Advice on Sales from other Startup Founders

Sales Pitch

  • Develop the right sales pitch that aligns with your business goals and metrics. Sell your product for some time before developing the pitch
  • Do the initial sales in Person to understand what’s working and how customers are reacting
  • Understand how pricing impacts the customer’s value perception for your product or service. People value your product based on the price tag. Test multiple pricing models to see what is working

“If you offer anything for free, people will generally be sceptical

  • If you undervalue your product, customers will find less value or use it less. People tend to engage more if charged a premium. Try different pricing for different customers and later reduce customers charged higher to provide a sense of a great deal
  • Experiment with different outreach methods for connecting with customers to see which performs better
  • Keep making small changes to your sales pitch and test it over a long period till you are clear on what works best. However, do bear in mind the situation and context so that others can replicate the success
  • Adopt a buyer’s mentality when developing your sales pitch. Understand what is in the minds of your buyers before the pitch as it allows you to develop a better process
  • Simplify by not selling too many features as it leads to confusion.
  • Too many features may result in the customer feeling that you are charging more for features that they may not find valuable or use
  • Develop clear customer success stories as they manage to retain customer attention. Never let the pitch or deck take away too much attention in the sales process

People Management

  • People want to work for someone who has done their job before, who can set reasonable goals and understand their problems. Ensure that the one leading your sales is a sales rockstar
  • Hire more than one salesperson at any time as a lot of churn happens. Hire around 4 people at any given time as 2 will leave, and only 1 will be good. One hire person will be an average performer, providing you with some bandwidth during crunch
  • Hire people who have something to prove rather than those who have proven already. Only those hungry for success will do better
  • When hiring, look at these 3 Key qualities
    • Do they have an entrepreneurial spirit? Enquire if they have done something on their own, no matter how small
    • Ask them to sell something in the room or ask something along the lines of why I should buy ketchup instead of mustard. Ok great, now sell me mustard over ketchup
    • Ask any question that shows how they think on their feet. Make some questions asking such as:
      • If there was a movie made about you, who would play you?
      • What would you title your autobiography?
      • If you won a lottery for a large amount, what would you do next?
      • If you got a large inheritance and decided not to work in a Job. What would you do with the rest of your life?
  • Hire everyone on a 3-month probation so that they are clear that those who don’t do well after 3 months, the person can be informed clearly. Have clear goals on what’s expected and see if people are asking questions or not during this period. Avoid those who never raise questions as it indicates a red flag and will never be successful in the long run
  • Develop a boot camp to train new people before told to make sales. Train them in all aspects with clear demos. End the training by making everyone undergo a simulated call to someone in your team across a wide range of people they are expected to interact with in the job such as new leads, interested prospects, technical discussions and pricing negotiations

Sales Process

  • Share the success stories of others every week, explaining how they did it as it teaches others how to improve
  • Sales personnel should achieve 80% of targets at a minimum so ensure those who can’t make it after the initial 3-month period are let go.
  • Provide bonus on a 3 or 6 months basis rather than sales commission as you save money as some people will leave within this period
  • Only share goals that can be achieved rather than some unrealistic goals as people feel it’s not worth the effort. Develop the goals based on real data rather than some industry metric or expert opinion
  • Ensure that every person has a clear script that they use always. Make max 2 changes every week so that you know what’s working or not
  • Let go of those who are not able to hit the 80% target so that you have a robust team in place
  • Ensure monthly training to ensure that every person is well-versed with the process and updated on any new changes made
  • Define clear metrics that are shared with everyone weekly
  • Create a competition that encourages people to work harder but achieve together.
  • Reward sales personnel with small tokens based on the sale closed
  • Have a separate team that tries new processes and experiments on sales pitches outside of your regular sales team. This allows for new ideas to emerge and keep abreast of changes
  • Public appreciation of success allows for high motivation
  • Ensure that work culture is not compromised to adjust for the idiosyncrasies of top performers.
  • Share customer success stories as it lets everyone feel energised
  • Invite outside experts for Guest Lectures. It provides a fresh perspective to everyone
  • Have a dedicated person who is responsible for following
    • The hiring of new personnel
    • Training of recruits
    • Training of existing personnel

Mistakes to Avoid when Scaling Sales

Broad Focus

  • Initially, you are open to working with any customers when exploring product market fit. However, once some scale is achieved, it makes sense to focus on specific customer segments
  • You need to focus on fewer customer segments and verticals. Optimise how you close deals with specific customer segments before scaling
  • Ask the following questions to define which segment to focus on. Only focus on customers who have the below 3 needs:
    • The most urgent needs
    • The Most Pervasive needs
    • The Costliest Needs
  • Look for common themes in your customers
    • Industry
    • Attributes
    • Age of Business
  • Focus on identifying the theme for your top 10 customers and align efforts to attract such customers organically
  • Focus on depth initially rather than breadth as you have limited time and resources

Individual Efforts against Systematic Efforts

  • Most people are great sales personnel but cannot build a sales process
  • You need to develop a system that allows everyone in your team to close 5+ deals weekly rather than hiring people who can close 10+ deals every week
  • Develop a sales system and process, which can be replicated by anyone with ease
  • Adopt a CRM system where data is logged in by everyone
  • Change Sales scripts or processes based on aggregate data and not basis single feedback from the top salesperson
  • Sales leaders should have built the systems in the past. In case someone has not done it, enquire on how it will be done. Focus on understanding how they will build the system rather than on the individual capability to sell

Someone who has built a winning sales script for a company with 400 employees is very different from someone who excelled at a startup

Premature Scaling

  • Understand the difference between traction and sales
  • Scale only when your every salesperson and customer is profitable
    • Every small issue right from lead generation, sales scripts, process and key metrics alignment gets magnified when not optimised
  • Scale with caution as not every process can survive sudden scale. For Ex: If you currently have optimised for 5 sales personnel, scale to 10 then optimise the system again. Every time you add manpower, scale with incremental steps to avoid scaling issues
  • Define your metrics on what it means to be proven such as
    • Customer profitability is 2-4X CAC
    • Systems can be replicated with ease
    • Will adding more people increase sales or does some other growth avenue exist
    • Will your assumptions still be valid?

Financial Mismanagement

  • Spending cash on things that don’t add revenue or improve efficiency is an exercise in futility
  • Always aim to generate revenue and break-even right from the start
  • In the initial stages, every additional employee needs to either increase revenue or improve the efficiency of existing employees
  • Getting a sale is the perfect validation from a customer

Don’t risk building a beautiful secret before you know if anyone wants it. Get out there and sell it.

  • In B2B as soon as someone shows interest in buying based just on your concept or sketch is a clear indication that you are on the right path
  • A customer will be willing to pay for your solution only if meets all the 3 criteria:
    • Solve a clear problem
    • Pervasive and urgent
    • Avoids a cost for the customer

Multiple Roles by the Same person

  • As your business scales, the salesperson starts accumulating too many responsibilities, limiting the time available to sell
  • Ensure that every aspect of the Sales cycle is managed by a specific person rather than everyone doing everything such as:
    • Lead Generation
    • Communication to Leads
    • Lead to Prospect Conversion
    • Technical or Demo
    • Financial Negotiations and deal closure
    • Account Management
  • It is fine for one person to be responsible for multiple roles in the early stages but a role needs to be limited in focus once scale is achieved
  • Define clear responsibility and metrics for each role
  • Develop clear systems and processes as a customer migrates to the next sales cycle
    • Most customers are lost due to poor handoff to the next person
    • Ensure clear communication with customers during the handover process. Explain why the new person is needed at this stage in your communication

Decisions on Intuition

  • Don’t make your sales decisions based on subjective opinions but on hard data and facts
  • Ensure proper structure is in place that allows for data collection, analysis and decisions
  • All sales personnel need to be trained in the sales process rather than relying on intuition on what to do next
  • Most people base decisions on the last 5 data points rather than the 100+ available

Lack of System

  • Very few companies define a clear system for every stage of the sales funnel
  • Focus on collecting data at every stage to make appropriate decisions
  • Key Benchmarks to track:
    • Traffic to the site (this should be the very top-line number).
    • Conversion rates
      • how many people coming to the site to fill out the form to learn more?
      • How many of those people become qualified leads?
    • How many leads come through your system over a certain amount of time, and how many are qualifying in that same period?
    • How many qualified leads are we demoing to?
    • How many completed demos are we closing?
    • What is the average order value?
    • What kind of churn rate are you looking at?
    • Have we been able to grow revenue from existing customers faster than we’re losing customers?
  • Clearly define the context behind every win and loss to improve

The first thing you need to do is get everyone in the same role doing the same thing the same way at the same time.

  • Ensure every person in a role is doing the same thing consistently as only then the data you collect will add value
  • When you can model things, you can also see the benefits or costs of solving a problem.
  • In a startup, there are always 1,000 issues to be resolved. You need to know which one can have the biggest impact on your business

Developing Your Sales Stack

  • At the start of your business due to pressure to grow, a lot of emphasis is laid on outbound sales with little emphasis on inbound sales
  • Even with a good inbound system, do dedicate some effort to outbound

Key Sales Mantra

Right Person, Right Time, Right Message = WIN Build. Test. Measure. Optimise.

Inbound Sales

  • It refers to sales that come to you organically or via marketing campaigns such as advertising, social media, content or other things

Online Marketing

  • You undertake Google, Facebook, LinkedIn or other online platform ads to drive inbound traffic
  • You drive traffic for Signups or leads
Typical Campaign Steps
  • Step 1: Identify the Goal or Objective
    • Choose destination. Place a pixel on your site so it can track.
  • Step 2: Select your Target Audience
    • Pick your ideal audience by selecting certain demographic details. This allows you to target your ads better.
  • Step 3: Define your Call to Action
    • This is your message that hits your target. They must be able to relate to it.

Every Ad network allows you to:

  • Target people based on certain attributes or variables.
  • Craft a message to display to them based on who you are targeting.
  • Choose a call to action that brings them to their next step in your chosen process.
Issues with Typical Campaign
  • Typical targeting results in high traffic but limited in conversions or final sale
  • Highly expensive while providing no clarity on what’s happening
  • Limited Control at your end
  • Typical buyers rarely depend on Google or Facebook Ads to discover new products or services.

Optimising Online Marketing for Leads

The key focus is on finding the right message and the right person at the right time.

Identify your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)

  • Your ideal customer who is most likely to purchase your product or service
    • Ensure high clarity on the target and granularity of the customer profile
  • Questions to ask to identify your ICP:
    1. What products are my customers using that I compete with, complement, or might translate to interest in my product?
    2. Where are these people living on the web?
    3. What do I consider my low-hanging fruit?
      • These are the people already doing what you want them to do, just somewhere else.
    4. What can I decipher from my previous closed deals that I can use in new ones?
  • Develop your list of ICP
    • LinkedIn and Facebook groups
    • Meetup
    • Industry conference websites
    • Trade association forums and directories
    • Job boards like Indeed, LinkedIn, etc.
    • Public legal filings
    • CrunchBase
    • AngelList
    • Glassdoor
    • Shopify
    • Any company database or marketplace
    • Look for the following Information:
      • Amount of money raised to date
      • The timing of last round raised
      • Employee headcount
      • New employees recently added
      • Job titles and new titles added
      • Company headquarters location
      • PR announcements, like product, funding, key hires, or partnerships
      • Legal filings

Contact Information

  • Once your ICP list is prepared, you are clear on who to connect with
  • If not clear on whom to connect, define based on the function you want to connect with
    • Top Down Approach: Connect with the senior most person you can connect with someone within the department, asking for connecting with the right person within their team
    • Bottoms Up: You identify the end user, and convince them of your product or service, using them as an internal salesperson for your product or service
  • LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the right tool for identification via Tops-Down or Bottoms-up Approach

Call to Action

  • Undertake a detailed lead research
  • You need to learn about your prospects so that you deliver relevant messages, which is valuable
  • Use specific trigger points to deliver your message
Company Trigger
  • Fundraise, liquidity event, acquisition, or company milestone
  • New headquarters or expansion
  • Key executive hire
  • Good PR (the company is growing, product release, CEO on media, etc.)
  • Good blog post
  • Competitor PR
  • Awards or recognition
  • New contracts or partnerships
Individual Trigger
  • Job change
  • Awards or recognition (Field Marketing Manager after a successful Dreamforce event)
  • Good blog post
  • Twitter or social trigger event (you will know from their Twitter if they care about a local sports team winning the Super Bowl, etc.)

New people buy new products and services. When someone is new to a job, it’s the perfect time to reach out and congratulate them and gauge interest.

Message Development
  • Segment your list via a common denominator or variable that a bunch of companies or people have in common
  • Identify a larger common denominator
  • Use any trigger identified in the earlier steps to break the ice and develop a rapport. Ex: Sports Team
  • Identify the clear value proposition for the person reading the email
    • The flow needs to be ” Hey, you’re cool/I’m cool. Here’s how I think I can help you. Let’s chat.”
  • Develop clear messages that align with the list based on both the above points
  • Have a clear definitive CTA. Make it clear and easy to track

Cadence

Cadence - It refers to the amount of emails, messages, phone calls or any sort of touchpoint in the sales process, and how often you do it.

Sales Touchpoint

  • Ensure you are tracking every step of the process in your CRM or email marketing tool
  • Key metrics to track:
    • Open Rate: Tied to Subject Line. The low open rate is due to poor subject
    • Clickthrough Rate: Poor CTA leads to low CTR
    • Positive Response Rate: Poor messaging or poor targeting leads to low positive response rate
    • Viewed Time: Indicates, the email was read but pending response. Communicate with the same message if the metric is rising
    • If there is no response, tweak the messaging
  • Test with a minimum of 100 emails as anything less can lead to poor data analysis

Cold Calling Tips

  1. Always think about what your prospect wants: Make the pitch not about your product but about the prospect’s problems and desires.

  2. Avoid personalisation: This might sound counter-intuitive, but trust me, I have seen equally good results without wasting time on personalisation.

  3. Focus on the subject line: If you don’t create a great subject line, your emails will be ignored. Ignite their curiosity through subject lines.

  4. Have a clear call to action: Make it very easy for prospects to book a demo meeting, discovery call etc. Ask them to reply with “Yes”. Avoid using Calendly or similar tool.

  5. Check your email’s spam score: Use various tools to check if you are using some words that may land your email in spam.

  6. Warm up your domain: Don’t start sending emails right away after purchasing domain & google Workspace. Warm up your email for a few weeks before starting campaigns.

  7. Make your email clear & concise: Don’t use jargon words. Focus on benefits instead of features.

  8. Include social proof: Include a testimonial or one-sentence case study that shows actual results in numbers (eg. 50% more ROI in 3 weeks).

  9. Don’t miss follow-up: Prospects are busy people. They might forget to reply or check your email. Make sure you follow up but don’t spam them.

  10. Make the offer risk-free if possible: If you can offer money-back or offer them a free trial, please do. This alone boosts conversion by a lot.