How many times have we heard...
How many of us have heard things like: “I don’t have time to learn all the new products that are coming out!”? How many of us have felt that same way, haven't we? We can’t keep up with everything Microsoft is creating, do you expect us to keep up with everything the industry is creating? The traditional Microsoft model is one where Microsoft keeps pumping out new products, features and functionality and then we hope that our partners and customers can derive business solutions from these products, features and functions. The irony here is that our product teams are getting better at listening and understanding the business needs of our customers, and then building features and functionality to meet those business needs. So let's get this: Our product team is trying to listen to customer business needs, and then they are trying to take these business needs and break them down into products, features, and functions. That must happen. The disconnect happens when we hear the resulting features and functions that a new product has, not the business needs that the product actually address.
An article that just came out:
Ballmer focusing on next big thing for Microsoft
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/microsoft/2008023297_microsoft29.html
One task is pushing the idea that "the whole of our technology is bigger than the sum of the parts, particularly around Windows and the Windows experience," Ballmer said in an exclusive interview with The Seattle Times. "It's an area that Bill's been doing for so long and has been so core."
Bingo! I agree that I’d be pretty dumb if I said that Steve Ballmer didn’t “get it”, but the reality is that there are times when we are the ones that are not “getting it”.
In my mind, his statement is a key philosophy when it comes to solution selling. It’s not about the features and functions, it’s about the synergy we can build with our products. It’s about showing our customers how we can meet their needs without forcing them to figure out how our products can meet their needs. If we can help the business understand that we can meet their needs, then they can engage IT to make it happen. Once the business says “I want that!” We can then help IT understand how our features and functions can make it happen. This is great! We give them the answer to the question AND THEN we show them how to get there; Not the other way around. No more trial and error as they try to create and test various scenarios. We hear a need and we provide a solution, not an assortment of features and functions!
Our Business customers are now asking for things like:
“I MUST make sure that if one of my people lose their computer, I’m not reading our corporate secretes in the NY Times!”
“I MUST make sure that two days before we release our earnings, someone doesn’t accidentally forward our earnings statement outside of our trusted circle.”
“I want an overall real time view of how many calls my call center is taking”
We hear things like this and then we say things like BitLocker! And RMS! We are speaking Greek! We continue to answer our customers’ business needs with screw drivers, not answers! We MUST speak in their language and we must answer their questions with answers that they can understand! When we answer with things like Bitlocker and RMS, we then have to explain the business value of these features. We are already doing it, let’s just answer their questions in their terms first, not last! Don’t you notice the eyes of our customers as they glaze over when we start describing the technical details of these products? By the time we get to solution summary statement of “that’s how BitLocker will meet your business need of ensuring that your data will not be compromised”, we have already lost them in the technical maze!
What if we could say:
“We have a way to ensure that if someone losses their laptop, their data will be un-recoverable by a malicious users.”
“We have a solution that will prevent people from accidentally or intentionally forwarding your confidential information out to anyone that you do not approve in advance”
“We can provide a dashboard in simple red yellow and green status indicators of the Key Performance Indicators you define. Now you can see the high level view of your business, and drill through to any area of concern.”
We do not sell a single product that will meet a business need end to end. Think about it! What product do we have that can stand all on its’ own? If we really expect our customers to stitch numerous products, features and functionality together to build a solution, it just will not happen anymore! We need to answer business needs in the language that the business understands! That’s solution selling. We must stop making our customers derive their solution from our products.
The goal of solution selling is to help our end customers understand that we can meet their needs. We do this by eliminating the technical discussion up front. We must help our partners communicate in the language of the business customer. Our customers no longer feel that they must learn our language, we must learn to communicate in their language, and we must help our community learn to communicate in the form our customers want to hear.
If we make it easier for our customers to understand our message, we will make it easier for them to see how we can meet their business needs. The discussion of which product to use goes away, it's not important to the business answer. Once the customer understands the business solution, then we just give them a list of products, or better yet, capabilities that will meet their needs.
Until next time!
Rob