Technology sales representatives looking to strengthen their
position with employers and potential employers during this recession should
take heed—”consultative” sales and executive relationship-building are skills
that are in demand and will command the attention of hiring managers.
“Hire people on the business side rather than on the
technology side,” Gartner Vice President Tiffani Bova advises solution
providers and technology resellers at distributor Ingram Micro’s recent VTN
conference in Orlando,
Fla.
“There are lots of layoffs, but people are still complaining
that they cannot find talent,” says Bova. That’s because employers are looking
for specialized skill sets, including this specific type of selling approach,
and also sales professionals who are confident enough to target top executives
at potential client companies.
Targeting top executives, talking about business benefits
instead of just technology speeds and feeds, and creating relationships with
clients were among the key themes at Ingram Micro’s VTN conference and the
subject of several sessions.
Even as jobless claims have risen and economists are saying
that the current recession is the worst in decades, business owners and sales
managers crowded into the Ingram Micro VTN session about how to identify and
hire salespeople who take this kind of “consultative” approach to sales. It was
the only session with a standing-room-only crowd.
Such skills are particularly important in a recession,
consultants point out, because sales representatives will win more success if
they target the CEO
who makes strategic decisions rather than leaders of the IT organizations who
are working with a restricted budget. CEOs control the budget, consultants say,
so they have the ultimate power to move funds from one expense to another.
“If you really want to make money in this economy, go to the
opportunity seekers, the CEOs, the entrepreneurs,” says Laura Posey, a vice
president at Dancing Elephants Achievement Group, who offered a session “How to
Grow Your Sales During a Recession.”
Ken Thoreson, president of Acumen Management, says that
ideally, sales professionals should have three contacts within each client
company. Thoreson also recommends that employers provide account executives
with a prescriptive sales process, offered in a 10-page document, to help
account executives deliver their best performance.