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Think less about pushing your product, and more about aligning your product to a stated need. Instead of "how do I get Product X into Company Y," ask "how can

Think less about pushing your product, and more about aligning your product to a stated need. Instead of "how do I get Product X into Company Y," ask "how can I help Company Y accomplish their mission with my product in a way they are currently unable to do?" The flipside of this question is "if I were CEO of Company Y, why should I want to buy Product X?" Instead of "how do I convince Buyer Z to go with Product X," ask yourself "what are Buyer Z's incentives? Do they need to lower costs/increase their revenue/help their team communicate/etc?" Buyer Z has incentives - some of them corporate-wide, some of them specific to her/his day job, some of them very personal. Try to learn what those are. Also remember that sometimes it's not a good fit, and that's okay. Preserve relationships. Sometimes you catch Buyer Z working for Company Y, and she says "right now, we're really not focused on $THINGYOUDO, and your price would be prohibitive anyway." Fast forward three months and she might have changed jobs into something that is very much $THINGYOUDO, and she now has a vastly increased budget. Much better for both of you if you have preserved the relationship. Sales becomes a much easier road to walk if you remember "this person is a person just like me, and they've got things they're trying to accomplish in their day job. Let's see if I can help them out."

adpirz 8y ago
Along this note, one of the best quick tips I've heard about sales conversations is that you should be doing much more listening than talking, and always start not by talking about your product, but by asking good probing questions about their experience. In many cases, you'll catch something that will directly let you say "oh you have problem X and $THINGYOUDO makes that so much easier by..."
busterarm 8y ago
Think about unstated needs too. There isn't just a single relationship that matters and the person you're talking to usually has different goals than the business you're selling to.
skmurphy 8y ago
This is really good advice, early sales for founders looks more like a combination of problem diagnosis (often of your own feature set or assumptions which makes premature "objection handling" very dangerous as it cuts off learning) and project management. I think Saras Sarasvathy's Effectuation Model offers some excellent guidelines on how to approach building trust and developing a viable business relationship. See https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2010/02/07/saras-sarasvathys-effectual-reasoning-model-for-expert-entrepreneurs/ https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2010/02/07/saras-sarasvathys-e... and https://www.amazon.com/Effectual-Entrepreneurship-Stuart-Read/dp/1138923788/ https://www.amazon.com/Effectual-Entrepreneurship-Stuart-Rea... for more on this. Jerry Weissman's "Understand-Believe-Act" sales model is also a very good fault tree to use in diagnosing where your efforts may be stalled: Understand: do prospects understand what it is you can do for them (here vision generation and simple explainer demos can help as well as basic case studies with clear examples). Believe do prospects believe that you can deliver the results you promise (here technical proof demonstrations, benchmarks, case studies, references can all help). Act: Do they have a reason to act. Are you addressing a critical business issue or a nice to have. What is the total cost of implementing your product (not just your price but any changes in workflow or practice or infrastructure that will be required). How does this compare to value. Is there a critical event or date that offers a strong reason to act. See https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2007/08/08/understand-believe-and-act/ https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2007/08/08/understand-believe-... and https://www.amazon.com/Presenting-Win-Telling-Your-Story/dp/0130464139/ https://www.amazon.com/Presenting-Win-Telling-Your-Story/dp/... for more on Weissman's model.
andrei_says_ 8y ago
In light of this, check out Kathy Sierra’s blog and her book Badass: making users awesome.
amirathi 8y ago
> Also remember that sometimes it's not a good fit, and that's okay One can go beyond and suggest alternatives to their own product that might be a better fit. Remember to keep customer's best interest at heart. I'm in dev tooling market and have suggested open source tools as alternative to my own products numerous times. The kind of trust I gained through it is immense.
tixocloud 8y ago
Changing my mindset about sales to advisor has been immensely useful for earning trust. In the enterprise space, we’ve been able to secure demos with folks we would not have reached had we tried hard sales. The first goal is to start a conversation and the 2nd is to get a callback for a 2nd conversation.

adpirz 8y ago

Along this note, one of the best quick tips I've heard about sales conversations is that you should be doing much more listening than talking, and always start not by talking about your product, but by asking good probing questions about their experience. In many cases, you'll catch something that will directly let you say "oh you have problem X and $THINGYOUDO makes that so much easier by..."

busterarm 8y ago

Think about unstated needs too. There isn't just a single relationship that matters and the person you're talking to usually has different goals than the business you're selling to.

skmurphy 8y ago

This is really good advice, early sales for founders looks more like a combination of problem diagnosis (often of your own feature set or assumptions which makes premature "objection handling" very dangerous as it cuts off learning) and project management. I think Saras Sarasvathy's Effectuation Model offers some excellent guidelines on how to approach building trust and developing a viable business relationship. See https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2010/02/07/saras-sarasvathys-effectual-reasoning-model-for-expert-entrepreneurs/ https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2010/02/07/saras-sarasvathys-e... and https://www.amazon.com/Effectual-Entrepreneurship-Stuart-Read/dp/1138923788/ https://www.amazon.com/Effectual-Entrepreneurship-Stuart-Rea... for more on this. Jerry Weissman's "Understand-Believe-Act" sales model is also a very good fault tree to use in diagnosing where your efforts may be stalled: Understand: do prospects understand what it is you can do for them (here vision generation and simple explainer demos can help as well as basic case studies with clear examples). Believe do prospects believe that you can deliver the results you promise (here technical proof demonstrations, benchmarks, case studies, references can all help). Act: Do they have a reason to act. Are you addressing a critical business issue or a nice to have. What is the total cost of implementing your product (not just your price but any changes in workflow or practice or infrastructure that will be required). How does this compare to value. Is there a critical event or date that offers a strong reason to act. See https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2007/08/08/understand-believe-and-act/ https://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2007/08/08/understand-believe-... and https://www.amazon.com/Presenting-Win-Telling-Your-Story/dp/0130464139/ https://www.amazon.com/Presenting-Win-Telling-Your-Story/dp/... for more on Weissman's model.

andrei_says_ 8y ago

In light of this, check out Kathy Sierra’s blog and her book Badass: making users awesome.

amirathi 8y ago

> Also remember that sometimes it's not a good fit, and that's okay One can go beyond and suggest alternatives to their own product that might be a better fit. Remember to keep customer's best interest at heart. I'm in dev tooling market and have suggested open source tools as alternative to my own products numerous times. The kind of trust I gained through it is immense.

tixocloud 8y ago

Changing my mindset about sales to advisor has been immensely useful for earning trust. In the enterprise space, we’ve been able to secure demos with folks we would not have reached had we tried hard sales. The first goal is to start a conversation and the 2nd is to get a callback for a 2nd conversation.