You need to listen to the industry you’re selling into. But you don’t need to change much until you have a groundswell of solid feedback from a number of key prospects.

Your Go To Market Product Strategy

It’s very understandable that you’ll encounter some prospects that want XYZ feature that you don’t have yet. And guess what? It’s impossible you’ll have everything a customer wants before you build an established platform. And you won’t win all of that business…YET.

The best thing you can do is capture as much feedback as possible and put that into your product roadmap. Sales is absolutely critical for this as they are the front lines with the customer. Keep in mind the following when a prospect tells you “NO” for the first time:

• • You’ve just built a relationship/rapport with that prospect. It’s not NO, it’s not right now
  • If they don’t buy from you then, they will buy down the road if you deliver on some added features
  • But you can STILL obtain a number of clients that really like the service as it is today. It’s all a numbers game! Which is why Lead Gen is your biggest secret weapon
  • It’s really important not to overbuild right now. You sure as hell don’t want to try and build something that only a couple of prospects want. You need a groundswell from the market to tell you a feature or module is valuable to their sector

How Sales Can Make You Successful With A Less Than Complete Product

As I stated above, it’s all a numbers game! And the way to put numbers to your advantage is to build a robust lead gen strategy to cover as much ground as possible.

• Lead Gen- THE MOST IMPORTANT SUCCESS FACTOR! Here are some things to keep in mind:
  • Your top sales person should be focused purely on demo, relationships, and closing. Not lead gen!
  • Internal lead gen resources are usually more effective as they are versatile and can work on a lot of different project. However, they are way more expensive
  • If you do need to outsource your lead gen, there are TONS of options available
  • Target the largest companies first. These companies will tell you right off the bat if you’ve hit the mark. If you haven’t you’ve at least built rapport and a relationship with them, which you can sell to them once you add features they need
  • Building a huge pipeline is a must. It’s purely a numbers game. If you have 100 prospects in your pipeline, and close 10, great! If you have ten and hope to close 10, but end up closing 1, you’re in a bad position
  • The timeline for a pipeline that is solid takes about 9 months to a year. Start now!
• Selling
  • In order to cut your costs, avoid having to do any travel to close these deals. Run everything as an inside sales team, with remote demos. For big accounts you could travel to build the relationship, but I’d keep that limited and only for the right opportunities
  • Once the meeting is set up, all your top sales person needs to do is demo, get commitment, and get a signature

If you have a good pipeline and can build momentum, you’ll close enough deals to be profitable, build your product our more, and conquer your market!