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Ask HN: Any good essays/books/advice about software sales?

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Re: Ask HN: Any good essays/books/advice about software sales?

#44

Post by marcus0x62 »

mannyv wrote: post #22

Traction. It's about sales channels. Are you selling a solution? Solution selling talks about complex sales. I lost my old book, but this one looks good: mastering technical sales. The entire sales process is pretty interesting. There was a book on the buyer mindset that i can't find. But essentially there's the dream period and the fear period, and one of sales' jobs is to move the customer psychologically from the…

> I lost my old book, but this one looks good: mastering technical sales.

Mastering Technical Sales is a book about and for sales engineers. It isn't going to help someone who doesn't know how to prospect, close a deal, etc. do those things.

Re: Ask HN: Any good essays/books/advice about software sales?

#45

Post by mikesabat »

gwbas1c wrote: post #39

Crossing the Chasm: Geoffrey A. Moore https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm Basically, there's a lot more to sales than just "generate leads." You need to pick a "right-sized" market, tailor the product to the market (but not too much, so you can go after other markets,) and then as you grow, move to bigger markets. The markets you go after when your company is small are very different than when your compa…

This book really nails it. If you're selling for any startup or fast-growing company this book will have insights.

Re: Ask HN: Any good essays/books/advice about software sales?

#48

Post by log_e »

davisr wrote: post #8

Have you used much software yourself? If you know the difference between good and bad software (ahem, Electron-based apps are inherently bad software), then you have everything within you to write good software. The principles of selling software successfully are thus: * Charge a low price. A low price gets many customers, and a high price gets fewer, but the money earned equals about the same. Better to have more cu…

This really connected *something for me. Thank you for sharing.

edit: I don't remember tbh

Re: Ask HN: Any good essays/books/advice about software sales?

#50

Post by vampiresdoexist »

Optimal_Persona wrote: post #37

As someone who has made lots of purchasing decisions for software (ERPs, Electronic Health Records, productivity tools) at places I've worked over the last 18 years: I don't want to talk to salespeople, only product designers, developers, executives, and support staff. They are the people who make the stuff and/or are left holding the bag for the product when the salesperson is jetting off to their next meeting. Same…

I honestly don’t know many companies any more that are going to give easily on moving past the sales team. I have seen Sales Engineers, Product Managers, and executive sponsors come to sales calls once you’re a pretty qualified lead and at a certain spend point.

Tbh OP, if you’re looking to scale, selling to people like the above commenter isn’t going to get you there. (No offense to said commenter.)

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