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Systematizing Sales with Software and Processes

training.kalzumeus.com

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Re: Systematizing Sales with Software and Processes

#3

Post by lmorris84 »

rather than giving Cindy the quote which she asked for, I should have asked Cindy to hop on a quick call with me to discuss how they were planning to use Appointment Reminder

I get this all the time when looking for vendors for various things and have to say I usually do an internal eye-roll when it comes up - sometimes I just want a rough quote in an email that I can look at when I get the chance. Most recently we were looking at some load testing tool and I had to sit through a sales call only to find out the cost was ten times what we were prepared to pay. I had zero special requirements so why that price couldn't have been emailed is beyond me.

I understand in some cases like this it might be useful to have a call, I just feel I'm getting the sales BS when it happens to me.

Re: Systematizing Sales with Software and Processes

#4

Post by patio11 »

saturdayplace wrote: post #2

Patrick, if you haven't yet gotten any emails about this, the Amazon link to "Predictable Revenue" is to the .co.jp domain.

Thanks. D'oh. I understand how I missed that when QAing the links but I'm clueless about how it got into there in the first place.

Re: Systematizing Sales with Software and Processes

#5

Post by patio11 »

lmorris84 wrote: post #3

rather than giving Cindy the quote which she asked for, I should have asked Cindy to hop on a quick call with me to discuss how they were planning to use Appointment Reminder I get this all the time when looking for vendors for various things and have to say I usually do an internal eye-roll when it comes up - sometimes I just want a rough quote in an email that I can look at when I get the chance. Most recently we w…

I'm on your side here with regards to that, but this story is exactly why your vendor can't do that to you. You know you have no special requirements. They don't know you have no special requirements. They also don't know whether you're serious yet. For better or worse, asking you to put something on your calendar and show up to it is a great way to verify whether you're serious or not: if you're not willing to make yourself available for a phone call, it is possible you'd be able to organize your company to pay $10k for software but that isn't the way I'll bet.

I regretfully have years of anecdata on the close rate of doing things the geek-approved way versus the close rate when I get on the phone with somebody and it, ahem, is not a close call.

Re: Systematizing Sales with Software and Processes

#7

Post by lmorris84 »

patio11 wrote: post #5
lmorris84 wrote: post #3

rather than giving Cindy the quote which she asked for, I should have asked Cindy to hop on a quick call with me to discuss how they were planning to use Appointment Reminder I get this all the time when looking for vendors for various things and have to say I usually do an internal eye-roll when it comes up - sometimes I just want a rough quote in an email that I can look at when I get the chance. Most recently we w…

I'm on your side here with regards to that, but this story is exactly why your vendor can't do that to you. You know you have no special requirements. They don't know you have no special requirements. They also don't know whether you're serious yet. For better or worse, asking you to put something on your calendar and show up to it is a great way to verify whether you're serious or not: if you're not willing to make…

In the case I mentioned I wasn't serious at all - I was just putting feelers out and trying to gauge pricing across a few different vendors. A call at this point is probably wasting my time and theirs.

For me, the stage after finding out a standard price is to perhaps have a call and determine if my requirements match up to the product.

I guess it also depends on the size of the company, type of software etc. If the company has trial versions then it's more likely the person buying knows what it can do etc.

As a hard example, I go to jprofiler's website[1] and can order there and then, no messing around. I go to neotys[2] and it's the sales induced hell I mentioned above.

[1] https://www.ej-technologies.com/buy/jprofiler/select [2] http://www.neotys.com/product/neoload-licenses.html

Re: Systematizing Sales with Software and Processes

#8

Post by rmc »

patio11 wrote: post #5
lmorris84 wrote: post #3

rather than giving Cindy the quote which she asked for, I should have asked Cindy to hop on a quick call with me to discuss how they were planning to use Appointment Reminder I get this all the time when looking for vendors for various things and have to say I usually do an internal eye-roll when it comes up - sometimes I just want a rough quote in an email that I can look at when I get the chance. Most recently we w…

I'm on your side here with regards to that, but this story is exactly why your vendor can't do that to you. You know you have no special requirements. They don't know you have no special requirements. They also don't know whether you're serious yet. For better or worse, asking you to put something on your calendar and show up to it is a great way to verify whether you're serious or not: if you're not willing to make…

> You know you have no special requirements. They don't know you have no special requirements.

I presume "The company and the customer have different ideas of 'special requirements'" can also be a factor?

Re: Systematizing Sales with Software and Processes

#10

Post by adwf »

This is one of the hidden gems within the article:

"Selling to your existing customers is orders of magnitude easier than selling to new customers. We’ve never really strictly enforced the quotas differentiating our tiers from each other, so I had poor visibility into how many people were over quota, but it turns out that it is almost 10% of the user base. I built out capability in our billing system to upgrade a user’s account without forcing them to log in and initiate it themselves. Then I built a screen in our admin dashboard which shows all the accounts that are over quota and links them to their contact details in the CRM."

How great is it for a customer to hear that they've gone over but it's OK? So many companies would put a sting in the tail of the contract and charge overages (frequently at nasty rates), or just suspend their account until it's upgraded. Instead it's being used as a perfect opportunity to upsell an existing, qualified - and therefore presumably very happy customer - on a bigger plan.

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