From Seed to Tree – Westcoast’s Apple Enablement Portal Can Help Your Business Grow

More than anything, this blog is about passing on useful information to our customers, and if you happen to be an Apple reseller we have some very useful information for you: we’ve revamped our Enablement Portal.

While our original Apple hub did a good enough job at providing the basics for our customers, we felt that it could use a little improvement. Consequently, we’ve spent the last few months researching and information-gathering to find out how we could deliver more of what you’re looking for.  This is what we came up with:

                                                      www.westcoast.co.uk/apple

Take a bite out of service time with the newly re-launched Westcoast Apple configuration tool

It’s not that often that we blow our own trumpet, but there are some things worth shouting about, and our newly relaunched ‘Westcoast Configured’ is one of them! 

As a Distributor, we know how important it is to get things right for your customers; it’s not just about inspiring repeat business, although that is certainly a draw; it’s mainly about inspiring confidence. Like us, you want your business to be the best in its sector; you take pride in the work you do, and you want to deliver the best possible service. Unfortunately, that can mean spending a large amount of time on what should be relatively simple tasks – such as configuring a new IT investment.

The clue is hopefully in the name, but just in case it’s left you guessing, Westcoast Configured has been devised to allow resellers to configure all Mac models – MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac Mini, and iMac – in all ways imaginable, from selecting the processor to adding accessories, so you can always deliver exactly what your customers are looking for.

Parallels Desktop 11 Makes Cortana the first Windows Feature available to Mac Users in OS X

Almost everyone who uses a Mac for work should have heard of Parallels Desktop for Mac; the great piece of software that essentially allows you to use Windows on your Mac without the need to reboot. With the launch of Windows 10 as well as the upcoming release of OS X 10.11 El Capitan, Parallels Desktop 11 for Mac is looking primed to take the software to new levels.....

Linking the questions you ask your Apple customers

In our last Apple post we gave you some suggestions as to what questions you can ask your customers to unlock further conversations, creating potential for a larger sales. This week we want to explore customer profiling a little more and give you something you can try out straight away with your customers.

Profiling your customers might be an approach that is completely alien to you or it maybe something at which you have become somewhat of an expert. Either way, our vision at Westcoast is to bring our customers together to collaborate on what those techniques may look like. Try new methods out. Share successes and challenges. But most of all, join us in becoming the experts in selling Apple Solutions.

We want to give you something you can try

out straight away with your customers.

We recommend remembering the process we call

C.H.A.I.N.

 

This is the process by which you determine your customers current situation, background, aims, pains and business needs. The result gives you a crystal clear understanding of who it is you are talking to.
You must ask the relevant questions in order to understand who you are talking to, what role does that person play and what is the environment for the company.

The idea behind using CHAIN is that by linking the the questions you ask your customer, you will start to…

 

build a solid foundation to understanding what

the full solution for that customer may be.

 

Here is the CHAIN model:
 

CURRENT SITUATION – what is their technical situation as it currently stands?

HISTORY – what is their company background?

AIMS – what is the purpose of the purchase? ISSUES – what problem is this purchase trying to fix?

NEEDS OF THE BUSINESS – what overall business need is this in response to?

A full Apple solutions goes beyond the the Apple Products themselves.We want to share with you what we do to uncover the solution. By doing this the customer benefits and you benefit by selling more products and services.

Next time we will to share with you some examples of solutions that could come from a sales conversation structured around CHAIN.

Until then we would love to know how you get on with trying this out.

Join in the discussion here!

 

Profiling your Apple customers

In our previous Apple blog post we talked about what selling an Apple solution meant, and we encouraged you to get involved in the conversation with any specific challenges that you face when selling an Apple solution, we said that before you sell anything to your customer there were a few things that had to happen.

One of those things is how to profile your customer.

This week let’s take a look at why it’s important to profile your customer and what that means to you as well as them.

Profiling your customer has huge advantages…

… but the main one is that if you know your customer profile you can ask your customer the right questions, which will help you provide the right solution.

Before we look at the solution side of things here are a few reasons why we believe it’s important to profile your customers. You will…

– have a stronger relationship with your customers
– have more trust between you and your customer
– find it easier to uncover opportunities
– know more about what your customer wants and needs – increase your reputation

– sell more.

So those are the benefits. Here is an example of some of the questions that you can ask your customers. All of which will lead you to the right solution.

Current technical situation

• What are you currently using?
• Who is currently using it?
• What’s working for you now?

History (Organisational background)

• What industry are you in?
• What is the size of your organisation?
• What is it you do?
• Who is your customer?

Aims

• What are you trying to achieve with this purchase? • What does success look like?
• What is the vision of this technology?

Issues

• What problem is this purchase trying to fix?
• What isn’t working for you at the moment?
• What will get in the way of this being a success?

Needs of the business
• What overarching business need does this address?

Share how it felt and what the results were like with this community…

• Is this purchase intended to reduce waste, reduce cost, increase efficiency, etc..?
• Who is ultimately the decision maker?

Asking more questions is going to give you a whole load of information that you’ve never had before about that customer.
This maybe something that you are already doing, if not then we strongly encourage you to give it a go. If you do be sure to share how it felt and what the results were like with this community.

Asking more questions is going to give you a whole load of information that you’ve never had before about that customer. How to break that down and link it to a solution is something we are going to cover in our next blog.

Until then happy profiling.

The biggest mistakes when selling Apple products…

.... is when the focus is just on hardware.

The biggest mistake that we see when selling Apple products is when the focus is just on hardware. When the interaction between the reseller and the customer is transactional and that transaction is solely centred around hardware. You might think why is this such a mistake when you’ve managed to successfully sell your customer the hardware they needed or that you suggested for them.

In our experience, there is so much more that has to take place before anyone can even think of suggesting a piece of hardware or software. We are going to cover exactly what needs to happen over the next couple of weeks.

When you totally understand your customer’s situation you can then make recommendations as to how you can help them fix it with much more than just hardware.

When you get to know the customer, who they are and what they do – you start to build a clear idea of what problems they face. Only when you know what their ‘pains’ are, can you then start to ask the right questions about their situation. Moving conversations from hardware and more about the customer gives you a big advantage. You then start to understand more about not only their environment but also their position in the technology investment or simply just the organisation.

You might think that this would take more time than just a straightforward selling conversation, and you would be right. But what it does do is gives you much more clarity on what the solution to their problem may be and so your not just responding to their request for a new Mac or iPad.

“The conversation could take you onto training, software, accessories, planning, migration, servers, storage and so on.”

Knowing your customer’s situation inside out gives you the ability to open the conversation up to much more than just investing in a new piece of hardware. It gives you the chance to help your customer make the right decision on a whole solution rather than just one part of it.

The beauty of selling Apple solutions is that the more you learn about how powerful the Apple ecosystem is – the more you realise what it can do for you and your customers.

Let us know if this has been useful for you and please leave us a comment on what you think. If you are already doing this then what benefits are you already seeing?

Next time lets take a closer look at how to profile customers to make it easier to ask the right questions.

Until then try out some of the suggestions in this week’s blog and let us know how you get on.

The Westcoast Apple Team