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Selling Software To Large Businesses

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Re: Selling Software To Large Businesses

#41

Post by catnaroek »

cheapsteak wrote: post #37
xradionut wrote: post #31

Some pointers from someone that deals with large and small organizations. - Expect to be audited both security wise and financially. - The larger the organization, the longer the process. (Although smaller clients can be just as dysfunctional.) - Track everything; email, phone call, meeting, etc. It will save your ass in a dispute and may provide valuable metrics. - The customer isn't always right, but they still are…

Could you by any chance explain what is meant by "Does the software have auditing capabilities?" What exactly are "auditing capabilities"? Is it business-speak for log files?

It is more than just that. Log files only give you a list of individual transactions that happened. Auditing capabilities (as I understand them) imply the ability to trace a sequence of interrelated transactions in order to determine whether business procedures and rules were properly followed or even determine flaws in the procedures and rules themselves. For example, if a customer complains that a physical product is defective, and you detect that a specific component is at fault, you could trace which supplier sold you that component, when it was bought, where it was stored, etc., in order to determine the root cause of the component being defective: Was a business procedure not properly followed? Is there a flaw in the purchasing/storage/manufacturing/whatever process that results in products being defective?

Re: Selling Software To Large Businesses

#42

Post by glimcat »

patio11 wrote: post #15
darkstar999 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can you charge maintenance for SaaS?

Put an extra line item in the quote for maintenance. Done. Seriously, not only does that work, there are companies which will send the quote back and ask you to requote them with a maintenance contract if you don't do it the first time. (And yep, 20% is indeed quite standard at many places.)

Is this separate from the line item about support (best effort / no SLA purchased)?

And if it's separate, in what sense does enterprise purchasing use "maintenance"? Software updates?

Re: Selling Software To Large Businesses

#43

Post by ams6110 »

balakk wrote: post #27

> "On the other hand, when you send us an email, you may have to wait a few hours, but you'll get your response from me, every single time, and I will do my best to fix your problem. I built this product from the ground up and I am fanatical about taking care of you because you'd be my biggest customer, and if I don't take care of you, the business is over." Honestly, I don't know about this. This might work if you h…

Having just had to get a hard drive replaced on a server under an "enterprise" warranty agreement, spending 30 minutes on the phone with a heavily accented robot who insisted on being sent zip files containing the output of the array diagnostics utility, to confirm that the drive had failed (yeah, why do you think I'm calling?) I would much rather have sent an email, even if it took a few hours.

Re: Selling Software To Large Businesses

#44

Post by ams6110 »

glimcat wrote: post #42
patio11 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put an extra line item in the quote for maintenance. Done. Seriously, not only does that work, there are companies which will send the quote back and ask you to requote them with a maintenance contract if you don't do it the first time. (And yep, 20% is indeed quite standard at many places.)

Is this separate from the line item about support (best effort / no SLA purchased)? And if it's separate, in what sense does enterprise purchasing use "maintenance"? Software updates?

in what sense does enterprise purchasing use "maintenance"

90% of the time, they don't. It's a checklist item. They don't care if it ever gets used.

Re: Selling Software To Large Businesses

#45

Post by derefr »

prawn wrote: post #26
bambax wrote: post #21

> As my father always counselled me with regards to dating advice: "Don't come up with reasons for them being out of your league. Make them come up with them. Someday, someone -- perhaps someone surprising -- will say Yes." Isn't this a line from "Shit My Dad Says"? https://twitter.com/shitmydadsays/status/4811790555 Maybe all fathers say the same thing. More to the point, we're not afraid of BFEs because they may be…

In my experience working with clients of various sizes, it is generally not the largest that are particularly painful but the smallest. The largest have staff trained and dedicated to their positions. The sole/small operators are juggling everything and most struggle to do many things well (often I'm one of those struggling). These are the clients who, when you ask them for written content for their website, give you…

The funny thing is, the larger the company is, the less likely anyone there will remember anything you (as "some supplier") does or says--unless you're the one who wins the sale.

With the super-Enterprisey corps, you can even fail horribly to sell one branch/office/department, then turn around and strike a huge deal with some other branch/office/department of the same company.

Re: Selling Software To Large Businesses

#46

Post by ams6110 »

catnaroek wrote: post #41
cheapsteak wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you by any chance explain what is meant by "Does the software have auditing capabilities?" What exactly are "auditing capabilities"? Is it business-speak for log files?

It is more than just that. Log files only give you a list of individual transactions that happened. Auditing capabilities (as I understand them) imply the ability to trace a sequence of interrelated transactions in order to determine whether business procedures and rules were properly followed or even determine flaws in the procedures and rules themselves. For example, if a customer complains that a physical product…

That sounds way more comprehensive than most "auditing" I've seen in software. Usually it's timestamped activity logs with a couple of reports and maybe some filtering. Very basic.

Re: Selling Software To Large Businesses

#47

Post by unz »

AaronFriel wrote: post #40
unz wrote: post #18

No thanks. Destroy enterprises, never negotiate with them. If their internal processes are so easily gamed, they're easy prey.

So if you were the CEO of "Appointment Reminder", your first plan of action after getting a request for information from a hospital would be to plan your takeover of the healthcare industry?

I don't want to say anything against Patrick or other consultancy oriented entrepreneurs, but I'd just put up a price on the saas app and be done with it and move on with the next thing. I'm functionality-oriented, create a lot of functions that automate work and let the product sell itself.

It might be a little foolish and leaving money on the table but I just think more and more code is better than more and more marketing. Software should eat the world, and as fast as possible.

Re: Selling Software To Large Businesses

#48

Post by patio11 »

glimcat wrote: post #42
patio11 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put an extra line item in the quote for maintenance. Done. Seriously, not only does that work, there are companies which will send the quote back and ask you to requote them with a maintenance contract if you don't do it the first time. (And yep, 20% is indeed quite standard at many places.)

Is this separate from the line item about support (best effort / no SLA purchased)? And if it's separate, in what sense does enterprise purchasing use "maintenance"? Software updates?

"Remember that time we bought the thing? And we had that bug? And they said 'We'll never fix that because the product is EOL'? That should never ever happen again, and is worth 20% per year to insure against."

AR quotes maintenance purely as "We promise this product will be under active development for the duration of your maintenance contract. We might decide to do that independently of this contract, but if you want a legally enforceable promise which you can quote to other stakeholders, that costs $PRICE."

Re: Selling Software To Large Businesses

#49

Post by mindcrime »

You can crush arbitrarily large/sophisticated competition on small deals that are uneconomical for them to pursue with the goal of expanding into the core of the business. Clayton Christensen calls this "disruptive innovation." I personally like to think of the old line about how to eat an elephant: in small bites, starting at its vulnerable underbelly.

That's good stuff. Worth the price of admission, by itself - and something I'll be filing away in my "bag of useful ideas and thoughts".

Re: Selling Software To Large Businesses

#50

Post by mindcrime »

unz wrote: post #47
AaronFriel wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if you were the CEO of "Appointment Reminder", your first plan of action after getting a request for information from a hospital would be to plan your takeover of the healthcare industry?

I don't want to say anything against Patrick or other consultancy oriented entrepreneurs, but I'd just put up a price on the saas app and be done with it and move on with the next thing. I'm functionality-oriented, create a lot of functions that automate work and let the product sell itself. It might be a little foolish and leaving money on the table but I just think more and more code is better than more and more ma…

and let the product sell itself.

And what if it doesn't?

but I just think more and more code is better than more and more marketing

Ideally you want code AND marketing, and - better yet - you want them working in concert with each other. Marketing isn't something evil, ya know... it's the means to finding out what customers want, and then letting them know that you've built a thing that they will want, so you can sell it to them (or so they can buy it, if you like that terminology better).

Quality marketing is a lot more than just shady web-advertising tricks (pop-ups, pop-unders, interstitials, link-spam, content farms, etc.), annoying TV ads, cheesy radio spots, spam emails, etc. Those are all just tactics which a given firm may choose to use or not use.

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