The Reason Your Presale is Broken
I’ve been asked by the men that I work with in Russian IT companies to write down the reasons pre-sale meetings are not succeeding.
What classically happens is that the company does very well in the:
initial contact of the client
Looking professional and gaining the trust of the client
Having the client open up and discuss their pain points
And right around here, something goes wrong and the sale does not proceed
First, what does this look like?
You will get a response like this:
“I believe we are going to wait for some time I would like to talk with some other people”
Why does this happen? And specifically, why does this happen at this moment in the presale process?
It’s a specific moment when you’ve gained their trust and they’re actually thinking about working with you, that money will be exchanging hands and contracts will be signed. So the client is hypersensitive at this specific moment to anything that seems unusual.
To put it simply: the client is looking for a reason to say no.
And now for your reasons, why presales are broken.
The yes/positive statement, with conditions not being used
If a client asks you:
How do we proceed?
What do we do first?
They are expecting you to give them your professional opinion about what part of the project to begin working on first.
Many companies across Russia at this moment, do not want to say: “yes”
Or a statement like: “I suggest we start by integrating these two systems first”
Because throughout the world, they are expecting a yes/positive statement here it looks strange when you don’t say this
The focus of the sales approach/marketing materials is not correct
I could write a whole book on this.
To state it quickly, there’s always a motivation why they would want to buy your development or software product
And there’s the motivation behind the motivation
This looks something like:
I want to raise the value of my device by online platform that allows the patients to access all functions of my device.
The motivation behind the motivation:
I want to be responsible for my end customers. I want to give them a good user experience which will translate to higher sales and more profits.
I also want to actually help my end clients.
(in Russia, companies are marketing only to the client of the software not the end client.
The marketing approach and sales communication should always emphasize the true motivation of the potential software client.
(how does this translate to the real world and the loss of a presale?)
If you’ve convinced one person in this company to work with your software company and they would like to have your software or development services, but they need to go and present this to other people in their company.
Without marketing materials and a sales approach that helps this stands in the way of the sale.
Case study:
A revenue cycle person is completely convinced that our software development will help her and her company.
The revenue cycle person goes to their CFO boss above them and presents our company with the marketing materials we’ve given her.
The marketing materials are not focused on the motivation behind the motivation.
The marketing materials have the effect of unselling our software development.
Not Knowing what the client expects to happen in each presale meeting
From the first time you make contact with a client
To the first presale meeting
The 2nd presale meeting
And the third presale meeting
Each time the client has different motivations and expectations that they believe will happen during that meeting.
I’m finding that Russians are not expecting the same things to happen during these meetings.
Therefore, they are unprepared to answer certain questions or give certain information.
They also are acting differently than what the Western client expects them to act.
Solution:
I believe that all companies should make a roadmap of the sale for every product or development service they’re offering.
Each pre-sale should be outlined and envisioned, including potential questions with answers that are sanctioned by the leaders of the company.
How this would look in practice.
Question: How much will it cost for this development?
Answer: Usually when we work with companies to do this type of development, it is costing between 150,000 to 250,000 USD.
If the answers are sanctioned by the leadership of the company, then there will be no surprises when a bracket answer like this is given.
It is a perfect answer for the way the western client is expecting you to answer this.
Because the Russian software development company is not prepared to answer questions like this the sales are often lost.
I sincerely hope that my writing is helping and of course, I am willing to discuss any of these matters in the comments.
