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On the contrary, it is absolutely correct. You forget these huge companies were once small upstarts. As upstarts, their growth was propelled by buyers recommend
by not_that_noob 13y ago
On the contrary, it is absolutely correct. You forget these huge companies were once small upstarts. As upstarts, their growth was propelled by buyers recommending the product to other buyers. (You can substitute users for buyers here if it is an app). So his point is valid.
If you go back to the early days of Oracle for example, they were providing a highly flexible database and would do it on (mostly) any computer platform you had. The competition was databases that were glorified flat files on mainframes, and IBM dominated that market. It took a few to take the plunge, but the others followed.
Overall his point is very valid.
- adamb_ 13y agoAgreed. All the companies @pak mentioned have matured past the rapid growth stage.
- gk1 13y ago> You forget these huge companies were once small upstarts. As upstarts, their growth was propelled by buyers recommending the product to other buyers. (You can substitute users for buyers here if it is an app). So his point is valid. That's pretty forced. There are plenty of ways for companies to grow, and word-of-mouth is just one of them. For example, a company can grow by getting a military contract, thus being infused with cash and lots of credibility. You don't get a government contract because Sally told Jim at the DoD about how great you are. Edit: I noticed many of the comments that share my sentiment are being downvoted. Why?
- 8_hours_ago 13y agoMy experience with government contracts differs from that. Most of the contracts we get are because we have worked with the Contracting Officer previously and had done good work, or were introduced to them by a mutual contact. Of course that's just my experience, and one anecdote does not make good data.
- sjtgraham 13y agoIs that how enterprise sales work? I don't have any experience there but given how highly paid sales sharks seem to be inextricably linked to ES as opposed to social sharing buttons, I'd say no. There is always more than one way to skin a cat.
- pg 13y agoActually in the enterprise market Sam's point is even more true. The greater power of incumbents means that you can't get customers unless your product is better by a large margin.
- smoyer 13y agoIncumbents do have an advantage, but the other key in enterprise markets is that you have to recognize you're selling to executives who won't generally use your product, so you have to sell based on they perceive important, but deliver what the company actually needs. I have a lot of stories (those funny/ironic/sad ones) that I won't go into!
- nostrademons 13y agoIt is much, much easier to sell something that the buyer has already heard about from industry peers and generally sees the value of than to cold-call prospects and push products on them that they're indifferent to. Companies can limp along for a few years with the latter strategy (I worked at one once), but they don't grow, and eventually they get sick of selling stuff that nobody wants to buy and close up shop. For the examples given (Cisco, Oracle), everybody who's in a purchasing position in the industries they serve has heard of them, and they go into a sales cycle "warm". The salesperson's job is to iron out the details and explain how to integrate the product into a customer's existing workflows to make them more efficient.
- pbreit 13y agoReference customers are absolutely critical in the enterprise.