Sales Q&A

Question:

Product Marketing: We are an early-stage software company and our solution falls at the intersection of a couple of broad categories i.e, BI, and Performance Management (as defined by Gartner — sigh!). I keep getting asked by people which category we belong to?

My suggestion:

1. Develop a prospect list of at least 100 senior managers at companies in your target markets. Use LinkedIn, conference agendas, personal and professional networks to do this.

2. Create a value statement for each segment that describes the benefits of your product in their terms (i.e. does your product increase revenue, decrease costs, increase efficiency?).

3. Make sales calls and describe your value statement to these decision-makers.

4. Measure your progress. What level of interest are these managers showing? Are you moving from an initial call to a “Hmmm….This sounds cool. Can I see it?” [good] Or are you hearing — “Um, yeah… send me an email and I’ll take a look.” [bad]

Once you develop your first few paying customers (not free or beta users), it will become more clear about which segment on which to focus.