5 steps to make a compelling pitch to sell in the cloud marketplaces
Before moving on to the top 5 steps to secure leadership buy-in for selling in the cloud marketplaces, you need to:- Undertake research on different parameters of demand, competitor mapping, etc.
- Have significant buy-in from other team members who will be willing to take on the load
- Use a combination of data, insights and stories to make a compelling case
Step 1: Highlight the business case
Start your pitch with hard facts. There’s nothing better than highlighting the business case for moving to cloud marketplaces. On the one hand, you need to focus on the additional direct value you will be able to generate. For instance, research shows that by 2025 cloud marketplaces will account for approximately US$25 billion in sales. On the other hand, you also need to focus on the value created indirectly due to shorter sales cycles, larger deal sizes, etc. Furthermore, you can leverage the fear of missing out and illustrate the downsides of not selling in the cloud marketplaces. The idea here to showcase how all your competitors are leveraging cloud marketplaces and your inability to do so will lead to a negative business impact.Step 2: Illustrate customer demand
Once you have been able to make a business case for selling in the cloud marketplaces, focus on highlighting the pre existing demand. In a way, this will be a subset of the business case itself. There are several ways to achieve this, including:- Create a list of your existing customers who have been compelling you to transact through the cloud marketplaces
- Identify target customers who have partnerships with large cloud providers, making a case for higher probability of conversions
- Focus on your industry niche to understand the potential in cloud adoption by the top players
Step 3: Show intended impact
These first two steps will play a major role in getting the attention of your executive leadership and capturing their initial buy-in. However, only secondary based research and data evidence will not be enough to secure a green signal. What this points to is being able to translate the opportunity into potential impact for your solution. While you highlight the value of sales for cloud marketplaces, you need to illustrate how much of it you will be able to realize. Similarly, how many customers will you be able to convert amongst the potential that exists. Therefore, you need to have a clear picture of where you see your solution in the cloud marketplace in terms of sales, customers, expansion, etc. as well as undertake a cost-ROI analysis to showcase when the returns will translate to profits. This will help them get a comprehensive understanding that you have done enough research on the ground and aren’t purely basing your pitch on external data points.Step 4: Emphasize on readiness
A major apprehension that your senior leadership might voice despite seeing a clear impact is how will the entire move come to life and how will it play out. When you have to establish a presence in the cloud marketplace, you need to take care of several factors including technical and operational readiness and several other aspects. You can check out our 5 point readiness checklist for a more detailed understanding. As a part of your pitch to secure leadership buy-in for selling in the cloud marketplaces, you need to illustrate to your leaders that you are ready to ace the cloud marketplaces. This involves showcasing that you have:- Team buy-in along with skilled members across technical, marketing and sales teams
- Identified the cloud providers you wish to sell your solution with
- A deep understanding of the steps to publish your solution in the cloud marketplaces
- Knowledge of the technical readiness aspects for your solution
Step 5: Identify collaborations
Finally, the journey to cloud marketplaces can be tricky and might take many months to come to light. In such a situation, partnerships with the right platforms can make a lot of difference. Invariably, identifying the right partnerships and showcasing their strengths to your leaders can help secure a buy-in. For instance, if you tell your leaders that you have identified SaaSify as a partner and it can help you in multiple ways with its zero engineering platform to take your solution to the cloud marketplaces, buy-in will be faster. With domain expertise, such partners can accelerate and streamline the entire process for you.Secure leadership buy-in with SaaSify
If your leadership is still apprehensive about moving to the cloud marketplaces, convince them that SaaSify will make your journey seamless. Any support that you need to go live and start selling in the cloud marketplaces including onboarding and listing, offer management, subscription lifecycle management, integrated SaaS provisioning, smart metering, integrations, SaaSify will take care of it. Here are the top ways to illustrate high ROI to secure leadership buy-in with SaaSify:- Time reduced to take offer live from a few months to few weeks or even within a week
- Eliminating the need for context switching and steep learning curve for sales team to create and extend private offers
- Reduced operational overheads to list, transact and optimize cloud marketplace growth
- Real-time knowledge sharing on latest CMP updates
