What makes sugar sweet? I mean, what is the chemistry involved in the sweet taste?

Our tongue detects the sugar molecule by its shape. Sugar molecule fits into grooves in our tongue tip, and when this groove is filled a nerve sends a message to the brain that says -sweet!. It is as simple as that.

Sweetness is not in the sugar, then; but in our minds.

Perceptions, are derived senses actually. They are managed by more evolved areas of our brain. For instance the perception of flavor -a derived sense, is a combination of taste + smell.

And what makes our product sweet, then? Does it reside in product features (molecule shape), or more in how it fits with our client’s taste pores?

Almost all experienced sales people learned how to link product features and benefits. Features (molecule) give you credibility, while Benefits (taste) give you marketability. But it is Positioning (perception) that makes you close the sale. Product perception involves complex associations, based on client’s personal experience on similar products.

The good news is that perception and positioning are (still) far too complex phenomena to be automated by any software means. Experienced sales persons, with good questioning and listening skill can still make the difference.

R&D investments stagnating and engineering software sales slow down.
From a software customer perspective, three factors are shrinking investments in engineering software:

1. Open source software. Customers start to consider open source software as an option.
2. Mergers or acquisitions.  Newly-consolidating client companies maximize interoperability and reduce software redundancy, i.e. they get rid of the ones they don’t need anymore.
3. Wide Area Network vs. Local Area Network. Global companies want to deploy software on global scale. They need to reallocate software licenses into main servers, to gain economies of scale and optimize expenses for software.

From a software vendor perspective, three factors are driving sales down:

1. Open source software. Software editors consider open source (only) as a threat.
2. Mergers or acquisitions. Newly-consolidating software companies maximize interoperability and reduce software redundancy… It takes time, money and makes their clients endlessly ‘waiting for the next release’.
3. Wide Area Network vs. Local Area Network. For obvious reasons, global software vendors (still) like to sell software on local basis, avoiding clients to gain economies of scale and optimize expenses for software.

Symmetric perspectives on software sales drop-off.

Women have been used to sell products to men for decades.

IF         – Male brain is wired to respond to attractive females.

AND     – Engineering software are mainly used by young males

THEN   – Engineering companies should attract prospects with sexual marketing tactics

I wonder whether this would have real impact on sales. A study made by a Neuro-economics expert, (”Heat of the Moment: The Effect of Sexual Arousal on Sexual Decision Making”), shows that men who are sexually aroused are more focused on short-term gratification than on long-term logic.

Being a software buying process the outcome of a long term logic, I recommend No-Bikini in your marketing campaign. Professors at MIT say it won’t work.

I don’t know how the idea of the “One Month Free” software started – whether it has to do with purchase order cycle, or moon cycle.

From the end-user perspective, if the software is a “One-Off” application, one month trial is far too long. The user will  use the application and forget about you and your software. You should offer a shorter trial period, instead. On the other hand, if the software is a long term application, there’s no reason to limit the trial to 30 days. It would be better to implement functional restrictions. Even with limited features, the software will remain on your customer’s desktop, used from time to time.

I think the “one month free license” does not increase software sales, although many companies offer it.

I’m wondering who is my customer.

In our Interlocked world, identifying the customer is not easy. From a sales person perspective, the customer might be the engineer who uses the software, or the IT person who tests it, or the manager who decides. There’s a whole team behind every customer. Users,  influencers and buyers are Linked-In, ruling other buyers.

From a sales manager’s point of view, the primary customer is the sales representative. Sales people are the intermediate buyers; they might see product benefits you have not considered yet.

In our interlinked economy, countries are no more relevant units of analysis. Multinational companies no longer think in terms nation states. Other units of analysis like -language, age, climate, lifestyle are much more relevant.

Why should I have a subsidiary in Finland and one in Sweden? Why should I have a Nordic Office at all, instead of having a sales agent for -truck drivers- or for -gardeners- wherever they may be?

At the cash register, we’re all brother in arms.

Citizen marketers are customers who generate media on behalf of companies. They can either promote good things or call out bad things about your product.

Unsatisfied clients rarely send negative feedback to companies, they leave them across the internet. The majority of consumers fail to provide that feedback because of contact barriers, or lack of responders.

Citizen marketers could be turned into an opportunity for the company, if identified in advance on the early stage of the sales process. Companies should better identify the customers who have their own web site. Networkers and social media users should be enrolled as occasional marketers.

Sun-microsystems markets the new 8-processors server T2000, that can blow out all the old 4-processors. One T2000 can replace two old servers. Theoretically server sales should be halved. Theoretically. Jonathan Schwartz (Sun CEO) actually says the sales revenues from the new T2000 are growing fast, pointing out an interesting phenomenon: “if you double the performance of a machine, customers don’t buy half as many, they tend to double their order”.

Hardware comes together with the software. Software can solve large problems on many processors at the same time. Each processor has to run one software licence. Still, a double number of processor at the same price, comes with a double software price.

An effect of the above price policy is that massive parallel processing or distributed computing will remain rare, unless software companies will change their price policy.