The happy 90’s were all about speed. Speed is still important, but it has taken on a different meaning. Where speed is most important today is in proving your solution to potential buyers. I call it Accelerated Proof.
Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. When you make a major purchase, you want to try it out first. Purchasing enterprise software is a major commitment with financial, operational, and strategic implications. Fear of failure could be the number one reason for people not to buy your product. How can you help them overcome their fears?
Customer testimonials and references are big help, especially when they are closely related to the buyer’s world. Still, most buyers believe their environment and needs are unique; so how can they be confident your solution will work for them?
Wouldn’t it be nice if they could actually try your product before they buy it? This is hardly a new concept – many “shrink-wrap” software vendors offer an evaluation package you can try for a limited time. Many others offer money back guarantee for a limited period.
Enterprise software companies are mostly reluctant to take this route. Some are afraid that trials and pilots delay the purchase decision and lengthen the sales cycle. I would argue that sales cycles are longer and closure rates are lower when buyers are plagued by fear and uncertainty. Anything you can do to remove the risk for the buyer works in your favor.
A common reason vendors hesitate to offer such trials is that enterprise software products require heavy customization and integration before they can be operational at the customer site. The challenge is to reduce the effort required to prove your product, so the customer is willing to make the investment in time and resources, and you can afford to do it within your limited means.
The basic premise we operate from is that you have a good product that delivers value to its users. Assuming that’s the case, here are some steps you need to take in order to make Accelerated Proof work:
- 1. Start small: carve out a portion of your product functionality and make it easy to implement quickly – within less than 30 days, preferably closer to one week. This dictates that you remove any unnecessary complex functionality, and provide templates and simple user-configuration options for everything that requires customization.
2. The functionality must be simple enough so training requirements are kept minimal. You should strive for completely self-explanatory functionality; if training is required, it should be limited to one day or less.
3. If integration is a pre-requisite, it may be necessary to limit integration options to certain common packages (e.g., MS Exchange, SAP, Siebel).
4. Providing such simple, easy to implement solution may require a focus on specific verticals or segments thereof to begin with. Don’t worry about capturing a large portion of the market; select those segments that can be provide the quickest return on your investment, and expand from there.
5. It doesn’t have to be hosted solution, but it can certainly help. If possible, provide an ASP option to further shorten the implementation cycle and reduce the burden on customer IT resources.
6. Last but not least: don’t keep it secret! This is your competitive advantage, and you should actively promote it to get the most out of your investment.
Accelerating proof requires some upfront investment on your part, but if you take a practical approach, it’s one that is within your means and pays itself very quickly. Enterprise software companies that allow their customers to test their products prior to making a purchase commitment have fared well, even in (and maybe to a degree due to) the current economic environment.
One example is RightNow, whose sales approach is covered in a case study you can access from this newsletter. A company that has brought the “try and buy” approach to new levels is Salesforce.com. Both companies have seen their sales increase, at a time when most other enterprise vendors have suffered.
The more self-sufficient the customer can be in the evaluation effort, the better you are and the happier your customer is. Not only does it reduce your cost of sales; the truth is that most people prefer buying rather than being sold to. They like to experiment, but only if it’s easy enough. And if the experience is positive, they are happy to buy.
As if helping sales is not enough, Accelerated Proof has a number of significant side benefits:
- Guess what? You have a better product! Once you’ve gone through the exercise of simplifying your product and providing better templates and configuration options, everybody benefits.
- You have better implementation and training methodologies. After ClickSoftware implemented their FastTrack program, they were eventually able to significantly reduce the average deployment time of all implementations.
- Maybe the greatest benefit is that you now have happier customers. In a CRM market with over 50% failure rate, Salesforce.com and RightNow exhibit exceptionally high levels of customer satisfaction. We all know that customer satisfaction is an exercise in managing expectations, and what is a better way to manage expectations than letting customers try for themselves before they make a decision?
Eran Livneh is the founder of MarketCapture (http://www.MarketCapture.com), helping software companies enter new markets, introduce new products, and increase market share. Eran is also the publisher of the MarketCapture Newsletter (see past issues and subscribe at http://newsletter.MarketCapture.com).
