Research indicates that our customers often have as much as 70 per cent of their buying decision made before they speak with our business partners. In fact, the reality is in some of you may know more about the Sage CRM product than their business partner.

More than ever, Sage customers need to speak with their partners and "set the bar" about their needs and expectations. It won't be helpful for you, our customers, to attend a sales pitch that is "all features", and not made relevant to your business.

We here in CRM HQ would recommend the following to help improve your buying process:

• What information you already know about i.e., the blog content here on Sage City, perhaps the Learning Series on-demand or the Sage CRM YouTube channel plus what information you need to know i.e., how your partner would help deliver the business analysis & system training for maximum take-up.
• Insist that your business partner engage in with a returns-focused conversation. What business issues do you have, and how could a system like Sage CRM help them solve these issues.
• Ensure that the partner - and yourself - focus each element of these issues with a 'which means what?', using that question to focus on expected return to your business.

We want our customers to understand that just having someone pitching a tool's feature set is not enough. It’s about salespeople joining their prospects where they are on the spectrum of their decisions to buy.