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Ask HN: What is your advice for a technical founder learning sales?

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Re: Ask HN: What is your advice for a technical founder learning sales?

#5

Post by Daktest »

Would definitely suggest checking out these series of videos from a16z: https://a16z.com/2018/09/02/sales-startups-technical-founder...

They're bite-sized sales videos from a partner over there, I found a lot of value out of them.

For a sales strategy and organizational perspective, "Predictable Revenue" is a useful book.

The hardest thing for me to get right was empathizing with my prospects and their challenges. Putting yourselves into their day-to-day problems can be incredibly difficult to do correctly, but improving that skill really helped me in all aspects of the sales process.

Re: Ask HN: What is your advice for a technical founder learning sales?

#6

Post by machinecontrol »

Instead of trying to fight your analytical tech brain, reframe the sales process as a technical optimization problem.

That comes down to looking for bugs that “crash” the sales process(objections) and optimizing performance of the sales cycle by decreasing the time it takes to close.

After every sales call, log objections as well as ideas the prospect seemed to respond to positively in a spreadsheet or CRM. Over time, patterns will emerge and you will naturally optimize for being better at sales.

Re: Ask HN: What is your advice for a technical founder learning sales?

#8

Post by josephmosby »

Think less about pushing your product, and more about aligning your product to a stated need.

Instead of "how do I get Product X into Company Y," ask "how can I help Company Y accomplish their mission with my product in a way they are currently unable to do?" The flipside of this question is "if I were CEO of Company Y, why should I want to buy Product X?"

Instead of "how do I convince Buyer Z to go with Product X," ask yourself "what are Buyer Z's incentives? Do they need to lower costs/increase their revenue/help their team communicate/etc?" Buyer Z has incentives - some of them corporate-wide, some of them specific to her/his day job, some of them very personal. Try to learn what those are.

Also remember that sometimes it's not a good fit, and that's okay. Preserve relationships. Sometimes you catch Buyer Z working for Company Y, and she says "right now, we're really not focused on $THINGYOUDO, and your price would be prohibitive anyway." Fast forward three months and she might have changed jobs into something that is very much $THINGYOUDO, and she now has a vastly increased budget. Much better for both of you if you have preserved the relationship.

Sales becomes a much easier road to walk if you remember "this person is a person just like me, and they've got things they're trying to accomplish in their day job. Let's see if I can help them out."

Re: Ask HN: What is your advice for a technical founder learning sales?

#9

Post by mindcrime »

"Always Be Leaving" ~ Jeff Thull

I'm a big fan of Jeff Thull's approach to sales, as laid out in his books Mastering The Complex Sale, Exceptional Selling, and The Prime Solution. It really goes against the grain of the old school "grab 'em by the throat and don't let go until they buy" mentality. He rejects the kind of stuff you might associate with the sales guys in "Glengarry Glenn Ross" and advocates a much more respectful and honest approach, where the goal is to serve a role closer to that of a doctor or a private detective, than the stereotypical "used car salesman" type.

I couldn't do it justice trying to explain it here, but if this all sounds interesting, I really recommend reading at least Mastering The Complex Sale to get the idea straight from the source.

I also recommend reading How To Measure Anything by Douglas Hubbard. It has nothing to do with sales, at least on the surface. But in terms of understanding customer problems, I think the approach Hubbard espouses can be tremendously useful at a certain point in the process. And I think it can tie back to Thull's idea that if you work closely with the customer to actually jointly develop a solution and explain the value it creates, then there won't be any of the typical "closing" issues, since there won't be any question about the value of the solution.

Re: Ask HN: What is your advice for a technical founder learning sales?

#10

Post by tschellenbach »

Take 100 calls with in-bound leads. I hated it at first but over time got the hang of it. That initial customer feedback is essential. So this is not something you can outsource, you just need to bite the bullet and do it yourself.

One the plus side you'll close more deals because of your status as a founder. It makes customers feel confident that any issues they have will be addressed. So you have it easier than an AE which will pick this up after you.

I also like standardizing a few things: - customer intake doc (which questions to ask). really a lot of the sales process is listening to the customer and capturing their problem - explainer presentation. just some slides that you can send after the call. - setup hubspot, clearbit, fullcontact to make sure you know who your inbound leads are

I also enjoy reading SaaStr, most of the advice is for a bit later stage though. IE how to build your sales team.

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