Sales 101. Ask qualifying questions.
How long have you been looking for this item?
Who else have you talked to? (or What online sources are you looking at?)
Why haven't you made a purchase yet?
How soon do you need the item?
If you find the right item, what are you expecting to pay?
What other criteria is influencing your buying decision?
Do you want to pick that up at my facility or do I need to deliver/ship it?
Heheh. I love that stuff. I'm usually on the receding end of these things when someone wants to sell me IT stuff for work.
"How long? Oh we're always looking at new technologies that make or save us money. Can yours?"
"Who else? I'm not at liberty to give specifics on other vendor's staff names but I can give brand names. [insert long list of industry standard names here... Cisco, Foundry, etc etc etc, even if I haven't talked to them yet. Because I will. Not going to let any vendor know I only have called them, so far, that's for sure.]"
"We haven't made a purchase yet because I don't have a written price quote in hand at a price that makes sense for our business."
"We don't need the item, we only need the item if it solves a problem that costs X. If the price of the item is too high, it may be wonderful but it costs more than the problem it's solving. So we aren't in any hurry unless the product meets the required price to make it a net win for us. I can afford the labor to deal with the old product up to a point."
"Labor to deal with the old product is about X hours and we pay that lower level tech staff approximately Y per hour. So I'd expect to pay generally less than that to solve the problem with technology, or the technology would need to save us more elsewhere or make us more elsewhere. Tell me how this thing will do that."
"We like this product [I won't lie...] but there are competitive products that do very similar things in this biz, and I'd need to know what yours can do that is different and how it helps our bottom line. If the product is modular, and the idea is to sell us additional feature sets, I need the price of those features in writing as options on this proposal."
"I'm not driving around to pick things up. I want it delivered and an option on the quote for full installation. Keep the numbers in mind above about my labor costs and don't insult me on your install price. We understand travel expenses may need to be rolled in, but don't get wild. I can install it myself or have staff do it if installation is too high."
I know I know. It's not auto parts, but I love it when salespeople know their side of the negotiation process and these questions start up. That's my cue to ask my own tough questions right back.
The good sales people will write down the needs and get back quickly after checking pricing.
The great sales people will know it off the top of their heads and get me a quote same day or next day.
The mediocre ones get the quote to me in a week.
And the bad ones, well, I have to call them to prompt them to get their job done.
I won't do that last one unless I really want that particular product's pricing and I'm already TICKED if I have to call them, so they're likely not to get the sale anyway.
In the end, IT or any sort of tech investment is about making or saving the company money and the stuff has a shelf life and renewal costs that eat the bottom line alive. Many large IT departments don't look at it this way and just want stuff to grow their "empire" but at a small place, I have to be ruthless about IT spending actually making the business itself stronger, not weaker.
The only IT purchases I'll allow to make us lose money are the ones mandatory for legal or contractual purposes, and OUR sales guys had better be charging correctly for our products to cover those.
