{"id":13,"date":"2015-06-18T21:33:06","date_gmt":"2015-06-18T21:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/next.arqbackup.com\/blog\/?p=13"},"modified":"2019-01-22T13:16:19","modified_gmt":"2019-01-22T13:16:19","slug":"do-you-know-how-to-sell-to-corporate-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arqbackup.com\/blog\/do-you-know-how-to-sell-to-corporate-it\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Reach Corporate IT"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night at the SpiceWorks \u201cunplugged\u201d event in Boston, 4 local IT managers sat on a panel and answered audience questions about buying products. It was really helpful for me, as I\u2019ve been wondering whether selling to corporate IT folks is totally different from what I\u2019ve been doing so far with Arq, our online backup<\/a> app.<\/p>\n

The panelists all worked at 100-250 person companies. One of them was the only person in IT. Everything landed on his plate: he had just finished implementing a building security system with door locks and ID badges.<\/p>\n

The audience (mostly product marketers looking to reach IT buyers) asked some great, direct questions like:<\/p>\n

How do we reach IT folks?<\/h2>\n

One marketer in the audience was asking whether any incentives might help here, specifically swag like T-shirts and trucker hats. Really, they didn\u2019t seem particularly excited about getting free stuff. They were more interested in actually getting things done.<\/p>\n

These folks get a lot<\/em> of cold calls. They said cold calls are mostly annoying, especially when they\u2019re busy. And they\u2019re always busy. They spend at least 75% of their time fighting fires and less than 25% doing planning and research. (After the session I chatted with another attendee who told me about his sales VP who trumpets the thousands of cold calls they complete every day \u2014 maybe not the most effective approach!)<\/p>\n

One panelist suggested sending an email that \u201cpops\u201d, something visual, maybe an infographic. He gets 100+ emails day pitching products and thinks he\u2019d be much more likely to remember a visual email than a blob of text. Another panelist said, \u201cSend a 100-word email. Grab my attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

They all appreciated vendors who participate in IT forums and events by teaching. Explain how something works; share your knowledge. Skip the product pitch entirely \u2014 mention your product maybe once.<\/p>\n

How do you find products\/solutions to a problem you need to resolve?<\/h2>\n

One panelist said he checks the SpiceWorks forums when he needs to find a solution; when he posts a question he often gets answers in 15 minutes. Another said he checks with his VARs, but he\u2019s severely constrained in terms of whom he can buy from because he works for a state agency.<\/p>\n

The other 3 said VARs don\u2019t seem to add any value for them. They do research and find products just like the rest of us do: they search Google, SpiceWorks, other forums. Social proof is big for them. They\u2019ll consider forum comments from vendor reps unless those comments are the opposite of community members, in which case the IT folks will trust the community over the vendor.<\/p>\n

How long should the free trial be?<\/h2>\n

They all wanted a minimum 60-day free trial for any product, and longer for products which integrate heavily into other systems. They all had horror stories about products they tried, purchased, and then later discovered had a massive flag. In one case the IT person asked support for weeks about free-space problems with the archiving product he bought; the vendor kept assuring him it would be fine. When he finally figured out there was a fatal flaw, he was beyond the warranty period and was stuck with a product he couldn\u2019t use that he wasted budget on. (I was surprised the vendor didn\u2019t try to make things right regardless of what the official warranty period was.)<\/p>\n

They\u2019re not just testing your product; they\u2019re also testing your support. One panelist said, \u201cIf your product costs more than $5k, chances are your support does too, so we want to try that out too.\u201d They love responsiveness, and they love getting prompt access to the people who actually have the answers to their questions. One panelist described a vendor whom he knew he could call and quickly get connected with someone on the development team. He loved<\/em> that. Until the vendor got acquired by a BigCo.<\/p>\n

In general these folks seemed to love startups. The new products are exciting. If you\u2019re straight with them and explain that the product is new and you\u2019re committed to resolving issues and responding to feedback, they\u2019re very forgiving and supportive.<\/p>\n

Bottom line<\/h2>\n

The bottom line for me is you sell to corporate IT just like you sell to anyone else; same amount of effort required; there\u2019s no secret trick to reaching those customers.<\/p>\n

So the approach I\u2019ve been using thus far should work great! Be extremely responsive to support inquiries, have the software developers (me!) answer support emails, offer to walk people through setup, be honest about problems and what the product can and can\u2019t do, and you\u2019ll go far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night at the SpiceWorks \u201cunplugged\u201d event in Boston, 4 local IT managers sat on a panel and answered audience questions about buying products. It was really helpful for me, as I\u2019ve been wondering whether selling to corporate IT folks is totally different from what I\u2019ve been doing so far with Arq, our online backup […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Reach Corporate IT<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Is selling to corporate IT folks really that different from selling to end users?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.arqbackup.com\/blog\/do-you-know-how-to-sell-to-corporate-it\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to Reach Corporate IT\" \/>\n<meta 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