Resellers offering a complete service will be better placed to win sales in recession and beyond
In today’s economic climate, most companies will tell you that customers are hesitant to commit themselves. This natural reaction inevitably manifests itself in longer sales cycles. The onus is therefore on distributors and resellers to find engaging ways to guide a hesitant customer into making the decision to purchase.
We all know that expenditure can be controlled by foregoing that new server or holding back on a new software roll-out until conditions have improved. Indeed, the mantra passed down from the boardroom to the corridors of the IT department is to “make the most of what you’ve got” and “do more with less”.
The reality is that most IT departments today are already lean and mean, so simply presenting an investment case based on a reasonable return on investment (ROI) may not be enough in these testing times. We have to be cleverer.
Promise extra value
Take virtualisation for example. The ability to reduce 40 servers to four is an attractive proposition. Any salesman worth his salt will point out the savings in power and hardware, reductions in property costs, savings in administration, and the ease and efficiency in rolling out applications. Yet even these persuasive arguments can fall on stony ground. Simply look at lead conversion rates pre- and post-recession.
What helps to clinch a sale is the promise of “extra value”. Look at it as two sides of a coin. One is the ROI. The other is demonstrating how the customer can use that new infrastructure to extract competitive advantage.
Positioning in the downturn is one thing, positioning for the upturn is another. But it is a combination of the two that is more likely to convince the customer to get out their chequebook.
This means some resellers would need to change their behaviour and act in a “consultative” fashion. Taking the example of virtualisation, resellers need to discover why a customer wants to virtualise. Find out their business drivers. What you hear may unearth a world of additional opportunity. Virtualisation may be the tip of the iceberg of a much wider implementation; one that could lead to sales of servers, optimisation and provisioning tools, even business process management services.
Develop consultancy skills
Asking questions and acting in a consultative way may sound like common sense, but business is often left on the table.
Such an approach may cause some resellers to reappraise their own business models. For example, a reseller that can only talk part numbers is light years away from making a consultative sale. To develop this side of their business they will need support, training and an all-important services capability. The key is to work with a distributor that can hand-hold them while they develop these skills.
One of our partners had a growing business in selling VMware licences. It knocked on our door in response to its customers asking for integrated VMware solutions. It appreciated that if it just continued selling licenses it might win the next sale, but the one after that would go to a competitor that had the capability to deliver a complete solution.
Our partner’s dilemma was to build a solution capability, even though it lacked the technical know-how and professional skills to do so. Hence the need to partner with a distributor that had the capabilities to assist it to make what was a significant cultural gear change.
A supportive relationship
Distributors and resellers both have roles to play. This is becoming more important as more and more customers demand solutions, the complexity of which, even at an SME level, can be daunting.
For instance, a large project may offer multiple ROI opportunities. The role for the reseller is to pull these together and present them in a meaningful way and then demonstrate how the customer’s IT investment can be leveraged to better support its business goals.
Distributors can help by proactively supporting their partners.
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