Selling as Servanthood

I write from Denver where I’m attending the Shareware Industry Conference 2006 with my client, Tucows. What we have here is a collection of shareware developers, software distributors and a varied assortment of arms merchants serving the industry.

Tucows is the second largest shareware download site, with CNET’s Download.com holding a firm lead in that space. The revenue model for shareware sites is fairly straightforward: you make money through ad space sold on your site and through Google-like “enhanced listings” that enable a developer’s title to stand out from the rest of the pack.

For shareware developers, their objective is to generate as many downloads of their software as possible, as only about 1-2% of the actual downloads will convert to sales. So whatever they can do to stack the cards in their favor, they’ll want to do.

Tucows, having been in the biz since 1995, has not surprisingly developed some expertise in the whole matter of generating downloads for specific titles. Their prosperity depends on being able to facilitate that for their customers — the developers.

I spent the day with the Tucows gang in their hospitality suite all day yesterday, just as I am today. I watched as developer after developer walked in and sat down with Bob Gibson, the Tucows sales guy and/or Matt Bleicher, one of their geeks in residence.

Each developer was treated the same way. Bob or Matt would look up their records, talk to them about how many downloads they are getting, where their title places in context with their competitors, how their product page looks now and what might be done to improve the message and hence the downloads… In short, despite the fact that they had a product to sell (enhanced listings) their FIRST and seemingly only concern was positioning the developer’s product to increase downloads and sales, no matter whether the enduser was coming through Google (going directly to the developer’s site) or Download.com or Tucows.

Their belief is that unless everything is well positioned for the developer to put their best foot forward, any sale they made would be a one time deal.

Tucows isn’t interested in one time deals. They honestly (and not just pay lip service) want to forge a long term relationship with their developers… which ultimately will blossom into a long term, mutually profitable relationship. The clients who actually DO work closely with them make a ton of money. No kidding! They do REAL well.

The tone and attitude of Bob and Matt were those of servants. “How can I best be of service?” “What can we do to enhance your business? to make you more effective?”

It’s something I’ve heard advocated by sales pundits for many years, but the MBA-ization of American business has made the actual practice of selling as servanthood a rare commodity.

I hope to see Tucows succeed in the way they deserve as they practice this approach, day in and day out.

They deserve it…