New Position Process

Wow, where have I been? Well starting a new position is time consuming. Maybe I should say it SHOULD be time consuming. If you expect to get up to speed in any new position by just putting in the “normal” amount of work hours, you are sadly mistaken. In the software sales industry, you have to expect to put in a lot of hours in a regular work week. When starting a new position in that industry, expect to add at least 25% more than the producers are putting in.

How Much Time?

I don’t know how this sounds to you, too much or too less, but it seems to be what works for me. Too many more hours than that and I start to lose my sharpness. Any fewer and I can’t do the daily load and learn the amount of information I need to to keep ramping up.

Again, I’m a technical sales resource, so I need to know all the nut’s and bolts. So how do I do it? Read, read a lot. It is amazing what you will learn if you read everything your company produces about your product. Marketing slicks, sales brochures, Web pages, technical manuals and release notes. Not just the most recent release notes, read them for at least a year back. This will help you find information that your competition uses against you based on old information, as well as helping existing customers know what they can gain if they upgrade.

You have to know what you need to know

While I’m reading, I’m watching. Watching others work. What do they say? What do they show? What do they make sure to point out? What are they sure to avoid? All of this is invaluable. Next, I talk to others about what I have read and seen. Coworkers, customers, prospects, anyone. Again, this will help refine what I know and how it is received and perceived.

The original "Like"

I have done technical demos for my Wife and Mom before. Why? If I can’t make them understand complex technical software, I need to simplify my presentation. I always start with simple demos when showing a new product. Tell a story, paint a picture where people can see themselves using the solution, get them to want more, and be ready to do that.

Living Large, Lying, or Laughing

As many of you know I have taken a new position recently. Now I’m not going to use my blog here to tell you how amazing Axcient is from the top down, but I have never been so impressed with any group of people. Instead I’m going to share my thoughts and feelings of jumping into the shark tank.

Axcient has a fairly new partner that has just taken off doing a huge number of placements. They want to bring the entire sales and executive team up to speed to really drive these numbers. Guess who gets to present to them? That is right, yours truly.

Now this doesn’t present much of a problem for me for several different reasons.

1. 1.       I love to present, I can’t wait to get started.
2. 2.       I’m a geek, I have learned a lot about the product technically already.
3. 3.       I came from the VAR space, I know the needs for Backup, Business Continuity, and Disaster Recovery.

So to sum it up, if you have knowledge, know how to apply it, and like doing it, you can’t miss. Do you take this approach when you sell? I say sell, because even though I’m talking to a partner, I’m selling them on selling us. Everything is sales. Now I didn’t feel this when I was a wet behind the ears technician trying to get all my errands run between service calls…but I learned…I learned.

As I have said before, sales is about confidence. If you have confidence in whatever you are selling, you have just made your sales process much easier. Hardware, software, or yourself.  If you don’t have confidence, why? Which of the elements are you missing?

Repeat after me, I have the knowledge about my solution, I know how my prospect will use it to solve their issues, I believe I will do my best for the client and my employer. If you can say that line without either laughing or lying, you’re living large.

If you aren’t running to get in front of the next new group to talk to, maybe you need to think about a career change…