Jon Low’s Post

🚀 Founding Sales: The Early Stage Go-to-Market Handbook by Peter Kazanjy is a must-read for startup founders new to sales. It guides you through the unique approach to startup sales, emphasizing work that doesn’t scale. 🧠 Adopt a sales mindset: move quickly, maintain an "abundance mentality," and treat each sale as inevitable until clearly rejected. Use CRM software to track customer info and metrics. 📜 Craft a compelling narrative: describe the problem, current solutions' inadequacies, and your solution's value compared to its price. Start with lower pricing but avoid giving it away for free. 🎨 Prepare customized sales materials: tailor your slide deck, emails, and demos to each client's specific needs. Invest in marketing materials like videos to support sales efforts. 🔍 Qualify prospects efficiently: focus on medium-large local accounts and use LinkedIn for the most current info. Avoid outdated contact lists. 📧 Founders should handle initial outreach: convince prospects to commit to a demo, use tactics to keep them engaged, and leverage LinkedIn for warm contacts. 📝 Capture and qualify inbound leads quickly: respond within five minutes to maintain their interest and ensure they meet your criteria. 💬 Perfect your pitch and demo: review the client’s needs, engage in discovery questions, and customize your demo. Ask for the sale and provide multiple proposal options, prepared for common objections. 📊 Track your sales pipeline: monitor each stage to prevent deals from stalling and prioritize high-value customers. Once the process is proven, hire junior sales reps to scale. 🔄 Ensure customer success: provide training, be accessible for support, and keep key decision-makers updated to ensure renewals. 🏗️ Scale the sales organization: hire SDRs for prospecting, AEs for selling, and CSMs for post-sale relationships. Track metrics, conduct performance reviews, and establish clear processes and career paths. 👥 Hire the right salespeople: look for persistence, intelligence, positivity, and attention to detail. Conduct thorough interviews, offer performance-based compensation, and provide comprehensive onboarding and training. #Sales #Startup #GoToMarket #Founders #BusinessGrowth #SalesStrategy

3 ideas B2B startup founders need to consider before building a sales org: 1. You can’t scale founder magic The way you got your first 20 customers won’t be the way you get the next 20, 50 or 100. You’ll need a measurable system that you can teach to your team. 2. Your next hires will take longer than you think to ramp (but maybe not as long as you fear) If your sales cycle is 3-4 months, it should take a new hire 4-5 months to start producing and 6-8 months to fully ramp. This is doubly true if more than 30% of your leads are from outbound. In my experience this is one of the least understood parts of hiring. No, your new AE won’t be closing deals in their first month. And no, it should not take anyone 12-18 months to close their first deal - no matter how complex your product is. 3. Salespeople aren’t superheroes The tenured AE from Microsoft won’t save you. The VP from the rocketship startup that single handedly took them from $1 to $100M ARR won’t save you. The industry expert with a rolodex won’t save you. If you have a strong opinion on your ICP, product market fit, a quasi-repeatable sales process, and existing demand, they will help you. But you must be prepared to help them too. What would you add? ———— Enjoyed this post?  Click here ➡️ https://lnkd.in/gVU57dyv to hit follow & ring my 🔔 for more

Founders often end up as their startup's first salesperson. In a new video with Chase Roberts, Evisort CEO and co-founder Jerry Ting, JD gives a crash course on what founders need to know about building and scaling their sales engine from their earliest days. You can watch the video and read the highlights on our blog, linked below. But here are some key takeaways: 1) Selling starts with listening: Instead of pitching a bag of features, listen to what problems prospective buyers are trying to solve. Then, match your bag of features to those problems in a way that creates value for these potential customers. 2) Identify the key stakeholders: The budget holder, executive decision maker, technical gatekeeper, and influencer/champion. Identifying these folks and their perspectives reveals if you have “happy ears” or if your prospective customer is actually engaged in a buying motion. 3) Selling should be hard: If you’re not running into significant friction, it suggests you haven’t had hard conversations about change management, TCO, and build vs. buy. It’s possible that you haven’t revealed the dissenter or the person who doesn’t want you to succeed. These kinds of people are common! 4) Founders are a secret sales weapon: Don’t count on a newly hired sales leader to figure out the repeatable sales playbook. You, as a founder, have the maximum context: why this product exists, what makes it exceptional, competitive positioning, industry trends, knowledge of the underlying technology, product roadmap sequencing, and so forth. 5) Hire salespeople before sales leaders: Start with frontline “player coaches” before hiring sales leadership. The latter will be more focused on implementing Salesforce, building dashboards, doing one-on-ones with their reps, designing systems, or whatever — when you actually need someone closing deals. #startup #startupsales #startupadvice #sales #startupadvice https://lnkd.in/e3sVSsDs Read more:

A paradox in early stage B2B sales: The more sales experience, the worse your initial performance. Imagine you run a 'venture competition'. Two teams, same idea, same market, different team composition. In team A: your first 'sales agent' is a 10+ year veteran who has seen it all from SME to corporate sales. In team B: your first 'sales agent' is a non-commercial first time founder with zero sales experience. Easy pick, right? Team A, right? Turns out: more often than not the first-time founder with zero sales experience closes more deals faster than the sales veteran. But, why? Because learning is faster than re-learning. I have observed that people with 10+ years of sales experience don’t function well in the early stage, because they’ve forgotten - or never learned - how to generate demand without a finished product, a brand to rely on, a clear ICP, etc. That's the same reason why we see a lot of corporate ventures struggle in the GoToMarket motion, even with their 'unfair' advantages of market access and funds backing them. They try to solve early-stage ventures problems with steady state processes. In a corporate/steady state sales engine are clear: > ICPs (Ideal Customer Profiles) > Prospect paint points > Products to remedy said pain points > Structured sales processes In the early stage, you have nothing but a rough MVP (if any) and three guiding questions: > What's the problem we are able to solve? > Who works in the context wherein said problem occurs? > Who is the problem owner? To succeed in the steady state, the sales agent focuses on process execution and efficiency. To succeed in the early stage, the sales agent focuses on learning and pattern recognition. You build the process along the way. Learn, Measure, Build, Repeat. - - - - - Hi, I am Florian, your tough love guy.  I mentor startups & corporate ventures to close their next 100 deals faster.  Reach out if you want to know how! 🥷🏻 #b2bsales #earlystage #corporateventuring

How to achieve $1M ARR through only enterprise sales in Europe and Asia as a small startup? We had a live-session with Kirill Lisitsyn, CEO of Torus, who reached $1 mln ARR with his fintech startup 🔥 From Kirill’s experience, doing enterprise sales as a startup is super tough: • No one knows you • Lack of credibility • You have to deal with tough procurement teams Kirill shared with Community Sprints members his 6 sales approaches that helped Torus reach $1M ARR 🔥 One of the most practical ones (and perfect for small startups) is partner sales ⚡ Here are my takeaways from Kirill’s partner sales tips: ✅ Partners are your ticket in Local resellers set up dozens of meetings for Kirill in just six months and helped close contracts in new regions ✅ Stay in constant contact with partners for a long time In Asia, weekly calls with a sales partner helped land a deal after 15 months—and opened doors to new customers in this region ✅ Look for synergy, not competition Don’t just stick to resellers. Find companies with product synergies that already sell to your target audience. It could be a win-win collaboration! Good luck with your B2B Sales 🚀

Why Every Founder Needs to Lead Sales (Before Letting It Go)... As a founder, you are the subject matter expert on the problem your product solves. This makes you the best person to lead sales in the early stages. Why? Because no one knows your product or problem better than you do, and no one can better pitch the value proposition than the person who built it. Leading sales yourself allows you to engage directly with the market, fine-tune your pitch, and gather insights from potential customers that you might miss if you handed off sales too early. Additionally, it builds trust. Prospective clients trust founders more because they know you're invested in the product's success. However, this can’t last forever. As your startup grows, you’ll need to move away from founder-led sales to focus on scaling. Look for signs that it’s time to transition, such as when you have a repeatable process or your bandwidth becomes a bottleneck. Hiring and training a sales team based on the process you’ve perfected will ensure continuity. Embrace the founder-led sales stage, but prepare to scale strategically when the time is right. What stage of sales is your business in? #founderled #b2b #saas #sales

🔎Ever wondered how adding fractional sales leadership can up your business game? 🚀 I often share an inspiring tale of a client. Through fractional sales leadership, the client saw a 167% spike in their company's value within a year! Picture this: A small-scale software startup enters the AI industry. Despite having a microscopic client base and a meager revenue, the startup had a clear vision. Following my introduction as the Fractional VP of Sales, we began identifying potential clients and amplifying their depth of market understanding 🚀. Interestingly, our backstory has a 'Shark Tank' twist. A giant chip manufacturer wanted to buy the startup. Yet, the valuation mismatch led to a fallout. Just like in Shark Tank, where investors often disagree on the startup's worth, here too the 'Shark' failed to see our worth. 💼 Was that setback? No. The founders did what all astute executives would do. They doubled down on their business. Recognizing that revenue and a robust pipeline drive valuation, they enlisted further help. Fast forward ten months, and everything was changing! From an improved pipeline to potent partnerships, the transformation was noticeable. A new chip manufacturer stepped in to acquire the company. Now, with reduced risk and a proven track record, the valuation was undisputed. The company now stood at 200% of the initial valuation from last year 📈. So, what does this story teach us? That value lies in a strong sales engine 💪. Create a seller's market so potent that you'll have buyers scrambling to present their offers. Sounds ambitious? I can help you get there! Imagine realizing your company’s full potential by enhancing its revenue generation capability. Old or young, I can steer your business towards this goal, just like how I did with my previous client. Let's get started on your success story today. https://lnkd.in/g4sYeYMt Ready to multiply your company's value? Pop in to read more. Let's beat those Shark Tank deals. 💪

Founder's Pain: Dealing with long Sales Cycle ⭕ ? Dealing with long sales cycles is tough, but there are ways to manage it. I wish I knew five years ago how to handle long sales cycles in B2B sales. When you're struggling, a 6, 9, or even 12-month sales cycle feels unbearable. I get it. Especially if you’re at the founder-led sales stage with a small team of 2-3 members. Let's assume your average deal size ranges from $120k to $480k. In 2019, our US operation had found early product-market fit with a small sales team. I had to explain to management and the board why we weren't closing more deals and why our sales cycle was so long. Everyone was worried about meeting revenue targets and growth. Then, Jason M. Lemkin shared benchmarks for B2B sales cycles and how to cope (visit SaaStr), and things started to change. Here's how we scaled from $1 million to $30+ million: 1. 𝗥𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝘀: Ensure your sales reps have experience closing deals similar to your target ACV. If they haven't handled deal sizes like $100K before, they might struggle now. They need to know how to find champions at VP level and above. 2. 𝗦𝗲𝘁 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗘𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀: Accept that closing these deals might take 6-12 months. Be honest with your board and management about this timeline. 3. 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗼𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝘇𝗲 𝗟𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀: - Focus on finding the right ICP. - Build a larger inbound pipeline. - Ask for referrals and testimonials from successful cases. 4. 𝗣𝗮𝗶𝗱 𝗣𝗶𝗹𝗼𝘁 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺𝘀: Start with a small, paid pilot program. This helps the decision-maker get started, and you can ramp up to a full deal over $100K. Secure your first 20 logos this way. 5. 𝗥𝗲𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗣𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵: Revisit your product positioning and sales pitch. Do this yearly with your whole team, ideally involving cross-functional members & founders (best source on Positioning: April Dunford) These steps help us manage long sales cycles. We repeat them yearly as we scale with more customers and team members. Rinse and repeat – that's the magic. #SalesCycle #B2BSales #Startups #GrowthHacking #SalesStrategy

Founders often make sales harder than it needs to be. 😖 But with a few simple frameworks, you can get the early customers that will make it easier to get the customers after that!!😎 📈 I spend a few hours a day reading startup education articles and have to say that First Round Capital puts out some of the best stuff out there.🤩 Since I'm all about helping startups get early paying customers, I wanted to share this piece from them: "The Three Frameworks You Need to Kick-start Sales". (It's long but worth the read). If you are short on time, here's the paragraph that you need to read:👀 "Before diving into creating a use case through a founder or customer story, Sales underlines two key differences around sales for early-stage startups: target customer and company validation. On the former, she says, “The buyer for an early-stage company is going to be different than the one buying established enterprise products from Microsoft, Oracle or GE. As an early-stage company, you’re generally selling to a targeted group of early adopters, founders and entrepreneurially-inclined experts, who can be from small companies or larger, established organizations. You’re looking for people with a very particular mindset. You’re seeking the early adopters, people on the hunt for new, fresh approaches to solving problems in their markets. This mindset comes with a lower barrier to entry, higher threshold of forgiveness and an active feedback loop as your company finds its way. This customer is buying a product because it’s innovative, different and they want to be the first to find and test your product before others do.” The top 10 key takeaways are: ➡️ 1. Tell Your Story - Don't be a sterile corporate monolith ➡️ 2. Find the Right Crowd - Segment your early adopters ➡️ 3. Make a Killer Sales Pitch - Sell "Value" ➡️ 4. Share Real Success Stories - Leverage social proof ➡️ 5. Ask the Right Questions - Increase your understanding of customer need ➡️ 6. Listen to Feedback - Hear the good and the bad ➡️ 7. Have a Game Plan - Plan for all sales interactions ➡️ 8. Show Proof - Case studies and testimonials are GOLD ➡️ 9. Make Clear Next Steps - Manage the sale to close ➡️ 10. Keep Improving - Don't rest on your laurels. The competition wants your market share! In your early stage, you need to play a different game than companies with deep pockets. Lean into your small company advantages. They are your actual super powers!🏋️♀️ https://lnkd.in/g8EFP7Td 👋 Liked this post? ♻️ Please share and repost it to help others. 👉Follow me Tony Clemendor for more startup coaching! 👍Thank you! Follow ➡ #FORGEframework for more on getting early customers Follow ➡ #TheFoundersForge for founder performance coaching #Startups #BusinessGrowth #StartupLife #Founders

When is it Time for Tech Founders to Step Away from Sales? In the AI and software technology space, founders often find themselves deeply involved in the sales process, juggling multiple roles to propel business growth. However, as companies expand, this hands-on approach to sales can become unsustainable, potentially impeding overall progress. So, when exactly is the right moment for a founder to extricate themselves from sales duties? During the early stages of business development, founders typically play a pivotal role in sales activities, particularly as startups evolve into fully-fledged organisations with millions in ARR. Whether securing initial funding or navigating the challenges of grassroots bootstrapping, founders have a significant stake in the sales process. In the early phases of growth, some founders may prematurely distance themselves from sales responsibilities. Entrusting the sales process to an outsourced team or hiring a sales manager or VP might seem like a logical step. Conversely, CEOs may find themselves pulled into the sales fray while also managing broader organisational tasks such as product development and business expansion—a delicate balancing act indeed. So, how does a CEO determine the opportune moment to relinquish their involvement in sales? It's a straightforward equation: the instant a founder becomes the bottleneck in the sales pipeline signals the need for change. However, the transition must be executed correctly to yield positive results. Regrettably, some founders may prematurely hand over the reins to an external sales team without adequate preparation. The crucial question arises: What track record has this team got for hunting and closing deals? Then the approach may be flawed. When the incoming sales personnel fail to operate at the founder's level, it often results in finger-pointing and blame games, with founders focusing on their team's lacking performance. In such instances, candid conversations become necessary, with consultants like myself often delivering uncomfortable truths: the failure to attract and retain someone good enough to drive revenue with out the founder lies squarely with the founder. Therefore, as a founder contemplates stepping back from sales, they must first ensure they know what to look for in a sales person and how they can attract them to take over sales from the founder. This is crucial for a seamless transition and sets the stage for sustained sales success. In conclusion, the journey from founder-led sales to a structured sales team requires careful planning and execution. By identifying the right moment to step away and preparing successors effectively, founders can unlock new growth opportunities and propel their companies to greater heights.