Your goal with the first IT sales call is taking a prospect to the next step, preferably something like a site survey. Sometimes prospects will want to sign up right away. Other times they will put you off. You should never get told “I’ll get back to you.” In order to get to the next step in IT sales, you need to find out how desperate a prospect’s project is.
If prospects tell you they would like to move from DOS-based fax software to 32-bit fax software in order to fax to PDAs in the field, or they want to do something else complicated or simple, you have to figure out if their idea is impossible at the moment, a true possibility or something they really, really want to do. Basically, you need to know how important the project is in order to get prospects to the next step of IT sales. Ask the following questions to get a clearer idea of the desperation of a proposed project:
1. “If everything looks fine, when would you like to get started?”
2. “How important is the project to you?”
3. “When do you want to start?”
4. “What is stopping you from starting the project now?”
5. “Why has this project not been done previously?”
Perhaps your prospects have looked into a project previously but thought it was too expensive. Or maybe they decided it was impossible. It may be a bigger challenge than originally expected.
Be Direct
If you still get resistance after trying to gain IT sales, ask direct questions that aren’t too aggressive, such as, “When is a good time to follow up with you?” You can also ask, “When do you think you’ll be readier to start discussing this project with me again?”
The Main Point with IT Sales
Don’t take “no” for an answer with IT sales. Learn as much as you can about prospects, their problems and their level of desperation for solutions in order to make “No” today into “Yes” tomorrow.
