Know-How Exchange : Other

Dear Gerard

It is fascinating to come across a software vendor, and in your company’s case, a developer, where 99.99% of the world and probably 80% of your clients haven’t got a clue as to what it does.

And I thought that CRM, Canonical Forecasting, Neural Prediction and Marketing Analysis were taxing! Well, taxing to get users to take up more than 10% of the benefits they have hidden in the box and to get them to see something of the big picture which we perceive. Taxing to keep them on track for long enough to advance a sale to a successful close. And it must be taxing for you to ensure that you involve enough people both above and below the decision maker in the organisation to ensure success at the close.

One of the problems I perceive on your site, especially where you are looking to develop a multi- level, long gestation, long sales-cycle relationship is that, never mind the lack of incentives to return to your site, there are few incentives at the moment to get visitors to register an interest and few means of capture to allow you to develop the relationship on your terms and theirs.

Chris Cardell of Cardell Media has written eloquently that in 2007 a website is no longer a viewing gallery, it certainly isn’t a location to place orders, and it is not used appropriately to generate enquiries. I estimate that for an average CRM or ERP software site, only about 2% of visitors bother to initiate any form of contact, which means that 98% of them come along, look and go away leaving both you and them empty handed. And often baffled to boot!

I think that you need to have something to offer in exchange for some contact details. For example, your software and the applications must be backed by numerous white papers illustrating the benefits to technical, management and dealer audiences. Offering something of value to these people in more depth, in return for their contact details will allow you to initiate your long sales cycle in a manner which is appropriate to the enquirer.

The widget idea is interesting, but I would suspect that in the Banking Industry, unless the widget in question is utterly relevant to their job function or utterly hilarious, they won’t give it the time of day.

Also, the graphics on your site are informative but static and dull! As your entire platform is conceived on Java, you must be in a position to whip up, either in-house or via an agency something which will lead a potential user through the process involved in, say derivative yield forecasting, or be able to show how the blotters and order desk features would work in reality. You could then release month by month new instalments to the process and have a good reason to invite people back to see them.

Might I also enquire what the route map is to a sale? Do you operate differently with customers who are the technicians who construct derivative instruments and sell to them and their managers in a differing way to traders? A technical expert in a bank might drive the same Ferrari as the dealers, but they have an utterly different mindset and the route to sale is therefore probably different. How do you deal with the very senior decision makers who probably understand about half a percent of what you are talking about? Ever thought of having a VIP area for directors and their staff who are paid to interpret the latest technology on their behalf?

One of the problems we find is that to demonstrate, on site, or in a webinars, all the features and benefits of a CRM system would take too long and bore them rigid. We therefore have to find out what their particular “hot” buttons are and then initially hit those in a presentation. They will come back for more as they realise the possibilities, but you can only manage this process if you are in charge of the communications. Expecting them to remember or even to want to come back is asking too much of a banker. You have to drive them – their priorities are different, especially at bonus time!

We are in the process of taking this on board ourselves – our own website is very informative – that is what it was set up to be 3 years ago, but we fail to capture visitors. It is my intention to increase the numbers of enquiries by starting to offer some incentive for them to register their interest. We have white papers, case studies and the potential for an informative newsletter which would require registration. We can then manage the process after that. Adding some interactive or dynamic content will then give us the excuse to pick up the phone, speak and to invite them back to see the latest display.

For example, Consoles are hot at the moment in CRM and Sales Performance Management is hot in sales management. Something the registered user can access and play with is an excellent way for you to continue to keep their interest and to develop it to a level which moves the sale along.

I look forward to seeing what other postings come in on this – it is a fascinating discussion.

Oh, last thought. You might contact Gary Rosensteel on this forum. He has acted for NeuralWare who produce the most sophisticated neural networking predictive software which has the same kind of high technical bar that you suffer from, has applications galore in Banking but has a low $ price tag in contrast to an integrated system such as yours. I had at one time hoped to do something with NeuralWare in the UK as Forecasting is a passion of mine, but until I sort out our CRM marketing, I don’t have the time for this fine product.

Best wishes


Steve Alker
Unimax Solutions

This is most interesting.

I sell software development. My companies and developers are all over the world. Each is based upon their area of expertise. Selling them is always the issue of communicating to/with the client. My techies all speak techie, like Java, ASP.NET, Tomcat, portals and the like.

Understand the people who buy the services are business people. Both are problem-solution oriented but one is technical and the other is business.

So as example, for my site we rendered the problem-solution down to: "SOFTWARE DONE RIGHT, ON TIME AND ON BUDGET". But I promote the business with white papers that address the buyer's concerns which is risk management. "A beginners guide to risk management in software development," "Zen and myths in software outsourcing," the Kama Sutra of software development" (how developers fail their clients) and similar are on my website.

One of my companies did my site, first we made an executive summary and put the link on the front page. If someone gets to your site they should have a thumbnail of what you do and why you exist.

As for selling - If you don't get past the decision maker you don't get to the techie. Rarely does the path open with the SA. So focus on the benefits in terms the client understands. Things like risk, security, refactoring or what the hot buttons are. Make a paper on each topic. prominently display them for download like on www.swxperts.com.

Make it easy for them to find and answer their questions.