Building Comfort with Sales
Building Comfort with Sales
Bear Grylls gets dropped into a new location in each episode. Imagine the same scenario for yourself without knowing what location it is. Unknown is scary.
Now, imagine the same scenario, but you know the location in advance. You can research & prepare. Fear will be less. The same applies to sales. Especially true for technical founders. And add to this the public chatter that keeps telling you that sales is hard.
You can use these experiences to get comfortable with sales:
Getting Started
Convincing someone's heart and brain to align in your favor is sales. It could be convincing investors to give you the money. Or convincing a friend or an unknown person to join your early-stage startup.
You've an edge as a technical founder for two reasons. Why and How. First is because you know why you created the product. Second is because you know how the product works inside and out. Now, detail out these two reasons and write them. Rough notes is a great start. Speak about these two reasons either to yourself or to a friend without any memory of the fact you wrote them down. Record your voice. Compare these two. Refine and practice until there is zero deviation. Repeat the speaking part and send out some pitch emails to close friends. Get feedback and refine more. You are good to go to sell to the real customer.
Creating First Marketing Collateral
There's an overweight emphasis on customer needs. But the reality is something different. Often customers don't know what they want, though they know the problem they have. That's why founders are the creators and not the customers. Talk to a few potential "friendly" customers to understand their problems. See how the product solves each customers problem. Align the messaging towards this. This will result in the creation of a few different scenarios for product messaging. Reflect this in your "rough notes". You can now rechristen your rough notes as the first marketing collateral. Congratulations!
Marketing = Sales Environment
Marketing is about creating an environment in which sales get done. The environment can be digital or physical or both. In the beginning, marketing is nothing but messaging. It is your ability to communicate how customer problem gets solved by using your product. Few simple things to prepare and keep handy. A good email template. Detailed one-pager with a workflow on customer problems solved by using your product. Thirty-second elevator pitch. Cold call phone pitch. And enough content to carry on a half-hour one-on-one customer discussion. To differentiate and get customer attention, go deep and map real tight.
Become an Evangelist
This is the most prized and rare sales skill. It is almost like hypnosis. A concept is all you will have in the beginning. You are convincing a potential customer to buy into a path of progress. Progress from a concept to a Proof-of-Concept. Then to the first product version. Upcoming future refinements. And later versions with more bells and whistles.
By evangelizing, you will attract a small team and some money to get off the ground. You will also need this skill during many phases of your startup. Even after achieving scale, many new customer segments may not understand your product. At that point, selling product features will not work. Evangelism back to the rescue.
Technical to Sales Transitions
Bill Gates, Marc Benioff and Tom Siebel. These are some visible technology founders who transitioned many functions. From engineering to sales to general management and became great leaders.
Either one of the founders can take on the sales leadership role full-time. Or you can identify a select few customer-oriented technical people in your startup. Then groom them into sales superstars. Such transitions are very much appreciated by the team. I came from this route.
My sales experience began after my sophomore year in undergraduate engineering. I've deep respect for people who can rally their team and strangers towards a larger goal.
Next Note: Creating a High-Performance Sales Team
Now, imagine the same scenario, but you know the location in advance. You can research & prepare. Fear will be less. The same applies to sales. Especially true for technical founders. And add to this the public chatter that keeps telling you that sales is hard.
You can use these experiences to get comfortable with sales:
Getting Started
Convincing someone's heart and brain to align in your favor is sales. It could be convincing investors to give you the money. Or convincing a friend or an unknown person to join your early-stage startup.
You've an edge as a technical founder for two reasons. Why and How. First is because you know why you created the product. Second is because you know how the product works inside and out. Now, detail out these two reasons and write them. Rough notes is a great start. Speak about these two reasons either to yourself or to a friend without any memory of the fact you wrote them down. Record your voice. Compare these two. Refine and practice until there is zero deviation. Repeat the speaking part and send out some pitch emails to close friends. Get feedback and refine more. You are good to go to sell to the real customer.
Creating First Marketing Collateral
There's an overweight emphasis on customer needs. But the reality is something different. Often customers don't know what they want, though they know the problem they have. That's why founders are the creators and not the customers. Talk to a few potential "friendly" customers to understand their problems. See how the product solves each customers problem. Align the messaging towards this. This will result in the creation of a few different scenarios for product messaging. Reflect this in your "rough notes". You can now rechristen your rough notes as the first marketing collateral. Congratulations!
Marketing = Sales Environment
Marketing is about creating an environment in which sales get done. The environment can be digital or physical or both. In the beginning, marketing is nothing but messaging. It is your ability to communicate how customer problem gets solved by using your product. Few simple things to prepare and keep handy. A good email template. Detailed one-pager with a workflow on customer problems solved by using your product. Thirty-second elevator pitch. Cold call phone pitch. And enough content to carry on a half-hour one-on-one customer discussion. To differentiate and get customer attention, go deep and map real tight.
Become an Evangelist
This is the most prized and rare sales skill. It is almost like hypnosis. A concept is all you will have in the beginning. You are convincing a potential customer to buy into a path of progress. Progress from a concept to a Proof-of-Concept. Then to the first product version. Upcoming future refinements. And later versions with more bells and whistles.
By evangelizing, you will attract a small team and some money to get off the ground. You will also need this skill during many phases of your startup. Even after achieving scale, many new customer segments may not understand your product. At that point, selling product features will not work. Evangelism back to the rescue.
Technical to Sales Transitions
Bill Gates, Marc Benioff and Tom Siebel. These are some visible technology founders who transitioned many functions. From engineering to sales to general management and became great leaders.
Either one of the founders can take on the sales leadership role full-time. Or you can identify a select few customer-oriented technical people in your startup. Then groom them into sales superstars. Such transitions are very much appreciated by the team. I came from this route.
My sales experience began after my sophomore year in undergraduate engineering. I've deep respect for people who can rally their team and strangers towards a larger goal.
Next Note: Creating a High-Performance Sales Team
Let's Talk: If you have a true experience that resonates, please send me an email.
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