Have you ever avoided a salesperson before? Or declined to catch up with a friend who recently became a financial advisor?
I’m sure we have all come across our fair share of encounters with salespeople who hard sell on the streets, and these encounters often leave a bitter taste in our mouths. They are pushy, intrusive and often try to sell you the shorter end of the stick. Thus, over the years, the reputation of salespeople has gone down the drain.
As a business development (BD) executive myself, one of my key responsibilities involves sales. Most of the time, company culture and training that the salesperson receives is the main factor that influences the type of salesman an employee becomes. Thus, not all salespeople are out there to take advantage of you. In fact, earnest salespeople play a vital role in bridging the client to the more technical personnel in the company.
Normally, the company structure of mobile app development vendors will include BD representatives, who are the first touchpoints of the company. During these first few calls, BD representatives will be the ones liaising with the technical team to check the feasibility of your project scale and timeline.
It is the moral and ethical responsibility of the salesperson to assess that a vendor’s capability, product or services is a right fit for the client. However, because their KPI is attributed to the number of sales they close, rather than the success of the project, some salesmen will simply skip consulting their technical team and agree to everything their lead requests, leaving future problems such as delays, inability to meet the requirements for the project management and technical team to deal with.
In the industry, this behaviour is called “Promise first, say sorry later”.
It’s rare that you will be talking directly to technical personnel during the first few calls with the vendor company. Hence, I feel it is important to know how to watch out for ourselves and know how to differentiate an earnest salesperson from one who is simply trying to close the deal.
Without further ado, here are 3 warning signs that the salesperson does not have your interests at heart.
- He/She Does Not Ask You About Your Requirements In Detail
It is usually a warning sign if the salesperson doesn’t sit down and go through your requirements with you or sends someone to do requirements gathering with you. If you know that your requirements are somewhat tight, and yet you meet a salesperson who agrees to everything you say, it’s something to be suspicious about, because it often means that he/she is in a rush to close the deal.
In the case of our company, the BD representative will first understand your requirements and take it back to the design and development team to check on their bandwidth and feasibility. This is important because the design and development team are the ones who will be carrying out and ensuring the success of the project. Unless the BD representative is very experienced and has a good working knowledge of technicalities, if you find him/her promising everything you request for, it’s not something to be happy about.
The salesperson’s hurriedness is also likely to show up in the quotation. If there are many missing components in the quotation or other signs that the salesperson did not fully grasp the requirements that you have communicated and the person is wishy-washy/vague about it upon clarification, it’s a warning sign.
It is most likely because the business development person who came up with the quotation is unclear about the specifics or is not paying close or good attention to your requirements.
- Promise First, Say Sorry Later
As mentioned just now, “promise first, say sorry later” is also another trademark of a salesperson who doesn’t have your interests at heart. Very generally, if your app requires login, more than 10 features with complicated business logic and/or integrations, the project typically would take about 3-5 months. Thus, if someone tells you they can do it within 1 month, it’s a huge warning sign that they just want to close the deal, and apologise later for the project delays that will most likely happen.
To help you understand more why the mobile app project would take 3-5 months, let me explain some key milestones briefly:
User research is a huge and very important part of the entire project. This is because the mobile app is only useful if it serves the needs of its users. Without understanding the user first, the user experience of navigating the mobile app and the designs that are in the mobile app would feel foreign to these users.
We have a proprietary framework called the UPWARD methodology, which walks clients through the entire process from user research to design and development. You can check out the full article on it here.
To build on this point, it is already very difficult to get people to download mobile apps. If your early adopters are turned off by the mobile app, it could have a ripple effect and their bad reviews or word of mouth could lead to other potential users not wanting to download the mobile app as well. This situation is very dangerous and tricky to solve. It is better to roll out a good app right off the bat.
There is also the submission of apps to Google Playstore and Apple App store which you must take into account as well. This is because all the apps available on the app store will have to be approved by Google and Apple first. To account for the potential rejection of apps and the time it takes to tweak certain app descriptions or conditions, this process typically takes around 2 weeks.
Before that, there will also be the User Acceptance Testing where we will get you (the clients) to try the end product (the mobile app) and conduct several rounds of user testing of functions. We usually buffer around 2 weeks for this.
Before that, there is also internal quality assurance, and this is around another 1-2 weeks.
As you can see, the above durations already add up to a month. So, if a vendor tells you they can launch the app in 1 month, it’s really highly impossible, and it’s a cause for concern.
- The Vendor’s Proposal Is Great But Track Record Seems To Suggest Otherwise
Simply put, everyone can present well but not everyone can walk their talk. We have seen many clients that allocate a higher percentage for the proposal than track records. This ends up attracting the wrong type of vendors — those who can smoke and make their solutions sound great but don’t actually have the capabilities to carry it out.
Thus, when evaluating mobile app development vendors, the vendors’ track record and testimonials should be your go-to to deciphering if they are the ones you want to work with.
We actually wrote an e-book that breaks down in further detail the considerations you should have when selecting a mobile app development vendor to help people like you make better decisions!
It is going for free for a limited period of time now and will be sold at $49.90 from May 2021 onwards. To get your hands on a copy, simply follow us on our social media pages on Facebook and LinkedIn, and drop us an email at hello@originally.us! Our team will send you a copy very shortly.
Conclusion
Not all salespeople are bad or out there to take advantage of you. However, it is best to sieve out those who clearly do not have your interests at heart, so we can avoid the negative consequences that follow.
To recap, if the salesperson you are talking to does not sit down to go through your requirements, if he/she shows signs of agreeing to everything you propose or if their proposal is a lot better than their track record, these are warning signs that they simply want to close the deal without much interest to deliver a quality project.
At Originally US, we do not embark on building a mobile app unless we want it to be successful, because your success is also our success. We believe in not only being upfront and honest, but also explaining and guiding you along the way, so you understand the considerations behind running a mobile app development project.
If you’re looking for a trusted mobile app development company to build your app, let us discuss how we can help you! Chat with us on Whatsapp today.
