Founders need to get radically better at sales • Hacker News Board

Re: Founders need to get radically better at sales

#11

Post by hnmonkey » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:36 PM UTC

raleigh_user wrote: post #9

antoniuschan99 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any recommendations? Which udemy course is it?

I have bought probably 15 courses. Go get a few. Invest 4-5 hours in each. Put your phone down and focus This won’t actually make you good. But it’ll start the curiousity. Then, go buy a coaching program. I’ve gotten a lot. The more the better. Can start with one that’s small. I’d suggest spending 2k on all of this education in total.

I think he/she was looking for specific courses, but your response doesn't give specifics (which I'd love to see as well) and just points to buying courses or programs. Can you enumerate the things you've purchased and maybe even rank them by their value to you?

Re: Founders need to get radically better at sales

#12

Post by djyaz1200 » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:39 PM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #3

From reading the article, I'm sold on the idea that I need to be better at selling. Is there any material you'd suggest to help founders get better at sales?

Suggest the book "Pitch Anything" by Oren Klaff

Re: Founders need to get radically better at sales

#13

Post by mbesto » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:51 PM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #3

From reading the article, I'm sold on the idea that I need to be better at selling. Is there any material you'd suggest to help founders get better at sales?

http://www.enterprisesales.nyc/

Re: Founders need to get radically better at sales

#14

Post by themat145 » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:52 PM UTC

Definitely check this book out - by far best advice on sales for founders I've ever seen: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZHCSm5yUAGhdpDH9VFTPS271...

Re: Founders need to get radically better at sales

#15

Post by shams93 » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 7:53 PM UTC

That's why I teamed up with a cofounder with 30 years of sales experience. He's got a great vision for the product but no way to build it, I built it out in 8 weeks, he enables me to focus on the technical parts while he focuses on sales. Now we have our first test customer and MVP in place but if either he or I were doing this alone neither the MVP or first customer relationships would be in place, instead it would already be a failure.

Re: Founders need to get radically better at sales

#16

Post by rixrax » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 9:01 PM UTC

The Psychology of Selling Life Insurance[0] by Edward K. Strong might be considered something of a a classic when it comes to 'how to sell'. A bit of an oldie, but I think if you're interested in this 'genre', I would recommend to give it a go.

[0] https://archive.org/details/psychologyofsell00strorich/page/...

Re: Founders need to get radically better at sales

#17

Post by z3t4 » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 9:11 PM UTC

Are you interested in a device, that allows you to take notes, seamlessly anywhere, it's small enough to fit in your pocket and with a battery the last for years. Do you want to buy this pen ? Seriously though, sales is about understanding the problem and offering a solution, as a developer, not only are you good at this already, you also know how to implement said solution.

Re: Founders need to get radically better at sales

#18

Post by cxhandley » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 9:13 PM UTC

Unfortunately, any book that mentions closing the sale "my pen or yours", or objection handling isn't going get you where you want to be. You might get a sale but you will then have to work really hard to turn them into word of mouth advocates. It also results in your reluctance in wanting to sell.

I would recommend learning sales the hard way and you will need to put at least 12 months into it.

Learn about: - Becoming more open minded to see things from others point of view, dropping your own beliefs. - How to ask really good questions to find out what they want. - Be able to communicate clearly to many different types of people, marketing, CFO and the impatient CEO.

Re: Founders need to get radically better at sales

#19

Post by IAMsterdam » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 9:17 PM UTC

As an electrical engineer with 15+ years in global enterprise software sales, a track record of 100MIO$+ sales in the past ten years and 2 failed software startups as an experience i can share following:

- A company only has excistence with paying customers.

- The global economy excists because of supply and DEMAND. So start preaching the benefits of your products or services, because there is a very high likelyhood there is potential client in the 70 Trillion dollar economy.

- Sales has evolved to being the trusted advisor and filling the blind spots for your clients with facts, value and business cases.

- Don't sell a drill, sell the hole. Clients are not looking for the specs of the drill, but the size of a hole.

- Before you start building your MVP, sell the value proposition. If you are not able to sell and validate your value proposition, you will struggle selling your MVP.

- Selling can't always be expressed in metrics. It's like sex. You have to do it, to get better in it. So stop talking about how to do it, just do it...

- You think you can't do sales? Have you ever applied for a job, sold yourself to your current girlfriend, husband or wife, challenge a friend with fact or a value creation discussion? You have done sales...

- The conversion rate of off-line sales is higher then on-line sales (for B2B complex sales cycles). So start engaging with your clients face 2 face.

- There is an absolute relation between your activities and your (revenue) results.

P.s. If you are in 1MIO$+(global) B2B (SaaS) enterprise software sales: Complex sales for global matrix organisations with multi-level stakeholders can't be achieved trough reading a book.

Re: Founders need to get radically better at sales

#20

Post by afarrell » Tue, Oct 23, 2018, 9:47 PM UTC

IAMsterdam wrote: post #19

As an electrical engineer with 15+ years in global enterprise software sales, a track record of 100MIO$+ sales in the past ten years and 2 failed software startups as an experience i can share following: - A company only has excistence with paying customers. - The global economy excists because of supply and DEMAND. So start preaching the benefits of your products or services, because there is a very high likelyhood…

> can't be achieved through reading a book.

Note to others: Some people learn better when they first acquaint themselves with some theory, then take that mental framework into practical situations and use it to orient themselves and pick out the important features of a situation. Know thyself and if thats you, avoid disorientation by being getting good book (or class) recommendations and discussing them. Just make sure it is a tool and don't let it be something you use to retreat from the discomfort of practicing a very new skill. You can't learn the skill only from a book.

> Don't sell a drill, sell the hole. Clients are not looking for the specs of the drill, but the size of a hole.

This is an example of a true piece of advice which is a very pithy way of stating what is in fact some reasonably meaty theory.