So I've been working on an online tool for b2b sales reps and sales teams for nearly two years on and off and have done about everything wrong that you would expect, i.e. creating too much without engaging with customers, keeping adding different features and content rather than getting buy in with what I had early on.
I did engage with a number of clients who said early on with the first iteration they wanted it and have always got good feedback when I demo it and show it for people, BUT, that doesn't translate into signed up paying members and also I've noticed when I get people to trial it they say all the right things but I see they're not actually using the functionality of the tool. I read something recently that hit the nail on the head about listen to what people are saying about your tool but focus on what they're actually doing - which I've been late to realising otherwise I'd have made some changes before the two years mark but right having lots of positive feedback verbally I continued....
So I think there are a few fundamental issues with the product. Basically it's like sales training without training, you have resources across 20 sales areas such as meeting agendas and planning, qualifying your sales opportunities, building a business case, accounting planning and so on. There are downloadable templates and mini videos and guides for help but you can sell fill in forms that guide you through competing each thing and it creates a formatted pdf at the end which you can use with customers or upload got your CRM etc. So a sales rep on the road could create a professional meeting plan or account plan on his phone all nicely formatted and using best practice etc. Corporates have liked it and also smaller companies who want to professionalise their sales processes or have grads etc.
But what I've realised is that the tool doesn't take the pain away from you, you still have to do your account plan, do your customer business case etc, whereas normal sales training is more passive in that you go and listen to training etc etc.
So I'm thinking of two directions for splitting the tool but can't figure out which one....
Change pricing from £6 a user per month to something like £200-300 per company where some of the core tools are customised to match their internal processes, with questions specific to their business and what their managers want their staff asking. They could also access the other generic tools but there would be the core customised tools (forms and pdf generators) tailored to them and in their branding. This gets over the issue that the forms are generic to any b2b business, and means it better aligns with their day to day sales activities and uploading to their CRM.
Focus on selling to individuals and keep the tools on the portal but focus on also integrating a sales manager as a service (like they boss as a service tool I read about on here) to help people stay on track with their business sales goals, with specific questions a sales manager would ask about achieving your targets etc and keeping you on track, with the resources in the background to support. When speaking with smaller businesses and startups their main struggle is often around generating sales and feeling accountable to keep growing sales and pushing themselves from a business development point of view.
I think in its current form it has fundamental issues (it all works but I think the generic nature of the tools and resources to any b2b focused business and fact that reps have to be motivated to actively want to improve their sales skills) is letting it down despite the positive feedback when people actually see it. For reference the tool is https://mysalesacademy.com
Any advice on my two pivot ideas above, or maybe I'm just completely on the wrong track altogether and need to go back to the drawing board.
Many thanks!
Hi Morganne,
You've probably realised by now, a sales process is not so much about the software, but how it embeds within an organisation. Whilst it's straightforward for an individual to sign up and use your guide / tool, asking a company with multiple sales people to do the same is a completely different ball game.
How your service can integrate with existing systems, how it compares to whatever is being used currently withing an organisation and how easy it is to implement and truly embed ANOTHER system into a business are all factors as to whether someone will buy.
You're competing with probably 100's of sales process tools out there... from the likes of Salesforce down to other small startups. Why would a company choose yours? (And I mean that as a question - not in a derogatory way!)
As you've been doing this for two years, without a single customer, whilst it sounds harsh - it's definitely time to re-evaluate, or you'll inevitably become downhearted and give up.
Some positive suggestions...
-Optimise the SEO for that niche and double down on your sales efforts.
-Spend minimal dev time making your software as perfect as you can for that specific niche.
For me, developing more / changing pricing isn't going to have a profound effect. It's about finding one customer who can embed this properly and then moving on from there.
Niche. Niche. Niche ;-)
Good luck!
Mark
Hello - really appreciate the reply and advice. I've been working in the sector for 10 years (of which 5 years as a consultant) and focused on the enterprise IT sector, so I tailored it towards that and had conversations with big brands who liked it, but it was the getting it over the line that has fallen down. I am well established in terms of content marketing and sales enablement content (like sales playbooks) in that niche but wanted to try and turn that into a tool.
I agree, the 2 years thing has been what has made me now look at stopping it altogether but I wanted to see if there was a way of pivoting it to change what we're doing but keeping the central thread. I'm not looking to change the pricing only, it would be changing it from being a generic tool with set processes to a bespoke tool that is tailored to a company's specific process - hence higher pricing for that service as I'd be building out their own area with specific forms and docs branded to them.
We did have a customer but then they went into administration so we focused a lot of effort on making it work for them then ended up being wasted time (they used it like a partner portal and opened it up to their resellers).
I'm not trying to compete with CRMs, in fact, it will work in partnership with them. Lots of people are not using CRMs to build out Account Plans or Meeting Follows Ups / Agendas, but doing them offline in all sorts of different non-standardised ways, if at all, then either uploading to CRM or just storing in a folder somewhere. So we're not going after being a CRM as such, but providing a more standardised format for replicating some of the best sales behaviours across all sales reps.
There are APIs to upload docs straight into Salesforce automatically rather than the user uploading but that will involve more development investment that I'd need to pay for as I couldn't do myself, and I want to get a bit of traction first before I invest again...
Sales managers are the ones who like it because they are struggling with getting info out of their reps or getting reps to do everything the same. In the same way that a sales rep generally wouldn't want a CRM because it's an extra process for them to do and be monitored on.
In terms of 'why us', I think it's because we're not just giving a blank space to build a sales process, we're bringing industry best practice that they can then build on, and a few training snippets like 1 minute video or a one pager on effective meetings etc.
But I think the why us would be strengthened by making it a bespoke tool, so it sits somewhere between being a productised service and a sales process tool.
Hope that makes sense, but yes take on board your comments, maybe I just need to focus on that one customer and go from there as I've been trying lots of ads etc which haven't worked out for me. The main issue is trying to decide if I have something to salvage or to move on entirely...