Employees who use software are rarely the ones who buy it, at least inside larger companies. That often leads to poor outcomes.
Making the software free is an obvious solution. If there’s no cost, then anyone can become a “buyer”.
But free trials usually don’t work:
- Yes, Slack succeeded with free trials, but that’s the exception to the rule.
- It’s also yesterday’s story. Google “Slack Free Trial” today and play Where’s Waldo to find the free.
- Another Salesforce data point: Heroku eliminated free trials entirely.
Why it matters: For a software vendor, figuring out how to sell software may be harder than developing the software in the first place. This is a big obstacle to innovation.
The bottom line:
- Employees and their managers should play a role in identifying new software that can help the business.
- They then need to navigate the budgeting, security, and other issues.
- Smart software vendors will help with this, because it’s in their self interest. Vendors are biased, but that doesn’t mean they’re wrong.
