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Business-to-Business: What are some useful Sales and marketing strategies for a Restaurants Solutions startup?

• Hello Quora community, I need some real-world advice on making sales and reaching out to clients. I'm an 18 year-old a B2B sales intern for a newly found startup based in the Bay Area. Let me tell you a little more background on the startup: Our startup provides point-of-sale systems and a hardware/software suite that integrates multi-platform information about end-user behavior and preferences into actionable intelligence that can be used to design/refine restaurant marketing campaigns. In addition, we also offer loyalty programs, mobile-optimized website, online ordering, social media services, etc. With this, we have a managed services option where our team of experts will handle the marketing, reputation management, presence management, and more of restaurants using the data concocted by our software. I understand that we have a lot of competitors nationwide but I believe our software would be the defining difference for market entry. We currently have 4 clients behind our belt and they are all based in Reno, Nevada. My boss gained these restaurants from personal connections and thus, I'm struggling to break in the Bay Area market as we do not have a solid sales plan. Sales strategy 1 that didn't work: We tried surveying the customers of restaurants to identify the pan points of the restaurant and so we can offer a tangible solution for them. Theoretically, it would seem ideal since after the survey, we will analyze the customer responses and schedule a time where we can come back to the restaurant to discuss how our company could help the restaurant. At this time, we will hand out customized pamphlets that address the restaurant's pain points that will be solved by our products and services. However, this strategy turned out to be a failure as surveying their customers creates a disturbance of their dining experience and do not seem to accomplish our main mission efficiently. So, this goes back to strategy 2. Future Strategy 2: We will go to the restaurants and ask the managers directly about what the restaurant is struggling with and from there, we will try to foster a connection where we want and are able to help them by introducing our products and services. If they decide to inquire more about our services, we will also give them a demo of our POS system and suite. >>>>My question is how do salespeople of Micros, Fivestars and established companies like them approach businesses and have them try out their products or services? <<<<< Unfortunately, we do not offer trial services but we do provide a money-back guarantee. I would greatly appreciate your feedback as I believe learning to overcome this obstacle would not only improve my sales approach but me as a person. Thank you in advance.  Best regards, CM

• Answer:

  Before you even think about talking about a demo and your product, you should gain their trust first and foremost. There is a great phrase to use,  which is 'Lead with Research'. Have you some data that you could send in a report form to restaurant managers? Something that does NOT sell your product, but will HELP the manager to run his restaurant better. For example, lets say you have some data that tells a restaurant manager that successful restaurants engage with 18.9 people per day on social media, or that a blackboard outside of a restaurant helps customers to identify it better than an advertising board - and many more facts like this.  This will HELP the manager. Then, when you follow up with a call or a meeting, you can say that "I'm the guy that sent you the report. Did you find it useful? What was your purpose for reading it?" etc etc. Thats exactly how I would do it.