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Tips for Founders Sales: Lessons from Starting Two B2B Startups

philstrazzulla.com

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Re: Tips for Founders Sales: Lessons from Starting Two B2B Startups

#11

Post by AndrewKemendo »

pstrazzulla wrote: post #8
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #4

I've always cast a wide net when thinking conceptually about what "sales" is, especially when I was a founder and de-facto lead salesman for years. For the longest I considered sales to be just another flavor of persuasion, and at it's very best it's almost pedagogical. However now, I think I'd rather just not be in business than do sales. That's really just a recognition that sales is an absolutely necessary part of…

What made you change your mind to view it as so horrible?

I haven't sat and gotten deeply introspective about it, but when I think about all the trips and dinners and conferences etc I went to in order to build relationships to get a same, it feels deeply icky that the root of those relationships was a desire for a financial transaction.

I think we actually did as well as we did, in part because being rooted in a transaction felt so wrong that I actually tried to build relationships with the people I was trying to sell to, in a way that wasn't purely transactional. I'm actually still friendly with some of those people who bought from us today.

Re: Tips for Founders Sales: Lessons from Starting Two B2B Startups

#12

Post by conductr »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #11
pstrazzulla wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What made you change your mind to view it as so horrible?

I haven't sat and gotten deeply introspective about it, but when I think about all the trips and dinners and conferences etc I went to in order to build relationships to get a same, it feels deeply icky that the root of those relationships was a desire for a financial transaction. I think we actually did as well as we did, in part because being rooted in a transaction felt so wrong that I actually tried to build rela…

Did you believe the cost/benefit was in the purchasers favor? Or were you cynical about the solution/value of solution?

I’m a purchaser of enterprise software. This is something I try to gauge from the sales rep. There’s a lot of risk in buying software that doesn’t actually solve the problems you face and you typically don’t find this out until well into integration.

Re: Tips for Founders Sales: Lessons from Starting Two B2B Startups

#13

Post by alex-wallish »

I just launched a bootstrapped B2B product today (also in the recruiting space). I've never sold a thing in my life before, but have suddenly been trying to learn how to be as effective at sales as possible.

Today I got some significant interest from a couple of fortune 500 companies and got some serious imposter syndrome. Any advice for dealing with imposter syndrome as a defacto sales leader with zero sales experience?

Re: Tips for Founders Sales: Lessons from Starting Two B2B Startups

#15

Post by panorama »

"Working out of one of their offices side by side is a great way to hear how they talk, what they care about, etc."

I've heard this suggested occasionally, how does this ask usually work? Besides the fact that our clients aren't near where we're based, it feels socially strange asking to impose on someone's office for a day - I must be missing something.

Re: Tips for Founders Sales: Lessons from Starting Two B2B Startups

#16

Post by preommr »

_curious_ wrote: post #9

Starting two B2B startups is easy and while there's lessons to be learned in failing, before reading your advice...one must ask/know if you financially succeeded in either via profit/exit? Sorry, the title isn't clear.

> Sorry, the title isn't clear.

If only the there was more to the title - like a link to an article that answers your question in literally the first paragraph.

Re: Tips for Founders Sales: Lessons from Starting Two B2B Startups

#17

Post by ta1234567890 »

alex-wallish wrote: post #13

I just launched a bootstrapped B2B product today (also in the recruiting space). I've never sold a thing in my life before, but have suddenly been trying to learn how to be as effective at sales as possible. Today I got some significant interest from a couple of fortune 500 companies and got some serious imposter syndrome. Any advice for dealing with imposter syndrome as a defacto sales leader with zero sales experie…

No quick tips, but can highly recommend the book The Charisma Myth by Olivia Fox Cabane. It has some great exercises that help you build habits to overcome many things, including imposter syndrome.

Re: Tips for Founders Sales: Lessons from Starting Two B2B Startups

#18

Post by JamesBarney »

panorama wrote: post #15

"Working out of one of their offices side by side is a great way to hear how they talk, what they care about, etc." I've heard this suggested occasionally, how does this ask usually work? Besides the fact that our clients aren't near where we're based, it feels socially strange asking to impose on someone's office for a day - I must be missing something.

Honestly I felt the same way, but the trick is to pick a start up where you know how and are able to do this. Or find a partner who can. The most likely way to do this is to go to conferences, happy hours, and introductions from friends.

If you are writing software for accountants and don't know how to spend time with accountants you're screwed, if you are writing software for in house counsel at utility companies and you don't know how to hang out with them you're screwed, and this goes for pretty much any B2B startup.

Re: Tips for Founders Sales: Lessons from Starting Two B2B Startups

#19

Post by t0mas88 »

panorama wrote: post #15

"Working out of one of their offices side by side is a great way to hear how they talk, what they care about, etc." I've heard this suggested occasionally, how does this ask usually work? Besides the fact that our clients aren't near where we're based, it feels socially strange asking to impose on someone's office for a day - I must be missing something.

I did this with our early customer by offering to help in a few different ways. Especially if they are geographically a bit more distanced then you can tell them you would be happy to be there for 1 or 2 days to do multiple things, like run a few workshops, have a coffee with their manager and meet with IT (all three just examples). It isn't a very strange question to ask to use a spare desk in between those things.

Re: Tips for Founders Sales: Lessons from Starting Two B2B Startups

#20

Post by t0mas88 »

alex-wallish wrote: post #13

I just launched a bootstrapped B2B product today (also in the recruiting space). I've never sold a thing in my life before, but have suddenly been trying to learn how to be as effective at sales as possible. Today I got some significant interest from a couple of fortune 500 companies and got some serious imposter syndrome. Any advice for dealing with imposter syndrome as a defacto sales leader with zero sales experie…

Yes, as a founder keep to the mindset that you don't have to really do sales. You can do a much more powerful thing: Do business by talking about the business with them.

Especially in the early days it's not super key to extract 100% of the potential budget from a client. It's much more useful to get to 80% of their budget and have a very strong relationship for feedback and to get referrals for new customers. You do that by doing business with them as a founder instead of applying hardnose sales tactics.

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