The complete enterprise software sales playbook, a comprehensive guide to the expected process when a big co wants to buy your app: [A thread ]

Email 1: Hello, I have not a single clue what your product does, and I have not read your website - do you have some sort of PDF?

Email 2: Great! Thanks for sending us a PDF of exactly the same information that's already on the website. We have not read it, or looked at it, so we would now like to set up a call with 12 people on it so that you can read the PDF out loud to us. When works best for you?

Email 3: Thanks for the call today! Here are 12 questions that are covered on your website, in the PDF, and that you specifically answered in the call - but none of our our team was listening so instead they made a bullet list. Please advise.

Email 4: Super! Can you send us a final quote? We know your pricing is on your website, but we need your pricing page in PDF format otherwise we are unable to move forward for reasons which not even we can articulate. Let us know ASAP.

Email 5: Thanks again! We'd like to introduce you to our procurement manager, a corporate fuckweasel whose sole job it is to argue about pricing because we know you've inflated your pricing based on having to deal with other idiots like this in the past!

Email 6: Great to catch up on the call today! As discussed, we will be able to award you our business given quarterly payments and a 1 year contract with net90 payment terms and a 5% discount. Also our legal department has rewritten your terms of service. (See attachment)

Email 7: Thanks everyone for your diligence in wasting everyone's time with maximum efficiency! In order to add you as a vendor, we now need you to send us a blank cheque with your bank account details. Also, 3 letterheads, and the 30ml of blood from your firstborn child.

Email 8: Hi team! Susan from procurement here, just circling back to double click on some new bullshit about how we're all on the same page about net180 payment terms and the 10% discount, can't wait to get started and launch everything by last Monday!

Email 9: Hey guys, this is Brad from finance just following up with the W8BEN-Water-Torture compliance. Is everyone signed off on the RFP for the MVC by EOD? Or are the KPIs for the EOL agreement still WIP?

LMK

Email 10: Thanks so much for everything here! We've moved forward with another supplier on this occasion, but we really appreciate your time!

All the best!

Thanks for coming to my latest TED talk!

If you're in the market for great publishing software, we've just launched our brand new enterprise sales page: https://ghost.org/enterprise/ 

If you liked this thread, you may also enjoy my previous TED talks, including:

How I got our entire domain banned from Google due to illegal porn
https://twitter.com/JohnONolan/status/1245370373966712832

& some feelgood reflections on 7 years of building a profitable open source business https://twitter.com/JohnONolan/status/1255930388611887104