Joining session moderator Tricia Wurts, President of Wurts & Associates, Inc. were well-known and respected industry veterans:
- Bob Penland, CTO of TruMethods, LLC
- Oli Thordarson, CEO of Alvaka Networks, Inc.
- Dan Wensley, VP of Partner Development for Level Platforms
Shifting to a consultative model requires additional support systems for your professional sales team, much more from the human factor than technology. They need confidence in the solutions they are pitching to clients and prospects. “The MSP model, for example, takes services to the next level of consultative selling,” says Wensley. “The challenge is adding more value in other areas of a customer’s business, making their support and success paramount, rather than margin you receive for the service.”
Thordarson adds, “Success in consultative sales comes when your people believe in the services that your company’s providing them and can position themselves and your organization as their trusted advisor.” Ensuring the success of customers requires putting their business needs before the technology needs, getting away from the “speeds and feeds” and into reducing downtime or the cost of labor. Each client business is different and an effective sales team needs to understand the specific challenges those companies face.
“If you don’t believe you can ensure your customer’s success, then don’t sell consultatively,” states Penland. “You have to be able to effectively deliver services to support your sales team and, if it can’t be done properly, success will be elusive.
Other nuggets of information from the panel include:
- Thordarson: “In consultative sales, you must attach the pain they experience in their business with the solutions you’re proposing. It’s a challenging transition for typical tech sales people because they aren’t necessarily business people themselves.”
- Penland: “You have to create trust between the customer and provider, and that isn’t easy. Successful providers build confidence with the client’s executives and ensure the business teams of each organization work together, on both sides.”
- Wensley: “Sometimes the only thing lacking for your sales team to successfully transition to consultative sales is ownership’s confidence. But you don’t necessarily have to fire each of them to evolve to the new model, as specific training and support may be all they need.”
