That’s helpful feedback around the pitch - trying to stay away from “close plan” since it’s intended to be much more bi-directional and transparently showing what the typical process to purchase and onboard looks like vs just get the deal done.
Hopefully shipping a demo video in the coming weeks will help with bringing more clarity to both how the product works and the why behind it.
Using the word Partner has been polarizing but haven’t been able to frame the aspirations of what the buyer <> seller relationship should be building towards. Open to suggestions!
Really tried to get a demo video out in time for this launch so people could see before jumping into a trial or eval but still working on shipping something!
Nailed it with the collaborative Asana-like product though.
If you want to play around in a demo environment though I’m happy to set it up for you and send your way. Feel free to ping at ross @ inaccord if you’d like!
That’s a very fair point. And I don’t like hearing it either from reps or companies that don’t truly value my business or treat me as I’d treat others.
On the other side, I do believe in a world where you can still charge someone $$ and the relationship is built in a way where 1+1 = > 3.
I’ve personally told potential buyers that we’re not a fit for them even though I know I could close the deal. I’ve had others do the same thing for me and point me to a competitor.
That’s what we mean by partnership vs vendorship. It’s about being a partner regardless of the outcome and focusing on adding value over just closing another deal. I’m not saying this is the world we live in today but one I’m passionate about driving towards.
> On the other side, I do believe in a world where you can still charge someone $$ and the relationship is built in a way where 1+1 = > 3.
I totally agree with this, but none the less this is nor a partnership. I'm not upset that I'm being treated as a customer. I'm upset when I am being told that I'm being treated as a partner, except that you are making out like a bandit on what you are selling me.
So it’s more about the framing and language than it is the actual relationship itself?
I think my perspective differs slightly in that I don’t see anyone “making out like a bandit” and the exchange is (ideally) mutually beneficial. Another angle is that vendors can be so crucial to your business that it also feels more like a partnership. At least that’s how I felt at Stripe working with customers (who called me/us their partner if we did things right)
honestly this is the first big one product related question we needed to answer if the idea behind Accord was actually going to work in the real world.
We initially thought the workspace acceptance and engagement rate would be closer to 30-40% and we’d have to iterate from there to move it up. However, the feedback from our customers’ customers was incredibly positive to start and saw a 90%+ rate from the beginning. The positive qualitative feedback from end customer’s has been around how helpful it is for them to understand what the entire journey looks like when starting a sales process, and feels much more collaborative than just being “sold to” by another rep.
Interesting you mention B2C since I honestly wasn't imagining that being a use case when we started this. But have had a handful of startups reach out about using it for that reason despite the heavy B2B messaging so could be onto something there. What's the status quo for this on the B2C side??
We homebrew on-boarding and documentation. The challenges of getting call-center employees up to speed, running the correct playbook and compliant with all of the relevant regulatory requirements is important.
Did you build something on apps like Notion or GDocs for that? That makes a lot of sense especially with the onboarding of new customer-facing roles. We originally thought about solving the higher-touch sales / onboarding but totally makes sense that a similar solution could help solve for the B2B use case.
Thanks Shane! So funny you mention G2 and social proof since that's also been one of the biggest learnings I've had selling Accord so far... didn't need that while I was at Stripe (the brand was just so powerful already). When you're a younger startup ppl want that 3rd party validation from others and investing in a few case studies & G2 went a loooong way in terms of accelerating deals & building trust.
Hopefully shipping a demo video in the coming weeks will help with bringing more clarity to both how the product works and the why behind it.
Using the word Partner has been polarizing but haven’t been able to frame the aspirations of what the buyer <> seller relationship should be building towards. Open to suggestions!