Chapter 7: Dude, What's Your Problem?

Diagnosing Problems So You Can Fix Them Fast

A prospective customer walks into your office and says, “It’s too hot in my data center.” You look up from your pile of slick marketing materials, hand the customer a box fan, take his money and send him away.

It’s a new twist on a very old joke. “Doc, it hurts when I do this.” “Then don’t do that.”

And it’s funny because it’s absurd. Telling the patient not to do the thing that’s causing pain doesn’t address the underlying cause of the pain any more than a box fan solves the problem of an overheated data center.

Last time, we talked briefly about asking compelling questions to dramatically change sales meetings – or any kind of conversation. We noted that we can increase effectiveness and value simply by asking questions, instead of continually talking about ourselves, our products and our services.

But asking questions – and listening closely to understand the answers – serves another powerful function to increase your effectiveness. The answers provide invaluable information for diagnosing business problems, which you MUST do before you go trying to provide solutions.

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: your so-called "solutions" are nothing more than widgets and wing-dings if they don’t SOLVE a meaningful problem for your customer. And, to determine what meaningful problems you might be able to solve, you’ve got to diagnose. Rather than thinking of yourself as a salesperson or a value-added reseller, think of yourself as a doctor.

When most of us go to the doctor, we don’t say, “I’ve got scurvy,” or “Please treat me for ague.”

Instead, we go in with symptoms (chills, fatigue, the inability to stop reciting the opening scene from “Reservoir Dogs”), and then we answer a lot of questions. “When did the compulsive recitation start? Do you ever recite other movie scenes? Did you have a special relationship with Lawrence Tierney?”

Our doctor listens closely to our answers, matches those answers against a vast store of knowledge and comes up with a diagnosis.

Only after the doctor has asked questions, listened to the answers and used those answers to arrive at a diagnosis can she prescribe a treatment. While the doctor thoughtfully mulls over the symptoms and answers, hours, days or weeks might elapse before the diagnosis and resulting treatment.

The same is true in the IT world. Don’t walk into your first customer meeting with a bottle of pills (or a box fan) and expect your customer to open up the checkbook. Instead, walk in with that list of compelling questions you made after reading the last article. Ask, listen, be patient and listen some more. Take those answers and symptoms away and really think about your diagnosis.

Next time, we’ll talk about some specific tools to guide your diagnosis process. Until then, enjoy playing doctor!

Eryc Eyl / Freelance Writer and Business Consultant

Chapter 6: More Math: Multiply Your Effectiveness with the Power of Acceptance

Well, this is our sixth date, and I feel like I’ve hardly gotten to know you. All I’ve done is talk talk talk!

Where’d you go to school? Got any siblings? When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?

OK. I’m kidding. Sort of. This particular setting doesn’t lend itself too well to true dialogue because it isn’t easy for you to talk back to me. That makes it very difficult for me to truly know what you want and need from me.

I could write the most well-researched, easy-to-read and informative article (remember when we talked about quality last time?), but if I don’t have a clue what’s really valuable to you, you’re not going to accept what I’ve got to say (remember acceptance and its critical role in overall effectiveness?). Quality multiplied by acceptance equals effectiveness (or QxA=E).

But your interactions with customers and prospects are nothing like this one-way street we’re currently on. When you meet with a customer – whether face-to-face, over the phone, via IM or whatever other fancy-schmancy methods you have these days – you have the opportunity for real dialogue.

What most salespeople – heck, most people – do when given the opportunity for meaningful conversation is TALK. When we talk, we’re living in the quality side of the equation. Whether we realize it or not, and whether we’re in a sales conversation or not – we could be talking to an old friend from high school or to a spouse – we’re trying to sell something. Could be a product. Could be an idea. Could be ourselves. But we’re selling. And we’re so excited about the quality of what we’re talking about that we lose sight of acceptance.

So how do you get on the acceptance side of the equation to ensure maximum effectiveness? It’s not as hard as you might think. Stop simply talking – about yourself, about your products, about your so-called solutions – and start asking questions.

If you know anything about true solution selling or consultative selling (and if you don’t, do yourself a favor and check out a book by Mike Bosworth or Mack Hanan), you already know about the power of compelling questions. Questions are the key to acceptance. They make the conversation all about what’s important to the customer – her needs and wants – while still allowing you to control the agenda.

Only by asking questions can you truly uncover your customers’ business problems. And only by knowing your customers’ business problems can you truly begin to present high quality, effective solutions to those problems.

Remember, a solution isn’t just a bundle of products and/or services. It addresses your customers’ critical issues. It solves.

Of course, you’ve got to have quality products and services. That’s your ticket to the dance. But if you want to build effective relationships with your customers, sell more and add more value, you’ve got to gainacceptance.

Take a few minutes right now to brainstorm some compelling questions you can ask in your next customer meeting. How can you talk less, learn more and multiply your effectiveness with the power of acceptance?

Eryc Eyl / Freelance Writer and Business Consultant

Chapter 5: Algebra to Add Value? And You Thought That Was History

If they don’t buy it, they won’t buy it:
How a little algebra can help you add value and sell more

Let’s face it – the world of IT distribution is sexy. Every time you turn around, there’s a new technology or toy that changes the way we think, the way we work and the way we sell. Technological innovation is exciting, and we’re lucky to be a part of it.

Unfortunately, our attraction to gadgets often causes us to lose sight of our customers’ actual business needs. How many times have you been in a meeting with a prospect – rhapsodizing about speeds and feeds – when you suddenly realize that you’ve completely lost the prospect? She’s counting ceiling tiles or cleaning her fingernails with your business card, and not hearing a word you say.

That’s when it’s time for algebra.

Yep, you read that right. OK, well, maybe it’s not exactly algebra, but it sure looks like it. Check it out:

Q x A = E

Don’t run screaming with a 10th-grade flashback just yet. I promise this will be mostly painless.

A Colorado-based Six Sigma process improvement expert by the name of George Eckes came up with this simple formula for change management, but – believe it or not – it applies directly to your efforts to add more value in the channel. Here’s how.

The Q stands for “Quality.” The A stands for “Acceptance.” And the E stands for “Effectiveness.” And in case you’ve forgotten your arithmetic, the x stands for “multiplied by.”

What this means to you is that both the quality of your solutions (or services or value) and the customer’s acceptance of them have an impact on your overall effectiveness.

In plain English, you can put the newest, coolest, most innovative technology in front of your customer, but if you can’t get that customer to accept that technology as a solution to one or more real business problems, you might as well have brought a slide rule and punch cards to the meeting.

How about some examples to make this clearer?

Let’s assume that we can rate both quality and acceptance on a scale from 1 to 10. And let’s say you’ve got the newest, coolest, most innovative technology, so maybe that’s a 10. And let’s also say that you’re customer doesn’t really believe it will solve any important problems, so maybe that’s a 1. You’re overall effectiveness is only 10, out of a possible 100.

Now, instead, let’s say you have a moderately innovative piece of technology, and maybe it isn’t quite as sexy, so we’ll give it a 5. In this case, however, the customer is moderately sold on this as a solution to a real business problem. We’ll give that a 5 too. Suddenly, you have an overall effectiveness of 25 – two and a half times more effective than you had in the first scenario. See how powerful multiplication can be?

But if you’re thinking that acceptance comes through the sales techniques you’ve been using – well, as Judas Priest once said, you’ve got another thing coming. Today’s customers (by the way, that’s all of us, too) require far more than a salesperson to be sold.

In the next article, we’ll explore how to truly gain acceptance and launch your effectiveness into the stratosphere.

Eryc Eyl / Freelance Writer and Business Consultant

Chapter 4: Putting the Final S in RESS

In the fourth and final installment of our series of articles on RESS – resources, expertise, services and specialization – we’re going to help you put it all together to make a hot mess with your RESS!

So you’ve got resources, expertise and services dialed in to maximize value, but you feel like there’s more you can do. Want to really stand out in your field? The surest way is to make the field smaller throughspecialization.

Let’s face it. When you think about all the possible ways you could leverage your resources, expertise and services, it can be overwhelmingly complex. In a fast-moving, ever-changing business like ours, you can’t possibly be all things to all people.

The key to making the most of what you already have just might be specializing. Successful resellers who want to put their value on steroids often specialize in specific technologies – like security, storage or networking – or specific verticals (e.g. healthcare, government, telecom, media).

Whether you go the technology route, the vertical route or a hybrid, your business can become the go-to guys (and gals) for your target market by learning its needs inside-out and meeting them.

Take just a few minutes to think about specialization. If you’re already specialized, what can you do differently to add some serious pizzazz? Write it down. Share it with your team. Make a plan. To lift off to maximum heights, make sure your resources, expertise and services (remember those?) are aligned to your specialization.

If you’re not specializing right now, write down some possibilities for getting there. Think about the resources, expertise and services that you currently offer. Do they point to a specific specialization that you haven’t noticed before?

If our favorite four-letter word – RESS – has you stressed, remember that you’re not alone. Avnet has been playing the RESS game for ages. Pick up the phone and find out how you can do more with less – with RESS.

In the next issue of Avnet Advantage, we’ll introduce you to the most important formula for sales and business success. Don’t worry – no calculus is required.

Eryc Eyl / Freelance Writer and Business Consultant