Tips For Handling The Four Most Common Questions And Objections About ExchangeDefender’s Hosted Exchange

We want all of our partners to be successful. Over the years we have worked with many thousands of partners, some who have sold a lot of our products and at least as many who haven’t sold many…or any at all. Just as you’re interested in the differences between the clients who spend and those who don’t, we’re very interested in why some partners consistently close new business and some don’t. The experience of many years and many partners illuminates important patterns, trends, and some critical lessons about how those who succeed at selling Hosted Exchange are doing so.

In other words, we have learned a couple of things from you, our partners, about how to sell our own solutions, and we realize that sharing these lessons might help more partners find more success.

First, the same questions and objections seem to pop up time and again. Second, the way that you as the VAR or MSP address them can mean the difference between “don’t call us, we’ll call you” and “where do I sign?” Here we humbly present the four most common questions or objections about ExchangeDefender’s Hosted Exchange 2010 + SharePoint 2010, and some advice for how to turn these objections into more reasons for the client to say yes today.

1) Why should I get this?

This one’s pretty interesting, because the answer should have been made clear in your presentation that showed how ExchangeDefender’s Hosted Exchange 2010 + SharePoint 2010 addresses their business issues or challenges. For example, downtime and support costs when email goes down are common issues that the solution addresses, so the reason that a business with downtime problems should get it would be to reduce downtime and the costs for email, and take that worry or cost off their mind and their books. The answer will differ for every business of course, but it will lye in the benefits that ExchangeDefender’s Hosted Exchange 2010 + SharePoint 2010 will provide them.

2) How is this different from what I’ve got?

Rather than actually pulling a “Ben Franklin” here, breaking down a line by line comparison of our solution versus their current solution, what you really want to do is go back to a key problem or issue that they told you about, and pick a feature or benefit comparison to highlight. Discuss a point where their current solution is falling a little short, or is maybe too expensive, or is unnecessarily complicated for what the business needs, and then focus on some differences there relative to what makes ExchangeDefender’s Hosted Exchange 2010 + SharePoint 2010 the better solution for the business.

3) How does this compare to the other really cheap thing?

It depends on specifically what the other really cheap thing is, but what you want to do with this one is focus on the value of a business-class solution. The free or really cheap hosted email alternatives out there are usually not designed for a business, or are designed with very limited features. Maybe there’s no support, maybe there are compatibility issues with other things running in the environment, no guarantees or recovery options in the event of a disaster. The point is that cheap does not always equal better. A business needs a business class solution, especially a business that depends on its email to run.

4) I don’t have that big a problem and it seems like a lot of money.

A question like this is an indicator that there’s been a breakdown somewhere along the way in the value escalation process. Your job is to help the client connect the dots, to see exactly how ExchangeDefender’s Hosted Exchange 2010 + SharePoint 2010 will help make their lives and business better, and if you go through all of that in your discovery and presentation process, and then get this question afterward, you clearly lost them somewhere. The dots aren’t really connected, so the answer to this question should involve going back and re-affirming the client’s biggest challenges and the connections.

If you hear that it seems like a lot of money, that’s just another way of saying that the value they see in the solution doesn’t offset what it’s going to cost them to get it, so you need to go back and remind them, build up some more of those benefits.

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If you would like a lot more in-depth discussion about the cloud and how it affects you and your clients, visit Looks Cloudy http://www.lookscloudy.com where I blog daily about the adoption of the cloud in SMB, conduct live webcasts and podcasts with industry leaders and more.

Sincerely,

Kate Hunt
VP Community Development, ExchangeDefender
kate@ownwebnow.com
(877) 546-0316 x777