[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How to learn to sell?
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Ask HN: How to learn to sell?
Hey HN, I am a solo founder that just finished writing code for my
project (MVP) and am ready to find clients. - for the sake of the
question, my clients will be small physical businesses. Think,
Family Doctor's Office, Local Cafe, Small barber, etc. I will be
developing a blog for SEO purposes and doing other things to
promote my business online. However, I believe the key to success
here will be "Cold Sales". I have never done that before. So, if
you could recommend a book, a blog post, other online resources, or
you just have a random advice that I could learn from, I would be
very thankful. Suffice it to say I will be starting out ASAP, even
though I don't know anything. I believe practice is the best
teacher. However, if there are any resources that could help me get
up and running quicker that would be awesome. Thanks a ton in
advance.
Author : rasulkireev
Score : 199 points
Date : 2022-10-16 15:19 UTC (7 hours ago)
| cbreynoldson wrote:
| More of a passive idea, but you could add potential customers on
| linkedin and wait until they mention anything related to what you
| do, then reach out via linkedin. Less pushy (you will need to
| still be doing the pushy kind of sales), more thoughtful, and has
| worked for a number of sales people I know in different
| industries.
| dchuk wrote:
| I actually just saved a tweet this weekend that lays it out
| really simply:
| https://twitter.com/janvmusscher/status/1581254065274892289?...
|
| "Huge clarity if you structure your sales call like this:
|
| > Uncover where they are now (A)
|
| > Uncover where they want to go (B)
|
| > Uncover what's stopping them (C)
|
| Then pitch your offer as the solution to C"
| ignoramous wrote:
| From what I've read:
|
| If you haven't got _C_ , either build the missing parts
| (assuming that the customer is the _right_ one) [0], or find
| another customer [1].
|
| If you realise they don't really need _B_ that much, then no
| amount of sales is going to help you [2]. Time to pivot based
| on _A_ or find a new _B_?
|
| [0] Chasm crossing - A Pennarun, https://archive.is/cHeKx
|
| [1] Users you don't want - M Seibel, https://archive.is/tCCLa
|
| [2] Making something people want - T Blomfield,
| https://archive.is/8IDcl
| q7xvh97o2pDhNrh wrote:
| That's a great summary. Personally, I'd add just one more
| before the pitch:
|
| (D) Uncover how amazing their future would be, if they could
| resolve what's stopping them
|
| You want them to be articulating the implications of a solution
| -- i.e., the benefits -- so that they really _feel_ the _need._
| Then you don 't even have to pitch that hard; you just gently
| offer your solution to resolve the need they're actively
| feeling. (As a bonus, you also get to hear the benefits in
| _their_ words. That lets you use those words to refine your
| sales pitch for the next prospect.)
|
| Anyway, these 4 steps are really just a Twitter-ified version
| of SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham [1] -- a book which, despite
| its age and its title, is a _very_ good sales book.
|
| (The reason its so good is because it's one of the only ones
| that uses actual data. They studied many actually successful
| salespeople, identified the patterns and formed hypotheses
| about what works, then taught that to new/struggling
| salespeople to validate their hypotheses. The SPIN acronym is
| the mnemonic for what they found.)
|
| [1]: https://www.amazon.com/SPIN-Selling-Neil-
| Rackham/dp/00705111...
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| Here is a good book that was suggested to me; and I have
| suggested to quite a few founders. I found some topics to be
| dated but the overall content is simple to digest and easy to
| follow.
|
| Also, Marketing and Sales are two different beast.
|
| Founding Sales, https://www.foundingsales.com by Pete Kazanjy (I
| think he is here on HN too.)
| mikrl wrote:
| I'm no entrepreneur but from the media I've seen around recently
| (podcasts, articles, think pieces) you should be selling before
| you code, that is, eliciting problems from clients.
|
| Intuitively it seems harder to sell a piece of software which
| exists concretely, than to sell a solution/maintenance to a
| problem which can evolve constantly. Would you rather buy a shoe
| that may or may not fit, or retain a shoe maker to build a custom
| shoe for you?
|
| If you want to sell an existing piece of software though, I'd
| probably do it through an App Store and focus efforts on
| optimizing it's visibility there. That way you can leverage the
| existing ecosystem (and let them take a cut) instead of sinking
| time/money into creating your own.
| Closi wrote:
| Remember that you want to sell your product, but your clients
| just want to resolve the problems they have.
|
| So don't look at it as selling - reframe it internally as wanting
| to find businesses where you can genuinely help them and resolve
| some of their issues, and then work with the business to solve
| the problem they have.
| csydas wrote:
| fwiw, during my tech support days, I "sold" more by never
| trying to sell anything because I had no interest in it. What I
| was interested in was problems, and seeing me solving their
| problems with the different tools our company had made a ton of
| sales apparently.
|
| So agree with the above; don't try to convince them they want
| your product, figure out their issues and exactly how your
| product solves those issues
| llaolleh wrote:
| This is a very subtle but great point to start off.
|
| "How can I sell my software?"
|
| Vs.
|
| "How can I help these folks out?"
| hv23 wrote:
| I'd recommend "To Sell is Human" by Daniel Pink:
| https://www.amazon.com/Sell-Human-Surprising-Moving-Others-e...
|
| I'm a product-focused founder. I read this a few years ago when
| starting out with selling my company's product, and it helped me
| reframe sales as something essential to most of our jobs in the
| knowledge economy.
|
| There's a compelling argument that persuasion and storytelling
| are core human activities, rather than the domain of extroverted
| "salespeople". Adopting that mental model was just as useful for
| me as learning the _tactics_ of how to be effective at sales.
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| As a founder myself, I'd say this is one of the best resources
| how to sell for early-stage B2B startups
| https://static1.squarespace.com/static/57daf6098419c27febcd4...
| raasdnil wrote:
| Being a techy who has become a sales person over the years and
| running my own companies (which is the ultimate in having to
| sell) I can highly recommend Closing is NOT your problem (1). It
| cuts through the fluff and breaks down the Sales process into
| identifiable steps that actually allow you to spot and FIX what
| is wrong in any sales cycle you are doing.
|
| 1) https://www.amazon.com/Closing-Your-Problem-Lisa-
| Terrenzi/dp...
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| What is more valuable to you right now? Sales, or feedback that
| will help you improve your product and its positioning?
|
| Don't let anything (e.g. lack of the right approach) keep you
| from listening to people.
|
| Only after you've spoken with 10-20 people will the advice in
| sales books (Founding Sales, SPIN Selling etc.) be valuable.
|
| If, after hearing what those 10-20 people have to say, you've
| decided to focus on changing your product instead of selling what
| you have, you might try to implement the steps in "The Mom Test".
|
| Disclaimer: random advice on the internet. Take it with a pinch
| of salt!
| sjducb wrote:
| I've tried and failed at this, a SAAS that served small builders.
|
| Your best bet is probably the blog and going to conferences.
| However I only got one customer that way.
|
| It's also worth looking at partners. Do these companies have
| software that they're already using and could those partners
| upsell them onto your software?
|
| I hired a cold calling firm. They made a lot of calls, but didn't
| get any free signups to the product, or any demos.
| fraaancis wrote:
| * > I believe the key to success here will be "Cold Sales" *
|
| 100% correct.
|
| 1. Get a demo ready that you can show on a laptop. Focus on
| features.
|
| 2. Smile and dial. Set a meeting with the business owner or
| manager to show the demo.
|
| 3. _Listen_. The things they say (mostly objections) will guide
| your product development.
|
| 4. Accept rejection. You will get meetings from 10% of your
| calls. You will make sales on 2% of your meetings if the customer
| even needs the product.
|
| Reading is a good way to forestall the heartache of actual sales,
| but that's it. Everything you need to know you'll learn in
| meetings.
| wjnc wrote:
| I would put Listen on top of the list before anything in sales.
| The colder the sales get, the harder it gets and the better you
| need to listen. Give your product away, for free to each and
| every SME you know. Demo it, let them use it, and get many,
| many feedback rounds.
|
| Also, look at other angles to approaching market segments. Door
| to door sales in non primary products just isn't feasible at
| scale. The conversion rate is too small. Remember that many SME
| pretty much shit on their software, but they got it via their
| IT-support, or bookkeeper/ accountant or professional
| association. Those are angles to sell that could get you a
| better effort to conversion ratio.
| simonswords82 wrote:
| OP please do not focus on features, focus on benefits that
| address bite sized tangible pain points.
|
| To be honest you're not going to get far smiling and dialling
| either. After a week you'll be burnt out and miserable.
| User23 wrote:
| Don't just accept rejection, but learn to thrive on it. That is
| the secret of sales.
| zomglings wrote:
| How do you thrive on rejection? Genuinely want to learn.
| xrd wrote:
| Another commenter put it well, disassociate.
|
| This is REALLY hard when you built the thing you are
| selling by the way.
|
| This is the main reason why it is often good to have a
| salesperson working with you that doesn't take the ego hit
| when the product is rejected, because they didn't build it
| themselves.
|
| Be aware of that. It's hard and one way you can get stuck
| is to not find a way to get past that.
| solatic wrote:
| General steps -
|
| 1. First, disassociate. Most of the time, rejection is
| about the subject (doing the rejection) being closed to
| something new rather than some notion of the object (of the
| rejection) being undesirable.
|
| 2. Gain confidence in the object. Understand that the
| object has its own merits. The object isn't undesirable,
| rather, you're looking for subjects who appreciate what the
| object has to offer. That a given subject doesn't
| appreciate the object, has no bearing on the object. Move
| on and find other potential subjects.
|
| 3. As potential subjects polarize and reject the object for
| reasons that are to be expected - because the object is
| what it is, and does not attempt to be what is not -
| recognize rejection as an affirmation of the object's
| qualities.
|
| Most of the loop between (2) and (3) is about improving the
| clarity of communication, such that subjects do not make
| mistaken rejections, either because (a) the values of the
| object are not clear to the subjects or (b) the
| unsuitability of the subject is not clear to the object.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| Depending on how the rejection was given, you can use it to
| recalibrate your methods or presentation. Avoid "sour
| grapes" mentality.
| eric4smith wrote:
| Very good question.
|
| I've been programming for just about 30 years in one shape or
| another and the 2 skills I wish I had learned from an early age
| are sales and copywriting.
|
| What I can say (as an amateur of both disciplines now) is that
| yes, find the books and courses etc.
|
| But, the most important thing is to start selling and writing
| right now.
|
| It's the absolute best way to learn. The books and courses will
| accelerate your practical efforts.
|
| Don't wait.
| manv1 wrote:
| There are a lot of misconceptions about sales, especially from
| people that don't sell. A lot of that is because Hollywood and TV
| enjoy presenting people as shyster salespeople.
|
| Essentially, the first thing to remember is that you're there to
| help them make money. Believe that, and your job is easier. Think
| of yourself as someone who just found this great service and they
| should use it because it'll make their lives easier/better/etc.
|
| But first, you have to find your customers. Who are they? Where
| are they? How do you get to them?
|
| That's what this book is for:
|
| https://smile.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-...
|
| Then how do you talk to them? Why should they trust you? This is
| one book that might help with that:
|
| https://smile.amazon.com/Soft-Selling-Hard-World-Persuasion/...
|
| Small businesses are hard to reach and hard to sell to. But if
| you get enough of them they become an impenetrable moat that will
| allow you to get revenue forever.
|
| As other people have said, you may have done stuff in the wrong
| order. But there are plenty of startups that have done "if you
| build it they will come." It just costs more. I mean, you need to
| sell something!
|
| You obviously built it with a customer's needs in mind. Who was
| that customer? A friend? Your business? That should be part of
| your marketing story.
|
| Good luck!
| jmyeet wrote:
| There are multiple ways to approach this but here's the core you
| should integrate: sales is a quantitative discipline. Be
| quantitative about it.
|
| This means building a sales pipeline and tracking the
| effectiveness of whatever channels you use. How many leads do you
| get for $X in ad spend? How many of those become customers? What
| (ultimately) is the value of those customers?
|
| Whatever you read, you will have to try different things. Some of
| them work. Many will not. Get in the mindset that you will fail
| more than you will succeed and don't just assume that you will
| get organic sales with sufficient reach. Sales is an active
| discipline. You will need to go out of your way to make potential
| customers aware of you and you will have to work to find a
| problem of theirs you can solve.
|
| Be prepared to make a financial case for why they should buy from
| you vs [alternatives].
| [deleted]
| decentrality wrote:
| First impression: this is the reverse order, because you started
| selling the moment you chose to invest in this business idea.
|
| You already know the value, otherwise you would not have made it.
| But more so, you ought to have audience already engaged before
| you write the first line of code, if it is a code-oriented value
| proposition for your brand.
|
| Getting market share, building traction, cultivating momentum,
| these are all totally separate of having the product actually
| online. The key is the value proposition. And if you cannot get
| attention for that, without the product even there perhaps, you
| have no "yellow brick road" to travel, and sales do not make
| themselves. But if you get attention for something, all you have
| to do then is follow through on the promise of your brand, and
| deliver the value.
|
| Cold sales work great when your value proposition is natural, and
| market is not cluttered. But I would refer you to "The Lean
| Brand" for the real mindset you need, no matter how you sell:
|
| http://leanbrandbook.com/
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| My wife had a startup which didn't get traction, because she
| didn't like selling. Then she learned selling, grew her startup
| and sold it successfully to a competitor.
|
| The book "How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling"
| got her started.
| [deleted]
| denton-scratch wrote:
| I had sales training in a "seven dwarves" computer company. I
| quickly learned that sales wasn't for me, and switched to sales
| support; but I then spent a good eight years working alongside
| very experienced salesmen (all very unlike me, but I liked most
| of them a lot).
|
| It's said salesmen are always selling themselves; I don't agree.
| But they're always pretty engaging company.
|
| They taught us that a good salesman can sell anything. But that's
| hyperbolic; you have to know the product you're selling inside
| out.
|
| They taught us to sell solutions, not features. That means (as
| someone said upthread) you're looking for people with problems,
| and you need to find out what their problems are, so you can help
| them.
|
| We used to get leads by setting up stalls at exhibitions. I guess
| your prospects aren't the exhibition-going sort? But they
| probably gather somewhere; maybe you could go there.
|
| I dropped out of sales because I couldn't cope with the dubious
| ethics. Not my employer, particularly; but there was an awful ot
| of politics, we were taught how to commit expenses fraud by our
| own boss, and everyone was fiddling commission. It wouldn't
| surprise me at all if brown envelopes exchanged hands.
| FpUser wrote:
| Her is my story of "cold sales"
|
| Sometime back in 90s I had a lawyer helping me to sort out some
| things. In a process of doing it we had to fill endless number of
| forms. It is very tedious and is prone to mistakes. So I sad that
| unless there are some legal requirements (the forms originally
| come in paper form from a government) I can just quickly whip out
| a program (thanks Borland / Delphi) that would let to enter and
| keep all data in a database and would print a forms on laser
| printer. The lawyer said that the government would not mind. So I
| wrote the software. It had taken me about a month and then
| another month was spent on lawyer testing it with real clients
| and me fixing some issues.
|
| The lawyer was happy. He refunded me all the money I previously
| paid to him. He said that he has a list of about 600 lawyers
| doing similar work. He had then written very nice cover letter
| and we stuffed 600 envelopes with that letter and demo version of
| the software on a floppy and mailed.
|
| This is how we did "cold sales". This whole thing ended up being
| success and I got very healthy chunk of cash from the lawyers as
| they were very happy with the product.
| leobg wrote:
| I can recommend "How To Sell Anything" by Harry Browne. Corny
| title, and the content is from the 1960s. But it's the best
| no-B.S. explanation of selling I've seen for a
| nerd/thinking/introvert type of person.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| Read patio11's writings on the subject of small software
| businesses, if you haven't already.
|
| https://www.kalzumeus.com/
| 9wzYQbTYsAIc wrote:
| ABC - Always Be Closing (on the sale)
| boomeranked wrote:
| I learned to sell... by selling.
|
| I read how to win friends and influence people and made up
| prompts based on that knowledge. Went out there and sucked hard
| for two months. And then it clicked and my business took off.
| pluc wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip
| ultrasaurus wrote:
| Most important advice (and you can see it repeated here) is that
| you need to be used to rejection. An average developer might get
| never get a PR fully rejected -- a well oiled sales team expects
| to close only 1/3rd of their _sales qualified leads_. If you 're
| starting from cold calls, you will be lucky to close <1% of your
| outreach, prepare for that mentally.
|
| But also (again repeated in other comments) you aren't selling a
| tool, you're looking for their problems, try to understand them
| in their words and then show how giving you money makes them go
| away (it doesn't have to all be solved with software, your skills
| in setting up the system can be just as valuable).
|
| Happy to talk more if you aren't comfortable discussing in a
| public forum: dave@demogorilla.com (we make software to make
| remote SaaS demos better: https://www.demogorilla.com)
| streetcat1 wrote:
| So I faced/facing the same issue.
|
| In general before you do any sale you need leads. I.e. you
| problem is not selling, but prospecting. I.e. you need prospects
| at the top of the funnel.
|
| There is very good book - "fanatical prospecting" :
|
| https://www.amazon.com/s?k=fanatical+prospecting
|
| So your first step is to raise awareness of your product.
|
| To do that there are two way - inbound (blogs,etc) and
| outbound(cold call / cold email). For inbound, you need to
| provide value to customers which are not related to your product.
| I.e. first earn trust and give value.
|
| For outbound, the key is lead filtering, I.e. looks for signals
| that would qualify your leads (e.g. sector, traffic). But in
| general outbound is a numbers game.
| sumosudo wrote:
| https://www.amazon.com/Exactly-What-Say-Influence-Impact/dp/...
| lcordier wrote:
| Haven't done sales yet, but got one of Bill Gibson's modules
| years back.
|
| https://kbitraining.com/solutions/
| mmcconnell1618 wrote:
| Selling to small businesses can take almost as much effort as
| selling to mid-sized or enterprise companies and your price point
| will be much smaller. It also takes about as much effort (or
| more) to support small businesses. I sold ecommerce software to
| small business for more than a decade and in retrospect, I should
| have charged 10x the price and sold to the bigger customers.
| Automation and scale will be your friend if you're selling to
| smaller businesses. You may need in-person sales at first to get
| feedback from your customers and make sure what you've built has
| product-market fit. Once you're reasonably sure you have a market
| that gets value from buying your software, think about automating
| as much of the sales funnel as possible. Buy email and mailing
| lists. Google Ads. Social Media ads. Whatever can scale and work
| 24/7 for you because your time is finite. A/B test your sales
| pitches and narrow down language that resonates with your
| customers.
| iot_devs wrote:
| I was not very successful myself, but just pick up the phone and
| talk with them would be already a big step.
|
| After the first couple of calls you stop being afraid of it and
| it just go much smoother. But following up and make sure
| everything is aligned takes much more time that I expected.
|
| Often it is not a yes or no answer straight away, but it is more
| a chasing, communicate, listen, learn, plan, follow up, etc...
|
| But again maybe I was doing something wrong myself.
| yowlingcat wrote:
| I would actually say that you have gone about the process in the
| wrong order. That is to say, you should start off by talking to
| your clients /first/. Figure out what their problems are. Collect
| all of that.
|
| Then, come up with a concept tailored directly to their problems.
| You probably need no more than a 1-3 slide deck to show this to
| them and figure out whether the concept is desired by your end
| customer.
|
| Finally, and only once you've validated that the concept is
| desired by your end customer, you build the product.
|
| The problem with doing it in the order you've mentioned, is what
| happens when you go and show your product to a customer and they
| say "Nope, I don't actually have an issue which your product
| solves. Thanks but no thanks."
|
| Sales is the beginning, middle and end of your journey as a
| founder. Building the product only comes in over time once you've
| found something worth selling.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Done three years of stock broker. Basically it's about making
| friends and helping each other. Absolutely hated the gig but that
| was the way to do it.
| brailsafe wrote:
| How do you know they'd want it if you haven't already be talking
| to them face to face? A friend and I used to do this when we were
| getting started in web design. We thought "surely all these
| restaurants and cafes would want better websites to attract more
| customers". Turns out actually nobody cares, they don't even care
| about serving quality food or coffee a lot of the time, many
| don't even see the value proposition of having a bike rack. The
| owners are often lazy entitled assholes even if they're not
| responding to a cold call, unless they're immigrants. The only
| successes were face to face, when you're already a customer or
| regular patron, and they do express they actually need something
| done. Square is the most successful startup I'm aware of with
| small businesses like this.
| desiarnezjr wrote:
| They may not necessarily be lazy OR entitled.
|
| Every business has it's laundry list of problems. Every
| business.
|
| Your list of problems and worldview may differ a great from
| their day-to-day reality. Very few want to work on resource
| suck that has a unknown outcome. Your selling a SaaS service to
| them (just picking the example in this thread as the example)
| isn't likely their biggest problem or decision at that moment.
| abinaya_rl wrote:
| No more books, no more blog posts and nothing teaches as you
| speak to a few customers first.
|
| Go and meet 20 customers and learn what they do and how you can
| solve them.
|
| Then come back and read whatever you want to read now and it will
| everything makes sense.
| sylvain_kerkour wrote:
| You need to deeply understand who your potential clients are.
|
| By that I mean where they "hangout". How you can reach them.
|
| How? Talk to them. Build relationships. Maybe online if there are
| specialized forums, or maybe at the bar, or maybe by first
| visiting them physically. Not with an hidden agenda but with the
| sincere goal of helping them to solve their problems. Then you
| will see if your product is a great solution to their problems
| and if it can leads to a business relationship or if you need to
| iterate on your MVP.
|
| Selling a new product is all about doing things that don't scale
| in order to get as much sincere feedback as possible.
|
| Finally learn to not take rejection personally but as feedback.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| How? Sell!
|
| Jokes apart: selling, like many other things, is mostly about a
| lot of practice. Some theory might help, but in the end, you will
| learn only by doing lots of mistakes.
|
| I suggest you try to create a safe, friendly opportunity to sell
| something, and exercise (e.g. try to sell biscuits to your
| neighbors)
| diceduckmonk wrote:
| Since we're here on HN,
|
| Did YC alum learn any sales skills from the accelerator program?
| If so, was it direct or indirect ?
| martinshen wrote:
| My 2 cents... you need to start doing cold sales and it'll be
| very difficult as you'll get flat-out rejected 95/100 times.
|
| Learning about sales will feel more productive and in your
| comfort zone but you should start by going out there and talking
| to customers. Get out of your comfort zone.
|
| I'd start by going door-to-door so you can start gathering
| feedback from SMBs and get a sense of the true ICP. Once you've
| closed ~10 clients this way then you should consider using a
| sales engagement platform like Outreach, Hubspot or Salesloft
| which will automate the cold email to call. If it's a 1-call
| close type sale, then you can use something like
| https://www.mojosells.com/. You can buy lists from Zoominfo or
| otherwise.
|
| That all said, any type of human-centered sales motion in North
| America will require a minimum annual contract value of
| $10,000/yr to scale up.
| ergonaught wrote:
| Random advice, perhaps, but purchase Book Yourself Solid by
| Michael Port and do the work therein (there's a workbook and
| such). It will help with the cold sales as well.
| BlueTie wrote:
| Hi there - one of the few pro sellers on HN here.
|
| You're planning on prospecting into one of the most rejection-
| heavy domains out there with small physical business. These
| people get dozens of calls per day from companies they've never
| heard of - many of whom are trying to rip them off - and even the
| best ones (Groupon, Yelp, google ads, etc.) are basically just
| rent-seeking. Oh, and most have gatekeepers who don't care the
| slightest bit about your pitch.
|
| Because of that I'd stay away from all this "smile and dial"
| advice. You'll have no chance. Go out there and hit the pavement
| and meet these people at their establishments at off hours. If
| you catch the owner in there at a good time - do your best to
| inform them of your products benefits and come up with a really
| good offer to get started (something that loses you money and
| time). Free Trial, free month of services, whatever makes sense
| based on the context of your business. The goal is NOT to make
| money or build a book of business at this point - it's to get a
| person happy with your software to sell to later.
|
| If the owner is too busy or whatever - have some stuff printed
| out for them to read later that you can drop off. Ideally with a
| small gift (coffee, food, candy, etc.) and come back in a few
| weeks to see if you catch them at a better time (again with a
| gift, until they talk).
|
| A solid entry level book would be _Fanatical Prospecting_ by Jeb
| Blount.
|
| Good Luck.
|
| *edit to fix book name
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| There's a reason that people still employ door to door
| salesmen: most people don't like to reject people in person.
| It's why you normally buy your new roof from a guy you just met
| and have so much trouble firing employees who used to be good
| but have fallen off the wagon.
| newaccount74 wrote:
| My partner worked as a waitress and had to kick out sales
| people all the time. It's amazing how many people want to
| sell stuff to restaurants and show up to "talk to the boss".
| Of course the boss had work to do and didn't want to see any
| salespeople...
| raverbashing wrote:
| Yeah "talk to the boss" is how spam worked before email
|
| Thanks but no thanks
| cosmodisk wrote:
| When we were office based, I had a few encounters with
| salesmen,who managed to negotiate entry into restricted
| areas of the building,etc. Once, I was walking past the
| CEO's office and suddenly this guy appears out of nowhere
| looking to speak to someone. I walked him out, but I always
| wondered who the hell buys from them when they just pop in
| like nothing.
| rubidium wrote:
| Ooo, that was their first mistake. Rules for selling to
| restaurants: (1) go 3 hours before they open on a non busy
| weekday (eg Tuesday-Thursday) and knock on the back door
| (or just walk in!). If a breakfast place, buy a coffee just
| after the morning rush (9:30), then proceed to step (2).
|
| (2) say to the first person you see, "are you the
| owner/manager?"
|
| (3) either get directed to them immediately or get their
| phone number
|
| (4) have a 1-2 minute pitch , either deliver directly or on
| the phone.
|
| (5) if they really do seem to have time and interest keep
| selling. Otherwise schedule a followup for more info if
| they are interested
|
| If (4) fails, try again in 1-2 months.
| DanHulton wrote:
| I would escort you off the property with extreme
| prejudice.
|
| This is slimy. Don't do this.
| fudgeadt wrote:
| I came home on Friday to a fake postal slip indicating I
| had missed a delivery I was not expecting. I called the
| provided number and provided the "code" to be offered an
| ADT sales pitch.
|
| THAT is slimy.
|
| Asking to speak with folks the old fashioned way seems
| quaint to the point that I genuinely am appalled by your
| harshness here...
|
| EDIT: I asked my wife, a restaurant manager of some 15
| years and former chef... this is exactly how folks both
| make sales pitches and seek work if they do not have an
| "in" already. This is not slimy, it's normal course of
| business.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| >Asking to speak with folks the old fashioned way seems
| quaint to the point that I genuinely am appalled by your
| harshness here...
|
| I think it was the "just slip through the back door!"
| part which is more than fair. I turn around with a sharp
| blade and your dumb ass is standing there and now both
| our lives are over.
| PaywallBuster wrote:
| Fanatical Prospecting
|
| Should be the book name (I just tried to find it)
| BlueTie wrote:
| Nice catch. Fixed.
| encephalos wrote:
| Was coming here to reply: Fanatical Prospecting - start there.
| Glad it is in the top comment mentions.
|
| Good book to get a solid base on all the sales jargon and
| learning the generic sales cycle that applies to all products
| and services and businesses. It's legit _The Bible_ for all AEs
| /BDRs, I've even heard hiring managers / HR people say to
| potential candidates to read that book before applying for a
| sales role as the X Sales Manager / VP really applies the
| philosophy in their team(s).
| MollyRealized wrote:
| As someone who as an admin was a gatekeeper to an individual
| with greater deciding power, I'll underscore the power of the
| small gift. A bit of candy, a plate of cookies, etc. did stick
| you in my mind.
| jimmygrapes wrote:
| I would recommend a slight verbiage change from "owners" to
| "decision makers" - depending on the industry and such, of
| course. I often end up gatekeeping on behalf of the owners of
| the business(es) I work for because they are far too
| busy/uninterested in random people trying to sell (legitimately
| useful) products and services, simply because the owners aren't
| necessarily the ones who would be the best point of contact for
| demos and the like.
|
| If you're trying to sell us a new software platform, you want
| to talk to our IT and Finance decision makers. If you're trying
| to sell us magazine/trade journal subscriptions, you want to
| talk to our Supply Chain/Marketing/Safety decision makers. If
| you're trying to sell us a physical product you'll want to talk
| to our Procurement/Operations/Production decision makers. And
| so on.
|
| The owners of any given business might need to be involved
| later on, but they are rarely the best people to talk to up
| front if you're trying to sell something.
| x0x0 wrote:
| I briefly worked at a company that sold to restaurants. Just to
| emphasize this: they are _hammered_ by people dialing for
| dollars. So OP is competing with SDR teams running sequences
| through outreach.io or similar.
|
| Realistically, OP has to develop a different sales channel.
| Which is both intimidating and probably more intimidating than
| it needs to be, because OP (likely?) isn't trying to be a
| billion dollar business, so doesn't need enormous scale.
|
| One (obvious?) suggestion to investigate is conventions or the
| local chamber of commerce.
| solatic wrote:
| There's a difference between marketing and sales. You're building
| a solution to a problem. Marketing is about getting people who
| have the problem to know your solution exists. Sales is about
| convincing them to pay money to solve the problem.
|
| If you built the MVP but don't have customers yet, you should
| already have some people in mind who suffer from the problem your
| solution is supposed to solve. Selling is then just a
| conversation that loosely follows the following steps:
| (a) Ask if they still have the problem (b) Ask if your
| proposed solution solves their problem (c) Ask them to
| spend money to buy your solution
|
| Note that every step starts with "ask". This means that you need
| to _listen_ to their response. If they don 't still have the
| problem, walk away. If your proposed solution doesn't solve their
| problem, _listen_ to why not, and focus on improving your product
| until it does solve their problem (hopefully in a generic way
| such that your improvements will help you sell to other customers
| in the future). If they aren 't willing to spend the price you're
| asking to buy a solution that they consider to be a solution to a
| problem they have, then find a way to add more value so that they
| will be willing to pay that price.
| raintrees wrote:
| Exactly. Sales is solving other people's problems, which we
| find out about by asking a key question or three, and then
| listening. IF we have a good fit, we see if the other person is
| even interested in resolving the problem. THEN we explore the
| possible value to them, which will assist in price
| negotiations.
| gumby wrote:
| I highly recommend the Dale Carnegie Sales course which is once a
| week for IIRC six or eight weeks.
|
| When I took it long ago the class included me (enterprise SW
| sales for my startup), a woman selling chip fab equipment for
| KLA-Tencor (24-36 month sales cycle with ASP above $100MM), a
| woman selling ADT home alarm systems, and two guys who had opened
| a T-shirt stand on the beach (sales cycle <10 min with ASP of
| $20). We all got the same lesson and all learned a lot from each
| other. A very hands on class and you bring to each class how you
| used the lessons during the preceding week. One of the best
| investments I ever made.
|
| The stages a customer goes through (whether over 5 minutes or 25
| months) are "attention, interest, conviction, desire and close".
| The first time I met one of the best sales guys I have ever
| known, when he changed PowerPoints during a presentation
| displayed this desktop, and his wallpaper was just those words.
| Even at his high level he lived them.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Go to places where those business owners hang out, and simply get
| to know them. Try your local Chamber of Commerce for a start.
| Local CPAs will know a lot of local business owners, and would be
| another good place to start. One way to get to know a CPA is to
| hire one to do your business taxes. Then take him to lunch, and
| talk about your business, and ask for his help.
| pagade wrote:
| No substitute to getting out and actually doing the sell but this
| book will get you tons of ammunition to make your offer bullet
| proof. Don't go by the title. It has very actionable advise:
|
| $100M Offers: How To Make Offers So Good People Feel Stupid
| Saying No
|
| https://www.amazon.com/100M-Offers-People-Stupid-Saying-eboo...
| zackmorris wrote:
| I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this movie:
|
| https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/glengarry_glen_ross
|
| Get ready to work 100 times harder than you think you need to, to
| land that first big client. But it can be done. It's how it's
| always been done.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| Good luck. Small businesses run on tight margins and there's
| already a massive amount of people trying to extract more out of
| them.
|
| I'm willing to bet you don't add any value whatsoever to their
| business (tech people typically don't "get" small business with
| physical stores) and I don't think sales techniques will help you
| do anything except maybe convince unsophisticated business
| owners...
|
| As someone who's run a few restaurants before, if you don't have
| my cell number, you're not talking to me period.
| treis wrote:
| To be frank you've already committed the classic blunder of
| developer initiated startups. You built before you sold. Now
| there's no telling if what you built is what anyone wants.
|
| IMHO, and extrapolating a lot here it's very unlikely you will
| get any sale based off your MVP. It's unlikely that you've hit
| the right market fit without first having found customer #1.
|
| So I'd back up a step and find someone with the problem you're
| trying to solve. Offer the deal of a custom built solution to
| meet their need. Once that's built and validated that it actually
| solves the problem then start selling to others.
| tootie wrote:
| It's not entirely a blunder but OP should consider the MVP as
| almost a straw man. Don't be precious about how you've designed
| it and don't be shocked when customers say this is not at all
| what they need. Having a prototype could still be invaluable
| for eliciting feedback.
| sjducb wrote:
| It's not a blunder 100% of the time. Sometimes non tech people
| need to see it working before they understand.
| bornfreddy wrote:
| Assuming the founder knows the problem non tech people have,
| which in practice doesn't happen except in very very _very_
| rare cases.
| mkr-hn wrote:
| It's an "if you have to ask..." situation. The people who
| understand the problem likely come from the business world
| they're trying to sell to and their question would be more
| specific, or they wouldn't need to ask in the first place.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| ^ This. Exactly this.
|
| By committing to building BEFORE you _know_ what to build, you
| may have invested a lot of time to just get "NO". Stop what
| you're doing right now and go and talk to 20 people who might
| be customers and DO NOT PITCH them. Find out their problems and
| explore from there.
| JamesianP wrote:
| You're saying "may have" but then advising them to throw it
| away and guarantee it was a waste of time? At least they can
| test it out. Learning from mistakes requires feedback.
|
| Rather than avoiding pitching at all costs, perhaps they
| could find more sympathetic advisers to evaluate their
| product then iterate from there. Like relatives or friendly
| small investors who know the business.
| gofreddygo wrote:
| > DO NOT PITCH them.
|
| +1. Try to pitch me and I will use every skill i know to get
| away. DO NOT PITCH before you are 100% sure you know me.
| invaliduser wrote:
| This.
|
| Also, the market segment ("small physical businesses") seems
| too large for an MVP.
| abhiyerra wrote:
| Sales is three things: - Sourcing. Figuring out
| where your customers' hangout so you can reach them there.
| - Prospecting. Reaching out to your potential customer base.
| - Closing. Going through with a deal including sales collateral,
| proposals, and contracts.
|
| The entire process should be a system that is tweaked as you
| execute it. Great books I've read are: - Ultimate
| Sales Machine - Sales EQ - Fanatical prospecting
| - Challenger sale. For the actual closing process - The
| Close.com blog is pretty great.
| troupe wrote:
| Some ideas:
|
| Take a look at how Grub Hub and similar services reached out to
| get restaurants to sign up for their service.
|
| Read the book Influence: Science and Practice by Cialdini
|
| Get some type of CRM system in place so you can keep track of who
| you talked to and who you need to follow up with. It doesn't have
| to be fancy--even note cards will work, but just come up with a
| way to manage that information.
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