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Re: Sales: it's ok if you want to stay small, but to employ people and grow a business, sales is the lifeblood.

• billpatrianakos 15y ago
  Not all products lend themselves all that well to sales though. Consider Google. How do you sell Google? You really can't have a sales team go out and try to get people to commit to using Google search. With a lot of companies the best you can do is let people know you exist and hope they'll use you. Sales in the traditional sense is a waste. To be clear, the kind of sales I'm talking about is the kind where you have people out on the road personally interfacing with decision makers, calling people (often they're cold calls), and generally reaching out to communicate with people one on one rather than putting up ads and getting exposure which is not sales but advertising.
  • mapster 15y ago
    yes, that is meant by sales: travel, meetings, powerpoints, lunches, etc. etc. etc. I do not know, but would bet that Google "sold" Adwords program to some key publishers. It is a huge product and had a R&D budget.
    • mtmoore55 15y ago
      you're right, there is a place for "sales" in most every company at some point in their lifecycle. In the post I was more discussing engines of growth relative to early stage startups.
    • billpatrianakos 15y ago
      Like the original author I was also speaking from the perspective of an early stage startup. I should've been clearer. I'm sure you're right about AdWords being sold that way but in the end sales, real sales, costs money that the companies don't have. It's a chicken/egg situation. You've got something people need but no ones using it because you need to pay people to sell it. In the beginning that won't work unless you're paying pure commission and even then you've got to have a really healthy margin per sale for it to work like the author says.