Understanding the Language of Sales

Business acumen, a critical area when selling in complex environments, with complex in this situation defined as multiple decision makers that can span functional areas within your prospect. This article is not about business acumen but I bring up the concept because I am going to be quoting CFO Magazine in this post and you might wonder if I spend my time searching for data; the answer is “No,” I read CFO along with Information Week, CRN, Fortune, Wall Street Journal, and other publications that provide me the insights I need to understand what is occurring in business, technology, and the economy. From past posts you know I stay informed on the imaging industry from reading reports from InfoTrends and publically available data from IDC and Gartner, as well as the day-to-day interaction I have with the scores of Strategy Development’s clients, the Strategy Development team of consultants, and industry players.

In the March issue of CFO (www.cfo.com/technology), David McCann wrote an article titled “A Sense of Agreement, how to bridge the finance-IT perception gap.” You should take the time to read the entire article since it is relevant to anybody selling into IT, whether as a member of the professional services, MPS/MS, or IT team at your dealer/reseller. One of the most profound statements was made by William Miller, CFO of a Nationwide Insurance subsidiary that manages the technology operations for the insurance company. “While the accounting profession is hundreds of years old, ….with a long heritage of very mature, well understood metrics, IT is in comparative infancy ‘still struggling to figure out basic norms and how to measure things with consistency.’” Miller also gives credence to IT’s common view of finance, “Too focused on cost, risk adverse in the extreme, and unwilling or unable to see the potential for a technology initiative to transform the company.”

Another CFO, Don Doherty, states that tightening the budget at MI Windows and Doors, a $200 million manufacturer has—in his opinion—improved the performance of their IT team. Doherty goes on to quote examples, including renegotiating service contracts: Great news for all of the MPS/MS providers in the market!

You’ve probably read some of my other posts in this blog on CFO-CIO alignment or reporting, and the May issue of CFO (I am on a long flight as I write this so I am catching up on my reading!) there is a box titled “Who’s The Boss? in the article “An Action Plan for IT.” Similar to the data found in Information Week’s annual survey, according to Gartner, the CIO reports to the CFO only 25% of the time. 38% of the time they report to the CEO and 19% to the COO; therefore, at least 57% of the time the CIO reports to the top operational officer (18% to other, which could include the Board).

Reading articles like this provides you great insight when you get into that meeting with both the CIO and CFO. You will gain a better understanding of reporting structures, executive interaction, key motivators of different functional leaders, all leading to more robust business discussions about your product or service. As Strategy Development teaches in our training, you need to be able to “speak the language” of those that you want to help acquire your product or service, and when there are multiple decision makers you need to be bilingual!