Over the past weeks I was involved in evaluating ERP systems for a small start-up in an emerging economy. After the initial analysis, I finally came to the point of reaching out to vendors for quotations. What I found is a lesson in how to win the deal.

In short: Be there when your potential customer asks - and show how much you want the business!

As we currently run our accounting on a software of a large US based tech company, we wanted to explore our options to use that software to its full capabilities and run the whole CRM/Sales and ERP on it. We talked to three different support teams, in three different locations ("we're global after all"), of which neither was able to cover the full system but only knew a specific part or a particular version. You would think that as an existing customer, who wants to tie itself closer to a supplier, there would be someone to talk to about it - well the enthusiasm was rather limited.

Doing such an evaluation, you won't get around the big players in the market. So we enquired about the solution of a German based supplier with a local integration partner. Although they are rather pricy for a start-up like us and they probably know that, those folks followed up multiple times with calls and eventually came to visit for a presentation. Probably the best all-round system-expert / sales-agent I've seen so far in my short career.

Knowing our budget constraints we scaled down to an open source solution and approached two smaller, local integration partners. The difference between the two was so stunning that even without knowing the quotes, I know which one I'd select. One of them replied to my e-mail within one hour on a Friday at 7pm. One of them proposed a presentation right away. And one of them arrived at our office with four people, which were all very capable, well prepared, and worked as an extraordinary sales team.

Whether a company is large or small, well-known or not, it is all the same things that will lead to your customer buying with you. I want to see that you're interested in my business and care about my needs. I want to be able to trust that you can handle this project, which to you may be "just another sale" but to me is "the most important problem right now".

If you make me feel like I'm the most important thing on your mind right now, you can sell me anything.