selling software B2B

[ethereal]

hey guys,

im wondering if any of you have any advice or website/group/book recommendations on how to sell high-value software business-to-business? i'm currently helping my dad out with his software business. the product is a set of highly automated tools for software development, testing, and QA.

currently im soaking in all the knowledge i can get before preparing to take on debt/equity financing and help manage/grow the business. any help is appreciated!

[Vanessa]

First thing I would wonder is can you identify your target market who would use your software. ID your primary and secondary markets and find out as much about them as you can. You should be centering all your sales focus on those folks. That's probably the strongest starting point to generating revenues B2B -- or any other kind of sales.

Then I would ask what kind of educational materials you can develop to show them how your product would benefit their company's specific needs. Do you have a way to quantify value by implementing your product (ROI, TCO analysis, cost analysis, case studies where your software has worked before, white papers on the value created by the features your product.
Walk through demonstrations, live or recorded, solid follow up procedures for all prospects that reach out to you.

Basically, you'll need to develop and marketing and sales strategy for your company.There's more out there on how to do each of these more specifically but that list above is just off the top of my head.