How I ordered the mobile app
... or a story about how to increase sales of a development studio.
I am not an IT person. I have a humanitarian (legal education) and for the last 10 years I have been specializing in sales. And precisely because I have ten years of experience in sales, I believe that this article will be of interest to young developing development studios.
In fairness, it is worth noting that since high school I had a sound interest in computer science and therefore I understand a little bit in html-tags and IT terminology. A little bit.
')
It so happened that in the spring of this year my colleagues and I needed to make an application. Since they considered me the most knowledgeable in this industry, I was tasked with finding potential developers, conducting a mini-tender among them and choosing the most suitable one.
Therefore, I will now appear before you as an ordinary customer taken from the Internet, who wants to get something. In my example, I will try to compare what ordinary people want from you and what you offer them in response to their requests.
I hope the information will be useful and will help some of you who want more customers and deals to adjust their positioning in the market so that these customers will not lose.
Stage 1 (search results and contextual advertising)
I had a rather lengthy task before me, so I didn’t begin to limit myself somehow, I scored "application development" at Yandex and began writing to everyone who came across my legend.
What kind of legend? Well, of course, I, like any other source, was very afraid that my idea would be stolen, they would write their application and sell it on the market. Now, after a while, I understand that you’ll get tired of the idea of ​​stealing, because only me and my partners know how to monetize it correctly. Nevertheless, I am sure that everyone who orders an application for the first time is driven by such fear .
And what did I find on your sites about this fear? How do more than twenty studios to which I send my requests solve this problem? No Not a single studio could offer me anything in advance, so I sent the legend to everyone.
Convince the visitor on the first pages of your landing pages that he has nothing to fear, that they will not steal anything from him and that you have quite clear and transparent mechanisms for protecting his ideas. Tell him that all correspondence and recordings of telephone conversations only confirm that the idea belongs to him and that it makes no sense for you to steal anything. What you do not earn on this. Any arguments and more to level fear. I think that customers will become more frank with you.
Stage 2 (Contractor Selection)
Why did I send the legend? It is clear to choose the most appropriate artist. The one who will offer me in real time and sane money to do what I need.
In response to my legend, I received briefs. Oh, these are masterpieces of mocking art over the customer. Word, Excel, interactive options on sites, terminology: my teeth are already aching. Only one of twenty-two called me back, asked me in detail what I needed and the next day I sent a letter with an offer on price and terms. What do you think, who in my tender list I put a plus sign?
I urge you, if you don’t know how to talk like a human being and don’t like talking to people on the phone, then hire yourself a sales person who is not a programmer and who can take down the client’s request just by talking to him! Which itself will fill these very briefs so that you could already tell the price and terms. Well, the client should not suffer so much to pay the money. No, it should not.
The same appeal applies to the stage of drawing up a detailed developmental specification, when all preliminary negotiations have already passed and the client has decided.
Stage 3 (price)
Although everyone to whom I addressed, heard from me what I need for iOS, Android, and the web version, the price was sent in discord. They will send it with a footnote “only for one platform”, then they will send it for two positions out of three. That will offer a cross-platform version without explaining what it is that I acquire with it and that I lose.
It took us about one week to clarify the price for a preliminary TZ in three studios! This is after the brief, after the presale ... Just think: the whole working week to get answers to the questions: “and for everything that we ask, how much?”.
Naturally, the most sane and fastest received another plus in the tender list.
Stage 4 (MVP)
I don’t know how much effort should be spent to convince the customer during the first negotiations to make the MVP, but it’s worth the effort. I say this as a customer! I was sent for approval of the TZ, in the compilation of which was attended by my colleagues, developers, I read, thought, looked at the dates, on the budget and understood that something was wrong. I talked with the developer, he confirmed that yes, a lot of excess and something can be removed from the first release. In the end, removed most of it!
The desire to grab more money and the reluctance to soberly resist the whims of the customer led to the fact that the customer was annoyed by the inflated budget, unmeasured deadlines and lost time for cutting back functionality. The customer himself is a fool - you say. Well, okay, I will answer. But the customer should not be annoyed. Suppose that in the first negotiations you will spend more time and take less work on yourself, but then there will not be this dissatisfaction. And the customer will only thank you for the timely delivery of the project!
Final (what else to hook on the site)
I want to add that I, as a customer who orders an application for the first time, were guided mainly by fears:
- fear that an idea is stolen,
- fear that I can not check the quality of work,
- fear that I will not be able to make a complaint if something is wrong,
- fear that I do not know how I will lay out all this in stor,
- fear that I do not know how to serve all this,
- fear "and hda guarantees?".
And none of you have written that you give a guarantee for more than a year, no one has clearly said that you will help in all other matters. The fact that I do not need to think about all my fears, because you will do everything for me: hosting, bridges, integration of the payment system, dysfunction of the lateral limb - anything, as long as my head does not hurt.
The application market is now at the stage of rapid growth. It is not just fashionable. This will soon become a must have, just like the site building market 10 years ago. And so you need to be closer to a simple client. More humane.
I am not an IT person. I have a humanitarian (legal education) and for the last 10 years I have been specializing in sales. And precisely because I have ten years of experience in sales, I believe that this article will be of interest to young developing development studios.
In fairness, it is worth noting that since high school I had a sound interest in computer science and therefore I understand a little bit in html-tags and IT terminology. A little bit.
')
It so happened that in the spring of this year my colleagues and I needed to make an application. Since they considered me the most knowledgeable in this industry, I was tasked with finding potential developers, conducting a mini-tender among them and choosing the most suitable one.
Therefore, I will now appear before you as an ordinary customer taken from the Internet, who wants to get something. In my example, I will try to compare what ordinary people want from you and what you offer them in response to their requests.
I hope the information will be useful and will help some of you who want more customers and deals to adjust their positioning in the market so that these customers will not lose.
Stage 1 (search results and contextual advertising)
I had a rather lengthy task before me, so I didn’t begin to limit myself somehow, I scored "application development" at Yandex and began writing to everyone who came across my legend.
What kind of legend? Well, of course, I, like any other source, was very afraid that my idea would be stolen, they would write their application and sell it on the market. Now, after a while, I understand that you
And what did I find on your sites about this fear? How do more than twenty studios to which I send my requests solve this problem? No Not a single studio could offer me anything in advance, so I sent the legend to everyone.
Convince the visitor on the first pages of your landing pages that he has nothing to fear, that they will not steal anything from him and that you have quite clear and transparent mechanisms for protecting his ideas. Tell him that all correspondence and recordings of telephone conversations only confirm that the idea belongs to him and that it makes no sense for you to steal anything. What you do not earn on this. Any arguments and more to level fear. I think that customers will become more frank with you.
Stage 2 (Contractor Selection)
Why did I send the legend? It is clear to choose the most appropriate artist. The one who will offer me in real time and sane money to do what I need.
In response to my legend, I received briefs. Oh, these are masterpieces of mocking art over the customer. Word, Excel, interactive options on sites, terminology: my teeth are already aching. Only one of twenty-two called me back, asked me in detail what I needed and the next day I sent a letter with an offer on price and terms. What do you think, who in my tender list I put a plus sign?
I urge you, if you don’t know how to talk like a human being and don’t like talking to people on the phone, then hire yourself a sales person who is not a programmer and who can take down the client’s request just by talking to him! Which itself will fill these very briefs so that you could already tell the price and terms. Well, the client should not suffer so much to pay the money. No, it should not.
The same appeal applies to the stage of drawing up a detailed developmental specification, when all preliminary negotiations have already passed and the client has decided.
Stage 3 (price)
Although everyone to whom I addressed, heard from me what I need for iOS, Android, and the web version, the price was sent in discord. They will send it with a footnote “only for one platform”, then they will send it for two positions out of three. That will offer a cross-platform version without explaining what it is that I acquire with it and that I lose.
It took us about one week to clarify the price for a preliminary TZ in three studios! This is after the brief, after the presale ... Just think: the whole working week to get answers to the questions: “and for everything that we ask, how much?”.
Naturally, the most sane and fastest received another plus in the tender list.
Stage 4 (MVP)
I don’t know how much effort should be spent to convince the customer during the first negotiations to make the MVP, but it’s worth the effort. I say this as a customer! I was sent for approval of the TZ, in the compilation of which was attended by my colleagues, developers, I read, thought, looked at the dates, on the budget and understood that something was wrong. I talked with the developer, he confirmed that yes, a lot of excess and something can be removed from the first release. In the end, removed most of it!
The desire to grab more money and the reluctance to soberly resist the whims of the customer led to the fact that the customer was annoyed by the inflated budget, unmeasured deadlines and lost time for cutting back functionality. The customer himself is a fool - you say. Well, okay, I will answer. But the customer should not be annoyed. Suppose that in the first negotiations you will spend more time and take less work on yourself, but then there will not be this dissatisfaction. And the customer will only thank you for the timely delivery of the project!
Final (what else to hook on the site)
I want to add that I, as a customer who orders an application for the first time, were guided mainly by fears:
- fear that an idea is stolen,
- fear that I can not check the quality of work,
- fear that I will not be able to make a complaint if something is wrong,
- fear that I do not know how I will lay out all this in stor,
- fear that I do not know how to serve all this,
- fear "and hda guarantees?".
And none of you have written that you give a guarantee for more than a year, no one has clearly said that you will help in all other matters. The fact that I do not need to think about all my fears, because you will do everything for me: hosting, bridges, integration of the payment system, dysfunction of the lateral limb - anything, as long as my head does not hurt.
The application market is now at the stage of rapid growth. It is not just fashionable. This will soon become a must have, just like the site building market 10 years ago. And so you need to be closer to a simple client. More humane.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/332978/
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