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Don't sell hardware and software--- sell infrastuctures and capabilities
If you are not looking for follow-on sales with the same client, go ahead and sell them products. If you are looking to grow the account over time, sell them an infrastructure, a platform, or a set of capabilities.
Most customers want to be prepared for the future. Some will have specific plans for how to get there. Most will not. Both should be able to see the wisdom of laying a foundation that will better position them when they get there. Find out what their plans are. If their plans are not mature, help them to improve their plans. If they are not prepared to make plans, find out where things might be going for them in the future. Then make recommendations to support a range of capabilities that may prove useful.
Most customer’s ambitions exceed their current budgets. However, a little incremental planning may enable them to achieve most of what they want over time. If you can talk frankly with them about their budget, you can help them with the trade-off decisions. To achieve this you have to earn their trust and get past the suspicion that you are trying to push as much product as quickly as possible. If you can’t find out what their budgets are, let them know what the lifecycle costs of various approaches are and let them steer.
Most customers will change their plans before they are realized in full. What is more important than being able to define a specific roadmap and see it through to the bitter end is to put in place the infrastructures, platforms, and capabilities so that they are ready at the moment of need. It helps to know the goal or direction they are heading towards, but even if you don’t you can still help them understand where they can go from where they are at and enable them to better respond to the contingencies in their environment. Do this often enough, and they’ll start calling you for advice when they get a curve ball.
Sell them on infrastructures, platforms, and capabilities and over time you can add to them, increase their capabilities, and adapt them to the customer's changing environment. By providing the customer with options that solve their problems as they discover them, that extends their reach as they grow, and that enable them to continuously improve, you are always there for your customer. And your customer is always there for you.
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