Things That Make You Say Hmmm: Sales Process/Models
There is so much great information being published that I feel compelled to share what I find interesting. Here are a few really intriguing pieces that made me stop and say hmmm. ------- Is Demo Short for Demolition? Author: Dave Stein of Dave Stein's BlogSummary: There are a lot of things to think about when formulating your company’s demo strategy. For a technology company, this is a critical component of building an effective sales process. Doing a demo as an unplanned reaction to a customer request (or demand) is never the right approach. Neither is letting your salespeople lead with a demo because they don’t know how to carry on a discussion with the right people about the customer’s business. Emergence Capital: Profitable Lessons From Freemium Business Models Author: Tom Foremski of Silicon Valley WatcherSummary: A freemium model means that you offer a free version of your online service and try to convert some of those users to premium subscribers through offering additional features and value. Lots of great quotes from 5 freemium model CEO’s. Just Like Russian Roulette, Freemium is a Numbers Game Author: Lincoln Murphy of 16 VenturesSummary: Sparked by Ning killing their free version… So what does this mean for the "Freemium model?" Like most marketing tactics, some will find success with it and others will fail miserably. If you understand that it is simply a marketing ploy and don't build your "business" around Freemium, when it doesn't work, you will be in a better position to recover. If you spend all of your time, money, and resources up front attempting to collect some "critical mass" of users thinking that you'll convert them later when you "turn on the revenue tap" you might have a big, negative surprise waiting for you. -------
So, dear readers, I hope you found these useful and interesting! Please post comments and share your thoughts. Your contributions always make us stop and say hmmm….
COMMENTS
Thanks for sharing Trish. I have always been a big fan of the Freemium model as a scalable, predictable revenue model. The big success stories get lots of press. However, our research has shown that there are a tremendous amount of good efforts that fail miserably from an economics perspective. The Ning news this week was just another data point along these lines. If folks have some recent success stories to share, I would enjoy hearing about them. Thanks for the aggregation of great posts Trish!
Freemium is more than just a numbers game. It is a value game. Freemium provides the ultimate in low on ramp to help a prospect idenify and quantify a problem and show a quick and easy solution. If you help prospects solve a problem you have the inside edge for getting their business. Freemium was invented by Marc Andressen at Netscape and perfected by Google and can be applied to almost any industry.
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