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Tell me what your company does

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Re: Tell me what your company does

#81
post #76

I think the non-obvious difference here is bottoms-up vs top-down adoption. If you're going bottoms-up, your deal size is smaller, and you want people to start using you by themselves. Think consumer startups like Uber, Airbnb, and enterprise startups like Github. The decision-makers here are ordinary people, and they want to know exactly what they're buying so they can make an informed decision. If you're going top-…

If I have to get on a "sales call" just to see what the product is or demo it, I am not interested. Let me try it for free, and tell me what it does... I really don't have time or patience for sales calls.

Re: Tell me what your company does

#82
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The web design is indeed ugly, but at least it is functional. Here are some easy to implement design suggestions: You should change the title of the first heading so it's not the same as the banner. I think "What is Tarsnap?" is a good choice. Speaking of the banner, vectorize it. Finally, please remove the bars from the asides. Your product is good, so transferring a little attention to its web presence is worth the…

Ugly is subjective. I like it. It's actually readable and easy to navigate. On small width device the menu will be on the bottom, so there's no duplication. (website seems to be responsive) I like that the menu is on the bottom and not hidden behind a hamburger button.

Not just on small width devices! The navigation menu is at the bottom if you look at the website in lynx, too (with a link to it at the top).

Re: Tell me what your company does

#83
post #76

I think the non-obvious difference here is bottoms-up vs top-down adoption. If you're going bottoms-up, your deal size is smaller, and you want people to start using you by themselves. Think consumer startups like Uber, Airbnb, and enterprise startups like Github. The decision-makers here are ordinary people, and they want to know exactly what they're buying so they can make an informed decision. If you're going top-…

If I have to get on a "sales call" just to see what the product is or demo it, I am not interested. Let me try it for free, and tell me what it does... I really don't have time or patience for sales calls.

Then you're probably not the right customer for us! Do you have problems with internal tooling that you'd pay thousands of $ / month to have solved?

For now, that's who we're looking for. And a "request a demo" is a pretty good way of finding exactly those people.

Re: Tell me what your company does

#84
post #76

I think the non-obvious difference here is bottoms-up vs top-down adoption. If you're going bottoms-up, your deal size is smaller, and you want people to start using you by themselves. Think consumer startups like Uber, Airbnb, and enterprise startups like Github. The decision-makers here are ordinary people, and they want to know exactly what they're buying so they can make an informed decision. If you're going top-…

You forget the people in a) who don't have the time to deal with bulshit calls. That's where you're losing leads.

Re: Tell me what your company does

#85
post #76

I think the non-obvious difference here is bottoms-up vs top-down adoption. If you're going bottoms-up, your deal size is smaller, and you want people to start using you by themselves. Think consumer startups like Uber, Airbnb, and enterprise startups like Github. The decision-makers here are ordinary people, and they want to know exactly what they're buying so they can make an informed decision. If you're going top-…

If I have to get on a "sales call" just to see what the product is or demo it, I am not interested. Let me try it for free, and tell me what it does... I really don't have time or patience for sales calls.

At least in my company the people who have the actual budgets love sales calls. Even if the engineers tell them that the product is not good they will still buy it from a good sales rep.

Re: Tell me what your company does

#86
post #76

I think the non-obvious difference here is bottoms-up vs top-down adoption. If you're going bottoms-up, your deal size is smaller, and you want people to start using you by themselves. Think consumer startups like Uber, Airbnb, and enterprise startups like Github. The decision-makers here are ordinary people, and they want to know exactly what they're buying so they can make an informed decision. If you're going top-…

You forget the people in a) who don't have the time to deal with bulshit calls. That's where you're losing leads.

We cost thousands of $ / month. If you had a problem that you'd pay thousands to have solved, it's probably worth you talking on the phone for 20 minutes.

So it's a good filter for us, for now. Once we bring the price point down, you're absolutely right -- we want to have a descriptive landing page that makes people think "wow, that's exactly my problem!".

Re: Tell me what your company does

#87

> the more expensive the service a B2B company provides, the more incomprehensible its website > I think the big companies do it to get you on the phone — so they can upsell. I was thinking these things, and then BOOM, he says what I'm thinking haha. These are sales oriented companies. By contrast, B2C is quantity oriented. They need more customers buying their mostly undifferentiated price tiers. Selling expensive p…

Or it is just a case of the site contents not having a very big priority, because your contracts come from person to person sales anyway; and the need of never saying anything dangerous, because your sales people will tell all kinds of different stories to all kinds of people, and your site must contradict none.

Re: Tell me what your company does

#88
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The First A.I. Big Data Marketing Cloud for BlockChain" This is pure comedy.

OK granted it has AI, big data, cloud and blockchain, but is it social? That's what I wanna know. Never forget social, because that's what leads to viral. Also engine. We need an engine. If it was a viral AI bigdata social marketing cloud engine for blockchain, then you'd have something.

Call one of our solutioneers or successsmiths to arrange a Webex demo.

Re: Tell me what your company does

#89

I came across this recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l644fAxGzlw Don't waste your time watching it. It's a promo video for yet another a very scammy looking ICO. I watched through the entire 3 minute video, only because I found it increasingly amusing how long they were taking to "get to the point". As it turns out, this video is 3 minutes of stock videos of Dubai with a pseudo-inspirational voiceover about n…

"The First A.I. Big Data Marketing Cloud for BlockChain" This is pure comedy.

Missing AR/VR there.

Re: Tell me what your company does

#90
There are possibly a few things happening that explain this:

1. Fear of not communicating "everything" that you do. The fear is of being perceived as a very narrow solution when it does a lot more.

2. Advice that says "communicate the benefits" not "what you do". This advice could manifest itself in the wrong kind of (flowery) language. So instead of saying "export payroll reports for QuickBooks automatically" websites say "free up for time" [made up example]

3. Internal decision-making by committee.

4. Copying some website that you like - instead of thinking and reasoning from ground-up about 'what is it that I really want to say'.

5. Pretending to be a big/legit company when you are small

6. Big company with so many features that it would rather just show you the entire sales deck - the website is just there because it needs to be, but plays a tiny role in conversions. [why focus on something that doesn't add value - in this case, the website e.g. SAP.com]

This is a good article. Everyone who is running an online would benefit from thinking hard about this.

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