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Developer having a hard time with B2B sales

Hi guys, this year I have founded Lira Edu, a gamified training app focused on companies who have a great number of service contractors providing services for their clients.|

I got my first client as a reference because I had previously founded a startup of gamified training for real estate brokers, which I quit last year. I have developed the app based on Duolingo and Primer in 3 months and we run a pilot with 80 doormen ( they are a facilities company who provides services to commercial and residential buildings). It was a success and now they are using my solution to train more than 1k doormen, security and receptionist personnel.

Since they signed the contract in April of this year, I was unable to close with another client. I run a pilot with another company but their HR manager didn't want to have any work engaging the personnel to try the app so they didn't move ahead. They are not indeed the right fit for my startup.

I am a software enginner and have no prior experience with prospecting, using CRMs, engaging with people and doing all the work expected from a salesperson. And B2B is hard. I have a long sales cycle, I need to reach decision makers who are not very easy to get in touch, my solution is something very different from the competitors ( it is neither a LMS or a E-learning software ).

I know the pain-points and the problem I solve but I am still having a really hard time prospecting, arranging meetings and closing. I have tried LinkedIn Sales Premium for prospecting, I have A/B tested my copy and approach I am also talking to people who might have this problem not trying to sell to them but asking for research purposes and to understand better the pain points.

I am trying to find a salesperson co-founder, but I think that, as a founder of a company, I need to be able to sell. I have tried some courses on SDR, read some books on B2B SaaS Sales but still don't have the confidence and skills to perform the task.

I would love to hear from the folks who might have been in this place before or any suggestions.

Thanks!

  1. 9

    Hi @rafaelsaraceni, first off - congrats on getting out and building something that is used by 1000 people in a business!

    I had a quick glance at your website and found the classical issues that most developers have. I can relate to this, because I have been there and done that.

    My comments might be a bit off because I used Google Translate.

    1. The key line on your website says "Gamified Training". It means nothing to me as a user. Instead, I would love to see something like "Mobile app that helps you train your staff 70% better. Save time while keeping employees motivated." Show them the value, not a buzzword.

    2. Over-usage of icons/clipart. Maybe it is a personal preference, but if I am a business owner, I would rather see a human face in the background. I would put the "in the media" section all the way on top. The key goal of ANY landing page is to get the user to click on a button/call-to-action. Keep it simple! It is super simple to create a sign up form on the page. Or if you absolutely despise it, add the Whatsapp button as your CTA.

    3. Improve the design. Again, could be personal, but I find it way too colorful. There are plenty of free/super cheap HTML templates that makes it very easy to build a professional looking website. Add in some screenshots of the product. Or a better - How does it work?

    4. Testimonial - your pilot with the 1000 cleaning staff company is gold mine. Use it everywhere. Write a case study. Make new things ready so people can start reading it. The goal here is to create trust so that they are tempted to go for the button and contact you.

    5. Do you have a mobile app that's there on Playstore? If so, link it! If not, give them the link to download the APK.

    I would strongly recommend to not reach out to people through Linked In or email until you fix these things. In unfiltered words, right now the website looks like it is a brochure, when it need not be! You have done the hard work to build the product and land a decently large customer. Do the remaining 20% of selling your product well and this will grow well.

    Don't worry about CRM and other softwares until you fix these issues, those are minor things. You can get started with just a simple Google Sheet.

    Happy to chat further if you want to!

    1. 1

      Hi @edbuilder, thank you for your feedback. I hired a designer to help me improve my landing page, but I have already made some updates based on your ideas. I have made changes in my copy, added the testimony and removed the cliparts. It's not as good as I would like but it is way better than before. Thanks again

  2. 2

    Hi Rafael, I can relate a lot with your post (although im not a developer). I started building my company when I still was at university and there they dont teach you how to do sales. So i was clueless and started where everyone started by reading books, listening to podcasts etc.

    It all comes down to the fact how you can stand out from the crowd. So we started experimenting with "how to stand out". A year in now we see that sending personalised videos is working for us. This is how it looks (text is in dutch): Personalized video for Jorn

    In the upper left the logo of the company is generated (using Lemlist) as well as the prospects firstname. This attracts the attention and makes the prospect want to click the video. If you click you will be redirected to a landing page where the video is embedded.

    In the video im talking about why we built our product and what its solving for the customer, without actually talking about specifics or metrics. We use the video to establish the relationship and from there onwards.

    Have you tried sending a video? I've dedicated a post to it today on it on IndieHackers: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-to-send-1000-personalised-videos-per-week-0ca3a7b62f

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      Hi @IronBrands, thanks for your comment. I've read your article on IH and what you have done is a really great sales hack. Congratulations. I'll keep this approach in mind. Today my biggest issue is closing the deal. I can get to the point where the prospect asks for a detailed offer. After I send it they stop answering my emails or messages.

      1. 1

        @rafaelsaraceni Thanks! I think everyone has experienced this to some degree. It still happens a lot here as well. So what I normally do when prospects don't respond to our offer: I jut call them. Once you call them, they have nowhere to hide and you will at least get an answer.

  3. 2

    Hey Rafael - congratulations on your first client and 1000 users.

    First of all, you need to know that what you are experiencing in sales is normal. B2B sales, especially to larger companies takes time, perseverance and patience. 6-12 month sales cycles are normal.

    The challenge you will face selling to HR or a facility manager is that it's an additional cost during a touch business environment. If you try selling to sales teams, it can become a revenue improvement solution.

    Sales teams are struggling because they can't have face to face meetings and budgets are tight. Lira has the potential to help increase sales and that's something businesses are willing to invest in at any time.

    I advise a company with similar promise but a different tool an approach in India. We had great success during the pandemic with the engagement message. But in the last one month, that message has lost sheen. So we pivoted to impact on sales and that's really resonating with audience.

    1. 1

      Hi @VishalSrivastava I appreaciate your feedback. Indeed sales seems to be a good niche. The sales training material might be quite extensive. It would require some effort to undestand the sales needs in training but I think it might be a good call

  4. 2

    Hey Rafael,

    I have been in B2B sales my whole career and the best lead generation platform, hands down, is LinkedIn. It's literally a database of your ideal customers. Use the search filters to narrow down your customer persona and actively connect and reach out to these people. One caveat; do not sell. Your only objective is to start a conversation with your ideal customer. People hate being sold to but they love talking about themselves.

    Once you are starting to connect with your ideal customers on LinkedIn, you should be actively reaching out. You can message 25-50 people a day. But you are going to have to want it. It's boring, manual and can feel like you are talking to nobody for days. But there is an abudance of customers and new business on LinkedIn.

    You do not need a co-founder. You just need to learn how to find and sell to those first inital customers.

    I am the founder of harris&wilde, we sell videos to businesses of all shapes and sizes and every single one of them was acquired through LinkedIn.

    The cost of acquiring customers using paid marketing or giving up equity for a salesperson will finish you before you have even begun.

    The cost of acquring customers on LinkedIn is £0.

    I have only just seen this message because I am only on Indie Hackers once per week, if you have any questions i'd happily help. Shoot me a tweet @MrJakeHarris and i'll help you craft your first outbound sales message to your ideal customers.

    :)

    1. 1

      Hi @MrJakeHarris, thanks for your feedback. I've just started following you on twitter

  5. 2

    Congrats! 1000 users is awesome. I agree with most of the advice @edbuilder provided.

    Unless you're doing a landing page, many modern websites today follow a layout similar to this:

    1. header
    2. hero section - also known as above the fold or the "impress me" section. I'm thinking your tagline is something like, "Training So Effective, Your Customers Will Thank You"
    3. what you do section - explanation, features, benefits, value proposition.
    4. solution section - what is your service
    5. why you - from your perspective (ie, "we know your industry the best", "featured in XYZ", "gamification gets the best results and people retain the information longer; ie, it's the best way to train employees")
    6. why you - from industry or your customer's and/or partners perspectives (logos)
    7. why you - social proof aka testimonials (5 star ratings, positive comments)
    8. pricing tables (optional)
    9. blog posts, articles and/or resources like case studies (optional)
    10. contact (optional)
    11. footer

    This is an example website I put together for another IH founder: https://saveforward.consumeraffinity.com. Personally, I think the colors and icons are less important than the information, messaging, and marketing copy.

    I disagree with not reaching out to people and trying to sell them at this stage. Especially since you've already had some success. You'll learn the most by trying to sell - you win some and you lose some. I do agree that these things need to be addressed and fixed but as Mark Cuban essentially says, sales cures all ills. If you're already getting paying customers, you should go out and sell. That'll give you the funding you need to iterate your product, introduce new courses, and make critical hires. By the way, I have heard of businesses paying sales people 100% commissions and no salary. YMMV.

    1. 2

      Spot on @razermuse

      Always be selling! But if you do LinkedIn outreach or emails with a website that doesn't say much, you might lose out on that customer. Might be much easier to go fishing with a spear at this stage. Keep an eye out for specific possible customers and then reach out to them.

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        I don't know about that. I've been told and taught that most market messages don't resonate with people until they've seen it up to 7 times. And the idea that most people will visit your website and convert from visitor to a sale just doesn't happen. My understanding is that the typical conversion rate of a website visitor to a sale on average is around 2-3%. Clearly, that rate can increase if you're targeting the right audience and you have not only product/market fit but the 4 p's right too.

    2. 1

      Hi @razermuse, thanks for your feedback. Right now I think on my site more like a landing page, but as @edbuilder suggested I did some improvement on my copy, added testimonials and improved a little bit the design. I am trying to talk to most people I can, prospects or relevant people on the industry for feedback. I am also seeking for a sales co-founder. Right now sales is my #1 priority. I have tried with a SDR friend of mine, she was working part-time, the salary was not very high, but the maximum I could give. No results. As she was working full-time in other company she was unable to get a single meeting in two months. I know it would be a long journey to master the B2B Sales Process, but I need to get it done ASAP

      1. 2

        What you're describing - unique value proposition, competition, specific buyers, long sales cycle describes, in my experience, what is normal in B2B sales.

        My own sales experience is with security software on the post-sales side where my sales cycle averaged 6-18 months. I have a friend that sold software with a multi-million dollar price tag and it took him about 3 years to close two deals.

        Deal size and budgetary authority are likely going to dictate your sales cycle unless people are buying because of some driving factor like regulations, an executive mandate, compliance, a breach, etc.

        You might consider putting together a job description that discloses that it's a 100% commission paid gig and see if you get any qualified candidates. What you want are people that understand each piece of the sales cycle and will bird dog your prospects in each stage until they close deals. They will also understand how to provide a sales-oriented demo versus a technical demo, how to prove value and how to overcome the buyer's objections.

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          how does the 100% comission work? Is it a 100% comission of the first month the client pays for using the SaaS or is it something like the X-first months?

          1. 1

            Well, I had a quarterly sales goal or quota that I had to achieve. If I hit that number, I got paid my variable compensation. If I overachieved that target, I got a bonus called an accelerator.

            My quota and my achievement of it was based on what I sold and what we invoiced the customer each year (not monthly).

            I would imagine that if you've got customers paying you monthly, that it would be monthly and not quarterly - if a customer chooses not to renew, the salesperson doesn't get compensated.

            When I say 100% commission it means that they take all the risk instead of the typical 50-50 or 60-40 split you might see between salary and commissions (also known as variable compensation).

            1. 1

              Thanks for the explanation. Unfortunately in Brazil we have a legislation who prevents us from doing this model of 100% comission.

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                Ah, well maybe it's still possible to find someone that would be willing to work below market for a potential opportunity to make an income.

  6. 2

    I focus more on consumer markets so I don't have first hand experience here, but I can relay some information from people I've worked with that do B2B sales.

    1 - Depending on the industry, the homepage may be a lot less important than you think. Some industries have customers searching the internet for solutions. Some industries have customers who are perfectly content with the status quo and will almost never reach your home page. I'm taking a guess that your industry may be the latter.

    2 -1,000 users is a lot of users! The first customer is the hardest. Ask if you can interview the individual users. Then ask the individuals if they know people who work at other facilities. Then ask those people if they can put you in contact with someone who can make a purchasing decision.

    3 - With your second pilot, even if the HR manager didn't like it, did the employees like it? Do they know people who work at other companies? Can you ask the HR manager to see if they can refer you to others even though they didn't make the purchase?

    4 - Are you connected to any of these pilot users via LinkedIn? Check their connections for people you could reach out to.

    IMO, the part that's really hard for a developer doing sales is how you basically need to ask for introductions constantly. You can't be afraid of annoying them if you ask once or twice. Most of the people I know who have made a B2B company have done so by constantly networking and using the networks of their happy users. It's almost word of mouth but you're forcing it a bit.

    1. 1

      Hi @ProfessorBeekums, thanks for your feedback. I still don't know how much my landing page matters, for my first client I didn't even have any. About interviewing users, I will ask for my client to make a focus group with the heavy users to understand what they like the most and what could be improved. I haven't tried talking to users to reach the decision makers. The path I've being doing is the contrary, but I think is worth trying. About the second pilot, the facilities personnel were not using the app because the HR Manager didn't want the effort to engage them. This client is for and industry I don't really have much fit so I think he wouldn't be able to help much. I have been using LinkedIn a lot, doing research on companies, people I already know, lots of cold messaging. I've sent something like 50 cold messages, was able to do only one call. I think I need to improve a little in order to pay for LinkedIn Premium ( when you convert USD to BRL is A LOT OF MONEY ). Thanks again for your suggestions. I think one of my biggest problems is the fear of approaching people, talking, asking for reference. I am working hard on it

  7. 2

    Congrats on 1000 users! That isn't easy!
    I was wondering what kind of customers are you looking for? Any specific industry?
    What way do you market them that works the best currently?

    1. 1

      My solution is best suited for companies with more than 1k service providers contractors. Like my client who is a facilities company who have people like doormen, security and cleaning personnel in more than 200 corporate and residential buildings. I am having good feedback from people from the facilities industry but I believe I can enter in retail our hospitality too. But my main focus today is facilities. For now my marketing is focused on LinkedIn and Instagram. This month I've decided to try Google Ads for some A/B testing of my copy and market positioning. Today I don't have a clear sales channel, most of the things I do is experimental to try to find the right way.

      1. 2

        Hey Rafael, drop me an email when you can. I think I can help perhaps get you connected. Got some email addresses I could pass along.

  8. 2

    I'd look for a sales person who has ambition of starting something and are interested in learning from you. Use that person as a mentor to give you the sales playbook.

    Have you worked with any sales people that you respect? Any sales people in your social network? Getting to know sales people is relatively easy if your willing to go find them (at least pre-Covid).

    1. 1

      I had some sales mentors in an acceleration program I have been part. There are some people in my circle that are good with sales but don't have enough time to participate very closely. I am currently trying to find someone to be a sales co-founder but it's quite hard to find the right person. For me, cultural fit is more important than skills. Anyway, thanks for your advice. I have engaged in sales group, as I am based in Brazil and focused on brazilian market I will try to engange in brazilian sales groups to find some people

  9. 1

    Hi,

    I can help out. Please email me on [email protected]

  10. 1

    This comment was deleted a year ago.

    1. 1

      Hi @harriskenny, thanks for your feedback. I am starting to feel that I have no choice but to learn how to sell by myself. I am still trying to adjust my copy, to find a good channel. LinkedIn didn't work that much for me and the price for a good Premium Account is too expensive ( Brazilian currency is on the bottom right now ). I am focusing now in doing good prospecting because I know it is the basis of the sales process. I appreciate the offer for trying your CRM. To be fair, right now I don't have many leads neither many offers to track. For now I will focus on prospecting and your advice of asking questions and focus on value is very valuable. Thank you

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        This comment was deleted a year ago.

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