Light in the Tunnel

Jack Welch was on “This Week with George” talking about the economic crisis. He said that by 3Q09 we will see the light at the end of the tunnel. There are many pieces of the bail-out that have yet to be put in place. Things will get worse in the next couple of quarters and then improve by 2010.

That means we will be hearing “I’ll save you money,” as the pitch for the next year – even more than we do now. I don’t think it will work. As I told the Adtran-XO Partner audience on Thursday, businesses will be looking more at productivity – how to do more with less. An example would be that with IP-PBX (News - Alert) or Hosted PBX, you may be able to let that admin go (or not re-fill the position).

It will require patience, persistence, and paying attention. Sales-people will need to do solution selling, using probing questions to get at the pain points before they will be successful.

It also means that salespeople will need to be speaking to the C-Level, since most other folks may see a technology upgrade (or change) as a threat to their job. Think about the IT Director and the Telecom Manager; when the networks converge one of them is redundant.

The sales cycle will get longer. Networking and referrals will be as key as persistent yet creative follow-up. It is also a time when companies will need to shore-up their top customers. It’s going to be a long year, but watch for the light in the tunnel. (And hope it isn’t a train.) IT

Peter Radizeski is head of RAD-INFO (News - Alert), Inc. a consulting agency specializing in the telecom industry.

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