Tips for selling to small business?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2710016

by muddylemon • 15 years ago

6 8 15 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I'm researching the market for a web based product whose target market is small, local and public facing businesses, such as restaurants, bars, retail shops, dry cleaners and the like.

Does anyone have any experience selling to customers like this? In particular, do you have any advice as far as:

* pricing (ie. price points, annual, monthly, etc)

* sales tactics and strategies

* do promotions like free trials work or backfire?

* what sort of gotchas or issues might I run into?

deniswsrosa• 15 years ago

Low cost - if possible, based on a percentage of the revenue that your product will create. This way, it will not look like an aditional cost.

Small business tend to think that they are so small to get any software or product, you should work to change this concept.

Be prepared to overdues.

curt• 15 years ago

Don't assume any technological knowledge at all, most small business owners I've dealt with know just enough to run their businesses. As such they don't like switching even when their is a solution that could save them a fortune. The key is to automate as much as possible.

percept• 15 years ago

Here's a book I recommend (cheap at $5):

http://www.amazon.com/Outfoxing-Small-Business-Owner-Relatio...

muddylemon2• 15 years ago

That looks very interesting

brudgers2• 15 years ago

It's still B2B sales.

To sell to small, local and public facing businesses, it would help if your salesforce can talk intelligently about the business's actual market and the impacts your product will have on the specific services they offer.

To treat it like B2C is a mistake. Or to put it another way, small businesses don't go down to the ATT store and order their cell phone plans one at a time.

I will add that you don't really have a well defined market segment when it includes both restaurants and dry cleaners.

muddylemon2• 15 years ago

Regarding your final point, I agree. I plan on marketing to a specific segment (at least at one time.) At this point I've just been asking different business owners for feedback. The product is a turn-key (no config, no maintenance) customer relationship product with measurable marketing metrics. I'll have a demo available in a week.

Restaurants are actually my ideal customers, and were my original use case, but I have the impression that they are a difficult sell so I'm keeping my eyes open.

I'm really trying to imagine my way through the sales process now to help inform the product design.

brudgers2• 15 years ago

Here's the issue I see.

A small business like a restaurant best manages relationships face to face not using a computer.

The sorts of targets you are talking about live and breath personal service - nobody wants their bartender entering contact data instead of pouring their beer.

If you walk in and they take care of you, then you come back. If the waitress shares her a bad mood with you then maybe you don't. When you go into your favorite local restaurant and are greeted by name as you walk in the door, that's the mark of a good customer relationship and what really matters for small local businesses. You can't get there with email.

vrikhter• 15 years ago

I have experience with this (depending on your product). Drop me a line and I'll see if I can provide you with some help relevant to what you're selling. email is in profile.

Tips for selling to small business?

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