General Consultant Discussion

You know what I love? Walking into a first meeting with a prospect and encountering 9 people being told - go ahead and ask us questions. Only thing that would make it better is if it were a Monday. Realization: All the easy implementations were done years ago. The only simple implementations left are the ones were the prospect describes them as simple.

So tell us more about the prospect. Curious what makes them the typical crappy prospect

I'm not sure they're crappy -- just more complicated than they realize. Want to do some things that are tricky -- like keep adding cost to inventory items even after received (holding type cost), commission rate that scales based on the time it takes to pay,

I don't see how the collection process is involved in the saleperson's commissions - evaluate the customer's credit BEFORE you make the sale? Is that the salesperson's job?? Obviously, they can withhold the commissions until the invoices are paid but geez... Another complicated one is when it's based on the SP's YTD/QTD goals being met or not...

@ThereseLogeais This company sells a product by the rail car. I think for the first 30 days there's no carrying cost (freight yard) and on day 31+ they get charged. I didn't grasp how that was the salesperson's problem but I think at some point in the past they probably had salesmen oversell to someone who let the product sit unpaid for a year.

Ah. I have a plastics distributor with the same problem with rail cars. They manage the cars such that they transfer from one to another in the yard to reset the 30 day counter if needed. If a customer orders but doesn't take delivery they are allowed to charge the company for the storage fees

That does change picture, i.e. add'l costs. Thinking (or typing) out loud here, what if they entered a debit memo to the invoice (no charge to the customer) but with a cost for whatever carrying costs are incurred?? That would affect the gross margin thus their commission. One of my customers used to do something similar.

@ThereseLogeais Move off of the solution. :) @WayneSchulz You're exactly right. I'm working on one this week where the customer is moving from a system they implemented in 1978 (I kid you not!). Customer: this should be simple since I'm sure your system can do everything and more than our 30-year old system. Sure, you betcha!

Wrist slapped. Thanks @JohnShaver ....

Couldn't resist! Taking off my mullet wig now.

@JohnShaver how very Mahan Khalsa of you. Atta boy! (How I love it when my VP of Sales has to remind me of that from time to time. Maybe 'beat me over the head with it like a stick' would be more accurate.) @WayneSchulz I have a client who has a lucrative side line business buying and selling Sulfur. It is a waste product from one manufacturing customer and they pay my client to dispose of it. My client transports the product to customers who use it as a raw material in their production processes. The product is moved with a fleet of rail cars that my client owns and they have some of the same issues that your prospect has noted. However, this client does not let the storage costs impact sales commissions as the sales person is not responsible for and has no control over product delivery by the customer. My customer built 30 days of storage cost into their pricing model so that they win when a customer takes delivery within the first 30 days and they break even on the costs when delivered in 60 days. The terms of the contract with the customer call for a surcharge if delivery is not accepted within 60 days. As John points out, sometimes it's better for the customer to think outside the box for solutions that not only reduces complexity and administrability of their processes, but brings in additional revenue. Nothing like a win-win. I also agree with you that the simple implementation of days gone by are gone for good. I haven't done a simple, straight forward implementation in quite a while.

I also agree with you that the simple implementation of days gone by are gone for good. I haven't done a simple, straight forward implementation in quite a while. "" Though the customers all seem to think they are still here, should be easy to solve within the confines of a one hour free demo and deeply discounted quote. The selling process for ERP solutions must change if there are to be any VARS left selling. I'd almost rather not sell anything and be relied upon only for the pre-sales analysis and let the customer buy direct from Sage. I believe I could make more money doing this.

Unfortunately we've spent the last 10 years training prospects that demos are ""included"" in the price of the software. Only they're not really demos. It starts that way then morphs into requirements identification and a clearer understanding (by the prospect) of the complexity of their business. Given the ever expanding list of direct sales ""solution providers""; we're moving back to the days where a client must hire a seasoned expert to do requirements analysis and process improvement mapping prior to selecting a new software solution. There's way too many options available and the margins are too small to bury this work.