We’ve read the dumb company: avoiding the fork in the road articles, dead company walking: avoiding the graveyard articles, the two installments of “we want to be a smart company”, and we truly want to be a smart company, and we are taking the mistakes, and advice, to heart. Is there anything else we can do?

As per Part I, there’s always more you can do! However, there’s not much left to talk about that’s true across the board for all software companies. That being said, we are giving you ten final pieces of advice that just may help if money is tight, leads are few, and sales are hard. Yesterday, we gave you the first five. Today, give you the final five.

06. Stagger the Billing on Suites and Seats

If it will take 9 months for the multi-module suite, don’t charge the annual license fee for the whole suite until all of the modules are fully implemented and in use. Stagger the fee based on the functional modules the user will have each month. The same goes if you are selling on seats. If there is an additional fee per seat, or the pricing is based on blocks, don’t charge for all the users up front who will eventually use it when most won’t until month 7.

Remember that your solution is going to cost the company mid to high six or seven figures once all of the direct and indirect costs are factored in, a cost that won’t be returned right away, especially if you are selling a (mini)suite. This means that even though your price tag might be worth it, it’s a hard price tag to swallow for a customer who won’t get the full use out of it for almost a year, and, thus, a hard sell.

However, if they only pay for functionality as they get it, and will start to see value before the next fee hike, that bitter pill is a lot easier to swallow, and while it might mean less money up front for you, a happy customer always means more money on the back end, especially at renewal time — which will always happen as long as they remain happy.

07. Ditch the Office & WeWork … Get Creative

If you have an expensive office, can you ditch it? Covid proved that you don’t need to work 9-5 in the same space everyday to be productive. As long as people have a space they can come together to meet when they need to, or want to, that’s more than enough.

Also, if you have a dedicated WeWork-like space, that’s not getting used daily, do you need it? If you only have it so your employees can meet one day a week, and that’s all they use it, why do you need a high cost space? (And while these spaces are cheaper than dedicated offices, they are still pricey, especially if they are not used daily.)

Local hotels with empty meeting rooms during the week will give you a good deal if you buy food. If you’re bringing people in quarterly for a meeting, they’ll give you the meeting room for free if you fill a room block, and give you a good price on that block if you have breakfast and lunch at the hotel.

And if you’re small, get more creative. Some restaurants and pubs have private function rooms that sit empty most of the day, or all day if there are no private after work functions on a weekday. They are super cheap, especially if you eat there. Some will give you a contract for, say, every Thursday for a quarter or year! the doctor knows a company in London that has no dedicated space except for a room in a pub connected to a tube station that they use weekly. Costs them next to nothing (as they’d buy their employees food anyway when they are asked to come into London) and the location ensures that if the employees stay for a few drinks, they can safely tube home. (Now, this won’t work for every company if they are in “dry counties” or have a lot of employees that don’t drink, but you get the point that creativity can save a lot of money.)

08. Compete on Service

This is not said enough. Customers don’t want software. No one every wants software. Absolutely positively f6ck1ng no one wants software! They want solutions, and, more specifically, solutions that help them do their jobs more efficiently and effectively and come with the support they need to learn the solutions and learn them to the best of their ability.

And before you say “but everybody in business buys software”, let the doctor stop you right there. They buy it because they need it. They don’t buy it because they want it. Have you ever heard your buddy Joe say “hey, I can’t wait for the new version of AccAtack25 so I can get started on my taxes for next year“. Or hear Jesse say “I really need a new glitzy word processor to accompany the 6 others I don’t use for the screenplay that I’m thinking about but not actually writing“. Or Carl say “I want the new version of Excel so I can write even more convoluted, and pointless, macros for my financial analysis to appease my boss“. You haven’t. Because no one wants business software. They want tools to do their jobs, which is why you can’t sell software like consumer entertainment apps (video games). Business software is not fun, and, thus, no one wants it.

So once you’ve made the solution as usable as it is, compete on service. That will make a huge difference.

09. Think Sponsorships — Esp. Educational Ones

As per our last instalment, customers need education and want vendors who educate them. Those vendors always win in the end. If you don’t have the time, experience, or in-depth knowledge to do so, sponsor independent authorities (blogs that aren’t going anywhere^*, educationally oriented consultancies, independent analysts and/or small firms) and associations that do and they will focus on educating your audience on what your audience needs to know to understand what your solution does and why your audience needs your solution when they talk to you.

Don’t underestimate the value that a potential customer places on education. The only thing that can come close to equalling that value is the right service level, which will be dependent on, and deliver, education.

10. Get Help Where You’re Lacking

We can’t say this enough. Stop pretending you can do it all, that you can figure it out once the mistake is pointed out to you, or that you can find a new full time resource (when you look at the cost of the part time consultant) that can wear six different hats and accomplish the same goals in a short amount of time. You can’t. Focus on the niche consultancies and the true experts and you will find that consultants are cheap relative to the value they bring.

11. Bonus: Fire the MBAs!

If the only degree they have is an MBA, show them the door as fast as possible. MBAs are Masters of Business Annihilation and have done more damage to modern corporations than even the most visionary of us could have predicted (with some of the utter ineptitude covered in Jason Premo’s LinkedIn article). Real companies, like real structures, have always been built by real engineers, not spreadsheet pushing financial analysts who don’t have a clue what the company actually does.

The point of an MBA should be to teach engineers the basics of good business and financial management, and how to operate in different regulatory and reporting contexts, so they can make the right trade-off decisions to grow their company and improve their offering in step-wise fashion, not to arm nitwits with spreadsheets to make ridiculously unsound decisions that could ruin the corporation in the pursuit of near-term profits!

^* Specifically, look for blogs that have survived at least 3 years. In the mid 2000s, shortly after THE PROPHET, the doctor, and THE REVELATOR started, we went from less than two dozen in the mid 2000s to almost 160 across Source to Pay and Supply Chain around 2008/2009. By 2011, dozens disappeared. By 2016, dozens more. By/during COVID, the majority of those that remained left us. Of the 160 blogs SI once chronicled on the now defunct resource site, less than two dozen remain. You can count them on your fingers and toes even if you are missing a few digits.