After talking with hundreds of entrepreneurs over the years I like to reflect on patterns and trends. One trend that has emerged, to no surprise, is that sales strategies resulting in serious success are all over the place. The interesting thing is that many startups that have achieved my definition of success can pin point one specific strategy that really catapulted them to the next level.
Here are real world startup sales strategies that led to success:
- Enterprise software company that won a couple RFPs in a vertical and then proceeded to cold call the 4,000 organizations in the vertical and share the success stories
- Software-as-a-service company that developed an expertise in using Google AdWords for lead generation and now spends seven figures a year on PPC and generates eight figures a year in revenue
- Software-as-a-service company that sponsored small, specialized communities with thought leadership for lead generation
- Software-as-a-service company that used small ad networks in niche communities to generate free trials and grow significantly faster than the competition
- Software-as-a-service company that provided a free site that scored a variety of things and then offered more data in exchange for an email address for lead generation
Please send me an email or tweet if you’d like to know the companies behind each of these examples as well as more information. There’s no silver bullet for all companies but there are unexpected techniques that had profound results for many startups.
What else? What are some other example sales strategies that resulted in serious success?
David Cummings on Startups 
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