Yearly Archives: 2010
Leadectomy Definition
Lead-ECK-tah-mee / noun / Definition: A sales tactic that involves extracting a sales lead from publicly available information.
Today’s leadectomy comes from an online medical news web site. Actually, it’s not a sales lead. It’s 10 sales leads. 10 announcements for breaking ground on new surgical centers (pun revealed!). If you’re a partner in California, Ohio, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, or New Jersey give me a shout and I’ll provide you more information along with a detailed Hoovers report with executive contacts.
I’m guessing these facilities need IPT, wireless, switching, routing, security, video, etc..
Good Selling
Successful VAR X-Factor Revealed…
I work with a lot of business partners across the country and as a result, am able to make some observations and form some opinions on what works and what doesn’t, based on my business partners strategies and their results. One common denominator that stands out to me is this: a dynamic CTO. This dynamic CTO typically is not only technically astute, they are also very charismatic and take a leadership role within the organization. In my opinion, this is one of the most valuable people assets a solution provider can have.
This person can have a conversation with a Fortune 100 CXO as a peer one moment, and the next moment rally the sales force behind the VAR’s vision for where the industry is headed and how only they can match technology solutions to meet the evolving business needs of customers. This vision isn’t just a carbon copy of the technology manufacturer’s vision.. it usually has a unique twist that involves the VAR’s special sauce. Furthermore, this special CTO can take very complex topics and break them down in a language that the sales people and the customers can digest and later paraphrase in their own words.
The dividends of such a person are stronger account control, higher margins, better deal conversion, and more complex (larger) deals. Do you have anyone in your organization that fills this role? Want to discuss in more detail? Call me..
If Captain Sully were an Avaya BP?
Captain Sully is a national hero. Thanks to years of training and experience, he was cool enough under pressure to land an Airbus in the Hudson River like a pro. Of course, Sully has said many times he’s not a hero.. he was just doing his job and it was the training and experience that allowed him to perform his job well.
Let’s imagine we put the world’s best Avaya VAR in the captain seat of an Airbus. Might that person have the same results? Perhaps not, but what if Sully was riding shot-gun? That person could leverage his years of experience and training and most likely land the plane almost as well.
On the flip side, what if we put Sully at the helm of a budding Avaya Business Partner? Could he get his sales people trained, get them in front of customers telling the Avaya story effectively, guiding them on how to create an Avaya proposal while helping his operations team to order and implement a solution without missing any of the necessary steps in the process? What if Sully had a …Sully?
Guess what, Sully has a Sully and it’s called the Avaya Co-Pilot. It’s not flashy, I put this site together myself. In a nutshell, this site provides the following:
- Consistent, Repeatable Training Path for New Sales People
- How to assemble a custom proposal for a customer, cradle-to-grave including hardware, software, software support, maintenance and implementation.
- How to order and register a new system while ensuring maintenance is triggered.
This site, chock full of helpful guidance, is for Catalyst Partners and it’s also invaluable for new sales people with experienced partners. The address is http://copilot.weebly.com/. It is password protected so shoot me an email and I’ll give you the password.
Good Selling!
A Mighty Wind…
Back around the turn of the century, everyone underestimated Cisco and their ability to over-run the telephony space. Through sheer force of will (and millions of dollars in marketing), they convinced the world that IP was the only way to transport voice — even though at the time, it may not have made a lot of sense. Legacy titans like Nortel and Avaya were quick to point out that IP for the sake of IP didn’t make sense and they were right. Nonetheless, thousands of customers trashed their bullet-proof TDM driven PBX’s in favor of what were at the time, much less reliable IP driven systems. These sames companies spent huge incremental dollars upgrading their network infrastructure to make these IP systems work and in the end, probably spent twice what they needed to. As they say, hindsight is 20/20. The only problem is, saying, “I told you so.” is not an effective business model.
I make this point because UC is at a turning point. By sheer force of will and marketing muscle, UC is being remade in the context of collaboration and video. Many Avaya VARs are uncomfortable with this new direction because it’s such a departure. It’s hard to not wonder if the tail is wagging the dog with all of this attention and talk around collaboration and video. History should tell us, this IS the direction the market WILL go. With stalwarts like Cisco and Microsoft framing every UC conversation around Video and Collaboration, you had better bet this is the direction the market is headed whether you think it makes sense or not.
This means we have to figure out how to re-tool (no, not reinvent) our businesses. How do you help your sales people make the transition into collaboration application sales people? How do you adjust your revenue sources to accommodate a manufacturer that is evolving into a software application company? I don’t profess to have all of these answers, but I do know a mighty wind is blowing. All of this talk about Video and Collaboration may seem unfamiliar and it’s natural to be skeptical that this is where the action is at, but we should be thankful that Avaya has an innovative story that is going to meet the market where it is already headed. Cisco will make the market go here by sheer muscle. Why? bandwidth and network upgrades (sound familiar?).
Last point: If you are not selling switching and routing — why not? If the only thing you accomplish by selling network gear is forcing Cisco to price their solutions fairly (and not give away apps for free while making money on the network), this is a no-brainer. Catalyst has the best of the best vendors we can partner you with — all of which provide the resilient network necessary to carry these applications. Give me a call and we can figure out which one makes the most sense for your business!
Good Selling!
The leads are weak?
What is a good lead? Ask a dozen VARs and you may get a dozen different answers. Many people will say that a good lead is a company who is looking to buy your solution. Another VAR would say a good lead simply meets the profile of someone who could buy your solution. In between, there’s a whole spectrum of prospects that probably looks something like the below..
Okay, this is a simplification, but you get the idea. The reason I bring up the question “what is a sales lead”, is I really want to know what YOU think! Where in this spectrum do you usually gain entry? I send what I call “potential opportunities” (I think that’s more fitting and descriptive of the nature of these than “sales leads”) In a nutshell, these opportunities that I send to partners indicate a pending event like a new facility, just signed lease, relocation, expansion, new campus, etc. Other times it may be a company that is looking to hire a new network architect for a new build-out, overhaul or initiative. I consider these to be sales trigger events indicating an almost inevitable technology investment in the near future. I provide with that information a complete list of all the decision makers for that company.
While a few partners that I have sent these opportunities have jumped on these, many partners politely thank me and never follow up on these. My suspicion is that these may be too early in the continuum for sales people to be interested. Most VAR reps have big numbers they have to hit and can’t wait 12 months for a new corporate campus to be built. So this is the rub — sales reps have a big number to chase in a short period of time. As any of us would do, we focus on what pays our mortgage in the next quarter. I can’t help but think there’s an opportunity for the VAR to build a system to incubate and foster these types of early stage but imminent opportunities. By getting in early, they have more time to solidify their position as the trusted advisor and increase their chances of conversion (and likely their margin).
As a VAR, do you have a way to incubate opportunities today? Or do these types of opportunities “leak” out of your funnel? It may take year for this to pay off, but once it starts paying dividends, it pays big and continues to pay.
I’m looking for someone to belly up to my ivory tower and tell me why I’m wrong or naive. Talk to me!
Budding Opportunity?
If you live in Arizona, Oregon or South Dakota — Medical Marijuana is on the ballet and has a very good chance of passing. I’m guessing hordes of progressive entrepreneurs already have their ducks in a row, check books in hand..ready to move forward with medical dispensaries. It might be time to start thinking about how to go after these budding enterprises (no-pun intended) with technology solutions like VoIP, SIP trunking, Network Security, IVR applications, hosted/managed services, and on and on. While these likely aren’t big ticket deals individually, there may very well be a lot of them. Somebody could carve out quite a niche for repeatable “pot shop in a box” (PSIB) bundled technology solutions.
Good Selling!
Guess who just recruited a million hackers?
I remember when Juniper announced their new Junos Pulse solution for smartphones thinking to myself, “sounds cool, but where is the pain point that this really solves?” Smash-cut to two weeks later and I keep hearing about a new looming threat taking the world by storm: Firesheep.
You may have heard about this since it’s been pretty prevalent in the news. There is a new plugin for firefox called “firesheep”. I won’t get into the geeky details, but in a nutshell, this has made the unholy art of hacking accessible to millions of people with no skills other than the ability to open up their web browser. Firesheep allows people accessing public wi-fi to “sidejack” into other people’s computers and devices on the same public wi-fi network. By looking at cookies on their computing device, they can get instant access to a whole list of applications — even web sites that require SSL to login.
I’m talking about applications like facebook, Twitter, Hotmail, Amazon, POP3 email, SMTP email, and many others. This reinforces the need for everyone to log into their VPN before they access these types of applications when theyr’e accessing public wi-fi. Here’s the part that is scary.. if you’re like me, you use all of these applications on your smart phone! The same iphone that I use for my corporate email is also used for linkedin, facebook, twitter and a whole bunch of other stuff. Like most people, I have my iphone set to automatically connect to wi-fi networks when they’re available. Now, all of a sudden we have a very real threat that we can address and a unique solution that protects smartphones.. Junos Pulse!
Keep in mind, Junos Pulse for mobile devices does way more than protect aganst this “sidejacking”. It also protects against viruses, malware, loss, theft, physical compromise, and other threats.. but firesheep is a very visible threat that is going to be widely covered by industry news outlets for the next few months. Luckily, you have an app for that!
Getting your brain around SIP.
Many people don’t know, we have a microsite dedicated to SIP! Of particular value is a video interview with Jim Sevier that helps partners understand how to “break it down” when talking about SIP. What makes this relevant is that Jim is answering questions from real partners and sales people like you. Check it out!!
Controversial Predictions from Nostravoipus
First, let me clearly state the following disclaimer. The predictions you are about to read are not endorsed by myself or my employer, nor are these predictions based on any inside information. Some people think Nostravoipus has a magical window into the future. Other people think he’s a charlatan. Whichever you decide, these predictions are interesting..
1. Blackberry will be acquired by a large network technology vendor looking to expand their end-to-end story.
2. A new category will emerge called “Tablet Telephony”. Tablets will quickly become a leading endpoint for UC applications.
3. Google will add 4 digit dialing/transfer to Google Voice, allowing users to create virtual offices consisting of multiple Google Voice users.
4. Avaya will begin to leverage Skype more aggressively as a trojan horse to gain user-ubiquity — enabling a easier migration to more sophisticated UC applications.
5. Apple will develop a partnership with someone to allow open source telephony running on the Mac.
6. Someone will launch a cloud-driven UC platform that allows customers to purchase a la carte applications with ease, the same way they purchase iPhone apps.
7. One of the big UC players will pull out of North America, completely.
Thanks to Nostravoipus for his interesting sooth saying. It will be interesting to see if any of these come true..
