"It is easier to train for content than collaboration." - David Nadler, Chairman Delta Consulting

Read a few of the best books on the topic. My favorite is You Can't Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar, by David Sandler

SPIN Selling is another.

2. Have you ever attended sales training? If not, I recommend that you consider it. I offer such a program - but you can find a lot of them out there. Mine is at: http://www.hightechguru.com/sandler_sales_programs.shtml

At some point in the enterprise level selling/buying process there will likely be more than one department manager and a variety of personal experiences co-mingled with politics that will overcome all of the books you have read to prepare yourself.

Sometimes you just have to take a serious look at the choices from their perspective and realize that this is not necessarily the best fit, or if it is, you just haven't gathered enough reinforcing quotes, references, industry analysts reviews and all the other bits'n pieces that some pragmatic decision makers require before they can put a check by your name. In a surprising number of these instances they may also have read the same books and be prepared for the 'no references' gambits.

Sometimes you just have to go out and buy yourself some flagship accounts. The cost of giving away product and services is surprisingly less in most cases than you would expect, even less than some marketing activities that may not deliver (because you're not referenceable yet :) ), and it takes you over the reference hump to begin building from there.

I can remember more that one occasion when we've won the business (greatly reduced price) telling the prospect that we are new and willing to do what it takes to win their business and earn their future references based on 100% satisfaction.

Something to consider as you're building your customer base and eliminating as many obstacles to sales as you can.

Ken Beam, The VAR-City -- "Channel Start-Up Specialists since 1995" Phone: 972.240.8793 or kbeam@thevarcity.com

Whatever process you are using is designed perfectly to create just the result your are getting now.

Every software company, every software product licensed serial number one to someone.

This is why the good marketing and good sales people get the big bucks -- they know how to get past these objections. With the right sales process, the "new" objection will never come up.

That said, I would never develop a software product without customer number one -- and even better, numbers two and three -- already in hand. I know nothing about your product or your market but I worry you have a solution in search of a problem. People buy software to solve compelling problems. If the problem is compelling enough, it will overcome "new." If the problem is not compelling enough, they won't buy, not even from Microsoft or IBM.

Don't forget that the reason a prospect gives for not buying your product is often not the real reason. They give a reason that is some combination of (1) designed not to hurt your feelings and/or (2) designed to end the conversation. For example, "it lacks the widget feature" does not do (2) because you might say "we'll add the widget feature." Ditto for "too expensive." "Too new" is a perfect objection in that regard: can't be "solved" and doesn't hurt your feelings the way "we have no use for your product" (for example) would. You might want to put some serious effort into finding out if "too new" is the REAL reason. There are books and articles out there on lost sales post-mortem processes.

We were in a similar position a few years ago; we believed we had a killer app (in our niche space) but had to get the elusive first customer on the books.

Ultimately you have several ways to go/things to consider;

1) Sell REALLY hard (doesn't mean aggressively by the way), cover all the interested parties and you will find any sticking point/person. Deal with the objection - if your product really is going to make a difference then simply being "new" is not a valid objection. Identify who, (aside of purchasing who rarely have as much clout as-is attributed to them) if anyone is definitely anti your product and deal with them positively.

2) Consider TOTAL flexibility on your terms; as a start-up it's sometimes better to have a percentage of the dollars sale price of a success (where x is probably less than 100%!) than 100% of a failure - what's it worth to you to have 1 installed customer in terms of referencability? Make sure that if you decide to "buy" your first customer that as part of the deal you offer them you get them as a reference in the future. Love them to death once they're installed.

3) Consider offering time-limited evaluation. If your product is good, you'll find that they won't want to uninstall the product once it's in.

4) Consider selling them what they want to buy. Just because we think we know how a product ought to be licensed doesn't mean that's how the customer wants to buy. Make it easy and attractive for them. Think of per seat, per copy, per site, perpetual, annual, buy x get y at a discount.

5) Long sales cycles are good and bad - takes longer to close and get the revenue but often the bigger players don't have the attention span. We've had sales cycles from 3 days to 7 years -we always get our customer if they're interested.

6) Think outside the box - in the current climate, have you thought about renting or leasing the software to a customer. What about "pay for performance/results". One of our best sales was on the basis of "no benefit - no charge" of course you must ensure you control the key ground-rules.

7) Validate your price-point(s) - if the product was for sale for $1 most of your potential market would buy it (if its a valid valuable product), if it was priced at $10M no one will ever buy it. Somewhere there's a mutually acceptable price-point that should allow you to sustain and grow your business.

At the end of the day you've got to know your market, and be sure you have a valid product offering. Then be creative, determined and flexible and you'll get that first customer. The first one is always the hardest, but usually worth it.

Cheers,

Russell.