A SALES REPRESENTATIVE of a major storage vendor was having difficulty getting a meeting with the CIO of a national drugstore chain. All efforts failed until he came up with a game plan to visit with the managers of 20 stores in the chain. He theorized that the store managers were actually the customers of the chain’s CIO. He was right. The visits unearthed a major storage problem that the CIO was unaware of, leading the salesman to get a visit with the CIO. A big contract followed.Salespeople are paid to craft innovative ways to sell. But what about you? How good a salesperson are you?Get out your PDA and look at the past year. How much time did you spend in the market with cash-paying customers? Probably very little.F. Warren McFarlan, senior associate dean at the Harvard Business School, told the audience at February’s CIO Enterprise Value Retreat about a CIO who spends 25 percent of his time in the field with customers. That’s one quarter of his time?one entire week per month! The power of customer conviction?and the power of new ideas on how to serve customers better?is the byproduct of visiting customers regularly.When you meet face-to-face with customers, you have an opportunity to really understand their concerns and preferences. Ask customers what they worry about. Ask them what they would like your company to start doing, stop doing and continue doing to serve them better. Ask them how much they know about your company, its values and its other customers. If they know very little about your company, its products and its strategies, it would not take much for them to switch to your competition.Getting in touch with your customers can also help you do your own job better. Want to get your frozen budgets approved for the rest of 2002? Preface your monthly presentation to your management team with how the proposed IT investments will serve customers better. Frame your comments in the customers’ voice, not yours. Position yourself and the IT department as customer advocates.Customers?and prospective customers?are the most valuable asset on your company’s balance sheet. Make getting out in the field to visit with them an important part of your job as well as that of your staff. Customers?not the CFO?will show you the surest way to enhance your company’s shareholder value.Call one today. Related content BrandPost Stay in Control of Your Data with a Secure and Compliant Sovereign Cloud By Stan Kwong Mar 23, 2023 6 mins Cloud Security Cloud Computing News Accenture to lay off 19,000 to cut costs amid economic uncertainty Technology services giant Accenture will continue to hire but meanwhile is cutting staff to streamline operations in the face of economic headwinds. By Anirban Ghoshal Mar 23, 2023 2 mins IT Consulting Services Technology Industry BrandPost Advice from procurement: How to evaluate and propose new IT investments By clearly defining needs and requirements, evaluating TCO, and performing risk assessments, procurement and IT teams can work together to help their business leaders make more informed decisions for an improved bottom line. By Bo Bradshaw, Edgio Procurement Director Mar 23, 2023 5 mins SaaS BrandPost Why AI is key to hiring and retaining developers Data shows that the opportunity to build AI-powered apps figures very prominently in where developers decide to work. By Bryan Kirschner, Vice President, Strategy at DataStax Mar 23, 2023 4 mins Artificial Intelligence IT Leadership Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe