Things Are Not Always as They Appear
WMMM #005 - The story of the Software License Key
Cardinal Initiatives Newsletter Feb 25, 2023 4 min read
This week I share a story that helped me grow.
I hope it helps you.
The ABCs of Selling
Fans of sales books and movies about selling will recognize “ABC – Always Be Closing” as a famous line from the 1992 film Glengarry Glen Ross.
A former employer of mine developed a reputation over time that caused others to recite a variation to describe its approach to sales: “Audit, Bargain, Close.”
The purpose of this story is not to defend or accuse that former employer.
Take Me Back to that Place
To set the stage properly, I must provide some commentary on my employer’s reputation and the industry in general at the time.
When you reach a level of success in the market where you appear on every enterprise’s top ten list regarding annual tech spend, you will attract some friction.
“Agita” is the term one of my former sales leaders used.
I recall executives in my accounts sharing their frustrations with me about the business practices of some of our competition – household names in the tech industry.
We were in pretty good company when it came to what enterprises thought of our business practices.
From personal experience, you cannot have long-lasting relationships with strategic accounts – the most prominent enterprises – which we enjoyed if Audit, Bargain, Close is your sales methodology.
But let’s also acknowledge that ABC was a popular phrase to describe my employer’s tactics.
When we announced an acquisition of another player in the tech space, our account base cringed at the thought of us imposing our business practices on the newly acquired product line.
In addition to the relationships these enterprises had with us, they also retained the services of outside firms to provide opinions and advice.
Unfortunately, the counsel from third parties about our acquisitions often made our accounts uncomfortable
The Call
I vividly recall Good Friday, out of a choice of 364 other candidates, as the annual day for a “fire drill” with this large account of ours.
On this particular Good Friday in March of 2008, I received a call from their CFO.
In the first fifteen seconds, I can tell he is very uneasy.
I listen as he describes to the best of his ability the situation that has caused him to call me.
My employer has recently announced the acquisition of a tech company in the “web server/middleware” space.
This account of mine also used this web server product.
They need help with this web server product.
The acquisition was not final yet.
However, the web server company was apparently experiencing heavy attrition.
The Software License Key
The CFO told me they had a critical application running on this web server, which had become inoperable.
To restart the application, my account needed what is known as a software license key (SLK.)
The Good
This small, best-of-breed, single-product company had chosen to implement SLKs as a license administration strategy.
If you want to use their software, you must have a key. The only way to get a key is to have this company generate one for you. To get them to do that, you need to pay them.
No audits.
No need for them.
An enterprise, which may have thousands of servers, has zero exposure to software use that is not licensed.
What’s not to like?
Why didn’t my employer use technology like this?
The Bad
The CFO shared with me that they had lost their SLK.
They now had a customer-facing, strategic application inoperable.
He had called the web server company and could find anyone there that could help them get their system operable.
There were many eyes on this situation.
The Ugly
This is an unfortunate example of a flaw with using SLKs for license administration.
My account had purchased the license entitlements to this software but could not access it.
Unexpected, Unintended Conclusions
I told the CFO I would jump on it, wondering who could help me.
My employer was now very proficient with M&A and had placed a few of us on a field “Legal Entity Merge” team.
I played that card to accelerate my escalation.
The escalation took me higher in our org than I expected.
Apparently, the SLK was a hot topic in our executive suite.
I obtained an SLK for my account and learned this about my employer and our billionaire Founder on licensing strategy:
“…We would rather have customers using our software beyond their license entitlements than have a properly licensed customer unable to access our software…”
Things Are Not Always as They Appear
My employer’s reputation of ABC selling had given rise to even more sinister theories.
One was that we deliberately made it easy to use more than you licensed.
We defaulted to “Install All” additional features when installing our flagship product.
As the theory goes, we made them “addicts” once they became “users” of these features.
Once addicted, we could execute our ABC methodology.
I guess that’s possible.
Would you rather have SLKs?
Do they still exist?
What do you think of today’s freemium model for personal productivity and workgroup software?
Free —> Pay
Personal —> Bronze version —> Silver version —> Gold version —> Enterprise
Similarities?
My Account – The CFO
He quickly organized a call with us, and they were operational within an hour.
They lost about one-half of one day.
He was grateful for our efforts.
The following year he offered to arrange a meeting for me with their Founder and CEO, a self-made billionaire.
I accepted.
It remains one of the highlights of my career.
Lessons
1) Answer the phone on Good Friday.
2) Want to earn Trust? Solve a problem that is inflicting personal PAIN.
3) Assume good intentions.
4) Things are not always as they appear.
Thanks for reading.
Whenever you are ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:
- Advisory: my time helps Early Mid-Stage technology companies with sales performance
- Coaching: my time helps salespeople perform their best
- Digital: my online content helps sales leadership and sales professionals.
