How Not To Sell Software in 2012 • Hacker News Board

Re: How Not To Sell Software in 2012

#91

Post by sk5t » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 5:50 AM UTC

schnaars wrote: post #86

InclinedPlane wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Shut up and take my money!" applies at both ends of the spectrum. If a hundred thousand people want to give you $10 through an app store, it might make sense to figure out how to make that possible. If one person wants to give you a million dollars using an ACH transfer or through gold doubloons, you should probably figure out how to make that possible too.

I'll take 1 person giving me $1M over 100K giving me $!0 any day.

Indeed, a sizable chunk of those 100K individual customers are likely going to find a way to nag, review-extort, and support-whittle your $1M down to almost nothing.

Re: How Not To Sell Software in 2012

#92

Post by msellout » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 5:57 AM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #57

wheels wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you are misunderstanding what an email course is. An email course is a daily or weekly reminder to you to keep using the product so that you'll be primed for the sales process. Given that your viewing of images will be tracked, it will also qualify your level of interest to the sales person that will be following up in person.

Ah, thank you. I've only had to make purchasing decisions twice or so, and it's always been for a pretty small and cheap product where I just tossed a credit card at them, and software/serial arrived in my inbox.

Often times, enterprise software buyers have a large team working for months (or years!) to evaluate, test, and negotiate the purchase. In those cases, it's good to take it slow and steady with the customer.

Re: How Not To Sell Software in 2012

#93

Post by Confusion » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 6:44 AM UTC

CamperBob wrote: post #73

patio11 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you ask me for email, by definition sending you the email you asked for is not spam. The advantages to the software purchaser: 1) You're a busy guy. If we critically hit you with a wall of text right now, you'll bookmark it and never get back to it. If you're honest with yourself, you know this, because you've got a backlog of things to read four miles long already. What's your RSS reader look like? Instapaper? I…

You sure seem to know a lot about how busy I am and where my priorities lie.

He knows a lot about how busy people feel and where the priorities of most people lie, as expressed by their actions, as measured, rather than their words.

He doesn't know a thing about you in particular and doesn't care, because he needs to get it right for most of his customers. Not every single one of his customers. If you don't accept these facts about email marketing, as annoying as the situation may be, you are an outlier.

Re: How Not To Sell Software in 2012

#94

Post by paraschopra » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 7:53 AM UTC

Well, why can't you have the best of both worlds? Provide free trial for people who want to quickly trial it. Provide demos, webinars for those who are interested in going that route.

It is hard to optimize for _both_ kinds of customers, but it is certainly not impossible.

Re: How Not To Sell Software in 2012

#95

Post by anamax » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 7:56 AM UTC

adamtmca wrote: post #80

notaddicted wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Joel's article was written in 2004 so, using gasoline as the benchmark, the 2012 dollars figure is $2180 [1]. [1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28average+price+of+gas...

Gasoline is a poor choice of benchmark. Energy prices aren't really a proxy for inflation. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=core+inflation+from+200...

> Gasoline is a poor choice of benchmark. Energy prices aren't really a proxy for inflation.

Core inflation is also a poor choice.

My housing costs are fixed, so the variation that I see is in the things that core inflation excludes.

Re: How Not To Sell Software in 2012

#96

Post by joelhaasnoot » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 8:03 AM UTC

damoncali wrote: post #28

raganwald wrote: post #17

There's no software priced between $1000 and $75,000. I'll tell you why. The minute you charge more than $1000 you need to get serious corporate signoffs. You need a line item in their budget. You need purchasing managers and CEO approval and competitive bids and paperwork. So you need to send a salesperson out to the customer to do PowerPoint, with his airfare, golf course memberships, and $19.95 porn movies at the…

Pretty much the entire CAD market is in that price range...

A friend who does 3D animation commented yesterday that while 3DS Max is 4000+ euros, all you get is a stupid little cardboard box with dvds.

Re: How Not To Sell Software in 2012

#97

Post by bipolarla » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 8:08 AM UTC

Anyone think Apps will one day replace websites? I notice many individuals and businesses still having a regular website. In 5-10 years will there be no websites and only apps? I actually like working on a larger computer be it on apps or websites. I know the phone market will continue to expand especially in China, Russia, India, and Brazil. Microsoft still feels they have value in new versions of Windows. What do you think?

Re: How Not To Sell Software in 2012

#98

Post by rbarooah » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 8:32 AM UTC

A major reason for buying software is because we want to trade money for time.

Making the buying process time consuming significantly reduces the value proposition for those who are time constrained.

Re: How Not To Sell Software in 2012

#99

Post by rythie » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 8:41 AM UTC

Is this why most enterprise software has poor UIs? since they never had to optimise the UI for customer retention, they just rely on the sales process to get people to buy it.

Re: How Not To Sell Software in 2012

#100

Post by toumhi » Thu, Mar 01, 2012, 8:50 AM UTC

nhebb wrote: post #66

wheels wrote: post #36

> Practically everyone who’s paying for software is doing so through an app store And how well's that working for them? • All of the revenue for the thousands of vendors in the Apple App Store together for 2011: $3.6 billion • Oracle's revenue alone for 2011: $36 billion Notice that decimal point there? There's a reason it's in a different place. I don't like the enterprise sales process – being on either side of it,…

>> Practically everyone who’s paying for software is doing so through an app store I think that software developers that eat, sleep, drink, breathe the Apple / mobile world need to be careful not to let this define their worldview of the software market. As big as the Apple / mobile market is, it's still just a small piece of the overall pie. > And how well's that working for them? Although I think the premise is wro…

I'm always surprised when I see that kind of websites with no clear calls to action.

They seem to violate all good landing page optimization guidelines, yet they are multi-million dollar businesses. Are they leaving money on the table by not optimizing their landing pages? Or did the customers learn to expect that kind of websites and already know they just have to call? In this case, would they be put off by a more modern approach?

In other words, can the B2C approach be applied to B2B without alienating potential customers? (Some companies do, check HubSpot).