For many practitioners in the IT industry the role of a salesperson has traditionally been quite one-dimensional and highly product centric. Customers would already have deep knowledge and, in many cases, in-house skills. This has generally meant that customers only required a ‘distributor style’ relationship where products were being procured on a best price basis, with a three- or fiveyear refresh cycle. This model required the IT salesperson to have deep specific product knowledge and understanding, with customer engagements built over long periods, and direct and beneficial access to the product and channel distribution network.

Now, however, customers’ needs have evolved rapidly. Rather than owning their IT infrastructure or data centres, customers are now transforming not just their IT, but also the way they operate. Instead of purchasing and managing their own infrastructure on a CapEx cycle, they are adopting consumption models. Interestingly, these new consumption models have created additional complexities for customers, as they must navigate the challenges of maintaining a sound set of service levels across complex multi-cloud IT platforms. This heightened agility and high complexity has altered the role of the IT salesperson and the skills required to be successful in this new world.

Know the customer's goal

Our sales teams and salespeople must be more technically aware and able to easily and adeptly move in the new convergent IT environments. It is no longer sufficient to have one-dimensional product knowledge. A salesperson will now be engaged in business transformative conversations and deep consultation. This sees the modern salesperson acting as an expert and advocate

for their customers, asking questions (and at times proffering solutions) to determine what the customer needs. The salesperson, in turn, uses that information to select the best possible solution to meet these needs.

In this new world, a salesperson must be able to understand not only their customer’s immediate requirements, but more importantly the customer’s longterm business objectives. The benefit of this is that the salesperson can consider all aspects of their customer’s requirements and propose solutions that will help the customer reach their tactical and strategic goals.

Tech savvy customers

As our salespeople have needed to transition to a new era, so too have our customers. Today, customers are faced with highly complex IT environments with higher stakeholder expectations and a wealth of choice in solution providers.

A purchasing decision for a customer is now more complex, takes longer and requires deeper engagement with their shortlisted providers. In many cases, the salesperson’s role is now to challenge or support their customer’s thought process to ensure that both initial and long-term business outcomes are carefully considered. This has brought a new and dynamic skill to the surface – orchestration. By this I mean that the right solution for a customer will usually involve more than one service, product and partner. The customer doesn’t want to have multiple conversations with multiple vendors. They want one partner who can deliver a seamless solution to meet their needs, regardless of how many vendors have been brought together to build the solution. To this end, the salesperson must be a consummate and effective activity coordinator.

Bridging the gap

A holistic consultative and orchestration approach is absolutely vital to the modern salesperson’s ability to deliver a long-term value-based outcome to the customer. This doesn’t mean that a salesperson has to become a dedicated technical consultant, but they must be able to carry a longer-term value-based discussion. Our sales teams are now in the era of continual learning. Technology and associated services are constantly evolving and, similarly, our customers are continually looking to evolve and stay competitive in an increasingly crowded market. At the very core of sales, however, it’s still about building and maintaining meaningful deep and lasting customer relationships, coupled with a strong view of how technology can influence and support their next generation of growth.