Is there a Method(ology) to your Madness…why the answer should be yes

Methodologies help deliver successful results

When you step back and look at what happens in the sales cycle of an ERP solution, I think it can be broken up in to 4 distinct stages and your customer is thinking about different things at different stages as they contemplate buying from you.

So what are those stages?

Stage 1 is the Need/Solution phase where you customer is thinking about the problem they have in their business, how they can solve it and if the solution is an internal process one or if they need to go external and find a solution

Stage 2 is the Feasibility/Affordability phase where your customer is thinking about whether or not they can afford to invest in a solution and whether it is feasible for them to implement a solution.

Stage 3 is the Solution/Selection phase where they are evaluating each of the potential solutions available to them and weighing them up against their requirements list (hopefully they have one that’s specific to their needs and not a generic “wish list”)

Stage 4 is the Decision/Risk Assessment Phase where the final decision is made and where your customer is thinking about the risks associated with deciding up your solution.

Stage 4 is where you face the biggest chance that your engagement with a customer will run off the rails – and the 2 key reasons are that you haven’t proven the value of your solution via an ROI (Return on Investment) based Business Case and/or you haven’t shown the customer how you can mitigate any risks, either perceived or real in purchasing from you.

The best way to do this risk mitigation is to have a proven and documented methodology that you follow that your prospective customer can understand and that aligns to their specific needs – either industry or customer business process specific or perhaps both.

A methodology that you can clearly explain, that matches to the customer needs shows your customer that you understand their needs and concerns and that you have a way to address them and that you have done it before or have a process based on some kind of best practice that you will follow.

I’ll be documenting a step by step path to success you can follow

And that methodology isn’t necessarily just for the implementation phase – I believe that you should have a methodology for every process in your organisation – from your marketing and demand generation through to your sales process, pre-sales engagement with a customer and your entire life cycle management with your customer.

The good news is that after 20+ years of working in the ERP space, I have found, built or adapted a methodology for each of these areas that I will be sharing with you over the next few months via this blog/website as well as my new site that I am building at www.clouderp.technology so I am looking forward to sharing these with you and hearing from you about what works for you.