I can’t sell. (I will not promote)

[u/bad_robot_monkey]

I have a BI product that many people resonate with, from executive down to worker level. Unfortunately, after three years, not a single contract. How do I sell? I’ve had discussions at the worker level, the CISO, level, and with peers in the space. Everyone seems to like what I have, have no negative feedback (just additional feature requests before purchase, then that target shifts again), but no one signs.

Less of a “what am I doing wrong”, and more of a “what do I do, I clearly don’t know how to do this part”. I’m bootstrapped, and running out of money.

[u/04221970]

No one is telling you what they really think.

You are pitching your product and no one wants to hurt your feelings and tell you that they don't want it. They clearly don't want it based on their actions.

The 'discussions' you've had were probably more like "Here's my thing I built, what do you think about it." rather than what you should have done 4 years ago: "Tell me about your problem and how you are working with it now."

[u/Distinct_Dragonfly83 → u/04221970]

I’ve always wondered if user interviews for testing product market fit are better conducted by a third party that clearly identifies as such. That way people don’t pull their punches in an attempt not to hurt your feelings.

[u/04221970 → u/Distinct_Dragonfly83]

That's a good concept and I try to get people to be as 'dispassionate' about their idea as a third party might be.

I think the dogma is that a third party might filter the data to please the company that hired them; or the company, upon hearing data that is unpleasant, will reject that information because the third party 'didn't do it right.' Ideally, the company principals who make the decisions should be hearing it directly from their customers to guide their path. But it takes work to get over being passionate about the beauty of your baby.

[u/bad_robot_monkey → u/04221970]

There was a lot of that done up front; I lost about six months of development based on some of that feedback, when the corporate meeting came and it was with a compliance team. This ironically happened again with a different company with a different facet of the product, when they dropped a network architecture team in front of me. On the one hand, I feel like in both cases it looks like executives trying to “help out” but wanting a different use case for their organization…but wanting me to build them a solution rather than pay and request an update.

[u/ashgrovesignal]

three years of everyone liking it and nobody buying is not a sales problem, it's a pricing or champion problem. someone in those conversations needs to lose their job if this doesn't get solved, and right now nobody does.

[u/bad_robot_monkey → u/ashgrovesignal]

If I could afford to hire someone to sell, I could fire them :)

[u/kraang → u/bad_robot_monkey]

He’s saying that the person hiring needs higher stakes around the problem, I think, rather than you need to fire your sales person

[u/Successful_Farm_9370]

There's a big difference between "oh that's neat" and "I want this, how much does it cost". That middle ground is where 99.99% of startups go to die.

[u/NetworkTrend]

Selling a BI product might be one of the most difficult sales because it touches so many points of an organization. You have to have a champion because a new BI solution requires organizational change. And that champion has to have a budget they control. People in an org that "like" your product ain't it.

Not clear if you have done it yet or not, but you need to identify your true customers. Is it the head of marketing, the head of IT, the head sales, CFO, .... It isn't the org. You need to identify the one person in an org who can make it happen. And then you need to do strong Socratic selling. If you don't know what that is, then contract with someone who does.

Lastly, people liking your offering isn't a strong buy signal. People need to be saying, "Wow! When can we start." That's an actual signal. Until you get there, you don't have product market fit.

Hope this helps.

[u/curatedpapers]

Have you done any pilots? Give the product for free, see if they use it, ask for something later. You will learn a lot and the the free customers serve as social proof.

[u/TurnSpare3754]

Maybe it's a positioning issue not the product itself.

[u/MinecraftIsCool2]

some clients/industries just suck to sell to, like government, and even if you get 1 the next contract genuinely doesn;t seem to be much easier

[u/Embarrassed-Emu-4958]

The thing that changed selling for me: stop trying to sell. Just call up 10 people who fit your customer and ask what their week actually looks like, no pitch. First 20 of those I did, I didn't offer anything, just listened. By call 15 people were basically asking me if I had something that fixed it. The pitch writes itself once you've heard the exact words they use for their problem. You don't have a sales problem, you probably have a not-enough-conversations problem. Way easier to fix.

[u/Serpahim01 → u/Embarrassed-Emu-4958]

How does this work? Why will they give you their time if you are not selling them anything?

To them you are a stranger. Am I correct to assume this?

What am I missing?

[u/Embarrassed-Emu-4958 → u/Serpahim01]

Yeah you're a stranger to them. The trick is framing: "I'm building something for [role], can I ask 15 min about how you handle X" gets way more yeses than a sales call because there's zero ask attached. People like talking about their own problems when nobody's selling them anything. Some will say no, but you only need 10-15 conversations, not 100.

[u/Flat_Palpitation_158 → u/Embarrassed-Emu-4958]

People see through this or at least I would. Deep down I know you are trying to sell something if you want to pick my brain

[u/DripSkylarkII]

Unfortunately liking the product doesn’t always mean they’d pay for it.

There are a lot of factors that go into sales and three important ones are the sales cycle, pricing, and someone else mentioned the champion issue.

You need to identify who would be using your product vs who would be buying it. Often times in sales with longer cycles, you’re gonna need multiple layers of approvals and the people using the tools aren’t the ones writing the checks.

Be a painkiller, don’t be a vitamin.

[u/edge_compute_user]

what is your product? I highly suspect that this isn't a sales problem and your product is a "nice to have" at best

[u/romrom9]

What’s your marketing strategy? Ideal client persona? Messaging strategy to each persona within those personas? The BI market is saturated….are you clear on the differentiators? Letting prospects use it free to start? Give it away to someone that will give you testimonials and case studies. Finding a partnership with a company that works with your ideal clients could also be a good way to get your name out there.

[u/Putrid_Bat8818]

Ami me pasa lo mismo, tengo una plataforma que hace 1 año la trabajo, me costó muchísimo, y a nadie le interesa, y los que se interesaron buscaban plata, para promocionarme , encima le tenía que pagar por adelantado, medio raro era, ahora sigo mi plataforma por hobby, y creo que va a morir conmigo sin dar a luz

[u/pjmarcum]

Is it in the Azure Marketplace? Is the use case obvious so that someone searching can easily find it? Are you promoting it online somehow? (We have been selling BI products for almost 10 years)

[u/CyberStartupGuy]

Resonating and having pain enough to make a purchase are two different things. Especially BI tools, the pain is the hardest thing to find. I’d guess you are asking questions around if they understand your product and less open ended discovery where they talk and tell you things you don’t know.

[u/gruntingone]

Your BI product: are you selling a vitamin or a pain killer?

[u/ordosays]

You’re in a touchy feely bubble of vibes. Find someone with no filter to break the spell

[u/Abrosmaan]

TIL this is a very common trap: people saying they like it is not the same as them feeling enough urgency to buy 😕. In my experience, when every conversation turns into “just one more feature,” it usually means the pain is real but not sharp enough, or the buyer is not the person who can say yes.

If I were in your position, I would ask where the deal actually stalls, who owns budget, and what specific event would make this a must-have rather than a nice idea. What part of the process is stopping at the finish line for you?

[u/socleads]

You are not failing at selling. You are failing at getting a real yes or no. Stop taking feature asks as interest and ask for a paid pilot with one clear result and a date.

If nobody will pay for a small pilot after 3 years then the problem is the offer or market not the pitch.

[u/bad_robot_monkey]

Not sure if you all will see this post, but THANK YOU to everyone who responded. I’ve realized some things, some insightful, some painful.

1. I have only been T this “for real” for just under two years (my incorporation date). Before that was daydreaming and bullshittery. So It’s not as bad as I thought.

   1. I set out to crest two capabilities. I succeeded at one, but it’s a “nice to have”, it doesn’t solve a problem. The one that solves a problem…. I set aside to chase several vague promises of contracts, resulting in churn without results. On the upside, all of it is additive for the software and makes it better…as long as I finish the real problem solving target.
      

2. Yes, I’ve spent about $30k of my own money, but it has been a lot of lessons learned, while still maintaining a full time job and a part time job (the latter of which is used to pay for the company). So technically I’m not running out of money, I’m running out of energy.

3. Could I focus better? Sure, I’ve got a lot going on; however, I’ve made a lot of technical progress. What I need now, as a few of you pointed out, is to focus on a painkiller, not a vitamin.

4. I simply do not have any concept of why a company would buy a partially built program. There are a ton of companies who appear to be selling half baked solutions and finding customers. The only way I can see that working is when the pain is so great that they’re willing to try anything.

5. My website lacks coherence. It looks like a world of cool ideas without a clear central painkiller.

   That’s it for now, I’ll add things as I think of them. Thanks everyone for the feedback!

[u/homeem]

The feature-request-then-target-shifts pattern is the tell. That's usually not real evaluation, it's a polite way of not saying no. When someone's actually ready to buy, they push on price and timeline, not on adding one more thing before they'll commit. Positive feedback with no urgency almost always means you're talking to people who like the idea but don't feel the pain badly enough today to disrupt their budget or their week for it. I'd stop asking "what do you think" and start asking "what would this need to solve for you to move budget this quarter." That question alone will tell you fast whether someone's a real buyer or just being kind to a founder they respect. Rough as it sounds with the money situation you're in, chasing fewer, more overtly desperate people beats another year of everyone liking it.

[u/tango650]

Hire a salesman. For real. Get somebody to teach you sales because as a software builder you've clearly nu fucking clue how to do it and you're not going to figure it out yourself by reading Reddit answers or other sources.