In sales you listen about your customer and solve their problems. It may or may not be with your product. But hopefully your product solves their needs.
Ask HN: How to learn sales?
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Re: Ask HN: How to learn sales?
#72You need to separate sales from marketing. Sales is a conversation, marketing is a broadcast. Marketing gets the phone to ring, sales takes the call and closes the deal. For B2B sales resembles project management: the goal is not to convince everyone to buy your product or service but to diagnose their needs and only engage with firms that will benefit. For larger deals you "sell with your ears" as much as you talk.…
> You need to separate sales from marketing. Sales is a conversation, marketing is a broadcast. Close, but not quite. Marketing is the brand, the image, points of differentiation, etc. It's the message. Advertising is the broadcast. It's how the message is communicated. It's the medium. Marketing + advertising = prospects and leads. Sales is the last mile. It takes the results of marketing + advertising (i.e., leads…
A conversation involves both listening and talking. Good sales people know that they have to "diagnose before they can prescribe" which means they must elicit symptoms and confirm need and fit with product capabilities. Really good sales people recommend other products when theirs is not a good fit. As the deal size goes up you do much more listening than talking.
Many firms that don't advertise--or do very little advertising--and are still able to generate leads, that's why it's normally included in marketing as one of many channels.
Effective marketing people also talk and listen to customers.
Re: Ask HN: How to learn sales?
#73Take a professional 4-5 day sales course offered in a conference room at a local hotel. Xerox used to have a terrific one; perhaps it still exists. Here is a summary. 1. The key to selling is listening. Your goal is to listen for buyer requirements and then to support them actively with specific products features that meet THEIR needs. (Certain features of your product that your company is proud of, but your prospect…
Pro-tip: HN does not recognize ordered lists. You need two line breaks between list items, just as with regular paragraphs.
Re: Ask HN: How to learn sales?
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sales is also graded by level of "touch". For example, selling IT services contracts is very high touch. Signing a deal could involve weeks of written correspondence (RFI, RFP), in-person pitching, contract negotiation, etc. Low touch could be fully automated with simple, non-negotiable pricing. There are lots of levels in between.
Weeks. I wish. :-)
My first job ever I befriended one of the senior sales guys at an after work drinking event. We built software that integrated into and with a range of embedded devices of which many were medical. He was one of the guys that worked closely with our EMEA customers who were notoriously slow to sign.
Three years later he drove in to the office lot with a brand new Porsche 911 which was a portion of his commission for closing the deal after something insane like 33 months.
He was happy to have that deal done.
Re: Ask HN: How to learn sales?
#75Whenever I hear someone saying the market is huge I think of this classic Thiel talk. Sounds like its definitely something you should watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fx5Q8xGU8k
Re: Ask HN: How to learn sales?
#76First time founder here who came from sales at a big consulting firm, and then and then had to develop the whole marketing and sales stack for our startup. Most of the books recommended in this thread assume that you're working for a established firm, with product / market fit, etc. Clearly that's not the case for a start-up. Read up on what Pete Kanzanjy publishes https://www.foundingsales.com/ - it covers the the "…
Is this how you substitute experience in an industry? As in the “we built this because we needed it, and it turns out a billion other people did, too” story?
It sounds like everyone ‘improves’ their offering based on feedback - but some folks seem to ‘just know’ what they are going through, and that somehow resonates with others.
I’ve always wondered if there’s a difference between approaches or if it’s all just window dressing.
Re: Ask HN: How to learn sales?
#77Hey, I worked in sales for years. So did my mother. I started B2B sales when I was 16.
Don’t “learn” sales. A lot of reading material and courses could actually negatively effect you by causing you to overthink things. At best, you will come across as calculating and at worst you’ll lose deals due to getting lost in the weeds.
Here’s two things:
Whenever you deal with someone, try to conceptualize yourself as a consultant and not a salesperson. Great sales people are more like matchmakers, people have some kind of problem and you have some kind of solution. People are pretty sensitive to in situations where they could be persuaded. Conversations should have the feelIng like you are trying to convince a friend to watch a really cool movie rather than high pressure, ultra confident wolf of Wall Street closing.
Two, if you really want to learn the actual craft of it then put yourself in more situations where you can talk to a salesperson and put them through their paces. Start taking calls from telemarketers and instead of hanging up tell them you would rather they send you an email. Go to a car dealership and tell them the car you want is too expensive. This is a decent way to get experience.
Re: Ask HN: How to learn sales?
#78I have no idea how to develop those skill.
I've been in some form of programming for 30 years. I know myself well enough to know I couldn't sell water in the Sahara desert. I just don't have it.
I can recognize good sales people, though. They are much less "true/false" in thinking than a good programmer. I didn't realize it for quite a while, but it's a symbiotic relationship-- programmers need sales, sales need programmers.
Good luck.
Re: Ask HN: How to learn sales?
#79First time founder here who came from sales at a big consulting firm, and then and then had to develop the whole marketing and sales stack for our startup. Most of the books recommended in this thread assume that you're working for a established firm, with product / market fit, etc. Clearly that's not the case for a start-up. Read up on what Pete Kanzanjy publishes https://www.foundingsales.com/ - it covers the the "…
Heads up. The foundingsales website took my username and password but did not give me access to the material. Instead its putting me through a "Buy the Book" or "Register to Read" cycle.
Re: Ask HN: How to learn sales?
#80First time founder here who came from sales at a big consulting firm, and then and then had to develop the whole marketing and sales stack for our startup. Most of the books recommended in this thread assume that you're working for a established firm, with product / market fit, etc. Clearly that's not the case for a start-up. Read up on what Pete Kanzanjy publishes https://www.foundingsales.com/ - it covers the the "…
Was about to post Pete's book too. Go read it!