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Maybe this is due to lack of context, but with all that "designed to improve your company performance in the critical area" and "investing heavily in great cust

Maybe this is due to lack of context, but with all that "designed to improve your company performance in the critical area" and "investing heavily in great customer service and innovation" that email sounds terribly enterpriesey to me. It all could be boiled down to a one-liner in spirit of "Sorry, but we can't offer our services any cheaper. Our prices are indeed higher, but the services are better than competitors and we actually provide more value per price unit. Please, take this into consideration." And maybe that's just my tastes, but negative commenting on competitors with all that "race to the bottom" and "customers are switching in droves" stuff doesn't sound any good to me. Even if competitor is really a complete shit. Just my opinion. I'm not a businessman.

exelius 12y ago
> Just my opinion. I'm not a businessman. It shows :) No offense, but this is an engineer's mindset. Great for building products; terrible for selling them. A businessperson's mindset is "if they don't understand their value proposition well enough to explain it to me, their product likely isn't any better than the competition and they know it." Better still, by explaining your value proposition in terms of a prospective client's problems, you are showing them that 1) you understand their problems 2) your product addresses their problems and 3) that you are committed to a long-term, mutually beneficial business relationship, not just a sale. OP's link is a great example of good business communication. It's obvious that many of the flaws are due to the anonymization; I've written these e-mails before and the main goal is building a business relationship based on trust. If you have built a relationship with your customer, you get a little bit of leeway to badmouth the competition if it's relevant.
- derefr 12y ago
  > A businessperson's mindset is "if they don't understand their value proposition well enough to explain it to me, their product likely isn't any better than the competition and they know it." You'd think a consequentialist businessman would be more interested in buying good things that go unrecognized/undervalued/un-understood by those who have them for sale. He can use the information asymmetry to make a profit, after all.
  - exelius 12y ago
    Maybe if you're buying widgets, but not services. Just like you may be ok with buying a car from a person who doesn't understand the value of his product, but would be more leery of hiring an accountant who didn't understand the value of his services. SaaS solutions are truly a service in this regard.
    - derefr 12y ago
      I guess I'm thinking of things like "Internet companies who don't realize that they're providing SLA-ed synchronous links with their IP video-conferencing service." They're selling you one thing, but you're getting most of the benefit from a part of it they don't even realize is worth anything.
- notahacker 12y ago
  One can only hope the flaws are due to anonymisation. The bigger flaw in the email (as is) is that it includes only one short paragraph about HelloSign's explicit benefit sandwiched right in the middle of some very generic comparison between the brands. And when if does come to referencing the competition and they're not universally-derided, you get a lot more props for commending the competition's relative strengths in areas you know the customer doesn't care about before highlighting the relevance of your strengths than you do from badmouthing them and treating the customer like an idiot for raising them. Unless it's a really transparent negotiation gambit in which case you may as well call them on it.
TeMPOraL 12y ago
I strongly agree. That one-liner of yours is almost perfect. Just let me describe you my exact business needs and tell me how your product can fulfill them, being honest when the competition actually covers something better than you, and I'm yours.' What happened to honest, straight-forward business?
mfringel 12y ago
Nothing of what you said is wrong, but your example has no compelling narrative. There's no example of proof of value, and there's no story behind it, relating it to something your prospective customer cares about as part of their own business. Your one-sentence condensation is factually correct, but it's all about you, not your customer.
snowwrestler 12y ago
> "Sorry, but we can't offer our services any cheaper. Our prices are indeed higher, but the services are better than competitors and we actually provide more value per price unit. Please, take this into consideration." Ok, but why can't you offer your services any cheaper? How, specifically, is your service better than your competitors? These are the answers that the letter attempts to provide.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  But it doesn't provide them. The way it attempts to do so is: Why can't you offer your services any cheaper? Because our competition sucks and we're different. How, specifically, is your service better than your competitors? Because we say it is, and since the problem you're trying to solve is a high money multiplier, if you believe that we're even a tiny little bit better than the competitor, the gains you'll get by chosing us will greatly outweight the marginal cost you have to pay us over our competitors.

exelius 12y ago

> Just my opinion. I'm not a businessman. It shows :) No offense, but this is an engineer's mindset. Great for building products; terrible for selling them. A businessperson's mindset is "if they don't understand their value proposition well enough to explain it to me, their product likely isn't any better than the competition and they know it." Better still, by explaining your value proposition in terms of a prospective client's problems, you are showing them that 1) you understand their problems 2) your product addresses their problems and 3) that you are committed to a long-term, mutually beneficial business relationship, not just a sale. OP's link is a great example of good business communication. It's obvious that many of the flaws are due to the anonymization; I've written these e-mails before and the main goal is building a business relationship based on trust. If you have built a relationship with your customer, you get a little bit of leeway to badmouth the competition if it's relevant.

derefr 12y ago
> A businessperson's mindset is "if they don't understand their value proposition well enough to explain it to me, their product likely isn't any better than the competition and they know it." You'd think a consequentialist businessman would be more interested in buying good things that go unrecognized/undervalued/un-understood by those who have them for sale. He can use the information asymmetry to make a profit, after all.
- exelius 12y ago
  Maybe if you're buying widgets, but not services. Just like you may be ok with buying a car from a person who doesn't understand the value of his product, but would be more leery of hiring an accountant who didn't understand the value of his services. SaaS solutions are truly a service in this regard.
  - derefr 12y ago
    I guess I'm thinking of things like "Internet companies who don't realize that they're providing SLA-ed synchronous links with their IP video-conferencing service." They're selling you one thing, but you're getting most of the benefit from a part of it they don't even realize is worth anything.
notahacker 12y ago
One can only hope the flaws are due to anonymisation. The bigger flaw in the email (as is) is that it includes only one short paragraph about HelloSign's explicit benefit sandwiched right in the middle of some very generic comparison between the brands. And when if does come to referencing the competition and they're not universally-derided, you get a lot more props for commending the competition's relative strengths in areas you know the customer doesn't care about before highlighting the relevance of your strengths than you do from badmouthing them and treating the customer like an idiot for raising them. Unless it's a really transparent negotiation gambit in which case you may as well call them on it.

TeMPOraL 12y ago

I strongly agree. That one-liner of yours is almost perfect. Just let me describe you my exact business needs and tell me how your product can fulfill them, being honest when the competition actually covers something better than you, and I'm yours.' What happened to honest, straight-forward business?

mfringel 12y ago

Nothing of what you said is wrong, but your example has no compelling narrative. There's no example of proof of value, and there's no story behind it, relating it to something your prospective customer cares about as part of their own business. Your one-sentence condensation is factually correct, but it's all about you, not your customer.

snowwrestler 12y ago

> "Sorry, but we can't offer our services any cheaper. Our prices are indeed higher, but the services are better than competitors and we actually provide more value per price unit. Please, take this into consideration." Ok, but why can't you offer your services any cheaper? How, specifically, is your service better than your competitors? These are the answers that the letter attempts to provide.

TeMPOraL 12y ago
But it doesn't provide them. The way it attempts to do so is: Why can't you offer your services any cheaper? Because our competition sucks and we're different. How, specifically, is your service better than your competitors? Because we say it is, and since the problem you're trying to solve is a high money multiplier, if you believe that we're even a tiny little bit better than the competitor, the gains you'll get by chosing us will greatly outweight the marginal cost you have to pay us over our competitors.