The end user has a far wider choice of comms technologies and suppliers than ever before, and most end users have little or no knowledge of both. This means that ‘knowledge' has become a key weapon in the battle to win the minds and budgets of new prospects.

Armed with ‘knowledge', sales staff have an opportunity to become trusted advisers to potential clients, explaining the pros and cons of various ranges, asking questions, listening, and suggesting a business case that best fits the prospect's particular requirements. Sounds simple. So why aren't sales people smashing their targets?

According to sales expert Andy Preston, a leading consultant in the comms sector, the plethora of options on offer to the customer can often end up hindering rather than helping the sales effort if the sales person lacks one critical skill... the ability to listen. "A common trait among comms sales people is to simply deliver the customer's pre-preferred option, or the option which commands the highest commission for the sales person without really taking the time to listen and understand what the customer wants," commented Preston.

"What typically happens is that while a customer is responding to a question the sales person is already thinking about what to say next, not paying attention to what the customer has been saying."
Preston pointed out that it is crucial to remember that customers have access to many more opinions than just one particular sales person, meaning that resellers who fail to take the time to qualify and identify a prospects' needs effectively will struggle to gain their respect as trusted advisers, and may end up gifting the business to the competition. "Successful comms sales people fully understand the needs and requirements of the customer by asking good, solid questions, really listening to the answers and then finding a solution to best meet their needs," stated Preston.

"Customers are abstracting their needs up to a business driver level"

The real challenge is that, over the past few years, sales people have evolved from selling communications solutions to needing to sell business solutions. Campbell Williams, Marketing Director at Charterhouse Voice & Data, commented: "The sheer diversity of technologies and the breadth of the supply chain has meant that only the very largest of customers truly know what they need and want. The vast majority are now confused. They are faced with IP Telephony, Microsoft solutions, hosted options, flexible working options, virtualisation, mobilisation, security fears, and so on. They cannot define their comms requirements as readily as they used to in the past.

"The enormity of the challenge of understanding the options means that customers are abstracting their needs up to a business driver level, not a communications driver level. This might be as simple as wanting to get more out of field-based staff, but increasingly they need to look at reducing their carbon footprint, at meeting compliancy challenges, at disaster recovery, at business continuity, and at helping to collaborate on client projects more efficiently."

Williams warns that if salespeople cannot talk at a business level about these issues and map the technology onto those business motivators, it will be increasingly difficult to be successful. "We're already seeing that IT budgets are being cut, while sustainability budgets are being increased," he stated.

"Therefore, solutions will need to help customers to be more environmentally friendly, and salespeople must understand how to articulate that message. The upside for those who grasp that challenge is that they can access new and relatively recession-proof budgets in return. But the business case is completely different to the comms return-on-investment models of old," added Campbell.

Case study
IP Office has credited an Avaya sponsored training course for helping it transform the way customers buy new VoIP systems.

Richard Hill, VoIP Sales Specialist with IP Office, commented: "For too long customers have had to try and make buying decisions for what in reality are key strategic business tools based on product information and price. The trouble is, most people who are buying these systems are not telecoms specialists and find it hard to cut through the ‘technobabble'. Hence, they often make a less than optimal decision for their business."

Having recently attended a Strategic Selling course laid on by Avaya, Hill says: "This course opened my eyes to a whole new way of selling, showing the customer how our offering delivers real sustainable revenue growth to their business, instead of simply selling product or a ‘solution'."

Within four weeks of attending the training course Hill took this new approach to a prospect and showed the customer that by using the new system in an innovative way they could add a minimum £500k per annum of new revenue to their business. He won the deal quickly and without competition.

This success has brightened Hill's prospects for similar and bigger sales in the future. He added: "Because of the training I am hugely enthusiastic. I have won a significant piece of business within four weeks of the course and have already got additional meetings with senior decision makers in even bigger prospects as a result of my initial success."