Simplicity
Speaks Volumes
A
long-standing sales axiom is to know your client, and know the industry.
This was easy in the Old Economy, back in the days when shoes, cars and
sportswear were the heart of retail.
In
e-tail, there’s a whole lot more to know, and a lot more complexity.
You can’t look under the hood, and you can no longer depend on an
elegant showroom to display your product or service. Instead, you must rely on
the look-and-feel of your product’s display on a screen.
And because new e-tail tools may require installation, configuration and
maintenance fees, sticker shock may be delayed well beyond the point-of-sale.
A
product demo barely begins to tell the whole story—and may leave your client
asking more questions than before. Since
the New Economy includes many technologies that must work together, there are
many layers of complexity.
Help
your Client KISS Complexity Goodbye
The
challenge for you, as an ISO, is to know more, yet adhere to the old KISS
axiom—Keep It Simple, Stupid. These
days, nearly everyone is overwhelmed by technical information, and it will be
your job to make the retailer—or e-tailer—breathe a sigh of relief.
So, meet
the challenge of complexity head-on, step-by-step. Each day, identify one thing about e-commerce that you
don’t understand, and do your best to find the answer. Perhaps it’s a technical term or acronym that you need
defined. Or a concept demystified.
Or a process explained.
Even
though you may feel that you need to understand a whole new technology from
start to finish, choose to learn just one thing at a time.
Once you’ve identified what you want to know, lots of resources are
available. You might:
1. Ask a
friend-in-the-know,
2. Visit
a computer store and ask a sales person there,
3.
Search the Internet for technical dictionaries, glossaries, or
4. Take
advantage of white papers and tutorials offered on many Web sites.
The
more you know, the better you’ll be able to speak your client’s language,
solve his problem, and close that sale!
Back
| Index
|