annoying type of prospects

[v***@yahoo.com]

I sell web software and over the past year I have received hundreds of
inquiries. It seems only 1 in 10-20 actually buy the subscription. I

I am also noticing some trends among certain types of prospects I would
classify as annoying and waste of my time. When I started the business
I could not tell the difference between the prospects so would give
them all due attention. But now it seems I can sense the non-serious
one fall into these categories:

1) any prospect from a non 1'st world country. The people want the
software to do everything including telling them the meaning of life.
It has to be completely customized to the way their business operates.
And after it does all that they dont want to pay more than $1 for it!

2) the artist types. they gripe about the smallest details. after you
fix those details they find some other functionally insiginificant
thing to complain about. As soon as you start talking dollars with
them, they run away.

3) the new business owner. this prospect is setting up a brand new
business from scratch. since 90% of new businesses fail I make sure I
collect a full years subscription from them before they open their
business.

4) technical consultants inquring on behalf of their clients. these
types are very annoying as they neither understand their client
requirements nor do they understand what our software can do. the
result is a lot of wasted communication back and forrth.

this is is just my exeperience from one year in business. i know it's
not good to be judgmental, but I am finding it saves me a lot of
stress by assessing prospects before i spend too much time with them.

what do others think?

[Jon]

Fron what I have heard about the 80/20 rule, I would wager that 80% of
your sales comes from 20% of your prospects. Time is valuable, and is
your most important asset. I have always hated to turn down a
customer, but if you concentrate on the ones that yield the most profit
for you, you will do better.

Of course when you are just starting out, you sometimes have to take
any project you can get!

- Jon

[n***@iname.com]

Post by v***@yahoo.com
I sell web software and over the past year I have received
hundreds of inquiries. It seems only 1 in 10-20 actually
buy the subscription.

Well, perhaps you need to think of improving your marketing
communications or even product design? Let's take a look at some of

Post by v***@yahoo.com
1) any prospect from a non 1'st world country. The people
want the software to do everything including telling them
the meaning of life. It has to be completely customized
to the way their business operates. And after it does all
that they dont want to pay more than $1 for it!

So maybe you should publish prices... Even when you can't tell the
price in advance because it depends on the amount of customization
you'll have to do, you can still say something like, "historically, 80%
of our customizations have cost between $5,000 and $10,000", so that
the prospects can see right away that the product is outside their
price range...

Also, maybe your product SHOULD be completely customized to the way
their business operates, but not by you. Consider some kind of
configurable modular architecture for the next release. Think of
providing an API to your service. Write a comprehensive configuration
manual to let customers do their own configuration. Start an
independent integrator program.

Another maybe: tiered pricing. Different levels of customization with
different price tags.

Post by v***@yahoo.com
2) the artist types. they gripe about the smallest details.
after you fix those details they find some other functionally
insiginificant thing to complain about. As soon as you
start talking dollars with them, they run away.

So maybe you should talk dollars (and perhaps even take a down payment)
before you start working...

Post by v***@yahoo.com
3) the new business owner. this prospect is setting up a
brand new business from scratch. since 90% of new
businesses fail I make sure I collect a full years subscription
from them before they open their business.

But you still collect, and collect upfront; why is this a problem?

Post by v***@yahoo.com
4) technical consultants inquring on behalf of their clients.
these types are very annoying as they neither understand
their client requirements nor do they understand what our
software can do.

This one can be fixed in at least three ways.

First, use a modification of Joel Spolsky's "hallway usability
testing". Only instead of testing the usability of software, test the
usability of your marketing materials. Ask five randomly selected
people unfamiliar with your product to read your marketing materials
and answer a few simple questions that you would expect the "technical
consultants" to figure out from reading your marketing materials. It
is quite possible that the reason for your annoyance is not the
"technical consultants", but your poorly written marketing materials.

Second, put an interactive quiz on your Web site. Ask the prospect ten
or so questions about their needs (both those that you know your
product meets and those that have come up in the past as possibilities,
but you decided not too meet them) and price range they have in mind
and, based on their responses give one of three answers, (1) we think
out product is right for you, (2) our product could work for you, but
it will require extensive and expensive modification (specify the areas
of modification), and (3) it seems that our product is not a good
solution for your problems (explain why).

Third, let the prospects play with the product. Set up a demo
installation with dummy or outdated data or give prospects two weeks of
free access to your basic service.

Post by v***@yahoo.com
I am finding it saves me a lot of stress by assessing prospects
before i spend too much time with them.
what do others think?

Personally, I think that most of your pain is self-inflicted. If you
gave your prospects more ways to assess you, you wouldn't have to spend
time to assess them...

Cheers,
NC