As someone trying to introduce a new technology to a risk-averse organization, you’ll need to work with the CIO to show that person’s team why the switch is in their best interest. You’ll need to sell them on the new and better reality, one where IT will be freed from repetitive maintenance and management and where engineers can help the CIO transform IT from a cost center to an engine of innovation.

Why My Company Moved Away From An Incumbent

The truth is we were pushed.

At Pluto Cloud Services, we resell key technologies that enterprises need to succeed in our global, cloud-based economy. One of the major technologies we sell is WAN optimization. Typically, WAN optimization is added after a global business (or a business with many regional branch offices) has signed up for a private networking service, typically MPLS, which they then optimize with WAN optimization.

In the not too distant past, we primarily resold equipment from big WAN optimization vendors.

Over time, however, those vendors were spending more time selling certifications than removing pain points for customers. This is a problem.

At the same time, we recognized a change in the way businesses are looking to run their WANs. We realized that expensive long-haul private link contracts and hardware optimization devices with expensive upgrades and support contracts were losing favor with customers. Our customers constantly complained about the cost and complexity of MPLS, as well as about the high costs of managing and maintaining their WAN optimization appliances.

So when we decided to switch to a cloud-based alternative, people watching from the outside thought we were either crazy or taking a bold move by shifting to a newer, cloud-based alternative.

From the outside, we were just listening to our customers. From the inside, we knew the truth: we didn’t walk away. We were pushed.

Flipping Fear On Its Head

CIOs have another fear almost as big as the fear of change, and that’s the fear of being left behind. Innovation marches on and if you’re too late to the game, you’ll lose face within your organization.

That’s why we carefully selected a startup partner whose founding team has a successful track record, who is leveraging the ever-more mainstream cloud trend, and who has a large stable of happy, on-the-record reference customers.

Flipping fear on its head may seem like a sneaky sales tactic, but it’s not. If you really, strongly believe in your product or service, and you know for a fact that it’s better than what your prospect is currently using, it would be sales malpractice not to prove this to your prospects. Of course, if your argument doesn’t have the appropriate, verifiable data points to back you up, you’ll trigger yet one more fear: fear of snake oil salesmen.

But you wouldn’t do that, would you?

Fear is a powerful motivator. Don’t let it trip you up when you can just as easily turn it to your advantage.

Larry Chaffin is the CEO and Chairman of Pluto Cloud Services & Pluto Networks.