I think the book Traction by Gabriel Weinberg is really good: tractionbook.com
Ask HN: What is your advice for a technical founder learning sales?
31–40 of 81 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is your advice for a technical founder learning sales?
#32The hardest thing for me to learn was the million unique aspects of our product that we spent years creating, while they did make the user happy with our product once they were a customer, were not influencers in the sales process.
That's why our Founder/Developers couldn't sell for shit.
But a salesperson could. Because it was blue. Fucking blue.
Re: Ask HN: What is your advice for a technical founder learning sales?
#33I will be contrarian on HN. Hire a sales guy. It's worth every $. "If you build it, they will not come"
There's no doubt that experienced sales people are valuable, but I would argue that there is a point in a startup lifecycle where it's too soon to hire one. For one or both of two reasons: 1. You're still trying to figure out exactly what it is you're building and how to best price/sell it. That is, you're still in more of a "customer development" mode than a pure "push the accelerator on sales for all it's worth" mo…
To add to this, if you don't know how your product is sold, your first salesperson is going to have a much harder time doing it since you won't be able to share anything about what resonates with customers and what doesn't. Most of the good salespeople you'd want to hire as your first won't go anywhere that the founder isn't already doing sales.
Re: Ask HN: What is your advice for a technical founder learning sales?
#34"Always Be Leaving" ~ Jeff Thull I'm a big fan of Jeff Thull's approach to sales, as laid out in his books Mastering The Complex Sale , Exceptional Selling , and The Prime Solution . It really goes against the grain of the old school "grab 'em by the throat and don't let go until they buy" mentality. He rejects the kind of stuff you might associate with the sales guys in "Glengarry Glenn Ross" and advocates a much mo…
Back in my VAR days the money was always in moving to that trusted advisor role. You move from quoting parts to actually helping design and architect solutions, also helps that when you're involved at projects at that stage the deal reg is almost guaranteed.
Re: Ask HN: What is your advice for a technical founder learning sales?
#35I will be contrarian on HN. Hire a sales guy. It's worth every $. "If you build it, they will not come"
There's no doubt that experienced sales people are valuable, but I would argue that there is a point in a startup lifecycle where it's too soon to hire one. For one or both of two reasons: 1. You're still trying to figure out exactly what it is you're building and how to best price/sell it. That is, you're still in more of a "customer development" mode than a pure "push the accelerator on sales for all it's worth" mo…
Early sales isn't something you can outsource to someone else because it's as much product development as it is sales. Your sales process is essentially getting told no over and over, and then following up with "well what if it did this?".
That said, one hidden benefit of hiring someone to help with sales is that it forces you to spend time focusing on it (instead of just coding or whatever). It's sort of an expensive way to practice time management, but it can work if you need that push. Just don't expect the person to actually sell anything--figuring that out will still be mostly up to you.
Re: Ask HN: What is your advice for a technical founder learning sales?
#36Is this a consumer product or business product?
Re: Ask HN: What is your advice for a technical founder learning sales?
#372 books: 1. Spin selling by Neil Rackham 2. Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes
and of course ... taking action - making those calls and scheduling meetings.
Re: Ask HN: What is your advice for a technical founder learning sales?
#38Listen to them the way you listen to yourself. That is, there's friction (i.e., their's), how can your brand / product mmitigate it? As well as, what new opportunities might you be able to create?
Then, it's communication. My fave (Frank Luntz) line is "it's not what you say, it's what thry hear." Put another way, clarity and understanding is the responsibility of the sender. For example, if tbe buyer isn't aware of a benefit, that's oon you / your marketing.
Speaking of benefits, features are nice to list - especially if I'm looking for something in particular - but benefits are what move the needle. Doing X is not the same as Saving me Y or allowing me to do Z.
Finally, it's uusually a numbers game. You'll have to kiss frogs. That's how it is. Mitigate that but also listen. Perhaps they have a need as well?
Re: Ask HN: What is your advice for a technical founder learning sales?
#39There's a great video from Clever CEO about How to Sell:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZi4kTJG-LE
Basically he can tell if a sales conversation went well by how much each person is talking. If the customer is talking 80% of the time it went well. Vice versa not so well.
Re: Ask HN: What is your advice for a technical founder learning sales?
#40Would definitely suggest checking out these series of videos from a16z: https://a16z.com/2018/09/02/sales-startups-technical-founder... They're bite-sized sales videos from a partner over there, I found a lot of value out of them. For a sales strategy and organizational perspective, "Predictable Revenue" is a useful book. The hardest thing for me to get right was empathizing with my prospects and their challenges. Pu…
+1 these are great. I'm taking part in the Startup School and feel like they should just point people to these videos instead of their own