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December 2008 | Volume 11/ Number 12
Enterprise View

A Reseller Educational Series – Selling and Staying Competitive in a Weakened Economy

Resellers have had a nervous year as they watched the falling world economy. I have heard many vendors and resellers talk about pulling back on advertising, trade conferences and training. Of course, cutting back on these lead generation tools will definitely reduce future sales so the process becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. A better approach than simply cutting back is to learn where to invest your company’s resources to get the biggest ROI. Let’s ask the experts for their view.

Bob Nicols (News - Alert) of Axiom Sales Force Development and Jeanne Leckie of the Leckie Group have both participated in the very successful Reseller Day Training Courses at ITEXPO (News - Alert). Both are seasoned training professionals with years of industry experience behind them.




As Bob points out, “Unfortunately, most technology sales professionals don’t know how to sell in a softer economy. Our sector has never faced challenges this tough, and we’re beginning to see just how spoiled we all were. It’s time to focus on training and retool our skill set. You can survive and even prosper in this economy, but you can’t sell the way you have in the past.” Bob went on to explain that in uncertain economic times, survival is the strongest of instincts. People don’t buy “niceties”, they buy “necessities”. People will continue without a decision until their business is negatively impacted. At that point, the “nicety” becomes a “necessity” because not buying it threatens the company’s very existence. Axiom’s course is specifically designed to teach you how to position your technology as a “survival” solution, a “must have”.

Jeanne counsels that to “Stay competitive in a challenged economy a company must learn how to drive the company’s brand, culture and discipline for impact with customers, employees and the bottom-line.” Jeanne’s course instructs students to strengthen the business outcomes of their customers by improving their selling process, their approach and positioning in a multi-solution, multi-vendor environment. One also needs to command improved business efficiencies and discover how to uncover the gaps to realign your business and your customer’s business model proficiently. She says students will “Leave the Session with the Knowledge to EXECUTE.”

To learn more on succeeding in this environment from Jeanne and Bob, you need to register for ITEXPO East 2009, scheduled for February 2-4 in Miami. Reseller Day and the free Reseller Training Course are scheduled for February 2nd. IT

Max Schroeder (News - Alert), Sr. Vice President of FaxCore, Inc. (www.faxcore.com)

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