What’s my least favorite statement made during a technology sales demonstration?

“We can change virtually anything, we can make this look exactly how you want it!”

Thank you “sales dude” you just unknowingly did the following:

1. Focused the prospect on what they want to change in the solution vs. what they like about the system. From that comment forward, the prospect may be inclined to look and keep track of everything they think should be different with the solution.
2. Created an expectation you’re implementation team can never meet. Even if your solution is highly configurable, it doesn’t mean you should waste the time or money configuring everything! Implementation should be about achieving ROI as efficiently as possible, pushing pixels around the page rarely gets you any closer to ROI.

Before we beat up sales too much, lets talk about who is really to blame when sales resources “sell without boundaries.” Good sales people are (or should be) by their very nature thinking beyond limits, because it’s their job to create new business. Left to their own devices, sales will sell without limits. So if no limits have been set, sales is just doing what sales does.

The problem really occurs upstream from sales, where “productization” should have occurred. You can call this a marketing function, but every business has to do it whether they have someone with a marketing title or not. Productization means you define the value you’re providing to the customer and what problems you solve through that value delivery.

Lets take an example from the world of web to print. The printer’s prospect expresses the challenge of managing collateral across a large network of distributors. The print sales representative steps in and suggests a web to print platform to manage the collateral distribution. During the software demonstration the client asks, “can this website be designed to look just like my intranet?”

FULL STOP.

Choose your words carefully.

Productization means you define the value you’re providing to the customer and what problems you solve through that value delivery.

You’re in a sales call, and you’re dying to say, “yes” to everything without hesitation right? Some times questions are better answered not with answers but with clarifying questions. Do you know why the client would want the site to look just like their intranet site? Of course we can all make an assumption, but it’s usually more interesting to actually get the answer to the direct question.

“What would your objectives be to making the site look just like you’re intranet site?” The client then says, “I want the distributors to feel like this is part of our overall offering by seamlessly inserting it where other products and services are offered.” (Juicy fact #1 – you just found out they provide other products and services via their intranet site to their distributors). What other products and services do your distributors procure from your intranet site?

More listening, more questions, more knowledge about the customer and NO lame commitments to functionality that isn’t that important in the grand scheme of things. I’m not trying to teach you how to avoid answering questions. The answer would be, “we can accommodate your requirement to make the user experience familiar to your distributors.”

Did you promise that everything could be customized? No. Did you say it could look EXACTLY like their intranet site? No. Did you find out some more information about how they support their distributor network? Yes.

How do you appear in the eyes of the prospect? You appear to be someone who is genuinely curious about how their business works today and most important you seem to be listening because you’re asking intelligent follow-up questions rather than raddling off features.

How do you aim or target your sales team?

1. Take the Time to Productize Your Offering
   Each time you add value to your offering, take the time to define the value to your sales team. Brainstorm about how to best present this new value to prospective customers. Don’t assume everyone is on the same page – proactively take actions to assure everyone from sales to accounting understands the new product offering.


2. Keep them focused on overall objectives, rather than in the weeds
   The natural tendency for both sales and prospects is to dive into the features. A good sales person keeps the conversation on what matters most – understanding the core objectives of the customer and then showing how the solution meets those core objectives.


3. Build Trust in what Your Solution Does Well
   Sales people who are “insecure” about the solution they are selling tend to exaggerate / lean more into the “yes it can” answer to everything. One of the best ways to build trust in your sales team is to explain how existing successful companies are using the solution. Focus on the customers who are utilizing what the solution does best. You want to sell to customers who have the challenges that your solution solves out of the box. This applies to any sale, once you go down the path of trying to make your product/service do something it was never intended to do; you might make it through the sales process but everything else after that will be an exercise in frustration.


4. Provide Sample Answers / Explanations
   A customer asks, “Can you customize the look and feel of the site?” This is a very common question. Instead of the default, “yes, you can do anything you want,” give the sales representative an alternative like this; the site is built around a framework, which allows for controlled configuration within that framework. This approach allows us to offer customization while preventing you from doing anything that would break the solution. You sound smarter, your company sounds smarter because why would you allow people to make changes that might break the solution?

We like to divide things up into silos, sales are over here, operations is over here, and management is over here. The whole thing is a process and everything starts with sales. When sales presents and sells what you have, the whole process is easy. When sales presents and sells what they imagine you should have, the whole process is a no fun. Connect the silos of your business through productization each and every time you add value to your offering.