Sales Laundry

I was reading an interesting article this morning on child behavior, more specifically why toddlers don’t necessarily do what they are told. According to the research, three year olds don’t think like the rest of us.

For everyone older than three, if you realize it is cold outside you can think ahead and grab your coat before you head out the door. The three year old, however, has a different mental process. The three year old HAS to run outside, experience the cold, retrieve the memory of where his coat is, and then go get it.

As I continued to think, though, the article gave me a potential explanation for some curious customer interactions I have seen over the years.

I have seen clients trust their Account Managers recommendation enough to buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of hardware and software, but then slash the recommended implementation and training budget thus hobbling the deployment before it even begins.

Curiously, what were two of the top 5 things customers were most unhappy about after their deployments?  Perceived poor implementation and insufficient end user training.

Why does your customer “hear” you and order the hardware and software but then selectively ignore you on the topics of implementation and training?

In short, because the customer, like the three year old, either can’t register what you are saying,  does not have the frame of reference on which to fully comprehend the question, let alone make an informed decision or just does not trust your recommendation in this area. He may very well have to experience the pain, then seek the remedy.

More specifically in these instances, I see two possibilities.

Your client does not take your recommendation because you have not established an unwavering trust in the areas of implementation and training to override his lack of understanding of the potential ramifications.

Or.

Because you are perceived as an expert in hardware and software, an area where the client acknowledges he has little knowledge, but are also perceived as less than an expert, or worse yet, a corporate shill, in implementation and training, where the client may feel he has some relevant expertise.

The resolution is similar for both.

Put the same level of planning and forethought into discussing the training and implementation as you put into the discussion about your core offering. When you do discuss training and implementation, discuss hard numbers from other similar implementations, with references if necessary, to build the same level of trust you built on your core offering.

Give me your thoughts on this “Theory of 3.”

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