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RFID EDITOR'S NOTE
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Helping RFID Vendors Connect With RFID Buyers
RFID Journal's goal is to do even more to help vendors engage companies interested in deploying RFID solutions.
By Mark Roberti
Dec. 7, 2009—Given the current economic downturn, many providers of radio frequency identification hardware, software and services are struggling. I've been frustrated that more businesses are not investing in RFID. During a recent conversation about why that is the case, an end user suggested I read the book Selling to Big Companies, by Jill Konrath, to help me understand the reasons RFID vendors aren't getting through to large enterprises.
I found the book to be a very successful sales trainer, and very interesting. Konrath describes the state of mind of the current end user, who lives in a corporate world of mergers and acquisitions, downsizing, rightsizing, reengineering and constant pressure from investors to deliver 10 percent profits year after year.
Konrath writes: "Corporate decision makers aren't just struggling with an immense workload. Every day, they're bombarded with thousands of marketing messages coming at them from every direction—television, road signs, radio, online, reading, mail, voice mail and more. No matter what they do, they can't escape.
"The noise from these pervasive and intrusive marketing practices has become so unbearable to your prospective customers. They ignore unsolicited attempts to capture their attention. They disregard claims of superiority or differentiation, viewing those claims as marketing puffery, created for the sole purpose of manipulation."
Corporate buyers, she says, "know that products and services like yours are available everywhere—and probably at lower cost. From their perspective, almost everything is a commodity. Cynicism reigns supreme."
According to Konrath, buyers just don't have time to investigate new solutions, and technology sellers are not competing against one another—they're competing with the status quo. It's easier, safer and less time-consuming, she argues, for a big company to do nothing.
Dec. 7, 2009—Given the current economic downturn, many providers of radio frequency identification hardware, software and services are struggling. I've been frustrated that more businesses are not investing in RFID. During a recent conversation about why that is the case, an end user suggested I read the book Selling to Big Companies, by Jill Konrath, to help me understand the reasons RFID vendors aren't getting through to large enterprises.
I found the book to be a very successful sales trainer, and very interesting. Konrath describes the state of mind of the current end user, who lives in a corporate world of mergers and acquisitions, downsizing, rightsizing, reengineering and constant pressure from investors to deliver 10 percent profits year after year.
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"The noise from these pervasive and intrusive marketing practices has become so unbearable to your prospective customers. They ignore unsolicited attempts to capture their attention. They disregard claims of superiority or differentiation, viewing those claims as marketing puffery, created for the sole purpose of manipulation."
Corporate buyers, she says, "know that products and services like yours are available everywhere—and probably at lower cost. From their perspective, almost everything is a commodity. Cynicism reigns supreme."
According to Konrath, buyers just don't have time to investigate new solutions, and technology sellers are not competing against one another—they're competing with the status quo. It's easier, safer and less time-consuming, she argues, for a big company to do nothing.
