The Partner Channel Magazine Winter 2017

Sana Commerce
GIUSEPPE IANNI
90% of the market place
needs to be educated on:
» This is where you’re at.
» This is where you need
to be.
» This is how you get there.
Red Maple
PATRICK HODO
“Gone are the days you can go
in and say, ‘What is it going to
take to get you into software
today?’ It doesn’t work that way
anymore. Price doesn’t hold as
much weight as answering if the
software will work or not work
for their business.”
Industry Knowledge
Giuseppe Ianni is the director of business development at Sana Commerce and has been in
the Microsoft Dynamics channel for more than 11 years. The first two years of his career were
dedicated solely to educating himself on the industry. “It was my day-to-day process to learn as
much as possible about what our business offered and what our solutions did,” Giuseppe shares.
Not only did he study eCommerce solutions from front to back, but he also hit the phones,
expanded his circle, and read up on industry reports from Forrester and Gartner.
“You can only fake it for so long. Your solution isn’t unique. Anyone out there is offering
the same thing. You need to bring that to the next level,” Giuseppe continues, “Don’t just
know your product, know your competitors’ solutions, know the industry, and don’t make the
mistake of just talking about yourself and your company.”
Giuseppe now spends more time on where the industry is going. He stresses the importance
of educating yourself as a salesperson, but that it doesn’t stop with you. Giuseppe explains,
“Today, it’s more about educating people on what they will need.”
What’s even more successful for Giuseppe than sales webinars is sharing industry stats and
explaining how those align with the solution they offer. His team pinpoints a few industries and
customer profiles to expand on and then makes that available via whitepaper. Giuseppe then
utilizes LinkedIn and Twitter to share these resources with customers and prospects.
“You can’t very well show a solution if you don’t listen and ask questions first.” Giuseppe
adds, “You need to deliver value upfront by speaking to a customer’s specific needs.”
When training new salespeople, Giuseppe gives them a
three-stage baseline of a sales process:
1. Listen. 2. Ask leading questions. 3. Offer the solution.
Giuseppe concludes that as important as it is to meet your quota, you will be much more
successful after you educate yourself on the solution and industry. Take the time to put
education first and reap the benefits.
Two-in-One Personality
“I really have to be two people”, Patrick Hodo, explains about his role as CTO at Red Maple. Having
sold technology for 19 years, Patrick has found a good balance between playing the “geeky technical
nerd” (his words, not ours) and being an engaging teacher in the marketing and sales process.
Prospects want and need to know the technical aspects of Red Maple’s solution. It can get
rather complicated, and as a result, Patrick helps close many sales in his role. He explains,
“One of our Partners said that companies usually bring in two people for sales calls, but I’m
proud to be a two-in-one personality.”
A few things have changed since Patrick began his career, one of which is the shift to making sales
calls and demos over the internet instead of in person. “You used to be onsite with the prospect, and
it was easier to gauge the interest of your audience because you were face to face,” says Patrick. During
online demos, Patrick shares that he really has to work toward verbal feedback. It may be easier to
show business processes but a little more difficult to engage with the customer personally.
Conducting demos used to be about showing prospects what the software does, and it was
up to the customer to figure out if it would work for them or not. “The demos I do now are
much more a perfect concept. Prospects want to see their data and processes.” Patrick continues,
“There is a lot more preparation, but in a good way. When a customer can see their data
and their process, it makes it easier to move forward. The only issue now is that with larger
companies, no ONE person does the whole process. So, you have to be able to show how you
can make one task easier and quicker, instead of one all-around process.”
That specific value proposition of streamlining tasks is what Patrick thinks is so unique
about the Microsoft Dynamics channel. “Technology solves problems, and if you can fix the
problems with a solution for the prospect, the close should come naturally,” Patrick shares.
Before addressing prospects challenges, Patrick shares that he and his team develop trust
online by sharing industry trends in the areas they cover. “We want customers to say, ‘You guys
know the business’. Being known as a thought leader only helps us gain our customers’ and
prospects’ trust,” Patrick explains.
THEPARTNERCHANNEL.COM | WINTER 2017 31