Essentials for Selling Software to the Midmarket

June 1, 2011

Essentials for Selling Software to the Midmarket

Most suppliers wanting to sell to midsize companies make a fundamental mistake: they think there is one midmarket. Going to market with a “midmarket solution” won’t work; in reality, there are six different midmarket segments.

By Ram V. Iyer, The Midmarket Institute

In our work at The Midmarket Institute in facilitating collaboration and commerce among midsize companies and the companies that support them, we talk with a lot of midsize companies, their advisors and suppliers. It’s a misguided approach to think of “the midmarket” as a homogenous group of companies just because they fall within a certain revenue or employment range. This is simply a convenient reference point for salespeople and market researchers.

What follows is a description of the characteristics of the six types of midsize companies, along with my advice about avoiding the ”deadly duo” in selling to midsize companies, and tips for designing go-to-market approaches that are uniquely designed to fit midsize companies. I’ll also explain how the midmarket companies themselves are adding to the problem for selling to this market.

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Poll: Challenges in Selling to the Midmarket

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