Ask HN: How to learn sales?

As an engineer/YC founder turned B2B go-to-market/sales leader, I can attest that it's hard to learn sales without jumping in and doing it. That said, a few things helped me along the way:

1) I found a mentor that I could relate too, one that did exactly what I was trying to do (an aside, I ended up joining a company called Boomtrain and learned how to sell while helping him build product -- this hybrid role evolved into starting and running their Solutions Engineering team.)

2) Be OK with being uncomfortable; a lot of sales is about putting yourself out there -- you're going to get rejection, but you start to learn how to place your bets and work in the opportunities that have the highest likelihood of closing (and therefore can be well-forecasted.) This is where a sales methodology helps. Calvin (the CTO of Segment) wrote this amazing blog post about about what we use on our Sales team: https://segment.com/blog/how-to-sell-a-b2b-product/

3) Spend the time building a defined process, whether it's generating top of the funnel/leads, moving deals through sales stages, and even a deal-desk process for inking MSAs/contracts. Invest in a CRM (I suggest Salesforce) to log everything and provide visibility on your business, while helping to manage the pipeline.

Happy to share more details about my journey so far.

I'm also a YC founder (Py) and worked with Mitch. He's been an invaluable mentor to me not just in sales but also in general COO advice. Could not recommend working with him enough. It is a Privilege to get to work with him. He has a wealth of experience that make his monthly rate easy easy ROI.

We went from literally $0k ARR to high 6-figure ARR in 8 months before getting acquired. He taught me everything I know about SaaS sales.

Mitch was recommended to me originally by Peter, CEO/Co-founder at Segment.

Talk to the right people is key.

Qualification is one of the most important skills to hone in sales. Are you wasting time with a tire kicker? Someone without actual purchasing authority. Wants to buy but doesn't have budget this fiscal year. Do you know the customer's fiscal year? Do you know the purchasing process at the client? I have seen many deals fouled by procurement and legal even though the buyer is ready to go.

study -> try selling -> fail -> study

or the better one:

study -> try selling -> success -> study even more

My claim is you don't have to do, say, MBA to study sales.

I’ve been in sales for over 20 years and the one thing that helped me the most and continues to set me apart is the 6 terrible months I sold cars at a Honda dealership.

It’s the worst kind of sales, but it teaches you the sales process, and most importantly it’s humbling when someone you consider intellectual inferior outperforms you time after time. Sales is not about intellect, it’s about building relationships and solving problems.