How to sell SD-WAN business

Remember, in the first part of the blockbuster movie “Men in Black”, the best combat training workers fired briskly at cardboard monsters in all directions, and only Will Smith’s hero, after a brief deliberation, “took out the brains” of the cardboard girl, who had a book on quantum physics? And here, it would seem, SD-WAN? And everything is very simple: today there are no sales of solutions of this class in Russia. We have been working on the SD-WAN topic for more than three years, have spent hundreds of man-days on it, invested in training engineers, laboratories and booths, presales, presentations, demonstrations, tests, tests, tests ... But how many implementations? Not at all!

I would like to speculate about the reasons for this fact and talk about the conclusions that we made together with colleagues from Cisco based on the analysis of our experience.

SPIN sales

We at Jet Infosystems are very fond of SPIN sales techniques. It is based on the fact that selling is not a monologue, not a reading of a leaflet, but a dialogue. And the seller should tell less and ask more questions: situational, problem, extracting and directing.

The main task is to bring the interlocutor to the idea that he needs to buy what you want to sell to him.
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A couple of years ago, I went to a classic example of an interview with a vendor in a company selling handles.

“What do you use pens for?”
- Actually, everything is long in the computer and on the Internet. I only use a pen to sign documents.
- Probably, among these documents are contracts?
- Yes of course.
- Were there any contracts you signed that you remembered for life?
- Yes of course.
- I think so too. After all, it is, above all, memories. Memories of your victories and achievements. Sign a regular document can be any pen, the cheapest. But is it not worth signing such important, landmark contracts with a special pen designed for special occasions? When looking at who you will remember how it was, and smile?
- Interesting idea.
- So look at this pen. Perhaps it is she?
- Good, good, sold, damn!

Sometimes this approach works great, and I had a very interesting experience with similar sales! But not with SD-WAN.

Foreign countries will NOT help us

It is characteristic that the situation with the sale of SD-WAN-solutions abroad develops exactly the opposite, that is very nice! There are no special difficulties there. The reason is the impressive cost of MPLS channels, many times more expensive than Internet channels. As soon as we say that we can “remove” some of the traffic from MPLS on the Internet and save a lot on this - consider the sale took place.

In Russia, the cost of MPLS and Internet channels is comparable, and in some cases the first ones are even cheaper. Having talked recently with a colleague from the Big Four operator, I was surprised to learn that MPLS in the operator community is not taken seriously as an internal network. Here is the Internet - yes, this is serious, access to the big world!

SD-WAN technicians do not need to sell. In our practice, there was only one case when the head of the technical department said that he had a DMVPN, and he was happy with everything. Usually, technically literate citizens understand perfectly well what SD-WAN will give them. And then they go to the business - and do not get the budget. Or they immediately understand that they will not receive it, and therefore do not even go. But purely out of sports interest, they begin to test with joy.

We should think about these facts early, but everything happens when it needs to happen.

Digital confusion

Once I came to a respected person with my solo stand-up (because I did not know what questions to ask him). I was given a full hour, but interrupted after fifteen minutes.

- Listen. This is all, of course, interesting. But you know what digital transformation is? And I hear it from all sides, but I do not understand anything.

And I accidentally was a little aware, because I said that this is a philosophical concept, stating that everything living in the world is mortal. Including any business. Without exception.

Therefore, digital transformation is about threats that can come from nowhere, and about the possibilities that the same threats give the most agile ones. And then the fun began.

Dear man picked up the phone, called somewhere and said:

“Hey, digital transformation is about threats and opportunities, not about digitalization, which you tell me about.”

I hung up the phone.

- Does your SD-WAN fit in here?

And then we had a dialogue for all the remaining 45 minutes.

And then something clicked in my head. I still do not understand, but finally began to analyze. Very few people understand what digital transformation is and how it differs from digitalization. While there is no standard, how many people - so many opinions.

By and large, digital transformation is a concept whose essence is to remind managers of the limited lifespan of their companies.

Leap of faith

We propose to stop, think and stop shooting at "monsters" who are not guilty of anything. We need to find the right target.



Look carefully at the sales chart. To sell took place, you should focus on the right lower quadrant. To do this, we believe, we must approach the sale of SD-WAN as a Lean-startup.

The key word here is a startup! A startup begins with a “leap of faith”, a certain assumption that (ideally) should be checked. Note the important thing: SD-WAN practically guarantees an improvement in customer experience.

We did just that: together with colleagues from Cisco, we began to do pilot projects. At your own expense. And already on the “live” network, customers found profits from the introduction of SD-WAN, which it was impossible to guess in advance.

For example, we had a case when calls to the contact center ceased. This happened because SD-WAN began to quickly switch channels in case of deterioration. A missed call in a call center is a lost client. But this business understands: there is a problem - there is a solution!

As a conclusion

SD-WAN is fairly easy to sell to techies, but extremely difficult for business. Therefore, the sale of SD-WAN business should be seen as a start-up, that is, a joint partisan work of the customer, integrator and vendor. And this approach, we are sure, will lead to success!

Author: Denis Dyzhin, Director, Business Development, Center for Network Solutions, Jet Infosystems