Marketing — As with most tech companies I know, sales and marketing typically position their products as a solution to a problem. In some cases, the marketing department will use actual customer case studies to develop promotional materials intended to peak prospect interest. The idea being that when one reads the story, they can relate to the described problem as being like theirs. (Note the word I chose here is like, and not exactly.)

The same holds true of various conferences, seminars and customer events designed to interact with customers and prospects, in hopes of enticing them to explore various products and services further, potentially leading to a sale. Afterall, that is why the suppliers are there, to sell something and increase their revenue streams.

Sales — This is where sales come into play. It is their job to interact with the prospect or customer and determine which product(s) will best serve in providing a solution to the business problem at hand. As such, one might expect that the sales representative would take time to ask a lot of questions, listen to the answers, and truly understand the business problem the customer is describing, before presenting a solution. I hate to say this, but it is rarely the case, and I too was one who was at fault for this.

Many sales representatives have a lot of experience in providing solutions to business problems, and often begin presenting product functions during the “exploration” phase of the sales cycle as the customer describes their situation. The customer may state that the problem is their invoice processing is slow and they would like to decrease processing times.

Immediately, the salesperson begins to describe how their using recognition and data extraction technology combined with workflow automation will increase throughput. While this may be true, what we don’t know yet, is the underlying business problem and reason for this process to be slow. In this sales approach, there is an assumption being made that the customer knows the issue and what to do about it.

When digging deeper, the real customer problem or goal, is to improve cashflow. In this scenario, we are talking to a logistics company dependent upon keeping their trucks rolling, drivers paid, and delivery schedules met. While improving cashflow involves decreases in invoice processing times, what is really needed is a true understanding of the business process from end-to-end and the only way to do that, is to ask more questions and listen the what the customer is saying – and not saying.

Given we now know that cashflow is the real business problem, the question becomes one of how the invoice process impacts cashflow and when it is triggered. In this case, the customer is in logistics with a fleet of trucks traversing the country and delivering goods.

Upon further discussion, we find that the invoice process is triggered when a signed delivery receipt is provided to the accounting department. This signed delivery receipt is part of the driver’s responsibility to collect, and then provide to the accounting department. In the past, and still to this day, delivery of these signed receipts might be mailed in, sent by courier, or even held until the driver returns to the office. In some cases, this would take weeks or even longer based on where the package is coming from.

Having this information now gives a clearer picture of why the process takes so long and opens the door to further discussions regarding requirements surrounding invoice creation and distribution to the client. For instance, one may find that there is no requirement for the original delivery receipt to be in hand to invoice, only a replica. The original is required for record keeping purposes and even at that, the original may be only used for quality validation.

Given the newly discovered problem and business requirements, one might find that capture and transfer of the delivery receipt to accounting would greatly decrease the processing times and improve cash flow. As such, the tech solution might include remote capture or capture to the cloud, recognition technology with data extraction, and more could be incorporated. In fact, just by deploying remote capture capabilities, the invoice processing times could be decreased. (I personally have seen results that improved delivery receipt transfers to five days from up to seven weeks.)

The reason sales need to listen and not jump to conclusions, is that without understanding the whole picture, a proper solution might not be complete. Focusing on only the accounting department would not have seen the trigger of signed delivery receipts or the fact that replicas are sufficient to kick off the process.

Additionally, customers don’t know what they don’t know, and it is up to sales to work with them to uncover the underlying issues, extended processes/triggers, and provide enlightenment on their business and operational requirements. In this case, the need for the original as the trigger was nonexistent, and use of a replica (image) is acceptable.

There are many times when communication between customer/prospect and sales and marketing personnel is inadequate. Many situations begin with a question that requires more questions once answered. The tendency is to jump into how a product is a solution but yet the real problem has yet to be identified.

In one case that I was personally involved as a technology consultant to sales, an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and workflow solution was being proposed that was of significant cost. The sales representative had done a great job of positioning our product to solve the business problem but failed to discuss some of our technology requirements with the client. In this case, it was in relation to network communications, connectivity, and bandwidth. (Yes, there was a time this was of great concern.)

As I sat with the client and dug into this further, the sales representative became nervous that we might lose the sale, while the client became more open to discussion. You see, no other supplier had even mentioned this, let alone take time to openly discuss it.

When we finished talking about the networking and communications infrastructure (finding it was inadequate), the client let us know that he could issue purchase orders below a certain amount without having to go to bid and he would like to keep it all with one supplier. The sales representative immediately began talking about how this was a much larger project, etc. and failed to hear what wasn’t being said.

After kicking the sales rep under the table, I told the client we could break this down into several projects, develop a project plan to coordinate everything into a suitable schedule, and stay under the project cost limits he was obliged to maintain for each project. Upon leaving the building, the sales rep asked me what had just happened, and I explained that now he had an opportunity for five projects rather than one.

This is but one example of many instances I have seen and been part of over the years. As suppliers of business solutions, we are looked at as the experts in our fields and as such, should be helping the client identify real business problems and requirements. Not just technology.

As clients, we should be prepared to openly discuss our business operations, technology infrastructure, and ask questions of the supplier, even if they seem trivial. It is only when supplier and client work together as a team, that business solutions deliver the expected results and return.

Customers should expect that if you want their business, you will listen. Sales should expect that customers don’t always know how to articulate their real problems and in some cases are presenting you with symptoms, not problems.