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The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

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Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

#81

Post by ynniv »

Persuadem wrote: post #27

I 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…

The original Star Wars script was heavily influenced by an analysis of ancient and religious mythologies, so it's not surprising that you're seeing the same themes.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero%27s_journey]

Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

#82

Post by setr »

Illniyar wrote: post #51
tjoff wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure they do. 3D TVs and bent TVs are two glaring examples of something people never wanted. The only way companies could uphold that view was by ensuring that no manufacturer had sensible alternatives - effectively forcing people that wanted a TV to buy it. And then pretending that the sales were proof that people wanted it. It is the exact same with the majority of subscription services. For a company I get that it…

err... are you implying that there are no alternatives in the market to 3D TVs and bent TVs? As far as I know 3D TVs have basically gone out of market[1] because no one bought them. It is actually the exact opposite of what you suggested - they could not start a trend, even thought they tried to force it on people, because there was no demand for it. [1]- https://www.cnet.com/news/shambling-corpse-of-3d-tv-finally-..…

For about 5 years, any tv you found in an electronic store was 3D, and I have yet to find a single person who claims to like them.

Today, every tv is a Smart TV, and yet again, I haven’t found anyone who thought they weren’t awful

In cars theres the same issue with GPS systems: even luxury cars have awful interfaces. Presumably tesla’s is decent (never tried), but otherwise the only interface I’ve encountered yet that met the minimum requirement of a sensible response time (let alone everything else) is a luxury jeep. Mercedes, priuses, bmws, etc are all horrendous.

In phones, the aux ports and phablets

On the web, heavy js

In games, complex 3D graphics (this is very slowly changing, as indie devs begin to realize games existed between 1980 and 2000)

This type of event, where the producers collectively decide what the consumers want, and only produce it, and miss the mark by a mile, definetely exist (these are just things I’m irrated by recently), though I assume incompetence and babdwaggoning over any kind of real thinking going into this. (They didn’t try to force a trend, they just all thought it was the trend, due to whatever terrible research they all do; hell, I’d bet there was one or two marketing firms that were the root cause of most of these messes)

Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

#83

Post by at-fates-hands »

chank wrote: post #7

>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.

When I was running my Web Agency, we gave the client two options, one was an hourly rate, the other a monthly subscription.

A majority of our larger clients took the subscription since it came with a few more benefits in service and response time. The smaller clients wanted to have us doing ala carte work which was also fine.

The best part about our sub clients was it built a closer relationship with us. Communication was easier and more streamlined and it was easier to show a real value to the work we were doing on a month to month basis. Our hourly clients didn't care about analytics, they just wanted a part-time content manager or someone to upgrade their design every now and then.

It was easy for us to continue to have the incoming revenue and plan a budget based on those numbers. Our smaller hourly clients were just frosting on the cake. We never would have gotten so many smaller companies on board if we only offered sub services to them. The hourly rate was perfect for them to keep the work manageable and on-demand and still within a reasonable budget.

My other friends who did the same thing would simply charge a bulk rate for the design and development and then once the site was released, they had to find another client willing to dole out %5-$10K for their services. We built long term relationships with our clients and were able to tailor future services to their needs - which totally blew my friends mind. They were so opposed to a sub based service, all they wanted was the money up front which was a total red flag to me.

Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

#84

Post by floatrock »

drieddust wrote: post #65

Can someone explain why this is so much noteworthy? All I see is random messages pasted onto random backgrounds. I am not from sales or marketing though.

My first freshman physics class consisted of random symbols scribbled onto a random blackboard. I was not from a physics background though.

The learning new stuff you're not familiar with is why it's noteworthy.

Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

#85

Post by ghaff »

setr wrote: post #82
Illniyar wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

err... are you implying that there are no alternatives in the market to 3D TVs and bent TVs? As far as I know 3D TVs have basically gone out of market[1] because no one bought them. It is actually the exact opposite of what you suggested - they could not start a trend, even thought they tried to force it on people, because there was no demand for it. [1]- https://www.cnet.com/news/shambling-corpse-of-3d-tv-finally-..…

For about 5 years, any tv you found in an electronic store was 3D, and I have yet to find a single person who claims to like them. Today, every tv is a Smart TV, and yet again, I haven’t found anyone who thought they weren’t awful In cars theres the same issue with GPS systems: even luxury cars have awful interfaces. Presumably tesla’s is decent (never tried), but otherwise the only interface I’ve encountered yet tha…

>I have yet to find a single person who claims to like them

I like 3D well enough at least for the occasional novelty and film that uses it well, e.g. Gravity. There is just about zero content available however. My impression when I bought my TV was that there were certainly non-3D options available. But I got a pre-Christmas deal and I paid about the same as for an equivalent TV that didn't have 3D.

It's the same with Smart TVs. It doesn't really add to the cost of the TV. I just never use the features.

I guess the latest trend is whatever resolution that's an additional increment beyond the limits of human vision. Or maybe OLED.

I do understand that the TV manufacturers are really desperate to drive TV upgrade cycles. The good news is that the new features are mostly harmless if you need a new TV anyway.

Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

#86

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

enraged_camel wrote: post #39
chank wrote: post #7

>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.

Not true. I work in the enterprise software space. We definitely noticed a strong trend, starting around mid-2010, where prospective customers started shying away from one-time, upfront purchases and demanding a subscription model. The reason is simple: one is a capital expenditure, whereas the other can be categorized as an operational expense. With a subscription model, even if you end up paying more in the long ru…

I get the feeling this is something they always wanted, but the software business model had to catch up to that need.

Thinking back to my first job as an EE in the early 90's, I clearly remember the new owner of the company who had been a CFO in his previous life, trying to figure out a way to move our hardware sales to a leasing-type model. His experience as a CFO led him to the conclusion that larger companies would prefer to bill items to OpEx rather than CapEx for just the reason you said.

Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

#87

Post by ghaff »

Angostura wrote: post #80
Illniyar wrote: post #21

Earlier 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 -…

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.

On the other hand, traditional licensing provides an incentive for companies to hold back feature enhancements and bug fixes to encourage users to pay for an upgrade to the next version.

Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

#88

Post by gowld »

DINKDINK wrote: post #70
chank wrote: post #7

>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.

>It's not a trend where buyers choose recurring payments, but where companies only offer services through recurring payments. If a firm could be profitable and offer out-right purchases relative to recurring payments, why aren't they doing that? Let the market be rife with only recurring-payment firms. A purchase firm enters with higher prices, if they fail to succeed, it's "buyers [are] increasingly choose recurring…

Vendor lock-in and network effects.

Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

#89

Post by njudah »

I learned much of what I know about product marketing from Tien (CEO of Zuora); as this thread demonstrates its hard for a lot of product / developer folks to understand why its such an important part of any non-consumer offering, as so much of customer development culture is focused exclusively on metrics and optimization.

Immodestly I did a presentation on the topic at Heavybit a few years ago for those that are interested in the topic: https://www.heavybit.com/library/video/platform-marketing-wi...

Re: The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)

#90

Post by gowld »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #16
jk563 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get where you're coming from, but I don't think they're entirely wrong. Whilst you can't buy Photoshop once now (your point), there are plenty of models where the choice is still there. Netflix and Spotify both have one-off purchase equivalents. You can still buy Jira as a one off purchase instead of SaaS.

In case it's unclear, the "one-off purchase equivalents" to Netflix and Spotify to which the parent refers are iTunes, Amazon, etc.

Those aren't one-off for the same product (full catalog unlimited access); those are pay-per-use instead of pay-per-calendar-month
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