Going against Epicor and Prophet21 twice in one year, I built on what had occurred during and immediately after the first competition. We knew we were up against the same competitive sales manager. He had researched the Microsoft product, VAR sales channel, our company, and (courtesy of LinkedIn) me personally.
Building on the 6 lessons learned from the first sale, we provided our second prospect with facts prior to the competition putting their spin on these issues. Doing so in advance helped our prospect cut the competitor’s discussion short.
- Knowing that a stable software developer is crucial, I provided news releases on Epicor’s acquisition of Prophet21 and the turmoil they will likely experience for the next 2 years. I personalized the issue because I had experienced the turmoil Microsoft endured with its acquisition of Great Plains Software. When the Epicor/Prophet21 sales manager couldn’t meet or demo with the prospect for 3 weeks after their initial contact because of the changes in his sales channel, this appropriately became a deciding factor for the prospect.
- I provided information on the Dynamics GP product roadmap up to Version 16 as it was recently announced.
- We knew any competitor would discuss Microsoft’s partner channel changes. I shared our recent successes, sales information, service orientation, and 22-year track record to assure our prospect that we are not going away.
- With multiple client references we proved that we may be small, but we have extremely high loyalty from our clients because of our service orientation and the fact that we stand behind our promises. This was a key point as they had been let down significantly by their Prophet21 reseller a decade ago.
Our solid credibility with the client also helped us surmount the challenge that came when the client deferred their decision 30 days while they evaluated another product: SysPro. SysPro is a nice product from a nice little company.
We re-established our product. We provided SysPro’s case studies which primarily centered on batch process control manufacturing. Our client was strictly discrete product wholesale distribution, so we established the potential for a mismatch of features.
We went on to counter their criticism that we would be using third-party products and they would not. With research, we demonstrated to the client that SysPro would be using third-party warehousing, EDI, and fixed assets.
We discussed stronger multi-currency functionality and financial consolidation.
We laughed together when our prospect said there was one issue brought up about me personally that I didn’t expect. It was alleged that I did “not have many installations under my belt.” I had already provided a personal profile that detailed more than 22 years of GP installations and cited multiple mainframe and minicomputer installations prior to that.
The winning functionality in this sale was SalesPad. We love SalesPad and we think the product will take Dynamics GP to a new level of competition with the likes of Epicor, Profit21, and (dare I say this) NAV and AX. We can provide the out-of-box and cost-effective functionality a discrete wholesaler needs. At half the cost of a Dynamics GP AM license, SalesPad makes the product cost extremely competitive.
We have an 8-user GP and 40-user SalesPad sale. And we are going to knock this install out of the ballpark because we will be there for this company, whatever it takes. That’s how we do implementations.
By Gloria Braunschweig, The IFRS Implementation Expert for Dynamics GP, with Computeration, a Pacific Northwest Microsoft Dynamics GP Partner.
Computeration specializes in ways to enhance your company’s solutions with Microsoft Dynamics GP in Idaho, Oregon, and Southwest Washington, with clients around the world, Computeration makes your implementation successful by offering experienced project management, data integration, training, and consulting services.
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