How Can I Sell Services with SmartView?

I was talking with some resellers this week who were excited about how easy it was to sell SmartView into their customer base. The problem was, they said, that it was difficult to include services in the software quote because SmartView was just too easy to set up.

Now I took the ‘real easy’ part as a compliment – but I also understand the VAR’s need to

‘Add Value’ to the software they sell to their customers. It is an interesting movement in 2014 that the software should just install and work with no setup or effort. While this can be true I really feel that it is dumbing software down and often giving a less satisfactory experience. If all software is treated as a ‘app’ then we will end up with some oversimplified single function that won’t do much for software solutions.

So to add the value back to a SmartView purchase there are a number of things that can and should be done (by an end user or their VAR) to provide a better overall solution.

Here are some of the consulting/implementation tasks that should form part of a SmartView roll out: 

1. Task to Convert Favorites from SmartList: Review existing favorites, clean them up, rename them, delete old ones and only bring ‘good’ favorites into SmartView. I am yet to meet a company that has remained completely on top of all their Smartlist favorites.

2. Security: Use this as a chance to review SmartList/SmartView security. People seeing things they should not is often missed in SmartList/SLB. Even yesterday I found people at eOne looking at sales and margin numbers I would have preferred them not to see.

3. End User Training: While it is very self-explanatory there are a number of little tricks and tips you will only learn by receiving some training. Running tailored training to users will ensure they get the most out of SmartView for their specific role. With SmartView External you are exposing GP data to people that have often never seen it before. So training those people to understand what they are seeing is important.

4. Optimization: For anyone with a large data volume there are a number of things that can be looked at: 

a.       Care on setting the number of initial records returned e.g. 1000, or 10,000 etc. 
b.      Optimizing views and tables through SQL indexing on large lists.
c.       Using SLB to restrict the data in the base query (exclude those years people will never look at). Then using these lists in SV.

So as a VAR it becomes relatively easy to include somewhere between 8 and 24 hours of services with your SmartView quotation. By doing so you are undoubtedly offering a better solution to your customer. For end user customers it would make sense to set aside this time to complete these tasks if you are not engaging your reseller. 

Interested to learn more about how to sell services with SmartView or any of our other products? Please reach out to us at sales@eonesolutions.com and we'll be happy to assist you! 

What makes Extender so important to a sales process?

This week I had a pre-sales consultant tell me he always showed reporting at the end of the demo, and if he had time he would show Extender.  WOW.  In every GP demo I have ever done (and I have done plenty) - Extender is always the second thing I show. A good Demo of GP should look like this and follow this order:

1.  Prove it is easy to access, manipulate and analyse your data in reports:  

This is the number one thing people want from a new ERP system and must be done at a few different levels.  

• Show a sexy dashboard, pivot table, BI pretty colors reporting tool. There are plenty out there to choose from. (My favorite is Solver).
• Show a nice P&L - that is essential as at the end of the day you need financial reports.
• Show the Builders. Every single piece of data you enter + those fields that do not exist but need calculating is available through SLB. People love that story. 

2. Show how a GP solution fits their business, is completely flexible and is fast to configure.

• Find an important area of the clients business that is important to the CEO or president - but is not usually covered by regular accounting systems.  Build components of this solution in Extender and present it like it is a standard part of GP. 
• Then ask if you have all the data they need here (intentionally leave some data off the screen you know they need). Now add the extra fields on the fly in front of them. 

Do this early in every demo (You can use the term Extender or not - does not really matter). You will find that later in the demo  - the prospect will start answering their own questions by sating 'well we could just add that field with the Extender tool'. 

You have now proven flexibility, ability to keep the budget down through rapid configuration - after all you changed it right there in front of them - most importantly you have set the expectation that all ERP systems should do this same thing. You know that your competitors can not - so you are a mile ahead. You have changed the rules of the game in your favour. 

3. Show the power of integration with other relevant applications. (Excel, CRM, etc.)

In today's world every company needs some form of integration. They have a front end system, a website, or some sort of application that should have integration to GP. Do not talk about this as being hard or difficult - but lead with how they MUST integrate and you can handle it easily. Do not be scared of words like XML, Web Service, FTP etc.  

4. Show GP - This is important but the last thing I do. Then go onto the detail behind GP and the specific functions that this company may need.  (Landed costs, applying cash receipt, recurring journals, fixed assets, etc). The reason I do this last is that by doing the first 3 things you have usually already won the deal. By showing a P&L you have implied you can do a journal entry - so why show it again?  By showing the BI reports you are proving that all the data they need is being captured. By showing how configurable GP is - you win their trust that it can do most things they could ever need. By proving it fits into the business world and can integrate to anything, easily and inexpensively - you have won the deal.  

So this quick 40 minute demo - wins you many many deals. Sure there can be deeper detailed discussions following this - but the deal is won or lost up front. So to keep an eOne flavor I say show SLB and ERB together with a powerful BI tool, show Extender for customizations and SmartConnect for integration. 

My real interest is having people sell more GP - so regardless of the tools you choose to deliver this demo - it is a winning formula and I encourage every pre-sales person to give it a run if you are not already. You will sell more. 

But we prefer Dex mods?

Really?  Customers want flexibility, customers do not want to be locked into your dex team. The other argument I hear is that those crazy Extender tables make life hard. WRONG. It is simply not true. For 8 years we have had Extender views - and this ensures those tables are no more difficult to work with than any other table.  If you do not believe me - call me or call Nicole and we will show you.