
Founders need to get radically better at sales - stanleyhtml
https://buzzways.at/collection/745/
======
IAMsterdam
As an electrical engineer with 15+ years in global enterprise software sales,
a track record of 100MIO$+ sales in the past ten years and 2 failed software
startups as an experience i can share following:

\- A company only has excistence with paying customers.

\- The global economy excists because of supply and DEMAND. So start preaching
the benefits of your products or services, because there is a very high
likelyhood there is potential client in the 70 Trillion dollar economy.

\- Sales has evolved to being the trusted advisor and filling the blind spots
for your clients with facts, value and business cases.

\- Don't sell a drill, sell the hole. Clients are not looking for the specs of
the drill, but the size of a hole.

\- Before you start building your MVP, sell the value proposition. If you are
not able to sell and validate your value proposition, you will struggle
selling your MVP.

\- Selling can't always be expressed in metrics. It's like sex. You have to do
it, to get better in it. So stop talking about how to do it, just do it...

\- You think you can't do sales? Have you ever applied for a job, sold
yourself to your current girlfriend, husband or wife, challenge a friend with
fact or a value creation discussion? You have done sales...

\- The conversion rate of off-line sales is higher then on-line sales (for B2B
complex sales cycles). So start engaging with your clients face 2 face.

\- There is an absolute relation between your activities and your (revenue)
results.

P.s. If you are in 1MIO$+(global) B2B (SaaS) enterprise software sales:
Complex sales for global matrix organisations with multi-level stakeholders
can't be achieved trough reading a book.

~~~
afarrell
> can't be achieved through reading a book.

Note to others: Some people learn better when they first acquaint themselves
with some theory, then take that mental framework into practical situations
and use it to orient themselves and pick out the important features of a
situation. Know thyself and if thats you, avoid disorientation by being
getting good book (or class) recommendations and discussing them. Just make
sure it is a tool and don't let it be something you use to retreat from the
discomfort of practicing a very new skill. You can't learn the skill _only_
from a book.

> Don't sell a drill, sell the hole. Clients are not looking for the specs of
> the drill, but the size of a hole.

This is an example of a true piece of advice which is a very pithy way of
stating what is in fact some reasonably meaty theory.

~~~
thetrumanshow
“Don’t sell the steak, sell the sizzle”

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eUmxGqsuKmY](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eUmxGqsuKmY)

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cxhandley
Unfortunately, any book that mentions closing the sale "my pen or yours", or
objection handling isn't going get you where you want to be. You might get a
sale but you will then have to work really hard to turn them into word of
mouth advocates. It also results in your reluctance in wanting to sell.

I would recommend learning sales the hard way and you will need to put at
least 12 months into it.

Learn about: \- Becoming more open minded to see things from others point of
view, dropping your own beliefs. \- How to ask really good questions to find
out what they want. \- Be able to communicate clearly to many different types
of people, marketing, CFO and the impatient CEO.

------
rixrax
The Psychology of Selling Life Insurance[0] by Edward K. Strong might be
considered something of a a classic when it comes to 'how to sell'. A bit of
an oldie, but I think if you're interested in this 'genre', I would recommend
to give it a go.

[0]
[https://archive.org/details/psychologyofsell00strorich/page/...](https://archive.org/details/psychologyofsell00strorich/page/n5)

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freehunter
From reading the article, I'm sold on the idea that I need to be better at
selling. Is there any material you'd suggest to help founders get better at
sales?

~~~
raleigh_user
Go buy some courses/coaching programs. It’s way less about one specific action
turning you into a great salesperson. You don’t turn into a marathon runner
overnight.

Ive spent $7k on coaching and sales this year (just what I could afford from
my small startup) and it’s RADICALLY improved my production.

Just start trying shit (udemy, go to local sales events, spend more). If you
actually learn how to sell you’ll be able to close biz for rest of your life.
Then learn real lead gen and you’re set.

~~~
antoniuschan99
Any recommendations? Which udemy course is it?

~~~
raleigh_user
I have bought probably 15 courses. Go get a few. Invest 4-5 hours in each. Put
your phone down and focus

This won’t actually make you good. But it’ll start the curiousity.

Then, go buy a coaching program. I’ve gotten a lot. The more the better.

Can start with one that’s small. I’d suggest spending 2k on all of this
education in total.

~~~
hnmonkey
I think he/she was looking for specific courses, but your response doesn't
give specifics (which I'd love to see as well) and just points to buying
courses or programs. Can you enumerate the things you've purchased and maybe
even rank them by their value to you?

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victor106
Anyone know of any sales programs that put you through the rigor of actually
selling something as opposed to sitting through a seminar?

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shams93
That's why I teamed up with a cofounder with 30 years of sales experience.
He's got a great vision for the product but no way to build it, I built it out
in 8 weeks, he enables me to focus on the technical parts while he focuses on
sales. Now we have our first test customer and MVP in place but if either he
or I were doing this alone neither the MVP or first customer relationships
would be in place, instead it would already be a failure.

------
nathan_f77
I agree, but I think it just depends on your priorities and goals. If you're
only aiming for a "lifestyle business" or some passive income to pay your
living expenses, then I think sales can an optional activity, at least after
you've some traction and paying customers. If you don't enjoy doing sales (I
hate it), then there's plenty of other ways to get more customers. Don't get
me wrong, I love talking to customers that are genuinely interested in using
my product. I just hate sending spam emails to random people who usually have
no need for my product.

I enjoy having a SaaS business where people can sign up and start paying for
it without any sales calls or even support requests. I actually haven't had
any success with cold sales, but I've been able to get plenty of paying
customers through search, blog posts, ads, etc.

I could probably grow faster if I sent a lot more cold sales emails or even
hired a small sales team. But I just don't really want to do that. I'm
actually enjoying the slower pace and taking my time to do things properly and
work on things that I enjoy.

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themat145
Definitely check this book out - by far best advice on sales for founders I've
ever seen:
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZHCSm5yUAGhdpDH9VFTPS271...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZHCSm5yUAGhdpDH9VFTPS271LZ-
RgF3YHkvZQePxGnM)

------
z3t4
Are you interested in a device, that allows you to take notes, seamlessly
anywhere, it's small enough to fit in your pocket and with a battery the last
for years. Do you want to buy this pen ? Seriously though, sales is about
understanding the problem and offering a solution, as a developer, not only
are you good at this already, you also know how to implement said solution.

------
sarego
[https://web.archive.org/web/20181023144643/https://buzzways....](https://web.archive.org/web/20181023144643/https://buzzways.at/collection/745/)
Archive link since the site is down

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LaserToy
Even engineers working for a company need to get much better at sales of their
ideas. It is not the best idea that wins, is the best idea that was sold

------
seapunk
dupe:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18263508](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18263508)

------
horatiocain
Humanity needs to get radically better at funding startups without all the
salesmanship

I swear to god, there needs to be a much, much better system to just
incentivize people building useful-to-humanity inventions. So far we've tried:
survival (got us fire and farming), traditional societies (got us guns and
religion), and capitalism (ouch)

~~~
bdcravens
I don't think what you describing is a startup. Most definitions point to pre-
sustainability while a company searches for a path to sustainability (meaning
it's reliant on itself, not outside funding). Just because it has code in it
doesn't mean it's a startup necessarily.

That said, even what you're describing requires sales. Sales is just
persuasion with agreement resulting in a transaction.

