Selling technology to financial services companies
For companies that sell into the financial services industry, recent market volatility and chaos have either created the perfect opportunity or the most difficult selling environment in recent memory. So who better to talk about selling challenges than local technology sales and marketing executives? We asked a few industry veterans to share their advice for breaking open and expanding new and existing accounts. Here is what they had to say.
Make it easy
Sam Mele, founder and managing director of Firm58 (www.firm58.com), a provider of on-demand post-trade management solutions sells by reducing the buyer’s purchasing risk.
“To understand how we reduce buyer risk,” said Mele, “it is important to understand the context of our business. In the capital markets, the vast majority of trades are now executed electronically – so the number of trades has gone up, but the profit on each trade has gone down. This has caused a strain on post-execution. Brokers, trading firms and exchanges need more efficient ways to bill their clients, calculate payouts, fees and commissions and require daily visibility to gross and net, realized and unrealized P&L. That’s where we come in.â€
There are significant perceived risks in letting someone else provide software to manage the middle and back-office. Mele says overcoming these objections has become easier because Firm58 can demonstrate the scalability and reliability to manage all these critical functions as a hosted service.
“Our customers are in the “business†of managing risk,†said Mele. “They are initially reluctant to provide third parties access to their transaction data. We overcome this objection by demonstrating our how our software provides cost savings but also can increase revenues in an extremely safe and secure environment. Additionally, we’re obsessed with client service and we’ve based our business model from the perspective of our clients – we don’t require any upfront fees, we charge monthly, and we’re one of the few software companies not looking to lock people into long-term deals. Our feeling is that if we don’t satisfy a client’s business issues and add value to the organization on a daily basis, the client should have every right to terminate our contract and seek other services. All told we make every attempt to mitigate our client’s risk of doing business with us.â€
Work with Trusted Parties
Michael Petitti, Chief Marketing Officer for Trustwave (www.trustwave.com), has had the greatest success in working through trusted parties such as banks and payment service providers to reach his end-user clients: retailers.
Despite the high profile security breaches of the past several years that have kept companies in the spotlight with less than flattering coverage, many businesses – especially small-to-medium sized businesses – are not motivated to ensure the security of their systems that handle sensitive consumer information such as credit card data. For these businesses, the relationship with their acquiring bank – their underwriter and principal service provider – tends to govern their behavior when it comes to securing information and complying with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).
“Through our relationships with many of the top acquiring banks, we have been able to provide service to more than 40,000 businesses throughout the world,†said Petitti. “In a world in which scams, such as ‘phishing,’ continue to proliferate, trust matters more than ever to business. Not only does working with the banks eliminate the challenge of trying to market and sell to millions of businesses directly, it positions Trustwave as a “trusted†entity to the retailer.â€
Demonstrate a clear market advantage…and deliver on it.
Lanworth’s director of sales, John Terzich, supplies hedge funds and large commodity trading firms with advance information on global grain supply. Terzich likes to keep things simple because Lanworth’s (www.lanworth.com) entire value proposition is time and accuracy.
“We provide key acres and yield data in advance of the USDA predictions and reports.,†said Terzich. “Our clients measure our service in a very defined way. It is our job to deliver to a very simple expectation … did our customers gain a competitive market advantage when placing their positions in the commodities we report and did they earn a greater return or minimize their risk?â€
Make it worthwhile for your customers to give you referrals
Michael Kiefer, general manager of BrandProtect (www.brandprotect.com), a domain monitoring and anti-phishing service for financial institutions, has integrated referrals into the sales process.
“Our customers benefit by collectively sharing intelligence about phishing attacks. An attack on one bank generally shares unique characteristics with attacks on other banks. In some cases, the same criminals are responsible for both attacks. By encouraging our customers to refer other banks, our customers benefit by having access to better information and ultimately are made safer by banding together,†said Kiefer.
Kiefer believes each Internet ecosystem like insurance or banking or e-commerce, has their own specific Petri dish of problems/opportunities. “By facilitating referrals and community, and bringing together our customers and their eco-systems, we make everyone stronger.â€
Stop selling
Coley Perry, sales and marketing manager with Solution Partners has seen no let-up in demand for talented technologists in the financial sector.
“In the technology staffing business, we’re seeing no shortage of demand from financial services,†said Perry. “Financial services is totally driven by the best and brightest. Banks, trading firms, exchanges, or whatever, they all want the best and the brightest. Our customers have a very low tolerance for stupidity and nonsense. So we lead with candidates and don’t try to sell. These days people are way too jaded to be sold.â€
Even more important…stop selling the technology
According to Darren Schwartz, CEO and founder of SureSpeak, LLC, (www.surespeak.com) one secret to selling technology in a volatile economy is to stop selling the technology.
“We sell a training platform to call centers and trainers in the financial services industries. Our technology helps call center reps practice and model sales conversations and customer service scenarios they encounter on the job,†said Schwartz. “While the technology itself is important, what our customers are really buying is improved productivity – more time to manage, more time to capture, distribute and archive best practices, more time to coach and mentor the most promising employees. That’s where we focus our message.â€
If possible, solve more than one problem
J. Schwan, senior partner of Solstice Consulting (www.solstice-consulting.com), sells by trying to solve multiple pain points with one solution.
“Financial services companies tend to be faced with three common problems; data throughput, data quality and regulatory compliance,†said Schwan. “If you can help solve any one of those issues while addressing the other two, you’re going to have an interested buyer.”
Beware of “simple implementationsâ€
For Peter Tapling, CEO of Authentify (www.authentify.com), selling out of band authentication technology into financial services firms means you need to talk the talk and walk the walk.
“Financial services companies operate under a host of regulatory and compliance constraints. This means there is no such thing as a “simple implementation,†said Tapling who advises companies to be aware of these constraints and be ready to help address them on two fronts: 1) contracting (be prepared to be “vetted†as a 3rd party to these compliance efforts) and 2) project (review and testing cycles are greatly increase as everyone who needs to in their organization has their say).â€
“There are no simple implementations. Build dealing with these complexities into your pricing and forecasting cycles. Otherwise, you will be frustrated with all of the extra effort that you will end up providing for free,†said Tapling.
Be trusted (and in the right place at the right time)
Mike Flannery, a VP of Sales for Business Only Broadband (www.bobbroadband.com), returned to selling after a ten year hiatus. “Back in the 90s, selling technology was a much different game than it is today. Back then it was easier to make a phone call into a company, and set a meeting with buyer provided you had a reasonable value proposition.â€
Today, says Flannery, it is challenging just getting in touch with someone by phone. The phone is a difficult way to sell. Selling is becoming more about networking, joining associations, talking to others, leverage existing customers and ask them for referrals.
“What I have found is that there are so many different technology offerings being put in front of buyers, no one has time to manage all the information. It doesn’t matter how compelling your value proposition is,†said Flannery. “You need a trusted relationship to make any traction.â€
Ben Bradley is the managing director of the Bradley Wiltjer Marketing Group — a B2B marketing, lead generation and PR agency for companies with complex sales cycles. Want to be featured in an upcoming article? Feel free to e-mail bbradley@bradleywiltjer.com with your suggestions.
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