hasante

Sales Engineer

Do companies only accept new software advances after their contract with current provisions ends?

I have been approaching product-led organizations whom I know would find our product greatly useful than their current setup. It will save them time, allow them to measure ROI from the implementation etc. (Regular sales stuff).

But I find usually it's not an easy sell. Doing a lot of patch work: A lot of the companies seem to use software provisions which are licensed yearly.

From your experience, does this play a factor in whether a new better provision is tolerated?
How do I break through this barrier if so?
What has been your experiences with blockers like these and what knowledge have you learned so far in regards to this specific take?

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DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

Rolling 20's all day

In my experience unless they truly hate their current provider, and/or the cost FAR outweighs the pain of change (Hard ROI and Soft), then they canceled and made the change.
95% of the time if they are in a contract they won't buy themselves out just to buy from you.

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

I wish it were different but Dungeons hit it here 💯

hasante

Sales Engineer

Great insight! - getting that sort of mixed message with a few. Running about 4 retries to see if they will be interested.
- From your insight, a great idea would be to create the hate for the current provider and make the pain of change superbly easy to bear.
- Something to explore deeper!

My take on the hate part would be superbly legitimate:
- some of the service they use and the money they pay for it just don't align.
- mostly price set on brand, than on value if you take a step back.

Thank you for this insight, truly reframes everything into explorable categories!

Lioness

Good Citizen

Sr Field Enterprise Account Executive

It's difficult to make the existing vendor look bad without also making your prospect look dumb for using them. I would say focus on making your own offering look amazing. That way, your prospect can reflect on how dumpy the existing solution is on their own.

NotCreativeEnough

Big Shot

Professional Day Ruiner

It depends on the customer, their budget, how long is left in their contract, how much they hate their current product, etc. Some customers hate their current tool so much they will gladly pay for both to use yours sooner if they think it will solve their pain. Some have so much money they'll pay for both just to test them both side by side to see which they prefer. Others will be dead set on not wanting anything new until their current contract ends which is totally okay! just make sure to stay on their radar and know what their buying timeline is so when that contract is coming close to an end you're the first person in front of them.

There really isn't a one size fits all answer here. It varies by customer and how bad a need your product/service is for them.

Notmyrealname

Politicker

The only time I've ever seen this happen is a dire need. Example: the antivirus you paid for fucked up and your network is fucked so you pay another antivirus to clean up the mess and have two subs until the first one runs out. Unless the result of not buying is a massive haemorrhage I'm not sure it gets approved.

hasante

Sales Engineer

Got it, great insight!

- an explorable solution is to create the need. (exploring this as well).

e.g Their current solution isn't mobile responsive, so they lose on mobile users through no fault of their own.
- we default already take care of this, so positioned as getting their lost users back etc.

E_Money

Big Shot

💰

Only way I have gotten around this is when I worked for a sales org that offered partial to full contract buyouts if they went with us on a multiyear plan. It got the conversation started at least even if it didn't always work.

Justatitle

Big Shot

Account Executive

Yes almost 100% of the time. Some companies will offer delayed payments and spreading out the payment terms to make it easier to change softwares.

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

Sales Rep

100% agree!

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