How to sell technology to your boss and your boss's boss

There are two basic modes of action in business: making money and saving money.

Well, make it three: the black sheep is, of course, losing money.

Making money is much more interesting than saving money.

Making money means that you pour money into a business process, and get more money out from the other end of the process than you originally invested.

Your boss's boss has a lot of money to invest. He's only interested in hearing about business processes that are both profitable and, as importantly, can accomodate the kind of amount of money he has available to invest.

If a business process is profitable, but can only take 500 EUR and turn it to 1000 EUR, he won't be interested. Yes, even if a 50% profit is guaranteed, it's not worth it unless you can put in at least 1,000,000 EUR, or in some large companies, 100,000,000 EUR, and get a 20% profit on that.

Similarly, saving money is interesting if the way to save money is applicable to a large business process that goes through a lot of money to provide a profit.

When the business is turning a loss, however, your boss and your boss's boss will be eager to find savings even in medium and small processes, especially in those parts of the process that are not directly turning existing inventory or other assets into revenue. They are eager, not because of any direct business effects of those savings, but because in times of loss, there is a lot of blame to go around, and they will be eager to receive as little as possible. One way to duck blame is to be able to make an argument, or even show, that your department is cutting costs. The blame pertains both to them, personally, and to their whole department. If you don't help them duck it, it might be your position that gets cut.

OK, are you ready to sell technology?

First, start with a self-assessment. Do you know enough about your department's and the company's business, objectives, strategy and budget so that you can talk about them with your boss in such a way that your boss will find you credible and want to continue the conversation?

The answer is probably no. You've spent all your life learning to be really good at what you do, while your boss has spent his life trying to do the same. There's not a lot of natural common ground, which is a shame.

If you can't immediately sound credible, don't start selling before you've had a chance to prepare.

The good news is that if your boss has a high opinion of you as a person, expert and employee, she'll probably want to help you to become able to discuss those subjects credibly.

If not, or if she's just too busy, or there's some other reason, you can try to move laterally, and start by expanding your knowledge of, for example, sales and marketing, by finding a trustworthy contact and expressing the wish to learn. People are generally very eager to talk about themselves and what they do well.

You might want to think through why you're embarking on this quest for knowledge. People will be interested in your motivations and objectives. Learn to express your sincere desire to be able to work with different kinds of people better, and your awakening to the fact that other professions are imporant, too. They will be curious to know whether you have a specific political motivation for your questions. Best not to mention political matters at this point. If you're known as a firm proponent of some idea that's losing traction, try to remember that it's very important to try to look at that matter, and the whole, from an alternative point of view.

With a little help from your friends, you'll be able to find out what larger objectives and constraints your business and your department has, how the political landscape looks, and who you must win on your side to be able to sell your ideas. Be careful to find out what your boss and boss's boss are interested in, and are in a position to sell upwards.

Now, knowing what you do about technology, and with your newfound knowledge, draw a grid of all of the matters you find important at this point, and think of how the technology you want to sell can make a little money in a lot of places, a lot of money in few places, save money, and so on like we've discussed.

Then pull back and think of what in that technology creates that particular opportunity. Generalize to the level of a fairly well known phenomenon. If you'd want to sell VMware, you'd think virtualization at this point, or maybe even consolidation. OK, take those broader concepts and think things through. What other things associate to the concept? What kind of a history does that concept have, what kind of a future do credible or popular writers predict, and would you personally bet ten thousand euros on that technology. What are the alternative ways to approach that business problem? Now that you think about it, is the technology you want to sell really an appropriate solution to this problem? Go through your grid and write these things down.

Sleep on it, and let your thoughts simmer for a couple of days.

Now it's time to cull the herd. Cut out the ideas that you don't have enough expertise to discuss with confidence. Cut out ideas that don't apply to your department's current situation. Cut it all down, leave three to five ideas. Cutting doesn't mean that you abandon the idea entirely, it just means that you'll have to think about it more before going forward with it.

Research the three to five things you picked. Who else is doing this, or similar things? What kinds of resources would you really need to do this? How many buyers are there on the market? Has your boss or your boss's boss said something that could be interpreted as interest in this problem?

You want to do two things that are difficult to do at once: prepare yourself very well for a discussion about your ideas, but also keep your mind and opinions on the matter fluid enough that you can see the problem from the viewpoint of others, adapt to new or conflicting information, or change your opinion entirely if need be.

Then it's time to start selling your ideas. If you're unsuccesful, you'll get the blame. If you're successful, someone else will take the credit. But you don't care about that, right? Right?