4 ms·
My product is based on a subscription model. Here's what we did. First: Make something that people want and would be willing to pay for. Second: Tell everyo
by izak30 18y ago
My product is based on a subscription model. Here's what we did.
First: Make something that people want and would be willing to pay for.
Second: Tell everyone you know that's what your doing. Ask people who they know that might be interested. People are usually willing to help and give you a name or two.
Third: Don't count-out old-school marketing. Cold calls, business events, etc, go to them. Meet your competitors, usually they won't be adverse to this and you shouldn't be either, you can always learn something from them.
Know your competitors very well, and know what they do well and what they do poorly (or at least what you do better). This is important.
Third: Have a working demo. I don't give away free trials, I have a demo. This may or may not work for your product.
Fourth: Follow up with everybody, always send thank you notes, and follow up a week later, every week until they give you some straight answer.
I'm a coder who is very new to sales, but I've had some good people around me that were quite good at sales. Meet those people, show them your product, ask for some help.
- izak30 18y agoOk, to actually fully answer your question: My first customer walked into us. I've been doing websites for years, and I've set up some content-management systems. Most of the time people just don't like them. We made Servee, and took it to our current clients, and moved them over. Our next clients came from this above (cold calls, networking, and sales)
- bkovitz 18y agoWhat did you make that people wanted?
- izak30 18y agoWe have a hosted content management system at Servee.com Keys: If you're in a market where there are many competitors, separate yourself by doing SOMETHING better (price, features, experience or a combination) Designers like it, so they sell it to their customers; They like that they can give their clients full content control and powerful tools, but not design control. End-Users like it, because we test it on people that have very minimal computer experience. This means it becomes very intuitive to use. Our UX is excellent.
- bkovitz 18y agoThanks for the info! Interesting how you found a way to differentiate yourself from competitors.