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Hook and Punch™: Sell Software That Actually Gets Used

You can wow the CxO all you want. Dazzling dashboards, ROI models, “synergy” slides—cool. But if the business user hates your product, congratulations—you’ve just bought yourself a churn problem.

In the real world, software that only works for the buyer but not for the doer becomes shelfware faster than you can say “let’s circle back.”

Enter: Hook and Punch™.
It’s not a fight. It’s a sequence.

  • You hook the business user. Give them something they’ll actually want to use.

  • Then you punch the decision maker. Not with force, but with undeniable value.

If you reverse it—or worse, skip the hook—you’re setting yourself (and your post-sale team) up for failure. Let’s talk about how to do it right.

🪝 First, the Hook: Win Over the Day-to-Day Doer

Business users are the unsung heroes of software success. They’re not on the buying committee. They don’t sign contracts. But they live inside the product every single day. If they love it, they make your product sticky. If they hate it, they quietly plot its downfall.

So how do you hook them?

  • Make their job easier, not harder: Sounds obvious, but you’d be shocked how many tools add friction under the guise of "visibility" or "collaboration."

  • Give them wins early: Templates, shortcuts, dashboards tailored to their actual workflows.

  • Speak their language: Not “unlock business value,” but “get your campaign live 3x faster.”

  • Remove fear: Let them feel in control—not surveilled, not exposed, not confused.

You don’t need to turn them into internal influencers. Just give them something they don’t dread opening.

💥 Then, the Punch: Win Over the Buyer

The buyer doesn’t care about button placements. They care about impact, alignment, and risk.

That’s where you punch.

  • Bring the receipts: Usage stats. Success stories. Quotes from internal champions.

  • Connect to strategy: "This tool helps the team reduce campaign time by 40%" is a stronger punch than “everyone likes it.”

  • Show it scales: Buyers don’t just want today’s solution. They want tomorrow’s edge.

Here's the trick: the best punchlines are powered by the hook. It’s easy to sell value when the users are already whispering “don’t take this tool away from me.”

🚩 What Happens When You Skip the Hook

Let’s talk about Front. A shared inbox tool. At first glance, it’s a decision-maker’s dream: visibility, accountability, team collaboration.

So leadership loved it. What about the Account Management team? Not so much.

A single misclick and your most sensitive personal email—like appraisal details—could end up right in FRONT of your teammates.
It created anxiety. Not efficiency. We weren’t consulted. We weren’t trained for our edge cases. We were just expected to adopt and adapt.

And so, we didn’t.

Eventually, the post-sale team had to deal with the consequences. Business reviews became tense. Usage dropped. Nobody wanted to say it out loud, but the decision maker felt… misled. It got cancelled!

✅ What Happens When You Nail Both

Now flip that. Look at Figma, Notion, even early Slack.

None of them started with “Dear CFO.”
They started with “Hey designer,” “Hey marketer,” “Hey product manager.”

  • Figma let designers collaborate in real time.

  • Notion made docs and tasks merge like magic.

  • Slack made email feel ancient.

The business users were hooked. Then came the punch:
“Hey CxO, half your org is already using this. Want to make it official?”

No friction. No drama. No shelfware.

🛠️ How to Build a Hook and Punch™ Motion

Here’s your cheat sheet:

Hook (Business User)            Punch (Decision Maker)
Solves daily pain                    Solves strategic objective
Feels intuitive and empowering            Feels scalable and secure
Loved for UX            Loved for ROI
Easy to get started.                Easy to govern/expand
Creates user advocates            Creates internal case studies

It’s not one or the other. It’s both—by design.

🔮 Final Word: Build for Adoption, Not Just Approval

Software adoption isn’t magic. It’s not a “post-sale” problem. It’s an outcome of how you sell, how you message, and who you design for.

The Hook and Punch™ Technique reminds us:
You don’t just sell to the buyer. You sell through the user.

Win both, or win short-term. Your call.

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