Why “saving money” and “ROI” are probably the wrong way to sell your product

Golden nugget that that Jason just starts to uncover here: the reason customers purchase your software is rarely the same reason as why you started creating the software in the first place.

As a consultant, the one-line zinger that was thrown around was that we were selling "profits at a discount". You pay us, we reduce costs or boost revenues to pay for the service ten times over. The description certainly appealed to the firm's employees; we'd like to think that our analytical rigor and probing, independent viewpoint added value. Our jobs were supporting a raw, logical, business-driven decision.

But the longer I stayed in the field, the more I realized that making money was rarely the reason a case got purchased. There were situations where a short project would've had ROI's in the tens of millions of dollars if implemented, but never got picked up.

The real product we were selling were careers. Buyers would bring in the firm to help themselves hit specific milestones or objectives they had for themselves. Did we benefit the company in achieving those? Greatly. But the reason people were willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a month were because of the coaching, the 'white-glove service', and the network a successful case would entail. They were buying a promotion to SVP, the key results which got them their own division, or the track record to shoot for the CEO spot for the next company.

Jason's tips are pragmatic - over-deliver on value so that your customer never even tries to do the math and price according to how they pay are two great ways to grease the purchasing pathway. But understanding the customer's pain and guiding them towards their aspirations will have them fighting for your service, budgets be damned.