Over the last couple decades of helping senior executives get serious about selling services, I’ve observed a few patterns that help me predict the success of this important transition. Organizations that show early success (one year or less) do three things. How many does your organization do?
1. Fund the services business appropriately. Duh! Sounds so ridiculously simple. However, over the years I’ve seen big companies that truly need to be able to sell services to survive, balk at spending chump change to give services a decent shot a survival. The same execs who wouldn’t blink at dropping $10 million on a new plant, hem and haw at spending $100K to start a new strategic business. Go figure.
Lesson: If you won’t pay, then don’t play.
2. Have dedicated services sellers. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard CEOs say something like this: “Don’t worry. We have a great sales team. They can sell anything, including services. We’ll just give them a good incentive and we’ll watch the sales roll in.” When I hear this, I cringe. I know at least a full year of building profitable services will be lost and the whole transition is in jeopardy. If you want to know more about how big a challenge it is and what it takes to be successful in getting sales to sell service, I dedicate an entire chapter in my book, Seriously Selling Services, on this topic.
Lesson: Relying on your product sellers to sell services is a dumb thing to do.
3. Sell services first. I know this may be blasphemy, but customers don’t see much difference between your products and those of your best competitor. Customers make their buying decisions based on the services that surround your products. Their confidence in your products is based on their assurance that your services and support will provide them what they need. Therefore, if you have more and better services, you have the key to getting sales and stomping your competition.
Lesson: Push your services, and your products will be pulled along with them.
Want to learn more about an organization that is doing it right? Read the Wesco services success story below.
Hunker down…cut sail…throttle back. Accepted advice to follow during an ocean storm or in the midst of tough economic periods.
However, while competitors have followed this conservative prescription of idling their vessel during these rough business seas, Billy Gamble, CEO of Wesco, has charted a different course: one path over the waves and straight into the gale.
Bucking conservative conventional wisdom, Billy decided to make some aggressive, strategic actions in order to secure the future of the business. Fourteen months ago, while competitors were waiting for the wind, Wesco decided to start a new business, ramping up a for-profit services organization while its customers—golf courses and municipalities—were cutting back spending dramatically.
From left to right: Billy Gamble, CEO, Mike Lynch, Director of Performance Services, and Frank Pitman, Performance Services Manager, all smiling at the year-end services results.
“Sure it was a risk to move ahead,” declared Billy, “but it would have been an even bigger risk not to start then. I see services as the key competitive differentiator in this industry, so the faster we build services capabilities, the better off we will be. We have a long way to go, but I’m extremely satisfied with our performance. I will continue to emphasize and fund this strategic part of our business, stagnant economy or not.”
You have to love this “damn the torpedoes!” kind of approach. I’m pleased to have played a small role in this success story. I’ll report back down the road to let you know how it is going.
Amy Burgert, Performance Services Manager, dealing with a favorite customer.
