{"id":12014,"date":"2014-03-28T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-03-28T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/creator\/?p=5959"},"modified":"2020-03-30T19:07:49","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T23:07:49","slug":"sales-startups-founder-selling-can-go-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/ideas\/professional-development\/sales-startups-founder-selling-can-go-right","title":{"rendered":"Sales for startups: how founder selling can go right"},"content":{"rendered":"

Startup founders have a lot on their plate.<\/p>\n

Founder sales will be the first approach for most early-stage startups. It may seem like a daunting addition to your responsibilities, but sales is a critical step that can not be compromised.<\/p>\n

The founders of Take the Interview<\/a> were wearing fifteen to twenty hats when we began working with them at Skaled \u2014 and the biggest hat was sales.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the typical progression of the lean startup method for startup founders to handle sales in the beginning. The founders know the product. They LOVE the product. So, it makes perfect sense that they\u2019re the ones to make sales, as they can communicate that knowledge and that love to potential customers.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, prospects don\u2019t care about the product like founders do.<\/b><\/p>\n

Co-founders of Take the Interview Danielle Weinblatt and Ty Abernethy were doing a great job of selling their product, despite having to squeeze sales in between a billion other responsibilities.<\/p>\n

Before we jump into their sales strategy, here\u2019s a quick background on the company: Take the Interview is a service for conducting interviews that allows candidates to answer questions via video, eliminating the time consumption of in-person meetings. When Weinblatt and Abernathy were contacting businesses, they were building their sales pitch around the benefits of using TTI. The service would save them time and eliminate the need to meet with people who were obviously the wrong fit. It would systematize their hiring process and bring promising candidates to their office faster.<\/p>\n

We decided they needed to take a few steps back and start focusing on the potential need they were filling in the world.<\/p>\n

Who were they calling, and what did these people really care about? What problems were they facing?<\/p>\n

We helped them start with building buyer profiles \u2014 identifying each type of potential customer and pinpointing their responsibilities and concerns.<\/p>\n

Once these profiles were established, we outlined clear deliverables and a replicable cadence of calling and emailing with consistent touch points built into their lead generation strategy. We helped to implement a few tracking tools to better understand what was happening when we sent an email. Systematizing this process allowed the founders to approach their sales responsibilities more efficiently, and eventually, pass on the roll to full time sales hires.<\/p>\n

There were certain takeaways from our work with Take the Interview that can be applied to almost any early-stage startup. Here are a few:<\/p>\n

1. Focus on a problem you solve in the world <\/b><\/p>\n

Make it easy for your prospect to connect with what you\u2019re saying by identifying problems you solve in their <\/i>world \u2014 even better if it\u2019s a problem they didn\u2019t realize they had. Once you\u2019ve established some affirmative conversation, your product pitch will seem less sales-y and more considerate.<\/p>\n

2. Build out a process<\/b><\/p>\n

Having a replicable process in place not only makes sales more manageable for busy founders, it also ensures a seamless transition when you do have the resources to hire full-time salespeople. At that point, your process will be optimized and you\u2019ll be able to outline specific responsibilities and deliverables with the insider knowledge of how it should work.<\/p>\n

3. Lead generation is about consistent touch points<\/b><\/p>\n

It might be time consuming, but lead generation is ultimately a numbers game. Consistently touching people with phones calls and emails will ultimately garner more results than spending all of your time crafting the perfect message. As long as your message is strong and consistent, you\u2019ll get the meetings with a little persistence.<\/p>\n

After developing a sales process with buyer profiles, creating problem focused scripts, and establishing a replicable process with consistent touch points, the Take the Interview founders began tackling sales more successfully. Not long after our work with them, they raised a Series A round of $2.1 million, and eventually brought on their first full-time sales hires.<\/p>\n

Founders can optimize their time and money with a replicable sales process and in no time, they\u2019ll be passing the responsibility off to others.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re interesting in finding out how Skaled can help your startup with sales and business development, visit\u00a0<\/i>our website<\/i><\/a>\u00a0<\/i>or contact Jake Dunlap at\u00a0<\/i>Jake.Dunlap@Skaled.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Startup founders have a lot on their plate. Founder sales will be the first approach for most early-stage startups. It may seem like a daunting addition to your responsibilities, but sales is a critical step that can not be compromised. The founders of Take the Interview were wearing fifteen to twenty hats when we began […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1055,"featured_media":34442,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43902],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-professional-development"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nSales for startups: how founder selling can go right<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Startup founders have a lot on their plate. 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