It happened again this year. The assembly of personages from Mentor Graphics involved in Sales or Technical support of the sales organization getting together for planning meetings, technical training, networking and more meetings.
There is a lot of misunderstanding about Sales people, what they do, how they do it and how much use they are to you when you are considering buying software from Mentor Graphics. Based on 15 years of experience working with talented sales people, I can dispel a few myths.
Fallacy: Provide product and the customers just know where and when to come and get it.
Here is how you get the best out of your Capital Sales person. Just ask them to help. That’s it. They do give their best and have your interests at heart and are committed to providing the best service. Just ask them.
Being an account manager, or a technical account manager or having one of the other job titles which identifies you as being part of the Sales team in Mentor means you give the best you possibly can for your customers when they ask you for help, and sometimes when you anticipate that they need help but have not yet asked.
Here’s how it does work – nothing like picture. The account manager will help you by constructing and negotiating an advantageous to you business arrangement. The Mentor Graphics sales force are highly trained, and capable of understanding your technical and commercial imperatives. If they are not completely up to speed on the technical “what’s in it for you” – that’s where people like me come in to impart that knowledge quickly to them. If an account manager is not completely up to speed on how your organization works, where the potential is in collaborating with Mentor and using software like Capital – that’s where people like me also come in, but mostly it is from listening to you the customer that the account manager learns. Mentor Graphics’ salespeople use their ears more than their voices. Listening skills, active listening skills are prized.
The account teams I have worked with have always been more successful when they tried to do more to allow the buying process to run smoothly for the prospective customers or the existing customers wanting to purchase more. If you try and do something called “selling” to a person or team it often disrupts or befuddles a motivation to buy something. And success has happened – year on year the list of satisfied customers in electrical platform engineering that use the Capital suite has grown. Each year as the co-workers gather from different continents, there are moments of celebration, awards handed out.
Fundamentally these annual gatherings during February have a business purpose, and the social side is a very pleasant side effect. But the serious purpose is to grow the business, to acquire more customers and to make the customers we already have happier.
Of course it would not go well to say too much about the market strategy and tactics. But in the same token I can reveal some new product ideas from around the country which have already been taken and the Capital product family isn’t going to enlarge in this direction.
Restaurant in San Francisco California
Capital Title – Promotional Pen Real Estate Title transfer business
Capital Carpet, Woodward Avenue Ferndale Michigan.
If anyone else has interesting Capital-not-Capital-Software-by-Mentor-Graphics pictures, send them to me and they may appear in a future posting.