In the good old days of IT Sales – before say year 2000, Tin
Shifting is something that many resellers were good at and indeed made a lot of
money doing . Some would say too much money. Money earned due to being in the
right place at the right time and being able to transact orders perhaps generated
some jealousy in some quarters. The more significant reason that Tin Shifting passed
its sell by date is that the “easy money” attracted competition – lots of it. So
much so that Tin Shifting became harder
to achieve without giving margin away to win the business.
The obvious answer was to move away from selling tin (IT Hardware). Selling Services
became the goal of many organisations who enthusiastically re-invented
themselves as service providers. Many got this completely wrong. They
discovered that their customer base could not consume enough services and that
despite popular belief, the margins to be made were not as lucrative as they
first thought. This was due to the fact that service delivery carries real
costs and the world of service delivery is susceptible to market forces and
competition just the same as the world of hardware.
The fact is customers need tin and services (not to
mention software). So how can IT suppliers “shift” all of these things, win
over the competition and make some money in the process? The answer is to focus
on the customer – not on the product – whether this is tin, services or
otherwise.
Focus on the customer, help him figure out his needs and
explore solutions. Build strong relationships and increase your influence. Use
your relationships to help determine the right technologies and services for your customer – and influence them to
buy from you. This is the essence
of Consultative Selling and if you do it right, you can shift some tin in the
process and a lot more besides.
Before you start selling anything, you have got to get it. Start here www.2decipher.com
Before you start selling anything, you have got to get it. Start here www.2decipher.com
