Make It Easy for Customers to Pay You
Last week, I wrote about the importance of removing friction for early adopters in order to make it easy for customers to love you.
This week, I’m going to touch on another seemingly obvious, but often overlooked capability that startups need to develop: making it easy for customers to pay you.
Let’s start with an anecdote:
The One About a Microwave
A few weeks ago, I needed to buy a new microwave. Our old one had developed some *ahem* extra features, notably that opening the door would short out the entire kitchen.
Normally, I’m the guy who spends a couple of hours sifting through online reviews and then orders something delivered to the house. In this case, the various manufacturers’ websites didn’t make it easy to get all of the information I needed to make a purchase decision, so I headed to the local appliance store. My goal: to buy and bring home a new microwave.
But things didn’t go as planned. By the time the day was done, I had visited 5 different stores and ended the day without a microwave.
Here’s what happened:
Store #1
I walked into the first store just after it opened and was greeted by a friendly sales rep. I told him that I needed to replace a built-in microwave and shared the pertinent specs. After a few minutes, he showed me a floor model that they were getting rid of on clearance that had everything I needed. Perfect!
Except for one thing: he couldn’t provide me with a delivery date. The store’s policy was to not deliver floor models until they had a new replacement model to sell, so as to not leave a “hole” in their display. And the sales rep had no idea when they would be getting a new microwave model in.
So he could not provide me with a delivery date (or even an estimate), even if I bought it.
Store #2
Confused and disappointed, I left the first store and headed to a “big box” electronics retailer, confident that I could procure a microwave there. As I walked around looking at the various models, I kept waiting to be greeted by a sales rep.
And then I started looking for a sales rep.
Alas, there was no sales rep in the appliance department that morning.
Store #3
Next, I travelled to a well-known home improvement store. In the appliance department, I saw a couple of sales reps busy helping other customers, so I wandered the aisles to get acquainted with their selection. After narrowing things down, I made eye contact with one of the reps and patiently waited while he finished up with another couple’s refrigerator order.
My two kids were accompanying me on this adventure. While we waited our turn a few aisles away, they were happily playing with each other, goofing off and giggling.
After about 10 minutes, the sales rep I was waiting on looked up at me from across the room and loudly proclaimed, “Can you get your kids to stop screaming? I’m trying to help a customer here.”
Store #4
By this point, it was approaching noon and my “early riser” advantage was long gone. The fourth store (a combination furniture and appliance store) had a reasonable selection of microwaves, including several potential matches. Unfortunately, there were at least a dozen other customers in the appliance department and only a single sales rep on staff.
Conscious that I had exhausted all of the good will I could muster out of my kids (who, for real, were incredibly patient through all of this), I waved the white flag and we headed for lunch.
But I wasn’t quite ready to give up. I managed to bribe them with some dessert in exchange for accompanying me to one more store…
Store #5
The fifth and final store of the day was another dedicated appliance store. I walked in and was immediately greeted by a friendly sales rep. He took one look at my two kids and escorted them to a table covered in coloring books and crayons. He then asked if there was something specific I was looking for.
I told him about my need to replace a built-in microwave, shared the pertinent specs and held my breath.
He responded by asking a couple of qualifying questions (which matched the particular questions that had caused me to embark on this journey to begin with) and then replied, “Let’s start with what’s available in inventory and go from there.”
5 minutes later, I had chosen one of the microwaves that they had in stock. 10 minutes later, I was out the door (albeit without the microwave, which I would have to pickup the next day at their warehouse — but it was still a success in my mind).
Less than 20 minutes start-to-finish.
Lessons for Startups
While it might be easy to dismiss my adventures in microwave shopping as a relic of old school brick-and-mortar retail, the reality is that both offline and online businesses often struggle to close what should be the easiest sales.
In today’s world, a significant percentage of prospects have thoroughly researched products and competition before ever engaging with a company. They know what they want and are ready to buy…if you make it easy for them.
In these cases, the sales are yours to lose.
And there are plenty of ways to lose them:
A SaaS website that only has “Contact Us” on the pricing page or “Book a Demo” as the call to action, instead of a way to sign up (or at least start a buying process)
SDRs who aren’t trained to identify buying signals and unnecessarily stick to their scripts
Overly complicated pricing tiers that introduce confusion and ambiguity into the buying process
Founders who pitch the future state of the product instead of focusing on what is available today (and in doing so, miss out on the fact that the current state is potentially as exciting to the prospect as the future state is to you)
Even in the earliest days of a startup, if you’re building something of genuine value, there are likely customers who are ready (and eager) to buy. Learning how to identify buying signals and simplifying your buying process in order to make it easy for those customers to pay you is essential to capturing as much early value as you can.
Because if someone needs a microwave today, they’re going to keep searching until they find one.