Help your partners sell simplicity for improved customer satisfaction.
I’m a fan of indirect channels and I’ve spent years helping companies engage, empower and evolve partner ecosystems. I’ve always defended solution providers to vendors who undervalue partner contributions. But lately I’ve noticed that customers are being sold complex solutions when simpler ones will do – and I suspect partners are partly to blame. Don’t get me wrong, direct sales are also guilty of selling complexity. The fact is: complex solutions ensure lucrative services revenues (which is bread and butter for partners). But ultimately, everyone wants happy customers. If the right thing for the customer is a simpler solution (with a faster install, easier onboarding and less ongoing maintenance), how do we encourage a shift in sales priorities?
There is margin in mystery.
If something is complex or unknown then someone, the vendor or the solution provider, can make money helping the customer figure it out. Consumers have been trained to think if something is less expensive or simple, it can’t be as good as the expensive, complicated product. (But they’re often not happy with the expense, or the complexity.) I blame the prevalence of complex solutions on the vendors – you all who make the products. For decades, vendors trained solution providers to invest and build businesses around implementing and deploying complex solutions.
For example, think about the most popular ERP solutions. It takes a lot of configuration and customization to deploy an SAP solution to even a medium-sized enterprise. (I mention SAP purely because of their ubiquity, not as a slam.) Is SAP a huge organization and an ERP powerhouse because they are so complex, and it takes years and many resources to implement? Can they or their partners be profitable with simpler solutions that require fewer services?
Why not press the ‘easy’ button?
Is it difficult for a ‘simple’ or ‘easy’ solution to get market traction? The money to be made in the configuration, customizations, and business process redesign services required to implement a complex solution gives rise to an ecosystem of partners. Solution partners calculate the profitability of starting an implementation practice for any of these complex solutions (such as SAP). We as an industry should motivate partners to sell the ‘easy’ solution, if that’s all the customer wants or needs, even when there’s less implementation revenue.
We are experiencing this in PRM right now. Everyone is selling the customer a complex solution that takes millions of dollars and years to implement versus the easy solution that is plug-and-play. Is that the fault of vendors pushing for bigger dollar amounts and larger up-front sales? Is it the implementation partners telling a customer, “Oh no, that [easy] solution won’t work for you. You’re too unique. You need something flexible and configurable for your business.” Honestly, I think it’s both vendors and partners. The dollar value of the product and the money to be had in services motivates all parties to sell the more complicated solution.
Move the money around.
There’s reason car dealers often have a bad reputation. No one wants to be oversold, or talked into a fancier car, with features they’ll never use, accompanied by a maintenance package they can’t afford. Sometimes they just want to walk in, get a car, and drive home. Your customers are no different. In today’s world of recurring revenue, creating happy customers is the key to reducing churn. Less money may be made at the outset by selling the simple solution, but with faster onboarding, a lower up-front cost and more product usage, customers become stickier and less likely to leave as soon as their contract ends. What’s more expensive, landing a new customer or keeping an existing one?
If we encourage the solution provider ecosystem to focus on selling pre-sales consulting and advice services as well as customer success initiatives, can we shift them to advocate for the simpler solution? Is it possible to replace post-sale implementation services with paid-for services at the beginning and end of the customer success lifecycle? For decades, solution providers have given away the pre-sales advice to secure the sale and make their money on the implementation services. As the industry produces easier, plug-and-play SaaS solutions, I believe we should help solution providers make the shift. Happier customers are good for everyone.
Do you agree that complex solutions are sold too often? Have you found a way for partners to sell the simple solutions and still have decent margin? Let me know.
Diane Krakora is CEO of PartnerPath with over two decades of experience defining the best practices and frameworks around how to develop and manage partnerships.
