Showing posts with label business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label business. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
IT Department vs. Purchasing
Sales people, when successful, find what has made them a success and then repeat. As my VP likes to say, “rinse and repeat”. This fundamental function of sales drives consistent and predictable business. I would suggest that for double digit growth to occur, a salesperson has to step out of their comfort zone.
One of the most comfortable places for an IT sales person to exist is in the purchasing department. The safety of dealing in just the monetary portion of the transaction is a place where everyone knows the rules. Low price wins the business. End of story. Unfortunately, low margins are what you end up with as purchasing has no way to evaluate your services any other way. If given the opportunity, even the value of logistics are negotiated down through purchasing.
The IT department can be a scary place. Lots of Acronyms, unfamiliar technologies, really smart IT people……very intimidating. However, in order for a salesperson to be a complete solution provider, it is imperative that this be their first stop in the sales process. While a salesperson may not be the most technical person in the room, there is plenty of value that they bring to the table. It is our job to understand the business case of the IT technology and help the IT department marry the solution to the business case. Ironically, the salesperson, when positioned properly inside the IT department becomes the “Go-To” person in the sales cycle and not the outsider that many sales people fear. The IT staff treats the salesperson as part of the decision making team. Of course, engineers should accompany all sales persons in this process, but the reason an IT salesperson is kept around is to assist on the business portion of any transaction and engage the technical resources to complete the solution.
Stepping outside your comfort zone and leaving the purchasing department and moving into the IT Department will actually lead to more comfort and stability for the salesperson, not less. A salesperson’s time working on solutions brings profitability to their clients. In most instances, the customer will make sure the salesperson is compensated for their time because it saves them time and effort. In other instances the customer will make decisions to protect the salesperson and their efforts from others determination to devalue their services.
We, as business people on both sides of the table, always associate ourselves with individuals who make us successful. Your clients do it as well. While there is always the necessity to work with the purchasing department, engage with the IT department. Your involvement is necessary for the success of an IT department. Salespersons have so much more to offer a client than products or services. They offer a way to make the IT Department’s job easier. Leverage your business skill and make it happen….then, “rinse and repeat”.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Timing - In Business as well as Life
As we all know, timing is everything in business. We all remember where we were on 9/11. It was a day we all shared collectively as a community, nation and a world. Timing is something we seek to control as we feel it is somehow controls us.
Back in 2001 I was running a growing business that was hungry for capital. Sales had been going through the roof. We were on the INC 500 list as one of the fastest growing businesses in the US. We had begun the process of working on the refinance of the line of credit with our bank. During this time, we had hired new salespersons. One of our new sales people had brought in an account that was in New York City. The customer had started to use us as their source for Cisco equipment. Within months they started ordering a significant amount of equipment from us. Enough equipment and services had been sold to the client that I suggested to the salesperson that we should go out and cultivate the relationship in NYC.
I began to look at hotels, airfares restaurants etc. We put it in the calendar the last week of August that we would fly to NYC the second week of September in the morning. Like all things when you are a manager, you sometimes feel like one of those carnival acts doing the plate spinning routine. This was no different for me. The company was growing, I was in a constant state of learning, creating and adapting to the new challenges of managing a growing business. The bank financing at the time held the largest set of unknowns for me in business. I have come to understand debt/equity ratios and what the P&L represents to a business, but at the time it was new territory for me. After a phone call with my accountant, he suggested I delay my trip for a week to get the books organized to present to the bank the 3rd week of September. Fate had truly intervened.
Only six months later did I realize how fate had saved me. Our plane was going to arrive Sept 10 in the evening in NYC. We were to stay at the Millennium Hilton Hotel. If you haven’t been to New York, it sits directly across the street from the World Trade Center and sustained massive damage on 9/11 and took almost 2 years to reopen. My client, whose office was three blocks south of the south tower, was completely blocked after the attack and subsequent collapse of the two towers. There is a picture somewhere of the front landing gear of one of the planes in front of their main door. There is a picture somewhere of the front of the hotel being sheared off by the collapse. Even ten years later, it is difficult to comprehend that we were supposed to be there on that terrible day. We had planned on the meeting taking place around 9:30 or so on 9/11.
While nothing in life is for sure, my salesperson and I were spared that day. We were spared not only from actual bodily harm, but spared the trauma of the horrible events as they had unfolded and traumatized millions of New Yorkers that day. On a rare occasion I will talk about my twist of fate for September 11th. The recent programming on television, along with the 9/11 tenth anniversary has brought this vivid and painful memory back to me. I can’t help but think how a simple yes or no decision could have impacted me and everyone around me. At the time, my children were six, four and two years old. In July, My wife and I had just celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary. There was so much future to be had, so many things to do. It took me a couple of years to even tell my wife about the twist of fate. It still gives me goose bumps to think what could have been.
The truth is that there is only so much you can control in this world. Much of our lives are left purely to fate. This could mean divine intervention to some. This could mean dumb luck to others. I’d like to believe it’s both. Whatever the reason, I was given the past ten years as a gift and hope I made the most of it. It is never lost on me how fortunate I am to have so much in this world. I am grateful for my family, my friends and life as a whole. Don’t ever take your life for granted, the present really is a gift. This September 11th I will stop to remember those whose lives were changed forever, as well as mine.
Back in 2001 I was running a growing business that was hungry for capital. Sales had been going through the roof. We were on the INC 500 list as one of the fastest growing businesses in the US. We had begun the process of working on the refinance of the line of credit with our bank. During this time, we had hired new salespersons. One of our new sales people had brought in an account that was in New York City. The customer had started to use us as their source for Cisco equipment. Within months they started ordering a significant amount of equipment from us. Enough equipment and services had been sold to the client that I suggested to the salesperson that we should go out and cultivate the relationship in NYC.
I began to look at hotels, airfares restaurants etc. We put it in the calendar the last week of August that we would fly to NYC the second week of September in the morning. Like all things when you are a manager, you sometimes feel like one of those carnival acts doing the plate spinning routine. This was no different for me. The company was growing, I was in a constant state of learning, creating and adapting to the new challenges of managing a growing business. The bank financing at the time held the largest set of unknowns for me in business. I have come to understand debt/equity ratios and what the P&L represents to a business, but at the time it was new territory for me. After a phone call with my accountant, he suggested I delay my trip for a week to get the books organized to present to the bank the 3rd week of September. Fate had truly intervened.
Only six months later did I realize how fate had saved me. Our plane was going to arrive Sept 10 in the evening in NYC. We were to stay at the Millennium Hilton Hotel. If you haven’t been to New York, it sits directly across the street from the World Trade Center and sustained massive damage on 9/11 and took almost 2 years to reopen. My client, whose office was three blocks south of the south tower, was completely blocked after the attack and subsequent collapse of the two towers. There is a picture somewhere of the front landing gear of one of the planes in front of their main door. There is a picture somewhere of the front of the hotel being sheared off by the collapse. Even ten years later, it is difficult to comprehend that we were supposed to be there on that terrible day. We had planned on the meeting taking place around 9:30 or so on 9/11.
While nothing in life is for sure, my salesperson and I were spared that day. We were spared not only from actual bodily harm, but spared the trauma of the horrible events as they had unfolded and traumatized millions of New Yorkers that day. On a rare occasion I will talk about my twist of fate for September 11th. The recent programming on television, along with the 9/11 tenth anniversary has brought this vivid and painful memory back to me. I can’t help but think how a simple yes or no decision could have impacted me and everyone around me. At the time, my children were six, four and two years old. In July, My wife and I had just celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary. There was so much future to be had, so many things to do. It took me a couple of years to even tell my wife about the twist of fate. It still gives me goose bumps to think what could have been.
The truth is that there is only so much you can control in this world. Much of our lives are left purely to fate. This could mean divine intervention to some. This could mean dumb luck to others. I’d like to believe it’s both. Whatever the reason, I was given the past ten years as a gift and hope I made the most of it. It is never lost on me how fortunate I am to have so much in this world. I am grateful for my family, my friends and life as a whole. Don’t ever take your life for granted, the present really is a gift. This September 11th I will stop to remember those whose lives were changed forever, as well as mine.
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