Do you market it to technology staff and technology leaders as a way for them to ramp up all of the services they provide to their businesses, at a very affordable cost, or do you market it to business staff and business leaders as a way for them to get services from our firm that allow them to free up their IT staff, funds, and effort to redirect to their revenue streams and/or their bottom line? And, why?

Sorry Frank, I'm not sure what you're doing is exactly clear. I don't know enough of course, but it seems that the Google/Yahoo analogy might be a bit of a stretch, and adding to the confusing.

What does seem clear is that you are "gluing together" a number of different business applications, which may appeal to different business users (the end users--which Robert is asking about).

So your problem as I see it is that you'd like to find one "target" to focus on--but that probably doesn't exist--from what I can tell.

In this case I understand the tendency is to possibly focus on the IT department as a proxy for all the potential users. But this is dangerous, because they may not care about any of the apps. IT departments care about two things: "Plumbing" or IT infrastructure (networking, security, etc.), and SPECIFIC applications or FUNCTIONS that their business users are beating them up to provide. My guess is that marketing a big bag of business apps, non-specific to their their business probably won't draw too much interest.

From what I can tell, you will probably need to break down your functionality into distinct product "buckets", and market those to the specific end users of those functions.

Phil Morettini
PJM Consulting
Moretti on Management Blog
http://twitter.com/TechnologyGuy
+1 858 792 1062

Who is the end-user is the most important thing to resolve ASAP in marketing the product. The answer cannot be vague. I feel you are still a vague at this point with your A & B scenarios. Your benefits are at the 30,000 foot level, and purchasing decisions are usually made on on "bread-and-butter" type of benefits.

Let me put it to you this way: If there were one-person within a company who you would call on ... and ... you can do a 30-second elevator-pitch to ... and they would get "it" immediately ... who would that be? Title/role?

You can't just say the "IT guy". You need to be specific. The CIO? The guy who handles networks and infrastructure? Who? Because you will have to tailor your pitch so that it fits withing this person's view of reality (solves an obvious business problem or pain of their's).

With "A", I feel you've got a solution looking for a problem. With "B", less so, but I feel you need to be clear specifically as to: The business problem you are solving and for who specifically. It can't just be the IT staff in general... in a big corp. there are tons of IT staff ... whose life are you aiming to improve specifically? Why would they want to buy it? Can they do an ROI around your product (which is what drives a lot of IT-specific expenses these days). With B ... you need to flush it out more ... target your benefits to an end-user/decision-maker in an organization. The concept of "IT in a box" does not sit well with me. Other than the star-gazers who twiddle their thumbs with nothing better to do, who specifically inthe IT organization is going to perk up to your story. IT has to link technology back to a business problem.

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Robert Dubicki

Frank, to paraphase all you said, does it not simply boil down to this?[indent]Our company, TransverseIT, has solved a key business problem by creating a platform called "KnowIT" which offers useful business-related services that enables organizations to better manage IT operations by (explain how ...).
[/indent]
The more you say, the less people hear. The Yahoo and Google analogy loses me. Keep it short. I like the way Harry Beckwith describes his approach in his book: Selling the Invisible.[indent]Who: Who are you?
What: What business are you in?
For whow: What people do you serve?
Against whom: With whom are you competing?
What's different? What makes you different from those competitors?
So: What's the benefit?
[/indent]With IT products, I would also add HOW to the equation and perhaps skip on the who are you competing with angle.
If you can tailor your message to the CIO so it is short and sweet as above, I think you will be a step further.

You've answered my orginal question ... you sell to the IT Department, who are the only ones who care about "IT Operations" and IT staff. I can't see a CFO or Marketing VP getting excited about the above pitch with the term "IT operations" and IT staff in it. I would also strive to come-up with a tailored-pitch to the person right under the CIO who would be overseeing IT Ops.

Anyways, based on what you are saying, I now see that it is IT who you sell to. Lead with a "business" value proposition (saving the Manager of IT Operations time and money) and expect to be evaluated based on technical factors. That's my take on it.

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Robert Dubicki

Sorry for a long period of inactivity, great to be back!!! :cool:

I hope the following is somewhat useful.

IT people love to sell enabling platforms that can be "easily" customized to solve any problem the customer may have. Business customers are in many cases looking for a specific solution tailored to what they need. Until you find that need and tell them specifically that your solution is aimed to solve it you will have a hard time selling (paying <> being interested in a cool technology).

I would clearly define one need / pain your solution answers brilliantly and get the initial penetration by selling a local solution to a local pain (not hard to do if you can demonstrate ROI and have a pilot system running early in the process). After you have some followers in the organization who like what you do, look for places to expand. I would not try to sell them a new way to run their >$100M business because this is not their pain.

Many customers will buy because they found ONE feature that is really useful for them. Don't try to force the Platform concept on them. The more complicated they think your solution is the more dangerous it is to the decision maker. They want it simple, easy and cheap. I always hear technical people trying to sell POWERFUL systems but rarely do I hear customers looking for POWER. They often want simple, easy and targeted to an exact pain.

Power means complicated and dangerous.

I would also not tell them that the same system can do everything. It is much better to say that you have a simple solution that connects many useful components in a way that will save them time and money dealing with complicated enabling platforms that need to be programmed (=bugs * time * money * misunderstandings * blame) for them.

If you sell the C-level manager, make sure you are there when you already know where it hurts and aim to get a pilot running that will produce something useful even if it is just one report to be sent to management every week...

If you will talk about complex platforms you will be directed to someone very technical, with a lot of time and no budget.

Roy Daya, CEO
www.digital-clay.com

DigitalClay is a smart application engine for building dynamic software solutions without coding.

http://roydaya.com

I just want to make the comment that the majority of large companies have an ITIL type process in place. The reason is that the implementation of any product in an organization affects budgets in different places so large companies have to allocate the staff, the computers, etc. for any business software implementation. Today, it is ITIL, tomorrow it will change and they will reinvent the wheel or the employees find themselves documenting processes with the same ProcessDuJour that they used two years prior.

If you can automate an ITIL type process then I think you're on to something really great (I've seen some pretty interesting and confounding spreadsheets). I can tell you from my side (I'm very close to this) there are lots of people that love rolling out a new process method and looking important. There is a lot of political momentum behind what most of the employees see as process BS that will be the same but called something different tomorrow.

Lisa

KnowIT = Helps organizations better manage their IT Operations.

KnowIT = Revolutionizing how IT Operations are managed!

KnowIT = Manage IT Operations faster, cheaper and better!

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Am I on the right track?

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Robert Dubicki

The ITIL process that I observe is more along the lines of getting their arms around all of the tools that have been brought in without process, rather than getting tools approved for process. That part seems to be clearly in place and enforcement is the issue. As with anything, getting 100,000 + employees to get approval when they need something now is hard to enforce.

I do have a question about what you're doing, but it's just for my curiousity sake. Are you saying that you've integrated all of the tools that an enterprise might need? Did you create them or are you just bringing the tools that already exist together?

For example, if you're bringing together existing tools then how are you making decisions about which tool is best? My basic example, because this is one particular tool that I'm familiar with, is InstallShield vs. Wise Installer. Do you have one of them integrated or did you make your own? I'm really trying to understand what you're doing. I know it's huge, whatever it is ;).

Thanks,

Lisa