Hi all and sorry for the delay in response, the following is the remaining part

Understand the current collaboration environment:

Most of the situations I have encountered during a technically sitting are as follows, the client consider / has the following tools as collaboration tools.

• 1. Mailing System (exchange, lotus etc..)
• 2. Mailing client system (outlook, lotus client...)
• 3. Document management system (file shares, DFS...)
• 4. Document collaboration (working with documents, sharing, versioning ...)
• 5. Custom developed workflow (lotus notes based, .net developed, k2net, skelta...)
• 6. Business process & forms (Vacation request, resource booking, travel desk, conf room booking...)
• 7. Discussion boards
• 8. Exchange public folders & Instant messaging

So, understand in what ways the above said tools affect the user group and how influential are these tools for the decision to be in favor of MOSS. Most of the times it is the IT team who has to get satisfied with the proposed product in our example it is the MOSS. The IT team itself will bring up certain key selling points which are their pain points, try to address them first. (mostly their administrative effort and maintenance). Keep in mind Technical team always push you to do a POC, DEMO. Keep in mind to keep the existing scenario in mind and deliver the demo to your customer.

Position the Product to the Business Decision Makers:

The toughest and the easiest part of the presales cycle is the meeting with the decision makers, I have seen instance where business decision maker ask the following questions and it is not limited to the following

• 1. What is the cost factor
• 2. What is the after sales terms & conditions
• 3. When is the new upgrade or release is going to happen
• 4. You release software every now and then why should I upgrade
• 5. What will it give to my organization
• 6. Can we not accomplish this with what we have
• 7. Will it give me a report what is happening in the organization at a point of time
• 8. Will my upper management will be able to easily realize what is happening in the organization using this product
• 9. Is it stable

The answer for the entire question can be answered if you have the understanding on the following

• 1. The budget allocation
• 2. What is their pain point
• 3. Their buying & updating trend
• 4. What is the business decision makers goal
• 5. Show cases studies in his vertical, if the case study is from his competitor it is very strong
• 6. Demo him taking a business (customer) scenario. Has helped to me to win the deal J most of the times
• 7. Do a POC that address a business scenario
• 8. Collect feedback from the POC users and showcase it to the Decision maker
• 9. Make sure you have solid data before you meet the business decision maker from all perspective.
• 10. Don't be technical with a business decision maker
• 11. Take customer's business process as an example each time to explain about the product

A chance once missed is missed, and it is hard to get a second appointment with the business decision maker.

Position the Cost Factor:

Cost factor is again a decision maker for any sale, when it comes to cost factor the sales team, partner, customers technical team will ask you for the following

• 1. ROI (Return On Investment) - Calculator / Doc
• 2. Case Studies
• 3. TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) - Calculator / Doc
• 4. Scalability & Server Hardware Sizing - Calculator / Doc / Whitepaper

Hope you enjoyed the above content, We will see on how to demo Office SharePoint Server to technical & business audience in my next post.