Save money with our suggestions for purchasing from NetApp

Rule 1: What Is your Need? – Clearly Identify your requirements & timeline. Don’t be afraid to tell the salesperson you are considering your options. Go to www.spec.org and www.zerowait.com to review the specs on NetApp systems. Compare older systems to newer ones. Clearly identify which performance parameters are most important to you. Give Zerowait a call, we can help you define your requirements.

Rule 2: Never meet a salesman alone – Invite the salesman into your office conference area. Do more listening than talking. Tell him the parameters of your requirements and request fair comparisons between the NetApp equipment and their competitors.

Rule 3: Remain calm use, your poker face – Your negotiating position weakens and the salesman gets more aggressive if you give them the impression that they have the perfect solution for you.

Rule 4: Avoid your Data Center – Don’t let the salesman into your data center. Salespeople don’t need to see your Network and Storage infrastructure.

Rule 5: Ignore the first price quote – Your final invoice is directly affected by the initial price quote you receive from NetApp. NetApp has a very flexible list price. Lower volume customers pay a lot higher price then volume customers. Remember that in most cases, NetApp’s sales people are on salary and commission. Commission salespeople make their money based on the total invoice. The larger the invoice, the more they bring home. Your job is to get the invoice as low as possible. A price list you can use as a reference is here

Rule 6: Don’t be afraid to shop around – Do some research on the Web, There are four sources for NetApp’s new equipment now. NetApp direct, NetApp resellers, IBM direct, IBM resellers. They have identical products, service and support. Get multiple prices, when the salesperson comes back with a counter offer or says they can’t go any lower, tell him thank you and you will get the product elsewhere. Remember, there are plenty of options for your storage solution.

Rule 7: Require Transferable licenses – If they tell you they are not available tell them you can get proof that they are, Zerowait can help you with this.

Rule 9. Require a 60-day trial Surprisingly, many companies never test a solution prior to buying it. Don’t make a mistake; test the system completely in your network prior to making a purchase order for the equipment.

Rule 10: End of Period –NetApp needs to make quarterly sales numbers or their stock may go down, don’t place orders until the end of NetApp’s fiscal quarter or end of their fiscal year to get the best deals.

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