Software salespeople rarely look out for your best interests.
- They minimize the complexity of the software’s implementation and mischaracterize it as an out-of-the-box solution designed to include industry best practices.
- The likelihood that a software developer understands your best practices as well as you do and designed the software to incorporate your best practices into the software is zero.
- Similarly, if you implement an enterprise software solution without any modification or customization to use it “out-of-the-box,” you are doing it wrong.
Their primary motivation is to sell software. They emphasize the look and feel of the software and technical “innovations” you may never utilize.
- At the same time, they minimize the complexity of the software and the complexity of implementation, and they misrepresent the time and money it will take to complete the project.
- In the lawsuits we litigate, we see gross misrepresentations of functionality and the intentional underbidding of implementation projects to win the business—with change order after change order driving up the project’s cost.
The risk this presents is real.
- Based on these misrepresentations, customers have a legitimate reason to think the implementation project or digital transformation will be easier than expected.
- However, because of this incorrect understanding, they will devote fewer resources to and budget less money for the project, thereby setting themselves up for failure.
Do not fall victim to high-pressure sales tactics. What can you expect, and what should you look for when dealing with software salespeople? I discuss these issues in my latest video.