[probdist]

I've help sell software-as-a-service to large businesses for a few years and this is a good read. An interesting additional nugget is that when the stakes get big enough customers often are being guided by a consultant (Accenture etc) in crafting things beyond an internal purchasing/procurement/IT mashup. You need to make sure you help the customer and the consultant to get the sale.

[putnam]

So Accenture does due diligence on the expected ROI from the product?

What if you're offering a SaaS product that no one there (but everyone on HN) gets - Is it possible to be both Accenture (review and craft a deal and explain the benefit to the business really well) and also be the software-as-a-service if the client has never bought anything like this before?

Context: I am trying to sell DL consulting/productized models but enterprises either say 'we don't really do that' or 'we do that but we don't work with consultants'.

[beachy]

> What if you're offering a SaaS product that no one there (but everyone on HN) gets

When you feel you're in this position, you should possible reevaluate your offering or the way you think about it.

Although all of the things in TFA ring true, its also true that very often, your internal champion at the customer is actually pretty savvy, and has a strong understanding of their own needs. Not always - but often.

I interepret the feedback you are getting from them as "I don't understand".

If so, thats your problem, not anyone else's.

In the early days we used to market our product as super flexible, way beyond what anyone else had, you could "bend it to do anything". We had a smartypants view of the world, our offer was meta-data driven, yada yada.

After a while it became clear that potential customers did not understand. They (curse them) wanted to see our product in action, solving their business problems. They didn't want to embark on some big configuration journey.

If you can I'd suggest you think about ways to offer "out of the box" implementations of your product, where no consulting activity is required - then seek out early adopters/champions inside the organization who will bring you inside.

[putnam]

Thank you