Today, around 40% of the world’s population has a viable connection to the internet, and, with that number growing rapidly every day, it has never been easier for your cloud hosting reseller business to connect with its customers online.
In theory, with such an increase in accessibility, the services of a middleman would be rendered obsolete. However, in reality cloud hosting reselling can be an extremely effective tool to increase sales and add value for the vendor, the reseller and the customer. Below are some nifty tips and tricks to maximise effective reselling.
Know Your Customer
Reiterated time and time again, the necessity of knowing your customer has become something of a cliché – but with good reason. A surprising number of salespeople tend to ‘mind read’ for a quick sell and don’t take the necessary time getting to know the wants and needs of the customer, for instance, whether they need IaaS or bare metal cloud. The basic rule is if you seem knowledgeable when it comes to your customers problem, they will probably be interested in your solution.
Challenging Preconceptions
Many salespeople see selling as a linear process with only two outcomes – either the prospective customer chooses you or they choose your competitor. However, there is a third option which can happen up to 60% of the time – they don’t choose either. There can be a range of reasons why this can happen from a simple change of heart to a significant change in circumstance, however these instances can invariably be combatted by challenging customer preconceptions of the product – e.g. challenging the idea that dedicated servers are now obsolete.
The Customer is the Hero
You may well have heard the saying ‘the customer is always right’ – a premise that is correct in theory, but remains flawed in practice. Enter the ‘hero assessment’ – every story must have a hero, and as a reseller the objective is to make your customer just that. The entire role of the salesperson is to make this happen, enabling your customers to see what has changed in their world and how they can successfully adapt and thrive is essential to successful reselling.
Not All Clouds Are Equal
Although Cloud Hosting is now recognised as a household term, the mistake that many salespeople make is presuming that the prospective customer has a good understanding of the different types of computing options on offer. Educating your prospects about the three different cloud models: public, private and hybrid cloud, can ensure a level of visibility and demonstrate an interest in meeting their needs, rather than just trying to make a quick sale.
Focus on Your USP
There is bound to be a significant overlap between what you can offer to your prospective customers and what your closest competitors provide. The trick is not to focus on the overlapping provisions but concentrate primarily on your unique selling point- being able to demonstrate that you can offer an extra, useful service, such as the offer of bare metal cloud, that is not readily available from your competition will immediately make you a more attractive option for the customer.
Cloud Server Visibility
No matter the perceived benefits of Cloud Hosting, many prospective customers simply aren’t able to look past the fact they no longer see the flashing lights in their server rooms telling them that everything is okay. This reluctance stems from a lack of control of being able to fix servers manually and lack of visibility on identifying the problem. Transparency when managing these concerns is best practice, opting to demonstrate the support and customisability on offer from the cloud hosting provider will provide reassurement.
Share Success Stories
Another cliché that salespeople love to throw around is that ‘it’s important to believe in your product’ – this encourages salespeople to be more invested in the product they are selling, and improves sales as a result. A much better rule of thumb is that ‘it’s important that the customer believes in your product’ – by promoting the successes of businesses that have used cloud hosting to its full potential, your product becomes a much more enticing enterprise.
Successful negotiations between you and your customer are dependant on a range of different factors. By adopting these methods as common practice you will not only improve customer satisfaction but also see a measurable increase in cloud hosting resales.
Focusing on improving you customer satisfaction leaves little time for admin tasks. To free up your time, plug into WHMCS from our provisioning platform and let it take care of billing your clients and tracking invoices. If this sounds like the support you need, be sure to download our WHMCS guide for hositing resellers.
