Convergence Channel: Winning the Technology Migration Game

While the stakes are higher, from a competitive and strategic standpoint your business is analogous to a game like chess. We’ll assess what you may encounter and plan your most effective moves to migrate customers to new technology.

<p>Technology, the goddess we are all slaves to, actually creates less time to step back to plan because we are all tethered to it and expected to be “on the grid” 24/7. It’s the new “normal.” photography ©istockphoto.com/alwyncooper, gregepperson</p>2 Key Tactics to Help You Triumph

Upgrading and migrating your customer’s technology clearly takes focus, commitment and a solid strategy if you want to prevail. The conventional approach is to lay the responsibility on your sales team; hey, isn’t it their move? Not necessarily. To win this game, as in chess, there are two things you should consider.

First, be innovative. Think about having your soldiers (installers and service techs) plant the technology seeds in their normal course of working with your customers. It doesn’t cost a lot and is a tactical, smart move. There is nothing quite as powerful to a customer as the words that come out of the technical people’s mouths.

Secondly, be proactive. Like in chess, bad things often come to those who sit back and wait when they are in the heat of a game. Use tactics effectively to always be migrating your customers not from a marketing or sales blitz perspective, but with slow and consistent messages.

Tactics are the small steps that enable your longer-term strategy, like having your technicians plant ideas early. Your strategy may be to have 75% of your best customers with a technology migration proposal in hand and committed to it; preselling the boss in the next 12 months.

How will the game end? You really must visualize what the results of your strategies will look like for both you and your customers in the next 12-18 months. Will they be introduced to new technology and know the benefits? Will they have a proposal in hand from you to guide them through the budgetary process for the next fiscal year? What if a DVR breaks tomorrow?

Ding! Time is up. It’s your move.

Paul Boucherle, Certified Protection Professional (CPP) and Certified Sherpa Coach (CSC), is principal of Canfield, Ohio-based Matterhorn Consulting
(www.matterhornconsulting.com). He has more than 30 years of diverse security and safety industry experience and can be contacted at paul@matterho
rnconsulting.com.

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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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