You cannot mint money from the technology unless you understand the business perspective of it.I have made a product , but then I must find a market segment for my product and position it well to the different buyers.I will have to offer a right product-price mix to my customer to sell the product.Any enterprise IT product cannot be just sold online, since the cost involved is in millions or billions, it involves more of personal selling.Personal selling means that you the meet the prospective client in person and try to sell the product.So, you meet the client try to develop some relationship with him.As the price involved is high, so generally it may take months to finalize a single deal.The companies like SAP,Oracle which involve in Enterprise IT sales have a global presence in almost all the parts of the world.
You sell a product not only to the customer but also to the internal stakeholders.Your target segment includes the large industries and SME(Small and medium industries).
Any IT Enterprise works in a ecosystem in which there are many players.Enterprise is supported by Original Equipment manufacturers,the System Integrators,Partners and Business Consultants.Microsoft is an example of OEM.Dell is a system integrator as it sells the final product by integrating the components from other companies like Intel(Processor).Partners of Microsoft are Indian companies like TCS,to whom some of the work is outsourced.
Sales structure has a account team,Business development team and a pre-sales team.The Business development team is responsible for getting new business. The accounts team manage the existing customer.The presales team handles all the activities before the sales.
Whenever you sell, the selling and buying process must be aligned to each another. The tools like market literature,MIS/Report,CRM help in selling.
The entire sales process include
Lead Generation: You get the customer contact information through email,telephone,your website forum.
Lead Qualification: Then you need to find, is he the right guy?can you cater to him?Can customer afford your product?If, you answer yes to all the above questions then he turn into a potential customer.
Preparing for the sales meeting:After lead qualification stage you try to find more about the customer, his needs and requirement and prepare for the sales meeting
Contact the Prospect:You try to gather more information about the prospect before going to the sales meeting.Details about customer's organization structure,customer's buying process are an important thing to know before going for the sales meeting.
Sales Meeting: This is your first meeting with the customer.Try to impress him as the first impression is the last impression and try to answer the questions put up by the customer and access the customer.During a sales meeting presentation & workshops are the methods by which you demonstrate your product/service to the customer
Objection Handling:During sales meeting you answer all the questions put up by the customer and hence pacify the customer.So it important to prepare well before the sales meeting so that you could handle the objections well.
Order Closure:If all goes well then,you would definitely get the order.But Remember Order Closure is just the begining of a new relationship with the customer.
Account Management: Account management involves managing the existing customers.
