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Ask HN: Anyone with fintech sales experience?
Working in financial services and although I'm constantly thinking of new ideas to improve things, I'd like to get an outsiders' perspective on how to successfully sell to financial services companies.
- qwrusz 10y agoWork in finance. I am curious about this topic too. I think it depends what you are selling and who the users at the fin services company will be (IT department? compliance? everyone? etc...)
- tixocloud 10y agoWould love to connect to discuss your experience. Is there any way that I can reach you?
- qwrusz 10y agoSure. Just to make sure I'm the right guy, what area is of interest or what sorts of things are you looking to discuss?
- tixocloud 10y agoAnalytics is a hot topic so I'm curious to know if there's any opportunity within finance. Also, happy to discuss any ideas you might have - my experience has mostly been in financial services.
- qwrusz 10y agoWhat is analytics? What does that encompass? Not trying to play dumb. I am familiar with multi-strategy buyside >$1B firms, analyst and management work. More on PM side (equity, HY, macro research,) and less with sales and marketing or middle office but have experience across groups. I don't work at a quant shop but do think its the future of finance - in general computers are already better at finance than humans and that gap will grow. There are tons of problems to fix in finance if you're thinking as a founder or VC. But many would-be fintech startups don't realize the extent finance can't make big changes without regulatory level changes too, that can be a good or bad thing, but this is the opposite of some "move fast and break things" industry. It must be addressed and execution of many solutions can become impractical and inefficient at the startup level, with exceptions, fintech involves a lot of "move slow, don't break anything, call me in 10-15 years". I think Zenefits is an example right now going through learning this the hard way but I am impressed by what Dave Sacks is doing. What sort of thing are you thinking about when you say fintech? What types of ideas? This is HackerNews everyone has a million ideas, me included.
- ga110578 10y ago1)-Focus on what's in for them. 2)-Get a common 'friend' to endorse/introduce- preferably board member, investor, or someone credible from CEO's graph. 3)-Position your product/solution on these levers- Increase Revenue, Reduce Expenses, Lower Losses. 4)-Select right approach- relationship vs transactional 5)-Don't try to close in Meeting 1 6) Demonstrate how your product has helped other clients/business partners. [Was CEO of a financial services company and worked with large banks and FI's.]
- tixocloud 10y agoThanks. Would you be able to comment on sales cycles and landing our first user/customer?
- ga110578 10y agoSure, sales-cycle will depend on the size of potential customer/company. Big organizations = Longer decision making. First user/customer is always through personal referrals/reputation/network. Easiest way to do this is: 1) Focus on Small/Mid-sized Financial services companies to establish a beachhead/ First few customers. 2) Sharply define your product/solution and how it fits in that particular company's narrative. 3) Find "side doors"-Independently pitch to 1-2 board members, and separately to the CEO. Specific to "marketing automation software" - connect with CMO/Sales head and demonstrate the value prop. The objective is 'decision makers' should hear positively about your company from different sources. 4) Be flexible with the commercial model to get first few clients ( many prefer outcome based pricing) 5) Get a subtle PR cycle activated for your company/product. 6) Minimize integration effort: Ensure that your product can easily be integrated with customer's existing infra. (Preference is for API-based solutions) If orchestrated correctly, you will have 2-3 'paying customers' in month 1-2. All the best.
- tixocloud 10y agoThanks! I'll give it a shot.