BLOGGING WITH KA

Wed, 10 Mar 2010

Why CIOs Hate Sales People

... well, most of them... and how to turn this around!

Every day hundreds if not thousands of sales people try to get the attention of a CIO. Some succeed and others fail miserably. Gartner reports that for all the sales calls made on a CIO only 20% of the "ideas" get taken forward for "consideration". That's 1:5. Of those only 20% get funded. That's 1:5. Of that , only 20% deliver to the intended scope/time and resource projections. That's .8% success. Let me state it again; .8% success. What is a CIO to do?

The first think a CIO does is look internally to correct the problem. Why? Because few "vendors" provide anything beyond product insights. Sales people inherently want to be more relevant but in most cases, all they focus on is finding qualified prospects and selling their wares into an existing project. This behavior is fed by their sales managers who have a number to make. And so the story goes. CIOs know this behavior all too well. Sales people have done it to themselves.

In a recent Information Week article, BP's CIO spoke about the wake-up call (actually presentation) delivered by the an industry expert. "If BP did not change its trends, they would be out of business in 4-5 years". This is a $300B annual revenues company. Out of business?

Of the 500 senior managers who received this message, the CIO highlighted his top priority. First he brought IBM in to assess his talent. Result: 80% of his direct reports were replaced with more process-specific experts. Staff was reduced by 1000. Outside contractors went from 45% of staff to just 27%.

Next, each junior CIO was reorganized to report directly to the CIO with specific objectives; "Accountability No. 1 for those CIOs is that they're there to help deliver enablement through IT to drive new revenue and also for helping ensure they're driving standardized shared services to keep cost down".

The third piece to the puzzle was to reduce the number of suppliers (how does that make you feel?), Offer tiered services (price and performance), and move from one-time transformation to an ongoing effort.

Let's stop there. Turns out, this CIO is just like us.

What are you doing to:
1) Assess your talent
2) Gain better control of what is going on in the field
3) Reduce the number of suppliers (rogue sales approaches)
4) Offer differentiation, and
5) Offer yourself and sales teams a plan for ongoing transformation?

With these 5 steps, every sales person would gain early-on and ongoing access to a CIO by showing a better command of Business Acumen, process, sensitivity to cost containment and improving the odds of success for every major IT initiative.

Take our free Business Acumen assessment (20 minutes) at www.iSalesman.com and see how you rank against your peers.

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These podcasts focus on a day in the life of how real sales people use our system to overcome common challenges.

Going around your customer contact
Despite the warning, you feel it is the right thing to do to have this dialogue with an executive that you have been told explicitly to not call on.

Slowing down a customer's buying decision
How to use the Fast Path Assessment with your prospect or customer to slow down or rethink their decision to go with your competitor.

Attempting to intercept your competitor's sale
Initial dialogue with an executive after you have learned they are about to award a major piece of business to one of your competitors.

3rd party consultant keeping you at arms length
Dialogue introducing your intentions to go around a 3rd party consultant who is blocking or preventing you from doing your job on behalf of your customer or prospect.

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