The end of summer vacation

I can't believe it has already been a month since my last post.  Summer is supposed to be a relaxing time.  Those who have traveled with small kids know that is not always the case... But so be it.   Summer in the IT sales game has always been a slow time for business.  This has two impacts, the first is the numbers always kind-of-suck this time of year, the second is you have more time to do the things you can't do when sales volume is high.  This is kind of like New Years for VARs.  That being said how about a New Year's Resolution... Make your customer's business critically important to you.

This is the perfect time of year to make contact with those people who have not been around or engaged most of the summer and find out what's up.  Besides having some traveling with small children horror stories you can set up a lunch meeting to talk about what is happening with their business.

Do yourself a favor and research some trends in their industry, what their competition is saying or doing, general market conditions that might affect them or what news they have been part of for the last few months.  This will give you some good talking points to start off a conversation (e.g. How do you think the JOBS act will impact your customers?) and show them that you actually care about how they conduct their business.  It is important to ask continued questions about how their bread get's buttered.

Now this may sound pie in the sky, but when you truly have an understanding and appreciation for how they make their money, help their customers and think about their market you will have the enlightenment required to help them achieve more from their IT spend.  As the world shifts more to cloud and less to procured product your understanding of them will be the difference that keeps you relevant to your customer.  Now brush off the dust, put away the suntan lotion and get back in the trenches.