Selling “Value Add Technology”
Most of my selling career has been focused on value add technologies. In other words, I’ve been focused on growth efforts around products that aren’t predetermined by an organization to be something they are going to purchase before a fiscal year begins. Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying I’ve always sold incredibly valuable products that solve massive problems. However, the approach to selling value add technology is incredibly different then predetermined budgeted solutions that are identified by the business as their own needs before even speaking to a company or sales person. I’m not here to say that one skill set is superior to the other but I’m more of an expert in the value add technology process so that’s what I’m going to write about here to provide some tips and differences in how to navigate this world.
The difference in these two sales processes can create a ton of headaches for both individual contributors and sales leaders. I’ve seen countless instances of incredibly intelligent, capable, and successful salespeople joining organizations I’ve worked at and having real challenges maintaining a healthy and sellable pipeline of opportunities. Forecasts were an absolute mess and it was like deal reviews with their leaders were in a completely different language. Let’s outline some reasons this happens and then talk about strategies to actually overcome this both from an individual contributor perspective and the standpoint of a leader who is trying to identify this for someone on their team and manage them through it.
So let’s talk about solutions that more fit into the bucket of a necessity or predetermined purchase by an organization. In the healthcare space, I’d consider things like a new Electronic Health Record, Storage, consulting services needed for technology roll out, or perhaps a new analytics platform that’s identified as a need. There are a few things that sales processes for products like these absolutely have in a common and then others that I’d say they generally have in common. Let’s call these things out and then talk about how they impact a sales process and why that’s different then the value add technology process.
Point 1- Purchases like this are going to have stakeholders identified and a sponsor in place to ensure the right decision is made. It’s inevitable they are going to purchase something (perhaps it’s a “build vs buy” type decision but most likely they’re buying something) it’s just a matter of selecting the right solution. This is very different then the value add technology process (we’ll get into more details on that later) because the sales person is most responsible for beating other competitive vendors. You aren’t up against the competitor of doing nothing which is most often the hardest competitor to beat in value add technology sales. One of my favorite quotes to tell members of my team is “if you can beat nothing, you can beat anything!”.
Point 2- The organization has identified and agreed across multiple stakeholders they have a need that technology can address. They’ve evaluated that, discussed it, and made the decision to pursue a purchase. This could be because they absolutely need it in order to support a purchase they already made (storage, required integrations, etc) or just a critical product to support a business function (pop health platform, EHR, etc).
Point 3- These are (generally) expensive and are well known to be coming by the executives of the business.
Point 4- There is a “buying process” in place and the business being sold to is either somewhat or in some cases extremely accountable to driving it forward.
There are others but I think those 4 will be enough to help make our point here and drive some learnings.
When you think about those points, they all inherently contain the most critical factors for a salesperson to confidently sell and accurately forecast technology. I won’t get into all the specifics on those factors here but if you’re looking for a good sales methodology book that reviews it in detail I’m a fan of STRONGMAN solution selling by my friend Ed Wal. That said, in all those points we see organizational need identified with authority tied in and some level of predetermined timelines and budget. Because of that, many salespeople are not used to having to create a process that requires them to ensure all those critical requirements are in place when driving towards a sale and they take them for granted. Without those, you can not sell with any level of predictability and you’ll waste a ton of time and lose credibility with inaccurate forecasts.
So what are some things you can do as a sales person in the value add technology space to gain more control over your pipeline? In a future blog I’ll cover topics like research vs review, pipeline vs upside vs forecast, and other topics in greater detail. For now, let’s cover some strategies and tactics that help position you for success. Remember to follow the meeting running strategies I laid out in my prior blog as you work your way through the next steps of the meetings in your pipeline! To simplify it a bit, let’s look at some general areas that help and if you’re interested in drilling deeper in any one specific area please reach out!
This all starts with your research, prospecting, and opportunity identification process. Mindset needs to change from knowing that you’re speaking to an organization with a buying plan to identifying organizations that are well positioned to be able to move on a buying plan for your solution. These kind of organizations have some combination of these things in place:
An active project that could benefit from your solution. Purchases are driven primarily by personal need but also by organizational need. Projects have owners. Projects have budgets. Projects have timeframes. Projects have individual success tied to them. If you can find organizations with projects that could be more successful if you were involved, you’re fishing in the right pond!
Back to that personal need I mentioned. You should be on the hunt for it in your research. Identify individuals at organizations who can succeed in their job more easily by leveraging your solution. There are a few things I look for when trying to identify this:
Are there any strategic goals or annual plans available? Could they be more successful if your solution was involved? Make sure to effectively communicate why!
Have conversations with staff at the organization to learn more about the challenges they face. Don’t just assume every company and every person is the same. Learn so you can validate yourself when you speak to someone with authority that can help advance a review. All of a sudden you have personal need everywhere and you come off as someone who has done their homework which is always appreciated!
In even more simple terms, narrow your search to the organizations and individuals who in their own words are trying to solve the same problems you are and learn as much as you can from them around why it’s difficult to see if you can be helpful.
Ok now that we know how to identify legitimate opportunities let’s call out a few ideas that can be used to help ensure we understand where we stand in the evaluation process. When organizations haven’t made a decision they’re going to buy something, it isn’t enough just to present on what our product does well or stories about others who have used it. Those things are helpful, but it’s critical to understand what it takes for that organization to make a purchase and who is involved. Leverage the meeting methodology to advance your conversations and as you do that, don’t spend all your time on persuasion and demonstration. Invest your time in partnering with your champion and sponsors to understand their process for purchasing technology. Drive the next steps and be prescriptive. Establish with your champion that you both want this partnership to happen and if that’s the case, make requests that will advance the evaluation towards the sale. The more difficult the ask the better because if those can be fulfilled, then you truly are in an evaluation. When forecasting and projecting deals, don’t present deals and numbers based off the prospects reactions or any “feel” that you have. Make sure you can check the box confidently on what their buying process is, who is involved in it, velocity in communication, the urgency around the problem you’re solving, and all the aspects of the STRONGMAN sales process I mentioned earlier (blog to come on this sales methodology)! Deal control is a term you hear in this industry when discussing pipeline. What that comes down to is this. Do you understand the prospects needs and buying process enough to be an asset to them in navigating it and therefore have an ability to accurately predict when a partnership will get executed? This should be just as exciting (or ideally more exciting) for the prospect/customer as it is for you and your company! If this is in place, partnerships will get executed when we predict and the prospect will be in the best possible position to succeed. Talk about a win-win!
One final area I want to make mention of on this topic are some tips on how to approach managing individuals that are making the transition from a successful career selling more pre determined purchases into the value add world I’ve described. A good manager should be able to identify this by asking questions of the individual contributor about the deal itself. It’s really important to ask direct pointed questions and not just ask for a general overview of the deal. Gain agreement that you’ll speak the same language when it comes to deal discussions that make up your commitment and pipeline. Don’t ask how meetings went and if they think something will close. Ask if the prospect has confirmed they have an intention to purchase and how they stated that. Ask what value they expect to receive and when they expect to receive it (and how we’re ensuring that’s going to happen). Ask what issues have come up and how we’re solving for them. Ask what we’re doing to align timelines and the impacts of making/missing those timelines for you and the prospect. Ask what the plan is for the legal review, technical review, operational review, and commercial review and what meetings are in place to gain approval for each. The more you ask these questions, the more it’ll force answers which will change habits and result in better alignment!
Since this blog is already too long, I’ll just leave you with one final anecdote that I think sums up the spirit of this blog in a simple way.
When I bought my home I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted, my budget was set, and I really needed to do it. It was up to my realtor to help me find the best possible option. When I bought my reverse osmosis water purification system I had none of those things but the person selling it understood I was a going to be in my home for a long time, had two small children I wanted to protect, and probably wanted to increase how much water I drank on a daily basis. These are two incredibly different processes and it’s important to know which one you’re in so you can navigate it appropriately!