The insights and plan-of-actions explained in these articles are curated after substantial research and experimentation on what works and what doesn’t. A journey of a team trying to build a distribution strategy for SaaS solutions that are not mainstream, and for customers who are not sure of their requirements. This is where you not only make the product and therefore the supply but also make the demand for it.
Today, while we are at the end of 2022, there is still a lot of ambiguity around how the entire Web3 space will turn out to be. For some, this is quite exciting, but it brings unforeseen challenges for all departments/teams operating within a Web3 organization. Focussing on one of those, let’s talk about the nitty-gritties of Web3 sales.
In terms of technology, both Web3 technologies and Web2 technologies have similar backgrounds but approach problem-solving differently.
While Web2 brought in dynamic web pages and an ability to stay connected socially, Web3 is much more focussed on a decentralized web with the hint of automated business execution. Web3 is where information is stored through a series of blockchains hosted by peers sharing information amongst others. We can get deep into the concepts of Blockchain and Smart Contracts, but hey, let’s get back to how selling goes in both.
Speaking of Sales as a function first (and we’ll only talk about B2B sales in these articles), we know for a fact that it is indeed an integral part of any organization. Not just for the sake of revenue generation but also for other aspects of a business like achieving product-market fit through extensive market research and validation, and building relationships for future benefits of the organization. The process, as most of us know, follows, as usual, starting with market research, and followed up by prospecting, cold outreach, following up, demonstrations, trials, deployments, and even consulting customers on how to solve their specific problems.
P.s.: the crux of the para above is that in today’s B2B SaaS business at least, sales is less about being a smooth-talker who sells people things they don’t need. It rather is more about what would really be valuable to the prospect and how you can tweak your product enough to suit their needs. This is why, apart from the actual selling, market research, and relationship building is even more important for successful long-term clientele growth that will form an integral part of your ARR.
Now let’s compare the two subjects - Web3 B2B Sales and Web2 B2B Sales.
A quick overview of both spaces makes it clear that in B2B SaaS, Web2 Sales is far more established as compared to Web3 Sales. But if we are to go a bit more deeply into it, the following are the major differences between Web3 & Web2 Sales:
Decentralization: Web3 sales may be facilitated through decentralized marketplaces or platforms that operate on blockchain technology, which allows for a more open and transparent sales process.
Tokenization: Web3 sales may involve the use of cryptocurrency or other digital tokens as a means of payment, which could potentially make the process more secure and efficient.
Automation: Web3 sales may be facilitated through the use of smart contracts, which are self-executing contracts with the terms of the agreement between buyer and seller being directly written into lines of code. This could potentially streamline the sales process and reduce the need for intermediaries.
2 things to consider about the above pointers:
I say Web3 Sales “may”, because all of the above is not something prominent in the current structure of Web3 Selling. This is a hypothesis based on the fact that Web3 in general focuses more on decentralization, transparency, and automation.
Secondly, these differences were less from a process but more from a technological standpoint.
Let’s discuss how else Web3 Sales is going to be different from Web2 Sales:
Decision Making: In most cases, Web3 sales is equivalent to Community Sales. The reason is that most Web3 organizations are operating in a decentralized manner and how every new purchase or Grant goes through a community demo, assessment committees, proposals and voting whether or not to buy the product. We’ll cover more on this in the up and coming articles.
Inclusivity: Web3 sales may be more inclusive, as decentralized technologies can potentially allow for greater participation by a wider range of individuals and organizations. In contrast, Web2 sales may be more centralized, with a smaller group of companies or individuals controlling the majority of the market.
Trust Factor: unlike Web2, Web3 has most people operating undera pseudonyms and with crakhead monkeys as their PFPs which does establish how Web3 is great for those trying to build while being anon, but not for the sellers who are trying to build a trust factor with their prospects. This is a very obvious difference with really easy solution, but most people even in Web3 sales, still follow the same regime of being anonymous like everyone else.
Length of the Sales Cycle: In comparison to Web2, Web3 sales currently tends to have longer sales cycles because of reasons like community based decision making, global customer base, trust factors, etc. In this very case, the very opposite can be said once we have established a more tech based Web3 selling (decentralization, tokenization and automation as explained above).
Proximity with Customer: Now Web2 sales might or might not be something that can be easily done on a global scale with a local team. But in the case of Web3, most organizations, especially those operating as a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) have people scattered around the globe and so, essentially, the idea of “site visits” is comparatilvely negligible. But instead, people do travel a lot to engage with multiple folks during events and conferences.
This pointer might invite some opposite POVs but coming from a Web2 Sales background, my experience says that Web3 sales is more effective remotely.
Concluding, the use of decentralized technologies in Web3 sales has the potential to create more efficient and transparent sales processes, but it is still a relatively new and rapidly evolving field. The strategies and tools that are more prominently used in the Web2 B2B SaaS space, are not the ones that can be easily replicated in the Web3 space. The current Web3 Sales structure is also broken and demands substantial brainstorming and infrastructure development.
If I did a half good job in explaining, this article must’ve raised a few certain questions in your mind. Questions like, with evolution of Web3 tech, is sales here to stay? Or like if not in accordance with Web2, how should we take up the different sales related processes in Web3?
In the next few publications, we shall be answering the same questions, highlighting how we will be able to figure out the What, Why and How of Web3 Sales.