If you are not also taking a page from the #Slack playbook, your competitors are going to displace you...

The #Slack-Growth Hack is going to become the next term used for up-and-coming enterprise SaaS go-to-market strategies...

Microsoft Teams, Cisco Jabber, Google Hangouts...none of these 'too large to fail' companies could have predicted Slack's grassroots efforts towards becoming one of the now largest collaboration tools.

The other day I had a discussion with my colleagues around if this model could actually work in other enterprise industries...

...to sum it up... the group was split.

Before we start to discuss how the Slack model can work in other industries, let's start by getting on the same page of what Slack did ...

// The Slack Difference //

Slack was uniquely focused on solving problems for their end-users, not their customers.

Today's Enterprise Script...

When we think about traditional enterprise sales, we can all imagine a Sales Rep reaching out to a prospective customer's employees, most likely with a title greater than "Director," - and begging to get a few minutes of their time.

If the Sales Rep is lucky, the prospect doesn't like their current application...and is open to hearing them out.

There is a back-and-forth dance of product demos and discussions of the potential benefits the customer can have by making this industry-leading decision. ????

Eventually, the prospect decides to take the plunge for something new and there is a celebratory kick-off to implement. ??

After going through the necessary bureaucracy - the company announces the switch and pushes it down to all of the end-user employees to start using.

? Congratulations - Implementation & Rollout Complete

...with a large segment of people reluctantly learning something they are told to use...??

Slack's Playbook of Tomorrow...

Being hyper-focused on creating a product that made users' lives easier resulted in Slack virally spreading throughout enterprises.

Was an Instant Messenger new? Nope.

Were there other ways to send a document? Yup.

Did the company have a slew of applications to use for different tasks...Yes...

...that communicated easily with one another...No.

?? Let's combine all things above and MAKE IT FREE. ??

We all know that a referral is the most valuable form of marketing.

When your team is advocating their teammates to use it, there is a mind-shift involved in the learning process...

...you WANT to learn it and you start to unlock even more about the software because you actually start to LIKE it.

// What Slack did in their industry wouldn't work in my industry... //

Here's where there was a division amongst my colleagues during our conversation...

...there was agreement that other industries could adopt a #Slack inspired GTM...if there was one condition met:

The application must be used frequently by a large number of end-users.

So let's breakdown what this actually means.

Scenario 1

An applicant tracking system (ATS)? This is used by a bunch of end-users outside the organization... good candidate for Slack-Growth Hack? NOPE...

...there may be a lot of end-users but they do not have a direct effect (or influence) within the company.

Scenario 2

A personnel scheduling system for a restaurant chain? Now, this is an application we can dive further into...

Let's assume the restaurant chain uses Software A to manage assignments, trading and covering of shifts - but the end-user experience for servers, hosts, and chefs is terrible. ??

But wait - this Software A provides corporate with everything they need!!!

Here comes Software B, which can scrape the details from the Software A and package it so that it's super easy for the end-users to do anything they need. Even better...the end-users can now do MORE.

Software B can even communicate back to Software A so that it is almost like nothing ever happened...

Software B ends up on the restaurant manager and corporate's radar...this has to be looked into...

...Software B is adopted by 80% of the workforce...Software A was adopted by 40%. ??

Looks like Software B is going to be getting a call from the restaurant chain...

// Make something people love and it will sell itself. //

The scenarios above are light examples of how rethinking enterprise software can be sold into an enterprise.

I'm sure with some additional thought, someone can come up with something way more creative.

Where there is a high end-user adoption rate...that almost goes viral by itself...the switching cost to a new solution almost disappears.

What's better for an enterprise: An amazing product no one uses or a product that meets expectations that are adopted by everyone?