PRE / SALES
UNDERSTAND
Understand the voice of the customer. Do not offer the solution early.
Understand the competitive landscape.
Focus on the "User Experience" and the "Value" solution brings, in terms of
Benefit to User
Benefit to IT
Benefit to Business
How to be a great at selling:
Understand who your ideal customers are
Speak the language of those customers
Uncover their deepest pain points
Offer a tailored solution
Under promise
Over deliver
#Networking and #IT is not just about cables and configurations, there's so many business outcomes and so many experiences that come to life only because of a strong Networking and Security backbone.
You don't sell a product, you sell the vision of the problem that the product is solving.
Sales is Honesty, a genuine belief to want help your customers, no stage fright and good work ethics.
There are A LOT of salespeople out there who have had every sales training in the book yet under perform because they lack the basics of doing things like helping customers come up with a structured way of thinking about problems and collaboratively solving them (the foundation of core curriculum).
Sales is ALL ABOUT confidence. If you have it, you can sell yourself, Mix a little confidence with public speaking and charm, and isn't that the secret ingredient to sales?
Sales is mix of the talent, emotional intelligence, creativity, psychology, inner instinct, intuition, sense for humor, attention, etc.... There is never going to be Sales teachers, books, school...who can teach these skills.
In terms of selling a service or product the most critical factor is the belief in the product or service - thereafter it is a matter of "organising your approach" in a way that enhances success.
Be Customer-centric
Proactive
Data Driven
Solution Selling
Building trust and credibility is not a one-off engagement. It is about putting your Customer first in any pre- and post-sales interaction.
LEVERAGE TEAM - DELEGATE - DO NOT WORK IN SILOS
become your Customer's trusted advisor.
We will only succeed if we put the Customer first in all we do and that means getting to know them more deeply than we ever have.
Differentiate with value conversations
Set your intent : Ensusre the Customers, Partners and Colleagues achieve value from each conversation.
Understand Customer - Who they are, whey they do, and what they care about. Leave your ego at the door and focus on their win.
Then, Practive consultative selling with both traditional and new Customer and Partner Personas. Listen, learn through great questions, build credibility by testing your insights and create momentum around the Customer's buying cycle.
Ask yourself:
What value and insight do you bring, and how does it set you apart from the competition?
Who do you know, and how strong and protected is each relationship?
How well do you know each decision stakeholder’s 'care-abouts' and what they’re trying to achieve?
Which of your Customer's specific metrics are you helping them to achieve?
How could cross-architecture solutions deliver greater value, future-proof Customers, and deter competitors from gaining entry?
Which team members have the specialized knowledge to pull this together?
A living process (not a template) that guides your actions each week and is constantly updated
Customer 4 Life
helps you assess the level of partnership with a given Customer and identify gaps and next steps in your journey to become your Customer's trusted advisor.
With just 10-15 minutes per month you can:
Identify gaps in your current CxO engagement and leverage your team to develop the strategic executive relationships that drive greater Customer intimacy.
Assess the quality of your internal executive sponsorship and develop strategies to improve.
Recognize what top activities drive purchase, adoption, and renewal success, and identify gaps in your current approach.
Assess which Customers have or haven't been on executive briefings, met with Executive Sponsors, and conducted QBRs.
Access on-demand resources that demonstrate what good looks like – based on our Hall of Fame members’ best practices.
Capture and analyze multiple market and Customer data points and insights from all touchpoints, including Partners.
Uncover insights into changing market conditions, Customer expectations, and competitor activities.
Proactively spotlight which Customer accounts are most attractive to win, hold, and develop based on potential current and future lifecycle value and addressable spend.
Prioritize the most achievable Customer opportunities in your territory to optimize selling time and ensure you're first-on-the-scene for Customers ready to act.
The Digital ITP is a centralized, living space for capturing constantly evolving territory trends, changes, and impacts.
Review it regularly to prioritize opportunities and meet these Customers where they are.
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Focus on the Customer's business outcomes, speak their language, and deliver value through the questions you ask.
Customers are demanding change.
We have to deliver it now so they stay our Customers tomorrow.
What do Customers value in a seller?
Integrated account plan
Bring the extended team together to pool your individual knowledge and expertise to build a Customer-level strategy that helps the Customer achieve their growth strategy.
You can do this on a Miro board or in a live/virtual workshop and work together to ideate on:
Their strategy
Their current and imminent challenges
Their internal politics/relationship dynamics
The value they realize from the solutions we’ve sold, compared to other options
The health of our partnership with them/our “whitespace”/our Growth Sprints
Trends in their Customers/Partners and competition (using insights from Cisco’s Industry Solutions Group)
Opportunities to help in new ways and new areas
Integrated Territory planning
If you serve a high volume of accounts, you and your colleagues can still apply the principles using an ITP.
To be proactive, look across the portfolio of your accounts in your territory and ask yourself:
Which industries are likely to be growing?
Based on this prioritized list,
Choose where to focus your proactive hunting this year.
Before we proceed, ask yourself the questions below.
Is the Customer willing to invest time in developing the relationship? How do I increase Customer intimacy so that my Customer reaches out to me when there is a need?
What extra percentage of the Customer addressable spend can I get?
What is my whitespace?
PS : Also, accept that you cannot help everyone. But those you can help, you help them really well.
Question Everything
HOW TO WORK ON AN OPPORTUNITY?
Discovery Questions
What are the major challenges/pain areas do you see ?
Help us know your ideas to solve them?
What could be the business impact of downtime? Are you considering HA?
Any preferred vendor/product/solution you are interested?
What is the budget you have allocated for this project?
How much time do we have?
Focus on solving the Problem
Make sure to research the organization.
Know the person you are meeting/talking too.
Profile/Role
Experience
Have a preliminary presentation ready beforehand.
Introduce Everyone
Have gratitude towards Everyone.
SKILLS NEEDED TO CREATE YOUR BRAND
DEMO SCRIPT
MERAKI
TIME IS MONEY > SAVE TIME > Quickly Restore Services > Improve Business Uptime
MERAKI SECURITY APPLIANCE
Network-wide > Clients
Firewall Page - L3 > L7 > Geo based > Port Forward > NAT
Tools - Ping > Reboot
Administrators
Firmware upgrades
Network Alerts
MERAKI WIRELESS
Network-wide > Map & Floor Plans
Network-wide > Clients
Wireless > Access Point
Firewall
Tools - Ping > Reboot
Network-wide > Event log
Network-wide > Group Policies
Network-wide > Alerts
Firmware upgrades
Administrators
MERAKI SWITCHING
Virtual Stacking
Switch Ports Search Feature
TAG feature
Cable Test (Alert on cable error) + Tracking a client (MX)
Tools - Ping > Reboot
PoE- Port Scheduling
Network Alerts
Network Topology
Administrators
Firmware upgrades