There you stand, belly to belly with a client, and you’ve secured the order for a small fleet of MFPs and a dose of PaperCut software. Feeling good time, right? But since this customer already has his checkbook out, why not see what other solutions from your bag of goodies could further help them be faster, more productive and efficient?
OK, so you don’t need a lesson on how to ply your craft from some magazine writer. Upselling has been a part of business ever since the Neanderthal period, when Grog sold a fire starter kit to Gork and talked him into a monthly kindling supplies contract. However, when a product in your catalog is viewed as a “should have” instead of a “must have,” it calls upon your selling wizardry to bring the deal across the finish line.
As we continue this month’s State of the Industry report on non-MFP gems, we asked our dealer panel about the degree of difficulty involved in convincing clients that a certain product is essential to their operations.
One gem within a gem is the cybersecurity services for print and IT offered by Nashville-based Novatech. According to Dave Moorman, president and CISO, one key is encouraging clients to buy into a base minimum of protection services. They are baked into the basic offering and clients cannot opt out of the various tools. When a dealer like Novatech is managing 400 IT departments, certain offerings under the umbrella are a must-have in order for the dealer to deliver on its value proposition.
With the dealer’s more advanced cybersecurity services, clients have more autonomy to choose from a number of optional services. This way, the customer can make decisions based upon their budget and desired level of security. Novatech offers 11 layers of security protection, and a security self-assessment tool on the dealer’s website will generate a score for the user. This can provide clarity in selecting the optimal level of protection.
Those clients that place price above protection generally aren’t suitable for engaging Novatech. “We’d rather have customers that are pretty much operationally mature and want to do the right thing for their business,” Moorman said.
Trust the Process
Business process optimization generally isn’t a tough sell for dealers like Spectrum Technologies of El Paso, Texas. Most of the pushback from clients centers on skepticism regarding the dealer’s ability to deliver and the mechanics on how traditional organizations can adopt such changes, notes President Kyle Elliott.
Selling them on the concept of process improvement is not an obstacle, but it falls upon reps to sell clients on Spectrum being the provider of choice. “Often, customers believe they know what needs to be done, whether that’s accurate or not,” he said. “Our role involves educating them about the reality of their time constraints and how we can help them overcome these challenges. This educational aspect can occasionally be a hurdle, but it’s crucial for demonstrating our value.”
In the case of Marco and the ACE365 basic protection services it tags onto every Microsoft 365 quote, there’s a bit of work to be done in terms of dispelling myths, according to Adam Ramberg, director of IT consulting for the St. Cloud, Minnesota, dealer. One of the leading misconceptions is that Microsoft is responsible for protecting the client’s data. Ramberg notes that the tech giant is quite transparent in the notion that its responsibility ends with ensuring Microsoft 365 services are highly available and functioning properly.
“It is ultimately up to the customer to protect and secure the accounts and data that reside in Microsoft 365,” he said. “In other words, if your data is stored in Microsoft’s cloud, it still needs to be backed up, protected and monitored for any signs of threats and compromise. Once customers understand this, ACE365 acceptance becomes as natural as buying antivirus protection for a new laptop.”
