Tending to be a low-volume, high-customisation, high-uniqueness product, OSS has a significantly different selling proposition than most “box drop” products.
Can you imagine if OSS salespeople used any of these “great deal” propositions (as described by Gary Halbert)?
“I’m going out of business.”
“I just had a fire and I’m having a fire sale.”
“I’m crazy.” (all used car dealers)
“I owe taxes and I’ve got to raise money fast to pay them.”
“I’ve lost my lease and I’ve got to sell this merchandise right away before it gets thrown into the sheet.”
“I’ve got to make space for some new merchandise that is arriving soon so I will sell you what I have on hand real cheap.”
Did the image of an OSS salesperson saying any of those, especially the first, bring a smile to your face?
Anyway, Gary’s article also goes on to say, “…I wrote: “and if you can find a way to use it, you can dramatically increase your sales volume.”
Now, compare that to this: “and if you can find a way to use it, you can make yourself a bushel of money!”
Isn’t that a lot more powerful? You bet! The words “dramatically increase your sales volume” do not even begin to conjure up the visual imagery of “a bushel of money.””
From what I’ve experienced on the client side of the buying equation, OSS selling propositions seem to be driven by functionality. I call it the functionality arms-race, where vendors compete on functionality rather than efficacy. In a way, it’s the “sales volume” variant mentioned by Gary above.
The other approach that does align more closely with the “bushel of money” variant is the cost-out discussion. It’s the, “if you implement this OSS, you’ll be able to reduce head-count in your operations team,” argument. That’s definitely important for any operator that sees their OSS as a cost-centre. However, it’s a “save a bushel of money” argument rather than the more powerful “make a bushel of money” argument.
In reply to a recent post, James Crawshaw of Light Reading wrote, “OSS/BSS represents around 2-3% of revenue and takes up around 10% of capex.” I initially read this as OSS/BSS contributing 2-3% of revenue (ie the higher the percentage the better). However, James clarified that our IT/OSS/BSS tend to consume 2-3% of revenue (ie the lower the percentage the better).
Can you imagine how these tiny wording/perspective differences could change the credibility of the whole OSS/BSS industry? As soon as our OSS make a bushel of money, then the selling proposition becomes a whole lot stronger.