Onboarding Tips - Week 22

Week 22 | Idea 22 | Early Intro of Implementation Consultant

If you sell to mid market or enterprise customers, a lot of the pain during implementations usually from overselling or mismatch in expectations of the customer vs product capabilities. One way to escape this grief, and also ensure the implementation team isn't in for a surprise is to have them introduced earlier - before the same is complete.

For large deals, it makes sense to bring in a senior consultant or manager from the implementation team at the 80% stage of the deal being done, which helps in a few ways per Jeff Kushmerek of Infinite Renewals:

• It ensures the implementation team is aware of the requirements of the customer early, and can set the right expectations on what is possible.
• It helps increase the confidence of the customer to hear that what they want can be accomplished from someone on the solutioning and implementation side, rather than from the sales team.
• Since the implementation team isn't "comp"ed based on deal closure, they can stay a trusted expert in this engagement right from the sales cycle.
• Lastly, the implementation team doesn't have to deal with surprises as they know exactly what's coming their way!

Of course, this doesn't mean having them involved in every call, but just pulling them in before deal closure in a semi-technical discussion to ensure everyone is on the same page on what's needed and what can be delivered. Use the time of your implementation team wisely!