Categories: Sales Messaging
It amazes me how often technology salespeople from all corners of the industry are afraid to sell directly to the business side of our prospective customers. Far too often, there’s a Chinese wall that we’re leery of crossing partly because it isn’t in our comfort zone and because we don’t think we have the tools, insight and messages that will be successful. Unfortunately, this negatively impacts everyone involved.
In 18 years of selling software, in every senior management conversation and in each interview I conduct for sales roles, we all agree that, “We need to sell to the business.” In the deals that are most successful for our customers and for us, that’s exactly what happens. Getting the business on our side and engaged makes the outcome far more guaranteed for them as well as moving the deal size (and value creation) higher by many multiples for us. It works for everyone.
Mr. Sales Rep, Tear Down That Wall
But the Chinese wall persists all too often. That’s a shame because it wasn’t always this way. Once upon a time, before IT existed as a department, we sold technology directly to people who likely didn’t know (and didn’t need to know) how it worked. They just had to know in clear, business-friendly terms how it furthered their business goals and needed to see validation from third parties that it worked – references. Global trade and software empires were created before the first CIO was minted.
I recently played a role in getting the smartest people in the room for an exercise in creating the approach and messaging for selling machine data software to the business. It could have been techie nirvana but it was a beautiful, business-facing thing instead. In a focused day spent with the Force Management team, we honed the tools and process that will allow sales reps to prepare for business-facing meetings by visualizing discovery questions that help the customer discover and understand the urgency of their challenges and the Positive Business Outcomes that require their focus the most. Far from drudgery, the meeting was energizing because everyone involved knew that when salespeople have and use the tools, it transforms the conversation.
Don’t Let Fear Hold You Back
So what are you afraid of? What holds you back? Maybe you don’t think you have the skills or the tools, but that’s just the devil on your shoulder making you second guess. Every business has real challenges and needs that go unmet each and every day. For every successful company, there are many more that need to get their head around what they should be doing and to create the urgency to get it done. That’s our job in sales…to facilitate that conversation with the people who are charged with increasing revenue, decreasing cost and reducing risk. The problems are there and they exist within the business. Take the conversation to the biggest business problems and you’ll be rewarded in every way.
Chad Garrett is the Senior Director of Global Sales at TIBCO Software. He has nearly 20 years of global experience in the enterprise software industry. This blog post originally appeared on LinkedIn.
