Having a great product is not enough anymore. All the products my company sells - umbraco, episerver and epm live - all have great features that most of the time fits to the requested business needs. Then why don’t we sell 100% since it’s that good?

Today’s businesses don’t expect to figure out working with a product anymore. They expect you to figure out how it works for them. Fair enough. This has become a result of personalization on the web and the increasing customer demands for flexibility. It also imposes an interesting question for the salespeople: do I sell the product old-school or should I become a business analyst?

I have always sold my products being a business analyst and love figuring out the right solutions. Most don’t call me sales, although I am responsible for bringing in most of the sales. Result is that most of our sales processes take up much longer, but in the end the client relationship is bound to go further for a long time. This long-term sales strategy takes up a lot of effort as well.

You know the biggest compliment I get from clients? Telling me I sold them nothing. I only got approved to invoice them on delivering the right solution.