Perception is everything

“Perceptions are everything. During each moment you are in contact with a customer, you are the organization.” - Jan Carlzon

I am working in the sales domain for more than six years now and believe me it is not as fancy as it looks from outside. Normally, when you imagine sales guys these days the perception of people has changed from a guy doing door to door sales to a Harvey Specter-esque identity saying confidently “I don’t play the odds I play the man.” Sales is becoming a much-respected profession these days and parents don't get traumatized when their kid says I want to be a salesman. Organizations have a bigger say in this changing attitude towards salespersons. That is because organizations especially the IT services ones are becoming more customer satisfaction oriented than ever before.

Here at Opcito, I lead the client engagement and partners delivery model for North America and Australia region. I work closely with the CEO and the CTO where we all share a common thought that I often discuss with my sales and delivery team - “A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all,” which in simple words means customer’s perception is the best marketing agency you can hire to promote yourselves. How do we get that perception right from the start? Managing two completely different markets from North America to ANZ and with emerging and niche technology expertise, for any account manager/client manager it’s always about scaling effectively and efficiently even after being recognized in market/industry.

So, while signing a new customer, I always ask myself these questions:

• How do I continuously add value to engagements with customers?
• How do I scale up the existing engagement?
• Are our offerings aligned with the customers’ expectations from the ongoing quarter's technology and budget perspective?
• Is the customer getting optimum ROI from the relationship with Opcito?
• Are we making sure the customer experience and the customer success are both being taken care of?
• What technology trends should we follow or upskill in the ever-changing market and technological advancements?

You should know or should be able to answer all these questions clearly. And you along with the engineering team must always be aligning your efforts in order to achieve what the customer perceived in the first place. Only then you can say that the organization is on the right path and you as a salesperson are selling the right thing.

After working with a number of customers/partners/delivery teams throughout the years, here are what I consider as “the holy trinity” to create a perception that will profit you and your organization and last longer:

Business brings business

Always keep in mind, the customer is the hero throughout the process even after you are done with the delivery. Because he is the one who can introduce you to ten other people and that’s why his perception, which should always be changing in the upward direction, matters the most irrespective of the size of the business he is providing you with.

The smaller the feet the better the dance same goes with commitments

Like Peter Marshall said – “Small things done are better than great things planned.”

Never over-commit. Work closely with the decision makers and stakeholders, understand their pain points, conduct bespoke workshops around those pain points, suggest a solution, show the bigger picture and define the directions to achieve that. If you are suggesting something big like a cultural change in case of DevOps adoptions, first deploy few significant tech features which will exemplify the short and long-term growth.

Measure before it becomes major

As Peter Drucker said – “You can't manage what you don't measure.”

It’s very important for you to measure your own success of solutions you are providing to the client than it is for a client to measure the value addition you are creating for them. At Opcito, we diligently follow 3 steps journey to track the accuracy as well as errors. Accuracies help you earn and errors help you learn. Plus, the measurement metrics help you identify the areas of improvement for your team which might help you avoid glitches which might turn to disasters.

To conclude I would just say - more than the business and the numbers that drive you and your organization, always try and achieve what you think is going to create an awe-inspiring perception for your customers and the rest will follow.