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A rule I gave myself after running a company for several years is that I never reply to incoming offers or sales pitches. In my opinion it’s very rare that some

A rule I gave myself after running a company for several years is that I never reply to incoming offers or sales pitches. In my opinion it’s very rare that someone really offers something that my company needs at that exact moment, so most interactions resulting from such offers will be a waste of my time. In the past I reacted to such incoming offers, but I always regretted it and usually burned some money and time as well. Now they only way I pick suppliers is by sourcing them myself exactly when I need something. I think many executives / entrepreneurs have developed a similar adversity towards incoming offers, and my own experience with cold outbound selling seems to confirm this. I’ve contacted hundreds of companies myself trying to sell our service, but the only deals we closed so far were either with companies we already knew via our network or ones that did actively seek out our services themselves. It’s of course possible that an experienced sales person would be able to generate outbound interest, but as a founder without much sales experience it is very tough. I therefore think inbound sales is the future, at least in B2B.

stingraycharles 7y ago
C-levels and other executives of large enterprises typically approach companies like Gartner for this. As a SaaS startup, we’ve been quite successful partnering with Gartner which opened doors to us we otherwise would never be able to. In general, I think it’s better for a technology provider to partner with organizations to handle this tough enterprise sales process than to do it yourselves, but it depends upon your market and organization (we’re a database provider).
- ramraj07 7y ago
  How do you partner up with Gartner?
  - ganeshkrishnan 6y ago
    I can see that it costs anywhere between $40k to $80k. And the starting price is only for research.
kristianc 7y ago
> I think many executives / entrepreneurs have developed a similar adversity towards incoming offers, and my own experience with cold outbound selling seems to confirm this. This article wouldn’t disagree with you. When you’re building the product the trick is to build your product almost alongside your first customers - invite them in and show them Figma mockups and ask what would provide them value, and bring them on the journey with you. Come with a compelling enough value proposition and solve for a large enough pain point and you’ll absolutely get executives of at least SMEs on calls. Once you have that first customer, the outbound motion becomes a lot easier as you have references. It’s easy to fall into an ‘if you build it they will come’ attitude with inbound sales. In truth it rarely works on its own. (Work in sales / marketing for a large vertical SaaS)
- ghaff 7y ago
  >When you’re building the product the trick is to build your product almost alongside your first customers I agree with you up to a point. Real customer use cases are important and good references are gold--both for getting other customers and for getting onto some analyst radars. However, it's important not to pivot towards building what a customer wants so much that you basically end up being a consulting company doing a bunch of one offs. (Assuming that's not what you want of course.)
  - kristianc 7y ago
    Of course - you'd want to do validation with 4 or 5 companies, and identify common pain points, as well as separating 'nice to haves' from 'table stakes'. Usually by the time you've done 3 or 4 calls with customers in a good target segment, you start to hear some common themes again and again. As you say though, you have to avoid the temptation to wrap yourself around the weird edge cases of one customer (especially if that customer is a 'big fish').
goatherders 7y ago
Well said, and I appreciate your perspective. I also 100% disagree. Inbound is a waiting game. Referrals are a waiting game. And hoping to be found at the right time by the right buyers ENOUGH times puts external factorsnin charge of your business but just thriving, but surviving. My business exists precisely because we believe so strongly in outbound as a strategy. But wherein you are right that random cold outreach is distracting and a waste of time, outbounding that is targeted well and focused on problem solving can be the best ROI you have all year. The difference, we have found, is between prospects who are aware their businesses are imperfect AND are curious about solving problems and prospects who know their businesses are imperfect and willing to live with those imperfections until such time they become intolerable. Those that choose the status quo until such time that they choose to go looking, as you have self-identified. Candidly, there are a lot more of the latter than former but there are still plenty of the former.
- ThePhysicist 7y ago
  Maybe I just didn’t get any good inbound requests so far then. We’re a small startup so I think we don’t attract a lot of outbound interest, this might be different for larger companies of course. Taking time to learn about the specific interests and needs of a small startup with little budget is probably overkill, so we just get the “spray and pray” treatment I guess. Do you have a good strategy for identifying open-minded companies that are willing to learn about new approaches?
  - kristianc 7y ago
    > Taking time to learn about the specific interests and needs of a small startup with little budget is probably overkill, so we just get the “spray and pray” treatment I guess. > Do you have a good strategy for identifying open-minded companies that are willing to learn about new approaches? The answer to both your questions is segmentation, segmentation, segmentation. The trick with segmentation is to find clusters of companies who are likely to share like-minded problems, hone your messaging and positioning to reach them (Basecamp is a classic example of how to do this well, they have always had a very clear idea of who Basecamp is for and who it is not for), and then identify the _individuals_ within those organizations who are most open to change. Again, the temptation is to head straight to the C-suite - this is usually a bad place to start. C-suites are time poor, usually quite cynical about new software, and removed from the problems of the people on the front line. Usually better to start in middle-management with PMs, and arm them to build a business case to take further up the org.
marcosdumay 7y ago
> It’s of course possible that an experienced sales person would be able to generate outbound interest I am at the receiving side of them, with currently no way to escape. (Ouch!) But well, the strategies I see them using are: 1 - If you see some large change on society (laws, tech, etc), focus on solving the problem those bring. That way, everybody will have the same problem at the same time, and you can pitch for it. 2 - Keep in contact until they need it. Maybe even try to help your possible clients in solving the problems that make your tool "not our largest problem today". 3 - Have a portfolio. Discover what problems the client has first, so you can decide what to sell second. That said, I still didn't buy nor have seen anybody buy anything from a company that approached us first. As I said, those are techniques I see the experienced sales people using. I didn't see them working, but I assume sometimes they do, otherwise those people wouldn't have a job. Also, all of them look very expensive in some way.
Advaith 7y ago
Thats an interesting perspective. Maybe narrow down the cold outreach based on research such that you're sure your product will fit into their stack? It just seems hard to believe that cold outreach won't work for SaaS
- goatherders 7y ago
  I'm telling you flat out it works EXTREMELY well.
- ThePhysicist 6y ago
  It definitely works to some degree, I just think it might be better to first work your way through your "warm" network i.e. companies to which people that know and trust you or your product can make qualified introductions. As I said I think if you can hire a professional sales team they will make it work, but that usually takes one year and costs a signficiant amount of money, so for an early stage startup it's often out of reach and very risky.
tarsinge 7y ago
I've been at a startup with strong sales people and it definitely work to get clients, and pretty big ones. But the catch is that they were selling at a higher level than the operational teams, to not very technical buyers. Needless to say the usage was then often disappointing.
AndrewKemendo 7y ago
Agreed. Unsolicited inbound requests go into the spam folder without looking. Where things are getting bad now is with cold calls, LinkedIn, Twitter etc messages. There isn't a channel that salespeople aren't using. They'll come by the office or send you a letter. If they can't get to you directly they'll go to your subordinates or peers... It's neverending. It's to the point where it's just exploiting the urge of business managers and leaders to not be jerks.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
didntknowyou 7y ago
like you i never reply , but my previous boss does- and i've seen him get caught in their sales tactics. truth is the marketing works on a percentage of people, just like any other method.
mlkjhgfdsq 6y ago
Another way of looking at this is focus on what you do best. I co-founded a bootstrapped B2B hardware startup and we are not salespeople. In the early days, we had mediocre prototypes and tried selling them by cold emailing prospective customers. We closed some deals but we were not happy with the outcome and we did not like doing it. So we completely stopped sales, put out some content and survived on contractors works. Eventually emails started coming in. We tried our best to help, even though it meant recommending a competitor. We missed sales but we were able to build a network of people who supported us. At some point, these people started requesting new products and now these products sell themselves. I guess if one of us was experienced in sales, it would be a different story but if you are not a salesperson, focusing on the value you can bring is a sensible bet.

stingraycharles 7y ago

C-levels and other executives of large enterprises typically approach companies like Gartner for this. As a SaaS startup, we’ve been quite successful partnering with Gartner which opened doors to us we otherwise would never be able to. In general, I think it’s better for a technology provider to partner with organizations to handle this tough enterprise sales process than to do it yourselves, but it depends upon your market and organization (we’re a database provider).

ramraj07 7y ago
How do you partner up with Gartner?
- ganeshkrishnan 6y ago
  I can see that it costs anywhere between $40k to $80k. And the starting price is only for research.

kristianc 7y ago

> I think many executives / entrepreneurs have developed a similar adversity towards incoming offers, and my own experience with cold outbound selling seems to confirm this. This article wouldn’t disagree with you. When you’re building the product the trick is to build your product almost alongside your first customers - invite them in and show them Figma mockups and ask what would provide them value, and bring them on the journey with you. Come with a compelling enough value proposition and solve for a large enough pain point and you’ll absolutely get executives of at least SMEs on calls. Once you have that first customer, the outbound motion becomes a lot easier as you have references. It’s easy to fall into an ‘if you build it they will come’ attitude with inbound sales. In truth it rarely works on its own. (Work in sales / marketing for a large vertical SaaS)

ghaff 7y ago
>When you’re building the product the trick is to build your product almost alongside your first customers I agree with you up to a point. Real customer use cases are important and good references are gold--both for getting other customers and for getting onto some analyst radars. However, it's important not to pivot towards building what a customer wants so much that you basically end up being a consulting company doing a bunch of one offs. (Assuming that's not what you want of course.)
- kristianc 7y ago
  Of course - you'd want to do validation with 4 or 5 companies, and identify common pain points, as well as separating 'nice to haves' from 'table stakes'. Usually by the time you've done 3 or 4 calls with customers in a good target segment, you start to hear some common themes again and again. As you say though, you have to avoid the temptation to wrap yourself around the weird edge cases of one customer (especially if that customer is a 'big fish').

goatherders 7y ago

Well said, and I appreciate your perspective. I also 100% disagree. Inbound is a waiting game. Referrals are a waiting game. And hoping to be found at the right time by the right buyers ENOUGH times puts external factorsnin charge of your business but just thriving, but surviving. My business exists precisely because we believe so strongly in outbound as a strategy. But wherein you are right that random cold outreach is distracting and a waste of time, outbounding that is targeted well and focused on problem solving can be the best ROI you have all year. The difference, we have found, is between prospects who are aware their businesses are imperfect AND are curious about solving problems and prospects who know their businesses are imperfect and willing to live with those imperfections until such time they become intolerable. Those that choose the status quo until such time that they choose to go looking, as you have self-identified. Candidly, there are a lot more of the latter than former but there are still plenty of the former.

ThePhysicist 7y ago
Maybe I just didn’t get any good inbound requests so far then. We’re a small startup so I think we don’t attract a lot of outbound interest, this might be different for larger companies of course. Taking time to learn about the specific interests and needs of a small startup with little budget is probably overkill, so we just get the “spray and pray” treatment I guess. Do you have a good strategy for identifying open-minded companies that are willing to learn about new approaches?
- kristianc 7y ago
  > Taking time to learn about the specific interests and needs of a small startup with little budget is probably overkill, so we just get the “spray and pray” treatment I guess. > Do you have a good strategy for identifying open-minded companies that are willing to learn about new approaches? The answer to both your questions is segmentation, segmentation, segmentation. The trick with segmentation is to find clusters of companies who are likely to share like-minded problems, hone your messaging and positioning to reach them (Basecamp is a classic example of how to do this well, they have always had a very clear idea of who Basecamp is for and who it is not for), and then identify the _individuals_ within those organizations who are most open to change. Again, the temptation is to head straight to the C-suite - this is usually a bad place to start. C-suites are time poor, usually quite cynical about new software, and removed from the problems of the people on the front line. Usually better to start in middle-management with PMs, and arm them to build a business case to take further up the org.

marcosdumay 7y ago

> It’s of course possible that an experienced sales person would be able to generate outbound interest I am at the receiving side of them, with currently no way to escape. (Ouch!) But well, the strategies I see them using are: 1 - If you see some large change on society (laws, tech, etc), focus on solving the problem those bring. That way, everybody will have the same problem at the same time, and you can pitch for it. 2 - Keep in contact until they need it. Maybe even try to help your possible clients in solving the problems that make your tool "not our largest problem today". 3 - Have a portfolio. Discover what problems the client has first, so you can decide what to sell second. That said, I still didn't buy nor have seen anybody buy anything from a company that approached us first. As I said, those are techniques I see the experienced sales people using. I didn't see them working, but I assume sometimes they do, otherwise those people wouldn't have a job. Also, all of them look very expensive in some way.

Advaith 7y ago

Thats an interesting perspective. Maybe narrow down the cold outreach based on research such that you're sure your product will fit into their stack? It just seems hard to believe that cold outreach won't work for SaaS

goatherders 7y ago
I'm telling you flat out it works EXTREMELY well.
ThePhysicist 6y ago
It definitely works to some degree, I just think it might be better to first work your way through your "warm" network i.e. companies to which people that know and trust you or your product can make qualified introductions. As I said I think if you can hire a professional sales team they will make it work, but that usually takes one year and costs a signficiant amount of money, so for an early stage startup it's often out of reach and very risky.

tarsinge 7y ago

I've been at a startup with strong sales people and it definitely work to get clients, and pretty big ones. But the catch is that they were selling at a higher level than the operational teams, to not very technical buyers. Needless to say the usage was then often disappointing.

AndrewKemendo 7y ago

Agreed. Unsolicited inbound requests go into the spam folder without looking. Where things are getting bad now is with cold calls, LinkedIn, Twitter etc messages. There isn't a channel that salespeople aren't using. They'll come by the office or send you a letter. If they can't get to you directly they'll go to your subordinates or peers... It's neverending. It's to the point where it's just exploiting the urge of business managers and leaders to not be jerks.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

didntknowyou 7y ago

like you i never reply , but my previous boss does- and i've seen him get caught in their sales tactics. truth is the marketing works on a percentage of people, just like any other method.

mlkjhgfdsq 6y ago

Another way of looking at this is focus on what you do best. I co-founded a bootstrapped B2B hardware startup and we are not salespeople. In the early days, we had mediocre prototypes and tried selling them by cold emailing prospective customers. We closed some deals but we were not happy with the outcome and we did not like doing it. So we completely stopped sales, put out some content and survived on contractors works. Eventually emails started coming in. We tried our best to help, even though it meant recommending a competitor. We missed sales but we were able to build a network of people who supported us. At some point, these people started requesting new products and now these products sell themselves. I guess if one of us was experienced in sales, it would be a different story but if you are not a salesperson, focusing on the value you can bring is a sensible bet.