Part Two: The product · Finding and trying
The person who wants the product is rarely the only one who must say yes. They have to persuade a manager, a partner or a team, and carry the blame if the choice is wrong.
An operations manager finds a product that would end her weekly struggle. She cannot buy it. The finance director approves spending. Someone in IT will ask where the data is kept. Her team will have to change how they work.
She is now an unpaid salesperson for a product she has used for an hour, pitching to people who do not have her problem. The product's pages all talk to her. They give her nothing to carry into the room. And the risk is hers: if it goes badly, her name is on it.
Many purchases die at this point. Nobody says no. The person who wanted it runs out of energy, or decides it is not worth sticking her neck out.
What helps is material she can pass on. A page that says in plain words what it costs in total, what it replaces, where the data lives and how to get out. Answers to the questions the others will ask, written for them and not for her. Proof from a customer like them: a company of their size, in their trade, a year in. A way for a doubter to look around without signing up. And a first commitment small enough that being wrong is cheap.
Going around her is tempting when a sales team is involved. Selling to her boss over her head can win the contract. It also produces a team that was told to use the product and never chose it.
Therefore:
Find out who else must say yes, and what each of them worries about. Give the person who wants the product plain answers to pass on, and keep the first commitment small.
In practice. Ask your last five customers: "Who else had to agree, and what did they ask?" Turn the answers into one page that a champion can forward.
Goes with. The page they need depends on A PRICE YOU CAN EXPLAIN (13). The signer is often not the one who uses it: WHO PAYS, WHO USES (14). Then the team arrives through SET UP BY ONE, USED BY MANY (38).