Sales Techniques MARKET REPORT
“If you can’t get their permission to explain why you are calling and enter their world
inside of 30 seconds, you’re toast.” Marcus Cauchi, Sales Trainer, Sandler
important to think and forecast
what the impacts of moving
from one model to another will
have on the business over the
coming years. Like all things
in business things need to
be thought through properly
and the right renumeration
delivered to keep the salespeople
focused and one that delivers
good revenue and pro t for the
company.”
Is the Hunter Dead?
Long term relationships, service
upgrades, consultative selling…
does all this add up to the end
of the Hunter-type salesperson?
Sinnott commented “Sales
drops into three categories;
opportunity creation, deal
>
“To meet this demand,
salespeople must be trained
to provide strong, considered
strategic advice throughout
the purchasing process. eir
advice needs to consider project
design and implementation and
provide a longer-term strategic
view to customers about how
they can maintain, evolve and
grow their cloud technology to
meet their companies’ changing
needs. is consultative
approach will enable channel
rms to position sales teams as
trusted advisors.”
Gotta get a Grip?
It would seem the fundamentals
are still the same, however the
breadth of the role has changed
signi cantly. I asked my experts
what their salespeople had to
get to grips with in order to
thrive.
Paul Taylor, Sales Director
at Voice ex, said “ e sales
guy needs to know a lot more,
gone are the days of selling one
product, as products are reliant
on other products and services;
it’s a package not a product.
For example, if you’re selling
a telephony application which
is in a data centre, you sell the
application, AWS or Google,
data connectivity, the carrier for
in and outbound calls, and then
agree a service level agreement.”
Justin Blaine, Sales Manager
at NTA commented “Without
any doubt the customer is more
tech savvy these days and in a
lot of cases they have an idea
of what they want, even if they
do not fully understand the full
technicalities. In a world when
just about any information
is available via a simple web
search then salespeople have
to combat the power of this
and the pricing that is often
readily available for all to
see. It is imperative for our
sales team to understand the
potential customers current
situation and because we are
channel focused why they are
currently looking for a provider
like NTA, what are the current
pain points with their existing
provider (if applicable) and
what expectations they have
with engaging with us and
more importantly how can we
help them to hit the ground
running.”
Iain Sinnott, Sales Director
of VanillaIP commented,
“ ere are di erent categories
of product, core dial tone and
productivity cloud applications/
mobility services. ese
products need to be consumed
di erently, as no one has the
experience of the new cloud
portfolio to bet on a longterm
agreement. Solution
elements that target a new
desirable business outcome
should be deployed on a 30-day
agreement and removed if the
outcome is not achieved. By
doing this, resellers, and their
sales sta , win the con dence
of the customer who will then
go on to review and consume
other productivity apps as they
emerge.”
Cauchi adds “In an
increasingly connected society
buyers are facing massive
complexity beyond any of
their capacity to understand or
stay ahead of. Jay McBain of
Forrester predicts that within
a few years the IT stack will
consist of 35,000,000 (yes
that’s million) options and
combinations. No vendor
can stay dominant in that
environment and it will
be down to partners who
intimately understand their
clients’ businesses to help them
stay ahead of their problems.
“Now we hit another
problem. e channel has
traditionally failed to expand
into all the lines of business
and has stayed where they are
familiar and comfortable. If
your salespeople can’t get out of
the IT silo and into the broader
lines of business having strategic
and business conversations,
they too will go the way of the
dinosaurs in favour of those
who can.”
Show me the money
Salesman renumeration has
been a hot topic in the Channel
as we have seen Capex sales,
which typically yield big
upfront commissions, to Opex
sales which generally come with
recurring monthly payments.
Have we got over this challenge
in the market?
Sinnott explains, “ is is
a big issue as traditionally
salespeople have been able to
command rich packages based
on closing contracted business.
Like it or not the world has
changed and either businesses
are going to need to assume the
risk of the short-term element
or salespeople are going to need
to take a longer-term view going
forward.”
Taylor added “Commission
payment and targets will never
suit everyone, the OPEX world
is here to stay so sales guys and
employers need to get used to
it. Selling is not rocket science
if activity from either farming
or hunting is high a salesperson
will succeed and earn well.”
Justin Blaine said “Yes,
I think it is an issue still,
particularly when a company
moves from the traditional
model of Capex, we all know
in business cash is king, so it is
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Paul Taylor, Sales Director at Voice ex
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