Selling to the Fortune 500, Government, and Other Lovecraftian Horrors

Government is totally different than enterprise. Government is extremely price conscious, and may even have regulatory requirements that dictate a purchasing process. There may be formal request processes, approvals, public hearings and comment processes, etc. There can be formalized criteria that dictate who wins an RFP. If you try to lump enterprise sales and government sales in the same boat, you will be in for failure. And the whole limit that this article is talking about exploiting, of sticking under…

> As my father always counselled me with regards to dating advice: "Don't come up with reasons for them being out of your league. Make them come up with them. Someday, someone -- perhaps someone surprising -- will say Yes." Isn't this a line from "Shit My Dad Says"? https://twitter.com/shitmydadsays/status/4811790555 Maybe all fathers say the same thing. More to the point, we're not afraid of BFEs because they may be "out of our league" and say no; if they said…

As someone who decides such purchases at a large “traditional” company there is a lot of truth to this. And yes, having a subscription (or one-off price) that flies below the radar does absolutely help. To further encourage this: please, please, please put videos, feature lists, and screenshots of your product on your website! These people do not want to go through a big process to buy your product (this is the whole reason they do not involve the purchasing…

Reminds me of how many Atlassian Platinum Partners offer "licensing support". e.g. http://valiantys.com/en/software/licensing/ > Each company decides how to conduct their purchases. We let you choose your preferred currency (USD, GBP, EUR, CHF or CAD) and payment method (bank transfer or credit card). This is just arbitrage! e.g., "If Atlassian doesn't accept your company's standard payment style, we'll bridge the gap for a fee!" In other words Selling to Fortune 500 is hard enough. For a real challenge "Try…