Nothing earth shattering here and nothing that hasn't been said a million times before, but like @IceCreamKid said in his Golden Thread, you gotta have love for your customer in your heart and a true desire to provide them value (lots of it) in order to succeed.
Customers (real or potential) can tell this right away.
I posted something about this on the inside, but basically I've got a SaaS startup going and we're about to start developing our product. But before we leapt we decided to start asking for meetings with our potential customers (@ the decision maker level) and see if they would validate our product. More importantly, we're approaching them with the idea that we absolutely want them to succeed, and thereby have their customers be extremely happy with them in the bargain.
I'd already done a bunch of cold calls and put the same message across and gotten a very positive response. However, yesterday we had our first meeting with the CEO of a medium sized (~500 employee) company. We started by saying that we were there because we believed in their mission and were committed to their success. We gave our presentation and continued to emphasize that we were committed to them and would totally value their input. Amazing result: CEO LOVED our product, our attitude, and aims. He gave us his personal contact information, wants to be actively involved in the development of our product, and is willing to let us beta test if we can deliver a product quickly. PLUS he's offered to give us an introduction to others in our market when our product rolls out in Beta form.
It was NEVER a sales call but it definitely SOLD him on our vision, our product, and ourselves.
If his company ends up giving us their business, that one contract alone would be worth well into the six figures and we'd be on our way.
So anyway, thanks to all of those who have shared their experiences and the idea of Give Value to Receive Value. And thanks to Vigilante and MJ ("SUCS"), we're committed to being a company that provides LEGENDARY customer service as well.
[On a side note, I was listening to an otherwise excellent podcast by Rob and Mike called "Startups for the Rest of Us" where they basically denigrated the idea of excellent customer service for most early startup. What a load of crap!]
Customers (real or potential) can tell this right away.
I posted something about this on the inside, but basically I've got a SaaS startup going and we're about to start developing our product. But before we leapt we decided to start asking for meetings with our potential customers (@ the decision maker level) and see if they would validate our product. More importantly, we're approaching them with the idea that we absolutely want them to succeed, and thereby have their customers be extremely happy with them in the bargain.
I'd already done a bunch of cold calls and put the same message across and gotten a very positive response. However, yesterday we had our first meeting with the CEO of a medium sized (~500 employee) company. We started by saying that we were there because we believed in their mission and were committed to their success. We gave our presentation and continued to emphasize that we were committed to them and would totally value their input. Amazing result: CEO LOVED our product, our attitude, and aims. He gave us his personal contact information, wants to be actively involved in the development of our product, and is willing to let us beta test if we can deliver a product quickly. PLUS he's offered to give us an introduction to others in our market when our product rolls out in Beta form.
It was NEVER a sales call but it definitely SOLD him on our vision, our product, and ourselves.
If his company ends up giving us their business, that one contract alone would be worth well into the six figures and we'd be on our way.
So anyway, thanks to all of those who have shared their experiences and the idea of Give Value to Receive Value. And thanks to Vigilante and MJ ("SUCS"), we're committed to being a company that provides LEGENDARY customer service as well.
[On a side note, I was listening to an otherwise excellent podcast by Rob and Mike called "Startups for the Rest of Us" where they basically denigrated the idea of excellent customer service for most early startup. What a load of crap!]
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