Andrew Stirling wrote:

> Michael

>

> I TOTALLY disagree with what's been previously been said.

>

> You should supply the FULL product in demo form.

I am, for everything except the reporting.

>

> Let your prospective customers see the full product, allow "user to

> modify reports". It is your job to allow them to see the FULL advantages

> of your software.

>

> Do NOT restrict your software.

>

> Remember they will try out your software with, probably, real data. They

> will expect the time they have spent entering this to be worthwhile, ie

> its still there when they upgrade to the full product.

My plan will allow for this, for them to keep their existing inputted data.

>

> I assume you have reviewed restricting it to 30 days use etc & decided

> it is too easy to get round the restriction.

I didn't want the extra administration. I just went for the somewhat

"nag" approach, although as you'll note in my summary below that it's

not really a nag. It's just my MBSS logos instead of his.

>

> With CalcPay I offer the FULL payroll product.

> I restrict it to 4 periods of use. ie once 4 calculations is entered

> onto the P11 table(ie 4 payruns have been done & recorded) I disable the

> Payroll Calculator option. This can be for 1 or 10000 employees.

> (I also disable the ONLINE END OF YEAR report to send to our beloved

> H.M. Revenue & Customs.)

>

> This means that the user can fully evaluate the product.

They'll be able to do that with this version. I'm focused on the

FabMate Lite version at this point as it's basically done and working

for my primary client. It's worked for them since 2003 with hardly any

needed maintenance. In short, it should allow for maximum return of

investment at this point, not requiring much more from me other than to

add their logos to the reports. Hence another reason why I wanted to

embed them rather than have them separate for someone else to circumvent

my deployment approach.

>

<snipped>

> Find a restriction that is a major hindrance.

> Is this FabMate!? Can you restrict the Stock/MakeUp table to say 100 items.

> They can then fully review your system knowing about this restriction

> and then make their own minds up as to whether they should purchase it.

> Can you restrict a single major report so that they can only view it?

Hey, that's a good idea...I could change the report code so that it only

does a PREVIEW and leave out the TO PRINTER option. Simple and

effective, imo!! Thanks for that tip! That was worth the price of the

thread!!! ;-)

> Keep the restrictions simple & obvious.

> They can run the full product.

> This of course means they cannot reject it later( because it does not do

> what they thought it should do), you have after all allowed them the

> full run of the product.

>

> So what happens to a client that can survive with 100 stock items, well

> they get a free system.

> Get over it. You would have never have got them for the price you are

> charging anyway.

> You have however allowed potential clients to see see your software in

> its best light.

> Because your software is good they will buy it!

> (If your software is not good then why are you on this list!)

Good points.

>

> I find if you trust your customers they trust you.

>

> Probably one of the reasons that I come 2nd out of 1,280,000 on a google

> search (UK) for 'payroll software'

>

> Give your clients the full product.

> Forget about the lost sales, you would not have got them anyway.

> Concentrate on your clients, keep them happy.

> Ensure you have 95%+ retention of your clients, if not, find out why &

> fix it.

Thanks for the thoughts. I was going to give them the full product, but

without the customized reports so that they had MBSS logos on them

instead of their own. Likewise, all other non-deliverable (read:

"internal") reports would have the MBSS logo watermark, which would be

removed if they bought the software. I like Dave Crozier's idea of the

sample set of code that just looks for a setting in the registry for

flipping that switch. I'd like to do this somehow remotely via a

setting in a web database that the app would hit up front. The

requirement would be internet connection, of course. That's ok in my

book in this day and age. It's not intensive; it just checks a database

for a simple small query of settings.

Also, I'd like to bundle stuff inside so as to help better protect it as

a single user app. My first idea (and probably what I'm going to go

with) is that I'll simply offer this Lite version for free for single

users...meaning that they can download the software many times at a

company but it will only run on the user's local PC (and look for data

only on that local PC). Paying users would get a license that would

"unlock" the code that only looked locally and instead would use the

setting in the configurations INI file.

So to summarize, I wasn't really restricting anything except the

reports. If they want to create professional proposals that would go

out to their clients, they'd purchase the paid version so that they

didn't have my MBSS monikers all over the documents.

Sound better?