Gearing The Sale Of New Products Towards The Client

High-tech companies are frequently more concerned in the latest technology than in their customer. The consequences of a lack of customer orientation are well known from delegates attending sales training courses: new products are frequently missed on the marketplace and too many, or the incorrect, product characteristics are in the product presentation. The high-tech companies have excellent, but often un-sellable, products. The case in point of a small, but very successful technology company shows how innovative new products can be well placed in the market, without losing sight of the customer.

Concentrating on the right clients

The corporation only employs 30 workers and produces systems, which have a very long life cycle. Since each sale requires a great deal of advice, staff costs are high. Focusing on the right customer from the start makes new sales. When doing so they check the following points:

Does the customer have a project team?
What resources are available to the customer?
How large is the business?
What is the customer’s approach to these systems?
Who approves the procurement of the system?
What factors form the foundation of his choice?
Who turns the procurement of a system down?
Reasons why?
Are the users incorporated into the decision-making procedure?

The presentation of a new conception should be made if achievable in front of the whole project team.  

This should be composed of members of the manufacturing, materials, finance, quality control, IT departments as well as purchasing executives.

If the customer does not have such a team in place, postpone giving a presentation for the time being.

The field sales force as a “door-opener”

The task of the field sales force is to pave the way for the establishment of contact through recommendations, promotion or even impromptu visits. They must identify the right customers and in particular the important people in the customers corporation. As covered on sales training courses, archetypal questions in the first customer discussion are:

In which markets are you active?
Which type of systems do you want to get in the future?
Which system are you presently using?
Do you have a well-functioning salary accounting system?
Do you have a good cost calculation system?

“Re-educating” the customer

The new clarification represents a fundamental innovation for the customer and consequently demands a substantial amount of rethinking of the customer’s working practices. Even exceptional innovations meet with resistance from customers if they entail excessive changes for the customer. The customer must be able to realise uses, which they have previously not thought of, could make a substantial contribution towards improving and simplifying their working practices.

Here the sales team needs to have a thorough discussion with everyone concerned in the customer’s company:

What demands do you make of your system?
What can your existing system do?
Where are the weaknesses?
What supplementary functions would you like your system to be able to perform?
Which parts of your existing system would you like to keep?
What would help you personally in your work?

Selling a solution to a problem

The installation a new system with totally new uses and functions is a traumatic experience for every customer.  Every bid must for that reason include support for the customer prior to the installation of a new system. In addition, our supplier is ready to adapt their computers to every alternative wish requested by the customer. There is as a result a price list only for hardware, the remaining component parts are separately structured and priced.

The installation of new systems is also offered on a gradual basis; as a result of limited resources. Customers begin with reasonable fundamental hardware and software equipment and increasingly supplement this, depending on their financial circumstances.

Eliminating customer concerns

The supplier's technicians play a part in the sales discussions right from the start. The company’s sales manager says: “Our customers should get to know the people who will later be responsible for installation and systems operation. We should not hide these people away, but introduce them to the customer as considerate and cooperative people. This is one of our greatest secrets of success!”

“Our supplier’s customers are by and large very traditional industrial companies with a firm corporation chain of command.”  Even though most high tech companies do not have such a hierarchical structure, he recommends: “customers expect clear structures and distinct areas of accountability, as well as dependable negotiating partners. Even though, in our company, everyone is accountable for everything and there is no company hierarchy, we give our customers the feeling that we are a very traditional organisation.”  Conservative customers fear nothing more than having to work with an unorganised supplier.

Understanding for the ‘inner structures’ of the customer’s corporation

Selling new systems involves a number of departments. There are frequently old friendships and hostilities between these departments. 90% of sales work consists of reconciling any differences and making sure that those people involved all tow the same line. For the sales team to unearth all the entanglements and animosities that exist amid the different departments can sometimes take several months

Attending a sales training course can further develop developing professional consultative business-to-business selling skills.

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