Selling a new solution to your CIO

Hello everyone!
I was wondering as IT manager which i guess there are many here, how do you sell a new solution you really WANT to the CIO or the one that has the decision to buy or not the new product you want for your IT Department?

Let say you want a CISCO WLAN solution but yeah its expensive like any cisco product... you know they do have the budged but they will always want to save money and buy the cheapest one that meet the minimum requirements.

I ask this because as a solution provider, i see that many IT Managers i mean many of them doesn't really want us to help them... i don't know why... i mean they wont let us meet the one that takes the final decision, some of them do, but not all of them!
I do bealive we do actually can help in pointing things that are really important, as we are the ones that knows 100% the product!

Any thoughts in general about this topic guys?

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Comments

JBrown

Because as a sailes person you get to make the sale and move to another sale. IT managers get to play cat and mouse with you and your support to get the promises (your promises) implemented and get to hear that "Yeah, it does that, but it was not in SoW, and I just said, we do that too, but did not say that its included in the pricing or not". Which means they lose their face in you, CIO gets sh*t on his head for your mistake, and project is now crippled. 6 month later IT manager gets everything working at 45% capacity.
Here comes a sales person looking to sell a new wireless implementation. You got the idea.

paul78

Great question - are you asking about selling an IT solution to your customer or to the CIO of your company?

Either way - it basically falls into ROI and TCO. If you can demonstrate with evidence that a particular solution will meet a requirement and provide for tangible return on investment (ROI) with a low total cost of ownership (TCO), then you would have a better argument for your desire for a particular solution.

Any decision maker on IT expenses are always going to seek a solution that meets the minimum requirements and nothing more. There is usually very little reason to buy a Cadillac if a Chevy will provide the same result. It would be fiduciary irresponsible for a CIO or any senior IT decision maker to select solutions simply because it's a better solution if the features of the better solution doesn't align with the business goals.

Hope that makes sense.

NightShade1

paul78 wrote: »

Great question - are you asking about selling an IT solution to your customer or to the CIO of your company?

Either way - it basically falls into ROI and TCO. If you can demonstrate with evidence that a particular solution will meet a requirement and provide for tangible return on investment (ROI) with a low total cost of ownership (TCO), then you would have a better argument for your desire for a particular solution.

Any decision maker on IT expenses are always going to seek a solution that meets the minimum requirements and nothing more. There is usually very little reason to buy a Cadillac if a Chevy will provide the same result. It would be fiduciary irresponsible for a CIO or any senior IT decision maker to select solutions simply because it's a better solution if the features of the better solution doesn't align with the business goals.

Hope that makes sense.

Yes Paul of course it makes sense...
I mean selling an IT solution to a company not really to the CIO but the CIO is the ones that takes the decistion to buy or not.
The thing is that sometimes this IT Managers wont let you meet their CIO, or they dont recive any provider for some reason... Now think that some companies does not have A CIO, in some companies sometimes the ones that takes this decision is the owner? i have seem in some school here that the finance guy take the decision of this, but the thing is that sometimes i think that we cannot sell it because the IT manager doesn't know how to sell our product to the guy that takes the decision(even if he likes it)... There is a ROI yes... there are good benefit, of course! but then here comes cheaper brand that does not even gave them any ROI, doesn't have benefits for them, but yeah it was cheaper!

Anyways im not a sales man though... i go more like mmm a presales guy. But i do have notice that the times in which we get to meet the one that takes the decision we get a really high percentage of winning it, even if it more expensive that other solutions.

I asked all this because im not an IT Manager and i wonder what does an IT manager thinks? why they do that?
Why do they play cat and mouse with the providers? i mean if you are not interest them just say it :P if its just TOO expensive that you cannot afford it say!
Im new to this world yeah as im coming from engineering. Not coming from sales or anything similar!.
It just curiosity of my part though. Is not really my work to play cat and the mouse with the clients though thats the sales guy job. But i do see this kind of things happening a lot and its kind of funny haha.

In summery i feel sometimes that the IT manager when he is presenting the different options they got to the person that takes the decision, even if he likes it, like i said before, he wont mention important things that he should, and details does make a difference!( i could be wrong in this last thing i said, it just what i feel!).

paul78

It's possible that you are witnessing internal politics - it's human nature to protect access. But that's probably unlikely, it probable that the decision maker may not have the right skills to evaluate the solution and they have delegated the decision to line managers and subject matter experts. Or that the CIO, etc. are simply just too busy. And in larger enterprises, there a lot going on so senior leaders will delegate. Another more likely reason, is that the IT manager may simply want to keep his/her options open. By keeping a vendor at a distance, it provides a way to shut down the prospective vendor.

BTW - you mentioned that "have notice that the times in which we get to meet the one that takes the decision we get a really high percentage of winning it" -That is probably because the decision was already made and the IT manager has recommended the final solution.

CIO's (especially in larger organizations) rarely are the one's picking the solution - the solution is usually recommended to them by whoever they trust to pick the solution. I manage technology expenses well in excess of 8 figures and if I bring a solution to my CIO, it's usually just a formality and most times the vendor never even gets to meet me if I trust the staffer making the recommendation.

joehalford01

It's usually because the IT Manager is still evaluating other products. Personally, I hate it when vendors ask if I'm the one that makes the final decision and then want to know who they can talk to above me. Bottom line, the IT Manager gets to make the choice, the CIO or CEO signs off on it if they trust their manager. So technically, the IT Manager doesn't make the "final" decision, but they do make the decision.