Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1078362
8 SMT007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2019 Nolan's Notes by Nolan Johnson, I-CONNECT007 Selling Your Services: Welcome to the Jungle Our theme this month is sales strategies, which seems especially relevant since we're still early in 2019 and it feels as if the whole year lies in front of us. IPC APEX EXPO has just wrapped up, and the sales teams are work- ing their way through all of the contacts and leads they gathered at the show. And yet, I sense a change. Maybe you've sensed it too? Some sort of new, vibrating rumble just below your hearing threshold that you can feel but not hear. You know what I'm talking about. Marvel Comics fans would call it "Spider-Sense." I sense the business of elec - tronics manufacturing is evolving; the cus- tomer and marketplace are changing. Duane Benson from Screaming Circuits (also an I-Connect007 columnist) recently said, "Your sales strategy today will dictate your success for the next decade." Benson is right, and he has back- up. Steve Koenig, VP of mar- ket research for the Consumer Technology Association (CTA, the entity that organizes CES), stated in his CES 2019 kickoff address, "The 2000s were the digital age; the 2010s were the connected age; the 2020s will be the data age…More business de- cisions are backed by data." Back in Koenig's digital age, our industry built e-commerce models and started moving data electronically. We all but aban- doned the fax machine, started using email instead, and reduced our sales forces because the internet would be more effective. In the '10s, that trend continued but also lost momentum. Internet connections to your fab- ricator became table stakes for doing business (unless, of course, you were content to remain a small, local supplier.) Even as a web-based e- commerce option came to be expected, the lost