So you’re an experienced sales rep in the office equipment industry and you’ve been talking with a new potential employer and their sales leader. They tell you that you have the right experience and skill set and you’re exactly what they’re looking for. The position they’re trying to fill is a managed services sales specialist and you’ve investigated their company and reputation—as much as anyone could—and so far it looks like it could be a great fit for the next stage of your career.
You continue doing your due diligence, checking everything you can, and from your tour of their facility you noticed an amazing demo room and a very modern facility.
You’ve worked in your current position for 4 years and have exceeded quota every year. You’re in your prime, but your employer is making it harder and harder to win business. It seems every deal is a price war, even on our renewals, and when you ask your boss for help, they are unwilling to budge. You feel alone and you’re just losing customers to the competition every month. Your income is shrinking.
You told your spouse that you’re seriously looking at a new opportunity and they simply said, “Be careful.” You’ve made a nice income in this industry so far, but it’s time to move on. Besides, you really want to work in a progressive sales organization that will let you sell managed services. The big bucks!
Tomorrow is your final interview. They’ve bragged continually about their managed services and, according to their website, it seems they have a strong program. After the interview tomorrow, it’s decision time and it’s really what you want.
Their sales manager seems like a nice person and mentioned that their company has an amazing sales support team and their CRM has a proposal builder “which really helps close deals.” Although you haven’t run into them much, they’ve been in the market place for over 30 years, so they must have a strong market presence.
The final interview is over. The job is yours if you want it. A nice salary, health insurance, a cell and gas allowance and the entire marketplace is yours if you just say yes. So you say yes! Your two weeks’ notice with your current employer is met with the immediate collection of all of your company belongings as they escort you out of the building. You tell your new employer the news and you’ll be starting in just a few days. Everyone’s excited!
It’s day one at the new job. You’re the new kid on the block and the sales manager introduces you to everyone and tells the sales team that you’re the new managed services specialist. All of a sudden the room gets super quiet, most of the smiles disappear and it seems that no one had any idea that they were going to hire a managed services specialist.
One of the hardware reps speaks up and says, “I don’t want anyone working in my accounts without my permission.” The sales manager immediately cuts off the conversation and says, “Don’t worry, we’ll work it out as we go along!” All of a sudden you realize that regardless of the picture the owner painted during your interview, there is no real strategy in place for your new job.
Later the owner and the sales manager pull you aside and assure you that there is nothing to worry about: “What happened earlier is just the guys trying to protect their account relationships. They’ll all settle down as soon as you start building your pipeline.” Then they pull out your commission plan and share a modification they’ve added today that allows you to sell hardware in an open territory, just while you’re building your MPS pipeline. You’re new to selling managed services but one thing is for sure, managed service deals aren’t built the same way and are seldom built around new inbound hardware.
None of this matters because you got the salary you wanted and the owner and sales manager see managed services as a strong part of the future. You have solid job security! No telling why this position hasn’t worked in the past, but you will get it done! Next they want to train you to use their CRM and make sure you get all of your prospecting logged in the system so that you can start building your contact history. The first two weeks you’ve been pounding the phones and you’ve completely documented every call. The next day, two of the sales reps approach you again and tell you not to make calls into their accounts until you ask them first!
They seem to be confused as you have been given 100% green light to call on the entire marketplace and are tasked with building the managed services pipeline within the first 90 days. You happen to catch the sales manager and pull them aside and tell them what just happened. They reply, “I don’t really blame them, but just throw them a heads up before you call on any of their accounts. Let’s just keep the peace.” So then you say, “You want me to hop in and out of each contact record to see who owns that contact and call to the rep first? Before I make a phone call? That will slow me down drastically!” The sales manager says, “Just do what you can to get along!”
On your way out that evening you slip into the owner’s office and ask if you can speak with them for a second. They invite you in and as you close the door you explain the recent situation and share what you were told by the sales manager. The owner says, “I know. The sales manager told me. That’s one of the reasons we gave you the open territory so you could sell some hardware and survive.” You respond, “But I’m not wanting to just survive. I want to grow my managed services pipeline. You know my comp plan has a performance adjustment which will lower my salary if I don’t hit my numbers.”
The owner says, “Yes, I know it does, and it may slow you down a tiny bit, but I don’t really think it will hurt you in the long run. Besides, we did give you the open territory for hardware sales, so if your salary were to go down, you’d still have hardware commissions to offset the salary reduction!” You reply, “Wait a minute, I didn’t come here to sell hardware. I came here to lead your managed services program, but it seems you don’t really have the priority on managed services that you told me in my interviews.” You add, “If I don’t hit the numbers in my managed services quota, my base salary goes down!” He answers, “You’re right, so don’t let anything stop you!” It’s like you’ve landed in the twilight zone. You turn around, walk out and go home.
Over the next 30 days you start to hear things about the last two managed services specialists. You thought you were the first. In only a month’s time the pressure from the other sales reps is so enormous it seems that they’ve built a 100-foot wall around accounts that should be most approachable. This leaves you in the cold calling mode.
Another 30 days pass and you can see that there’s just no way you’re going to hit your managed services quota. So you call a meeting with both the owner and the sales manager.
In the meeting you express your concerns about the lack of leadership from them and cooperation from the sales team and make the request that your comp plan be adjusted appropriately. At this rate you’ll never hit the required milestones and your salary is in jeopardy. Silence fills the room and they look at each other. “Guys, I’m not going to make it and I can’t afford a lower income! I’m supposed to be a managed services specialist and managed services are supposed to be a priority here. In my interviews you told me that MPS and managed I.T. were your future, but I can’t find one single fact that proves that they are!”
They agree to extend your plan, but only for an additional 30 days. They did nothing to address the cooperation issue with the reps and said, “We all have to work together.”
What are you going to do? When you get home, you eat a gigantic plate of crow and call the owner where you used to work to see if you could get your old job back. He wouldn’t take your call! What now?
I can’t tell you how many times a situation like this is the cause for a failed launch or transition to managed services. Is it the fault of the managed services specialist because he wouldn’t get along with the reps? Could it be the sales manager’s fault for not properly managing his team and having the sales organization prepared for the new strategy? Or is the owner at fault for not properly leading his sales organization in a successful manner, assuring that the future is as important as today?
I believe it’s the owner’s responsibility to define their objectives and to drive those objectives through the entire organization, working out all of the kinks before you act.
It’s not just a website that makes you good at managed services. It’s your ability to tell your story (prospecting), share the values (first appointments), and actually deliver those values (implementation). But none of that happens if you build like the story above. Time after time, overlaying a specialist of any kind just creates a power struggle that destroys momentum, and there is a better way.
If your team isn’t prepared to execute, it will never happen. I would be willing to bet that 8 out of 10 dealerships are dealing with similar problems like the one I’ve described in this article. Oh and by the way, it’s a true story!
In my bootcamps a dealer often asks me how they can create a differentiation that will set their company apart for the competition. If you simply plan your transition to managed services, you will absolutely be ahead of the game and very, very unique!
