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PCB007-Feb2019

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50 PCB007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2019 custom fabrication part for that subassembly circuit. The fabricator is selling a service, and the finished good is the customer's product, not yours. Consequently, you're selling your reputation, peace of mind, the ability to catch a problem before the customer has committed to a design respin because they screwed up. McNabb: Again, a good salesperson is a con- sultant. It was always funny to me when I'd talk to people with lots of technical knowl- edge and strong communication skills, and they would say, "I'm not pushy enough to be a salesperson." I'd ask them to think of the pushiest person who calls on them. After com- plaining about that person for a while, I would ask, "How much stuff do you buy from that person?" Usually, the answer was, "Nothing. I hate them." From there, I'd ask them to think about the person they buy the most stuff from. The typi- cal response is, "They know my world and give me great ideas and advice." My point is they might not be pushy enough to be an utter failure, but are they helpful enough to be suc- cessful? A good salesperson helps others make better choices. In the world that you described, a good salesperson is going to be a consultant who knows the issues. They're going to be able to say, "Here are the things that you should con- sider when you're making this board or the completed assembly." Johnson: You're pretty much spot on. There are a whole bunch of constraints that both de- signers and fabricators have to work around. What's the best design? How reliable is it go- ing to be once it goes through fabrication? What are the yields going to be? Will half of the boards that were just manufactured fail in the field because of a critical design issue that doesn't always manufacture properly? McNabb: The next thing that sales rep might do is say, "In this marketplace right now, 80% of your sales are for laptop computers. That's a mature market, and the competition has got- ten so stiff that the margins are smaller. Mean- while, many of the top companies are shifting their sales focus into these other technologies where the margin is better. How can we help you succeed in that new sector? Here are some of the things that you should consider." Johnson: I want to go a little bit further into having a good relationship with your customer and consulting with them because that makes sense, especially in this marketplace. Howev- er, there is a school of thought that if you do your homework well enough, the sales team becomes order takers. McNabb: Any time your salespeople become or- der takers, they are going to suffer from com- moditization. They are not creating the same level of value. I think of it in two ways, and I guess I'm a little bit spoiled because I see this so vividly in recruiting. The first level of value is the vendor value where the customer says, "This is exactly what I want. Here are the specifications. Go find that." In that role, I can be replaced with a catalog. The best possible thing I can say in that situation is, "Would you like fries with that?" It's very limited. But the moment I can say, "It sounds like you're trying to solve this problem, and here's a better way to solve that problem." Our big win is to cause that customer or client to say, "I hadn't thought of that! My decision wouldn't have been as good if I hadn't talked to you first." Helping them redefine their needs to solve specific problems is a major escalation. At MRINetwork, we find that we do about five times as much business per year with those customers compared to a strict vendor relationship. When you talk with them about their goals and help them recognize problems that they hadn't noticed yet, then you hear this even bigger reaction where they wonder, "How in the world did we miss that?" Again, you've created roughly five times as much value as you did a moment ago. Johnson: Fantastic. Thank you, Terry. McNabb: You're welcome! PCB007

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