Neil Biehn of PROS, Erick Wikum of IBM Global Services, Eric Bibelnieks of Target, and Warren Hearnes of Home Depot shared their experiences selling analytics – both internally within their own organizations and externally to customers – on a panel this afternoon. A few random tips on this challenge:

• Learn how to explain analytics to those who know their business but may not know the math. Determine some kind of baseline (from someone who took a linear programming course in college to someone who has no idea what operations research is at all).
• Sometimes it is important to know when to say no, when the job at hand isn’t a good fit for your skills. But especially if this is for an internal customer beware that saying no can establish an unintended perception that you always say no.
• Starting with small problems that can become quick wins can help establish credibility and trust, whether it be internally or externally. Short-term success can breed long-term opportunities.
• Involve your customer in defining the “solution” to increase both of your chances of success. Learn their language, their business, their challenges.
• Don’t sell analytics, optimization, management sciences – sell solutions to business problems. People don’t care what you call it if you can solve it.
• People may be wary of someone who offers to do what they do but do it better, but they may be more open to someone who is more of a coach or consultant, which assumes they have skills but are open to improvement and guidance.
• Listen well and be authentic - most people will trust that you have the math skills but will have a harder time trusting that you’ll take their input until you show them that you can and will.
• Building internal networks can help with cross-pollination and gain executive buy-in. When they created the Target Analytics Network (similar to ones for hobbies like running and biking) they went from 10 to 1500 members in six months, and THAT got management attention.
• Finally – remember to ask for what you want. You won’t get the contract/business/opportunity if you don’t ask for it!

NOTE: This blog post was originally published on the Informs Transformation blog.