
Enterprise Sales for Hackers - katm
http://themacro.com/articles/2016/05/enterprise-sales-for-hackers/
======
lquist
You lost me here:

 _you can consider the typical “coin operated” sales person at a mature
company to be more akin to a script kiddie than a hacker._

The terminology you use belies a lack of understanding of sales' place in an
org and is frankly just insulting. To borrow from Lars Dalgaard [1]:

 _The “coin operated idiots” mindset toward sales is a mistake for a number of
reasons. For one thing, it’s a kind of bigotry, because it basically writes
off an entire workforce of human beings who create so much value everyday. An
outstanding and involved sales force can often make or break a company. It’s
why companies with an inferior product but a superior sales force sometimes
still win.

But the real problem with the coin-operated idiots mindset is that it
relegates salespeople only to the field or to the phone, when they really
should be considered part of the company leadership. Not this decapitated
thing you “slot onto” your organization when you need to...

Having a salesperson in the room means bringing in a bullshit meter. The sales
rep is the one who is going to say, “I know you’re excited that this product
was built on/with such-and-such, but so what? That’s not going to excite my
customers. How is this differentiated from everything else out there?” They’ll
ask the hard questions._

[1] [http://a16z.com/2015/06/01/clean-up-your-startups-b-s-
bring-...](http://a16z.com/2015/06/01/clean-up-your-startups-b-s-bring-sales-
into-the-leadership-team/)

~~~
thucydides
That's an uncharitable reading.

I do a lot of sales now, and I've watched a lot of enterprise salespeople do
their work.

As in any other human endeavor, some of them are phenomenal. I routinely sat
in on one friend's sales meetings and calls. After being raised watching Gil,
the hapless salesman from the Simpsons, this was like watching Billy Joel play
the piano or Roger Federer play tennis. It was obvious he was a master
craftsman. He was so expert at getting people to act in their own best
interest, while making it look pleasant and effortless, it was - seriously -
beautiful to watch.

Other salespeople... not so much. I've seen them too. They don't have the
intellectual horsepower, they don't prepare, they... I mean, frankly there are
a million reasons they're mediocre. Their mediocrity is overdetermined.

I think that's all the author meant by coin-operated salesperson or "script
kiddie" salesperson: a mediocre one.

~~~
radicalbyte
It's the Sales equivalent of the copy/paste programmer.

~~~
Terr_
And/or one who is paid "by the line" or "by delivery speed" and sacrifices
everything else to those metrics.

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brandonb
If any of you are a hacker trying to learn enterprise sales, a few years ago I
wrote a few lessons learned at my first startup here:

[http://brandonb.cc/enterprise-sales-tips-for-
hackers](http://brandonb.cc/enterprise-sales-tips-for-hackers)

Mostly orthogonal to the OP, but there are a few overlapping points.

~~~
jackgavigan
This is far better advice than the OP.

------
ianpurton
A book that helped me get into enterprise selling is SPIN selling by Neil
Rackham. [http://www.amazon.com/SPIN-Selling-Neil-
Rackham/dp/156511420...](http://www.amazon.com/SPIN-Selling-Neil-
Rackham/dp/1565114205)

Based on research into the field of sales.

In summary one of the key differences for enterprise sales is that it's a long
process with many people involved.

------
b2b
Great article, Ryan. You characterize large enterprise sales as being on the
order of "$1M+ deals"[1]. This seems a bit high for a startup with a newish
product, but it's certainly achievable.

Do you have any insights into how startups can achieve $1M+ in annual contract
value (ACV)? What differentiates their product and pricing strategy from a
startup that sells software for say $100K a year?

[1]: [http://themacro.com/articles/2016/05/enterprise-sales-for-
ha...](http://themacro.com/articles/2016/05/enterprise-sales-for-hackers/#e3)

~~~
notahacker
The product(s) are mostly differentiated by the enterprise salesperson being
able to convince the company they will generate a much larger multiple of $1M
in revenue or cost savings for the enterprise, and from being able to convince
them that any competitive alternative in the 100K price bracket won't yield
comparable results.

The ways that can work are quite varied: it could be very expensive software
that's necessary to control a certain business process, or a standard app that
is going to make small (but by an enterprise salesperson, quantifiable)
improvements to the productivity of 40,000 staff, or something that's sold
with metered usage that the enterprise wants to use a _lot_.

But ultimately to sell at that scale you're almost certainly using "value
based pricing" where you start by trying to identify how much the enterprise
customer will make/save from your product compared with their next best
option, and negotiate down from there.

------
jackgavigan
_> Usually the more complex the system, the more satisfaction the hacker feels
when he or she pwns it._

Equating "selling" to "pwning" is not a good way to think about any kind of
sales. Talking about "hacking" a customer suggests that they are somehow
inferior and that the goal is to somehow beat or triumph over them, to trick
them or exploit a vulnerability. No company should think of their potential
customers in that way.

~~~
icebraining
In fact, you should guard for the opposite; I've seen plenty of clients trying
to "hack" their software providers by exploiting unclear contract clauses,
minor slip-ups, communication problems, etc. A decent sale might turn into
loss if you're not careful.

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osullivj
One more important thing you need to know about the enterprise you're selling
into: what spending approval levels does the champion and his/her management
chain have? Often they'll have discretion over anything under 10K, and will
have to seek higher approval for larger sums. This is one of the factors that
has driven SaaS monthly charges as opposed to traditional perpetual licenses
with six or seven figure tags.

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spydum
Pretty good write up. The author glosses over the finance part at their own
peril. I'm noticing enterprises with longer and longer payment terms.. As in
they mandate their vendors provide net-90, which seems insane to me. It used
to be net-60, and even that seemed odd. So be prepared to be flexible to close
that sale.

~~~
cylinder
I'm pretty sure this is about controlling quarterly results for public
companies. They play around with numbers a lot to make estimates. They can
push payables out to the next quarter with net 90.

~~~
rahimnathwani
The payment terms would not affect the income statement, as the invoice would
be recognised in the same period regardless.

~~~
brazzledazzle
I was under the impression that it's more about budget and the ability to
better predict/balance incoming and outgoing funds.

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kriro
The point about finance is interesting and probably the one I thought about
the least. I think I'll think about it like NFL contracts in the future (front
or back loading contracts might be good for their "salary cap" aka budget).

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kinj28
Brilliant article. Agree to every bit. This is kind of enterprise sales 101 of
point solutions. However if you talk about infratstructure solutions (say
mBaaS, etc) - things Become far more complex as many a times you may not have
any business end point as your champion.

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Spooky23
You need to figure out where to partner with others as well.

