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That's essentially a POC. Be prepared for many vendors -- including the company I work at -- to refuse, at least for most prospects. The reason is some mix of
by x0x0 6y ago
That's essentially a POC. Be prepared for many vendors -- including the company I work at -- to refuse, at least for most prospects.
The reason is some mix of 1. we have real onboarding / startup costs, and those costs are frontloaded; 2. like many saas companies, we don't make much money on the first year; 3. if a prospect can't commit, it's a sign that implementation is highly likely to fail. We require work and resources from the customer to make this succeed. To use examples you've given elsewhere, an ESP requires training, engineering to import workflows, creation of new mail rules, etc. An annual contract is a component of our executive buyer's leverage to hammer through the work to realize value from us.
What OP may be able to make happen is a POC with written success criteria. Be prepared for vendors to be hard asses about the success criteria however. We refuse these for small (enterprise small) contracts.
OP should consider that perhaps their vendor selection process sucks? Or maybe -- if they're a high enough contract value -- getting references from other customers?
Note also that people here decrying annual -- or multiyear -- contracts will be the first to scream if a vendor raises prices. Which is absolutely fair play if a customer doesn't want an annual or multi-year contract. A customer's right to alter a deal with 30 days notice is a vendor's right to do the same.
- jas194 6y agoYou are absolutely right. POC is always a great option but there are frequent challenges of vendor rushing, a later change in requirements, or insufficient Eng resources to check every box (we'll typically rely on the word of sales team in that case). Vendor selections can definitely always be better, but there doesn't seem to be too much flexibility for buyers when all said and done. At bigger companies annual commits (or longer) are welcome, but we've certainly had tool that are a total failure yet we're stuck with the bill. Someone on the buy side ends up seeing blame too, even if not our faults i.e. missing key feature that was misunderstood in buying process
- x0x0 6y agoMaybe try better communicating your success criteria? Again, from the vendor side, contracts that churn after a year are widely viewed as a failure. Eg the CS leader at your vendors is (probably) comped on positive net renewal rate.
- jas194 6y agoThank you! Def. room for improvement there. Still wish there was a way out that could work for all sides if for whatever reasons things weren't working out ( ;
- darrenwestall 6y ago“at least for most prospects” I guess the answer is to negotiate hard to get what you want. It’s absolutely a POC but with shared risk and a real concentration on onboarding/implementation - I’ve done this for lots of the software we use internally and it works well for us.
- x0x0 6y agoDepending on how sophisticated your AE is, ask them when their quarter closes :D