Do you remember how in the first part of the blockbuster movie Men in Black, the A-class combatants briskly shoot cardboard monsters in all directions, and only the hero of Will Smith, after a short deliberation, “blew out the brains” of a cardboard girl who had a book on quantum physics? And here, it would seem, SD-WAN? And everything is very simple: today there are no sales of solutions of this class in Russia. We have been working on the SD-WAN topic for more than three years, we have spent hundreds of man-days on it, we have invested in training engineers, in laboratories and stands, presales, presentations, demonstrations, tests, tests, tests ... But how many implementations? Not at all!
I would like to speculate about the reasons for this fact and talk about the conclusions that we made together with colleagues from Cisco based on the analysis of our experience.
SPIN sales
We at Jet Infosystems are very fond of the SPIN sales technique. It is based on the fact that selling is not a monologue, not reading a flyer, but a dialogue. Moreover, the seller should talk less and ask more questions: situational, problematic, extracting and guiding.
The main task is to lead the interlocutor to the idea that he needs to buy what you want to sell him.
A couple of years ago, there was a classic example of a salesperson interviewing a company that sells pens.
What do you even use pens for?
- Actually, everything has long been on the computer and the Internet. I only use a pen to sign documents.
- Among these documents, probably, there are contracts?
- Yes of course.
- And were there any contracts you signed that you remember for the rest of your life?
- Yes of course.
- I think so too. After all, it is, first of all, memories. Memories of your victories and achievements. You can sign a regular document with any pen, the cheapest one. But shouldn't the signing of such important, landmark contracts be done with a special pen, designed for special occasions? When you look at which will you remember how it was and smile?
- Interesting idea.
So look at this pen. Maybe it's her?
- All right, all right, sold, damn it!
Sometimes this approach works great, and I had a very interesting experience with this kind of sales! But not with SD-WAN.
Abroad will NOT help us
It is characteristic that the situation with the sale of SD-WAN solutions abroad is exactly the opposite, that is, it is very remarkable! There are no particular difficulties there. The reason is the impressive cost of MPLS channels, many times more expensive than Internet channels. As soon as we say that we can “remove” part of the traffic from MPLS to the Internet and save a lot on this, consider that the sale has taken place.
In Russia, the cost of MPLS and Internet channels is comparable, and in some cases the former is even cheaper. Having recently talked with a colleague from the Big Four operator, I was surprised to learn that MPLS is not taken seriously in the operator community as an internal network. Here is the Internet - yes, this is serious, access to the big world!
SD-WAN techies don't really need to sell. In our practice, there was only one case when the head of the technical department said that he had a DMVPN, and everything was fine with him. Usually technically literate citizens are well aware of what SD-WAN will give them. And then they go to business - and do not receive a budget. Or they immediately realize that they won’t get it, and therefore they don’t even go. But purely out of sporting interest, they are happy to start testing.
We should have thought about these facts earlier, but everything happens when it needs to happen.
digital confusion
Once I came to a respected person with my solo stand-up (because I didn’t know what questions to ask him). I was given a whole hour, but they interrupted after fifteen minutes.
- Listen. This is all interesting, of course. But do you know what digital transformation is? And then I hear from all sides, but I do not understand anything.
And I accidentally knew a little, so I said that this is a philosophical concept that claims that everything living in the world is mortal. Including any business. Without exception.
Therefore, digital transformation is about threats that can come from nowhere, and about the opportunities that the same threats give to the most agile. And then the most interesting began.
A respected person picked up the phone, called somewhere and said:
— Hey, digital transformation is about threats and opportunities, and not about digitalization, which you talk to me about.
He hung up the phone.
- Does this SD-WAN of yours fit in here?
And then we had a dialogue for the remaining 45 minutes.
And then something clicked in my head. I didn't understand anything yet, but I finally started to analyze. Very few people understand what digital transformation is and how it differs from digitalization. While there is no standard, how many people - so many opinions.
At its core, digital transformation is a concept about reminding managers of the limited lifespan of their companies.
leap of faith
We propose to stop, think and stop shooting at "monsters" who are not to blame for anything. We need to find the right target.
Look closely at the sales chart. For the sale to take place, you must focus on the lower right quadrant. To do this, we believe, it is necessary to approach the sale of SD-WAN as a Lean startup.
The key word here is startup! And a startup begins with a “leap of faith,” an assumption that (ideally) needs to be tested. An important note: SD-WAN practically guarantees an improved customer experience.
We did just that: together with colleagues from Cisco, we began to do pilot projects. At your own expense. And already on the "live" network of customers they found profits from the implementation of SD-WAN, which it was impossible to guess in advance.
For example, we had a case when calls to the contact center stopped dropping. This happened because SD-WAN began to quickly switch channels in case of quality deterioration. A missed call in a call center is a lost customer. But business understands this: there is a problem - there is a solution!
As a conclusion
SD-WAN is quite easy to sell to techies, but extremely difficult to sell to businesses. Therefore, the sale of SD-WAN to a business should be perceived as a start-up, that is, a joint partisan work of the customer, integrator and vendor. And this approach, we are sure, will lead to success!
Author: Denis Dyzhin, Business Development Director, Network Solutions Center, Jet Infosystems
Source: habr.com