Selling
Abilities
Upgradeability (Part 2)
Subject: Software, Hardware, High Tech Sales
by Victor Antonio
Most
salespeople love to talk about their “-abilities”:
Reliability, Upgradeability,
Compatibility and Expandability. Salespeople feel stronger and more
confident when they can use their ‘abilities’ to convince the customer
to make a buying decision.
In the last article I
talked about different strategies for selling the ‘reliability’ aspect
of your software or hardware. I mentioned how most high tech
salespeople love to talk about their “-abilities”: Reliability,
Upgradeability, Compatibility and Expandability. In this article I
want to discuss how to sell upgradeability. When is the right time to
sell upgradeability? When do you mention the possibility of future
upgrades? How do you position future upgrades to software or hardware
with a new or existing customer without selling yourself short? How
often should your company release upgrades? These are all great
questions when it comes to the art of selling upgrades.
Selling
Upgradeability
So how do you sell
upgradeability? Well, lets start with a basic question. What does the
word upgradeability bring to mind when a salesperson mentions the word?
If you’re like myself, I think the product has room for improvement and
in the future if I choose, I can upgrade to whatever new capabilities
the software or hardware may offer. Microsoft Windows epitomizes the
model for selling upgradeability. There are four ways to sell
upgradeability:
Strategy 1: Ernest
Dichter a famous advertisement executive made a statement that talked
about how we as sales or marketers must use the techniques of
motivational thinking to make people constructively discontent.
Dichter knew people would only buy a product when they are discontent
with what they currently have. The job of marketing and sales is to
make ‘people constructively discontent’ with what they’re currently
using. A good example of this is our migration from the audiotape to
the compact disc. Marketers reminded us of that annoying ‘hiss’ sound
with tapes and how time consuming it was to rewind or fast-forward to
find our favorite song. They went on to promise the delivery of full
‘fidelity’ with the compact disc along with the ease and convenience of
finding your favorite song. Consumers bought the argument and the age
of the compact disc was heralded in. When selling upgrades, are you
making your customer ‘constructively discontent’?
Strategy 2: When I
hear upgrade in any sales pitch I immediately think of options. The
task of the salesman is to give the customer a ‘vision’ of what could be
possible if they chose your product and decide later on to upgrade.
Upgradability indicates there are other features that can be purchased
without having to absorb the cost for them all at once. A customer
likes to know that if they are satisfied with the products performance
that they could upgrade at any time to something more sophisticated or
advanced. This piece meal approach is especially effective with
customers who have limited budgets.
 Strategy 3:
Upgradeability, especially second or third generation indicates to the
customer that your company is continually improving on the product
(i.e., responding to customer needs and investing in Research &
Development). This is key; many customers want to be reassured that the
product has not ‘peaked in performance’ and that you will be improving
the product over time. Upgrades should be sold on average once a year.
To many upgrades a year can be seen as ‘product fixes’ or another way of
extracting further sales from a customer leading to ‘buyer resentment’.
Strategy 4: A major
mistake made by many salespeople is not taking the time to show or prove
to the customer how using your product will increase sales and
effectiveness thereby leading to quick return on the buyer’s Return On
Investment (ROI). Customers want to see hard numbers on how the
solution you’re offering is going to positively affect the bottom line.
Too often salespeople will say things like, “This is going to improve
you productivity.”, “This will make your employees more effective in
their jobs.” Or, “This is going save your company a lot of money adding
this upgrade.” All these statements are qualitative, not quantitative;
the latter can be proven, the former is just an assertion. Customers
want quantitative proof of how your upgrade is going to improve their
profitability either by increasing sales or reducing their cost. Highly
trained salespeople go into a customer meeting armed with quantitative
proof of how upgrading to the next product level will achieve their
profitability goals.
Upgrades are a great
way to add an additional revenue stream to your company’s bottom line.
Again, think Microsoft. Every year or so, a new version of Windows
comes out and many of us technophiles rush out and buy it. How can you
create this type of excitement or anticipation with your company’s
product upgrades?
Victor Antonio
is a Sales Trainer and
Motivational Speaker with 20 years of industry experience in
the market. He has a BS in Electrical
Engineering and an MBA.
Copyright © 2005 by Victor Antonio All rights reserved. This article MAY
be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, as long as the author’s name, website and email
address are included as part of the article’s body. All inquiries,
including information on electronic licensing, should be directed to Victor Antonio
at
info@salesasylum.com.
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