Business of Software Blog

Seth Godin on why marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department

Tweet

At last year's conference, Seth gave an inspiring talk on the title of "Why marketing is too important to be left to the marketing department". Make sure you watch it until the end, where he gives a preview of his (then upcoming) Tribes talk.

Here it is:

You can see more videos from BoS 2008 here

The early bird discount for BoS 2009 ends soon. Find out more on the Business of Software conference web site.

Enjoyed this post? Follow me on Twitter (I'm @neildavidson)

Tweet

Subscribe to the RSS feed

Want to speak at Business of Software 2009?

Tweet

We’ve got a bunch of great speakers lined up for this year’s conference (Joel Spolsky, Geoffrey Moore, Paul Graham, Ryan Carson and Kathy Sierra, just to name a handful – the full list is here).

There could be one more name on that list. Yours.

We’re holding a pecha kucha competition. Interested? Send me an e-mail to explain why you should speak (see here for hints). In a few weeks’ time Joel and I will pick a handful of finalists. They’ll each get a free conference pass, and the chance to present 20 slides, 20 seconds each, at BoS 2009 in San Francisco in November.

Want to find out more details, and see the winning entry from last year? Go here.

Liked this post? Follow me on twitter (I’m @neildavidson)

Tweet

Subscribe to the RSS feed

The chasm of total freaking hopelessness

Tweet

The hardest part of learning something - whether it's quantum electrodynamics, a foreign language or sketching - is getting past the stage of total freaking hopelessness.

Read more on my other blog:

http://blog.neildavidson.com/2009/07/the-chasm-of-total-freaking-hopelessness.html

Tweet

Subscribe to the RSS feed

I did not, in fact, enjoy my trial

Tweet

When somebody downloads software from our web site we follow up a few days later with an e-mail asking how their trial went. Sometimes people write back. Here's a reply that made me smile.

From: ***** [mailto:******@*****.com]
Sent: 17 July 2009 19:03
To: Red Gate
Subject: RE: Red Gate Customer follow up

I did not, in fact, enjoy my trial.  Nor did I enjoy the fact that my attorney slept through half of it.  And the only answer I got was to the question "Where will Adam be spending the next five to ten years?"

I was set up.  I had no idea she was 13.  She looked 15.

Now I have to register as a sex offender in every state, and they won't let me entertain at kids' birthday parties with my "Pockets the Clown" character's "Guess What's In My Pocket?" routine.

Oh, wait--

You mean the software, right?

Sorry, I thought you meant--

Anyway...

Yes, the software was wonderful.  Stupendous, in fact.  Truthfully, in a word, it was glorious.

Respectfully,

*****

Enjoyed this post? Follow me on Twitter (I'm @neildavidson)

Tweet

Subscribe to the RSS feed

My other blog ...

Tweet

I've set up a second blog where I'll be writing about topics other than the business of software. I've already put up a couple of posts. Here's the link:

http://blog.neildavidson.com

Tweet

Subscribe to the RSS feed

The graph of goodwill: when to stop listening and start asking

Tweet

In any sale, you spend a lot of your time listening. You find out what your customer’s problems are, explain how your product fixes them and help him through his evaluation. But there comes a point when you need to ask for something. It might be money, or a favour: for him to talk to his boss, or to kick off an approval process.

When’s the best time to do this? It’s when his goodwill is at its peak – when he feels warm towards you and your product. When he wants to help you, in other words. But when exactly is that? It depends on your product. Here are some examples.

If you’re selling a product like Word 2007, then the time to ask for something is after the ‘hey, a shiny new toy’ phase, and before the ‘dang, why did they change that?’ phase. If you miss it, then you must wait until goodwill returns to neutral. Since the first stage might be extremely short and hard to hit, waiting as long as possible might be the least risky approach:

 

[Click on this, or any, image to see a larger version]

If you’re selling a product that people hate and buy because they need it and not because they want it (Norton Antivirus, say), then the goodwill curve is different. You should ask very fast, before the dip, or very late, long after it:

 

The goodwill curve of most web 2.0 apps mean you need to act fast, before it returns to boredom. iPhone apps are like this too (in fact, the curve peaks so fast you get to pay before the curve even starts and the goodwill has been created entirely by anticipation).

 

One reason that Application Lifecycle Management tools (and other shelfware) are a hard sell is because they generate very little goodwill, and it’s hard to know when that goodwill will happen. You need an aggressive sales force to shift stuff like this:

The goodwill curve of some software shows an initial kick (the shiny new tool phase), then a dip (the dang this is hard phase), followed by a prolonged rise as the user understands the benefits of the tool. Development tools and databases are like this:

Here’s the goodwill curve of some software we sell at Red Gate. People try it, and they like it. Then they don’t use it for a while, but some of the goodwill sticks. It peaks again the next few times they use it, and then slowly deteriorates into familiarity. The best time to act? At the first peak.

 

Finally, this doesn’t just apply to selling software. Here’s what – I hope – your goodwill graph from this blog post looks like:

I hope I’ve generated enough goodwill to ask you a favour and get you to act. If you enjoyed this post, then please follow me on Twitter (I’m @neildavidson)

Tweet

Subscribe to the RSS feed