ATCP, LLC

The IT Manager has no clothes!

If you want to know what a company sells, ask to see their comp plan. If your sales managers are compensated to sell a product/service that the one they are selling can’t be sold under, guess what? Thats right! It fails. This is the primary reason for companies not being able to move their wares.

But not just any comp plan will do. And that is the rub.

Companies today are in a financial bind. They need to spend less and save more. Do more with what they have, and all that. But how do you do this with a strategic product? You know, strategic, one of dozens of words and phrases we throw about as if we know what they mean, and assuming that they mean the same thing to everyone. Wrong.

These words and phrases are like the Emperor’s New Clothes. We use these to impress others, and convince ourselves that we are knowledgeable. Let me tell you what it really means, as with regards to Sales Engineering.

“Strategic” means that it is not sold as a product.

Wow! That was easy! So whats the catch? There is none. A tactical offering can be sold on a shelf or website, can be done with a credit card, and has no sales cycle to speak of. It covers everything from an impulse buy right up to where the prospect has to ask you a question about how it can be integrated (another superfluous word).

I’ve never sold tactical products or services, but I do know a lot of about what is strategic. Comp plans are built around strategic products and services, and it should come as no surprise that the more something costs, the longer it takes for the prospect to make the buy/no buy decision. That’s right-sometimes they don’t buy your product/service. There are many reasons for this, and I’ve already written about it, but in short the reasons can include:

1. Never intended to buy, trying to:
   1. Learn about their problem, as in free consulting
   2. Fill a requirement for X bids (usually 3) to satisfy their manager’s ancient requirement that X number of bids are enough to choose from (problem is, the prospect already knows who they are going to choose-this is why you should never throw in on an unsolicited bid: Pat’s SE Rules)
   3. Know you are the best, and want your design to go out to bid internally as well as with cheaper, established vendors.
2. Intends to buy, but:
   1. Not in the near term, and are trying to determine a budget amount to set aside for when they do.
   2. Want free consulting to establish justification to their manager that it is actually needed.
   3. Need to give internal IT a chance to bid against it.
3. Have not a clue in the world what is going on, and want the assessment and strategic sales process to point the way out.

Here is the problem we have today, though. We need more money faster, and with less work, resources and time involved in getting it. This is in direct contrast to the strategic comp plan, as we are now loath to pay a rep for months on end (I’ve seen it go 3 years!) with no sale. When times were good, we didn’t care. You’d hear:

• “Build relationships”
• “Relationship selling”
• “Own the account”
• “Account Penetration”
• “Preferred vendor”
• “Trusted advisor”
• I could go on, and on…

So what is a company to do? Lower the price of the product/service? Lay people off until the CEO is making cold calls? Complain that “the prospects just don’t get it!”? Think people!

You need to go to the source of all your successes and problems-your comp plans.

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