I was attending the Cloud Plus Conference several years ago in Austin, and a common theme I heard among the attendees was that integrators should set up separate businesses, or at minimum separate sales teams, to succeed at selling hosted and managed services. While these are not bad ideas, I think there is a much deeper element leading to successful sales people failing at selling hosted or managed services.
Most companies buy technology and services in a much, much different manner than they did 10 years ago, but we still sell in the same way we used to. When our customers need a new access control system or additional cameras, our way of selling doesn’t matter that much. Our customers know they need to make these purchases, so they move forward with their current provider or they put the project out to bid. Either way, they move forward, buy something, and someone successfully sells something. The winning sales person may not have sold with the best strategy, but they won by default because the customer had to buy from someone.
However, customers don’t know when they need hosted or managed services. For customers to make this shift, they need to change their way of doing business. If we use traditional strategies to manage their change, we fail. Customers won’t move forward in a different direction unless they have a subject matter expert leading their change. Becoming that subject matter expert is a much different process today than it was 10 years ago.
So, in a nutshell… we’re not selling hosted or managed services very well because we’re not selling anything very well. In general, our approach to the market is very 2007 (and it’s not just our industry, by the way). Customers are buying traditional systems because they have to buy from someone, and the winner usually has the relationship or the least expensive price. When it comes to hosted or managed services, customers just fall back to what they’re used to.
Some might read this previous paragraph and be discouraged, but I think it’s great news. Think of the opportunity to grow your success by implementing a sales strategy congruent with your customers’ buying strategies – especially while your competition is still doing the same old thing.
