Business Development Expert

Have you ever stopped to think just how much the word “if” is worth? Judging by the way many salespeople talk, it must be costing them a fortune. For example: “Sure I would close more business”…“If the economy was better,” “If I had a bigger territory,” “If our prices were more competitive,” “If the competition wasn’t so strong,” “If our product or service was better,” “If the prospect would only…” Think for a moment – how many times have you heard, or said, a similar phrase after losing an opportunity…and if so, how much were those missed opportunities worth?

A true sales-professional can-not, and would-not blame a missed sale on any of the conditions mentioned above. The “professional” salesperson would use “if” in a context of “opportunity” as opposed to one of “limitation”. They would use “if” to find ways to gain control of enough variables to have more predictability and control over the sales process. They are much more likely to say “If I plan what I want to accomplish on this call . . .,” “If I set the agenda for the meeting with my prospect up-front . . .,” “If I discuss all the money issues with my prospect early in the selling process . . .,” “If I listen to what my prospect is telling me, rather than what I want to tell him.”…then, I’ll be better positioned to accomplish my goals.

The most important “if” is: “If I would only take responsibility for my actions, then I would understand that sometimes the results will be unfavorable, but in the long run I will be better off. I will be in control, my confidence and self-esteem will grow, my knowledge will expand, I will gain new courage, my sales will improve, and I will be looked upon as a true sales professional.”

Yes, “if” is worth a great deal of money. Whether that money is in your bank account or someone else’s will be determined by the way in which you look at the word “if”. Are they externalized excuses over which you supposedly have no control, or are they internal conditions over which you have an absolute control? Be careful how you answer. Remember, it’s worth a lot of money!

We understand the issues and obstacles that salespeople face, and strive to equip our clients with the right Attitudes, Behaviors, and Techniques to overcome those obstacles, enabling them to build a more mutually beneficial relationship with their clients and close more business. Please contact us with questions of how we might assist you.

Business Development Expert

I don’t have time to watch a lot of television these days, but there is one program, “Gold Rush”, that seems to have caught my interest lately. You may have seen its promos on the Discovery Channel. Now, I’m not selling all my possessions and heading off to Alaska to dig for treasure, but after watching this program, I have learned a few things about mining for gold.

For example, first you have to be able to identify what gold is. It sounds pretty basic, but we’ve all heard of “fools gold”- a mineral called pyrite. To most of us, it may just look like a little residue in a pan; however, if you’re going to be successful prospecting, you better be able to identify the real stuff from the fake.

Once you know what you’re looking for, you have to determine where to invest your time, energy and resources in order to find it. There were a number of potential dig sites on their claim, and while one person wanted to start with the “riverbed”, another wanted to dig the “glory hole”, and the rest, well they just wanted to start mining. So, they seemed to go after the nearest pile of dirt. If you’re going to be successful, you better spend your time where you have the highest probability of finding gold.

There are also a number of ways to unearth the precious metal, and each individual had a different opinion on how to accomplish this. Some folks wanted to remove layers of soil until they got down to “pay dirt” and others wanted to dig a deep hole down to the “bed rock”. Each person would adopt an approach they were comfortable with, and would stick with it even if it was completely unproductive. The point is that no single approach works all the time, or in every situation. If you’re going to be successful, you have to be prepared to change your approach when you’re not getting the results you expect.

The group also faced numerous obstacles along the way, such as equipment failures, lack of diesel, or other resources. Each time they faced an obstacle it forced operations to come to a complete halt, sometimes for days at a time – costing them valuable time and money. So in order to continue production, they need to anticipate obstacles and be flexible enough to make changes when the situation demands.

So what sales’ prospecting lessons can we learn from gold mining?

1. Know what you’re looking for. The best indicator of future success is prior success, so take a look at your current/former clients. Where did they come from? Or, what characteristics do they have in common. This will help you identify the key attributes of your “ideal” client. Once you understand these criteria, you are much more likely to be able to tell a real prospect from a fake.
2. Know where to look. Start with where you found your current/former clients, but don’t expend all of your time/energy/ and resources in one single area. You need to have a systematic approach and be selective where you invest your time. Test, sample, and track your results with specific groups, events, and associations before you invest all your time, energy, and resources in an unproductive area.
3. Diversify your prospecting activities. Don’t get stuck in an unproductive routine and be sure to maintain a healthy mix of prospecting activities. In addition to preventing frequent burnout, it helps develop weaker prospecting skills, and takes the pressure off any one activity.
4. Have a plan, monitor your progress, and be flexible enough to adapt to changing situations. Plan – establish a goal for each activity and plan the behaviors you believe it will take to be successful. Monitor – track your behaviors against the plan, and track your results, this way you can determine if it’s frequency or competency that needs to improve. And finally, be flexible to change – but base your need to change upon data, not your emotions. These elements will help keep you focused, motivated, and increases your productivity.

Prospecting is the first step in selling, it’s always not easy, but it is necessary. In fact, Sandler Rule #7 says; “You Never Have To Like Prospecting, You Just Have To Do It.”

One of the biggest problems that I see is that too many salespeople will spend too much time with prospects that are not qualified to become clients because the alternative is to do more prospecting. Don’t avoid prospecting – acquire the skills, develop the plan, and become an effective prospector, and the quality and quantity of your prospects will improve dramatically.

We help sales managers and salespeople utilize their time and resources more effectively. We understand the issues and obstacles that sales teams face, and we strive to equip our clients with the right Attitudes, Behaviors, and Techniques to overcome those obstacles, enabling them to build a more mutually beneficial relationship with their clients and close more business. Please contact us at tplunkett@sandler.com with questions of how we might assist you.

Business Development Expert

“…try, try again!” I’m sure no one had an extremely difficult time finishing that famous quote. When I hear the word “try”, it reminds me of a conversation with a colleague, during which he suggested – that we all need to eliminate the word “try” from our vocabulary. Let’s pretend we did eliminate the word try, so “If at first you don’t succeed…then what?”

Until this conversation, I never thought much about how frequently most of us use the word “try”. I’ll try to exercise, I’ll try to volunteer, I’ll try to…well, you get the drift. I always thought of “trying” as an honorable thing to do. We provide support and encouragement, by saying “nice try”, or “you gave it that good ‘ol college try”. And doesn’t every successful person talk about how important it is to never give up on your goals and dreams, their message always seems to be -just keep trying. And who can forget Daniel “Rudy” Ruttiger, who kept trying and trying to make the football team at Notre Dame? His story was so encouraging they made a movie about his eventual success.

So I decided to look up the word in the dictionary, thinking perhaps I misunderstood the definition. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary gives 5 different meanings for the word “try”; 1) to examine, 2) to put to a test, 3) to purify or refine, 4) to fit or finish with accuracy, and 5) to make an attempt at.

Most of the time when someone uses the word “try” it appears to me that they are referring to number five, “to make an attempt at”. But is persistence alone the “key” to success? The word “try” just seems to fall short, surely the success that these people attribute to the word “try” has something else besides just “making an attempt”. I mean, anyone can “attempt” to do something, but that certainly doesn’t mean that they “will” do it. And, “making an attempt at” certainly seems to diminish great accomplishments, like the persistence that “Rudy” embodied.

I believe that missing ingredient is the desire or the “will” to actually accomplish the task rather than just attempt it. Think about the message that would be sent at the wedding alter, if when reciting your vows, your soon-to-be spouse said “I’ll try?” I would hazard a guess their response would not be well received. Of course what you would want to hear is “I will”. I will, commit to doing – whatever it takes.

It brings to mind the Nike slogan…”Just do it”. Being the father of a teenager, I can’t help but to believe that the marketing person who crafted this iconic slogan was asking their teenage son to clean his room. When their son responded with “I’ll try”… they commanded “don’t try…Just do it!” Of course what was the parent looking for? A commitment – a much more favorable response would have been “I will clean my room…Drill Sergeant!”

Of course we will all run into obstacles that create challenges for us, but to really achieve success we have to do more than simply make attempt, after attempt. We must create a mindset, one of determination and desire, a commitment that we “will” accomplish the goal no matter what, not just to simply “try”. So set good goals, put detailed plans in place, and don’t just try – just do it – and I think you’ll find that when you put these elements together you won’t need to have the word “try” in your vocabulary any longer.

We understand the issues and obstacles that salespeople face, and strive to equip our clients with the right Attitudes, Behaviors, and Techniques to overcome those obstacles, enabling them to build a more mutually beneficial relationship with their clients and close more business. Please contact us with questions of how we might assist you.

Business Development Expert

According to Time Magazine nearly half of us this year have made a Resolution to leave behind some bad habit, or to make a positive change in our lives. Perhaps we want to find a significant other, find a new job, spend more time with our family, or pay off some debt. According to Psychology Today’s statistics, most people make resolutions regarding their health; it may be to lose weight, eat right, or to workout. You may have noticed the gym is a little busier, and the infomercials are more frequent, which makes this the fitness industry’s busiest season of the year. The bottom line is – it’s about getting fit – besides, nobody wants to be a Wimp – right?

When it comes to Sales, I find that we don’t mind being Wimps. Of course we all are sensitive to providing good Customer Service. I mean come on we’ve all heard (mostly from our customers) that “the customer is always right”. We know that long-term relationships are built upon compromise, and in order to build trust, credibility, and rapport, sometimes you have to make a sacrifice to help out a client. But what sometimes happens is that we get used to responding to request, expectations, and even demands from our Clients, and although it’s clearly not in our best interest….we “wimp”.

If the client has all the answers – they don’t need us! Each one of us brings a level of knowledge and expertise in our prospective field, and we have a tremendous amount to offer, but some clients want us to give that to them for free – and all they have to do – is ask. We wimp, and when we do, all of our value gets stripped away, and we are left to compete on price, because – let’s face it, that’s all that’s left.

As you look forward into 2012, eat right, exercise, spend time with your family…but remember…Plant Your Feet, Stand Your Ground, and Don’t Wimp!

We help salespeople respond more appropriately when asked tough questions by clients. We understand the issues and obstacles that salespeople face, and strive to equip our clients with the right Attitudes, Behaviors, and Techniques to overcome those obstacles, enabling them to build a more mutually beneficial relationship with their clients and close more business. Please contact us with questions of how we might assist you.

Business Development Expert

Last week a good friend of mine invited me to Surprise Birthday Party for his wife’s 50th Birthday. On the day of the party, they set off on their way to the restaurant for what she thought was going be a nice quite dinner. But as you might guess, my friend had a different agenda, and additional information, that his wife was completely unaware of. He had made arrangements for their “nice quiet dinner” to include a room full of friends and family joining them to celebrate her birthday at the restaurant.

I have seen way too many sales people treat a “Sales Presentation” like a “Surprise Birthday Party”. Meaning that the sales people have an agenda or information that the prospect is completely unaware of, and they keep it a secret until they are in a position to present. They think that by saving, what they believe are their strengths (features and benefits), they can deliver a “killer presentation”, which will impress the prospective client making it impossible for them to resist.

This may not get you in trouble every time, but far too often I’ve seen…
Reps who overwhelm the prospect with information. They surprise them with stuff that the prospect had never even thought, or cared about – that is until the sales person brought it up. With all this new information, they’ve certainly given the prospect something to think about, which often leads to “paralysis by analysis”, eventually delaying, if not even costing them the sale.

Another surprise might be when the “prospect” brings up issues with your products or services during a presentation. Don’t feel bad, it happens to a lot of sales people, so often in fact that we have a name for it – it’s called “stalls and objections”. But, that’s not a problem, right? Many of us spent a good deal of time learning how to “handle” stalls and objections, ever heard of “Feel – Felt – Found”? “I understand why you would feel that way, I had another prospect that felt the same way, let me tell you what they found”. Problem is – wouldn’t you rather learn about the issues your prospect might have with your product or service long before you’ve spent the time, effort, and resources it takes to do a presentation?

Sandler Rule:“Only give a presentation to confirm an order”. You must realize that you have not earned the right to give a presentation, until you know exactly what the prospect wants and needs to see or hear from you in order to make a decision. Even then, you are only entitled to address those issues that you discovered prior to the presentation, in other words – “No Surprises”!

As you can imagine, my friend’s wife was delighted and very grateful to see everyone, and the Party was a very nice event and a welcomed surprise – but remember Sales Presentations should never be like Surprise Birthday Parties!

Business Development Expert

My soon to be 16 year old son has recently earned his learners permit, meaning that I occasionally end up in the passenger seat as he continues to learn how to drive. Although he is a pretty good driver, I occasionally have to remind him to “maintain his lane”. A few days ago we were talking about two lane highways, and reason for solid versus broken stripes. I explained to him that crossing that solid line can be very dangerous, he has to be aware of it, and be conscious to stay on the right side of that line.
Similar to highway lines, there are lines in Sales – a line between success and failure. In fact, there’s a quote something to the effect of “The line between failure and success is so fine that we scarcely know when we pass it; so fine that we are often on the line and do not know it.” More specifically the line that salespeople have to be aware of is what we call the “Trouble Line”.
As a salesperson you visit prospects with the goal of spending as much time as possible with them in order to help grow their businesses. A fundamental aspect of successful time management in business is knowing which activities constitute work. In other words, what is your job description? What tasks do you have to perform to get the job done? It is helpful to divide these tasks into two categories: Pay Activities and No-Pay Activities.

Pay time:

Basic time management requires that pay activities be performed during pay time. These are the hours during which your customer, client, or prospect is most likely to be available to do business. Pay time for a salesperson is defined as the time the prospect is open for business, it varies by industry, but for most of us it’s 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The responsibilities and actions the salesperson has during pay time are those “directly related to the generation of income”.

No-pay time:

No-pay time is any time outside the boundaries of your normal working schedule. This is the time for reading/studying up on products/services, making sure you have plenty of marketing materials, reviewing new marketing promotions and customer surveys, for completing reports and paperwork and for account, territory, and goals planning. These activities must be done in order to be effective but are “non-income generating tasks”.

Be disciplined with how you spend your time, spend more time on Pay-Time Activities – when your clients are available, and you’ll move the sales process along more quickly, accelerate sales, and generate more revenue, profit, and commissions.

Good Luck and Great Selling,
Terry

Most good ERPs can offer you deeper insight into your daily and monthly sales activity and will automate your sales force, by streamlining the sales process. If you let them, they’ll guide you and help establish best practices within your company, and identify the strengths and weaknesses of your sales organization so that you can address the needs of each member accordingly. By recognizing and making the most of ERPs process-oriented nature, you can harness the power of your ERP to improve your overall operations, including sales.

Sales Cycle

With non-integrated systems, different departments often disagree with one another as to how they contribute to a company’s revenue. With an ERP, everyone finds themselves on the same page, viewing the same revenue data. Both sales staff and management are able to review the progress of either the entire team or even individual sales team members, thus allowing them to make adjustments as necessary in order to achieve sales goals. By building transparency into the system, the ERP also provides a way to infuse accountability into a process that, in many cases, is often vague and arbitrary. In this way, an ERP will help streamline your sales cycle through effective use of time and company resources. Sales staff can then focus on generating leads and following up on them.

Customer Service

An ERP improves customer service by shortening the time from quote to shipment. When a customer order is entered, all departments can see the data, access it, and update it as needed. Most ERPs, including Mothernode, can also handle a variety of pricing configurations, from volume pricing to multiple pricing levels and the like. They can also send automatic notifications to customers during the entire ordering process, thus eliminating the need to dedicate human resources to responding to basic customer service questions. When orders travel smoothly through the software route, customers get their orders quicker and with fewer errors. Increased speed and accuracy translates into increased customer satisfaction, which means more customer referrals.

Billing and Invoicing

An ERP lends great flexibility and makes it easy to determine your best and worst customers. Because an ERP gives a minute-by-minute picture of business activity, employees will be able to work with billing and invoicing in real time and respond to challenges as they arise. Since an ERP allows adjustments up to the last minute, you can better handle even the most complex orders, from multiple line-item orders to recurring invoices to partial shipments. Faster and smoother processing expedites sales.

Sales Staff

An ERP puts helpful tools into the hands of managers and sales staff alike. If you’re a manager, an ERP makes it easy to pull in sales leads from your company website and assign those leads to your sales representatives. With the help of detailed, real-time reports, you can determine who your best and least-performing sales staff are, adjust your incentives accordingly, and help your employees meet their goals. Global reporting tools also provide you with important information about your entire department’s sales activities, giving you the opportunity to review your progress and generate future milestones and goals.

Return on Investment

With a SaaS ERP, you’ll enjoy a greater ROI. SaaS installation is cheaper and takes less time than an on-premise ERP. Upgrades are automatic and require very little downtime, minimizing disruption to business as usual. A SaaS solution like Mothernode offers expansion packs for customization, helping your business grow. Since SaaS ERP is affordable and optimized throughout all phases of its deployment, you’ll get a healthy ROI which boosts overall efficiency, including sales.

With the business-wide visibility of an ERP come greater levels of responsibility and accountability. Better, more efficient management of resources through process automation and streamlined systems eliminates redundancies and unnecessary work and leads to better business decisions and higher customer satisfaction. All these factors are crucial to improving your sales and growing your business.

First of all, expect mistakes. In my last post, I discussed some last-minute issues regarding ERP pre-launch tasks, including authorizations, communications and testing. No matter how much you’ve tested and communicated, however, you’ll encounter problems. That’s the nature of the ERP world, and the sooner you recognize that, the better prepared you’ll be to troubleshoot and resolve them.

Expect to change your business procedures

Remember that when it comes to ERP solutions, it’s not a software change but a business model change. If you find yourself thinking, “Why can’t it work the way it used to,” remember the reasons why you chose to implement a new ERP. Chances are, one of them is that the old business model you operated under simply didn’t work anymore or wasn’t able to accommodate growth or changes in your industry. Before you start blaming the software and trying to wrestle it to make it work the “old way,” think about how you can change your processes so that you allow the ERP to do what it’s supposed to: streamline your operations and upgrade your business.

Be patient

No matter how much training your staff had, no matter how many memos flew back and forth company-wide, and no matter what your expectations, know that things will take longer than usual to get done. The essence of change management is allowing for inevitable delays as corporate shifts disrupt fossilized ways of thinking and doing. Accounting will need time to acclimatize to the new invoicing system, even if you were able to integrate Peachtree to your new ERP system. Your sales staff will need time to learn how to input purchase orders, and your warehouse will need time to work out the inventory control management system in place. As with every change, familiarity will take time, so allow for longer processing periods, questions and even a little confusion as everyone gets used to the new system.

Continue training

As you add new staff to your company, they’ll obviously need training on your new ERP, but keep in mind that current staff should also be required to pursue continuing education in the software system periodically. At the very least, as they become comfortable with the system and develop an expertise in it, it’ll be much easier for them to offer suggestions for improvement. Providing them with a workshop or training seminar every two or three years can be a great way to encourage them to think about how the system works, what doesn’t work, and how it can be improved.

Share your knowledge with others

The entire ERP industry is rife with stories of implementation failures, lessons learned, fingers pointed, and plenty of tears shed. Just as you learned from the failures of others when you implemented your ERP, so should you “give back,” so to speak, by sharing what you’ve learned with others who may be thinking about going the same route. Despite the few horror stories, there’s no question that businesses of all shapes and sizes are more interested in ERP solutions today than they ever have been, not the least because of their enticing cost and efficiency savings. Write a white paper, create a blog, present at a conference, or offer to speak candidly about your experiences to your ERP provider’s future clients. Sometimes, the most effective lessons learned aren’t from the “best” practices, but rather from the “worst.”

Hope you enjoyed our ERP implementation management series! Tell us about your own stories — good, bad, ugly, thrilling, whatever — in the comments below. We’d love to hear your feedback!

And now…the moment we’ve all been waiting for…sound the drums…

Seriously, the moment of truth has arrived. That’s right: the launch. Or rather, it’s a few days before the launch of your ERP implementation, and your company is on the proverbial pins-and-needles as it prepares for the much-anticipated go-live date. Hopefully, if you’ve followed the previous tips on kickstarting the ERP implementation; managing the transition; and hiring a qualified ERP consultant, you’re already well-prepared for when your systems are go and you’re ready to flip the switch, figuratively speaking.

As you count down the days before your business undergoes what is likely the most significant change in its history since it was founded, here are some last-minute things to review prior to the official launch:

1. Are you sure you’re actually ready to go-live? Don’t make the mistake of skipping this seemingly obvious step, but you’d be surprised at how tempting it can be to try and stick to a go-live date that was determined six months or more in the past but which turned out to be unrealistic. Hopefully after many months of planning, communications, training, and testing, not to mention producing and going through countless checklists, you will be able to answer that question with great confidence, but if there’s doubt as to whether or not you and your staff are ready or that the system itself is ready for its close-up, there’s nothing wrong with moving that date back just to make sure.
2. Training – Providing quality training to your customers is essential to the success of your launch. Before introducing any training program to your new users, you should spend time in one-on-one sessions training department supervisors and team leads. They’ll be able to provide you with final feedback before engaging the masses. If you can, you should always encourage department heads to participate as bystanders and supporters during the training process so that they can help explain how the processes employees have been used to for so many years will be interpreted in their new ERP system.
3. Having said that, remember that the post-launch period will always have a few hiccups, regardless of how flawless your pre-launch preparation was. You may find that, despite scrupulous scrubbing, the data migration isn’t complete or still contains errors. You and your employees will inevitably forget how seamlessly integrated your system is now, so when someone makes a mistake during the processing of a customer order, the consequences ripples through the system much more quickly. No matter how well you plan for success, know that part of that plan must include contingencies for errors and unforeseen events.
4. Be relentless in your communications. Perhaps at no other stage in the entire pre-launch period is communications among all stakeholders most important. Ensure that all staff members are periodically briefed on the go-live date, what to expect, who they can turn to should they have any questions, and how to contact the help desk or support team. Ensure that all staff members have help manuals at their fingertips, whether in print format, CD, corporate intranet, or even wiki, and that they know how to use it to find the information they need.
5. Make a list, and check it twice. Or more. ERP implementation checklists are ubiquitous to every system, and they’re especially critical in the weeks leading up to the go-live date. Ideally, the checklist will have been created months before it’s ever needed, as it will undoubtedly have hundreds of details that must be reviewed before the launch date.
6. Reports and Forms – Regardless of the great benefits users will experience once they begin to grow into your systems, it’s absolutely essential that the reports and forms they’ve been depending on for years will be available in your new software. This will be a testimony to your “listening skills” during early implementation. The way in which your software conducts business and achieves results is bound to be greatly different from how your previous system worked, but your employees’ reports and forms will be the first opportunity to win them in the go-live process and reduce some of their apprehension about missing familiar tools.
7. Testing, testing, 1-2-3, or how every many times you need to get it right. Run “dress rehearsals” and simulations as often as necessary for users to become accustomed to the new system and how it works. Just as important, make sure that each user is actually able to do their job using the system.
8. Authorizations. Ensure that all users are able to access the system via their individual logins. If they only learned and experimented with the system using “dummy” login credentials during training, or if they only tried it on computers in training rooms, make sure that they are able to successfully log-in on their computers using their own login credentials before the go-live date.
9. Security. Review the entire system’s security configuration and administration thoroughly, from the security of the data and connections themselves to the data that is available to each individual user. Make sure that users are able to review and/or edit everything they need in order to do their jobs, but that any access to sensitive data is limited to authorized employees only.

Once the go-live date has been reached, of course, the other half of the implementation begins: the post-launch date review, which may include additional training, system changes, and the like. In my next post, I’ll go over some of the key points to consider after the go-live date and beyond.

One of the things you should seriously consider is hiring a qualified ERP consultant. Implementing an ERP represents a massive change for all companies, and businesses — especially small and medium-sized businesses experiencing it for the first time — need all the professional, experienced assistance they can get.This isn’t simply a matter of installing a software program, after all, but changing your entire way of doing business.

Finding the right person who will shepherd you and your staff to success on your go-live date is a delicate and absolutely critical part of the process. You want to do it right the first time because, when it comes to your hard-earned work growing your business to where it is now, failure is not an — well, you know the rest.

1. Who are they? Don’t be dazzled by the reputations of the firms you’re considering. Every consulting company, regardless of their dazzling press mentions, have their A-listers and their C-listers. Make sure that you vet a company’s team before you set them loose in your building so that you know that the folks who dazzled you with their presentations and Powerpoint and their expertise will actually be the same people consulting with you on a day-to-day basis. Check references and ask lots of questions. Your consultant(s) will be working very closely with your staff, guiding them through a major change that will ripple from the executive suite or owner’s office all the way to the guys on the field and on the shop floor. They need to have the personality and the communication skills such an important job requires.
2. What have they done? Have they ever worked in your industry? Have they ever worked with a business similar in size to yours? Can they share with you some of their successes and, most importantly, their failures? What have they learned from their previous mistakes that they can bring to your company so that you can avoid making them? How much experience do they have with the software program you’re about to implement?
3. What do they know? If all they can offer your company is their technical expertise in the particular ERP you’ve chosen, avoid them at all costs. Remember that ERP implementation isn’t about changing your software but rather about changing your business. Your consultants had better be well-versed and highly experienced not only in the technical aspects of the software but in change management and business restructuring as well. They’ll need to be part-IT consultant, part-HR consultant and part-project manager because they’ll be juggling both software and people, neither of which is ever predictable or easy to manage.
4. How will they do it? Ask them their processes and philosophy. Are they familiar with Deming management theory, Six Sigma, Kaizen, and/or other business and management philosophies? How would they work with your staff and vendors to implement the program most efficiently and smoothly, given their background and knowledge? Do they understand the different roles that will be affected by the program, e.g., sales, accounting, customer service, etc., and how they need to address each one?

Choosing and hiring a consultant to work with your firm is likely going to be a difficult, time-consuming process, but if you do it well, you can save yourself a small fortune and your company a lot of heartache in the end. Good consultants understand that technical training and IT expertise represent only a fraction of their value to their clients, and that being good change managers may prove to be their biggest role in any project.