Issue #29 - 3850 cookies… who am I?!
In this missive: Vile Rumour & Gossip | Platform negotiation | Observing the sales process
Happy August to you lovely lot. Another time around the gossip columns of digital. Remember there will be no more rocketships, no more Hypergrowth SaaS funded by cheap VC money and never-ending demand 🙂. Not until we all forget about this round anyway.
Vile Rumour & Gossip
• Now that google has decimated organic search, they’ve decided to retain cookies after all. Remember that whole “don’t be evil” thing? They dropped it in 2018. There's a great article by Maya from the Sole Supplier, if you’re keen for some more detail on the trapdoor that opened last year in search volumes.
• Talking of cookies, I just deleted 3850 cookies “all time” from Chrome. Let’s see if I even remember who I am any more next week. In 2025 more than half the US states will have some kind of privacy law, see the tracker for details. Cookie privacy is a vital part within most of these, so Google is taking on a mammoth and long fight – $287bn of annual revenue with 70% of it search related will do that.
• The CS platform battle is on. Zendesk’s acquisition of Ultimate is now playing out, with the chatbot guys all lining up behind them to be acquired. eDesk and the rest of those launching their own will be under the microscope in the coming months, but merchants are active in this space as they look at CS as a way of improving overall loyalty into 2025.
Platform negotiation
We’re borrowing part of the chat from our own CF merchant group here. A load of chatter about Salesforce Commerce Clouds’(SFCC) rapidly lowering charging structure, one member said “I’ve left them to negotiate with themselves[Salesforce] for a year or so recently.” Equally, for the first time we’ve seen a merchant compare Shopify against Commercetools as a $400m online business - who’d have thought that day would come around so fast?
The devil is 100% in the detail here and of course much of this is highly nuanced and private to the SaaS and customer in question. As the universe in eComm switches again the enterprise is being wooed by Shopify’s TCO, while composable has more successes in the last 8 months or so. Looks like these camps will fight it out for a while yet.
Observing the sales process
As many of you know, our agency is sometimes instigator, often participant and regularly an observer to all sides of a sales process. The Value Proposition, the first piece of content, that initial call, a meeting with a partner or 1:1 demo, dinner etc.
Seems to us there are three components that are really shifting:
• Partner co-selling - MACH Alliance needs a shout out here. One of the best things to come out of the Alliance are organised groups of vendors sharing ICP’s, initiating joint activity and being seen by prospects as true partners. Shopify’s ecosystem has always had this (much like Magento for us oldies), but customers notice this and respond to “friendships”.
• The first meeting - Never face-to-face anymore of course, 30-45 mins on a Zoom call. So demos need to be tighter, listening is much more critical, as are those soft skills (“I really liked them” we hear all the time). Much to unpick here, for a later post.
• Closing - Here is where everything has changed. Every prospect in your sales accepted pipeline is looking for honest references from peers, which as you all know are in plentiful supply nowadays. Vervaunt’s slack group, Digital Leaders Club and our own CF Community of course. Increasingly too, timescales are now much more fluid. Customers are starting their search very early, they don’t want to be rushed into any last-minute renewals. So ghosting and gaslighting is much more the norm.
More to share soon - and of course if you feel like entering our very own “nurture” program you can do so by signing up to ABM tips on a regular basis.
More next time - enjoy the beach
Buyingtime Dictionary
Frequently used (but never about you) phrases from Buyingtime Ltd.
Splinter
/ˈsplɪntə/
noun
1. Annoying little prick that gets under your skin
"Remember Justin from sales? He's a LinkedIn solopreneur now. A real disruptor."
"Pfft, 'disruptor'. You mean splinter."
