Big companies are risk adverse. Unfortunately for your startup, this means it will be difficult to get big customers without proof that your product is exceptional.
Why start a pilot project
Trust Pilot projects are a great way to start the buying process with a large organization. It’s all a test run, as I mentioned in a post I wrote on “How to sell to large organizations as a Startup.” For FluidSurveys and other Software as a Service (SaaS) companies, the product is intangible until the customer can get their hands on it and experience the value. This is essentially what the pilot will provide in a low-risk setting. Customers have so much power now that it is important to keep them happy and pilot projects are a great way to ensure you are doing just that.Who to start a pilot project with
Large organizations Starting a pilot project with large organizations (if that is your target audience) allows you to go get the best customer for your business while ensuring they are comfortable with the product. While these large organizations have all sorts of concerns surrounding startups, they make the best customers because they tend to be heavy users who will be able to pay for your product.How to start a pilot project
With a demo The first thing that we do is run a demonstration of our software to make sure that clients understand exactly how our product works and that it addresses their needs. From there, we place a call to action and explain to prospects how the next step involves engaging in a pilot project. After outlining the terms of the project, including the mention of a lower price for the trial, we define success and failure with the client. This way, everyone is on the same page from start to finish. One thing to note is that when FluidSurveys starts a pilot project, we don’t immediately go for the largest survey that the organization runs – for example, we don’t go for one that involves all major stakeholders, we go for something a bit smaller in scale. We look for a small survey that goes out to a subset of all employees/customers. This way, everyone involved knows that it is a pilot projects and if it doesn’t go right, the impact is lessened (a comforting thought for the prospect). On top of that, people are more likely to help out by giving constructive criticism that could help you create a better product. When that small project goes well, we work up from there and the end goal is to deploy our product enterprise wide.What to do during the pilot project
Measure and listen Here are some things you must do during the pilot project to ensure success:- Define parameters early. What would a successful pilot project look like? How long should it take? If the project is successful, is the client willing to be used as a reference in the future?
- Designate one point of contact. If there are multiple people involved, there will be too many points of contact, it’s better to have one direct contact. Because the one point of contact will become so involved with the project, they will become your internal spokesperson and champion.
- Collect feedback. Be sure to listen to the customers carefully and understand their feedback. Try to get feedback from different classes of users and improve the product on every level.
