In the current economic climate, selling anything to anyone is a challenge. Technology is one of the most difficult industries as far as generating sales goes.
One big reason for this is that quite often, consumers have already made up their mind as to what they want due to the availability of information. Todays prospects are far more sophisticated buyers than what they were just a few years ago and it is quite common for a prospect to know just as much about a product as the person selling it.
This means that sales pitches that consist of nothing more than a list of the solutions functions will most likely do nothing more than annoy a prospect as the chances are that they will have researched the product beforehand of they have shown an interest in it.
Another aspect of technology sales that is making it difficult to sell is that there are so many talented software developers and programmers that are constantly creating new solutions or, more often than not, replicating and perhaps slightly improving existing solutions.
The reason this is creating a problem is that as these technology developers create more and more software based on other versions, consumers are seeing the different solutions from different companies as more or less the same thing. Therefore their decision of which one to buy becomes based more or less solely on price.
Is it possible though, to create enough value for customers so that they steer away from price? Of course, what customers are looking for is to get the most they possibly can for their money, and so could a salesperson create that kind of value for a customer in the sales process, and even make them willing to pay a premium?
One thing’s for sure, if you’re like most companies out there delivering a pitch, day in and day out, based entirely on products and features, you’re succeeding in only one thing: driving the customer back to price. So then, how does a technology company differentiate themselves today?
If you want to compete on something other than price, you must focus not on what you sell, but rather on how you sell. Probably more than any other industry, technology is PowerPoint obsessed. And what does PowerPoint do but describe? Are your animations and graphics really that much better than the next persons? In today’s marketplace, customer value does not reside in flogging products or services but rather in the manner in which products and services are sold, and the manner in which they are acquired.