What now?
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Why are they buying the other package? Is it reasonable to try educating your user base? Does it come down to price? Find out what the users really want. Even the coolest and most effective features are a waste of time to write, if the user doesn't get, or isn't willing to change their habits. you may find you need to rewrite some things, but listen to the consumer first. BW "Gandalf. Yes. That is what they used to call me. Gandalf the Grey. *I* am Gandalf the White." - Gandalf the White
Thats easier said then done. A product which is sold by volume not by single license has pretty different sales mechanisms. And this is even more true when we talk about security products. Potential buyers seldom tell you what they want, because they dont even know it. Its like "Hey, I want something to enhance the security in my network, but it must be simple, cheap and require no maintenance." That simply does not exist. You may have one but not the other. And sacrifying security for simplicity? Price is normally not a matter - except when talking about obvious value for money. If you get 100% security for X$, how much you would spend for 80% security?
I don't think this is a serious possesion, and the evil most likely comes from your hand. Colin J Davies, The Lounge
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Andreas Saurwein wrote: Competitors offer a less complete solution but yet they sell. As Bill Gates has shown it is equally the marketing strategy and the product itself which supports success. One more reason why so many brilliant coders languish in back rooms and blindly ponder their relative lack of success. Your competitors are probably marketing their product better. But to be sure, name your product and name their product and then we can give you our view
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South AfricaPaul Watson wrote: "The Labia [cinema]... ...was opened by Princess Labia in May 1949..." Christian Graus wrote: See, I told you it was a nice name for a girl...
Marketing strategy is a good thing but expensive. Thats definitely one point where our competitors are leading: burn-money for marketing, etc. I cant reveal details about the product here and now because of political reasons. But I'm pretty sure you heard neither of our product(s) nor of the competitions product :) Our products are not desktop applications.
I don't think this is a serious possesion, and the evil most likely comes from your hand. Colin J Davies, The Lounge
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Imagine you have written a nice, shiny product, ready for sale now. Everyone agree it's good and useful, but yet the customers are not willing to buy. Because its too hard to change habits of users, because it just does what it should, because no admin has time to set it up and maintain it. All these among many other similar reasons. Competitors offer a less complete solution but yet they sell. What you would do? Add more features? Ease restrictions on functionality?
I don't think this is a serious possesion, and the evil most likely comes from your hand. Colin J Davies, The Lounge
Figure out three major things that you think will make your users purchase your product. Then beat your customers over their heads with those three things ad nauseum until they get annoyed with your pestering and buy your product instead. If you're not a good salesman and are not good at pushing a hard sale then you may want to consider partnering with someone who's really outgoing, extrovert, and has a lot of energy. Bill Gates partnered with Steve Ballmer early on who's the cheerleader and main sales guy. Gates just mainly thinks of the strategy, features, etc. while Ballmer makes the sales most of the time. This is the reason Ballmer is now currently President, while Gates has switched roles to Chief Architect or something from being President.
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Andreas Saurwein wrote: Competitors offer a less complete solution but yet they sell. As Bill Gates has shown it is equally the marketing strategy and the product itself which supports success. One more reason why so many brilliant coders languish in back rooms and blindly ponder their relative lack of success. Your competitors are probably marketing their product better. But to be sure, name your product and name their product and then we can give you our view
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South AfricaPaul Watson wrote: "The Labia [cinema]... ...was opened by Princess Labia in May 1949..." Christian Graus wrote: See, I told you it was a nice name for a girl...
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Marketing strategy is a good thing but expensive. Thats definitely one point where our competitors are leading: burn-money for marketing, etc. I cant reveal details about the product here and now because of political reasons. But I'm pretty sure you heard neither of our product(s) nor of the competitions product :) Our products are not desktop applications.
I don't think this is a serious possesion, and the evil most likely comes from your hand. Colin J Davies, The Lounge
Andreas Saurwein wrote: I cant reveal details about the product here and now because of political reasons. But I'm pretty sure you heard neither of our product(s) nor of the competitions product Our products are not desktop applications. Unless you have a really good reason right there is a missed free marketing chance. My company may be small but we network with a lot of clients and agencies. Often we have simply relayed a third-party product or service onto a client we could not directly serve. Often it has just been a product someone has popped into demonstrate and left their business card behind. The relay may take months to ever occur, but it is an inexpensive way of networking your product. Networking is so, so powerful and cheap. Plus network leads are a lot more warm than cold pamphlet/magazine/TV campaigns as they are recommendations by trusted partners. My two cents :)
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South AfricaPaul Watson wrote: "The Labia [cinema]... ...was opened by Princess Labia in May 1949..." Christian Graus wrote: See, I told you it was a nice name for a girl...
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Figure out three major things that you think will make your users purchase your product. Then beat your customers over their heads with those three things ad nauseum until they get annoyed with your pestering and buy your product instead. If you're not a good salesman and are not good at pushing a hard sale then you may want to consider partnering with someone who's really outgoing, extrovert, and has a lot of energy. Bill Gates partnered with Steve Ballmer early on who's the cheerleader and main sales guy. Gates just mainly thinks of the strategy, features, etc. while Ballmer makes the sales most of the time. This is the reason Ballmer is now currently President, while Gates has switched roles to Chief Architect or something from being President.
At the level where we operate we seldom have a chance to directly talk to the people who are in charge of the budget. The curse of having large organisations as customers. We have another product that sells good, but it covers a slightly different area and is superior to the competition in many obvious means. The product I'm talking about is superior in a technological sense but the average customer wont realize that. Its like explaining to a customer the difference between a using MFC or WTL. They dont care even if they understand. And they dont see it.
I don't think this is a serious possesion, and the evil most likely comes from your hand. Colin J Davies, The Lounge
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lauren wrote: btw paul tell me this isnt true No! It is perfectly true... or at least the About page[^] for the Labia says so :) The Labia, originally an Italian Embassy ballroom, was opened by Princess Labia in May 1949 as a theatre for the staging of live performances
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South AfricaPaul Watson wrote: "The Labia [cinema]... ...was opened by Princess Labia in May 1949..." Christian Graus wrote: See, I told you it was a nice name for a girl...
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Imagine you have written a nice, shiny product, ready for sale now. Everyone agree it's good and useful, but yet the customers are not willing to buy. Because its too hard to change habits of users, because it just does what it should, because no admin has time to set it up and maintain it. All these among many other similar reasons. Competitors offer a less complete solution but yet they sell. What you would do? Add more features? Ease restrictions on functionality?
I don't think this is a serious possesion, and the evil most likely comes from your hand. Colin J Davies, The Lounge
Sell it for a lower price?
"Perhaps the truth is less interesting than the facts?" -- Amy Weiss, RIAA's Senior Vice President of Communications.
It's the new math! 421 == 156 ! -
Andreas Saurwein wrote: I cant reveal details about the product here and now because of political reasons. But I'm pretty sure you heard neither of our product(s) nor of the competitions product Our products are not desktop applications. Unless you have a really good reason right there is a missed free marketing chance. My company may be small but we network with a lot of clients and agencies. Often we have simply relayed a third-party product or service onto a client we could not directly serve. Often it has just been a product someone has popped into demonstrate and left their business card behind. The relay may take months to ever occur, but it is an inexpensive way of networking your product. Networking is so, so powerful and cheap. Plus network leads are a lot more warm than cold pamphlet/magazine/TV campaigns as they are recommendations by trusted partners. My two cents :)
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South AfricaPaul Watson wrote: "The Labia [cinema]... ...was opened by Princess Labia in May 1949..." Christian Graus wrote: See, I told you it was a nice name for a girl...
I would hazard a guess that it's internal politics. More than likely, if he goes and blabs, those that work with him will use it as a way to bad-mouth the to PHB.
"Perhaps the truth is less interesting than the facts?" -- Amy Weiss, RIAA's Senior Vice President of Communications.
It's the new math! 421 == 156 ! -
Imagine you have written a nice, shiny product, ready for sale now. Everyone agree it's good and useful, but yet the customers are not willing to buy. Because its too hard to change habits of users, because it just does what it should, because no admin has time to set it up and maintain it. All these among many other similar reasons. Competitors offer a less complete solution but yet they sell. What you would do? Add more features? Ease restrictions on functionality?
I don't think this is a serious possesion, and the evil most likely comes from your hand. Colin J Davies, The Lounge
Better marketing will help. But there's also the old axiom - it takes money to make money. Perhaps you could offer a competitive upgrade or some other free-bee (xx days of tech support) for customers who switch over to your product? Word processors (Word, WordPerfect) used to do that all the time, back when there was competition... :suss: Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
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Imagine you have written a nice, shiny product, ready for sale now. Everyone agree it's good and useful, but yet the customers are not willing to buy. Because its too hard to change habits of users, because it just does what it should, because no admin has time to set it up and maintain it. All these among many other similar reasons. Competitors offer a less complete solution but yet they sell. What you would do? Add more features? Ease restrictions on functionality?
I don't think this is a serious possesion, and the evil most likely comes from your hand. Colin J Davies, The Lounge
One problem the british film industry used to make - not budgeting enough for marketing of their product :( Trouble is, people don't know if your product is good or bad until they're heard about somehow, often from others. The tigress is here :-D
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At the level where we operate we seldom have a chance to directly talk to the people who are in charge of the budget. The curse of having large organisations as customers. We have another product that sells good, but it covers a slightly different area and is superior to the competition in many obvious means. The product I'm talking about is superior in a technological sense but the average customer wont realize that. Its like explaining to a customer the difference between a using MFC or WTL. They dont care even if they understand. And they dont see it.
I don't think this is a serious possesion, and the evil most likely comes from your hand. Colin J Davies, The Lounge
With such limited details on your product I can only guess as to a few strategies. Lets say you building an AV App, You should start looking for possible viruses that may exist in the future and start building protection against them. Then you can say "Our product has protection from the potential dangerous **future viruese** A majority of all "to buy" decisions are made on raising peopled emotions not on the logic. Later Logic is justified in why the purchase decision was made. But selling on Logic (technically better product) will cause very few sales. Anyhow since your AV product can now protect you from *future viruses* you should use disburance to raise the emotions of potential customers. eg Ask the customer, What are your current plans to do under a *future virus epedemic*. Make the customer feel insecure in not having your product. I noticed many replies here as to using "Marketing", well I believe if you want sales you should use "sales techniques". Marketing has many uses but for expanding a marketing base it can be more expensive than the results it creates. Regardz Colin J Davies
Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin
You are the intrepid one, always willing to leap into the fray! A serious character flaw, I might add, but entertaining. Said by Roger Wright about me.
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Imagine you have written a nice, shiny product, ready for sale now. Everyone agree it's good and useful, but yet the customers are not willing to buy. Because its too hard to change habits of users, because it just does what it should, because no admin has time to set it up and maintain it. All these among many other similar reasons. Competitors offer a less complete solution but yet they sell. What you would do? Add more features? Ease restrictions on functionality?
I don't think this is a serious possesion, and the evil most likely comes from your hand. Colin J Davies, The Lounge
a) Ease usability. How much of an admin is really needed to set it up? Everything from shiny paper to a setup wizard is allowed here. Can you: but that's almost an attack on your competitors that might kick back: read their configuration settings, and use them as "setup defaults", to make conversion easier? b) Get a foot into the door Don't sell under value - it's almost impossible to get prices up again. But make it cheaper than your competition for certain customers (E.g. if you fight a product like WinZip with it's agressively cheaper licenses starting from 2 users: be cheaper for a single user, but recoup on 2-10 licenses. If you compete a product where discounts start at 10 users, be cheaper in the 2-9 user range) c) Go Demo If possible, make something people can try. d) Go Demo - yourself (depends on the type of application) Is there any business (or even consumer) trade show, where potential clients exhibit? Take your laptop, a set of demo CD's, and visit them. Be prepared - you don't need a booth, just the courage and style to walk them up and find out with one question if they are potential customers. You have <1min to find out if it's worth telling them more. (listening to their marketing 5 minutes, than making them listen to you 5 minutes is impolite and wastes both theirs and your time - and their time can cost them a big client) I wouldn't want to do this, but if you feel up to the task - it#s worth it!
Those who not hear the music think the dancers are mad. [sighist] [Agile]
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Andreas Saurwein wrote: Competitors offer a less complete solution but yet they sell. As Bill Gates has shown it is equally the marketing strategy and the product itself which supports success. One more reason why so many brilliant coders languish in back rooms and blindly ponder their relative lack of success. Your competitors are probably marketing their product better. But to be sure, name your product and name their product and then we can give you our view
Paul Watson
Bluegrass
Cape Town, South AfricaPaul Watson wrote: "The Labia [cinema]... ...was opened by Princess Labia in May 1949..." Christian Graus wrote: See, I told you it was a nice name for a girl...
Interestingly, I once stumbled about a "micro-study" of OpenSource fanatics about OpenSource software what they found (or at least claimed) was: Even in the "a little bit less than"-perfect solution usually get the widest use. (It just iterated things to prove the fact, no discussion of the "why"'s)
Those who not hear the music think the dancers are mad. [sighist] [Agile]
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Imagine you have written a nice, shiny product, ready for sale now. Everyone agree it's good and useful, but yet the customers are not willing to buy. Because its too hard to change habits of users, because it just does what it should, because no admin has time to set it up and maintain it. All these among many other similar reasons. Competitors offer a less complete solution but yet they sell. What you would do? Add more features? Ease restrictions on functionality?
I don't think this is a serious possesion, and the evil most likely comes from your hand. Colin J Davies, The Lounge
Customers are always happier with a 60% solution to their problems now than with a 100% solution a year from now. "Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art." Charles McCabe, San Francisco Chronicle
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Customers are always happier with a 60% solution to their problems now than with a 100% solution a year from now. "Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art." Charles McCabe, San Francisco Chronicle
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With such limited details on your product I can only guess as to a few strategies. Lets say you building an AV App, You should start looking for possible viruses that may exist in the future and start building protection against them. Then you can say "Our product has protection from the potential dangerous **future viruese** A majority of all "to buy" decisions are made on raising peopled emotions not on the logic. Later Logic is justified in why the purchase decision was made. But selling on Logic (technically better product) will cause very few sales. Anyhow since your AV product can now protect you from *future viruses* you should use disburance to raise the emotions of potential customers. eg Ask the customer, What are your current plans to do under a *future virus epedemic*. Make the customer feel insecure in not having your product. I noticed many replies here as to using "Marketing", well I believe if you want sales you should use "sales techniques". Marketing has many uses but for expanding a marketing base it can be more expensive than the results it creates. Regardz Colin J Davies
Sonork ID 100.9197:Colin
You are the intrepid one, always willing to leap into the fray! A serious character flaw, I might add, but entertaining. Said by Roger Wright about me.
In general we could boost sales just by burning enough money in the right places - that works with most products. But you got to have it. Almost all buy-decisions for our (and competitiors) products are done by ROI's and cost calculations. This eliminates the "like it, buy it, justify it later" buyer.
I don't think this is a serious possesion, and the evil most likely comes from your hand. Colin J Davies, The Lounge
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One problem the british film industry used to make - not budgeting enough for marketing of their product :( Trouble is, people don't know if your product is good or bad until they're heard about somehow, often from others. The tigress is here :-D
Trollslayer wrote: One problem the british film industry used to make Would it have changed anything anyway? :) Trollslayer wrote: Trouble is, people don't know if your product is good or bad until they're heard about somehow, often from others True, but what if they hear its good and still dont buy? :((
I don't think this is a serious possesion, and the evil most likely comes from your hand. Colin J Davies, The Lounge
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Customers are always happier with a 60% solution to their problems now than with a 100% solution a year from now. "Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art." Charles McCabe, San Francisco Chronicle
Not true. They can have a 100% solution now, while the competition offers less. And even for the same price. So what?
I don't think this is a serious possesion, and the evil most likely comes from your hand. Colin J Davies, The Lounge
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a) Ease usability. How much of an admin is really needed to set it up? Everything from shiny paper to a setup wizard is allowed here. Can you: but that's almost an attack on your competitors that might kick back: read their configuration settings, and use them as "setup defaults", to make conversion easier? b) Get a foot into the door Don't sell under value - it's almost impossible to get prices up again. But make it cheaper than your competition for certain customers (E.g. if you fight a product like WinZip with it's agressively cheaper licenses starting from 2 users: be cheaper for a single user, but recoup on 2-10 licenses. If you compete a product where discounts start at 10 users, be cheaper in the 2-9 user range) c) Go Demo If possible, make something people can try. d) Go Demo - yourself (depends on the type of application) Is there any business (or even consumer) trade show, where potential clients exhibit? Take your laptop, a set of demo CD's, and visit them. Be prepared - you don't need a booth, just the courage and style to walk them up and find out with one question if they are potential customers. You have <1min to find out if it's worth telling them more. (listening to their marketing 5 minutes, than making them listen to you 5 minutes is impolite and wastes both theirs and your time - and their time can cost them a big client) I wouldn't want to do this, but if you feel up to the task - it#s worth it!
Those who not hear the music think the dancers are mad. [sighist] [Agile]
peterchen wrote: a) Ease usability. We did that and we still remove and automate more things. Reading competitions configuration does unfortunately not help. It does not sufficiently configure the system, because they just dont provide all necessary information. It just confuses the setup process. peterchen wrote: b) Get a foot into the door Don't sell under value - it's almost impossible to get prices up again. We are at a range where we easily compete with the others (less than 10$ per seat) - multiply this by the average size of customers (5000-25000 seats) which is a significant investment. And we demo as much as possible and whenever possible. Everyone is impressed. Do they buy? Nope.
I don't think this is a serious possesion, and the evil most likely comes from your hand. Colin J Davies, The Lounge