Are you IoT sales savvy? Become comfortable and conversant selling within the connected Internet of Things ecosystem. This strategy is a must for IoT customer acquisition and retention.
Help customers overcome their IoT overwhelm.
Customers are overwhelmed with the tsunami of digitization required to become more competitive. They have legacy infrastructure, including equipment, software and more than a few people – including leadership!
They are set in their ways. They prefer to stick to status quo processes which got their businesses to where they are today.
Mostly they are confused about which first steps to take.
You need to be IoT sales savvy when working with IoT customers. This strategy does not work if you stick to “what’s worked for you in the past.” What’s worked in the past involves old school sales pitching and selling. You do everything but observe and listen for IoT customer requirements.
In the industrial Internet of Things ecosystem, customer requirements are digital, my friend. To be IoT sales savvy means taking the time to become more comfortable and conversant with the ubiquitous nature of the Internet of Things ecosystem.
IoT customer requirements require collaboration.
First things first. Determine whether you have the right solutions for IoT customer requirements. Instead of selling, listen and record those requirements. Then get to work.
The hallmark of being IoT sales savvy is collaboration: within your client’s organization and within your own. So get busy getting busy with all the folks in your organization who you avoid working with. They are your IoT gurus, aren’t they?
Collaborate with the technical and engineering folks to creating innovative customer solutions. And here’s a hint on how to collaborate. Listen to your internal collaboration team. They have the answers you need to acquire that customer. I guarantee you will expand your brain and get smarter each time you work with these folks.
Then collaborate with your customers’ teams. Here’s a suggestion. Bring along members of your internal tech and engineering teams. If you are IoT sales savvy, you have taught these individuals to work with their counterparts on the client side. There is a gold mine of unidentified opportunities that only your technical and engineering collaborators can identify.
Part of being IoT sales savvy involves retaining the customer during the first sale.
Consider acquiring your customer by talking about how you intend to retain them. The relentless pace of technical advances in the IoT ecosystem means your customer feels like they are always trying to hit a constantly moving target.
Your prospective customer has already met your technical and engineering support team. Those are the folks who will become their customer retention team. You already have showcased what it is like to work – and collaborate – with you. You will bring continuous IoT value to your client’s business table.
Do you consider yourself to be IoT sales savvy? How about working regularly with a collaborative technical and engineering support team? Consider the impact they will have in terms of future productivity and profitability: yours and your customer’s.
Babette Ten Haken is a management consultant, strategist, speaker and coach focused on customer success for customer retention in the industrial Internet of Things ecosystem. She traverses the interface between human capital strategy for hiring, developing and implementing teams of collaborative technical, engineering, sales and business professionals. She serves manufacturing- and engineering- intensive companies, catalyzing teams to create enduring business outcomes.
Babette’s playbook of technical / non-technical collaboration hacks, Do YOU Mean Business? is available on Amazon. Visit the Free Resources section of her website for more tools.
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