Selling hrms software and hris systems pt 2
• Qualify, qualify, qualify…… Your HRMS software or HRIS software prospects.
Years ago I had an interview with a large payroll HRIS software company. The VP of sales told me that they felt they were only closing the low lying fruit and were not closing the harder sales. I told him, the low lying fruit was exactly what I was going to try and close and to find as much of those situations as possible. He told me he did not like the answer. I was a little terrified because I could not back down at this point. I told him “Sorry, but it’s the truth.” If you hire an inexperienced HR sales person, they are going to work the hard deals and six months to a year down the road, they will determine that the low lying fruit is where the money is made in HR software sales. I received the job offer but turned it down to start my own company.
As I mentioned above, those companies that don’t see value in their HR departments are less likely to invest in HR Software than those companies that value HR. Before doing the demo, working up proposals, providing references and working to close a deal, you need to try and weed out those companies who have very little chance of getting approval for a system. Most often this is a question of cost. Let the prospect know early on how much your system costs and see what the reaction is or ask them what their budget is for a system.
Qualifications are not simply based on cost. It’s also a question of what the customer is looking for and why they are looking. If you ask them what their needs are and they indicate they must have a system that offers an integrated payroll package and your product does not, this is not a qualified lead. If you ask what their needs are or what problems they are currently having and they can’t provide an answer, this should also be a red flag. The more you qualify the leads of the prospect up front, the less head ache you will save yourself later on. Work the low lying fruit. If you ask why they are looking for an HR system, you might receive the ‘I’m outta here answer’ of “Well, we just wanted to see what was out there”. Thanks; Elvis has left the building.
• Learn how to be a consultant and a sales person to sell more HRIS software.
HR people are not IT people. You are not going to sell the technology to HR. You are going to sell the results of what your system can provide. In order to do this, you need to solve problems. The consultative sales process is pretty basic. Find out what the client is currently using and what problems they are having. Ask what they need a system to do and then show that your product corrects these problems and meets their needs. The better you are at this approach, the more likely you are to win the deal. This last paragraph is extremely important; you may want to go to Amazon and purchase a few books on consultative selling.
• Involve as many departments as possible in the HRMS Solutions selling process.
When going through the sales process and demos with a prospect, I like to involve as many others in the organization as possible to show that the system offers value outside of HR. HR Systems that provide value to the entire company have a greater chance of being sold than one that does not.
If your product offers a training module, make sure to involve the training department. Involve risk management with FMLA, workers comp and OSHA reporting. If you offer payroll, it is obvious that you will involve payroll and accounting. If your system does not but will feed data over to payroll, this is still a benefit to a department outside of HR. Then, of course, there are the benefits to employees with self service or managers with manager self service. I think you are getting the point, an HR system that streamlines information for an entire organization will be seen as having greater value than one that only benefits HR.
• Tie the benefits of the HRMS software to the goals of the organization.
Find out what the organization or the HR department goals are and show how your product can assist with meeting them. How many employees is the company looking to hire in the next year? Do they want to decrease turnover? Do they want to decrease costs per employee? If you can tie the benefits of your HRIS product to the company’s goals, you again stand a greater chance of getting the deal.
• Gain access to those making the decision.
As I have mentioned, you will fail to accomplish this more often than not but it is still worth trying. When performing the demo, ask HR to invite the decision maker to the presentation or ask for a meeting with this individual to determine exactly what their goals are for HR and the organization. As long as you attempt this connection, with the blessing of HR, the results will be beneficial.
• Advancing the HRMS software or HRIS system sell
The most powerful question in sales and, especially, HR system sales is: “What’s the next step.” Throughout the process, you need to make sure you are moving in a forward direction to close the sale. I provided a summary at the end of each meeting as to what my and the contact’s deliverables were. The first thing to do at the next meeting is to review those items. At that end of that meeting the “What’s next” question pops up again. If you find you have deals sitting in your pipeline for long periods of time, try this approach to see what happens.
Closing
I hope this was beneficial. If you have any questions regarding selling HR software products, don’t hesitate to send me an email or call me.
Article Source: Messaggiamo.Com
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