What is IT Sales? Information Technology Sales simplified

There’s no denying the fact that the world around us is changing, more so, during the pandemic. Amongst all the lockdowns, restrictions and social distancing, the one thing that kept us all connected was technology. Picture the same pandemic hitting us 20 years ago and we would be in a far worse place than we are today. A lot of this has to do with technology. The fact that anyone can pick up the phone to talk to someone face to face over a video call anywhere in the world is a technological feat that wasn’t available to all of us till a few years back. The physiological, philosophical and psychological impact of it aside, technology has and continues to play a huge role in how we deal with our lives. Also as the case with any industry that has flourished in the past, sales and marketing have played a big role in the adoption of technology in our day to day lives. A simple exercise: Next time you are on YouTube or passing by a billboard, check out the advertisement being shown to you. Does it involve technology?

So, what is IT Sales?

IT also referred to as Information Technology is the use of computer based systems and processes to serve businesses and consumers. While the sales process is mostly agnostic, there are certain nuances to each industry and the same can be expected here. IT Sales itself can be broadly divided into two parts: Pre-sales, Sales

Pre-Sales: As the name suggests, it is a team that comprises of people who do the groundwork for the actual sale. These are the list of activities that they are involved in:

1. Research on a topic/technology: With the advent of new technologies coming to the fore regularly. This team is tasked with making sense of it all and thereby bringing awareness within the Sales organization or the company in general. Partnering with other companies and analysts are a part of this job.

2. Research on prospects: This activity can be either for individual customers or for organizations. Depending on the level of engagement a company has with the client organization, it can be a good strategy to understand the needs of your customers before approaching them. This team in part is also responsible for guiding the sales group to the right target audience.

3. Respond to RFPs: RFP (Request for Proposal) is quite common in the corporate world. These are requests sent by prospective buyers (corporations themselves) to vendors in order to ascertain who would be the best fit for the upcoming program that’s on offer. RFPs can be pretty exhaustive in nature. There are other forms of requests called RFIs (Request for Information) which are normally precursors to RFPs. The pre-sales team evaluates the request to come up with the proposal based on inputs from the various departments of the organization.

4. Inside Sales: This team is also responsible for reach outs to prospective clients. For more on the specific roles, refer to my previous blog detailing the various activities performed in here.

Sales:

I’m sure a lot of you must be thinking, if all the above activities are done by a pre-sales team, then what’s left for the actual sales professionals? There’s a lot still left… Read on.

1. Continue the sales process: Pre-sales teams are great in terms of identifying the right prospects but that’s where their responsibility ends and the role of a sales person starts. A sales professional then goes through the sales-cycle of figuring out the needs of the clients, following up, coming up with the right solution and finally closing the deal by convincing multiple stakeholders. Do remember that these are structured activities typically performed in an organization that is big in size ($1B+) and deals with sizable clients. In smaller companies, it’s quite possible that all these activities are done by one person alone.

2. Understand the business problem: Contrary to popular belief, the IT sales professional should understand the business problem that the prospective customer is facing, more so than the technological aspects behind it. This is not to say that being technologically ignorant will do much good to the sales professional. But understanding the customer requirement and aspiration is critical in order to move the sales-cycle along.

3. Walking the aisles: Travelling is a major part of this job. A technological sales professional travels quite a bit (domestic and international travel is par for the course depending on the geography that they are responsible for) to physically meet the customers and ‘walk the aisles’ along with them in order to discover their needs.

4. Close the deal: The biggest and the most critical piece of the sale is the ‘closing’. Closing the deal refers to the part where the parties agree on what services will be rendered as part of the deal after which the contract is signed. It goes without saying that if this step isn’t completed, then the previous steps do not mean much, as the sales professionals’ job depends on the actual revenue that is brought in and not just the effort put into different activities.

CONCLUSION:

Every industry is unique in its own way and has different styles of sales approaches, but in general the above steps will take you quite far in your quest to understand the basics of your organization’s sales approach. Also, as mentioned in the beginning of this blog, technology is prevalent in almost all the industries today, so if you do have some experience in IT and sales, it’ll take you a long way.