The App Collective - Episode 8
Hello! Happy middle of March. How are we almost through Q1 2024? CRAZY, right?
Shopify is adding a ton of new, highly recognizable brands and names we all collectively know to the platform. The most recent wins to the platform were Nicki Minaj with her brand Pink Friday Nails and The Rock with his brand Papatui. In this short but sweet edition, we will talk about prospecting for whales for your Shopify app. But before we do that, what exactly is a whale when prospecting for new sales?
According to Sales Hive, "Whale hunting in sales refers to the practice of targeting large, high-value potential customers. These "whales" offer the potential for significant revenue and can often have a major impact on a company's bottom line."
Some of you might know that I spent the first part of my career in sales. I was really good at it early on before it became a metrics-driven nightmare because of the way I diversified my portfolio of prospects.
I put my prospective customer list into 3 buckets, and ensured I had a healthy amount of each so I could make my sales quota numbers each month.
These buckets loosely named were:
easy wins
where I made my money
whales
Easy wins were just as described. They were low-hanging fruit opportunities with short sales cycles, low contract values, and the types of companies we had already worked with, with which I could prove a track record of success. These usually close the same day or quickly at the very least. But these opportunties were also risky because they demanded the most and understood the least. They were low cost/high effort. They would churn easier than the next level for these reasons. Sound familiar? *COUGH* free/lite plan merchants that can sometimes drain your customer service resources.
Where I made my money were the most stable customers to 'catch' as they were the ones that were going to pay a good amount of money, were going to see a lot of success, and the accounts I would be able to retain for a long time. The sales cycles usually took longer than easy wins because of the complexity of decision-making and the budgets that required approvals and procurement. I’d bet in your world, these are the customers willing to give you case studies, write positive reviews, and give feedback to improve the product that will be a productive move for your app to grow.
Whales were the longest sales cycle opportunities and the most far-fetched. These prospects required a lot of thought and time, and the competition was fierce. If you have ever been in sales, these are the most rewarding to catch but also the highest risk. If you lose the whale, you better have a lot of opportunities in the other 2 buckets so you can survive. You never want to put all of your energy into the whale or bet on these opportunities closing. And you have to also decide if your business can handle not only supporting them but also losing them if they churn.
Somethings to consider if you decide to go after these whales is whether you have the time, the patience, and your product is in tip-top shape. The customers where you make your money are usually pretty forgiving about issues with the product from time to time, whereas the whales have a certain level of expectation, and you better be ready to deliver stellar service at every stage in the relationship.
If you are ready to go, here are a few tips to get in front of the whale. To start, you should spend as much time as possible understanding the ins and outs of the business, the team involved, the history, the pain points of what they need, are doing, did in the past, and how your product can fit into their needs. Their needs at this level usually involve some level of pain - they want to cut costs, save time, reduce risks, make their jobs more efficient in some or multiple ways, and, MOST OF ALL, become the hero to the people above them to secure their jobs.
You will want to be prepared to talk to the whale on their level- we're talking personalization at its finest. Maybe you get wind of the fact that the key decision makers will be at a specific conference, enjoy a specific snack (a little IG stalking never hurt in your research), and won't take meetings with strangers. One way to get your foot in the door would be to send them something ahead of the conference to their office with their favorite snack and a personalized handwritten note that invites them to chat for 15 minutes at a specific spot so you can show them the demo you created with their store and your product. In the note, you are specific by explaining how you are going to save them money and time, make their operations more efficient, and name-drop a competitor or something of likeness that is similar to them that will grab their attention. Generic speaking with the whale won't work whatsoever. It has to be specific to them and their business needs. Then you follow up that personalized note with a phone call - I KNOW an actual call - CRAZY, right? On the call, ask them if they enjoyed the snack and are free at this date and time to meet during the conference to go through the demo to see the results of improving their business with your solution. Don't be creepy; be thoughtful. There is a fine line there, so walk around it carefully. This requires a significant investment, and only some app founders attend conferences. You can adjust this idea to your specific setup by using the same methodology with personalization and grabbing their attention, which differs from the 8,000 other sales approaches they received that month.
If you've never gone whale hunting before, I suggest practicing these tactics with less effort on the easy wins or how you make your money prospects first. Perfect the craft, and then move up to the whales. You only have one chance at making a first impression with the whale, and you want to save for when you're most prepared for that level of sophistication in communication with prospects.
That's it for today. Life has been lifing over here - HBU?
PS if you've watched the musical Hamilton, comment your fav song. I think mine is Helpless but it keeps changing.
Happy fishing,
Deb