Continuing from last week (Part I here), Hacker Noon delves deeper into why the traditional sales pitches to Technologists lead to flatlining sales.
So, trial-ware and freemium models have emerged as the only profitable models for selling digital products and services. The proof of the pudding is in its eating and offering trial-ware (without asking me for my credit card details. Please) goes a long way in building trust with technologists.
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With that out of the way, let’s get back to how NOT to sell to Technologists.
✳️ Make Me fill a form that feels like I’m being Audited
No one likes being audited. Right? We’re no different. Also, we’re technologists! So, we know what happens to the data that we fill up in your forms. You can say that you keep them secure but after getting bombarded with 200 email-propositions from 300 “girls from our area looking for a friend,'' we've learned our lesson and prefer not to fill up forms. At least not when trialing.
This is why Range, our newsletter sponsor for this series, and their ilk, are different. You go to their website, give your work email, and boom - You’re in. No verifications. No forms. Try for as long as you like.
For context, if you’re a distributed team (like Hacker Noon), you’re going to love Range for its simplified approach to enabling folks from all 38 time zones (Yes. There are 38 time zones in total) to conduct meetings, standups, and looking up your co-worker’s availabilities and workload.
✳️ Tricking Me Into Downloading Crippleware
Imagine downloading a piece of software in a hurry because you’re on a deadline. You power through the installation only to be notified by the software that to use the feature you want, you need to buy the PRO version.
What do you do?
Scratch your head?
We don’t.
We simply uninstall that software and never ever install another software from the same manufacturer/publisher.
✳️ Why, You Ask?
Because we’ve accepted it as a fact that some software manufacturers will keep on doing this and we ‘ve learned to stoically move on. Maybe we’ll go look for open-source alternatives.
You don’t want us looking for open source alternatives now. Do You?
Although truth be told, some open-source software can be as predatory as the closed source ones.
However, that’s a story for the next and final part of this newsletter series.
Until then, check out the stories that we are reading at the moment (List Below).
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