Our customers are telling us “we want data”; not with their voices but with spending habits. Slowly but surely products that one time held magical conversations and big margins are moving into the commodity ledger. Don’t get me wrong, customers still want and demand attention on larger items from vendors, but these are fewer and far between. Shockingly activity and energy are spent at the same pace with shrinking margins, increased opportunity tax and greater frustrations.  Customers are spending their time and money with trusted advisers that can give them specific and current data in any format, without asking for it and whenever they want it. Data is the new product that is seducing our customers; it gives them the information to make “right now” decisions that affect their business. IBM for example calls this “Analytics”. The key to giving them the data they crave is to completely understand the needs of our customers, their business, the industry, their uniqueness and who are their competitors’. Managed Services and Cloud offerings require such information for successful implementation. Include proactive behavior and pushed data for right now measurement and you have a win. The companies and sales professionals that move toward this methodology, will have separated from the pack when the economy normalizes!

So the million dollar question is, “If not now then when?”