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Lecture 19: Sales and Marketing – How to Talk to Investors
21–28 of 28 posts
Re: Lecture 19: Sales and Marketing – How to Talk to Investors
#22The first 20 minutes of this, with Tyler, are the best thing I've seen in this lecture series so far. And, in particular, this slide: https://www.dropbox.com/s/axgpmehewplt7hs/Screenshot%202014-... ... has to be a contender for the most valuable single slide they've shown in the course. It is dense in an almost Tufte-sort of way: * It exhorts you to diligently follow up with prospects * It gives you an idea of how mu…
Couldn't agree more. This talk crystallises so many wonderful gems and this slide is the essence of the sales cycle.
I had my largest client say flat out "no" to me twice during what was an 8 month negotiation for our news publication software. It was quite testing, we had a lot unanswered emails and I got a wonderful education in sales.
Perseverance pays off but don't let it turn to desperation. That slide was 3 times worse for me, however, at some point during our sales process I had distilled the strategy down to focusing on "positive, forward momentum". That meant that if the conversation went quiet for a few weeks, momentum was lost and the next conversation took longer (this happened to me) and there are good ways to mitigate this. If the client has queries you are unable to satisfy, the momentum is working against you--internal discussions are now about how your product is not feasible or inadequate and that kills momentum and moves the pendulum against you. This too happened to me and we remedied this by adding conditional clauses, as Tyler points out. Any sort of negativity is contagious, whether its coming from you or from the client. It latches on to all people involved. You must nip it in the bud, always.
Re: Lecture 19: Sales and Marketing – How to Talk to Investors
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is at about $10k ACV for negotiated terms, and driven primarily by cost concerns. Below $10k, the cost of contract negotiation and signing blows out the sales model. Your reps would need to close ~25 deals a month, and that is hard when redlined are flying back and forth. Contracts of adhesion you'll have from $1. The primary benefit of negotiable contracts to a SaaS business is unlocking deep pockets which requir…
Why would your rep need to close 25 x 12 x 10K ACV = 3 million USD of customer value each year to make it profitable? Shouldn't 25 per year suffice?
This was indeed the goof-up. If $10k is a typical contract, you're probably looking at 40 to 50 sales a year to hit quota. If $10k is the minimum buy-in, 25 a year is probably fine.
Re: Lecture 19: Sales and Marketing – How to Talk to Investors
#24Thank you Tyler for your talk (and also to Michael, Qasar and Dalton), your talk is probably the best one I've seen during these 19 lectures.
I've a question for you (and to any other company which has sales reps), how do you pay sales agents? I'm reading a lot on that subject, and I still cannot figure out what would be the average commission to pay to sales agents in a SaaS/tech company world, would it be 10%? 20%? 30%? Based on every payment (ie. recurring) the customer does, or just on the first one? With or without a base salary and caps?
I'd love to know how you figured it out and maybe some numbers
Thank you!
Re: Lecture 19: Sales and Marketing – How to Talk to Investors
#25Sorry to be a party pooper but this is sales 101 - nothing special either about the talk or the slides. Maybe interesting for people who has zero experience. I won't drop a dime for this education - sorry if I am being harsh.
It is supposed to be 101. It is for people planning for 1st startup, maybe still in college with no exp or sales training.
Re: Lecture 19: Sales and Marketing – How to Talk to Investors
#26The first 20 minutes of this, with Tyler, are the best thing I've seen in this lecture series so far. And, in particular, this slide: https://www.dropbox.com/s/axgpmehewplt7hs/Screenshot%202014-... ... has to be a contender for the most valuable single slide they've shown in the course. It is dense in an almost Tufte-sort of way: * It exhorts you to diligently follow up with prospects * It gives you an idea of how mu…
Reminds me of Steli's story of how he followed up 48 times (!) with an VC who went dead.
Zero, zipzilch, nada.
Response to the 48th email? "Thank so much for following up, I've been crazy busy. Can you come by the office tomorrow 1pm?" (rephrased). He invested.
Of course, you have to do this the right way, he laid out a pretty good "follow up plan" in this post: http://blog.close.io/follow-up
Re: Lecture 19: Sales and Marketing – How to Talk to Investors
#27"fund raising is not equal to sucess" my best quote
If that's your favorite quote, maybe you'll like this post from Alex Turnbull https://www.groovehq.com/blog/turning-down-vc where he laid out his reasons why he said no to a $5 million funding offer.
Re: Lecture 19: Sales and Marketing – How to Talk to Investors
#28The first 20 minutes of this, with Tyler, are the best thing I've seen in this lecture series so far. And, in particular, this slide: https://www.dropbox.com/s/axgpmehewplt7hs/Screenshot%202014-... ... has to be a contender for the most valuable single slide they've shown in the course. It is dense in an almost Tufte-sort of way: * It exhorts you to diligently follow up with prospects * It gives you an idea of how mu…
In that slide what financials did they need to send for a product/service sale? It seems like this is for investor negotiations.