Greg Sommerville, a computer consultant who advises software companies on selling tactics wrote in a recent article a few tips on the differences between selling to small and large companies.
If you are selling software to businesses, the first question to answer is, how big are the businesses? Selling to small business owners is a completely different thing than selling to Fortune 500 companies. Here are a few differences and things to think about:
Think about the ramifications to selling to another business. Prepare before you promote. Keep your target in mind when creating promotional materials.
- Big and small businesses have different tolerance levels for high prices.
- Big businesses in some cases consider a higher price to be a sign of quality. Small businesses may also believe this, but may go elsewhere if the price is too high.
- Big and small businesses have different expectations of follow-up service and support.
- There are a lot more small businesses in the world than large corporations, but large companies are well known and easier to directly target.
- Often, large corporations have formalized rules for purchasing software that must be followed, or they require legal contracts to be signed. Small businesses are usually much more casual about these things.
- Finally, selling business to business (B2B) is often easier than selling to consumers because there is less competition.
Labels: expectations, formalized rules, fortune 500, Greg Sommerville, high prices, purchasing, selling software, selling to small business, service, small business, support, tolerance
