Sales Performance Associates LLC

A core value of Sales Performance Associates' Media Technology Sales Conditioning is that sales success is directly linked to your sales team's ability to develop a strategic partner relationship - as opposed to a commodity or vendor relationship - with your prospects and customers. Buyers are more likely to lower the barriers they erect for traditional buyer versus seller situations when they view you as a trusted partner focused on understanding and helping them solve strategic problems.

In January 2009 InformationWeek magazine released results of an InformationWeek Analytics survey examining the relationship between technology buyers and vendors. The magazine surveyed 345 business technology professionals for its Tech Buyers Speak Out Survey.

The InformationWeek findings should be a wakeup call for every sales organization that continues to use antiquated selling techniques.

Sales Frustrations

In the survey participants were asked, "What should your vendors stop doing?" Their top suggestion is that sales people should stop promising capabilities that aren't in the solution. This was followed closely by the recommendation that sales people stop misrepresenting integration requirements; underestimating the cost, time and effort for implementation; and overestimating the value of their proposed solution (i.e., return on investment).

What Should Your Vendors Stop Doing?

DATA SOURCE: InformationWeek Analytics - Tech Buyers Speak Out - Jan 2009

Smoke and Mirrors? Vaporware?

Another disturbing finding is the disconnect between buyers and sellers on the availability of key capabilities. Buyers were asked to say when key features they needed were actually delivered. The respondents said that 25-percent of the key features they thought were part of the vendor's solution were never delivered. These features were complete fiction.

Key Features Promised in Your Organization's Last Major Product Rollout Were...

DATA SOURCE: InformationWeek Analytics - Tech Buyers Speak Out - Jan 2009

Sales People versus Sales Professionals

When Sales Conditioning transforms Sales People into Sales Professionals they understand why they are more successful focusing on the needs of the customer. The InformationWeek study supports this. Nearly 60-percent of the technology buyers surveyed say their number one suggestion to vendors is some combination (red highlights) of "focus more on understanding my needs and requirements."

What Should Your Vendors Start Doing?

DATA SOURCE: InformationWeek Analytics - Tech Buyers Speak Out - Jan 2009

It's no wonder buyers are suspicious of traditional sales people and react more favorably to sales professionals who position themselves as consultants who are there to understand and solve business problems.

The New Sales Culture

If you believe that sales is war; if you feel that sales is a game of Us Against Them; if you encourage your sales managers and sales people to just get the sale regardless of what you have to say, you must examine the impact that kind of culture has on competitive wins, repeat business, sales margins, customer satisfaction and, ultimately, on your company's bottom line.

Even though you may personally believe that your company has a sales culture based on a mutually-beneficial partnership between buyer and seller, your front line sales people may still be using methods and tactics that build barriers between you and your customers.

In today's business environment you must project a sales culture built on a foundation of trust between you and your customers and prospects.

Sales Performance Associates' program of Media Technology Sales Conditioning transforms sales, sales management and tactical marketing groups into a customer-focused team.

Action Item: Checkpoint Your Sales Culture

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