Presenting a new solution
Ketan is the senior account director in Texas for SMART Technologies. Based in Austin, Ketan has the opportunity to build relationships with the influential Fortune 500 companies that call the region home.
One of his favorite aspects of working at SMART is being able to approach these companies with a solution they may know very little about it. While this might seem daunting, Ketan walks into his presentations confident in the knowledge his audience will be impressed.
“The thing I love the most about this job is taking on a customer that hasn’t been exposed to SMART,” Ketan says. “Initially they usually give me 30 minutes or an hour, just to talk and get to know the company. But it always ends up being a two and a half to three hour session.”
The reason these sessions end up going so long is the product itself. Ketan says that the intuitive nature of SMART’s technology combined with its interactivity encourages people to engage with the presentation – something that salespeople who have to rely on slides or outdated technology don’t get to experience.
“Most salespeople spend a lot of time going over slides when they’re doing a presentation – our product is the presentation. I’ve had people go from never having seen the technology to standing up and playing around with it,” Ketan says. “As a salesperson, there’s no greater thrill than watching a customer develop a tremendous interest in your product.”
And once that interest has been established, Ketan is able to provide a demonstration of a product like the SMART Board® interactive whiteboard that is immediately relevant.
“We were presenting to a group from a Fortune 500 company and I connected their computer to the SMART Board and told them to use it like they would their PC,” Ketan says. “I think the epiphany happened when they recognized how integrated we are with the software solutions they’re already using. That’s exciting because then they were hooked, and I could get them at a point where they could start visualizing how well we’d integrate into their business process.”
Being at the fore of innovation means that not every customer will necessarily have heard of you, but as Ketan has found out, it also means that you’ll have the chance to amaze customers with something they haven’t seen before – nor even knew was possible.
Sound like something you’d like to be a part of?
Find out more about opportunities at SMART.
