3 ms·

> It's a good idea to make sure that all the stakeholders (including IT) are involved at an early stage, to make sure that any obstacles to deployment can be av

> It's a good idea to make sure that all the stakeholders (including IT) are involved at an early stage, to make sure that any obstacles to deployment can be avoided (or, at least, spotted in advance). An engaged, friendly IT department can help grease the skids for an enterprise sale; a hostile one can scupper it. It's true, but I think it depends somewhat on the product and space, right? "Enterprise software" can encompass a wide variety of tech, from SAP on one end, to database and app platforms in another direction, to marketing tech in a third, and so on. If you're running on-premise, IT has to be involved. If you're touching IT-provided services like email, file sharing, etc, IT has to be involved. But if you're not touching IT centrally, they're often not involved, beyond the validation points about security, etc. In the space in which I currently work, for example, IT is almost never involved. In a previous life selling application and infrastructure management products, IT was almost always the direct customer/implementor. There's a huge spread, so I think everyone has to be clear about which scenarios we're talking about. > I think this is partly down to a certain amount of skepticism regarding salespeople's promises. Sometimes I think it's skepticism, I think it's also that IT orgs tend to have a longer history with the concept of "partnering" with a vendor, which often involves a combination of skepticism, optimism, professional services, and a willingness to settle. When you deal with a different business unit that maybe has less experience with building and implementing Product, sometimes they don't see/embrace that approach. > think that's a little bit harsh (but not necessarily untrue!). Any organisation that grows above a certain size is going to have bureaucracy and red tape. For organisations of a certain age, the legacy IT infrastructure It was certainly more terse than I intended, I was running out of time before a meeting started.

jackgavigan 11y ago
> It's true, but I think it depends somewhat on the product and space, right? I would (and my advice to anyone else would be to) reach out to the potential client's IT department as a matter of course, whether or not they're likely to be involved. You don't know what you don't know, and establishing a friendly/collaborative relationship with them may help your case. It's all part of building a relationship (see the relevant paragraph in the article).
- mattzito 11y ago
  > I would (and my advice to anyone else would be to) reach out to the potential client's IT department as a matter of course, whether or not they're likely to be involved. Ehhhh - I would maybe rephrase that to be, "Talk with your business sponsor about whether it makes sense to have IT involved - are there roadblocks they are likely ot throw up that you should get ahead of" Because as a general rule of enterprise sales, I would say, "The more people that are involved in your deal, the more people that can screw it up. Only involve the right amount of stakeholders to insure the deal gets done" Nothing is worse than watching a deal go sideways because a rep went wide and deep into an organization and suddenly you're trying to make everyone happy. It is sometimes better to keep a deal size smaller and more focused to insure it closes sooner, and then you can deal with upselling other orgs or getting IT's buy-in on a broader implementation once it's up and running and working.

jackgavigan 11y ago

> It's true, but I think it depends somewhat on the product and space, right? I would (and my advice to anyone else would be to) reach out to the potential client's IT department as a matter of course, whether or not they're likely to be involved. You don't know what you don't know, and establishing a friendly/collaborative relationship with them may help your case. It's all part of building a relationship (see the relevant paragraph in the article).

mattzito 11y ago
> I would (and my advice to anyone else would be to) reach out to the potential client's IT department as a matter of course, whether or not they're likely to be involved. Ehhhh - I would maybe rephrase that to be, "Talk with your business sponsor about whether it makes sense to have IT involved - are there roadblocks they are likely ot throw up that you should get ahead of" Because as a general rule of enterprise sales, I would say, "The more people that are involved in your deal, the more people that can screw it up. Only involve the right amount of stakeholders to insure the deal gets done" Nothing is worse than watching a deal go sideways because a rep went wide and deep into an organization and suddenly you're trying to make everyone happy. It is sometimes better to keep a deal size smaller and more focused to insure it closes sooner, and then you can deal with upselling other orgs or getting IT's buy-in on a broader implementation once it's up and running and working.