Your business is growing and you are passing new milestones all the time. How do you make sure that growth continues, and that you can keep up? Consider investing in the following five types of software.
1. Content Management Software: Since this is 2010, you probably have a website. As your business expands, you’ll want your site to be able to do new things, more things or the same things, but better. Content management software makes all of these “things” easy to handle.
2. Email Marketing Software: With the help of content management software, you’ve turned your website into a prospect-gathering machine. Email marketing software can help you take these contacts, share your message with them and convert them into leads. continue reading »
You’ve figured out which software you want and now it’s time to talk numbers. How do you get the best deal on the software you want? Here are some tips:
- Don’t let the vendor know they’re your #1 pick. Make sure they know you’re strongly considering another option, and that that other option is a credible competitor. Don’t mention another company by name—just make them think it’s not all in the bag just yet.
- Think ahead. Look at the company’s other products and see if they might fit into your needs over the next several years. If so, lock in pricing now. For example, if you’re buying email marketing software and the company also sells marketing automation products put a 20% off clause into the current contract for your future (potential) purchase.
- Specify your service expectations and what will happen if your standards aren’t met. Are there financial penalties for the software company? Does not meeting those service benchmarks allow you to get out of your contract early? continue reading »
We read online reviews at many points throughout the buying cycle. Whether it’s a review by an analyst, a critic, or a peer; we read reviews for reassurance that we making the right decision. While we use reviews to feel better about our decisions, we should not use reviews not make our decisions.
This is especially true for serious business purchases like software. For more serious purchases, the quality of the review becomes much more important. And let’s face it; there are a lot of opinions out there. So how do you know whether or not to take an online review seriously?
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You are hungry. It is lunch time and you are losing steam, but you are swamped and you’ve been eyeing the fresh plate of brownies someone brought to the office this morning. Oh, sweet sugar rush! So you indulge. However, twenty minutes later you have a headache, and now you really can’t concentrate. Let’s face it: we don’t always do a good job connecting our needs with the best solution to them.
Assuming your brownie indulgence is a one-time occurrence, it’s not a big deal. However, when it comes to important business decisions, we often make this same mistake repeatedly. This is particularly true with regard to business software purchases. continue reading »
At Capterra, we allow buyers to submit their software needs which we then pass along to relevant vendors. The buyers often enter a low-ball estimate on their budget line. They do this because they are either unsure of what to budget or because they (understandably) don’t want to tip their hand. However, when vendors see these low budget estimates they often don’t even want to talk to these buyers, because they think they aren’t serious or legitimate.
A low-ball negotiation strategy is one thing, but just taking a low-ball guess is not the smart way to buy business software. Plenty of surveys have shown that many software buyers experience unexpected costs that add considerably to the final price tag.
The process of budgeting for software products for your business will vary tremendously based on what it is you are trying to automate. However, one of the most important foundations of budgeting accurately is to know exactly what you need. If you are researching an expensive product or anticipate needing a lot of customization, knowing what features are “must haves” and “nice to haves” will help you tremendously in your negotiations. Once you have decided exactly what you need from your software solution, let these next three topics guide your budget brainstorm: continue reading »
