9 ms·

Enterprise or no, I see a lot of developers (and entrepreneurs) take the approach of "If you build it, they will come". That is just not true in most cases. W

Enterprise or no, I see a lot of developers (and entrepreneurs) take the approach of "If you build it, they will come". That is just not true in most cases. We all know these products with elaborate dashboards, too much reporting, too many data points. Those are created simply to appeal for the decision makers. You sell to developers by a better UX/UI and workflow, you sell to decision makers by telling them how they will get a better view of things and manage teams better. You have to build both ends, and you have to sell the decision making end much better and much more aggressively. Edit: typos

avitzurel 8y ago
You also have to know your audience. storytime: We had a demo scheduled with a company. We were shopping for a security auditing system for dependencies across all GitHub repositories. The person going through the demo did an absolutely terrible job at reading the room and understanding who they sell to (right now). Focused a lot on reporting, compliance while we cared more about the mechanics.
- XiZhao 8y ago
  Kevin from http://fossa.io http://fossa.io here. Did this happen to be us? If so, I’d love to hear you feedback on our demo, if not I’d love to offer you a demo. kevin@fossa.io
  - avitzurel 8y ago
    Wasn't you :) But I am now actively looking at it.
    - gk1 8y ago
      Look at https://datree.io https://datree.io also. Disclaimer: They’re a client.
  - mistrial9 8y ago
    funny how Kevin's nick is XiZhao
    - bostonpete 8y ago
      Not really that funny -- a lot of people with Chinese (I think?) names also adopt an American name to make it easier for people to spell, pronounce, etc.
      - XiZhao 8y ago
        Yeah, my name is Kevin (Xi Zhao) Wang. But the funny thing is that a slightly different pronunciation of "Xi Zhao" changes the meaning from (roughly) "western prosperity" to "morning bath".
        catherd 8y ago
        Can confirm. I have basic Mandarin and I would have definitely thought of you as the guy named "take a shower" if you never explained.
      - SandyAndyPerth 8y ago
        I've been a member of a very traditional Chinese martial arts club for years. I've only ever known most people by their Chinese name and been surprised at times when I catch them being referred to by a Western name. Others use either inconsistently or are mostly known by the Western name, so it happens here in Australia too.
- takinola 8y ago
  Sales pro tip: The first thing out of your mouth when trying to sell someone is to ask who they are and what they need. Once you have established those two things, you then tailor your pitch to match exactly that and no more. For example, if you're selling a Thingmabob and your target is a small dentist office in the mid-west concerned about filling their schedule, then spend the time telling them about how other dentists' offices have used your product to attract new customers. Don't spend any time telling them about how Thingmabob helps to drive down costs even though it does this 3x better than the competition. Sell people what they are buying not what you are selling!
  - j_b_s 8y ago
    You can present to people, or be present to people. Sales would be much better if it was much more of the latter.
thrower123 8y ago
Exactly, one of these two things is more likely to get you in the door, look splashy on demos, and convert an evaluation into a PO. The other might help get you a renewal after the initial contract is up, but on the other hand, once something is in the budget and established, it has to be really, really awful to get kicked out and go through the process of finding a replacement. Voila, enterprise software!
- avitzurel 8y ago
  I feel you can also sell from the bottom. Slack, for example, a lot of the requests came from engineers to work with it. The product has to be REALLY good though, for most, this is a very hard sell
  - mikepurvis 8y ago
    Ehh, most of the engineers at our org would have been happy to stick with Hangouts and just commenting on PRs and JIRA tickets. Slack adoption ended up being driven from non-engineering groups like marketing and sales, and then eventually mandated from the executive level.
    - MattHeard 8y ago
      Too many conversations are held in Slack and not in the tickets, now.
      - mikepurvis 8y ago
        It's a weird thing, because JIRA can end up having so many fields and so much enforced process that it feels like there's a lot of overhead associated with creating and closing tickets, and you always know that those actions are potentially feeding into and messing up someone's reporting somewhere. So you end up talking on Slack about an issue someone's noticed, and then trying to decide whether it's "worth" the bother of creating a ticket for, or if someone's aware of a ticket already for it, or or or.

avitzurel 8y ago

You also have to know your audience. storytime: We had a demo scheduled with a company. We were shopping for a security auditing system for dependencies across all GitHub repositories. The person going through the demo did an absolutely terrible job at reading the room and understanding who they sell to (right now). Focused a lot on reporting, compliance while we cared more about the mechanics.

XiZhao 8y ago
Kevin from http://fossa.io http://fossa.io here. Did this happen to be us? If so, I’d love to hear you feedback on our demo, if not I’d love to offer you a demo. kevin@fossa.io
- avitzurel 8y ago
  Wasn't you :) But I am now actively looking at it.
  - gk1 8y ago
    Look at https://datree.io https://datree.io also. Disclaimer: They’re a client.
- mistrial9 8y ago
  funny how Kevin's nick is XiZhao
  - bostonpete 8y ago
    Not really that funny -- a lot of people with Chinese (I think?) names also adopt an American name to make it easier for people to spell, pronounce, etc.
    - XiZhao 8y ago
      Yeah, my name is Kevin (Xi Zhao) Wang. But the funny thing is that a slightly different pronunciation of "Xi Zhao" changes the meaning from (roughly) "western prosperity" to "morning bath".
      - catherd 8y ago
        Can confirm. I have basic Mandarin and I would have definitely thought of you as the guy named "take a shower" if you never explained.
    - SandyAndyPerth 8y ago
      I've been a member of a very traditional Chinese martial arts club for years. I've only ever known most people by their Chinese name and been surprised at times when I catch them being referred to by a Western name. Others use either inconsistently or are mostly known by the Western name, so it happens here in Australia too.
takinola 8y ago
Sales pro tip: The first thing out of your mouth when trying to sell someone is to ask who they are and what they need. Once you have established those two things, you then tailor your pitch to match exactly that and no more. For example, if you're selling a Thingmabob and your target is a small dentist office in the mid-west concerned about filling their schedule, then spend the time telling them about how other dentists' offices have used your product to attract new customers. Don't spend any time telling them about how Thingmabob helps to drive down costs even though it does this 3x better than the competition. Sell people what they are buying not what you are selling!
- j_b_s 8y ago
  You can present to people, or be present to people. Sales would be much better if it was much more of the latter.

thrower123 8y ago

Exactly, one of these two things is more likely to get you in the door, look splashy on demos, and convert an evaluation into a PO. The other might help get you a renewal after the initial contract is up, but on the other hand, once something is in the budget and established, it has to be really, really awful to get kicked out and go through the process of finding a replacement. Voila, enterprise software!

avitzurel 8y ago
I feel you can also sell from the bottom. Slack, for example, a lot of the requests came from engineers to work with it. The product has to be REALLY good though, for most, this is a very hard sell
- mikepurvis 8y ago
  Ehh, most of the engineers at our org would have been happy to stick with Hangouts and just commenting on PRs and JIRA tickets. Slack adoption ended up being driven from non-engineering groups like marketing and sales, and then eventually mandated from the executive level.
  - MattHeard 8y ago
    Too many conversations are held in Slack and not in the tickets, now.
    - mikepurvis 8y ago
      It's a weird thing, because JIRA can end up having so many fields and so much enforced process that it feels like there's a lot of overhead associated with creating and closing tickets, and you always know that those actions are potentially feeding into and messing up someone's reporting somewhere. So you end up talking on Slack about an issue someone's noticed, and then trying to decide whether it's "worth" the bother of creating a ticket for, or if someone's aware of a ticket already for it, or or or.