Tech Sales

  Sales is a phenomenal career for me. I am the engine of the world economy. Without people like me, salespeople, there are zero products. You can design, build, service, and support the product. But if you don’t have the salespeople to promote the product’s benefits and value – you’ll never see the product on the market.

I have built my career on my ideal lifestyle and individual interests. I improve the world by promoting products that add value to people’s lives. I am an independent, strategic, confident, motivated, and knowledgeable individual, I’ve  succeeded in a sales career.

Furthermore, the technology industry is booming, and tech sales offer me the best sales career. Here are some values on my self-improvement learning on the growth of my tech career:

INTRODUCTION

As a Sales Representative I have been responsible for presenting products and services to prospects and demonstrating features.

• Identifying potential customers
• Making offers
• Answering to inquiries
• Offering advice to hesitant clients
• Closing dales

From pipeline establishment via list building gathering intelligence and acquisition to outbound and inbound lead generation to business development working with the top technology companies entrusted me to help plan, develop, and manage their sales and marketing effort.nTo be successful in technology sales and marketing campaigns, I continue to team execute and maintain and understanding of the technology and its business applications. Continues to work with dome of the top OEMS, VADs, and channel partners in the nation to help them market and sell a wide  array of technology solutions from security and virtualization to convergence and cloud computing.

Here are some of the technologies I have learned and been trained on:

• IT Infrastructure
• Servers
• Storage Hardware
• Appliance-based Hardware
• Software (SaaS)

Higher pay, prizes, trips, rewards, and annual bonuses. More opportunity. Personal development and flexibility. Key transferable skills, communication, problem solving, negotiation, teamwork, preparation, and there’s no profit coming into the company without a strong sales team. 

This document outlines the required information for a lead report for any campaign outlined by need. If a lead does not have the required information. Tis information is required information and BDTM to submit the lead. If this process takes a while, the lead may need to be rescheduled as it needs to be 5 business days out when the lead passes lead QA. No lead can be sent to a business partner before it successfully passes through QA.  * Note*- Some BPs may require more than 5 business days’ notice, and some may require less, please refer to PM for campaign specifics* 

Asking The Right Questions:

REQUIRED BACKGROUND INFO *By Need

General Storage need:

1. How old is your current storage solution? What brand?
2. How much data are you storing, total? (TB amount)
3. At what percent capacity is your solution currently at?
4. Are you looking at on-premise or cloud-based solutions or both?
5. How much data capacity are you looking for in a new solution?

Back-up need:

1. Why are you looking to add to/change your back-up solution?
2. What kind of solution are you looking into? (Cloud, on-premise)
3. What brand backup solution are you using now? How old is this?
4. How much data are you backing up? (TB amount)
5. How much data capacity are you looking for in a new solution?

Cloud Computing need:

1. 1. What are you looking to move to the cloud? (back-up, all storage, servers, applications)
      • For cloud back up or storage: what type of data are planning to move to the cloud?

• For cloud/hosted servers: How many hosted servers are you wanting on the cloud?

• For applications: What types of applications are you considering moving to the cloud?

1. Are you considering public, private or a hybrid version of those?
2. How much data are you looking to move to the cloud? (TB amount)
3. Are you currently utilizing cloud services?
   • If yes
     • Who do you use for cloud (IBM, Azure, AWS, Google, Oracle, Alibaba)?
     • Why aren’t you looking to stay with that provider? 

Converged Infrastructure need:

1. How many servers are you currently utilizing? Brand? Age?
2. What storage solution do you currently utilize? Brand? Age?
3. How much data are you currently backing up? (TB amount)
4. Do you currently have any converged/hyper-converged infrastructure?

Power need:

1. Are you using IBM Power i or IBM AIX servers?
   1. If IBM i
      1. Which of these IBM Power i servers are you currently actively running and how many of each are being used actively: (note if any are for archived data only)
         1. Power5 (# of boxes) 
         2. Power6 (# of boxes)
         3. Power7 (# of boxes)
         4. Power8 (# of boxes)
      2. What version (s) of IBM i OS are you currently running the machine (s) on:
         1. IBM i 7.1
         2. IBM i 7.2
         3. IBM i 7.3
   2. If AIX
      1. Which of these IBM AIX Power servers are you currently actively running and how many of each are being used actively: (note if any are for archived data only)
         1. Power5 (# of boxes) 
         2. Power6  (# of boxes)
         3. Power7  (# of boxes)
         4. Power8  (# of boxes)
      2. What version (s) of AIX are you currently running the machine (s) on:
         1. AIX v 5.3
         2. AIX v 6.1
         3. AIX v 7.1
         4. AIX v 7.2
2. What specific software applications are running on the servers you want to replace, per server? (Examples:  JD Edwards [EnterpriseOne] [Oracle], Infor [A+, M3, LN, VISUAL], VAI [S2K Enterprise])
3. Have you already received quotes for a new POWER server? If so, did the vendor who currently supports the IBM Power server for you provide a quote? 
4. Do you have an IBM partner that you already work regularly with for your IBM Power server? 
5. Are you planning to move the Power server to the cloud? If yes- Please explain.

Phone System need:

1. Do you have an on-premise or IP based phone system?
2. How old is your current phone system?
3. What brand system do you have?
4. How many users do you have?

Unified Communications need:

1. Do you have an or-premise on IP based phone system?
2. How old is this system? Brand?
3. Do you have a standalone phone system, or it is a unified communications platform?
4. What solution do you use for WebEx, messaging, video conference, desktop sharing?
   1. Is it an integrated solution or are they all separate solutions?
5. How many users do you have?
   1. How many (if any) would you estimate are remote?

Server need:

1. How many servers are you looking to purchase?
2. How old are your current servers? How old are the ones you are looking to replace?
3. How many servers do you have now?
4. What brand servers do you currently use?

Virtualization need:

1. Server Virtualization
   1. How many virtual servers are you wanting to add?
   2. Are you open to any brand or do you have a preference of something like VMware or HyperV?
   3. Have you done any server virtualization before? (if yes) What solution did you use and how much of your environment is virtual?
2. Storage Virtualization
   1. Is there something in particular that is making you want to virtualize your storage environment?
   2. What features are you looking for in a virtual storage solution?

Security need:

1. What area of security are you looking to evaluate/improve? (email, intrusion, internal access, firewalls)
2. What led you to want to investigate new security solutions?
3. How many users do you have?
4. Do you have any compliance regulations that you have to adhere to?
5. What security solutions do you have in place? (it must be noted that this question was asked, if the prospect is not comfortable answering this is ok but it must be noted)

Networking Hardware need:

1. What brand routers and switches are you using?
2. How old are your current routers and switches?
3. How many routers and switches do you currently have?
4. Are you a single location or multi-locational type campus?
5. How many access points do you have? Do you need more?

IoT need:

1. Are you involved with your group’s use of IoT? 
2. Have you had any discussions around digital transformation or “connecting” your current product offering? 
3. Do you currently use any business intelligence or analytics tools to analyze the data gathered from your IoT devices? 
   1. (If yes) Great! What solution do you use? 
   2. (If no) Have you ever explored analytics solutions in the past? 
4. Are you beginning to research the latest IoT asset management solutions for your organization?  
5. What cloud-based AI or cognitive services do you require or suspect you may need? 
6. Do you have a data-to-response time requirement? 
7. How do you currently handle field device management?  

Managed Services need:

1. Are you currently working with a managed services company? Who?
2. Are you under contract? 
   • If yes- How much time is left on the contract?
3. Are you looking for Tier 1 (help desk), Tier 2 (Product specific experts), Tier 3 (advanced technical issues), or full IT support?
4. About how many support tickets per month do you see on average?
5. How many users do you have?

Software (note that this is very general as each software message is unique):

1. What solution are you using to help you accommodate this pain/need currently?
   1. If a competitive software-
      1. How long have you had this solution?
      2. How many licenses/users do you have for this product?
      3. What is the biggest issue with this solution? (users don’t like, price, not comprehensive, etc).
   2. If an internal work around or manual solution- outline what they are currently doing now to try and accommodate this process/pain.
      1. How many employees do you have that work on this process currently? [gives us an idea on license count that would be needed]
      2. What is the most painful part of this process?
      3. If you were to outline the improvements you would like to see a software make to this process, what would they be?

Desktop/Laptop Refresh need:

1. Is there a particular brand you are evaluating or are you open to evaluating brands based on the best fit for your environment?
2. How many are you looking to refresh?
3. Are there any features that are a must have for your new desktops/laptops?
4. What price range per computer are you aiming for? Or do you have budget for the entire project?
5. What do you currently have in place? Are there any features you felt were missing or wish you had with those?

I must exhibit knowledge and understanding of their business, and provide a well-informed point of view on performance improvements to help them grow it.

In today’s selling landscape, buyers are more educated than ever. I need the tools, techniques, and strategies to help cut through the noise and navigate new complexities.

Adopt an Executive Mindset

To sell to executives, I need to sound like an executive. This includes knowing a customer’s goals, financial performance, and how they are compensated.

Build Credibility

Industry knowledge is a foundation on which to build credibility. As a seller I need to know about my customer’s industry – business & technology trends, risks, and financial performance.

Communicate with Impact

Enterprise buying groups are getting larger. A one-size fits all sales message just doesn’t cut it anymore. I must provide UVP’s  into tailoring sales messages for individual LOB buyers and introducing financial benefits earlier in the sales cycle.

Insight led selling as I call it, is a sales approach & methodology that stands the span of my career. It’s about getting to know my customer better—their business, industry, and the various stakeholders involved in the buying process. It’s making the effort to learn how my customers measure success. If I’m going to ask them to spend money with me,  I need to be able to show how my solution can help them achieve their goals, implement their strategies, and ultimately deliver their desired business outcomes.

You can reach me directly at my email address anthony@anthonycrilly.com or (585)484 – 1456. Looking forward to connecting!

Best,

Anthony Crilly

Please Visit for more information: Links:

Anthony Crilly Resume

Anthony Crilly | LinkedIn

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About The Author

Anthony Crilly

Anthony Crilly is a Business Sales Expert with decades of successful experience in selling and customer engagement. Anthony specializes in business-to-business go-to-market strategies for technologies and regularly attends training session s to showcase his evolving tech trends, such as self-service, health and wellness, and people analytics tools. A strong believer in the power of positive thinking in the workplace. Anthony regularly develops internal wellness and unique value propositions campaigns to assist businesses with effective physical and mental health techniques as well as business acquisition and growth techniques. Anthony enjoys a good run, bike, swim tri-athletic performance as well as a Netflix binge but can also be found on long runs and bike rides on hilly country roads in the Adirondacks or on Conesus Lake.

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