Memo for HR Technology Account Executives from a Customer
This one is for all the Account Executives and Sales Professionals out there: your customer is just a human looking to connect with another human.
Like many in the HR and HR Technology industry, I have sat through my fair share of pitches and meet & greets. My reaction has ranged anywhere from “where have you been all my professional life?” to “what excuses can I come up with to make this end”? While I am certain that the “customers’ perspective” gets talked about on internal meetings and sales calls, I have rarely seen an industry customer share their feedback and perspective with sales teams directly.
So, in the spirit of anonymity and contributing to this industry, here are my quick takes from my customer experience in no particular order (entirely my perspective):
Do the research, and don’t make the conversation a census study: I appreciate the small “get to know you” questions in the beginning of conversations. If we are 5 minutes into a 30 minute meeting, you are still asking about me and what I do and I have NO clue on what you are trying to sell, we may have a problem. This is when I start to wonder if you have done ANY homework at all, and I start to think about all the ways I can get out of this conversation. Worst part of this is: you are now making me question if you can’t spend a few mins researching your customer, how can I trust the product you are selling will even work for my business needs?
Respect your customers' time: like many others, my days are filled with meetings and to-do’s that should have been done last week (well, more like last month). The reason why I limit most of my introduction calls to 30 minutes is because I don’t know you or your product, and I don’t want to commit both of us to 60 full minutes of social awkwardness. Please make the full use of the time allotted and stop reminding me that “these meetings are usually 60mins, and we would have done X, Y and Z”. I know; and in full candor, if I like the product enough, I would give you whatever time you need on my calendar to keep the conversation going. Telling me that you need more time on the first call makes me wonder if you know your product and the industry well enough, or if you are just following a sales script to see what sticks
View the relationship you are building as beyond just the sales quota you are looking to make this month: I have always appreciated calls that start with “our company is X, we do Y, we reached out because based on our homework we think Z can be valuable to you; and if you don’t think this is a fit, happy to be a resource to you in the future” over the ones that are basically asking me if I am willing to commit a large investment on the FIRST call. Here’s the thing (in case it needs to be said out loud): as an HR executive, I am NOT just buying the product. I am buying into the company, the vision, the relationship, the culture, the alignment between what I am trying to accomplish in my business and what the vendor is selling, and SO MUCH more. That takes a relationship and not just a phone call; you are not selling airduct cleaning services.
Assume and verify experience: I can usually tell in the first 2 minutes of a conversation if I am talking to someone who is genuinely interested in my business, or someone who is just trying to see what sticks. While I am sure not all customers are the same, I cringe when I sit through a conversation with the latter and have to be polite and respectful about it. Also, please check on your customers’ experience before you start lecturing them about the industry. That can just get awkward for everyone involved.
Focus on what you are selling: I can’t count the number of times I have sat through pitches, and I still have no idea what I am being sold 10 minutes into the conversation. Please remember that I don’t live in your product world as much as you do. Start with your product, tell me about what the product was intended to solve, and tell be about use cases of how others have used it.
Use buzzwords with caution: No, my interest does not increase linearly (if at all) in proportion to the number of times you say “analytics”, “AI”, or “based on research”. In fact, when you use them out of context or can’t back up your points when I ask clarifying questions, I tune out immediately.
Know your worth: this one is primarily for the ladies in HR tech and SaaS solution sales (because I’ve noticed a pattern at this point). Please stop saying “I’m not a tech person” when whatever conferencing or videocasting tech we are using isn’t working. You are selling me tech, so I sure hope that you are a tech person because I would otherwise be questioning why we are talking in the first place. You may not be an AV tech person (and really who is? I am convinced at this point that all conference tech platforms put the “screen share” button in different places and use different icons just to mess with us), but you are a tech person and stop downplaying your worth. For everyone in this space: sure, you may not have been practicing in HR hands on as much as I have, but I am sure you have seen more companies and spent more time watching this market than I have. So please stop downplaying your knowledge.
Know your market: this one is primarily for my Canadian, Indian, LATAM, and ANZ based teams. The US market transacts at a significantly higher volume and is confusing as heck. As someone who has worked in both the US and Canadian HR spaces, I will be the first person to tell you that some times the US market doesn't make sense to me. However, the complexity of the US market doesn’t mean that you can bypass your homework entirely. Please have a preliminary understanding of the market differences, scale differences, etc. before you start the conversations. Unfortunately the regulatory differences, social security funding differences, and taxation differences does play into how HR operates, how HR tech is selected, and how implementations are run.