Today’s selling professional is expected to have more product knowledge than ever before—and across an ever-widening portfolio. With everyone else telling you to up your game, have you ever thought about simplifying it instead?
In their quest to be as comprehensive as possible, software companies often provide a massive menu of products that can be mixed and matched to accommodate just about any situation. As flexible as that approach is it adds enormous complexity to your selling process—increasing friction, slowing your sales cycle, and adding unnecessary risk.
But why should selling software have to be so complicated—for the sales team or for the customer?
When I joined Kearns Business Solutions in 2003, copiers were just being attached to company networks. Software solutions were new and novel in the imaging industry, and complex was an acceptable sacrifice. We sold a few solutions and suffered a lot during the process.
After years of increasing our proficiency, it never really became easy. But one day I was sitting in a drive-through—about to order—and asked myself, “Why can’t I just order a number one, two, or three off of our menu?”
This was a major breakthrough for us. We simplified the number of decisions a buyer had to make and reduced the mental inventory our sales team had to carry. When we combined this with various financing options (self-funded or leased), installation, and support, it became a no-brainer.
The program took off and our sales team began to trust that we could deliver on what we were promising. We sold more hardware at higher-than-ever margins; we added an additional 25 percent of gross profit to our service group in less than a year; and our customers enjoyed easy-to-understand benefits and the clear line of sight the program afforded.
Where do you start?
- Take inventory of your software partners, and settle on a primary and secondary partner in each software category.
- Construct three “boxed” software packages that can serve most of your customers (80-20 rule).
- Drive targeted activities with your sales team to touch each one of your customers over the next 3-6 months.
These are the first three steps in my Software Sales Accelerator. Just following these steps will yield huge benefits for you, your team, and your customers.
