help _ tough going

[truth_sayer]

This Q is for experts

It has been almost 5 mnths since we finished our product. Our initial customer backed out based on their change in priorities. Since then we moved on to acquire new customers. But it has been tough even to get access to corp customers (potential). I was wondering how long does to take to a) typically acquire the first customer? I am looking at banks!
B) how many customers to we need to visit to decide "dump the idea/product" (btw its software)
C) how to test the mkt quickly?

Thanks for sharing your thoughts

[Mega B]

What you have to remember is we are deep into a recession and it is the hardest time to launch a new product/service and people just dont have the money or cash flow and this is the problem albeit your software maybe the best in the market at what it does if people dont have money to spend they are not going to buy your product.
Hope it works out well for you but you are not alone in this situation.

[inle]

I do not know what software are you offering to the market..

Maybe yoy can look at what benefits & values are in your offering..
Who is your target market..
Does these benefits & values really benefit & add values to your target market?
How are you reaching to them & converting them into sales?

[jmeijers]

If you are targeting banks you should have a product that either:

a) saves the bank money; instantly (i.e. within the next month) and substantially (not 100,- but 1.000.000,-)

or

b) allows the bank to fire people, which brings us back to a)

If your product offers extra services, is aimed at customer relations, or something else which yields results in the long run ... I suggest putting the idea on the shelf for a year or two.

[truth_sayer]

Thanks for all your inputs; As far as the theoretical excercise: yes, we identified the target market, identified the pain and made sure our product is aligned; even are giving _almost_ free 1 year incentives; have shown that we save money _now_ (ok, 1yr pay back) and future proof. Ofcourse we have discussed it only with one other customer than our initial supposed-to-be-partner/customer-but-pulled-out.

My Q probably boils down to: How to survive emotionally and make a focussed attempt to get a breakthrough (1st customer), assumming we buy-into the "recession" argument). Any tips on these?

[inle]

I can't help you in your emotional needs of breaking through to your 1st customer but perhaps I could offer you my humble opinions in a logical manner..

I made a few assumptions that you probably done all your homework: market targetting, creating benefits & values & making your offering unique that seperates from your competitors & your prospects are willing to buy now..

I like to check how are you getting to your leads?
How many leads on the average, say in a month?
What had been done, so far to convert those leads into sales?
And how fequent & consistent is(are) that(those) activities & strategies?

We will need to get some ideas what was been done before we can look deeper into issues that might be stopping your breakthrough..

[truth_sayer]

Thanks Inle!

I am just looking for how other entreps steeled their nerves. We will save that topic for another day.

You have good Qs.

1. We are focussed on top tier banks as they have a much greater pain than
the rest.

2. We do sales meeting every week and usually 1 or 2 leads come out

3. Ours is direct marketing; our very small sales team approaches the potential customers based on the leads. We have a quick prospecting checklist too.

Would like to see some tips and making this more efficient; so far we had only
customer face-to-face meeting which quickly went into a tech-review and we
expect to wiggle out of that in a few weeks.