The actual Zuora sales deck was uploaded to SlideShare after the article was written in 2016.
Here it is https://www.slideshare.net/ryangum/zuora-sales-deck?qid=f249...
The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)
71–80 of 171 posts
Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)
#72>Zuora came up with the phrase “subscription economy” to name the trend in which buyers increasingly choose recurring service payments over outright purchases. It's not a trend where buyers choose recurring payments, but where companies only offer services through recurring payments.
A trend rarely happens on only one side of the demand-supply axis. There is definitely a trend towards subscriptions, especially for SMBs, but enterprise and individuals as well. It's so much easier to pay a monthly or yearly fee then up front, especially for companies - both in terms of cashflow , accounting practices and stability. Some companies has gone that route that have customers on both sides of the aisle -…
As far as enterprise, certainly.
There are real merits to subscription models, not only in accounting but in risk avoidance (you haven't paid up front) and support (the vendor has a cash incentive to keep you happy). There are obviously drawbacks too, like lock-in and the risk of a vendor collapsing, but in some cases it looks like a good decision.
As far as consumer-facing? I'm not so sure.
Lots of companies, especially the ones with protected IP or network effects, can kick their customers around quite a bit without shifting demand.
I don't want Microsoft Office to be subscription based. I've never met anyone who does, unless what they actually wanted was the online storage subscription. (I know some people who initially said they did because they didn't want the menus to keep changing on them between editions, but then the subscription version developed the same problem.) But it's a real fight to avoid their implicit network when people keep sending me .xls files or formatting-dependent .docx or all the other things Open Office won't actually manage, so I (or rather my employers) end up paying the subscription.
Spotify, Hulu, etc are more popular, but it's still fairly telling that no one offers direct purchase of TV shows in anything short of ultra-expensive box sets. Even buying music and movies outright has become increasingly tough to do. There are probably people who will save money even with a lifetime Spotify subscription, but I suspect people who don't vary their listening a lot lose out compared to direct purchase, and people with tastes not easily provided by one streaming service have definitely lost out. It basically looks like IP holders shied away from direct sales as soon as they couldn't inflate costs by overpricing a physical medium, and left consumers without a choice.
The last category are I suppose subscriptions offering consumable products on a schedule, like Dollar Shave Club. These have more obvious value - there's no lifetime purchase possible, so it's not much different than a "reorder monthly" option. But even here they mostly seem to be succeeding by offering novelty or taking on markets that have been overpriced for ages.
I'm not sure I can think of a consumer-facing subscription product equivalent to e.g. CircleCI - something that could be sold as a lifetime purchase, which is instead sold as a subscription - for which buyers voluntarily chose a subscription model.
Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)
#73I disagree with two things in the article. 1. I disagree with the underlying premise of the article - the deck is unimportant. 2. I disagree with the reasoning given as to why it works. Firstly the deck is unimportant because - as the ex-employee quoted at the end said: the prospect is already sold thanks to the marketing and branding campaigns run by Zuora. The deck is superfluous. Secondly, the reasoning that Raski…
Seems as though you actually agree with the article's premise, which you mistook to be about the sales deck. The point is that your messaging should be about what the buyer needs, not what your product does. You happen to have different packaging for it (as do I[1]), but overall it seems we're in agreement. [1] https://www.gkogan.co/blog/buyers/
I don't think it's necessarily about what the buyer "needs", as much as appealing either to a big "want" or avoiding a significant loss.
Many of these companies probably don't "need" a subscription model, so Zuora focuses on the negative they're avoiding (getting left behind). From my experience, convincing someone to avoid a loss is way easier than convincing them to pull the trigger on a big win. This is a huge reason why people continue to invest with money managers instead of doing the mathematically better option of buying index funds: the money manager promises to preserve capital, whereas the index fund lists shows that it outperforms manual money management on average (big win potential).
In many cases, you're focusing less on reason and more on emotion, and you use logic to drive it home. People are more emotional than logical ("nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM"), but they need a logical argument to justify their emotions (IBM solves our problems and isn't going away, so the higher price is justifiable).
Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)
#74I disagree with two things in the article. 1. I disagree with the underlying premise of the article - the deck is unimportant. 2. I disagree with the reasoning given as to why it works. Firstly the deck is unimportant because - as the ex-employee quoted at the end said: the prospect is already sold thanks to the marketing and branding campaigns run by Zuora. The deck is superfluous. Secondly, the reasoning that Raski…
Speaking only for myself, when I'm an investor, I wanna know stuff like: - cost of customer acquisition - gross margins - revenue growth - size of market - yada yada That being said, a slick pitch deck is nice to see. It makes me feel good, which never hurts. I only invest on the fundamentals of the business. If a startup had great numbers AND their pitch deck sucked, I'd stikk give them the money. If I had specific…
From what I've read, that kind of stuff belongs at the end of the presentation. Get them on board with the vision and the problem, then justify it with figures they can use to justify buying in to your solution.
In short, appeal to emotion, support with reason.
Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)
#75#1. Name a Big, Relevant Change in the World #2. Show There’ll Be Winners and Losers Is it common someone will invite a Zuora sales rep to give them a presentation, if they don't _already_ think they want to launch a subscription product? I would have guessed most people attending sales presentations would be looking to fulfil a need they had already identified.
Enterprise sales typically involves some "champions" inside the customer's companies looking for solutions to problems they currently have. They do have the need already and vaguely know what the needs/goals/benefits/challenges/costs are but not in crystal clear terms. They are looking for "experts" i.e. you to come in to spell those out and educate them. They are evaluating a bunch of companies and technologies. You have to make your sales pitch stand out of the pack to get the deal.
Part of the sales process is to identify those internal "champions" and supply whatever materials/ideas/education to them to make their jobs convincing the others inside the organization easier.
A good sales deck like the one in OP makes a huge difference. I remember going in with a sales guy to a big bank customer meeting once to pitch our pre-alpha product (yes, we were still building it). My God, his sales deck was amazing. I was convinced myself after listening to his presentation and wanted to buy our product. We got the multi-million deal at the end, admittedly with lots of help from engineering during the sales. :)
Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)
#76I disagree with two things in the article. 1. I disagree with the underlying premise of the article - the deck is unimportant. 2. I disagree with the reasoning given as to why it works. Firstly the deck is unimportant because - as the ex-employee quoted at the end said: the prospect is already sold thanks to the marketing and branding campaigns run by Zuora. The deck is superfluous. Secondly, the reasoning that Raski…
Seems as though you actually agree with the article's premise, which you mistook to be about the sales deck. The point is that your messaging should be about what the buyer needs, not what your product does. You happen to have different packaging for it (as do I[1]), but overall it seems we're in agreement. [1] https://www.gkogan.co/blog/buyers/
With all due respect, I disagree.
No business in the world needs another product or solution. No business needs a subscription-based business to thrive. Nor does every business need to do inbound marketing to survive as well. Plenty of businesses thrive without it.
What Zuora and Hubspot (and many others have done) is use the same principles as religion to sell an ideology to their potential customers - an ideology that makes them think that they need what is being sold otherwise a horrible end (hell) awaits them.
Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
A trend rarely happens on only one side of the demand-supply axis. There is definitely a trend towards subscriptions, especially for SMBs, but enterprise and individuals as well. It's so much easier to pay a monthly or yearly fee then up front, especially for companies - both in terms of cashflow , accounting practices and stability. Some companies has gone that route that have customers on both sides of the aisle -…
As far as enterprise, certainly. There are real merits to subscription models, not only in accounting but in risk avoidance (you haven't paid up front) and support (the vendor has a cash incentive to keep you happy). There are obviously drawbacks too, like lock-in and the risk of a vendor collapsing, but in some cases it looks like a good decision. As far as consumer-facing? I'm not so sure. Lots of companies, especi…
TiVo has a lifetime subscription but I assume most people go for the monthly.
Most consumer-oriented services (Spotify, Apple Music, Netflix, etc.) could be sold with a lifetime option but I suspect the balance sheet liability would be unattractive to most companies and the big upfront payment toward an ultimately unknowable future service would be unattractive for most consumers. (Will the company still exist? Will I still want the service? Will the company come out with a new and better service and put the one I paid for on legacy support?)
>Even buying music and movies outright has become increasingly tough to do.
Really? I admittedly don't do it a huge amount but my impression was that CDs and DVDs were still pretty readily available for purchase on both physical media and digitally.
Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)
#78[deleted]
Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, it's an interesting question if Adobe is going to hurt their channel of new users with this.
The student subscription costs almost nothing, and the professional is the same price as netflix.
If all you need are Lightroom and Photoshop, yes. The full Creative Cloud is $50/month for professionals. This is a pretty good deal if you would otherwise have purchased a bunch of apps but Adobe doesn't really provide a subscription option between single app and everything.
Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)
#80>Zuora came up with the phrase “subscription economy” to name the trend in which buyers increasingly choose recurring service payments over outright purchases. It's not a trend where buyers choose recurring payments, but where companies only offer services through recurring payments.
A trend rarely happens on only one side of the demand-supply axis. There is definitely a trend towards subscriptions, especially for SMBs, but enterprise and individuals as well. It's so much easier to pay a monthly or yearly fee then up front, especially for companies - both in terms of cashflow , accounting practices and stability. Some companies has gone that route that have customers on both sides of the aisle -…
Oh come now. Subscription software is simply a system by which software developers can ensure a continuous revenue stream, independent of the value of any ongoing development they do.