Having a wicked technology is not enough. There are lots of smart technologies, and most customers don’t buy because the technology simply isn’t practical. Most customers buy to improve their life or their business.

“I’m working with a networking firm right now that has a cloud deployment. They are very happy with what they have, but the customer base is who you are going to sell to,” Darryl Brown (News - Alert), principal advisor for MyPropHead, LLC, told TMCnet during ITEXPO (News - Alert) Miami this past January. “Sometimes companies have something that is really, really cool, but they don’t actually know how to position it with the customers and the customers are confused.”

Stubbornness is one of the largest challenges for Brown, who consults with companies and investment firms about technology product marketing and positioning.

Brown said teams get so wrapped up in their products and how awesome they are, that they forget about customer needs and how the product might fill that need. The technology by itself might be cool, but business is not just about making a better mousetrap. It’s about serving the need for a mousetrap.

One of the other big challenges when it comes to technology product marketing is getting sales teams on board.

“The sales teams might not be used to this customer base, or their sales teams can’t understand what the product teams are saying, or the technology teams,” he told TMCnet. “You have to do all that translation back and forth. The biggest challenge is trying to keep everybody on the same page and not ruffle shoulders.”

Again, this is about stepping away from the technology itself and focusing on the utility that comes from the technology.

“Take cloud out of the discussion when you are talking to your customers and positioning it with your customers,” noted Brown, “and get back to the facts of what you want to do with your IT infrastructure.”

The technology will sell itself if the utility for the customer is known and clearly presented. Every sales pitch has an angle, sure, but if the utility is known, the sales pitch can amount to highlighting where the company’s solution fits into the market and why a company might choose that approach.

“As a provider, you need to do the same: What do their customers need to do with the infrastructure, and then map that back into the technology that is going to be delivered in the solution. It is back to that one-size-doesn’t-fit-all scenario,” he said.

Watch the full interview with Darryl Brown above.