We seemed embarrassed to admit it, or we are trained not to say this, but selling isn’t selling really about Self Interest?

Despite all the things we say about being customer focused, what we really want is for the customer to buy what we are selling.  We want to win, we want to beat the competition, we want to achieve our goals, beat our quotas and earn our commissions.  We want to be successful. 

It’s really all about Self Interest…..but what’s wrong with that?

Isn’t business, and life, really about Self Interest?  We choose our relationships based on how they make us feel.  We work in companies based on what we get out of it, not only pay, but they do things we are interested in, they represent what we like.

Our customers are the same way.  They work in their own Self Interests.  They want to achieve their goals, they want to get a promotion, they want want to be successful.

It is human nature to be Self Interested.

Where we get confused, when things start getting complicated or going wrong is when we work with people where our Self Interests Aren’t Aligned.

We are unhappy in our jobs when the expectations of management and the strategies of the company are not aligned with our Self Interests.

Self Interest in sales is very challenging.  If, in serving our Self Interest, we are pushing something on the customer that doesn’t serve their Self Interests, the customers resent it.  They feel pressured, they may feel manipulated.  Conflict arises when Self Interests are not aligned.

But what if we aligned our Self Interests with those of the customer?  What if by focusing on the Self Interest of the customer, we could also satisfy our own Self Interest?  When what we are trying to achieve–sell our solution—aligns with what the customer is trying to achieve—solve a problem, we have no conflicts.  We work in tandem with the customer, each of us satisfying our own Self Interests.

We aren’t interested in nice meetings and conversations (unless that’s in our Self Interest).  We aren’t interested in working with customers who cannot help us satisfy our Self Interest.  We aren’t interested in customers who don’t have problems we can solve.  We want to disqualify all opportunities that don’t serve our Self Interest.  There’s nothing wrong with that–afterall customers feel the same way, they don’t want to waste time with people who don’t satisfy their (the customer’s) Self Interest.  We aren’t going to hurt their feelings, we’re just being human.

There’s another thing about Self Interest–it’s about people, what each of us wants, what each of our customers want.  Our companies and those of our customers really represent the aggregated Self Interests, goals, and dreams of all the employees, stakeholders, and shareholders–but there is really no Self Interest in companies.  Sometimes in selling we forget about this.  We focus on the customer’s–the company’s—goals, objectives, and problems.  We forget about the people who are doing the buying.  We don’t understand each of them, their Self Interests.  If we don’t understand their Self Interests (otherwise known as What’s In It For Them), we may have difficulty in aligning our Self Interests.

There’s nothing wrong with Self Interest–as long as our Self Interests are aligned with those with whom we work and with those of our customers.

The other day, I wrote a piece, What Are The 3 Characteristics That Set Great Sales People Apart?  It stimulated quite a reaction as people started suggesting their ideas.  I was surprised by the focus of a number of people on the “right techniques.”  These comments started to make me wonder about my own belief system and biases.

I guess I have a very negative reaction to the concept of sales techniques.  When I think of these techniques, I think of sales tricks and manipulation.  I did a little research:

• Persuasion techniques like, “the art of repetition,” “the foot in the door,” “the bait and switch,” “low-ball,”that’s not all,” and the lists of techniques for persuading people can go on.
• Closing techniques like, “the assumptive close,” “the puppy dog close,” “fire sales close,” “thermometer close”, “the ultimatum close.”  I actually found a site listing 68 closing techniques!
• Objection handling like, “the boomerang,” “pushback,” “deflection.”

I could go on with list after list of techniques I found in researching “sales techniques.”  I went to the dictionary to look up the definition:

tech-nique  [tek-neek]  1.  The manner and ability with which an artist, writer, dancer, athlete, or the like employs the technical skills of a particular art or field of endeavor.  2.  The body of specialized procedures and methods used in any specific field, esp. in the area of applied science.  3.  Method of performance ; way of accomplishing.  4.  Technical skill; ability to apply procedures or methods so as to effect a desired result.

After reading the definition, I started to think, much of the “advice” I and others I respect offer are “techniques” — or methods — or processes.  After all, I’ve written a lot about effective questioning, listening, qualification, developing and communicating value.  I present tools (techniques) people can use to make them more effective in connecting with and engaging customers.  Likewise, there are a large number of other consultants and bloggers that offer great approaches that create real value for customers, sales professionals and others.

So why do I have such a negative reaction to “sales techniques?”  I think I my negative reaction to “techniques” is not the techniques themselves (though I saw very little redeeming in the list of 68 closing techniques), but the intent or use of the technique.

So often, underlying the use of technique is an intent to manipulate, trick, or deceive.  Anytime the person(s) on the receiving side of a sales person using “techniques” in these ways, everything sours.  What may have been good suddenly turns distasteful. 

On the other hand, techniques can be important to gaining insight and understanding about the customer.  They can help you engage the customer in a conversation about their problems, dreams and goals.  Techniques can be important in communicating complex ideas.  They can help people understand, they can serve to simplify.  Techniques can be important in helping facilitate the customer’s buying process, in helping present value, in helping manage change.  They provide structure for us to work with customers, improving the way we engage them.

I suppose any tool, tip, process, methodology, and, yes, technique can be abused.  Their use can be manipulative and misleading.  Yet we do need techniques.

I’ll have to mull this over a little while, I’m still uncomfortable.  I’m trying to talk myself into believing that techniques are good.  However, I just can’t help it, whenever I hear the term “sales technique,” I immediately think of scenes from movies like Boiler-room.  I think of sleazy sales people doing the “bait and switch,”  followed by the “boomerang” objection handling technique, capped off by the “puppy dog close.”  They trigger the worst examples of sales I can imagine.

Am I wrong on these sales techniques? Can any of you offer advice that can make me more comfortable?

Last Friday, I had the privilege of being interviewed by an executive on critical issues in buying and selling.  It was a great conversation, but one of his questions stuck in my mind.  He asked me, “What are the 3 characteristics that set great sales people apart from others?”

I responded, “Oh, there are so many……”  He interupted, saying, “Dave, you only get to choose the top 3, no more.”

This caused me to pause, any of us can come up with lists of characteristics of great sales people, sometimes it’s half a dozen characteristics, often a dozen, sometimes the lists go on and on…..  Brian’s question was really challenging, he only allowed me 3 characteristics.  I thought to myself, how can I combine several into one, maybe I can create a giant run-on sentence with all sorts of adjectives describing great sales people.

After a few moments of reflecting, I provided three carefully worded phrases:

1. Goal directed curiosity and a problem solving orientation.
2. A genuine interest in helping people achieve their goals and dreams.
3. An ability to embrace changes and to get the people they work with to embrace and own change.

Let me explain myself.

1.Goal directed curiosity and a problem solving orientation.  Every great sales professional I’ve met is incessantly curious.  They want to learn as much about their products and solutions as they can, they want to master them, so they can present them to their customers.  They are curious about their customers–both their customers’ businesses and their customers as individuals.  they study their businesses, their customers’ customers, their customers’ markets and competition.  Their curiosity is not random, it’s very focused.  The greatest sales people know how they can help their customers.  Their curiosity is purposeful, it’s focused on trying to find problems and opportunities their customers have–that the sales person can do something about.  Great sales people don’t go on random fishing expeditions, they don’t cold call–every call is carefully researched and planned,  they don’t waste their customers’ or their own time.  They don’t fool themselves with wishful thinking, but focus pragmatically–does the customer have a problem I can solve?  Can I present and opportunity that would accelerate the ability of my customer to achieve their goals?   In the end, they are about results–those they help the customer produce and those they produce for their organizations.  The greatest sales people are also curious about their profession.  They are constantly reading, attending workshops and seminars, talking to others they respect.  They know to stay at the top of the profession–to be a top performer, that the bar is constantly being raised.

2.  A genuine interest in helping people achieve their goals and dreams.  Top performers care about their own performance, but they know they only way they achieve their goals is through helping the customer achieve their own–whether it is the overall business goals, their function’s departments goals, or their own personal goals.  Top performers revel in seeing their customer being successful in implementing the solutions they have sold them.  Top sales people never “hit and run,” if things aren’t working, they don’t ignore the customer, they go back in and do everything they can to correct things.  Sometimes they can’t correct things, but the customer knows it isn’t for the lack of trying.  Top sales people care!

3.  An ability to embrace changes and to get the people they work with to embrace and own change.  The greatest sales people in the world know that sales is fundamentally about change.  We ask customers to change suppliers/vendors, to select a different product than they have been using.  We ask people to change their processes, the way they do business–to explore new ways of growing being productive.  We ask customers to embrace a new vision for their organizations, to consider new ways to improve or grow.  The best also realize they are asking their own organizations and the people in their organizations to change–how we hold and value customers, how to create the best experiences, how to retain and grow our customers. new products and solutions we might provide to enhance our relationships and grow our business.   Top sales people realize that people may fear or not understand change.  They realize their role is to help people understand it, to own it, to take it on as their own mission and goal.  The best in sales realized they are change managers and that they must create the same vision and excitement for change, with their customers and within their own companies, that they envision.

There’s a lot more characteristics for good sales performance.  But I think these three set the best sales people in the world apart from everyone else.  Do you agree?  If you had only 3 characteristics to choose, which would you select?

A few years ago, I was talking to a sales manager.  He was expressing some frustration, “I’m doing my job of selling, my customers need to start doing a better job of buying!”  When you think about it, there’s actually a lot of truth to that statement — at least the “doing a better job of buying” part.

Our customers do a bad job of buying because they don’t know how to buy.  With the exception of purchasing professionals, it’s not our customers jobs to buy, they focus on doing their jobs whether it is building products, running an operation, providing IT support, whatever their function is.  They don’t know how to organize their buying effort, they don’t know how to define what they are trying to do, they don’t know how they should look at and evaluate alternatives.  Buying is something is a disruption to their normal work flow–they are already busy, often just trying to survive, now they have this new task — it takes time away from doing their normal job.  They probably recognize they need to change–they need to find a new solution, but they don’t know how to organize themselves to make a decision.  They also have to go through all that awkward stuff of managing a team, each with a different agenda, each with different views on what is needed, each with a different priority.  just coordinating the buying group, requires a lot of skill and time.

Customers worry about making a bad decision.  They are accountable to their management to do the right thing for the company.  They are held accountable for investing company funds well–they need to demonstrate their purchase creates a return for the company.  If they make a mistake, their management will be all over them, they may even lose their jobs.

Customers don’t buy very often.  In complex B2B solutions, they may purchase these once in their careers.  Think of it, a new piece of capital equipment–something that has a life of more than 5 years, a major new software system, outsourcing services, whatever.  Their lack of experience makes them apprehensive–both because of the “long life” of whatever they are buying, but they just haven’t looked at thse solutions very often.  They don’t know what’s out there, what’s good, what they should avoid.  Even if they buy more frequently, things are changing so quickly, it’s difficult for them to keep up.  Think of something that has become commoditized like PC’s.  The product life cycle of a PC is probably around 3-6 months.  So if I looked at PC’s last year, there have been 2-4 generations of new PC’s since then.  Everything that I knew about buying them a year ago has changed.

Procurement professionals help.  Their job is buying, they keep up with the products they are responsible for.  But it’s still difficult for them.  They aren’t making purchasing decisions on their own.  They are acting on behalf of people within the organization.  They have to make sure they understand and are satisfying the needs of their customers.  They face the challenge of helping manage the process, expectations and align the different agendas and priorities of their customers.

Finally, buying is about change—none of us like change, it’s always so difficult, it’s often easier just to keep doing the same old thing.

It’s no wonder that customers do a bad job of buying—after all their jobs aren’t about buying.  So they need help–and that’s where great sales professionals differentiate themselves.

See the peddlers don’t recognize that customers don’t know how to buy.  They blindly assume the customer is expert at this, they never ask questions to determine if they do know how to buy.  All they do is pitch their products hoping to dazzle the customer with Features Advantages Benefits, ghee whiz Technology, and large doses of Charm and Personality.  Peddlers are pitching their products but not solving their customers’ problems–one of which is “How Do I Buy?”

Great sales professionals recognize their job is to help their customers solve their problems–both operating their businesses more effectively and efficiently and addressing new opportunities.  Great sellers also recognize that part of solving customers’ problems is helping them understand how to buy–they work with the customer in facilitating their buying process.  They realize, that by helping their buyers buy, they are creating great value for their customers.

Are you helping your customers do a better job of buying?

(As a side note, my friend Sharon Drew Morgen worries about Buying Facilitation (TM) a lot.  I highly recommend looking at her site, and devouring her books and matierials.)

I’m sitting in my office–it’s 97 degrees in the office, I’m fuming, it’s been one of those weeks.  I was traveling all week, thinking I was fortunate enough to miss the very hot weather we are having in Southern California (OK, some of you may think I am whining). 

On Friday, I called my wife, both air conditioning systems in the house had failed — we had just replaced them last October with completely new systems.  I told her to call the air conditioner company to get out to the house.  That evening, I called her again, “had they fixed the problem?”  “No–they haven’t shown up yet.  They said they would be here by 1:00, it’s now 4:30,” she said.  I told her, I’d call the owner of the company to see what was up. 

I called him, didn’t get him, but talked to the office manager.  She apologized, saying that they were running behind schedule, but someone would be there Friday.  Saturday morning, before jumping on the plane, I called my wife.  “Are things back to normal?”  “They haven’t shown up yet……”  She had that tone in her voice, I thought I was about to get a performance review.  I put in a hasty call to the company–got their voicemail and left a polite but urgent voice message.  When I landed, guess what —-yes, you know the drill—they still hadn’t shown up.  This time, I got the owner on the line.  He said that he would personally come by to look at and fix the systems.  I told him that I would re-arrange my schedule so that I could be home all afternoon for him.

Well, that was yesterday, today’s Sunday, no messages, no air conditioning, nothing.  I spent much of my time preparing letters to the Better Business Bureau and other organizations—I guess the heat is getting to me.  Now tomorrow, I have to re-scheduled my business meetings so I can get this guy to meet his commitments (by the way–it’s all warranty work, he doesn’t appear to want to honor that.).

I wish this was an isolated case.  But we encounter it every day–in both big and little ways.  It’s the sales person that committed to call you at a certain time, then 30 minutes later–when you are in a meeting, he calls offering some excuse but expecting to take your time.  It’s the team-mate who has committed a certain set of deliverables on a certain schedule, but fails to meet the commitment–not just late, but no deliverables.  It’s the person that’s constantly 10 minutes late to a meeting, keeping everyone else waiting….   I’ll stop there, I could get carried away.

This afternoon, as I’ve been reflecting, I’ve realized how common place it is for us not to meet our commitments.  Sure we tend to make the “big one’s” — at least when they serve our self interests.  But, it’s unusual for us to meet the little commitments.  I happen to be a little obsessive about phone calls and meetings.  It always strikes me as strange when at least 90% of the people I’m calling exclaim, “Wow–right on the dot!”  They think it’s unusual, to me it’s meeting my commitment.

I few years ago, I was talking to a friend.  He’d built a very good contracting business in our community.  I was asking him his secret, he replied, “I wish it was my ‘craftsmanship,’ but really it’s about meeting commitments.  I show up on time, I do the work they contracted for, I clean up afterwards—just the basics.  That’s really 80% of what’s made me successful and why they hire me over other very capable contractors.”

Just the basics—-showing up on time—-meeting your commitments—–80% of customer satisfaction and differentiation.   It’s a shame it’s not the norm–why do we settle for it?

I’m tempted to end this post with something to the effect of “sweating the details….”  Sorry, the heat is getting to me.

Customer Centricity is a hot topic these days.  I get on my soapbox on Customer Focus, Customer Experience, How Buying Is Changing, and various aspects of being Customer Centric.  As a result, I get a lot of calls and queries about being Customer Centric.  To tell you the truth, many of them are very disturbing.  They often go something like this (this composite, actually understates what I’ve experienced).

Caller:  My organization has to be more customer centric.

Dave:  Cool, what’s driving this initiative?

Caller:  My boss has told us we have to do this.

Dave:  OK, that’s interesting.  Why does he say that you need to be more customer centric?

Caller:  I don’t know, he just told us to figure it out and to become more customer centric.

Dave:  Hmmm….. What do your customers think about their experience with you?

Caller:  I don’t know, we don’t have the time to talk to them.  Maybe you can do that for us.

Dave:  Well, we can certainly survey your customers and get their views, but part of customer centricity is connecting with your customers better—engaging them—-listening to them.  Do you have any sense of what they are saying?

Caller :  (I start hearing some frustration in his voice)  I understand what you say, but we’re just too busy.  I need to respond to my boss, can you help us?

Dave:  Well, can you tell me what you are looking for?

Caller:  Well we just need to know how to be more customer centric.  Can you tell us what programs we need to put in place and what the investment would be.  It’s important that we measure how we are doing, perhaps you can design a customer centricity dashboard for us?  Could you tell us what others are doing so we can copy them?  Maybe you can give us a short seminar?

I’ll stop here.

On the one hand, I like the calls, they represent great opportunities for us.  On the other hand, I worry about these calls. 

There are many things we do to help organizations understand their customers, better focus on their customers, engage their customers, and the list can go on.  But customer centricity is not a set of programs and initiatives an organization implements.   It is not a new set of metrics.  Customer centricity is a state of mind, it’s a set of values, it’s a culture all focused on serving the customer.

When I look at truly customer centric companies, the programs, initiatives and metrics are not that different from those organizations that are not customer centric.  But what makes them different is how they embed the “voice of the customer” into everything they do.

All companies have new product development processes.  Customer centric companies embed customers into the development—whether it’s customer councils, customer participation in phase reviews, customers participating in the development—the footprints of customers are all over the development process.

All companies have customer problem resolutions processes.  Customer centric companies worry about “what’s best for the customer,” others worry about “what’s best for the company.”  Customer centric companies actually listen to what comes up and change policies, practices, processes to reduce problems.  Others “manage the issue.”

All companies have websites, they all talk about their customers at the web site.  Customer centric companies celebrate their customers at the web site, they talk about their success, they congratulate them.   Their annual reports are filled with stories of customer successes.

Stories about customers abound in customer centric companies.  In meetings, when they talk about customers, they use actual customer names—individuals, companies.  In companies that are not customer centric, they talk about the customer in abstract terms—they call them “the customer,” not Jill Smith at XYZ company.  Sometimes they don’t even talk about the customer, but focus on themselves, their products, their operations.

Customer centric companies sometimes make customers unhappy—as do others.  But customer centric companies always embed a customer perspective in every decision.  Customer centric companies communicate to the customers the rationale behind the decisions, recognizing that some won’t like the decision.

Metrics are important in customer centric companies—just as they are in every organization.  Customer focused metrics are things like:  Sales, profitability, growth, customer share, market share, customer retention, customer acquisition, customer satisfaction, warranty returns, days outstanding/age on receivables, employee satisfaction and the list goes on.  Other organizations measure the same things.

But why aren’t the measures different?  The answer is simple, Customer Centricity is good business!  Let’s just use good business metrics to determine how we are performing.

Companies don’t become customer centric by implementing new programs and initiatives.  Companies don’t become customer centric by implementing new metrics.

Companies become customer centric by embedding the customer perspective—the voice of the customer—into everything they do, every day.  Customer centricity is a set of values, a frame of mind.  Within an organization, it is embodied by a culture focused on listening to the customer, engaging the customer, considering the customer in everything they do.

I got a really interesting email today–actually, I get these emails periodically from various organizations.  Today’s was from a very large company that we’ve done business with before (we are a customer of the company).  The email was very personal, it started:  Dear Dave……….   

It continued with an interesting message about our relationship, introducing me to new products and capabilities.  Overall, it was a pretty good letter.  At the end, it was signed by:  “Company, Inc.”  (OK, I’m chickening out, I’m not mentioning the name of the company—actually, I get these types of letters from a number of organizations).

Hmm, that’s interesting, how does a company sign a letter?  I wonder, if I wanted to respond to their offer, would I call their switchboard and ask:  “May I speak to Ms. Company, Inc. about her recent letter to me?”  Maybe I’m making a mistake, I wonder if it’s Mr. Company Inc?

It seem odd, in marketing and sales, we talk about connecting with our customers.  We focus on developing an nurturing relationships, informing, educating, understanding our customers.  We invest millions of dollars in software that helps us analyze, profile, and segment our customers–enabling us to focus our communications to their specific interests and needs.

Maybe it’s just me, but somehow it seems these letters and emails should be signed by someone—an individual, not Mr. Company, Inc.  Somehow, it would be nice to know that Joe Smith, Product Marketing Manager from Company, Inc took the time out of his day to send me this note.  I may never want to talk to Joe, or if I were to buy the product, I probably wouldn’t buy it directly from Joe, but somehow I feel closer to a company represented by real people, not Ms. Company, Inc.

If we’re trying to connect more closely with our customers, if we’re trying to focus on them as individuals, wouldn’t it make more sense that our communications came from individuals?

I’m constantly about how few sales people really understand what their customers are buying.  They know what they are selling, but they can’t explain what they are selling it for—that is why the customer is considering buying the solution and the value it creates for them.

There are a few fundamental questions the sales person must be able to answer if they want to present their offerings in a way that is compelling and connects with customers:

1. How does it help them grow their business?  That is how will they increase revenues/sales, how will it help them enter new markets, regions or acquire new customers?
2. How will it help them increase their profitability?  Growing revenues or cutting expenses or both increase profitability, if the sales person can’t demonstrate this, then there is no justification for the solution–why should the customer buy it, how will they get their management to approve something that has no business justification?
3. How will it help them increase the satisfaction of their customers?  Creating satisfied customers helps grow the business.  Creating satisfied customers helps retain and grow current customers and acquire new customers.
4. How does it help the customer increase the quality of their products or services?  Increased quality drives increased satisfaction, increased efficiency and effectiveness.  These all contribute the the other items.
5. How does it help the customer become more effective and/or more efficient?  Effectiveness has to do with doing the right things, efficiency has to do with doing them in as short a time/expense as possible.  These contribute to increasing productivity and driving revenue growth or expense reduction.
6. What may impair the customer’s ability to implement the solution, take ownership, assure internal alignment, and manage all the change issues internally?  Sales is about change management, while we might have the most compelling solutions from a business justification point of view, if we can’t help our customers understand and manage the change issues, both we and they will be unsuccessful.
7. Why is this important to your customers (both the enterprise and individuals) now?

These issues are important, at whatever level you are selling.  The mistake many sales people make is they think, “my product is only a small component in the overall scheme of things that my customer is facing.”  However, the best sales people think in terms of “for the lack of a horseshoe, a kingdom was lost.”  Just think, a small part or design flaw in the Toyota gas pedal is contributing to the loss of $100′s of millions in sales, as well as reputation.  Everything we sell won’t have that kind of impact on our customers, but everything contributes in some, even small way, to the attainment of the customer’s business objectives.  Understanding this, communicating it to the customer–who often may not have a clear idea themselves about their contribution to the business–will set you apart from your competitors and help you create a tight, value based relationship with your customers.

The process of being able to answer these questions requires you to understand your customers’ businesses, markets, customers, opportunities, strategies and priorities at a deep level.  The process of being able to answer these questions requires you to engage your customers in a deep discussion about what they are trying to achieve.

You may not be able to answer all these questions, but the more you can answer, improves your competitiveness and the value you bring to your customers.  If you can’t answer any of these, then you are not creating value for your customer, you are just a “live” product catalog.

Have I missed any?

I’ve been intrigued about much of the publicity around Hoover’s Near Here offering.  Apparently it’s an Iphone based application for a sales person to find new prospects close to them–wherever they might be.  I’m certain this is the first of many new services that will be offered by organizations like Hoovers  (In fact, LinkedIn and Tripit have been offering similar, but much lower capability for some time).

I’m intrigued about the offerings, but really wonder if this is the type of prospecting behavior we want to encourage?  The approach reminds me of those sales people who start out on the first floor of a building, knocking on every door in the building, trying to find prospects.  In fact the practice goes back to the door to door sales person.  Don’t get me wrong, in some cases these approaches may be effective.  Additionally, I think Hoovers is a great service, though I question the real value of this service.

All you have to do is read Chapter 1 of Jill Konrath’s SNAP Selling to understand the reality of customer’s lives today.  Customers are too busy, too time-poor to be bothered by sales people “dropping by.”   Sales effectiveness is driven by purposeful, value creating meetings, focused on the customer’s priorities and fitting their time.  It’s critical that sales people are prepared and focused in meeting with customers.  Shooting from the lip just doesn’t cut it any more.

So how useful are the location based prospecting tools?  Do we really want our sales people to “squeeze” in meetings with customers, just because they “happened to be in the area?”  Shouldn’t sales people, in fact, be doing a better job of planning their time further in advance, setting up purposeful meetings with customers “in the area.”  I can see these tools as offering great value if used as part of the weekly planning process.  For example, I’m going to be in Manhattan in 2 weeks, I could get great value out of a tool that might help me identify prospects I might see while I am in Manhattan—and I won’t drop in on them.  But I’ll call them up in advance, set a meeting, and make sure I have prepared for the meeting, making sure both they and I are using the time together as effectively as possible.

I don’t believe in the ad hoc, just in time sales call.  I don’t appreciate sales people dropping in on me, my experience is that customers feel the same as well.  I think these location based tools offer great potential, but more as a planning tool than as a tool to squeeze in the ad hoc meeting.  If a sales person finds they have spare time, rather than ad hoc meetings, they are probably better served by planning and preparing high impact meetings.

Am I missing something or off base?

Disaster struck this morning, went to the office and the network was down.  Technical guy that I am, I went through my diagnostics, called my ISP and started yelling at customer service  (It always seems to be their fault).  Ooops, turns out my router was the problem, had to go get a new one.

As soon as their doors opened, I shot to the section of the store marked “Networking” and was confronted by a wide array of brands and choices.  The guy in the store came up and asked if I needed help, “Absolutely not, I’m cool with this stuff.”  There sitting in the center of the display were a bunch of cool Cisco Routers:  The Valet, and the ValetPlus.  I thought to myself, Cisco really has this stuff down cold, I’ll buy a Cisco router.  I looked at the packages trying to understand which router I should buy.  Imagine my surprise, they don’t have any description of what the specs are.  They just had a picture of a USB Data Key, “Installs By Itself!”

Hmm, other than a $30 difference in price, what’s the difference?  Which should I buy?  I turned the boxes over and over.  Surely there has to be something on the package that tells me the difference.  Couldn’t find a thing.  Looked around the display–maybe there’s a sign that describes the difference.  Nope, nothing around.

Sheepishly, I go to the sales guy, “I guess I do need some help, what’s the difference between these products?”  The guy was knowledgeable and very helpful, he gave me the secret decoder ring.  “Cisco came up with this packaging to make it very simple to buy!”

“That’s cool, I like simple and easy, but how do I know these products will meet my requirements?”  I respond.

“Cisco knows what your requirements are, they will meet your requirements?”  he replies, “They don’t want you to be confused with specs, just buy it and it will install itself.”

“But which one should I buy?  The normal one or the plus one?”  I ask.

“The plus one has more features and capabilities than the normal one,” he says.

“I kind of guessed that, but what are they, how do I know?”  I ask, “do each of these have ‘hubs?’”  (For those of you who are non-techies, it means you can connect actual wires–ethernet wires, in addition to using the wireless.)

“Well of course, see the picture,” the sales man says, very helpfully.

“Oh, that’s what that strange symbol meant, I didn’t know!”  I reply.  Then I ask the magic question–I have to reclaim my nerd pride, “Are they dual band?”

“Good question, most people don’t ask that, Cisco doesn’t want you to worry about it,” he replied.  Recognizing I was a techie to be reckoned with, he gave me the real decoder ring, “Here’s how you tell the difference in the capabilities, look at these Linksys boxes (another Cisco brand), This Linksys router is exactly the same as the Valet, and this Linksys router is exactly the same as the Valetplus.  The way you understand the capabilities of the Valet and Valet Plus is to read the Linksys boxes.”

“Cool, I get it.  But tell me, why are the Valet Products $30 more expensive  ($30 seems to be a magic number of Cisco) than the same product in a Linksys box?”  I ask.

“The Valet has this key, it’s easy to install,” he responds confidently.

“But the Linksys box, says it has an ‘easy to install CD,’” I ask, “What’s the difference, why should I pay $30 more?”  Turns out I stumped the guy.  He had been very helpful, but I had exhausted his knowledge.  Somehow I knew that Cisco must know best, but I didn’t know why?  Which product should I buy, I was so confused.  Should I buy the Linksys or the Valet?  Would the Valet be worth the price difference?  Should I buy the normal Linksys or the high function Linksys?  Or the Valet or the Valet Plus.  They were the same products, but big price differences– a swing of $60. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a Belkin box calling out to me.  I picked it up, read it, it had all the stuff I wanted and it said “Easy as 1,2,3 to install.”  This is the one for me!

I bought it, brought it to the office, sure enough it was easy as 1-2-3 to install.  I’m connected, able to get to WordPress to write this blog.

I’m a B2B guy, so I feel that I’m on shaky ground talking about consumer products sales and merchandising—but I am a great consumer!  Packaging serves a very important function at the point of purchase.  It should attract my eye, it should inform, it must (for technology product) provide some minimal level of education—helping the consumer determine what they are buying and what they should buy to meet their needs.  Cisco in its attempt to be very simple in its Valet packaging has gone so far as making it uninformative.  It didn’t provide me the information I needed to make an informed decision.  It didn’t provide the store sales associate–who really wanted to be helpful, the information to help me buy.  It lost me as a customer for this transaction and made me a great advocate of Belkin—informative packaging, delivered on their promise of easy to install, simple purchase decision.

I’m all for simplicity, but as a buyer, I am looking for enough information to make an informed decision, whether it’s a $100 router, or a multimillion dollar Enterprise Software package.  Inform, educate, answer questions, let me understand what I’m buying and the value I get.