This is the fifth video in our series on how to sell software to businesses, and we discuss the subject of generating leads. This is a fairly large topic, and with that, we primarily skip through a variety of different tips and tactics that you consider for your strategy with how to sell software to businesses.

To help make these concepts more digestible, we organize them into three subcategories:

 

Getting your foot-in-the-door

Use a multi-touch approach

The biggest challenge with selling software is just getting connected with target prospects. With that, you are going to have to use a multi-touch approach that not only communicates to prospect in a variety of ways, but you will need to reach out multiple times with all of the different methods that you use for reaching out.

Educate the prospect

Since we know that we are going to reach out multiple times to prospects, we can factor that into what we say by dividing the story we want to tell across multiple messages. For example, instead of sending one long email with everything that you want to say, break your message across smaller email messages and try to educate the prospect on who you are and why they should spend their time with you.

Use automation

Use tools for automation with your lead generation with how to sell software to businesses in any way that you can. The most obvious area for automation with lead generation is in the delivery of your emails.

 

Finding opportunities

Research

If you have a fixed list of target accounts, it can definitely be worth your time to research the company looking through news articles and financial reports looking for challenges that your product can help to solve. If you have a big territory or sell to many small businesses, it might not be practical to spend time researching each account that you are trying to sell to.

Ask good questions

One of the best ways to find opportunities is by asking good questions. The key word here is “good” because it will be your ability to compose good questions that uncover pain that prospects have that will determine how well your questions perform at finding opportunities.

Top-down / Bottom-up

A lot of salespeople operate with the mindset of top-down selling with only reaching out to the top of the organization. While it is primarily the top level that has the power and money to purchase what you sell, it is often talking to the bottom and middle of the organization where you will be able to learn more and find opportunities.

Sell to the business unit

When trying to figure out how to sell software to businesses, you can often focus primarily on selling to the IT department. But what can be more productive is shifting to sell to the business unit that uses the software.

 

Building interest

What’s in it for me

Regardless of what a salesperson sells, it can be common to fall into the trap of talking primarily about the product and what it does. The problem with that is that talking about the product does not answer the question of “what is in it for me” for the prospect. Focus more on answering this question, and you will figure out how to sell software to businesses.

Tailor the message

When selling software to businesses, you will likely talk to many different audiences. You might talk to different types of businesses. You might talk to different departments inside of the businesses. With that, you can improve your ability to build more interest by tailoring your message to these different audiences.

Focus on the business impact

You can probably talk all day about what the software does and the improvements that the software can create. But be sure to connect all of that to the business. If you can automate a process, connect that automation to what it means in terms of costs, revenue, product quality, etc.

Find the prospect’s pain points

If you want to have clarity around how to sell software to businesses, find more clarity around the pain points that your prospect has. And not just what their general pain points are, but what pain points they have that your product can help to fix.

Calculate ROI

There is likely a cost for the prospect to purchase your software. And there are likely improvements that your software can deliver. Create a calculation for those variables to create a return on investment for the prospect.

Create a business case

You can take the ROI calculation to the next level and develop a business case that includes more details on the costs and benefits.

Share customer examples

One of the best ways to build interest with how to sell software to businesses is to share examples of other customers that have purchased your software and telling the story of the improvements that they were able to see.

Also, Read What to Say to What Is This In Regards To Sales Objection