In my late 20s a single mom I worked with asked me to teach her teenage daughter how to drive. Mom drove a manual transmission VW van and she wanted me to use my car. At the time I drove an automatic. I told her I would teach her daughter but, only if I could use her van.
I said to my colleague if her daughter learns to drive a stick she’ll have more tools to resource from and she’ll never be stranded.
Over the next couple of weeks the teenage daughter and I practiced weekday afternoons and evenings and on weekends; in different driving environments while learning to shift gears and negotiate a clutch on speed bumps and up and down hills, parallel street parking and neighborhood driving and, freeway driving and merging at the flow of traffic – all while practicing situational awareness and learning to drive defensively.
Several years later when this teenager had become a woman and, following the death of her mom, the daughter reached out unexpectedly to thank me again for teaching her to drive.
She told me she was grateful for learning to drive in a defensive, pragmatic way and that she was surprised how often she saw other drivers, more often than not, driving aggressively without defensive posturing.
Reflecting on this reminds me of stories we hear from many OEMs about their interactions with EMS sales people; EMS sales people with seemingly little or no tools for effective engagement with savvy OEM decision makers using selling tactics involving more talking than listening to OEM wanting to solve their business challenges.
A better way
EMS marketing today involves targeting, mining and pipelining more and more prospects into the funnel yet still having a proportionally high number of ‘prospects’ to disqualify. For those deemed qualified, CRM software remains an art when it comes to helping EMS providers determine where in the buy process their seemingly pre-qualified prospects are in their decision-making phase; all while spending additional costs to nurture these prospects with poorly written automated CRM message touch points that do nothing more than try to continue to sell to the prospect with each message.
Its not surprising to hear this mechanical approach is annoying to the intelligent OEM buyer. And EMS providers wonder why new EMS deal close ratios are low?
Good EMS marketing and sales practices and procedures exist and work but many EMS marketers and sales people don’t have access to the knowledge, or adequate procedures plus, they still talk more than they listen.
We suggest EMS providers approach and treat OEMs with the patience and respect they deserve. Selling electronics solutions and closing new business wins is a complex sale requiring thoughtful best practices and a good dose of critical thinking.
Yet many EMS sales people still behave like characters in the 1992 movie Glengarry Glen Ross. “EMS sales people are more interested in being my friend than helping me solve my problems,” says one senior vice president of worldwide operations for an OEM providing wireless solutions to a global customer base.
Persistence matters but speed and thoughtful practices matter more. In the spirit of our objective to help OEM decision makers save time and make more informed decisions, we have a better way for EMS providers to engage OEMs sooner and on a deeper level to help solve their business challenges. For more, EMS marketing and sales professionals can write Evelyn at ewyatt@ventureoutsource.com
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