In this issue:

Ying of Sales and Yang of Services

Books of the quarter

Those Magic Monsoon Moments

VOLUME 2 • AUTUMN QUARTER • October 2006

A constructive relationship between the sales and services departments is of critical importance to the success of any company.

All too often that relationship can be strained and mutually critical.  

 “You never have availability of people with the right skills!”,
“We can’t deliver that project within the price you’ve quoted the client!”, “We can’t possibly sell that engagement for that price, it’s far too high!”, “You just need to invest more pre-sales effort in this opportunity in order for us to win it”

        The reality is that there is a natural tendency for the sales team to want get people on site as quickly as possible and to drive the price down to the client in order to make it easier to sell.
        The services team tend to want to add more time and resources to a proposal in order to cover the risks and potential problems that will inevitably come along once any assignment is underway.

         Successful organisations harness this “ying” and “yang” tension between the two departments in order to establish an optimal price for a piece of work and to ensure effective deal planning. The availability of appropriately skilled people is also a balancing act. It is clearly not appropriate for any services manager to have their people “on the bench” just waiting for work to come in. The services manager is focussed on ensuring his people are fee earning and achieving the maximum utilisation that they can, whilst attempting to plan the staffing of forthcoming engagements.

 To improve planning and to constructively harness the natural tension between the two departments, companies have implemented a Solution Assurance Process. This process covers the entire life-cycle of an engagement, from the sales process through to the support phase. By identifying the opportunities that the sales team are working on early in the sales cycle, management can ensure that the deal qualification is good. Sales and Services management can then jointly prioritise which deals are going to be invested in that best meet the availability of resources and the type of business that they believe will be successful. By involving Finance, Commercial and Technical Support representatives as well, the overall deal can be assessed and tuned to ensure that the proposal is well considered, financially viable, commercially acceptable and technically sound. Such a process also ensues that the Technical Support Organisation is well prepared to support the solution once it has gone live.

Books of the Quarter

How to spot and use the Magic Monsoon Moments that come your way.
         Very often we find ourselves engrossed, busy and focused on doing a great job for our clients that we fail to spot little opportunities that come our way…
         "Magic Monsoon Moments."

       “Ok Rob” I hear you say, “what’s a Magic Monsoon Moment?”
 Well for a Rainmaker it's a chance to take a business developing action.
 One that will pass you by if you don’t act. 

What types of situations lead to Magic Monsoon Moments?

1. You've achieved a great result for one of your clients. Each time you do an   outstanding job, bringing in a project budget, for instance--you're about to get a Magic Monsoon Moment. Put yourself in their position. How grateful would you be? How helpful would you want to be?

2. You've done a client a favour. Each time you do this, whether it's agreeing to speak at a conference they are organising, or maybe it’s just recommending an baby sitter so they can take that long-anticipated night out, a Magic Moment presents itself. They would like to reciprocate by doing you a favour too. Why deny them that joy?

3. You just didn’t get the job that you tendered for…
Surprised to see that "not" getting the job is a Magic Monsoon Moment?
Instead of walking away crestfallen when you don’t get a job use this opportunity. The prospective client is probably feeling slightly guilty for not giving you the job you (after all, you usually do a great job don’t you?).
Why not help them with their guilty feelings by asking them to do you a favour? 

Once you've identified a Magic Monsoon Moment, keep these two steps in mind:

1. Carpe Diem: Take immediate action. The life of a Magic Monsoon Moment is very short. You want to strike while client goodwill is strongest.

2. Ask for what you need. If they're not in a position to send you new business, think about what else they could do to help you win more business.
          Could they…
                   Introduce you to someone you want to meet?
                   Refer you?
                   Agree to serve as a reference?
It's easy to get caught up in doing great work for clients and forget all about developing business.  

Try keeping your eyes open for Magic Monsoon Moments, you'll be able to double your effectiveness--you'll still do the same great job for clients, but now you'll be developing more business at the same time!

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes
off your goal."        Henry Ford (1863-1947)

"It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently."  Warren Buffett (1931 - )
American stock market investor
CEO of Berkshire Hathaway