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How to Build a Successful Founder-Led Sales Strategy
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3. Why Buy Now: The third bucket of common objections was about timing. For prospects wondering about the cost of waiting until next year's budget, sales teams couldn’t state a strong enough case for urgency to buy now. Or, if prospects were considering buying a solution a quarter or two from now, and acquiring that solution ended up delayed for a few months, what would the cost of that few months’ slippage be? Would that cost be acceptable? “Were the people on the phone the right buyer personas to speak to? And if they weren’t, Steve would be more than happy to call attention to that fact.” What I’ve found with startup founders is that they're incredibly smart. They know processes. They know how to solve problems. And a lot of them love first principles. And so this process that Steve created is essentially what I consider to be the first principles of sales. What I’ve noticed is that when founders understand these questions, and start to get better at getting the answers to these questions, our “3Ws,” they become just as good at sales as the first reps and managers that they hire. Even if they ‘hate’ sales, or think they do, they usually end up becoming fans of it, as unlikely as that sounds.
What if asking these questions would actually build your relationship with your prospect? What if you could drive the conversation in a way that was more collaborative? Would that build the relationship? What if this was a form of curiosity that's aimed at trying to end the suffering of the developers you’re talking to (and trying to sell to)? And you’re trying to find reasons for why your product is not a fit? And if your product is not a fit, you’re actually causing more suffering by trying to sell them something they don’t need. So by asking all these ‘annoying’ questions... you're actually preventing that. “You ask questions, and based on their answers, you're asking more-refined, deeper questions to get to that root cause analysis.” And lastly, collaboration. As a founder, you're committing to making this process collaborative. Not dominating the conversation by just showing them everything without letting your prospects contribute. You're actually going back and forth, gathering information in the process. And I’ve found, especially for developers who become founders, all of a sudden they realize that they had these false beliefs of why they ‘couldn't do’ certain things. And very quickly, they come to know how to get to those three values–the words come to them because it's more aligned with what their core beliefs and values are. You start to identify and become aware of those self-limiting beliefs and personal triggers–then move away from them. Does that mean that every startup founder needs to go to therapy? I sometimes jokingly refer to these conversations as a ‘welcome mat for therapy’ since some founders do take that next step and it can be very fruitful for them.
You can “debug” your deals, either as you’re pursuing them, or after a deal is won or lost, which gives you the opportunity for a deeper postmortem. I’ll often review sales pipeline with the founders I coach from a first principles perspective, reviewing deal details like amount, close date, and stage. Then, we look at what's changed since the last review, what's the next step, and what the biggest concerns or challenges are. These items need to be fields in your CRM and displayed sequentially to help you build the “muscle” of getting through ~1-minute updates for each deal in this order. “one of the most important things to determine early on is qualification of each deal–is the person you’re talking to a good fit for what you’re selling? If not, you end the conversation ASAP and move on to someone who is” You can unit test ‘Why Buy Anything,’ almost like an algorithm, a standard operating principle to actually get deeper, wider, higher answers, and then come up with the next step.”
Important Takeaways on How to Make Sales Less Intimidating: “When you don’t have to “sound like” the stereotypical salesperson–and you don’t–you will likely become very good at the discovery process.” Sales Isn’t Just About Bothering People With Cold Calls: Sales is an essential skillset for founders that will future-proof your business, even if you’re initially going bottom-up and selling directly to developers. In time, when your startup scales to need top-down sales, you’ll be glad you built up the muscle memory.
2. Maybe Rethink Those Preconceived Notions About Sales? “sales has very little to do with being charming and persuasive, and much more to do with the same kind of methodical engineering processes in which you’re already an expert: Careful searching, pattern-matching, scoping the scale and size of problems, and even unit testing.” 3. Start From First Principles
1. Embrace Founder-Led Sales “It’s widely considered a best practice for early-stage startups for founders to act as first sellers, not just because of their deep product knowledge, but also because it builds important strategic muscle that will help you scale your company in the future.” 2. Maybe Rethink Those Preconceived Notions About Sales?
2. Maybe Rethink Those Preconceived Notions About Sales? “sales has very little to do with being charming and persuasive, and much more to do with the same kind of methodical engineering processes in which you’re already an expert: Careful searching, pattern-matching, scoping the scale and size of problems, and even unit testing.” 3. Start From First Principles