The Birth of a New Deal

I've been in the technology business for more than 20 years, and in that time I've often faced the same challenge: explaining complex, technical processes to a non-technical decision maker. With virtualization and cloud now becoming the solution for many SMBs' business problems, I don't see anything changing soon.

One thing that has changed, however, is the sales process. It's similar to the last stages of birth.

The child -- let's call her Deal -- is overdue, holding up her mother, Commerce. The waiting room is filled with cigar wielding relatives. Fulfillment, Customer Service, Accessory, and Invoicing anxiously await the much anticipated arrival.

The proud parents have been fussing over Deal's new room for months. Excited relatives have thrown showers to prepare for the birth. The family has taken out loans to cover building costs for the extra space Deal will need. The birth is now long overdue.

Deal is a finicky child. She is often not on a traditional clock. In the past, newborns like Deal required regular feeding. They had a four-phase cycle: Feed, burp, play, and sleep. Just give them regular attention, and they will meet all the expected stages on schedule.

But today's Deal is different. She is sporadic, sometimes sleeping for days only to awaken with a voracious hunger, often depleting the supplies purchased for her keeping. It is hard to listen to her cries, so everyone scrambles to silence her grumbling. No one has ever seen a child like Deal. She is a new breed. Her care and feeding cycles are unique in all their years of experience with newborns.

This new Deal happens fast, lives in a new cycle, and learns quickly. This will not change; the old Deal is gone, the new Deal is here to stay.

Yet some remnants of the old Deal remain, I admit. After all, business still interacts with clients. Products and solutions still drive the sales process. Customers have not lost the need for more products. These components have not changed. What has changed has the way we do business.

Our new sales representative is a Facebook Business Page with a storefront. The marketing manager is a premium iPhone or Droid app. We drive fulfillment with an SQL-linked, HTTPS-integrated engine tied to an online shopping cart. As solution providers, we follow up what happens at the feet of a review-based scoring application. We can see market growth directly correlate to viral videos and social media news about a vendor's product.

The way we do business has changed. From procurement to delivery and invoicing, it will never be the same again. Your best new employee may be a Web-based server, the midwife and nursemaid to your new child named Deal.

Congratulations on your new child. I hope you picked the right color for the nursery -- Dollar Bill Green.