3 Keys to Consultative Selling for Security Industry
Location variables, cost concerns, operational options and migration motives must be effectively addressed with clients. Here’s the second of a two-part look at consultative selling.
Removing potential performance or operational pitfalls from your proposed system designs will help ensure meeting clients' targeted goals, and making the sale.
Performance of your solution can be impacted by many environmental variables. Performance requirements are a slippery slope and risky. By your nature you probably want to offer the product with great performance characteristics, right? With so many choices of product selection we must carefully consider price vs. performance. In days of old, one camera was sold. The thinking was that a standardized camera model was simpler for service, maintenance and consistency. It also cut down on having an unmanageable inventory of cameras. And what about the technician who has to install this system? Convergence technologies offer greater customization of performance but add some complexity to the selection process. This can also be said regarding the many choices with IP access control systems. With standard credentials or biometric, single or dual authentication procedures, the selection process can go deep down that performance rabbit hole.
Take a balanced approach throughout the solution in selecting high-performance products for critical areas of concern and standard-performance gear for the fundamental elements of your design. This keeps the performance/cost/benefit ratios better leveled to be more competitive on your solutions. In addition, this discussion engages the customer in the relative pros and cons of your technology selection recommendations. By the way, don’t give this away free. Qualify those sales opportunities before you impress prospects with your knowledge.
Considering Cost & Operational Options
Cost and budget variables must be quantified and qualified early in the selling process. Take a short cut here and trouble is sure to ensue. The first and most important sales question should always be, “Is this a budgetary or funded project?” When I work with my clients’ sales teams on sales efficiency analysis, the fundamentals of qualifying a sales opportunity is often missed. Investing time and company resources without really understanding how a prospect views cost, budgets and vendor selection wastes time and opportunities. Just don’t do it. Remember to ask specific questions about the money issues early to ensure you are working with the right people.
Operational requirements are too often assumed by both systems integrators and yes, even consultants. This is a big mistake. Understanding where, when and how a solution will be used, and by whom, once commissioned can often change the product selection process. How often will the customer interface with the solution? If it is infrequently, such as when an incident occurs or someone joins or leaves a company, you’d better keep it simple. What about the where part? The customer may want to check their store in their pajamas while traveling. If the customer is using your security solution to deliver business value in different ways, pay close attention to their operational expectations. This often means multiple training touches with customers.
Migration or green field application is often more complex than you would think. It involves all of the letters we have discussed and much more. If migrating your customer’s technology, can you do this in a fiscally responsible way that leverages usable assets to their end of life? You should. Can the migration be planned out over phases and multiple years? It should. Will migration leverage the IT infrastructure roadmap the customer envisions? It better! While each end-user scenario is unique, your approach and questions should not be unique each time. Effectively guide your customers with the PEPCOM process. Green field or new facilities offer opportunities to update security to network-centric IP solutions but can also challenge customers that like standardized systems. New facilities should be positioned to “evolve” customers’ technology by introducing new and improved solutions while addressing the plan to migrate older facilities over time to the new standard.
You now have some new perspectives on how I approach my consulting engagements and you too can use these simple and practical tools. PEPCOM will consistently improve how you serve your customers with a more consultative selling approach. Remember this nugget of wisdom: Collaborate with the entire security supply chain and ecosystem we live in to ensure you thrive and your customer survives securi
ty threats.
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About the Author
Paul Boucherle, SSI Contributor
Paul C. Boucherle, Certified Protection Professional (CPP) and Certified Sherpa Coach (CSC), is Security Sales & Integration’s “Business Fitness” columnist. A principal of Matterhorn Consulting, he has more than 30 years of diverse security and safety industry experience including UL central station operations, risk-vulnerability assessments, strategic security program design and management of industry convergence challenges. Boucherle has successfully guided top-tier companies in achieving enhanced ROI resulting from improved sales and operational management techniques. He is a charismatic speaker and educator on a wide range of critical topics relating to the security industry of today and an accomplished corporate strategist and marketer whose vision and expertise in business performance have driven notable enterprise growth in the security industry sector.
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