16 ms·

Enterprise Sales Tips for Hackers

159 points by brandonb 13y ago

taude 13y ago
I wish Hacker News had more articles targeting Enterprise software. T I'm involved w/ enterprise startup and I've found a lot of things like MVP, feeder landing pages, etc. just don't apply for customer acquisition. We have a lot of issues with targeting the software at the users, but needing approval from other people... But thanks for this article.
taude 13y ago
I wish Hacker News had more articles targeting Enterprise software. I'm involved w/ enterprise startup and I've found a lot of things like MVP, feeder landing pages, etc. just don't apply for customer acquisition. We have a lot of issues with targeting the software at the users, but needing approval from other people... But thanks for this article.
brandonb 13y ago
I'm the OP -- happy to answer any questions those of you running B2B startups might have!
- tootie 13y ago
  So at what point (if ever) did you hire someone to be in charge of customer acquisition?
  - brandonb 13y ago
    About two years. Honestly, that was way too late -- if I could do it again, I'd put that person in place about a year into it. As hackers we learned to sell, which gave us valuable insight into the product, but once your product is half-decent, sales becomes a full-time job, and having somebody spend 100% of their time on it is a major "step function" in growth.
- tieTYT 13y ago
  I'm interested in becoming a consultant (but haven't taken any action yet). My first question is if your article applies to people like me. I'm not sure if you're selling a product or you're selling your skills as a service. Or, maybe it doesn't matter and your article is helpful to both groups?
  - brandonb 13y ago
    This post was based on selling products to enterprises. I've never been a consultant, so I don't know for sure, but I'd suspect the rules are a bit different. For example, as a consultant, I would think many of your customers come through referrals, whereas when selling a product things like PR, AdWords, and a direct sales force are your main tools for getting business. I'd be interested in hearing your experience once you've been at it for a year or so. There are probably a lot of interesting lessons!
- wasd 13y ago
  I'm interested in starting a start up that deals with SMB. I think a lot of your advice is very applicable but you would change anything for a deal size that's between $4,500 - $6,000 per year?
  - AndyNemmity 13y ago
    At large companies, a deal that small could be approved by tons of people. At that point, you don't even need a real decision maker.
  - brandonb 13y ago
    For SMB, you might try some of the "New Enterprise" models described at http://brandonb.cc/is-your-b2b-startup-new-enterprise-or-old-enterprise http://brandonb.cc/is-your-b2b-startup-new-enterprise-or-old.... Square is a great model to follow. For a deal size of $4.5-$6k, you can scale with inside sales and go pretty far. I'd avoid field sales entirely!
- beat 13y ago
  Question 1... how do you feel about the "valley of death" pricing-wise? As a startup targeting enterprise, one of the things I am hoping for marketing-wise is to price under the departmental budget line, so individual managers can buy for their own needs without setting off defensive alarms. And the product scales outward, so I can start with one department as evangelists, and then rake in more money and bigger contracts as the product spreads. But when I think of, say, $5000/year revenues, if it's too high, I have to fight the corporate financial immune system. But if it's too low, I'm leaving money on the table when there's a ceiling on how many customers can ultimately be acquired.
  - AndyNemmity 13y ago
    I don't know the valley of death pricing you're talking about, but pricing isn't a part of the conversation for me until people have already bought in that they need it. Pricing is not even on the list of concepts I have to consider to work through a process. I work for a very big company though. The product scales outward thing is overrated. Startups have talked to me about this too, and it doesn't make as much sense as everyone seems to think. You gain a foothold in an area in the company no one cares about, that doesn't mean anything. You are the least person to judge which parts of the company matter, so be careful about that idea. I just had a company do this. They built a foothold in an area no one cares about. I had to tell them, it's about as meaningless as an organization if you had our janitors using their software. If your evangelists are not connected and part of the decision making process, the information doesn't expand.
    - brandnewlow 13y ago
      You should write a "Why my company isn't going to buy your startup's product" blog post. It would help quite a few people.
      - AndyNemmity 13y ago
        There are a lot of reasons people don't talk about this stuff, and I shouldn't either. I'm being a bit too loose with my mouth already.
- beat 13y ago
  Question 2 - How much resistance do you find to SaaS in the enterprise? SaaS reduces the support cost immensely, but a lot of businesses don't seem to trust SaaS.
  - AndyNemmity 13y ago
    It's changing and getting better due to cost. Just have all your documents about security, compliance, sox, all of that readily available. It's the first question.
  - brandonb 13y ago
    Totally depends on the market. For example, most e-commerce companies are very comfortable using SaaS and Javascript snippets nowadays, but if you try to pitch SaaS to a bank, they'll just laugh. Over time, I think more companies will get comfortable with SaaS, but it will take years. If you're pitching SaaS to an industry that doesn't usually go for it, it sometimes it helps to avoid PII. Even banks are somewhat open to using SaaS for products that don't touch customer's names, transaction info, etc.
    - beat 13y ago
      I have a different problem than PII... my product will contain detailed configuration information about the customer's entire system. That makes it security-sensitive. Data will be encrypted at all times, but there's a psychological problem of having configuration information in a SaaS system at all.
    - pionar 13y ago
      Good comments, plus, if you can do it, it might be wise to have a version of your product that's not SAAS. A self-hosted version, like Github Enterprise. Be careful, though, self-hosted customers can be huge PITA's.
      - beat 13y ago
        It's already in the business plan, albeit in a vague way. One of the big advantages of SaaS is that I can practice Continuous Delivery and be constantly improving the product while I sell it. Besides PITA customers (a problem that can be mitigated with an install process that Does Not Suck), there's a problem of supporting increasingly obsolete versions in the field.
- larrys 13y ago
  Not seeing a link on your blog to your company. Had to go to your profile to see that. Any reason it's not on your blog?
jonnathanson 13y ago
This is a great overview. I would be very interested in seeing a followup on the "air war" subject: not just PR, but social proof and validation in general. Getting a warm introduction and a set of meetings is not a trivial task, and "hacking" the organization's structure and needs even less so. But oftentimes, the final barrier to a sale -- especially for early startups -- is social proof. In the back of his or her mind, the buyer is probably thinking things like: "Will these guys be around in 5 months?" As a small startup, the burden of proof rests entirely on your shoulders. The bigger guys have already proved themselves, and, while your service may be much better -- and while the potential customer may totally understand that -- the incumbents have incumbency going for them. That's no small advantage. Another key thing to consider: departments (or people) within any given company tend to be profit centers, cost centers, or some hybrid of the two. They have very different goals, and hence, their people have very different motivations. Some people are empowered to take risks, and others are extremely risk averse. Pitching topline growth to a department mainly concerned with managing downside, for example, isn't going to get you very far. To your point, it's typically more effective and realistic to pitch topline growth. But if that's going to be the case, then figuring out who at Company X is actually empowered to take chances on growth is a big priority. The number of these people in any given organization can be extremely small, even at large enterprises.
- brandonb 13y ago
  Great points on social proof and profit centers and cost centers. If you're pitching top-line growth, then often you want to start at the top (CxO level if you can). How to run the "air war" could be a whole post. I think PR is the most important component, and you can actually get very far as a founder by just sending a journalist a friendly note and offering to talk. Quality of investors, team, and whether you have a personal connection to the company also matter a lot.
  - jonnathanson 13y ago
    "How to run the "air war" could be a whole post." Indeed, and while I realize it's somewhat tangential to your article, I'd love to see your in-depth take on it at some point.
waterside81 13y ago
As a hacker-turned-seller, it's a really eye-opening experience getting out from behind the screen and talking with enterprise customers. This post hits the nail right on the head - the sales cycles at large companies are loooong. You speak in July and it sounds like they'll buy from you tomorrow and then next you know, your follow-up emails go unanswered and you think they've lost interest, only to be surprised they want to meet in person again in September because now Person X wants in. And this goes on & on. Two tips I've learned: 1) Don't discuss price up front if you can avoid it, especially if you're in the 6-7 figure price range. Try to get as much info as possible about their problem. Get them invested in you at a personal level. 2) If your emails go unanswered, instead of sending emails like "Hey wondering if you're still interested" send update emails about your product like "Hey Bob, just wanted to let you know we updated X so now you can do Y. Here's a video explaining more." I've had lots of success with this tactic.
- AndyNemmity 13y ago
  As a hacker-turned-buyer, these are good tips. Especially #2. I have a couple guys emailing me like crazy right now. I'm not responding. Why? Nothing has changed. I don't need to respond every day to tell you nothing has changed. I start to get frustrated, and it turns me from an advocate into someone who just wants you to go away. It's not that I mind talking about the issues, it's just.. if I say I don't have budget now, you asking me every week is not going to change that. If instead you're telling me about what's updated, if something you've updated increases my business case, then that's actually actionable information I can do something about.
  - lifeisstillgood 13y ago
    Thanks - a great tip from a different viewpoint.
  - larrys 13y ago
    "if I say I don't have budget now, you asking me every week is not going to change that." That's exactly the reason #2 is such a good idea (I do a version of the same in some cases). You keep your name in front of the prospect w/o being annoying and requiring them to do anything. Along those lines though any contact if excessive can be annoying.
swampthing 13y ago
Great post Brandon! You should write the textbook :)
josh2600 13y ago
Great blog post, lots of great information. A few tips and tricks from my practical experience: * Big companies still have cultures. If you understand how the culture works, it's easier to get things done. In the best enterprises, you can just straight up ask "how do things get done around here" or "What is the culture like? Who are the stakeholders on a project like this?". In fact, asking people in B2B works a lot better than B2C because often you'll get people revealing their actual painpoints * Fear of loss is a more powerful motivator than potential gain * Followups are everything; I can't tell you how many times I've called a company 12 or 18 months later and gotten a deal just by keeping in touch * B2B is ridiculously personal. Be likable; send people candy on their birthdays, if they have kids send them gifts for their kids (we send/give away branded Kazoos, which also happens to be the name of our product). The sales process often comes down to (unfortunately) who the decision maker likes the most. This isn't actually a bad way of doing business (although it can be) because when the chips are down having an antagonistic vendor-client relationship is terrible. My two cents. Source: I'm currently managing marketing for a bootstrapped telecom company that just cleared 30 employees. We sell straight B2B and these are tactics that have worked over the last 24-36 months.
- AndyNemmity 13y ago
  The most important thing at my company is culture, glad you touched on it.
- HeyLaughingBoy 13y ago
  Be careful with gifts. I work for a large corp and we have to be very careful about what we accept lest it be construed as a bribe. Birthday card is OK, accepting gifts for my kids would probably get me fired.
  - josh2600 13y ago
    I think a card for the kids or a quick email is more what I had in mind. We've received a box of twizzlers in the past. We don't eat twizzlers but it was a nice sentiment.
dave_sullivan 13y ago
Good tips here--enterprise sales can be... interesting... Best book I've ever read on selling big ticket items: SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham. Engineers would love it (and it's short!) Basically, you sell million dollar computer systems with the following process: >> (S)ituation -- what are they doing now? >> (P)roblem -- what is the problem with that? >> (I)mplications -- how much is that problem actually costing them? -- as a number, it's always bigger than people think, particularly if it involves people doing some manual process somewhere >> (N)eed Payoff -- Imagine your life if you fix this problem and imagine your life if you don't. Wouldn't you much rather lead the former? The instant rapport quick close doesn't work in these cases (in fact, it hurts you)--you need to demonstrate real value, real ROI (as mentioned in the article) and you've got to do that by taking the problem and blowing it up really big, then offering two paths and letting your prospect make the obvious choice. Or something like that :-)
- AndyNemmity 13y ago
  I wish the startups I worked with had the SPIN you just outlined figured out.
  - lifeisstillgood 13y ago
    You sound like a buyer who still has pain that is not being fulfilled :-) Why not share?
- brandonb 13y ago
  That sounds useful. I'm also a huge fan of Mark Suster's PUKKCA methodology: http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2013/06/13/why-your-startup-needs-a-sales-methodology/ http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2013/06/13/why-your-start...
- sashthebash 13y ago
  As I'm getting more into sales I've just read a couple of books about the topic. SPIN Selling is one of them but as an engineer I liked Solution Selling by Michael Bosworth even more, as it gives you a similar, but even more detailed process to follow. http://www.amazon.com/Solution-Selling-Creating-Difficult-Markets/dp/0786303158 http://www.amazon.com/Solution-Selling-Creating-Difficult-Ma...
gregpilling 13y ago
"Almost no products can cut costs by 5-10%." Automation can cut costs by much more than that.
- beat 13y ago
  My intent is to show turn cut costs into opportunity costs. If I can improve the efficiency of critical lead engineers by 5%, it's not that I'm saving 5% cost... it's that their effort could be going to positive work that generates more revenue.
tptacek 13y ago
Wow, this is an amazingly great post.
eitally 13y ago
I just realized I've replied to about a half dozen replies to this post. I spend an awful lot of my work week talking with potential vendors, and have for several years. As the guy responsible for deciding whether to build or buy apps & related systems at a large enterprise, it's just part of the job. I would be extremely happy to help any of you who would like some insight into how the purchasing process works, and to answer questions about selling to big companies. If you'd like to chat, to practice your spiel or demos, or anything else, please contact me. There's nothing I'd like more than to help develop software sales skills!! :-) Work: elliot.tally@sanmina.com Personal: https://plus.google.com/u/0/110215565182616777712/posts https://plus.google.com/u/0/110215565182616777712/posts
npalli 13y ago
"Pitch the top line, not the bottom line ... Almost no products can cut costs by 5-10%". This is a very odd statement that is in odds with how most B2B software is positioned. I would wager if you go into any company and look at the software installed, almost 95%+ will have a use case of reducing costs. Whether is automating your workforce, reducing inventory, optimizing product spend etc. Even software which touches the topline (like salesforce/CRM/SFA), at the end is about reducing the cost of sales not increasing revenue directly.

159 points by brandonb 13y ago

taude 13y ago

I wish Hacker News had more articles targeting Enterprise software. T I'm involved w/ enterprise startup and I've found a lot of things like MVP, feeder landing pages, etc. just don't apply for customer acquisition. We have a lot of issues with targeting the software at the users, but needing approval from other people... But thanks for this article.

taude 13y ago

I wish Hacker News had more articles targeting Enterprise software. I'm involved w/ enterprise startup and I've found a lot of things like MVP, feeder landing pages, etc. just don't apply for customer acquisition. We have a lot of issues with targeting the software at the users, but needing approval from other people... But thanks for this article.

brandonb 13y ago

I'm the OP -- happy to answer any questions those of you running B2B startups might have!

tootie 13y ago
So at what point (if ever) did you hire someone to be in charge of customer acquisition?
- brandonb 13y ago
  About two years. Honestly, that was way too late -- if I could do it again, I'd put that person in place about a year into it. As hackers we learned to sell, which gave us valuable insight into the product, but once your product is half-decent, sales becomes a full-time job, and having somebody spend 100% of their time on it is a major "step function" in growth.
tieTYT 13y ago
I'm interested in becoming a consultant (but haven't taken any action yet). My first question is if your article applies to people like me. I'm not sure if you're selling a product or you're selling your skills as a service. Or, maybe it doesn't matter and your article is helpful to both groups?
- brandonb 13y ago
  This post was based on selling products to enterprises. I've never been a consultant, so I don't know for sure, but I'd suspect the rules are a bit different. For example, as a consultant, I would think many of your customers come through referrals, whereas when selling a product things like PR, AdWords, and a direct sales force are your main tools for getting business. I'd be interested in hearing your experience once you've been at it for a year or so. There are probably a lot of interesting lessons!
wasd 13y ago
I'm interested in starting a start up that deals with SMB. I think a lot of your advice is very applicable but you would change anything for a deal size that's between $4,500 - $6,000 per year?
- AndyNemmity 13y ago
  At large companies, a deal that small could be approved by tons of people. At that point, you don't even need a real decision maker.
- brandonb 13y ago
  For SMB, you might try some of the "New Enterprise" models described at http://brandonb.cc/is-your-b2b-startup-new-enterprise-or-old-enterprise http://brandonb.cc/is-your-b2b-startup-new-enterprise-or-old.... Square is a great model to follow. For a deal size of $4.5-$6k, you can scale with inside sales and go pretty far. I'd avoid field sales entirely!
beat 13y ago
Question 1... how do you feel about the "valley of death" pricing-wise? As a startup targeting enterprise, one of the things I am hoping for marketing-wise is to price under the departmental budget line, so individual managers can buy for their own needs without setting off defensive alarms. And the product scales outward, so I can start with one department as evangelists, and then rake in more money and bigger contracts as the product spreads. But when I think of, say, $5000/year revenues, if it's too high, I have to fight the corporate financial immune system. But if it's too low, I'm leaving money on the table when there's a ceiling on how many customers can ultimately be acquired.
- AndyNemmity 13y ago
  I don't know the valley of death pricing you're talking about, but pricing isn't a part of the conversation for me until people have already bought in that they need it. Pricing is not even on the list of concepts I have to consider to work through a process. I work for a very big company though. The product scales outward thing is overrated. Startups have talked to me about this too, and it doesn't make as much sense as everyone seems to think. You gain a foothold in an area in the company no one cares about, that doesn't mean anything. You are the least person to judge which parts of the company matter, so be careful about that idea. I just had a company do this. They built a foothold in an area no one cares about. I had to tell them, it's about as meaningless as an organization if you had our janitors using their software. If your evangelists are not connected and part of the decision making process, the information doesn't expand.
  - brandnewlow 13y ago
    You should write a "Why my company isn't going to buy your startup's product" blog post. It would help quite a few people.
    - AndyNemmity 13y ago
      There are a lot of reasons people don't talk about this stuff, and I shouldn't either. I'm being a bit too loose with my mouth already.
beat 13y ago
Question 2 - How much resistance do you find to SaaS in the enterprise? SaaS reduces the support cost immensely, but a lot of businesses don't seem to trust SaaS.
- AndyNemmity 13y ago
  It's changing and getting better due to cost. Just have all your documents about security, compliance, sox, all of that readily available. It's the first question.
- brandonb 13y ago
  Totally depends on the market. For example, most e-commerce companies are very comfortable using SaaS and Javascript snippets nowadays, but if you try to pitch SaaS to a bank, they'll just laugh. Over time, I think more companies will get comfortable with SaaS, but it will take years. If you're pitching SaaS to an industry that doesn't usually go for it, it sometimes it helps to avoid PII. Even banks are somewhat open to using SaaS for products that don't touch customer's names, transaction info, etc.
  - beat 13y ago
    I have a different problem than PII... my product will contain detailed configuration information about the customer's entire system. That makes it security-sensitive. Data will be encrypted at all times, but there's a psychological problem of having configuration information in a SaaS system at all.
  - pionar 13y ago
    Good comments, plus, if you can do it, it might be wise to have a version of your product that's not SAAS. A self-hosted version, like Github Enterprise. Be careful, though, self-hosted customers can be huge PITA's.
    - beat 13y ago
      It's already in the business plan, albeit in a vague way. One of the big advantages of SaaS is that I can practice Continuous Delivery and be constantly improving the product while I sell it. Besides PITA customers (a problem that can be mitigated with an install process that Does Not Suck), there's a problem of supporting increasingly obsolete versions in the field.
larrys 13y ago
Not seeing a link on your blog to your company. Had to go to your profile to see that. Any reason it's not on your blog?

jonnathanson 13y ago

This is a great overview. I would be very interested in seeing a followup on the "air war" subject: not just PR, but social proof and validation in general. Getting a warm introduction and a set of meetings is not a trivial task, and "hacking" the organization's structure and needs even less so. But oftentimes, the final barrier to a sale -- especially for early startups -- is social proof. In the back of his or her mind, the buyer is probably thinking things like: "Will these guys be around in 5 months?" As a small startup, the burden of proof rests entirely on your shoulders. The bigger guys have already proved themselves, and, while your service may be much better -- and while the potential customer may totally understand that -- the incumbents have incumbency going for them. That's no small advantage. Another key thing to consider: departments (or people) within any given company tend to be profit centers, cost centers, or some hybrid of the two. They have very different goals, and hence, their people have very different motivations. Some people are empowered to take risks, and others are extremely risk averse. Pitching topline growth to a department mainly concerned with managing downside, for example, isn't going to get you very far. To your point, it's typically more effective and realistic to pitch topline growth. But if that's going to be the case, then figuring out who at Company X is actually empowered to take chances on growth is a big priority. The number of these people in any given organization can be extremely small, even at large enterprises.

brandonb 13y ago
Great points on social proof and profit centers and cost centers. If you're pitching top-line growth, then often you want to start at the top (CxO level if you can). How to run the "air war" could be a whole post. I think PR is the most important component, and you can actually get very far as a founder by just sending a journalist a friendly note and offering to talk. Quality of investors, team, and whether you have a personal connection to the company also matter a lot.
- jonnathanson 13y ago
  "How to run the "air war" could be a whole post." Indeed, and while I realize it's somewhat tangential to your article, I'd love to see your in-depth take on it at some point.

waterside81 13y ago

As a hacker-turned-seller, it's a really eye-opening experience getting out from behind the screen and talking with enterprise customers. This post hits the nail right on the head - the sales cycles at large companies are loooong. You speak in July and it sounds like they'll buy from you tomorrow and then next you know, your follow-up emails go unanswered and you think they've lost interest, only to be surprised they want to meet in person again in September because now Person X wants in. And this goes on & on. Two tips I've learned: 1) Don't discuss price up front if you can avoid it, especially if you're in the 6-7 figure price range. Try to get as much info as possible about their problem. Get them invested in you at a personal level. 2) If your emails go unanswered, instead of sending emails like "Hey wondering if you're still interested" send update emails about your product like "Hey Bob, just wanted to let you know we updated X so now you can do Y. Here's a video explaining more." I've had lots of success with this tactic.

AndyNemmity 13y ago
As a hacker-turned-buyer, these are good tips. Especially #2. I have a couple guys emailing me like crazy right now. I'm not responding. Why? Nothing has changed. I don't need to respond every day to tell you nothing has changed. I start to get frustrated, and it turns me from an advocate into someone who just wants you to go away. It's not that I mind talking about the issues, it's just.. if I say I don't have budget now, you asking me every week is not going to change that. If instead you're telling me about what's updated, if something you've updated increases my business case, then that's actually actionable information I can do something about.
- lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  Thanks - a great tip from a different viewpoint.
- larrys 13y ago
  "if I say I don't have budget now, you asking me every week is not going to change that." That's exactly the reason #2 is such a good idea (I do a version of the same in some cases). You keep your name in front of the prospect w/o being annoying and requiring them to do anything. Along those lines though any contact if excessive can be annoying.

swampthing 13y ago

Great post Brandon! You should write the textbook :)

josh2600 13y ago

Great blog post, lots of great information. A few tips and tricks from my practical experience: * Big companies still have cultures. If you understand how the culture works, it's easier to get things done. In the best enterprises, you can just straight up ask "how do things get done around here" or "What is the culture like? Who are the stakeholders on a project like this?". In fact, asking people in B2B works a lot better than B2C because often you'll get people revealing their actual painpoints * Fear of loss is a more powerful motivator than potential gain * Followups are everything; I can't tell you how many times I've called a company 12 or 18 months later and gotten a deal just by keeping in touch * B2B is ridiculously personal. Be likable; send people candy on their birthdays, if they have kids send them gifts for their kids (we send/give away branded Kazoos, which also happens to be the name of our product). The sales process often comes down to (unfortunately) who the decision maker likes the most. This isn't actually a bad way of doing business (although it can be) because when the chips are down having an antagonistic vendor-client relationship is terrible. My two cents. Source: I'm currently managing marketing for a bootstrapped telecom company that just cleared 30 employees. We sell straight B2B and these are tactics that have worked over the last 24-36 months.

AndyNemmity 13y ago
The most important thing at my company is culture, glad you touched on it.
HeyLaughingBoy 13y ago
Be careful with gifts. I work for a large corp and we have to be very careful about what we accept lest it be construed as a bribe. Birthday card is OK, accepting gifts for my kids would probably get me fired.
- josh2600 13y ago
  I think a card for the kids or a quick email is more what I had in mind. We've received a box of twizzlers in the past. We don't eat twizzlers but it was a nice sentiment.

dave_sullivan 13y ago

Good tips here--enterprise sales can be... interesting... Best book I've ever read on selling big ticket items: SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham. Engineers would love it (and it's short!) Basically, you sell million dollar computer systems with the following process: >> (S)ituation -- what are they doing now? >> (P)roblem -- what is the problem with that? >> (I)mplications -- how much is that problem actually costing them? -- as a number, it's always bigger than people think, particularly if it involves people doing some manual process somewhere >> (N)eed Payoff -- Imagine your life if you fix this problem and imagine your life if you don't. Wouldn't you much rather lead the former? The instant rapport quick close doesn't work in these cases (in fact, it hurts you)--you need to demonstrate real value, real ROI (as mentioned in the article) and you've got to do that by taking the problem and blowing it up really big, then offering two paths and letting your prospect make the obvious choice. Or something like that :-)

AndyNemmity 13y ago
I wish the startups I worked with had the SPIN you just outlined figured out.
- lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  You sound like a buyer who still has pain that is not being fulfilled :-) Why not share?
brandonb 13y ago
That sounds useful. I'm also a huge fan of Mark Suster's PUKKCA methodology: http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2013/06/13/why-your-startup-needs-a-sales-methodology/ http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2013/06/13/why-your-start...
sashthebash 13y ago
As I'm getting more into sales I've just read a couple of books about the topic. SPIN Selling is one of them but as an engineer I liked Solution Selling by Michael Bosworth even more, as it gives you a similar, but even more detailed process to follow. http://www.amazon.com/Solution-Selling-Creating-Difficult-Markets/dp/0786303158 http://www.amazon.com/Solution-Selling-Creating-Difficult-Ma...

gregpilling 13y ago

"Almost no products can cut costs by 5-10%." Automation can cut costs by much more than that.

beat 13y ago
My intent is to show turn cut costs into opportunity costs. If I can improve the efficiency of critical lead engineers by 5%, it's not that I'm saving 5% cost... it's that their effort could be going to positive work that generates more revenue.

tptacek 13y ago

Wow, this is an amazingly great post.

eitally 13y ago

I just realized I've replied to about a half dozen replies to this post. I spend an awful lot of my work week talking with potential vendors, and have for several years. As the guy responsible for deciding whether to build or buy apps & related systems at a large enterprise, it's just part of the job. I would be extremely happy to help any of you who would like some insight into how the purchasing process works, and to answer questions about selling to big companies. If you'd like to chat, to practice your spiel or demos, or anything else, please contact me. There's nothing I'd like more than to help develop software sales skills!! :-) Work: elliot.tally@sanmina.com Personal: https://plus.google.com/u/0/110215565182616777712/posts https://plus.google.com/u/0/110215565182616777712/posts

npalli 13y ago

"Pitch the top line, not the bottom line ... Almost no products can cut costs by 5-10%". This is a very odd statement that is in odds with how most B2B software is positioned. I would wager if you go into any company and look at the software installed, almost 95%+ will have a use case of reducing costs. Whether is automating your workforce, reducing inventory, optimizing product spend etc. Even software which touches the topline (like salesforce/CRM/SFA), at the end is about reducing the cost of sales not increasing revenue directly.