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9 Expert Sales Tips for Startups

2/24/2015

13 Comments

 
In the days leading up to our Startup Sales Conference, I asked a few of our speakers to share their expert sales tips for growing your startup.
By Vasil Azarov

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Jill Rowley, Keynote Speaker, Social Selling Evangelist, Startup Advisor, Investor

1. Embrace Social Selling

Use Social Networks like LinkedIn and Twitter to find and be found.  The modern buyer is digitally driven, socially connected, mobile, and empowered.  Social is an additional channel to do Research to be Relevant to build Relationships that drive Revenue.  Further, you can use Social to shine the spotlight on your BEST salespeople -- guess what? -- they're not on your payroll -- they're your customer advocates. Your employees need to look as good online as they do offline -- optimize social profiles to attract customers.  If you suck offline; you'll suck more online. #Don'tSuck 
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Adam Metz,
 VP TerrAvion, Amazon #1 Marketing Author

2. WORRY ABOUT Customers, Not Competition 

"If you're worried about your competition in tech, save that worry for when your company has achieved greater than 10% market-share. In the meantime, worry about your prospective customers who are using nothing as an alternative to your product or service."

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Jim Benton, Co-Founder & Chief Business Officer, ClearSlide, Inc.

3. Create Your Moment of Truth and Make It Count

Create a reason a prospective customer MUST hear you out; something so compelling or drives so much curiosity that they agree to book a call or meet with you. Then you have a single moment of truth to deliver on this and convince your prospective buyer that the solution you offer would truly change the way they do something for the better.  They key to this moment of truth is to have a well honed and repeatable way of showcasing the value of your product or solution - something that goes well beyond a simple product demo but includes customer examples, ROI stories, passionate quotes, and teachings about how something is changing and how you harness it to add value.  The more you deliver this personalize story consistently, the better you will get at it, and the higher the likelihood of closing business.  Focus on making sure these moments of truth count.
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Dwight Foster,
 Vice President of Sales and BD, Cirrus Insight

4. find compatible sales Talent 

"More and more startups with strong initial traction have been founded by engineers. Very often "sales" to these founders is like coding is to sales pros. Many founders make the mistake of hiring "seasoned and experienced sales veterans" from traditional and established tech companies.....which is very often too much too soon and results in bad outcomes and lost, valuable time. Founders should seek out and consult with sales veterans with deep experience that understand the startup landscape and can recommend near, mid, and long term sales plans and strategies often for a fixed fee or company stock tied to specific deliverables and milestones. Beware the temptation to associate successful selling at Oracle or Salesforce to similar success at your company."

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Brooke Botros,
 Dir. of Sales, Spanning

5. DON'T PITCH the PRODUCT, LISTEN TO YOUR CUSTOMER

It's very easy in sales to want to pitch your product offering and explain your solution right away to your prospects. Don't let this be the case, and ask questions first to uncover THEIR business and THEIR needs. You will get more customers and referrals when you take the time to understand their landscape and make the selling process as easy as possible for them to do business with you.

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Ryan Nichols,
 CEO, Tylr Mobile (ex-Appirio)

6. Drill Smarter

"Selling a startup's product is like prospecting for oil. And it is tempting to get excited when you see some oil seep into the first well you dig, and keep drilling. That's dangerous-- to scale, you need to tap a gusher. That first taste of oil-- a great customer call, for example-- can keep you from moving on to where you should really be drilling."

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Frank Slovenec,
 partner
 at Jack B. Keenan

7.  focus on How we sell 

In this time of an abundance of immediately available information, about every product and technology: How we sell is much more important than what we sell. The days of a sales person as a purveyor of product information, features and benefits is long gone.

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Braydan Young,
 Vice President of Business Development, First Job

8. leverage your passions

"You cannot avoid the social interaction of networking especially in the Bay Area. Whether it’s going out to dinner with friends, running into an old acquaintance from college, seeing a co-worker outside of the office, or being introduced to a new connection, this city is an open arena for social networking, which makes it great. My advice is to not only attend networking events, but find some fun, exciting and interesting things to do– join clubs, groups, teams–whatever it may be, get involved with others who share similar interests. In essence, leverage your passions. In doing so, you directly leverage your networking."

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Nilay Patel, Co-Founder & CEO of Selligy

9. DON’T WRITE BIG SALES PLAYBOOKS

You absolutely need aggressive sales development – do multiple touches by email and phone for both inbound and outbound leads. But don’t write up big sales playbooks, because no one reads them. Sales development solutions are affordable for small teams, you’ll get more touches per rep (and thus more conversions) per week – and won’t waste time writing something no one will read!
If you found one or more of these tips helpful, tweet with the hashtag #startupsalesconf
13 Comments
Heidi link
2/27/2015 12:23:35 am

This event is amazing! Jill def. is an more than awesome speaker!

Reply
JANE ELLIOT link
1/24/2016 09:39:35 am

Hello,

How are you? I am an avid reader of your blog. Startup Sales Conference. It is a leading technology media property, dedicated to obsessively profiling startups, reviewing new internet products,and breaking tech news. It shares some useful insights on startup tips and entrepreneurship. Based on data from scientific papers, I have recently designed an infographic which gives tips on increasing productivity. I thought it would be very helpful for budding entrepreneurs. I was hoping if it can be published on your esteemed blog. It would be great if you can credit us by putting our website link.

Infographic Link: http://www.servicecentres.co.in/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/productivity-infographic.png

--
Thanks and Regards,
Jane Elliot

Reply
Richard Benchimol link
11/3/2016 07:06:56 am

Thank you all for the tips. I can appreciate that there are many factors to consider when running a new business. I will absorb as much as I can to grow mine. Thanks again.
Richard Benchimol
Leads Indeed www.leadsindeed.com

Reply
cogo link
5/31/2017 10:01:19 pm

I am a new <a href="http://cogoweb.com">startup</a> owner. These tips are great. I will put them to good use.

Reply
Shiv link
11/20/2017 04:10:58 am

Superb tips, Shows me a new way to lead the startup.Thanks

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Shiv link
11/20/2017 04:12:22 am

Nice info thanks

Reply
Jihn link
11/20/2017 04:13:29 am

Informative and responsible

Reply
Felix link
11/20/2017 04:14:39 am

Got Very useful and unknown tips to lead my starup

Reply
Kumin link
11/20/2017 04:16:00 am

Hope more articles from you.Thanks

Reply
Surither link
11/20/2017 04:30:15 am

All the listed speakers are helped to motivate me thanks

Reply
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Ethan Romero link
1/11/2021 04:37:07 pm

Thank you for taking the time to write this post

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