3 Ways to Sell Technology

There are three main ways that I can think of to sell technology: 1) via your business analyst / sales team 2) via your designer team and 3) through your developer team.

In trying to attract customers and show them what you can do or start the wheels in motion on the relationship between you two, any of these ways is an option. I'll describe all three and then comment at the end about my opinion.

The first way is to have your sales / business development people do this. These people will not produce working code, prototypes, or designs. They *may* create wireframes to help solidify the design but only that. They will definitely have to record the user needs and objectives. They will have to serve as the product manager and make sure they understand what will fly for the product being produced.

The second way is to have your UI/UX people make some sample screens. They probably should do this from the wireframes produced, but you could have them go work directly with the customer and have them produce from a UI/UX experience. I'll argue that this is not the best way to lead.

The third way you could sell IT work is by having your developer team create working (prototype) software to show the customer what is possible and or some options. I think this makes some sense so that they can better visualize and understand things beyond just wireframes. A step in this direction but not the whole way would be to demonstrate *transitions and flow* between wireframes.

Overall, any of these methods is possible, but I would say that there MUST be a good business analyst / product manager in the beginning to work with the customer on what he/she specifically needs. Once the product concept is clear and understood, then the UI/UX person can come in and make the mockups really good. (You should charge for this). And once the wireframes and product are solid and perhaps the UI/UX person has had a chance to start, then the developer can start producing production code.

There's no one *right* way to do this but there are definitely wrong and wasteful ways. What are your opinions?