How are you positioning professional services business development?

Today, I participated in a quarterly business review with one of our Expansion Stage portfolio companies. We discussed several functional areas of the business to include Professional Services Business Development.

The question that was asked is “does product sales own this and if so, what % of their time should be allocated to it and how do we incent them?” 

In general, I believe product sales understands the importance of selling professional services as a component of Business Growth Strategies and its impact on customer adoption/satisfaction and ultimately renewal/up sell, however, is this something that they are equipped to do?

One approach to consider is to package services in a way that is easy for sales reps to sell and customers to consume. An example might be an architectural review or scalability assessment. A service bundle may include a certain number of hours, set-up fees and/or facility charges with a clear scope of work. Naturally, this gets wrapped with marketing collateral and FAQ/qualification questions that makes it easier for sales to position with customers. While this may be an effective way of positioning professional services, I believe it is important to have someone in the professional services group who is dedicated to training the reps, answering questions, preparing agreements and ultimately tracking the pipeline of deals.

As far as incentive is concerned, professional services can be a % of the sales reps quota paid at a certain rate or spiff provided by professional services. My preference is the former for several reasons, most importantly, that sales reps are focused on it.