For many years, there’s been a good living to be made from hardware, software, and communications bandwidth sales transactions. Good enough, in fact, that getting called a ‘box pusher’ or a ‘circuit slinger’ kept you laughing all the way to the bank.
Ah, but times they are a-changin’. Many businesses have cut CapEx budgets that traditionally funded so much hardware and software. Now more and more customers seek solutions rather than boxes and circuits. And commissions are getting squeezed, requiring more work just to sustain the same income level.
Of course, some will continue using a transactional model. Very large organizations may prefer making what amounts to wholesale arrangements for bandwidth. And very small firms may stick with simple, off-the-shelf technology.
But these are the extremes of a bell curve which can no longer support many who’ve relied on transactional sales. The great bulk of technology customers must be served with a new kind of selling that’s both solutions-oriented and relationship-based.
But what are the real payoffs? The alternatives? The challenges? How does it happen?
In future blogs, I’ll discuss it all — and show you that when you hook up with the right kind of solutions-oriented, relationship-based technology partner, this brave new world is not beyond your reach.
