Is Your High Tech Company's "Bathroom" Dirty

Maybe it is and that is why your company revenues are down!

by Paul DiModica

Having started and worked in IT companies who marketed and sold hospitality software and custom professional services to many world class players like The Mirage Casino, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Ritz-Carlton Hotel & Resorts and regional successful independent restaurants, I learned an inside industry success secret -- a secret that is transportable to any business including high tech companies.

This secret can change your business by reducing your marketing costs and increasing your sales team's closing ratio. In today's difficulty economy, every sale is important.

What's the secret?

Experienced restaurant owners and hospitality company executives always know that a foodservice business is judged by how clean the bathrooms are.

If the bathroom is dirty -- an area where the management team knows you're going to visit -- then how clean are the kitchen and food storage areas you can't see?

It is like that in the IT business. If your web site is lacking, your proposals are lightweight, your brochures are pretty but say nothing and your pre-sale installation or scoping meeting conversations are not organized, you are foreshadowing to the buyer that you are not a "clean business" and why would the prospect buy from you.

Every interaction with a targeted prospect subliminally communicates that you know what you are doing . . . or don't.

Have you ever sat through an executive presentation where the IT salesperson and the support person seemed to be talking about a different offering and the buyer just sat there bored?

Have you ever seen a client proposal that scared prospects away because it was all about the seller and how great they were instead of addressing the needs of the prospect?

These examples of lack of preparation send warning signs to the buyer that this company does not have an organized sales process and subsequently makes them draw logical conclusions that they do not have an organized support process after the sale.

Most IT management teams worry about the big issues and miss the salient point that high tech success is about small things. It is about the interactions of your sales, marketing, strategy and financial management departments prior to the sale being made . . . not just after the sale.

It is like sales job interviews. If the candidate can't present themselves well when they know you are observing them, how professional are they going to be when they are with an important prospect . . . and you are not there?

So, to increase your IT firm's success, build checklists, templates and step-by-step actions of your prospect touch points prior to the contract being signed, not just based on your needs, but based how you would like the prospect to "see you".

Remember, smart restaurant customers don't eat in restaurants that have dirty bathrooms, and IT prospects don't buy from companies that communicate they have a "dirty process."

To your IT success,

Paul R. DiModica
CEO-Founder
Value Forward Group
IT Business Growth Acceleration Specialists
(770) 632-7647
www.valueforward.com

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