Don't Fall into the 'Expert' Trap

As I continue to share my experience and philosophies, today I share a lesson that took me a while to learn as an individual contributor in sales. I call this the 'Expert Trap' and it really refers to those in sales that come from a technical background and learn their products really really well.

As you become a technical expert in your products, it really helps you grow sales over time - you build trust as the 'Trusted Advisor' among your customers, especially if you are selling a technical product to a technical audience, as many of us in the Robotics and Industrial automation fields do. I've lived this expert trap a few times over my career - One that I remember vividly was spending what seems like most of a day at a distributor partner writing a serial driver (okay, writing is probably an overstatement - let's say Configuring a Serial Driver) between the CTC HMI product that I was representing and an SS100 Simple Servo drive. I also had to wire up the serial cable to create a mating cable between the drive and HMI. Now, don't get me wrong: I won the business and gained respect from the distributor, and the end customer - but sometimes knowing when to hand the ball off is more important than being the hero. If I'm objective about that day - I earned sales of probably $1500 in the single HMI that I sold, sure there were probably some long-term relationship benefits that are hard to measure that were won by doing this for the partner and the customer, and maybe even some follow on wins from the Forum article that I published to make sure that the information would be shared. ... but and this is the big one - What was the opportunity cost in that Lost day in front of other prospects?

Let me try to quantify this a little bit: In that era, My territory revenue was roughly $4 Million per year and it was about 25% annual repeat - meaning that I generated about $3 Million a year in new revenues. Consider that I worked roughly 240 days per year - It means that a day of my time typically generated $12,500 in new revenues - probably a little bit more when you subtract workdays where I traveled, attended sales meetings, tradeshows, etc. I'll just use the $12,500 in new revenue a day but realistically it was probably more like $15,000 after the other impacts. So the math is pretty simple: $12,500 (In Potential Lost Revenue) Less the $1,500 in actually gained revenue. At the end of the day spending that day creating this driver did create a delighted distributor partner and a delighted customer - but I sincerely doubt that it created an ROI for my company or even for myself in terms of my time spent vs. what visiting the next several prospects that I could have. This is what I refer to as the 'Expert Trap': If you aren't careful and you demonstrate technical expertise, your partners and customers will come to rely on it, and solving that technical problem rarely deliver an economic return that is equal to that return of spending time with or finding that next customer!

This isn't the only example of this mistake that I can point to in my career; especially early - I loved being that guy who not only could sell but knew his products better sometimes than even the support engineers that supported the products day in and day out. The challenge is: It just isn't efficient. If you read some of my other Articles such as "Take your lumps as soon as you can" - you know that I think it's invaluable for the salesperson to be present when the team is trying to solve a technical challenge. There's a huge difference between being present and available and being the person trying to solve the problem. My key takeaways from having lived through the 'Expert Trap' and coming out the other side more effective and efficient are a bunch of Do's and Don'ts for managing technical issues in the field.

Do's

• Let your customers know that you have a technical background and understanding. This builds credibility and helps you get to that point of being the 'Trusted Advisor'.
• Weigh the benefits of solving a specific problem personally. My goal isn't to 'Get your hands dirty' but to think about the ROI of your actions. If it's a simple issue and you know you're going to be in and out in 30 minutes - It's probably worth the investment. If it's a black hole that you've never seen before - Get your Applications Team in - don't fall into that trap.
• Visit the customer with the Applications team to kick off that major problem-solving - See my earlier post about taking your lumps. Much of your credibility is earned by being there and not hiding from the problem. You can kick off the troubleshooting and then get onto more productive sales tasks while checking in regularly throughout the day.
• Make sure to follow up with the customer: After your product is ordered, delivered, and deployed, and in the event of a Problem-solving visit. Sometimes, customers try to solve the problems themselves and end up frustrated because they can't solve it themselves - by staying close you avoid this and can arrange the appropriate support quickly.
• Leverage your local distributor and/or integrator partners. We sometimes forget as manufacturer's reps that some of these companies know our products better than our own teams and are local and can thus solve the problems more quickly.

Don'ts:

• Fall into the 'Expert Trap' - make sure you've weighed the likely benefit against the likely return to ensure that your actions are going to deliver an ROI for you and your company. Your time is precious - Spend it wisely!
• Forget that your company likely has multiple layers of support that are available to take on these issues. USE THEM - While you can gain some personal credibility by being "The Hero" - long run the company looks even better by having the team available.
• Replace the lost time of trying to solve the problems personally with an equal amount of lost time being on-site watching someone else solve it!! - Make sure that you reinvest the time that you gain back in customer development actions that will help you and the company hit your goals.
• Panic when a customer is super demanding. One of my favorite tools for managing that demanding customer is to ask for a spare order! Hey Mr. Customer if this process is so critical, let's get you a spare unit ordered right away so that you never have to experience this downtime again. It makes them realize that they have a responsibility in the situation too and frequently you do get the order!
• Forget to get your apps team to walk through the environment when they get on-site: I can't count how many times major customer problems that were reported to me were actually a form of product abuse: A non-sealed product in a washdown area, Operators leaving the Cabinet doors open to the environment, A mount or installation that failed to meet the design specifications, and many more!

I'm sure there are many great tips that I'm missing! But, I think you start to get the idea: DO get the problem taken care of for the customer quickly --- but DON'T feel like you've got to do it personally! Reserve your time for business development unless you are sure there's an ROI (I like 3X as a minimum).