A View from the other side of the “PO”

What is view from the vendor side, hours before a PO shows up, (or is expected) :)

Monday morning- 5 days 120 hours — 47 minutes 6 seconds until the end of quarter for sales people. Marking the end of time? Collapse of the entire western world? Seas boiling… you get the point.

After 27 years of technology sales, rarely do clients and partners actually see happens within the walls of the vendor trying to a “CRUSH” their number.

The countdown for those new to this world of technology sales started 10 seconds after the end of the previous quarter. While a hardly handshakes and virtual thanks to send to all, as the sand dust has scattered, and bonus expected got delayed, the sales people are charted, mandated, and threatened to at every level, “okay, when is the next deal coming?”

Clients, still reeling from the panic last minute calls from everyone from the CEO to the janitor at the tech company, can’t believe that the whole pressure sequence is starting up again, even hours of the last boiling room, soul crushing threats of their product being shut-off, or their data becoming inaccessible, or the systems are exposed to hackers without the latest and greatest patches. Believe it!

As the days and hours countdown to the end of quarter, the friendly “we are here for our clients” is replaced with “we need it.” How quickly the tone for being “client first is replaced” with corporate selfishness of “chief revenue officers” and their immediately leader team to “we need that number people.”

Sadly, the sales people for the millions of dollars they are paid (not really :)), are the bearer of the sales closing python stick repeatly cracking over the CIO’s and CISO’s knuckles praying for another round of “if you sign now, we will cut additional 10%.”

What clients don’t see is the true narcissistic behavior that exists within technology sales cultures. The culture is much less about “the client” now has been replaced with “rock-star” sales person and example for everyone to emulate. Yes, I get nauseous just thinking about it too.

Sales people by nature want to have the client’s best interest at heart. They are the ones’ that put their name out there as a front-end of the sales engagement convincing the client their solution is the best and well aligned to their needs.

What clients do not see is how quickly the organization integrity changes when there is a deal on the line, and the deal is “committed.” There is many destructive forces in nature, nothing destroys a client more than a VP of Sales and regional director that quickly forgets the client’s best interest and put there need to “crush” ahead of everything. During the “clock countdown” a sales person received depending on the size of the deal and the client countless phones, demands to speak directly the client, and in some cases, VP’s order the sales person to threaten the client by informing them “the deal off the table, if we don't have an order in 24 hours.”

• * Due note, the VP of sales would never deliver a message like..ever..

As the clock wines down to zero-hour, most salespeople are either of the ahead of the number, behind the number, or somewhere in between. Most sales leaders are mostly like behind their “expectations to kill it” and still continue to press for every single order.

After countless threats, escalations, false promises,… the PO finally trinkles in with 8 minutes to spare. Who was at fault for the order not being on-time? Did the sales person not communicate the correct expectation? Did the VP of sales pressure to bring deal forward months ahead of schedule? Either of these answers rarely are witnessed by the client.

The right answer, there isn't one. None of these have anything to do with aligning and solving the client challenges. We are only adding layers to already crowded pile of technology that will only deliver half of the perceived value.

Until next time..

John..