Taking a Measured Approach to Sales

Computerworld - As vendors make more of an effort to measure and communicate the economic impact of their products in customer organizations, we should see their sales focus shift away from product and service features. Instead, they'll emphasize how users will be better off financially from the purchase of their products. This shift is subtle but not trivial. "ROI selling," as this approach is called, should add clarity to technology investment decision-making. Perhaps.
I present to you Exhibit A, a customer testimonial displayed prominently on one vendor's Web site, most likely dreamed up by the folks in marketing - er, I mean communications: "X offers a flexible and scalable solution that allows for multichannel customer interaction either through traditional or modern Internet methods. It can be implemented quickly and offers us the level of support we need to move forward."
Here's Exhibit B, from another vendor's Web site: "As an outsourced commerce solution provider, X enables you to tap into consumer or channel buyers on your own private-label commerce site. . . . We offer numerous selling formats and commerce tools to help you acquire customers and maximize yields on your inventory."
Maybe it's my public-school education, but I have trouble understanding what these vendors do. As impenetrable as this propaganda is, the greater offense is selling features as benefits. Neither example provides an explanation of how these products and services will help companies save or make money. If postinvestment measurement in the name of better selling sweeps out this rhetorical fog, we're all better off.
Enter ROI selling, whose simple proposition is that the sales appeal of any technology must revolve around quantifiable benefits or the positive operational impact it has on user companies. Vendors are training their sales forces in the rudiments of capital investment decision-making while unleashing business gumshoes into customer organizations with the mission of collecting empirical data around key performance indicators. By what percentage is this technology increasing worker productivity, reducing time to problem resolution, reducing days in accounts receivable and increasing the rate of inventory turns? Real-world financial impact data speaks the same language as CFOs, and this can only improve the power of a vendor's sales message.
If ROI selling is executed honestly and accurately, this entire effort is a good thing, a trend IT buyers should welcome. A vendor knowledge base might bring to light sources of economic value in the technology that the buyer might have overlooked entirely. Such data might also confirm the vendor's particular strength in the buyer's industry. Radically, a