The Systems Audit Sales Tool – Monkeynoodle.Org
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One of my early steps along the path from English major to product manager was a role in the late nineties at a value added reseller in Emeryville, California. Now only visible as ripples in old records and the Internet Archive, PCS Networks was a fairly typical boutique consultancy. This type of business has a few pillar technology partners, some deep masters in those technologies, and a bench of journeymen and apprentices. PCS sported a separate sales department, complete with boiler room, but most of the shops I know like this are able to thrive on word-of-mouth alone. I was hired as an apprentice (sorry, Systems Analyst) because I’d learned enough NetWare to be dangerous, and PCS is where I learned my way around Microsoft, Cisco, and a tiny bit of IBM.
So, you’ve got sales development representatives (SDRs) calling prospects, you’ve got some masters who you do not bother, journeymen who are solidly booked, and apprentices who only know a bit about something… PCS found a delightful solution to this: the systems audit as a sales tool. It made a small amount of money, it created opportunities for better money, and it exposed apprentices to tech and people skills that they needed. Pipeline generation plus on the job training, winning.
