Enterprise software sales materials briefing
This morning, I had breakfast with 2 French friends entrepreneurs who are starting up an enterprise software company in Brussels after two years working, respectively, as a financial auditor and a consultant in Luxembourg and London. Both are 25. Starting an enterprise software startup when you’re so young is extremely difficult. Not that the older, the smarter, but large companies (not to mention venture capitalists), especially in Latin countries, tend to trust youngsters less when it comes to big business. In enterprise software, my guess is that the young crowd makes it perfectly when sales cycles are short (inexpensive apps sold to mid managers or silo-ed clusters like R&D labs or subs). Large accounts feel you can’t be a heavy weight sales exec. if you don’t have grey hair. I think that’s a shame, but what can I do…I won’t reveal the name of the company here, nor the nature of its business, because I am not allowed to, unlike asking for you people to help here on Tech IT Easy. Indeed, my two mates came to Paris to meet with many software guys as well as friend-contacts at potential clients. They came to me to brainstorm on sales materials they need to start nurrishing their sales pipeline. I told them I have absolutely no serious experience in sales – although I will at some point in my career, but they insisted on us three to spend two hours together, an hour on their business plan that I won’t talk about here, and an hour on their sales materials.
Here’s the perfect sales exec. package we came up with while brainstorming:
- A corporate overview document - 4 pages max.
- A functional product data sheet - 4 pages max.
- A technical product data sheet - 4 pages max.
- A price list (including prices for the different versions of your application + price of additional modules + consulting costs + deployment costs + service prices + hosting prices, if applicable). Keep in mind to update your price list frequently and mention the date of the last update in the document.
- A customizable standard value proposition document including all the above just in case you feel the client is willing to proceed during the meeting. This document should include a corporate overview, the vision behind your product (pain tackling / must have or comfort enhancer / nice to have? The former will sell better), the pain / lack of comfort identified at your client, your functional value prop, technical matters, option catalog, service catalog, price & delivery. My call is that this document shouldn’t exceed 20, 25 pages for very complex products for your client to be able to read it during lunch time, while in the toilets, before they go to bed and go through another time in an internal meeting to make a purchase decision. Any higher format will increase the decision cycle.
- A white paper on the benefits of your solution vs. the competition. Don’t forget to explicit the methodology. 25 pages max. excluding miscellaneous.
- Client testimonials (once you have clients) – 2 pages max. each
- On your website, allow the prospect to get a hint on the ROI of your solution by entering a few parameters
- For ‘cheap’ enterprise solutions (eg software below the capex line ie business line or business center P&L-friendly, roughly USD 30K upfront or 50K yearly per monthly payments), same thing with price: allow your prospects to type in a few parameters on your website and come up with some pricing. In case your pricing isn’t fully accountable and transparent (ie price depends on the client, it happens…) then make sure you have a commercial NDA ready to be signed by your counterpart prior to the second meeting.
Guys, none of us have a clue on the quality of our brainstorm. Did we get it right? What would you improve, add, remove? Why and how?
Addendum: we’re to meet again in Brussels in November once they have recruited their two first sales execs to think about how to organize a sales force. Something I think I can’t contribute on but the entrepreneurs want to turn the tables, do something fresh of advice from the grey hair type. I think this is sort of risky, and I told them so, especially in enterprise software, but the two guys have the stubborness of success…As for this post, they required that I blogged for advice when effective.
LikeRelated posts:
Business Process Management, Business strategy, CIO, CRM, Consulting, ERP, Entertainment, Entrepreneurship, Europe, Friends, Organization, SME, Software, Technology, marketing, operations
Jeremy : you maybe have done a great job in terms of brainstorming per se, however I’m affraid the outcomes are way too complex for your friends to succeed (sorry, that’s advice from a 46-yo gray hair guy who’s currently building up a brand new business where sales is key – as with any business, by the way…).
For instance, those 20-pages sales materials are totally useless. If you’re not able to sell your product in 3-mn / 1-page, forget it. Think about the user experience : what are your customer’s pains, and how your product solve those. Do you think most of the people install Word on their PC because of its 10,000 functions ? Nope. They install Word on their machine because : a) it’s a word processor, b) it’s the most common piece of software on the planet, and c) it does the (basic) job quite well.
About the ROI : no hint, Buddy. THE WHOLE STUFF. Tell everything. Tell your customer why, when and how he’s going to get his investment back. Because that is your value proposition, no matter the fancy features or the glossy front page here and there.
Last, to your 25-yo friends : the gray hair guys are going to be their customers. W/o them, no business. W/o business, no money. W/o money, good luck. Remember : at the end of the day, that’s the customer who’s paying your salary. So, better be open to what the gray hair man says…
I think you have to structure the doc according to whom you are selling it to. Business-types: more on ROI, less on tech specs. Tech-types, more on tech, less on business. Since there is no corporate, I would focus much less on corporate. These types of clients don’t care as much about vision, as they do about hard data. For investors, I would again focus more on corporate.
Testimonials are very important in this business as you will not only be dealing with grey-haired/conservative folk (depending on size/phase of company), who are laying their systems in the hands of the vendors.
Reputation is very important in this business, so I would either compete on price or hire some more “grey-hairs” to get clients.
Traditionally, I think these types of start-ups are often spun-off from established consultancies, universities, or other well-known quantities and they often retain clients from their previous positions whom they have developed a relationship with. So, if they are hiring, that’s where I would look.
Probably an easier way to get into the industry would be with SaaS and aimed at SMBs.
Guys, you’re both making a point. Thx
Jeremy, pretty interesting stuff, especially because couple of my friends are in similar situation. They’re trying to sell enterprise infrastructure solution, which of course is also a pretty hard sell for young guys to pull off.
Kari, can you tell us more on the issues your friends come accross? And the solutions they choose to implement to address those? Thx in advance
Jeremy, unfortunately I don’t know that much and I can’t talk about what I know. As far as I’ve understood, things are quite hectic and critical at the moment, so maybe in the future.
The support of investors has been a great help for them, as the investors are usually a bit “grey-haired” and know the other “grey-haired” people, so their contribution in sales leads in, as far as I understood, quite important.