Selling Software We Need to Keep it Simple

Selling Software is a complicated business. We need to have a process. We need to have discipline. We probably need to persuade customers of the value in new ways of thinking. But for the customer, at least, we need to make it simple.

Making complicated concepts simple so others can understand is probably the sales guys biggest challenge. Prospects don’t have the time to do the research, do the thinking, or sit for hours through never ending presentations. They pretty much want to know three things:

Where’s the deal?

What’s in it for them?

What it costs?

When selling software our job is netting down all that competitive positioning and marketing speak into straight talking. But that can be really hard to do.

We’re involved in a project bringing a new type of medical software to market. Not selling software to customers right now, but selling the concept to the business support and investment communities.

Mostly we’re talking to people who smile, and nod encouragingly, at our presentation. Nice people who just don’t have the brain power to understand the way we’ve netted down three years of thinking into a 20 minute software pitch.

This isn’t their problem. It’s ours. We’re the ones trying to get something, whatever it is.

So maybe we need to start again, improving our process. Stop talking about how clever we are. Stop demonstrating how much we know. Get on with explaining why they should be working with us and selling our software ideas in context they can understand.

Where’s the deal, what’s in it for them and what does it cost.

Keeping stuff simple can be awfully boring. Demonstrating our expertise can be reinforcing and uplifting. No wonder we like to make stuff complicated.

Meanwhile we make it harder for the customer to buy, just through polishing our own ego.

I’ll do better tomorrow, promise. How about you? What can you do to make your customer’s understand more easily?