Dynamics 365 – FUD as a Sales Tool

I got a call the other day from a customer who said that another partner told them that they should not use a solution like ours because “It can cause issues”. I thought, what a vague and crappy thing to say. I assume this partner was not a reseller of ours, did not know what they were talking about, and just wanted to plant some FUD in the customer’s mind, but I thought I would address it anyway.

FUD as a Sales Tool

FUD is an acronym for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. It is a common sales tactic used by almost every seller… since the beginning of time. It is typically utilized in competitive situations. The idea being to plant negative ideas into your prospect’s head about your rival’s products or services. It tends to consume about 50% of any sales conversation, with things like, “Oh your talking to Acme, I heard they were going out of business“, or “I heard that Acme really socks it to you post-sale with hidden charges“, or “Tools like RapidStart CRM can cause issues“. The trick with FUD is to make a claim that cannot easily be clarified to the contrary by the customer on their own, leaving that FUD seed to fester in the prospect’s brain. You can usually tell when you are in a competitive situation against a FUD user, because the customer starts asking ridiculous questions about your company, products or services.

Combating FUD

The first instinct in combating FUD is to spray FUD back. Usually this results in a customer becoming completely uncertain about everybody and not moving forward with anybody. If you actually want to get the business, you need to resist the urge to punch back. A better approach would be to ignore the fact that there is a rival at all, and address the concerns directly. For example “I feel like you have some questions you have not asked me, I want you to be completely confident before moving forward with us, so please give me the opportunity to address any concerns that you may have“. 9 out of 10 times, this will break loose those critical unasked questions, many of which your rival may have planted. Answer confidently, but not incredulously or defensively. Ignore the fact that the rival planted the question, and instead act as though the customer came up with this concern on their own. Each concern that you address satisfactorily, makes your rival look worse… without your even mentioning them. I go into every sales conversation with the belief that we are the best choice for the customer, so I not only don’t focus on the competition, I ignore them completely.

“It can Cause Issues”

This is Classic FUD. “Issues” is a scary word that is seldom used in a positive way. I am going to go ahead and share with you some of the “Issues” that RapidStart CRM can cause for you, or your customers. One issue for our resellers, is having to figure out what to do with the additional revenue, adding Dynamics 365 to their practice will generate. I have had resellers complaining to me on the phone, that they are torn between buying a new boat, or a Harley… it can be traumatic. Similarly, customers are complaining that their users are actually using Dynamics 365, meaning they are no longer able to get the gossip at the water cooler like the old days… no one is there to discuss the new girl’s clothing choices!!

Issueless Deployment

Our RapidStart CRM deployment solution for Dynamics 365 is the opposite of “Issue creating”. In fact, it solves a multitude of “issues” for new deployments, particularly for non-crm partners. Without having to hire and train resources, any partner can start offering Dynamics 365 confidently to their customers. RapidStart CRM includes some solution files that we install on your customers Dynamics 365 instance. I think this is the root of the FUD, so I will explain them.

The first part of a RapidStart CRM deployment is our installation of four managed Solutions. The advantage of a “managed” solution is that, when removed, it will remove all traces of its prior existence. First, we are installing Insights, the Microsoft OEM marketing research tool from InsideView. Then we install our managed Navigation solution which includes a revised sitemap to help new users navigate quickly to the things they need. The Sitemap is not only customizable, but the solution can be removed easily and cleanly when the customer is ready for more. Then we install our forms solutions, also managed, and also completely customizable. Our forms replace the out-of-the-box forms for Leads, Contacts, Accounts and Opportunities with cleaner streamlined versions. The default forms are still there, just deactivated. Then we install our managed video training solution, which is completely separate from CRM, the only trace is the addition of a training button on the ribbon which launches our solution in a separate browser window. Once the user base is “trained up”, this solution can also be easily and cleanly removed in about a minute. I don’t know about you, but I am not seeing any “issues” here.

The other, and bigger, part of RapidStart CRM is completely external to the customer’s instance and that is our Wizard Portal. Our Wizard portal is a customization collection tool consisting of a series of sophisticated web based forms. The forms are used either by the customer, or their partner, to customize their instance to match their particular business needs. It is all about hiding, adding and modifying fields for their records and processes to exactly match their business. The last part is our team going into that instance, on behalf of the partner, and executing the customizations that were communicated by the Wizards. There are no scripts, plugins or foreign code introduced into that customer’s instance. RapidStart CRM is not permanently altering or limiting Dynamics 365 in any way. It is turn-key and “Issueless”.

You really should check out what we are doing, and why key leaders at Microsoft, like Brent Combest, tweet things like: “#MSPartner looking to start a #MSDYN365 practice – I’ve found the easy button! It’s rapidstartcrm.com – #sosimple”

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