By the time most tech startups are ready with their first release, the manual says you should also be starting to win your first customers. But now comes the tricky bit: how do you really start growing sales and revenue with your new technical baby?
Most early deals happen with innovators who understand your vision and simply love your technology. Great, you think. We’re validated and ready to hit the gas. Well, maybe.
But you might be missing a trick.
There’s something else you need to get under your belt first to truly accelerate revenue growth: the use cases. And I’m not talking about the technical ones. Those are fine to hook the early fish, but you’ll need something better to land the real trophies.
Yep, I’m talking about the business use cases. Discovering and getting to the heart of them distinguishes who blasts out of the revenue starting blocks from those that languish.
But it’s not easy for startups to transition from the technical to the business stuff. You might be brilliant developers and engineering marvels, but if we’re honest your commercial awareness and acumen probably aren’t the stuff of legend. No, technical details and lines of code are your mother tongue.
But selling based on technical wizardry alone means you’ll suffer long and exhausting sales cycles. I know, because I’ve been there.
During one of my earliest sales job selling development tools for Borland (anyone remember JBuilder?) I recall plenty of sales meetings that were really just demo sessions followed by loads of technical Q&A. I made very slow progress indeed until one of the more senior folks enlightened me. And since that time, every technical startup I've joined has suffered from the same malaise to some degree, and some very much for the worse than others.
Talking fluent tech means you’re only able to engage with other technical minds. Nothing wrong with that you shout! Granted, but you’re trying to sell to folks who can only influence what might happen, not control it. They lack that authority because real power, and the shiny pot of gold you’re after, sits in the exclusive realm of the mighty business sponsor. And aside from the early innovators, business folk just aren’t interested in technical gobbledygook.
The bosses, you see, they only care about solving business problems. And learning to speak their language is fundamental to driving better revenue growth. It’s the magic that elevates your dialogue from technical features to empowering their business with positive change.
The what and the why right now
Within this wonderful beast that is the business use case sit two crucial items: the what and the why now. What is the business problem that needs to be solved and why does it need to be solved right now? Here you must force an honest confession to what’s causing the pain and how much it really hurts because only serious business pain gets prioritised and budgeted. And just as important: the timeframe. Any timeframe that isn’t “right damn now” is an opportunity you should park in the to be nurtured lot because we all know camels really won’t drink until they’re thirsty.
Now across these business problems you also need to find repeatability: meaning solving the same or nearly the same problem each time. Fixing different business problems screams you’re still looking for product market fit and definitely not ready to ramp up sales. Without repeatability you’ll spend more time and need more resources to win each deal because you’re constantly tackling the unknown and nothing is reusable. The knowledge gained with prospect A won’t translate for prospect B. You can’t demonstrate your value to the business because you’re comparing apples and oranges.
Repeatability is the special key to unlocking growth. You tell a bank how a travel customer is using your solution and you’ve wasted everyone’s time. But explain to them how another bank is harnessing it to solve problems just like theirs and voilà, you’re off to the races.
Well, so long as you’re also investing in each customer’s success, but that’s a musing for another time.
Understanding the business case and getting to the business sponsor early are fundamental parts of any good sales qualification process.
Anything else and you’ll miss all the good fish.
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