Ask HN: Trying to launch, having trouble with sales / marketing. | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Trying to launch, having trouble with sales / marketing.

14 pointscallahad16 comments

Hi everyone, we're a bootstrapped startup trying to improve hotels' concierge-to-guest communications by giving the hotels tools to recommend local points of interest via the (mobile) web. We're hoping that replacing awkward paper maps will save time and improve the guest's engagement with the hotel.

We've had the product working for a few months following a pilot and codevelopment period with a 150-room hotel, but we're having trouble actually securing sales.

WHAT WE'VE TRIED:

Our sales process boils down to stopping in at hotels in our area, obtaining contact information for the appropriate decision-maker, then following up with emails and cold calling.

In general, this process has been excruciatingly slow. One prospect involved first contact in the spring, an enthusiastic first meeting and demo with the hotel manager mid-summer, and a great meeting with the general manager in the fall.

The fall meeting ended with an oral agreement on pricing, a request to send over the paperwork, and a final hurdle: demo to the front desk staff. If the response is generally positive, the contract gets signed. We're still trying to schedule that demo.

We had a similar experience that went all the way to regional management for approval, but was denied on the false belief that we duplicated functionality of in-lobby kiosks. The hotel's management pushed back on our behalf, but ultimately decided that they needed to honor the ownership's wishes.

WHAT WE'RE TRYING:

We've just put up a video on the website, so we can better inform prospects quickly before going through the hassle of scheduling introductory meetings. We're hoping to use this to be able to reach a wider, non-geographically-constrained audience more quickly.

QUESTIONS:

1. In many cases, it's taking us months to get to "no," or half a year to get to "probably." Should we change how we're approaching clients?

2. Should we be advertising yet, and in what media? Trade magazines?

3. Right now we individually negotiate prices with clients. Should we change how we handle that? Possibly publish a fixed price on our website?

4. What sucks about our website and/or demo video?

Our site is at http://naviedge.com

Thank you! Erydo & Callahad

Have you considered trying a bottom-up approach instead of top-down?

A manager/general manager at a hotel is concerned with things like meeting occupancy goals, the catastrophic plumbing issue on the 12th floor, and making sure the ballroom is setup properly for the regional high-school guidance counselor conference.

My point is, if they've never been a concierge (likely not), they don't feel their pain. Instead, go to the concierges directly and solve their pain in a trial. If they love/want the product and it makes customers happier, they'll help you make the introduction and the sale should be easier.

Incidentally, concierges are naturally social and connected people–so it should be very easy to get in front of them. Just make sure you don't bother them at their peak times (I've learned this lesson with restaurants). If you drop in a concierge desk between 12 and 5pm, you should be able to have a meaningful conversation.

As for the video, it's well made but a bit vague. I'd like to see a little more detail on the screens or a slightly better workflow breakdown (people and arrows and such).

Good luck.

I agree with this. The concierge is the guy who will be promoting your software and using it. If you show him how it will make his life easier, he will use it and get guests using it. You might want to approach them directly.

This is actually the approach we started off with, and still pursue to a limited extent. (See earlier comment—we're moving away as much as possible from individual hotels and trying to pursue hotel groups).

The issue we've run into is that it takes a lot of time to percolate up to someone who can rubber-stamp it, so we're now trying to work top-down in the hopes of more quickly validating the sale.

It's been nice to have that existing internal advocacy when we meet with higher managers, but the times that I've met them first, it hasn't really changed the conversations.

Most of the managers we've talked to think pretty well in terms of concierges and front desk interactions—and they're concerned with the higher-level business ideas of guest retention and being able to offer and advertise new types of services and things like that.

EDIT: Clarified my wording.

We've also posted this to Reddit [0].

Any input is really appreciated. We've worked hard to get where we are, and are very proud of the product. We'd love to make it a successful one. Thanks!

[0] http://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/oe3ig/trying_t...

I can give you one quick suggestion: try and get into conferences, expos and meetups of hospitality industries. From what I gather, you need to expose your product to shot callers as quickly as possible.

As an added bonus, if any such conference is set up in a hotel, you can ask the hotel to set up a complimentary demo of your service. Now, you've exposed your product to a hotel as well as the attendees.

Don't be disheartened if you don't get results immediately. Success of a startup depends on networking. If you dont get any clients out of a conference, make sure you network and connect with them later.

Thanks for the advice! You're absolutely right.

We did a lot of research before jumping into this: interviewed with a lot of hotels, did our codevelopment, etc. But in ramping up to "let's get something solid that we can sell", we psychologically transitioned into a software development mode rather than a business development one; and now we're trying to reorient ourselves as we transition back.

Here are my two cents:

The website:

- Do you refer a lot of people there? If so why, not include a brochure or more detailed information? People like to obtain as much info as possible before contacting a company. Perhaps include a package that a concierge could present to the GM.

- Call to actions: The video is good, but why is your CTA buried below the fold? In my opinion your logo is a little massive. Perhaps a small redesign could help improve your visitors conversions. Also, since you are an "online tool" I would really focus on the design side of things (yes, we live in a superficial world ;).

Paid promotion:

- Have you considered doing paid search? Do you have a budget for it? If so, let me know (my email address is my username at gmail.com)

- I would be more than happy to volunteer couple hours to help answer any questions you might have or help you set up a Adwords and Adcenter account. About me: I work full time in paid search at a digital agency.

Other marketing opportunities:

- As mentioned from others, I would also highly recommend going to trade fairs.

- Do you offer a free trial? What is the main barrier to entry you are seeing? Is it because your product is "unproven"? Perhaps getting more "smaller" hotels has its advantages (VS going after large chains) given that large chains may be reluctant to "take a risk" - if you know what I mean.

- Have you considered Las Vegas hotels? They have been know to innovate with new technologies - such as Klout and so on... perhaps there are some opportunities there.

- Have you tried having a Concierge Committee? Basically have a bunch of prospective users use your product for free - in exchange they give you two things: Feedback and you can say X hotels are already using your product.

Good luck with everything!

have you tried to actually contact the head office for the specific hotel chains? for example, instead of going to a local Hilton and talking to general manager, why not try to get a meeting with someone at the Hilton's head office? i'm not sure how the hotel industry works, but i was under the impression that heado ffice sets certain policies and standards. so if you speak with someone there and they like your idea, they may agree to do a pilot run in one or two hotels and collect some feedback. if the feedback is good then they'll push it across all hotels.

on a side note, is it just me or is logo on the main page a bit pixelated on the top of the letters?

You're right that Hilton in particular is very centrally controlled. Other large franchises have more flexibility. (Starwood is a bit more flexible, for example).

One of the reasons we've been reluctant to go straight for the top is that, as a new startup, we don't have a lot of credibility yet. We think the odds of one of the headquarters giving the go-ahead at this point is low enough that it would be a distraction to focus on them. There's also the situation, down the road, that a corporate decision-maker recalls us as "We already decided not to use their software. Don't remember why." making it hard to move upward organically.

Those fears could be entirely unfounded, though.

We are slowly accumulating some references to get us in touch with those corporate-level people, though. Once we have those personal referrals, we'll have a better shot.

I second this opinion. Since you are seeing a lot of friction in finishing up a sale, you should make sure that closing one results in maximum benefit. Regarding pricing, I don't think a single price is such a good idea for the same reason that enterprise software sales men give different quotes to different clients - it takes a lot of time and effort to close deals and different clients see different level of value in your product.

Hi guys,

I was very much into your vid until it came to the process for the concierge to input all the details.

Have you considered a kiosk approach?

An auto concierge running your software? Saves the concierge ALL his time as the guests can do all their own inputting etc - seems like it would be more attractive to hotels. Most all of them have enough space to put a neat stylish kiosk in their lobby - also introduces the cool tech bit for the hotel :)

They're not too expensive and you could start with one or two units, revenue by straight rental of the terminal. Trials free for x months etc...

Hope thats not too off the wall Mat

Who are the people paying you money? Not their names, but in general, where does your revenue come from? Maybe you're asking for money from the wrong people.

The business model is to license the software to hotels. More specifically, whoever has the final say within the hotels varies wildly between properties.

In some places, it's the Front Desk Manager; others, marketing; some places defer all of these decisions to their IT Director; and others it's the GM. Some of the franchises require approval from their regional headquarters while others have a lot of autonomy.

At any given hotel, approval may in the worst case have to come from up to three companies: the ownership, the management company, and the franchise corporate.

We're now speaking with hotel management companies (more than individual hotels) as a way to hopefully expedite that decision-making process.

Here's how I see the problem and how I would solve it:

I think you're trying to make money from the wrong people. I think you need to make money from the local businesses.

See, the concierge isn't making any money off your app, at least not in a measurable way. The person using the app thinks the app is helpful, not the concierge. If a tourist tips the concierge, the concierge thinks its him doing a great job, not your app. The hotel isn't making money either, at least not in a measurable way, because the connection between someone having a great time at a restaurant and re-booking a room is very weak. The tourist may attribute the great time they had to:(pick one) the restaurant; the city; the occasion; the person with them; the concierge; and finally, maybe, the hotel. In fact, I'd wager the hotel gets little benefit, the concierge will get the tips.

So your software is really just a drag on a hotel's expenses. Something they don't need. You're barking up the wrong tree when you ask for money from them.

How would I solve this? Well, I would give it to free to the hotels. If it helps them save money and time with their staff, they'll use it. I would also involve the concierge immediately. In fact, I would give them incentives to use your software. You probably can't afford to pay them, but you can afford to put in a tip reminder. In fact, maybe the hotel staff puts in the date of the traveler's stay and at the end, it automatically send them a text message asking them to tip the staff. You'd get waaaayyy more traction doing this with staff. In fact, I'd wager staff would love you if you really worked on this feature. It would be instant traction.

Edit: I would also work out ways to approach staff without needing the involvement of hotel management. Maybe the staff can add their names to the app and the customer can pick them out a list (and hopefully tip them). Staff could then use a website to do everything they need. Staff would do this without consulting management or getting permission, or might only need permission from their front desk manager. I would cut out upper management entirely if you can see a way to do it. Let local management and staff see all the benefits.

I'd then go out and sell ad space to the businesses. Or get a commission on each booking coming from you app. Local businesses are the ones who will pay to get a hold of tourists walking around. I'd go after restaurants, tour guides, trip operators, fishing guides, you name it. They can offer coupons, all sorts of things through your app.

I know this is a major expansion of time and resources to put this into action, but I don't see asking hotels for money as a viable revenue source. If you did get traction, someone will eventually come along and offer it for free using the method I outline above and take over your market.

I would suggest concentrating on all the hotels and local businesses in one city first rather than worldwide or country wide. Get it working and get revenue coming in. Then go from there..

By the way, that is a great video. No problems there that I see.

Can you offer it to them for free on a trial basis to get them using it and see how it works? If the service is beneficial they won't want to lose it.

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