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Ask HN: Where to find great Enterprise salespeople for startups?

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Re: Ask HN: Where to find great Enterprise salespeople for startups?

#3

Post by rms »

I would ask that question on LinkedIn: friend a bunch of people in your local area first. I think you have to pay to actually be able to broadcast a job on LinkedIn, but it can have pretty wide reach via your friends and your friends' friends. If you ask generically enough you may not need to pay.

Re: Ask HN: Where to find great Enterprise salespeople for startups?

#7

Post by ScottWhigham »

In my experience, enterprise salespeople desperately want to be found. They put themselves out there in all kinds of ways - they join associations, they network in their communities, they network within the startup community, etc. Generally speaking, the investors know who the best enterprise salespeople are. If you have investors, that is a great place to start.

Re: Ask HN: Where to find great Enterprise salespeople for startups?

#8

Post by shafqat »

ScottWhigham wrote: post #7

In my experience, enterprise salespeople desperately want to be found. They put themselves out there in all kinds of ways - they join associations, they network in their communities, they network within the startup community, etc. Generally speaking, the investors know who the best enterprise salespeople are. If you have investors, that is a great place to start.

Thanks - have reached out to our investors. Unfortunately most of their contacts are seasoned enterprise salespeople who are outside our current budget - we're trying to remain capital efficient, but still willing to spend if the match is great.

Re: Ask HN: Where to find great Enterprise salespeople for startups?

#9

Post by newacc »

shafqat wrote: post #6
newacc wrote: post #5

try craigslist - you'll be surprised - i've seen VP (sales) posting their resumes there ...

Yes, we tried that. I was surprised that Craigslist is used to extensively for Sales/BizDev. Wondering about other channels...

try all social media locations: myspace, twitter, facebook, orkut etc.

Re: Ask HN: Where to find great Enterprise salespeople for startups?

#10

Post by mixmax »

A small note of caution.

I did a startup some time ago where we were four founders. One of them was an excellent enterprise sales guy. In his previous job he had managed sales in excess of $100 million on a yearly basis. His job was, of course, to push the product. It didn't work out because he was used to a big organization that took care of everything from planning his meetings to serving him coffee. He simply didn't get the startup culture where you have to save every penny you've got, and do everything yourself with noone to delegate to.

We ended up buying his shares and he went back to big-corp where he was more at home.

I'm not saying that all enterprise sales people are like this, just that it's something to be aware of.

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