Any guesses  🙂 Technical team or so called deployment team. They would survive in any kind of organisations, provided they would like to learn more excel in their stream.
Let me know your thoughts on the above topic what do you all think??

Posted in D-Guide Tagged with: Product Sell, Solution Sell, Technical Team