
What I've learned about selling (as a developer) - rgrieselhuber
For me, learning how to sell was simply a matter of survival.<p>Twelve months ago is about when I started my company, and I now alternate between coding and selling. I consider "selling" anything related to marketing (I know there is a distinction), lead generation, sales calls, product demos, quotes, contract negotiation, etc.<p>The most important lessons that I've picked up so far are:<p>- Get good at networking. Events are a big part of this.<p>- Networking is hard if you're not doing anything interesting. If you are, then it's quite easy.<p>- If you're doing something interesting and start meeting a lot of people, then leads seem to come your way.<p>- Leads are your lifeblood, so getting your network to provide a majority of these for you vs. you going out an hunting them yourself is critical.<p>- Most developers I know (including me) are a bit rough around the edges even if we're not dicks. We just tend to be more straightforward about almost everything. You have to learn how to smooth that over, but most of the smoothing process just comes from screwing up by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and then not doing it again.<p>- A corollary to being a bit rough around the edges means there is probably a lot of subtext that you are missing. It took me several months to pick this up, but executives and sales people who are used to interacting with high-octane clients seem to read a lot into slight gestures, certain phrasings, etc. that I previously would have thought nothing of. As it turns out, quite a bit hinges on these subtleties so it behooves you to pay attention.<p>- Acquiring the skill of situational awareness (also related to above). When you walk into a new client's office, there is a lot that you don't know. Your job is to learn as quickly as possible about their business, pick up their vocabulary, listen for the subtexts, discern cliques in the customer's team, and more. Beforehand, you can learn a lot about your prospect by reading their financial statements (if they're public), website, executive bios, social profiles, LinkedIn Profiles, etc.<p>My own situation is perhaps a little unique as I went from being a developer / development manager in San Diego to an entrepreneur in Japan in less than 30 days, so I've had to do the above in Japanese, which has its own complexities, of course. But in some ways, I really appreciate the Japanese market because prospects are generally very courteous and interested in ideas / technologies from the West.<p>I'm still quite a beginner in sales and probably not that good but I love it and, well, I'm still here. :-)
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physcab
One aspect of "selling" that is often under-reported is the importance of
making good presentations. I am constantly astounded at how bad some people
are at conveying their ideas. Even a brilliant mind can seem stupid if they do
not master the way in which they convey that information.

Here are a couple tips:

\- Stick with pictures. If you put up a paragraph on a slide, then I have to
choose between listening to you or reading what you wrote. Sometimes I get
confused and end up thinking about my next lunch break.

\- Tell a story. Don't jump into specifics and don't generalize. Make sure
your content is a happy medium between the two and it flows in a way that
makes sense to the average person.

\- PRACTICE!!!! Oh god how I can't stress this enough. There must be a linear
relationship between how many "Um's" and "oh's" and "ah's" in a presentation
and how long you spend practicing.

\- Improvise to social queues. This is difficult to master, but when you give
a presentation you have to be observant about what is happening in the room.
Do people look bored? Try to relate the content to them. Do people look tired?
Keep them informed how much longer you will be presenting. Are people
squinting? Emphasize the concept and not the detail.

Bottom line: If you can master the presentation, your chances of making a deal
go up dramatically.

Who are good presenters? Watch a few talks on TED.com, look at Duarte Design
(used by Al Gore), and read up on Edward Tufte.

~~~
rgrieselhuber
Thanks for adding this. Presentations are another thing that I'm spending a
lot of time on to get right and it _really_ takes a lot of time and practice.

I just bought the book "slide:ology" of Duarte Design (above) and I highly
recommended it.

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petercooper
_Networking is hard if you're not doing anything interesting. If you are, then
it's quite easy._

This is the biggest take away point from the post above. If what you're doing
is _really_ interesting (and not just interesting to _you_ ) and you have
passion about it, people will chew off your arm to hear more.

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jonmc12
Thanks for sharing - this was a great writeup on getting start in selling
software.

One word of caution from my own experience: networking is not a sustainable
way to build a business, but it is a great way to bootstrap your sales
process.

3 reasons:

1) If you want to grow larger, it is necessary for the sales process to be
bigger than your own set of relationships and abilities. At some point you
have to make a break from the comfort of being yourself in a networking
environment, and implement a more robust marketing plan that involves PR,
advertising, other sales people, etc.

2) Networking itself has a limited (though sometimes highly targeted)
audience. This is perfect when you start, but limiting at the point you need
to grow.

3) Even if the goal is to remain a small consulting firm, automation of at
least some aspects of lead generation and sales is necessary for efficiency.
For instance, putting a process in place to hit up your existing customers for
leads.

~~~
rgrieselhuber
Thanks for the advice. Makes a lot of sense. I started out with consulting but
am transitioning to a SaaS company, so this sounds like good advice. From an
operations perspective, I am making use of as many tools / process automation
as possible.

I mentioned it in another thread, but the book "The New Solution Selling" does
a great job of outlining the benefits of a strong sales process.

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twoz
日本語を知っていますか？

Not to be nosy, but could you go into some detail about how you ended up in
Japan of all places? :)

I find intrigue with any "developer turned entrepreneur moving to Japan"
story.

がんばっていょ!

:)

~~~
patio11
This may sound like a mini-rant, if so my apologies in advance:

I work at a software company in central Japan.

On a day to day basis Japan is a lot like England, with rather less white
people and much more expensive cheese. The language is a language, the people
are people, the business challenges are business challenges, and it is all
rather less exotic than people make it out to be. But I get the "of all
places" vibe a lot whereas I don't think I'd get it if I worked for a big ol'
publicly traded firm in London.

Its not exactly rocket science getting a job here. We have big freaking
companies which do lots of business with international customers. This is sort
of a necessary prerequisite for being an economy of Japan's size.

Many of these companies have significant need for IT. The percentage of local
engineers who can speak English is truly abysmal -- not quite as bad as the
number of American engineers who can speak Japanese, but its still far below
the requirements of industry. So when you need an English-speaking engineering
services, how do you get it? The same way Japan gets every other resource they
can't make locally: buy it from abroad.

Step one to getting a job as a professional here: achieve proficiency in the
Japanese language, where proficiency means "I can read a design document
written in Japanese and extract the business requirements from it, then defend
my implementation choices in oral Japanese to my colleagues" and not "I
watched anime and learned some phrases すごいよね".

Sidenote from my personal version of hell: Imagine the worst tech interview
you have ever participated in. Now imagine that the interviewee has less
working vocabulary than a second grader. Now imagine he is damned proud of it.

Its difficult but a lot less impossible than routinely made out to be. I
recommend studying at university, if you have the opportunity.

Step 2: Network. This primarily consists of figuring out a way to get your
business card into the hands of someone who will be asked the question "Do you
know of any engineers who speak English?" The ROI on a set of $20 bilingual
business cards is truly stupendous. There are hundreds of Japanese companies
with business in America, hundreds of American companies with business in
Japan, and tens of thousands of people routinely flying between the two
countries on business. These might be good folks to chat up. You have a built-
in edge because people who are bilingual in English and Japanese are rare and
people who are bilingual AND can perform as developers are as rare as hen's
teeth.

Technical skill is also a requirement, obviously, for engineers -- exactly
what technical skill depends on the particular industry and company's
requirements are. I'm hired to write CRUD apps for universities, not to work
for some amorphous Japan, Inc. The most popular developer job in my town, on
the other hand, is writing embedded software for cars. Their technical
requirements are not my technical requirements.

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raju
Great post. I would like to add to skmurphy and physcab comments here.

skmurphy bring up the point about networking, and that networking is about
aiding other to succeed, which in turn will help you succeed. Keith Ferrazzi's
book "Never Eat Alone" IMO is a great read and he brings up some really good
topics.

physcab talks about presentations as a good way to sell, and I admit, I agree.
I just finished reading (and am still digesting) Garr Reynolds "Presentation
Zen" (He also lives in Japan). This is a phenomenal book on some good ideas
and tips on how to give a great presentation. Its a quick read, but his
lessons are invaluable.

I wish you well. Is there anyway I can follow your lessons learned, perhaps
from a blog? I followed up your profile, and that takes me to your company's
(???) website, but maybe a link, in your profile?

~~~
rgrieselhuber
I'm in the process of launching a new blog to specifically document this,
which will be linked from my profile and firewatchingmedia.com site. Thanks
for asking!

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skmurphy
Good questions sell. Listening sells. Networking is helping other people:
carry more than your own card and connect folks who will benefit from talking
to each other.

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dawie
I think it helps if you build a product that sells itself, through word of
mouth, like 37 signals. I also think that is why PG says: "Make something
people want". If people want it, it won't be a hard sell.

~~~
prateekdayal
If 37 signals had not written SVN blog and released rails, do you think as
many people would have come? I would put that also into the "marketing"
category

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dasil003
37s was a very well known usability consulting group for years before hiring
DHH and building Basecamp. Not only is SvN good marketing, but 37s had the
kind of powerhouse targeted niche brand that is nearly impossible to obtain.

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symptic
I disagree with the "nearly impossible to obtain" concept. That's suggesting
they're something special or inhuman that your average person can't obtain,
while it's quite the contrary. 37S is a great example f what busting your ass
can accomplish; which I've found is the key to most cases of success. A good
idea helps, but until you really take it to heart and live with the devotion
it takes to succeed, you won't get very far with any product, no matter how
revolutionary.

~~~
dasil003
Statistically speaking, hiring a good marketing person is going to be much
more effective than a long term strategy of becoming a thought leader in your
target market (how many target markets have thought leaders anyway?) and then
exploiting your massive popularity for an instant word-of-mouth network effect
when you launch your first product. Even 37s themselves did not engineer this
success. Instead they focused on doing what they do well. They did not get
where they are by picking some outlier to emulate.

