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When you lose the business in B2B sales

When you lose the business in B2B salesIf we only understand sales, we’re just salespeople to our prospects and nothing more. We can’t just be experts in selling. We need to be experts in our customers’ industries, too. When we understand the overall industry, prospects’ business, and their specific issues, we become business experts. That’s the key to selling value, and that’s when a sale can start to happen.

Sometimes we get so focused on selling a product that we fail to show how the product fits into people’s lives and adds value. We get tunnel vision and forget about anything outside our scope of view – namely, the business at large.

It’s time to change that.

There are three steps to securing our position as business experts:

Understand our prospects’ business in depth

It’s not enough anymore to just have some understanding of our prospects’ business. We need to have much more than that, and until we have in-depth understanding of the whole picture at hand – the industry, the competitors, the issues faced – we won’t be seen as experts providing value to the business. We need to dig deeper and do the research. What do industry sources say about this business? What do the trade press, news, and other resources suggest are issues they face? What’s going on in their world? Gaining full understanding of the business and situation at hand helps us know what to expect when we do begin communication with prospective customers.

Prepare to effectively communicate with prospects

Once we have done the research, it’s time to prepare for our communication with a business-like approach. That means having data on hand, deducing how prospects will respond to us , and being ready to speak the language of business. We are business-salespeople bringing sales into the business world.

Maintain expertise in the industry

Once we’ve learned an industry in-depth, it’s time to follow up. That means staying up to date on what’s current in both our prospect’s business and their industry. Have issues changed? What new issues have come up? Read the news, keep an eye on trade press, and rely on sources that specifically serve that industry. When we maintain strong industry expertise, we are prepared to face prospects  as business experts, and that’s how we bring value to the table every time.

As the sales industry becomes increasingly “sales-y,” we can’t forget the business in B2B. Stand out from the crowd by being an expert in business, sales, and value.

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Up your sales in a down economy

Given the slow worldwide economic recovery, it’s an appropriate time to review our core tactics. Many of us are finding our clients and prospects are risk averse. Here are some effective strategies you can proactively use to increase your sales, no matter what the economic climate brings.

You might be asking “Who will buy from me now?” when so much seems to be at risk.
The ValueSelling Framework® has strategies to help you make the sale, even with timid prospects. While the temperature of the economy will dictate some change, companies are still in business and work is still getting done. So the real question is, “What can sales professionals do right now to position themselves for success?”

Sales

ValueSelling Framework basics that will help you exceed your quota:

  • Focus on the positive: It’s very easy to be overwhelmed with negative messages, and bad news always gets more interest than good news. To be successful, however, your attitude is essential. Tune out all the information that isn’t helpful to you right now. Turn off the 24-hour news cycle and the minute-by-minute updates from your smartphone. There is always a lot going on in the market that’s outside your control, so instead focus on what you can control. We are not suggesting that we put on rose-colored glasses. Rather, we should simply find opportunity and positive news wherever we can. Maintaining that positive attitude will help you defend yourself against constant bad news.
  • Focus on empathy: The best salespeople in any industry are the ones who know how to solve their customer’s problems. In uncertain times, people become much more risk-averse, sticking with what they know to be secure and stable. If you’re a problem expert, your job will be to get in tune with your client’s fear of uncertainty. Their fears may manifest in multiple ways, including taking a longer time to make decisions and involving more people to make them. Empathize by offering customers increased understanding and flexibility, and they’ll recognize the security you offer.
  • Focus on real value: Prospects and customers need to understand the real value you offer. When they are uncertain, they spend more time making the decision to buy, and they are concerned about real monetary gains from their investment.  Focus on the real value you are providing to them. Are you positioned to save them money or grow revenue?
  • Focus on preparation: Sales executives are most successful when they’re purposeful, customer-focused, and ready to execute. Spend more time understanding your clients, their industries and markets, and building creative solutions with them. In the end, you’ll spend less time fixing problems in the sales cycle that arise.
  • Focus on qualification: Companies with sales team that excel have customer-centric processes that leverage best practices and repeatable strategies. Their prospect qualification is a multidimensional process, and it doesn’t focus on who has the budget. Just because people can make a purchase – doesn’t mean they will. Your prospect qualification process should be reverse-engineered from how prospects will make decisions:

a.    Should I buy this?

b.    Can I buy this?

c.    Is it worth it?

d.    Am I convinced?

Knowing your prospects’ answers to these questions is essential before you begin investing time and resources in a sales cycle. If your prospect is not qualified, let that one and find someone who is.

Remember, your competitors have the same difficulties that you do. Stay calm, stay focused, and look for their vulnerabilities in the marketplace. You should be playing both defence and offense with your current customers to defend your position. By staying focused on the customer, you won’t be outsold, and you can win the customer’s business and loyalty.

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Making your sales engine succeed in North America

Like many other technology entrepreneurs in India, I am the founder CEO of a software product company. We make a Global Human Resources SaaS product EmpXtrack and have over 300 customers in 20+ countries.

Many of us face challenges to scale up our US Sales and explore options such as relocating to the US, hiring a US based sales team, offering free trials, converting the product to a freemium model, an inside sales approach etc.

We recently faced this dilemma too. To find answers, I requested introductions to a number of successful software product entrepreneurs who were selling in the US market. Wanted to understand what they were doing differently such that we could replicate that. My discussions with them are documented here and hopefully it will help you in your product journey too.

Does direct sales work?

This largely depends on the ticket size.

Since our deals are roughly in the $8-$12K range per year, here is the maths behind this:

  • Cost of a local sales person: $150K (including commissions)
  • Cost of travel: $50 – $100K
  • So for a single person team, you spend approximately $200-250K per year.
  • No of deals required for break-even (@$10K / deal): 20 – 25 or 2 per month.
  • No of deals required if your sales cost is 25% of the total revenue: 100 or 8.5 per month.

Conclusions

  • It is virtually impossible for a single sales person to close about 8 deals per month
  • The direct sales model can only succeed if you have much higher ticket size ($100K or so)

If not direct sales, what else?

For smaller deals, inside sales (selling by phone) is the only approach. The following is required to make this succeed

  • A strong lead generation capability
  • A strong qualification capability
  • A strong closing capability where the sales team can close deals on the phone.
  • A knowledgeable support team that can assist the customer during implementation.

If you have all of these, there is no looking back! If not, refer to the next question.

What are CEO/founders responsibilities?

Everyone who I spoke to said that the key responsibility of the founder was to build teams that could address each of the points above.  “At a startup stage, you are perhaps the only one who has indepth knowledge of your product, how you want to target and acquire customers, how much you can discount, what extra features can be added, how much to deviate for an implementation and so on”. Hence, you need to be intimately involved in every facet of the sale.

Some interesting thoughts I heard were

  • You need to be involved in every conversation, communication and implementation till you reach a certain scale (aka a few million dollars of revenue). You will discover how many things were going wrong once you do that.
  • You need to talk to customers. “I still talk to important customers and was the first person in my company doing that”, was shared by 2 entrepreneurs.
  • You need to write marketing collateral, give demonstrations, build proposals, negotiate, close, provide support and do all customer facing activities to understand the challenges being faced by your teams.
  • You constantly need to mentor your team members and provide them feedback. They need it. While you may have rockstars, it is very unlikely that there may be a huge number of them.

So for all of you entrepreneurs, focus on customer facing roles and continuously mentor (and monitor) your teams! This is your only job.

How to do lead generation?

  • The best and cheapest leads are inbound. Create great content and use SEO aggressively to attract potential customers. This takes time and should be a part of your product development cycle and never to late to start if you are not doing it already.
  • Use PPC, paid directories etc. to generate more leads.
  • At a certain point, the cost of acquiring the next lead (through SEO and PPC) may yield negative returns. Around this point invest in a cold calling team.

What kind of people are required?

  • Key trait: Aggressive selling capability with very strong communication skills. Should be focused on closing. Hunters!
  • Pre-sales team: That can qualify, provide customized demos, research contacts, create great proposals and solutions. These can be added when you are sales teams are reaching their limits.
  • Qualifications: MBAs not required for sales and may not work out. IIMs/IITs not affordable! Graduates with a hunger to succeed are a must. Available in plenty from BPOs and other IT Services firms.
  • Experience: To start, 2 mid-level hires with background in US sales (with 5 – 8 years of experience) and build teams of freshers below them as the next layer. Mentor everyone continuously.
  • Approach: Each team should compete with the other

What kind of changes are needed in the organization?

While you may be a company in India you have to operate in the US time zone – both physically and mentally. This includes not only the sales team but also the executive management (Founders included), the pre-sales team and the support teams.

The R&D and implementation teams may still work in the day-hours but they will have to follow a rotational shift model of working at least 1 week per month in the US time zone.

Do I need to raise money?

Completely your choice! While two entrepreneurs that I talked to raised VC funding at an early stage, three did not. Once your product is developed, it takes very little to sustain new release cycles. Implementation teams should pay for themselves.

Since your sales team is based in India and you are generating leads efficiently, you can control spends and be very efficient to maintain a positive cash flow. So you can bootstrap to success.

We have sustained ourselves for 7+ years, have positive cash flows, are growing on a YOY basis, are profitable, own our own premises and have over 75 FTEs and have done it by bootstrapping.

Can we succeed by selling in India first and then going to US

Unanimous view: Unlikely for a B-B product!

India is a very cost conscious market where decision making is long and value for technology is low. Assuming you are replacing a head with your product, at best the value for the same in India will be between Rs 3-7 lacs. Compare this to about $60K cost anywhere else in the world and there is a much higher value for your product.

I know this is controversial, debatable yet unfortunately true!

Do I need a great product

Yes you do! Especially if you want to sell in the US market. The market is big but very competitive. ‘Great’ can have many different interpretations such as value proposition (read price), capability to customize, integration with other platforms and so on.

Whatever your edge may be, you need to repeatedly send across the message in all your communication, aggressively work on sales and you will find customers.

Does this model apply in other regions and geographies

Mixed thoughts. Some people are doing a good job in APAC and are getting their feet wet in ME but I could not identify a pattern. Some things unique to the US

  • US is very-very big. Small ticket buyers understand that their vendors cannot travel for small deals. Hence the purchasing is geared towards non F-F channels.
  • US firms are more experimentative and willing to bet on startups.
  • The country has consistent rules with a common language.
  • Value for automation is high.
  • US has a positive feel about Indian technology and India in general.

So let us all work hard to make India as a Product Nation. Please share your thoughts.

I am grateful to Aneesh Reddy, Suresh Sambandam, Ketan Kapoor amongst many others for their helpful insights and sharing their experiences and to Avinash Raghava for his introduction to all the great entrepreneurs.

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Driving the conversation: The fine art of questioning

As sales professionals, you probably know a lot about the capabilities of the products and services you represent. However, being a “solution expert” alone is not enough to differentiate you from your competition. If you are perceived as a trusted advisor AND a solutions expert, you are in much better position to win their loyalty and business. And gaining that trust means demonstrating that you can listen and intelligently reflect back what you learn.

We like to compare good salespeople to good physicians: Before good physicians prescribe a solution, whether it’s medication or a treatment, they fully understand and diagnose the condition. As a matter of principle, they do not recommend treatments without knowing whether or not the patient actually has a need for them.

Asking the Right Questions Likewise, skilled sales professionals will diagnose a situation, and then demonstrate more value to their prospects through the questions they ask…not the answers they give.

How do you go about using questions to diagnose? You must integrate purposeful questions into your conversation, while not interrogating your prospects. You begin by asking the right types of questions at the right time. Understanding how and when to ask the right questions is critical.

Here are three types of questions you should ask at every phase of your prospect qualification process:

1. Open-ended questions

Open-ended questions are our vehicle to learn what the customer thinks about their business issues, problems and solutions. They tell you what value means to them, who makes decisions, and what words you should use when you repeat back what you’ve learned. Open-ended questions don’t have a yes, no, or right answer. They demonstrate that you are seeking to understand your prospect’s world and perspective. An ideal open-ended question triggers an expansive response that, ideally, is wide-ranging and may cover many areas.

Sample open-ended questions:

  • “Can you explain why…?”
  • “Would you tell me more about…?”
  • “How would you describe the problems related to…?”

2. Probing questions

Probing questions allow you to dig deeper into details and uncover more specific information, based on the information you learned by asking open-ended questions. For example, if your goal is to learn more about the issues that could put your prospect’s profitability at risk, you would begin by probing for the typical ways they lose profit.

Probing questions also establish your credibility by offering you a chance to demonstrate your knowledge of their company, industry, and likely problems. Probing with purpose can help you uncover specific areas — recognized or unrecognized by your prospect — which can showcase your ability as a problem-solving expert.

Sample probing questions:

  • “Is it because…?”
  • “Do you find…?”
  • “What if you could…?”
  • “Have you ever experienced difficulty with…?

3. Confirming questions

Confirming questions simply confirm that we understand what our prospects just told us. They demonstrate that we understand our prospect’s issues. They help to uncover what might have changed as we check in with our clients throughout the sales life cycle.

The art of asking excellent confirming questions is by using reflective listening techniques: Reflecting back the actual words our customer uses and offering  them the opportunity to elaborate. Don’t assume you understand their meaning. Always ask for understanding.

Sample confirming questions:

  • “So, what you’re saying is…?”
  • “Is it correct to say that…?”
  • “Did I hear that…?”

The most successful salespeople I know are also the most curious. They are able to influence the conversation and demonstrate their credibility and knowledge by asking good questions. The better you are at asking the right questions, the better you become at uncovering needs that your products and services can address, and the better you’ll be at integrating your solution(s) into the context of your prospects’ businesses.

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A little thought goes a long way

My kids attend a public speaking course called “Think and Speak Up”. The main idea behind the class is that in order to be an effective public speaker, you need to think before you speak i.e. be prepared before you speak. A recent conversation with a very action oriented CEO who wants to launch in the US got me thinking that the “Think and Speak Up” approach applies to companies as well.

It takes a certain personality to go and strike out on their own. Small business owners and startup founders are generally action-oriented folks who want to get stuff done. This tendency, while admirable, can be costly especially when entering new markets. While it is very tempting to just go out and hire some people and just start selling, it is usually counterproductive in my opinion, unless you have gone through and analyzed the following.

The Market –  When selling your product/service, you need to have a clear understanding of what else is out there. For example, what do the options look like to your buyer? What trends would they be seeing that you need to factor in? Are there compliance directives in place or coming along that would impact your customers? In short, you need to understand the lay of the land.

The competition – The buyer is probably doing something internally to address the problem that you are proposing a solution for. In addition, there are probably other companies in your space doing something similar to you. Both internal and external solutions are potential competition for you. You need to understand what you are up against before you go out and sell.

Positioning – Given the market and the competition, where do you need to be? You need to figure this out well in advance of hitting the streets. If you don’t you will waste time and money chasing after the wrong prospects. Keep in mind, your positioning in a foreign market could be very different from your domestic audience. Also keep in mind that you may need to change your positioning based on market feedback aka pivot. However to enter the market without a positioning hypothesis is folly.

Value Proposition – Once you have a clear idea of the market, the competition, where you want to be, you need to come up with why you? What makes you unique. We are not talking bells and whistles here, we are talking about real value to your buyer. The value proposition has to be in the context of where you are operating and it could vary from geography to geography.

People say the difference between success and failure is perseverance and a deep pocket. I would argue there is a third factor that is at play here and that is thought. Action without thought might make you feel like you are getting somewhere but like a hamster on a treadmill you might be moving fast but not getting anywhere.

Agree, disagree or have another opinion? Would love to hear your thoughts.

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How to warm up your prospect’s cold feet

You’ve labored for months with a prospect who seemed interested in your services. She returned calls and replied promptly to emails. Everything was moving right along and then … nothing. Nada. Radio silence. No more returned calls. No more email exchanges. And no explanations.

Frantically, you mentally retrace your steps and re-read email threads to find clues behind this maddening silence. Finally, she calls…but only to explain that she’s had second thoughts, looked into alternatives, and is now leaning toward a competitor.

Sound heart-breakingly familiar?

While it’s not uncommon for a prospect to second-guess a big decision, it’s also relatively common for top-notch sales professionals to persuade the prospect to revisit their initial interest and seal the deal. The key is to help your prospect come to their own conclusion AND stick with you.

A ValueSelling Framework® core principle is that “people need a reason to change.” Change is difficult for many people because of the risk and uncertainty that is attached to it. In order to find the source of apprehension, have a conversation that includes well-placed anxiety questions. Anxiety questions, asked correctly, will lead a client or customer to understand the unique value of your offerings.

Consider one or more of the following anxiety question tactics. Ask questions that:

  • Develop a reason to change from the prospect’s perspective by uncovering their key business issues
  • Help cast doubt in the prospect’s mind about the value of a competitor’s products or services
  • Create a sense of urgency

For example, “How do your company’s products stack up against the competition in terms of reliability?” or “Does your company’s service record trump others?” Ask your prospect if they have considered the consequences if a machine is out of service. Make sure you phrase it so that they momentarily experience the anxiety they would feel if their system shut down. This way, you’re challenging their current thinking without insulting their intelligence or damaging the connection you’ve established.

As a salesperson, you can’t force a customer to change. But you can help people fully understand their business issues and realize, on their own, the need to change direction. If you can lead conversations to uncover conditions and reveal consequences the prospect may not have considered, you create opportunities to steer them back around to your solution.

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When it comes to selling, you’re as good as your word(s)

EmoticonToday’s slangy emoji text culture may have you thinking that formally written communications are a lost art. Don’t believe it. When it comes to professional communications, poised and precise prose rules over the casually misspelled messages passing between colleagues.

This is especially true for sales professionals, since selling is fundamentally a communication process. No one wants the strides made during sales calls to be undermined by weak writing skills.  Properly crafted follow-up emails and formal proposals provide a planned opportunity to recap and confirm discussions, establish mutual plans, and remain connected between talks with the underlying benefit of staying at the top your prospect’s radar.

Yet, there’s not a single formula that works for each sale; your choice of words and how to present them will depend on who you are addressing.  Here are some writing tips to support – and not sabotage – your sales efforts:

Keep the customer in mind. Words help build relationships, so choose them carefully. Use words and concepts familiar to your prospect or client. It’s important that as you draft the correspondence, you are capturing your client’s point of view.  Use less “I hope…” and “I believe…” and more “you will realize…” and “your benefits will be…”

Be concise. Sometimes more isn’t better. After you create a draft, edit it down to the essentials. The clearer your message, the higher probability your customer will remember it.

Make it attractive. People appreciate copy that is attractive to the eye – that is, shorter paragraphs instead of long, rambling ones.  Busy people often scan longer documents, so bullet points are an effective way to break up copy into bite-sized, easily digestible pieces.

Don’t trust spell check. Programs to double-check spelling and grammar are great, but they are far from perfect. For instance, homonyms such as they’re, their, and there will pass the spell check but still be used in the wrong context. And we’ve all read hilarious, embarrassing autocorrects. Don’t let the joke be on you: Carefully read what you write before you hit “Send”.

Don’t be an illusionist: The single biggest problem in communication is that “we listen to reply and not to understand” , so its all the more important to be extremely clear in what we want to communicate.

Remember, carefully written messaging is a continuous effort that deserves proper attention. After all, if your written communications aren’t working for you, they could be working against you and impact your ability to advance your sale. Make sure your choice of words speak highly of you.

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Move vs Hire – establishing a beachhead in the US

I have written many posts on what it takes to enter the US market. Most of my past posts have been around sales and marketing. However, there is a much more fundamental, one might say visceral, approach to entering a new market. How committed are you to it? As the famous anecdote goes of the hen laying an egg (the hen is involved) vs the chicken that gets cooked (the chicken is committed). Does the commitment involve time and resources spent in building an overseas organization by remote control i.e. while the founders remain in India or does it involve at least one of the founders moving to the US?

This is a tricky one and a dilemma that many startups deal with. On the one hand, we live in a highly connected world where it should be theoretically possible to build organizations remotely. On the other hand, one really does not get a good flavor for a market unless one is immersed in it. So what is the right model?


In my experience I have see three different models in place. Two work and one mre often that not, doesn’t. The one that is a waste of time and money, in my opinion, is one where the founder travels frequently to the US to try and make a sale and build an organization. I have found that this model takes an immense toll on the individual without actually achieving much since the commitment to the US market is lacking

The two models that seem to work reasonably well are ones in which either one of the founders moves to the US and builds an organization or the founders make a key first hire in the US and get that individual to build out a US organization.

So with that said, should one of the founders be US Employee #1? The answer is a qualified yes. However, there are clearly some things companies should think about before having one of the key executives move.

Known quantities – There is tremendous comfort in knowing who you are working with. If your first hire in the US is somebody you have worked with in the past, then the case for one of the founders moving to establish a beachhead is somewhat diminished.

Established support eco-system – If there is an existing eco-system of individuals in the US that the company has worked with in the past, it is a huge benefit and could outweigh the costs – both in terms of resources and time, of a founder moving to the US. The eco-system can be leveraged for initial growth.

High-touch vs low-touch business – Whatsapp made major inroads into geographies outside of the US and India even though they were not physically present in most of the geographies. If your product is high-touch, complex, high-dollar and requires evangelizing, you need a strong champion in the US – a founder moving to the US is usually a good bet. If not, think hard about it. Can you do it more smartly, remotely?

Business Objectives – This is critical. A company really needs to look at the short-term goals and figure out what is the most effective way of getting to them. If, for instance, a short-term goal includes raising a large sum of money from a Silicon Valley VC, well then one of the founders better high tail it over to the Bay Area sharpish.

Entering a new market is not for the faint-hearted. It takes time, patience and commitment and there is no guarantee of success. However, you can improve your odds being smart about it. So as to whether or not a founder should move to the US – I’d say “Probably, but it depends”.  So what IS the right model for you?

Agree. Disagree. Or have another viewpoint. Would love to hear your thoughts.

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Key Takeaways from the 25th #PlaybookRT at Bangalore – Sales for Startups

The 25th playbook roundtable held last week (01 March 2014) brought together about 14 startup practitioners to discuss and gain insights on some of the challenging aspects of Sales in product companies. This roundtable was hosted at Accel Partners office in Bangalore, and was led by Aneesh Reddy, from Capillary Technologies. In a span of about 5 hours, a diverse set of topics were discussed. Prominent takeaways from the roundtable were insights on approaches to pricing, decision making during sales cycles, dealing with resellers and partners, setting up a sales team for the first time, how to plan for your Sales team when you are scaling up and dealing with Sales in new geographies. The following paragraphs detail the key learning from each of these above aspects.

When to setup your first sales team?

Entrepreneurs should be selling themselves till they achieve repeatable revenue streams, irrespective of the sector and nature of the offering. One should start looking at a dedicated sales team only when the founding team cannot anymore respond to leads / queries in a time bound manner.

If the founding team does not have deep skills in selling, it may be useful to involve a consultant to setup the team and the processes and learn on the way. Firms such as Gosonix have helped setup the sales processes for startups as they began to address increasing customer interest.

There are also organizations that provide inside sales services to startups. A few startups such as Freshdesk have benefited by use of such extended inside sales teams.

Inside Sales Operations and Management

Based on the target geography that you are working on, one should use the qualification criteria to build a sales pipeline. Macro parameters such as number of employees or revenue of the enterprise in the segment and country that you are targeting to sell provide good starting points to develop the qualification criterion.

Inside sales activities have yielded good results in English speaking countries such as US and Europe, however, has been very difficult and non-efficient in UAE, South Asia and non English speaking parts of Africa.

Accent training is a must if you are reaching out to customers outside India. Training partners are available to help you with accent training needs of your sales team.

For markets such as South Asia, cold calling does not work – since language barriers and culture is not very assimilative. Field business development operations are cheaper than inside sales operations if the target market of focus is on South Asian countries.

Sales Best Practices

A 30 second script consisting of factoids describing who you are, what you do, which customers have you dealt with, how has it helped them is a must for any startup Sales – irrespective of whether you set shop just today, or if you are scaling your startup.
Have a clear separation of duties amongst your lead generators and deal closers. Usual practice is to hire a deal closing guy for about 5 lead generators.

Ensure efficiency in your Sales operation by tracking the conversion of calls to meetings to actual leads and finally to conversions or drop-outs. Expect about 1 lead to come for qualification from about 10 calls on an average.

Once you have a lead, qualify the lead using the B.A.N.T or the more comprehensive S.C.O.T.S.M.A.N technique to ensure you spend the optimal time on that lead.

Differentiate and track marketing generated leads and inside sales generated leads. Provide visibility to the Field Sales personnel on the source of the lead to ensure they have the right context to qualify and initiate a discussion with the prospect.

Indian customers – especially in the SMB segment take a lot of time to decide to buy. Keep them engaged continuously with good marketing content after initial contact. They will get in touch with you and buy when they decide to go ahead.

Pricing

Pricing is the trickiest aspect in Selling. For offerings where the value added by your offering / solution can be calculated directly or indirectly, pricing conversations is a lot easier – since you have data to back your discussion. However, in other cases, one has to use all available information and work on a range to begin with.

For startups that are in their early stages, back calculate based on your expenses to decide on pricing. Another approach for SaaS based early stage startups is to price based on the CAC (Customer Acquisition Costs). General agreement is that a CAC of about 5-6 months is ideal, and a CAC of upto 1 year is tolerable for early stage startups.

A barebones calculation of pricing should be based on the product of revenues, gross margin you want to derive and customer lifespan for your offering. David Skok has good articles on these topics.

Complement your Sales efforts by your Marketing efforts

Use marketing as complementary aspect to sales – apart from leveraging it for various aspects of building your brand and communication etc. Nurture your customers by segmenting them based on the previous interaction by your company and send relevant content that could be of use to them.

For startups targeting global customers, ensure that you generate adequate content by means of customer acquisition stories, case studies, announcement of new customer wins, participation in events etc. This will help build the initial set of opportunities from the marketing side.

Use the rental lists of magazines that are widely read in the field of your offerings to increase mindshare. Blog or write regularly on Industry trends in some of these magazines to offer a good discount. Engaging with a PR agency based on the geography in the early stages of market entry also can pay off.

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Sales Wisdom from Million Dollar Product Companies

Why Buy Mine? This is the question I have kept asking myself ever since Pallav and Paras did their “Global Lean Sales” session at the #PNCamp in November. I used to send a long email before and often had to explain a lot to why we charge higher. Now I just use the below message and it does the job. There is nothing different from what we were doing earlier. But our message to our market is now very different and converts them into trusting buyers faster .

“Industry Leaders like Freshdesk ( Customer HelpDesk ), WebEngage ( On-site Customer Engagement), Flipkart’s Payzippy ( Online Payments) have chosen MyPromoVideos for their videos because we were able to consistently deliver “magic” to our client’s brands, not just videos.”

I was so much in love with two of their slides from their presentation that our team here decided to do a beautiful “Info-Graphic” around the same. If you are not satisfied with just 10% growth every month and want to grow exponentially on steroids, you need to build your sales team. This is the infographic to keep by your desktop.

Sales Evolution - Wingify and FusionCharts (1)Thanks to Pallav, Paras and the Product Nation for helping Entrepreneurs succeed.

Guest Post by Gopal Krishnan, MyPromoVideos. Gopal is the Co-Founder of www.MyPromoVideos.com and takes care of Sales and Marketing. He builds trust with his Sales Systems and brings in the customers

for MyPromoVideos
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Is negotiation a strategy or a skill?

When it comes to a successful negotiation, which is more important: strategy or skill?

The definition of the verb, negotiate, is to “deal or bargain with others, as in the preparation of a treaty or contract or in preliminaries to a business deal.” In a sales context, the key definition is to “bargain in order to create, or culminate, a business deal.”

Sales professionals are often negotiating with both prospects and clients. We bargain with prospects for access to key decision makers or in our own organizations for additional resources. We make tradeoffs with ourselves in an effort to improve productivity and improve time management. And we negotiate the final terms and conditions of new contracts in order to close business.

At ValueSelling Associates, we are often asked to help our clients negotiate more effectively. We have observed that there are consistent, common traps that torpedo negotiations.

1. Timing: When companies offer incentives to their customers in order to create urgency and persuade prospects to expedite signed contracts. These incentives may be pre-announced price increases, introductory offers, or embellished deliverables. Whatever the incentive, how and when it is communicated becomes critical.

We advise sales professionals NOT to negotiate before the prospect is a fully qualified opportunity. In our Framework®, the qualification process is multidimensional. There are four questions a sales executives should have the prospect answer to determine if they are a qualified opportunity:

  • Should they buy this?
  • Is this worth it?
  • Can they buy this?
  • Are they convinced?

Offering incentives to a prospect before the qualification process is confirmed will diminish your credibility as a sales professional and potentially devalue your offerings in the prospect’s mind.

2. Authority: As a sales professional, are you aware of your negotiating parameters?  Every organization draws a line in the sand for what is considered negotiable. To be a successful negotiator, it is critical that you understand what your organization allows to be included in negotiations with your prospects.

Negotiation Components:

  • Deliverables
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Price

While many prospects attempt to focus the negotiating conversation solely on price, a smart sales professional only talks about price after they’ve exhausted deliverables and/or terms and conditions.

  • Do you know what authority your organization has given you to negotiate?
  • Do you know how you can include your sales manager, and their greater authority, in an upcoming negotiation?

You should know the answer to both questions before attempting a negotiation.

We’ve seen sales professionals make over-commitments to prospects, only to have to go back when they could not honor what they promised, then try to re-negotiate. It can be very embarrassing! When you understand what you can authorize, your negotiations have a better chance of succeeding.

Is negotiating a strategy or a skill? It’s both. Successful negotiators have a plan, use the authority they have, and are very purposeful in their negotiations with prospects.

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The curse of the horizontal solution or what to do when you think you have the product that can solve Global Warming?

There are many solutions that are targeted at a niche, that solve a specific problem. Selling these is relatively easy. You know the target, you know the problem. The challenge comes with the horizontal solutions, or ones that apply to wide variety of industries and business problems. There is tremendous potential opportunity there and yet they are devilishly difficult to sell for a small company. The problem is focus.

When you have a solution that you can sell to ten different types of companies, where do you start? If you have deep pockets, perhaps you go after every manner of opportunity, but if you are a small company, you neither have the resources nor the bandwidth to tackle all opportunities. So what does one do?

This is an issue I have dealt with in the past working with my clients, but it came to top of mind after a recent conversation with a company that has a horizontal solution. I have thought about this subject over many years and have a viewpoint on this. I thought I’d share my current thinking on this subject as it may be useful to some of you.

Think small – The solution has wide application but it helps to narrow the scope when you are starting. Figure out a specific business problem, in a specific industry, in a specific geography to address. Focus helps you with both your targeting as well as your messaging. In addition, it is an effective use of limited resources.

More cheetah, less monkey – Cheetahs need focus to survive. When you see them on a hunt, you can really see they are focused. Monkeys on the other hand, forage for food and are easily distracted. The tendency in startups is to go after everything – mostly through a combination of optimism and desperation. In addition, there are too many distractions when you are getting started. Be aware of that. Focus only on what is important.

Learn from Agile – The Agile software development methodology has a lesson for entrepreneurs. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, Agile advocates breaking a large  project into smaller, bite-sized chunks. These chunks, called Sprints, deliver specific functionality in a very short period of time. The idea is to incrementally build the software solution with all stakeholders constantly aware of the value addition. This is in contrast to the monolithic model of software development where big projects were delivered after months of work and considerable expense, often to users who clearly did not want what they got. You should think of your go-to-market strategy as a series of Sprints. Identify a business problem/target audience, develop a tactical plan and test it out. If after putting in effort, it is not working, change. You should always be looking to fine-tune your go-to-market, but at the same time have the discipline to stick to a plan, for a period of time, before starting on something else.

Leverage your successes – I am a big believer in this and have harped about it at length. If you have a success with a client, see if you can approach similar companies with a similar proposition. Do it consciously, with a plan and a value proposition. Even though this may be obvious, many companies, especially ones with a broadly applicable solution, seem to ignore this.

After running my own consulting outfit for a couple of years, I have a newfound respect for entrepreneurs. Starting and running a company is not for the faint-hearted. It is very difficult to make money, contrary to the feeling one develops working in the corporate world, where big paychecks just happen if you are good. With all the stress and uncertainty of working in a startup, having some structure and discipline around sales is critical. Whether you like my approach or not, please do consciously think about what will make you more effective with limited resources. It will be well-worth the effort.

Agree. Disagree. Or have another viewpoint. Would love to hear your thoughts.

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Enterprise Sales, Product Market Fit and Partnerships: Learning from the 23rd iSPIRT Round Table

Vivek from iCreate facilitated yet another juicy round table with lessons learnt ‘from the trenches’. While this article provides a distilled summary, it cannot do justice to in-person learning.  I strongly encourage you to attend the next iSPIRT round table.

Vivek started off by saying that there is no silver bullet.  Every product exists in its specific market conditions. Different things work for different products in different domains.  Nevertheless, there are certain fundamental themes that are commonly applicable.

The fundamental problem typically during the early days of a startup is lack of clarity of what are we solving and for whom (in other words – “Product-Market fit”).  Articulating this clearly is the first thing a startup needs to get right. 

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Spend some time answering the two questions below and ensure that all of your team is on the same page. Otherwise, it will be like the classic story of six blind men describing an elephant in completely different ways.

WHO AM I?

I am better than ____ (existing way of solving the problem)

For ________ (what problem)

Because _____ (differentiation)

As a result of ____ (your secret sauce)

Answer this for your product.  This manifests in your strategy, marketing communications etc.

WHY BUY ME?

Create a sentence with 10-15 words.  I am better than X because of Y and solving the problem of Z. 

Articulate this clearly and crisply. Otherwise, you are confused and it is also confusing to your customers.

Without clarity, you knock on a lot of doors and have lots of meetings, but with no results.  This can be very frustrating.

Domain Knowledge

It is very important that you have a very good understanding of the domain in which you are playing.  Depth of problem understanding is a must.

Do you know who the buyer really is? It is not enough to say company C is the customer. Who exactly in the company is your customer? Why should the user spend time to understand your product? Why should the user talk to you? What is his/her role? What are their motivations and fears?  What is their procurement process? Are you sure you qualify to pass those gates?

You need to have differentiation in your product with respect to your competition. It can be things like premium domain knowledge, completeness of the solution, cheaper pricing etc.  You should be clear about your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and articulate it to your team and prospective customers.  The differentiation should be outcome-based and not based on things like technology stack.

People pay a premium for completeness. Plus it is easier to understand. And we can show the value to the user. E.g. architecturally, well designed modules are all fine, but from the customer point of view, he needs to see a complete use case coverage.

There is a popular Hindi saying “Jo dikha hain, wo bikta hain” (meaning “only what can be seen can be sold”).  It is tougher to convince with words.  Ensure you can clearly demonstrate the value of your product in action.

Pay close attention to your problem space and understand the dynamics. For example, in banking domain, the customers are married to existing platforms such as SAP, Oracle etc. So when you make technology choices, ensure that they work with the incumbent platforms.

Product Market Fit

Product market fit is critical.  Have a plan to get to product market fit as fast as possible.  Danger is you might run out of money, so get to product market fit fast.  iCreate was providing services and used these revenues to fund their product development. This way they had a longer runway to get to product market fit.

If you need to educate the value of your product, then there is a segmentation mismatch. Better to find a market place where they see the value clearly and it is more about demonstrating your value. If you have to explain why they should use your product, then product market fit is not there.

In your universe of market place, there will be big clients, small clients and medium clients with different attributes. Do not try to solve the problem for everyone. Pick your initial target segment as narrow as possible and play there. Pick a demographic where the user sees the value immediately and get them to start adopting. You can later expand to other segments when you see success. 

Qualify your market segment and leads. If they don’t have the problem, don’t spend time with them. You will see a glimmer of hope everywhere, but you are not going anywhere.   This will give you a false sense of accomplishment and is a dangerous situation to be in.

Having a vertical offering works better than a horizontal offering (i.e. applicable to everyone in the world).  Having a generic mother of all products means multiple stakeholders need to be convinced and the message also gets diluted.  It is better to choose a specific problem and completely solve it.  You can sell faster and also sell for more and get customers faster.  For example, iCreate had a generic solution which took 9-12 months to close the deal. With a single point solution, the time reduced to 3-4 months.

As a startup, you want to do several different things, but you don’t have resources.  You need to make the hard call and pick the 1 or 2 things you want to pursue.  Platform to solve N problems takes 2 or 3 times more time than solving 1 problem.  An amorphous offering is more dangerous and takes more time.

Another example that was shared was of a language translation product. They struggled to find market fit for their generic language translation services.  Then they verticalized it to retail segment where their product translated customer messages to native language and vice versa.  They were able to then go and penetrate this market segment.

As a startup, it is challenging to verticalize a horizontal offering due to resource constraints and the temptation to have a large market size, but this needs to be done.

Finding the first customer willing to use the product is a big challenge.  Be prepared for a long grind, and it can be a very frustrating experience.  Sometimes it can take a long time to get the product market fit (several months).  However, you should keep an eye on whether you are making progress or the product is not viable as a business.  You need to introspect if you are getting product-mismatch feedback.  Set clear goals and metrics. Don’t go by sentiments.  You have to be dispassionate.  Come up with some objective metric such as “The way for me to validate X is Y”.

If founders can’t sell, nobody else can sell. Look at the offering instead of finding a sales guy.

Every company needs one or two key inflection events change the trajectory completely. You also need some luck to get your first break.  Try to get top marquee client vs. a small client.  Marquee client also helps in marketing and validation and others will have lesser resistance to trying your product.

Product Merit is a must. In addition, try to show up where your customers hang out e.g. have stalls in conferences.

The next big challenge is getting the first paid customer. Then, you need to get your first referencable customer. 

You need to inculcate champions among your existing customers.  They will also tell their peers. This is critical during early days. Investors and prospective customers want to talk to existing customers.

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Creating a Sales Team

Look for partners or non-founding sales ONLY after getting product market fit and messaging right.  Till then, the founders should be the sales team. In iCreate, pre-investor stage sales team was zero.

Initial sales guys that you hire should be comfortable with the ambiguity of startups. 

Hire folks who can put ‘skin in the game’, aligning with wealth creation (e.g. ESOP) or a percentage of revenue.  Incentives also work – for example, “If you get $X revenue in Y months, you will get a car”.  Make the incentives outcome based and not effort based

In India, typically R&D budget is much more than the sales budget, but as you get traction investment in sales should increase.  One rule of thumb is to have 60:40 (engineering to sales) during growth stage. In US, mature companies have R&D costs around 15% of revenue and 50% of revenue is invested in Sales.

If the sales team is sub-optimal, firing early is better. You might make mistakes, but it is liberating when you fire a misfit as you can focus on important things better.  

Without raising money, growth can be slower.  If you raise money, growth is much faster.  Raising money for growing is a very good idea.

Partnerships (Distribution and SI)

First, have a story to sell. You put in initial effort to get initial customers in your target geographies. Then attract partners using these success stories.

We discussed two kinds of partnerships.

  1. Distributor – who just resells your product.
  2. System Integrator (SI) – who resells your product along with implementation or other services.

In every market, nuances are different e.g. private vs. public banks, different geographies etc. You need to figure out which kind of partnership is suitable to your product.

In mature markets like US or Hong Kong, you can sell direct and may not partners.  US is a great place to do business, as you get quick and clear feedback – positive or negative.  If they see value, they will buy. However, the sales cost in US is expensive.

In emerging markets, people want in person meetings and they do not say yes or no immediately. This can lead to mixed signals and longer sales cycle.

In geographies like Africa you might have to work with local partners. Your direct sales may not work. In general, East Africa and West Africa need distribution partner to set up meetings. Then your sales guy has to do the work.  Look at sector focused players e.g. computer warehouse in Nigeria, Simba in Kenya.  

Middle East and Africa are brand conscious – they don’t want to go with small startups.

In mature organizations, SI plays a major role and has a lot of influence on decisions.  Evangelize both with SI and clients. Once SI sees a win for your product, they will want to replicate that in similar contexts.

2013-11-23 15.26.17Be generous with commissions to your partners.  Once they see the money, they’ll show more seriousness.  See if your partner can make commitments to gauge their seriousness.  The commitment is not necessarily in money terms only. For example, ask if the partner is willing to send their employee for training on your product to your location.

It was observed that strategic discussions with SIs not as fruitful as tactical ones.  If there is an immediate opportunity, SI and you can have a meaningful tactical discussion.  Strategic level discussions might give you a good feeling, but not much might come out of it.

Channel partners need to see a clear way of how and how much money they can make. Find a channel partner who already has a user base of stakeholders of your interest.  To find out, look at other players in your space and which partners they are using.

Remember that your product is just an additional product for your channel partner.

Partners want to look at value addition, not just cost or feature arbitrage.  Partners compare your deal with existing big names to see if they get to benefit more by pitching your product.  

Partners need to be given all intelligence on a platter. They don’t want to spend on learning or figuring out. They don’t want you to experiment at their cost.

Some participants were worried that brands from India might have to first fight the battle of perception of being an India based company. But feedback was that it might be an issue in the beginning, but once you get traction and the product has merit, this problem is not insurmountable.

Government tenders is a complicated process.  You need to be proactive about positioning your product even before tender process. 

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Product Positioning

There are different stakeholders in a B2B context – could be the CEO, IT Manager, or VP of a business unit.  All of them are looking at different parts of the problem (one might be looking at cost savings, one might be looking at value delivered by the product and another might be looking at maintenance costs).   Create your message for each stakeholder.

For your product positioning, consider the following:

  1. For the points of your differentiation, reinforce in your messaging.
  2. For points of parity with competition, highlight them.
  3. And for points of despair, mitigate or downplay them.

From your client’s point of view (particularly in large enterprise context) “he will never get fired for hiring a well-known brand. It will be risky for him to try a startup’s product”. Reduce the risk for your client and also demonstrate differentiated value of your product.

Proof of Concept

Instead of free proof-of-concept (POC), ask for conditional order.  This shows commitment and also the buying process will start early. In B2B context, the process can be quite long.  If the POC is not successful, the order can be cancelled.  If you can get a paid POC, that is the best.   Free POC can be a waste of time if the person driving the pilot does not have buying authority.

Advisors

It is good to have an advisory committee of domain experts. This is good for validation. You can never be an expert in every area, so have advisers.  Typically, you meet them once a month or once a quarter.

There are three common models for compensating advisers:

  1. Free.  They like your passion and are willing to give you advice from their experience.  But this can be good only for some time. Otherwise, you will start feel guilty about taking their time for free.
  2. Stock options.  This is better as they will benefit when you benefit.
  3. Payment for their time. This is the standard consulting by the hour model.

Conclusion

While there is no silver bullet that works in every scenario, there are certain fundamental aspects that are common. 

Unfortunately, a lot of learning is experiential.  And it will take time. You’ll do wrong things but when you navigate, you can course correct earlier by having the knowledge from those who have tread this path before you.

Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Tweetable tweets

The first problem a startup must solve is product-market fit.  Everything else comes later. Tweet this.

It is very important that you have a very good understanding of the domain in which you are playing. Tweet this.

People pay a premium for completeness. Better to solve one problem completely than N problems partially.Tweet this.

Jo dikha hain, wo bikta hain (“only what can be seen can be sold”).  Tweet this.

If you need to educate the value of your product, then there is a segmentation mismatch. Better to find a market place where they see the value clearly. Tweet this.

If founders can’t sell, nobody else can sell. Look at the offering instead of finding a sales guy. Tweet this.

Tactical discussions with System Integrators are more fruitful than strategic ones. Tweet this.

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The first call

The first call you make to a prospect is critical. It could make or break you. And yet, I find capable, well-meaning, highly intelligent people not putting in the effort to prepare for it. While it is obvious, and most definitely not rocket science, it helps to have a checklist to go against. I recently put together a short checklist for a client of what to think about when making the first call for a client. I am reproducing a version of it here that readers might find useful.

Before we go to the checklist, it helps to pause and think about the situation you are in. You may have been introduced by someone or you could be calling cold. However, if you have a live person on the other end of the telephone line, consider yourself very lucky. It is very difficult to actually get somebody to talk to when you are trying to break into an account. Recognize that and prepare adequately.

The Internet makes it easy to do basic research on companies and individuals, use it to your advantage. At a minimum

  • Learn about the company you are calling into. Some web searches and websites like Hoover’s make it easy.
    • What does it do?
    • Where is it headquartered?
    • Who are the main competitors?
    • Has it been in the news lately? For what? Is that something you can leverage?
    • If you are calling to talk IT/software, can you figure out what type of infrastructure the company has in place?
    • Learn about the person you are calling. Linkedin is usually your best bet.
      • What is the person’s background?
      • Where did they go to school?
      • Where did they work before?
      • Do you have a common connection?
      • Be clear about what is your value proposition
        • What do you have to offer?
        • Why should they care?
        • Clearly outline next steps
          • Ideally a call to understand their needs in more detail (if necessary, with a pre-sales person)
          • Ask for introductions to other people that you may want to connect with
          • If there is some interest worth exploring, then
            • Set up next call (with a presales person if needed)
            • Set the expectation for a face to face meeting where you will bring appropriate people AND ask the prospect to do the same

Sales does not have a magic formula. Contrary to popular belief the best sales people are often not the flashiest. The maxim “slow and steady wins the race” often is true in sales. Preparedness, more than anything else usually wins the bonus check.

Agree. Disagree. Or have another viewpoint. Would love to hear your thoughts.

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Scale Hacking at #PNCamp: What To Expect on Day 2 (Dec 5)

It’s a conference….it’s a summit….it’s a camp! Being a startup ourselves, we constantly listen to  our customers (who are startups as well!) and try and come up with initiatives that solve their problems and address their pain points.

In that regard, the genesis and the program design of the ProductNation Camp has come from what we’ve been hearing from you – the Indian product startup community. Sandeep has very nicely elucidated the need for a Product Bootcamp for Product entrepreneurs and laid out the broad agenda of the #PNCamp.

#PNCamp is expected to be a very intense, highly curated and focused two-day event with two tracks – Discovery Hacking (on Dec 4) and Scale Hacking (on Dec 5). For a product entrepreneur, getting the first set of customers is mighty important from multiple perspectives – validating the need for the product in the market, generating the first rupees (or dollars!) in revenue  and grow the startup from a buzz in the head to a live organism. While 2013 is expected to end with a Dhoom for Bollywood fans, it’s the same for product entrepreneurs attending #PNCamp. Rather than an ending, we hope it’ll be a new beginning for them to grow their startups to greater heights in the coming year. One of the producers of the product startup community’s Dhoom, Sai unveiled the first look of #PNCamp and gave us a glimpse of what’s in store for attendees of the Discovery Hacking track on Day 1.

It is said that well begun is half done. Let’s stay the tough part, that of beginning well has been taken care of and you are now staring at the tougher part – of growing your startup across multiple dimensions. That is when the startup is in the happy-confused state and there are a lot of questions on your mind.  Sales cures most ills, but how do you sell? This will be the primary thrust of the morning sessions which is mandatory. Here, we will have separate tracks for those who are selling to a global audience and those who are selling domestically. The challenges, hiring, operations, etc are completely different. In the afternoon, we have various exciting sessions on how to understand and communicate with customers and how to pick the right product direction when you have scarce resources to spread amongst several promising ones. Choice in an uncertain world is not easy and while we promise no silver bullets for your problems, we do promise to ignite enough fire in the belly (and in the heads!) for you to go back and navigate your way into scaling your startup. We also have specific “Oh, Oh, How do I do that?” sessions on specific topisc you’ve always wanted to know..

So specifically, what do we have to offer to you on the Scale Hacking Day:

We will have around 75 chosen participants for the Scale Hacking Day divided into cohorts of 15-20 people each. There are mandatory sessions which all participants will attend and then the cohorts will attend the optional sessions depending on the stage of the company and their interest.

The Mandatory Sessions

“Great Indian Street Fight or Selling In India”

No wonder most of the selling in India happens through ‘feet on street’. And when you’re out there on the streets, it’s always a fight. Fight against time to sign-up customers, fight against a thousand other things to get the customers’ attention, fight for receiving payments on time and just fight for survival!

You have probably got your first set of customers, but you want to scale now. What are the different ways to do that? Does the Channel Partner route work and what are the pros and cons of taking that approach? How do you reach out to your next set of potential customers in an effective manner? Should you now start considering mainstream media for advertising or scale up your digital marketing efforts? More importantly, how do you plan for scale and put together the right team to execute your plans? How to hire the right people and fire the ones that don’t work out well?

Dhiraj Kacker, who has built Cavera into the leading destination for customized printed merchandize and an e-commerce solutions provider for photographers, will facilitate this session. Dhiraj along with Canvera’s Co-Founder Peeyush was recognized as amongst the top-10 Most Influential People in Photography in India by Asian Photography magazine. So he surely knows what clicks with his customers!

“Dancing with Elephant/Winging in the new flat world or Selling to Global Customers”

If IT services companies made the world flat, Saas product companies have made it even flatter!

While Zoho remains the pioneer, we have seen many SaaS companies FreshDesk, WebEngage, Wingify, Capillary Technologies, ChargeBee among others whose products are proudly Indian and that are selling to customers from across the globe. What does it take to build a global SaaS company out of India? More importantly, what does it take to sell to customers you haven’t met or even spoken to? How do you price your product so that customers from across geographies can buy it? How do you take care of the differences in the customers expectations, time zones, languages, even customs and culture across different regions? After all, every product has a personality. What about providing support to global customers?

Samir Palnitkar (ShopSocially, AirTight Networks) & Girish Mathrubootham (FreshDesk, Zoho) will facilitate this session. You wouldn’t want to miss this session unless you want to see your dollar dreams go sour!

The Optional Sessions

“Customers Buy Features, Not Benefits or How To Think Customer First?”

Here’s a quick question – which is the Indian brand that has grown the fastest in recent times and its identity (hint, hint!) transcends all barriers of language, region and religion? What’s more, it is very much an Indian tech startup! Yes, you guessed it right. It is Aadhar. Meet Shankar Maruwada, who gave the Aadhar its brand name and developed its identity and made it into the household brand it is today. Get to know how to place yourself inside the customers’ heads, try and understand what factors play in their decision-making and how you can approach your customers better by anticipating what’s possibly on their minds.

If you want to get a sense of what’s in store for you, watch this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTNVTaPXfqI#t=58

Well, you wouldn’t want to be that fish which can’t understand how people live without water!

“How to get featured in TechCrunch, spending $0”

It’s true that media coverage alone isn’t the true barometer of success of a startup. But hey, when has positive media attention, especially from a top global publication like TechCrunch hurt any startup? That is of course, assuming that the product is a good one!

For a lot of product entrepreneurs, getting featured on TechCrunch is a dream and considered as a good means to be visible in front of a lot of people – customers, investors, partners among others. So what does it take to get featured in TechCrunch? Considering they’d be getting hundreds of requests each day, do the writers and editors there even read such emails? Do you need to hire a high-profile PR agency and spend a lot of money?  Or should you just build something meaningful and the coverage will happen by itself?

Valorie Wagoner, Founder of ZipDial, has done that and been there (on TechCrunch). ZipDial is one of the fastest growing global startups emerging from India and Valerie will share her experiences of getting covered in global tech blogs and tell you how your startup can also get featured with no money spent!

“Positioning for Getting Acquired”

So you think acquisition only when you have reached a certain level and scale of business? Well, that’s what a lot of entrepreneurs in Bangalore thought before they attended this round table. How do you know if the time is ripe for your company getting acquired? How do you choose between multiple suitors you may have? What are some of the key things one should keep in mind so that all the stakeholders have a favourable outcome? While an acquisition is a regular business transaction in the US, do we Indians get (needlessly?) emotional about it?

Jay Pullur, Founder and CEO of Pramati Technologies and Sanat Rao, Director, Corporate Business Development (Emerging Markets) at Intel will facilitate this session. iSPIRT has a very active M&A initiative with Jay and Sanat actively leading the M&A Connect. You’d surely not want to miss this opportunity to understand how you can set yourself up for a nice acquisition.

“The Forum or Where You Can Bring Out Your Worst Fears!”

Every CEO needs somewhere to turn for the insight and perspective only trusted peers can provide. When such peers meet together in a setting where there is an atmosphere of confidentiality, respect and trust, it can become a supreme sounding board. We will call such a setting a “Forum”. Such a forum can become most valued asset for the members, because the maxim holds true: it can be lonely at the top, but it doesn’t have to be.

At #PNCamp, we want to experiment, for the first time, with building such a Forum by forming a small group of peers who meet regularly to exchange ideas, thoughts and experiences on the issues that matter most to them. During the first meeting at the PNCamp, this group will be taught effective forum techniques, a set of protocols and a shared language that creates immediate and meaningful connections among members.

We expect that once created, the Forum group will periodically meet either in person or online with the following agenda:

1- Update each other by looking back since the last meeting and looking forward

2- Identify, discuss and park business issues that are typically Important but not Urgent

3- Make presentations around these issues and get non-judgmental feedback from the fellow members

I’ll end this post with a quote from the very inspirational movie, The Shawshank Redemption.

Dear Red, If you’re reading this, you’ve gotten out. And if you’ve come this far, maybe you’re willing to come a little further. You remember the name of the town, don’t you?

Of course, you remember the name of the town. It’s Pune and we look forward to see you in Pune on Dec 4 and Dec 5 for #PNCamp.

PS. After all this if you haven’t still applied for #PNCamp yet, we’re afraid you may be a little late. Apply Now here!