A fairly sensational title but not one that I penned; The Wall Street Journal, on May, 24, 2010, published an article under this title with the subtitle: Their perceived shortcomings are often real.
The title of the article wasn’t a surprise to me as the Strategy Development team has to spend time with most of our clients, and in all of our training programs, educating participants that the CIO is an executive of the company, just like the CFO or senior vice president of sales and marketing. Part of the confusion comes from “consultants” and “trainers” that are simply unqualified to be speaking about complex sales like MPS out speaking to dealers/resellers, and as the article subtitle indicates part of the confusion comes from the CIOs themselves.
The article’s authors—all academics—seem to lead an IT Leadership Program at Santa Clara University so they have deep insight, having exposure to hundreds of IT managers getting educated on leadership. Below are the skills they say are lacking in CIOs:
• Leadership
• Strategic Thinking
• Synthesis Skills—ability to pull together all the available information to solve a business problem or achieve a business goal
• Communication Skills
• Influence Skills
• Relationship Skills
The first three bullets would make it difficult for a CIO to sell a large scale strategic project to the rest of the senior team; a requirement in Corporate America. The last three bullets may provide barriers in smaller projects, like MPS, and are areas that your sales team needs to be able to overcome to close the sale and help the company realize the benefits of MPS.
To be effective in sales you need to understand the sales cycle and your prospect. The team at Strategy Development understands complex sales and takes the time to define the sales process in every space where we train and consult. If you truly want to be successful in MPS contact Strategy Development.
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