IT Solutions Providers: Remember It Takes An Orchestra To Sell

By Dennis O’Connell, Business Development Manager, HTG Peer Groups

As a salesperson have you ever considered what role that would be in another industry? I have always envisioned myself as the conductor of an elite orchestra. The conductor’s responsibility is to know the music, to know how each part of the score is supposed to compliment the other parts and instruments, to know the exact moment when they should play and how much energy they should have. It is also the conductor’s job to NOT play any of the instruments. He or she has a job, and the orchestra would fail if the conductor were to try to do too much. 

In the IT world, who is my team and how do they help? Contrary to the common wisdom that sales is a solo act, without help we will usually fail. So the first thing we need to get over is the thought that we can succeed alone. We can’t. Know your team. 

My orchestra consisted of the Engineer, the Dispatcher, the Client/Services Rep, my boss (yes he’s smarter than he looks), the financial person and the owner. They say that the heart of the orchestra is the beat and on an IT team I liken this to the Engineer. They provide the deep knowledge on our solutions. They can understand the client’s technical person and make them feel at ease, and they can turn that conversation into solutions which have value to the client and revenue to me.

The Dispatcher and Client/Services representative are my working interface between the client and the engineer. They keep me scheduled; they listen to the client, and then provide history on problems; and they know the mood of the client. I think of them as my wind instruments. To add a sailing analogy, they provide wind for my sails.

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