Don’t Be the Patsy – Get Clued-in on Cloud Marketplace Selling

Is there a term worse than “weak” for a salesperson? “Sloppy” is pretty bad. And “lazy” is terrible.

But I’ve got the worst one: patsy.

Definition: a person who is easily manipulated or victimized

Synonyms: chump, sucker, tool, pushover

We sellers are hyper-competitive by nature. We’re assertive. We want to win. We look to line things up in our favor. We’re like chess players, looking for all the angles in a deal. How best to position our product. How to outthink our competition.

In a way, we are also like poker players. The famous poker player Amarillo Slim included this in his top ten keys to poker success: “Play the players more than you play the cards.” This often applies in a deal when the truth is that the customer could go with either product and be successful. “Playing the cards” would apply to relying too heavily on your product or even your value prop to win a deal. Most deals are about the people involved.

How to Determine Who Is the Patsy

You may have heard the old saying in poker: “If you don’t know who the patsy is in the first 10 minutes, you are the patsy.”

You can substitute the word patsy for sucker or loser. It’s an old adage from an anonymous source, but it’s been used publicly by a variety of characters—including Amarillo Slim, who used that as his second key to poker success. Most notably in business, Warren Buffett used the saying to describe the importance of understanding your company’s value better than the market understands it.

Hate to Say It, but You Are Likely to Be One

In the Cloud GTM game—in the here and now of early 2024—it’s highly likely you will be a patsy in a deal this year if you don’t know how to leverage the AWS, Microsoft and Google Cloud Marketplaces.

For instance, if you’re trying to close a competitive deal and don’t know how to bring up the Cloud Marketplace with the customer, you’re at high risk of losing the deal because your competitor might be a Cloud Marketplace expert. If you don’t know what you’re doing and they do, what does that make you?

Yes, I am being purposefully a bit offensive in order to make the point.

Being Aware of Possible Disadvantages in Deals

In my experience, if an advantage in a deal comes to mind, the right approach is to assume your competitor is already using it against you. Which means to not only address the advantage but try to think a step ahead. If you think this way and it turns out your competitor is not using it against you, then your advantage increases. If they are using it against you, you have at least made some progress in leveling the playing field.

Today’s Cloud Marketplace Game

So here’s the game: In our current world, I would say that most end users do not know that committed cloud spend can be used to buy software. We, as salespeople, need to educate them and manage the discussion in a way that enables both parties to win.

If you cannot do this, you are going to be the sucker.

That’s all there is to it.

Let’s Compete on a Deal

If you’re not familiar enough with the Cloud Marketplaces and how they can be used against you, let me paint a picture here. (If you are familiar, I hope this drives the point home!)

You and I are in a deal, competing against each other.

Functionality-wise, the customer could go with either product.

Our competitive SaaS solutions are neck and neck, in terms of our customer lists, our value props, company stability, our respective positions in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, etc.

Is It Even Fair? No.

It sure looks like a level playing field.

Except that…

The customer has a Commit with a Cloud Provider. And the end user we’re both working with doesn’t know it. (This is often the case.)

As we prepare to battle through a bake-off, I find a moment and casually bring it up with my champion and explain why it matters.

She is surprised to hear it and isn’t sure if she believes it. It’s too good to be true; too easy to be real. But I assure her it is real and possible. I explain how things could work and suggest a path forward.

It’s a Proactive Selling Environment

For all anyone at the customer knows, my software is the only one this applies to. Sure, they might look it up and they might ask my competitor. But they might not, and that’s where thinking a step ahead makes a significant difference for you.

A Kick-ass Proposal

I think of what I know about the deal, what I’ve learned about the customer, and what I’ve found in my field-level, co-sell motion with the Cloud Provider account team. Based on these learnings and my Cloud Marketplace expertise, I put together a customized, Cloud Marketplace-and-Co-Sell-enhanced offer that’s so good it’s hard to believe.

Turns out the advantage is too great to consider alternatives, and I win the deal.

And believe me, the advantage is often too great to consider others.

True Story: Benefits Beyond Crushing Your Competition

In a true-story example, I closed a competitive deal so fast one time that they dropped discussions with the competition, didn’t even try to negotiate, and paid list price—and I closed the deal in Q4. Without the Cloud Marketplace, it wouldn’t have closed in Q4. They wouldn’t have paid list price. I might have lost the deal to a competitor. But my competitor was the sucker and they probably didn’t even know it.

You, as The Sucker in our hypothetical competitive deal, were too busy or didn’t care to learn how and when to bring up the Cloud Marketplace.

And like I said before and feel compelled to emphasize now: Maybe it turns out our end user doesn’t know that you’re listed in the Marketplace because you didn’t know to tell her. She doesn’t realize she can just look it up. Again, this is NOT an unusual scenario.

It’s Too Late if You Bring up Cloud Marketplace at the End of a Deal

If you did know that it was “useful” to bring it up and, importantly, you did know how to bring it up, you waited too long and she had already moved along with my proposal. Which would have been better than yours anyway because I was thinking a step ahead, not knowing whether you were an expert or…something else.

If you’re wincing, well, hey, do something about it. If you’re protesting that it’s not fair because your company didn’t enable you in this way, you’re right. Sellers love an unfair advantage. That’s what we’re all looking for, right?

Current Enablement on Cloud Marketplace for Sellers Isn’t Nearly Enough

All the focus in the typical enablement and training available for Cloud Marketplace selling these days is specifically focused on the transaction. Or, in some cases, you may be trained on how to use the automated co-sell tooling. Some companies have an overlay Cloud Marketplace team that does some of this for you—which is actually a disadvantage because you’re not learning how to most effectively use it to your advantage.

Boot-strappers Are the Only Experts Right Now

Only sellers who have figured it out on their own know how to do this. Enablement and training people don’t think this way. So to give you a little credit here, very few sellers know how to bring this up early in the process, and in a way that works to their great advantage.

That’s Where G3 COACHING Comes In

G3 Coaching teaches you how to most effectively use the Cloud Marketplaces to grow and accelerate deals, while weaving in the best practices in field-level co-selling to maximize your advantage.

Then we keep you up to speed on all three hyperscaler Cloud Marketplaces throughout the course of your subscription.

BE AN EXPERT

Don’t be a patsy. Or a sucker. Or a chump, a loser or a tool.

And BTW, to publicly show you’re an expert, we offer a Certified Multi-Cloud Marketplace Seller badge. We just require that you complete the course and have an active subscription. Subscriptions start at just $30 per month per salesperson.