Is Software Sales Dead?

Is Software Sales Dead?

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Yes. And. No.

Atlassian built a software empire without a single sales person.
Slack didn’t have a CMO to speak of at first, let alone a sales person.
Qwilr got to X customers without any direct selling.

Imagine you went to a car dealership. Those sleazy used cars ones where you’re always on your toes, trying to sniff out the sales guy. The same sales guy who can smell your blood from over a mile away. The same sales guy who doesn’t know when to stop. The same sales guy who just won’t stop selling.

You get the point.

Now imagine you went to the same car dealership. Instead this time there’s something different. No one is talking to you and trying to push you into buying anything. The sales guy has a huge smile on his face. Greets you at the door, sits you down at his desk. Then the unthinkable happens — he asks you what kind of car you are looking for. Not only that, he actually lets you know that the Escalade you’ve had your eye on is probably overkill and you’re better off with something more economical. You walk away smiling, feeling smarter and without a hole in your pocket.

Sales has been around ever since there’s been goods to sell. We used to barter, trade and sell since we discovered fire and built the first civilization. But it wasn’t always a dirty word.

Modern sales as we know it started with Oracle, who implemented the sales development strategy in the 1980's. It hasn’t changed much since then. Hire some folk who’s only job is to work a list and call as many people as possible.

But that doesn’t work anymore. Personally I almost never don’t pick up the phone if it’s someone I don’t know. For the most part I know what I need and it’s not an Escalade, even though I might want one.

Traditionally sales people would knock on the proverbial door. Once you let them in, they would explain or convince you that you have a problem. Once you were convinced you have that problem and you desperately need someone or something to solve it, they would flick their wrists to present you with the perfect solution. That’s how they made their money and that’s how the world worked. That’s all fine and dandy. There were only a limited number of large vendors and everyone specialized specific problems and offered solutions like SAP, Oracle, NCR & Siebel. Sales pipelines were built of phone lists and cheques were signed in the boardroom.

It worked this way because the consumer or prospect only had a limited number of options and a limited information flow. What the sales guy knew, you did not. He or she had special industry insider knowledge, experience and ‘had seen it before’ and knew exactly what the solution was. Once the cheque was signed, the implementation team would move into your office to implement whatever massive software system you bought. Months and months would be blocked off just for implementation, afterwards was training and some services. You were on your own for the most part. It was a transactional relationship. All said and done, if you weren’t happy with what you had, too bad. You signed a 10 year contract.

The internet and the browser changed that.

Many would talk about how the internet changed everything. But the fundamental tool that lets us ‘use’ the internet is the browser and that in-itself is true innovation. Before the browser, the internet was for geeks and nerds but the browser helped it cross the chasm into the mainstream market. The humble browser also started new software career paths, languages, frameworks and of course SaaS or delivering software on demand in your browser. No server administration or

I was at large enteprise in the FMCG industry during a SAP implementation. The place was swarming with consultants and implementation specialists, the meetings were endless and the timeline was, well unknown. There were many failed attempts before that. Not to mention the enourmous costs, on site servers, legacy processes and code that needed to be migrated over.

Switch over to the flip side; I’ve worked with three companies to implement Salesforce, Hubspot and Pardot. The difference in scale aside, there was no consultants swarming at the office, no on site servers and no configurations, local software or endless meetings. It was a simple process. API’s and existing integration libraries made it easy to make the entire stack talk to each other.

The fundamental way that software is bought, sold, marketed and implemented has changed. It’s time software sales changes with it.

It is. It’s becoming customer success. For the most part.

The word Customer Success first appeared in written form somewhere in 1994. Perhaps one of the earliest books about it is Delighting Customers: How to build a customer-driven organization “http://www.amazon.ca/Delighting-Customers-build-customer-driven-organization/dp/0412610108/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1443659357&sr=1-1&keywords=9780412610103"