There has been a lot of discussion in the integration industry about the need to develop services revenue, and embrace new business models, in order to remain relevant.
At InfoComm, Chad Sowers, Director of Business Development at GreatAmerica Financial Services stopped by our booth to talk about some of the stumbling blocks that he sees integrators experiencing. “There will be challenges as integrators make that transition into managed services, or hardware-as-a-service, AV-as-a-service, or any new business models,” Sowers reports.
“One of the biggest stumbling blocks that I see with integrators, is getting the mind shift and the change in philosophy all the way down to the street level, down to the sales reps,” says Sowers. This is important, because in order for the new business model to be successful, your sales reps need to change the way they sell. They will have to not only sell the project, but also sell maintenance, bundle in recurring revenue and start selling a complete solution.
How do you get your sales reps to embrace solution selling?
“Really it comes down to getting your sales reps to buy in to the philosophy of the new business model, and then compensating them a little bit differently,” Sowers says.
Sales people sell what you incentivize them to sell
“So if you want your sales reps to sell more maintenance, more recurring services, to increase your profitability and start to build recurring revenue for your business, you’ve got to compensate them a little bit differently,” says Sowers. “That may mean something such as simple as reducing the compensation a little bit on the project side, and increasing the compensation more on the services side. And there’s different things you can do that to dangle the carrot in front of your reps to get that to happen.”
“But at the end of the day, if you don’t change the behavior of your sales team and train them how to sell this different type of business model, it’s really not going to succeed. And that’s where we’re seeing some stumbling blocks with integrators, is getting that buy-in from their sales team early, and getting them compensated in a way that’s going to drive the desired behavior,” Sowers concludes.
Watch the video for the full discussion:
Related: The Misguided Reasons Companies Don’t Transition to Managed Services
