This is freaking brilliant.
Instead of carpet bombing prospective users with whitepaper sales bullshit (hello, Pentaho!) put out a good freemium or open source product with a straightforward pricing model, and lace the software or web site or mailing lists or IRC channel or other techie hangouts with practical advice for setting up a purchase order and explaining the value proposition to management.
Most of the "sales" guidance is not really specific to a specific product, so a core set of materials an tools for building a pitch deck could be deployed with minor customizations for each product.
win-win win:
Software product companies need fewer salesmen, so they can sell at a lower price for higher profit, and users get easier access to the tools they need to be efficient, and engineers develop credibility as business leaders in their organizations.
The biggest benefit I think is the lower barrier to entry for these clients. That creates more competition and better products. How do I communicate that to enterprise clients? I suspect that they think a higher barrier to entry is a good thing b/c it weeds out bad companies.
It is just a brain storming exercise at the moment, but if I can come up with something clever I will try to make some noise.
Most of the "sales" guidance is not really specific to a specific product, so a core set of materials an tools for building a pitch deck could be deployed with minor customizations for each product.
win-win win:
Software product companies need fewer salesmen, so they can sell at a lower price for higher profit, and users get easier access to the tools they need to be efficient, and engineers develop credibility as business leaders in their organizations.
Keep me posted on your progress.