David Cummings on Startups

5 Sales Tips for Seed Stage Startups

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David Cummings

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After talking to many entrepreneurs, I’ve found that one of the co-founders (usually the CEO) sells the product to the first 25+ customers (ideally 10 Unaffiliated Customers). Once the startup raises money, or starts generating enough revenue, the most common next step is building out a sales team in search of a repeatable customer acquisition process (see tips going from product/market fit focused to customer acquisition focused). Here are five sales tips for seed stage startups:

  1. Decide if inside sales makes sense
  2. Build a sales playbook
  3. Develop an ideal customer profile
  4. Hire sales reps in pairs
  5. Follow Predictable Revenue using SalesLoft
  6. Bonus: Resist the temptation to hire a VP of Sales

For entrepreneurs where sales comes naturally, this part is fun and exciting. For entrepreneurs less comfortable with sales, this part is incredibly hard. Regardless, use these five tips and increase the chance of sales success.

What else? What are some more sales tips for seed stage startups?

Comments

2 responses to “5 Sales Tips for Seed Stage Startups”

  1. Scott Anderson Avatar
    Scott Anderson

    Well, please forgive the shameless self-promotion, but it’s totally relevant to this post and I’m sure your readers are unaware of it.

    There is an entirely new approach to this problem — especially for B2B start-ups — that does not involve salespeople at all. My company (Iterate Studio) is building out a platform called Iterate.ai that gives start-ups (and mature vendors) direct visibility to enterprise customers’ business challenges. It also gives the enterprise customers a new, normalized, salesperson-free way of shopping for solutions. They can also post anonymized challenges, essentially mini-RFPs. Start-ups are notified if our platform senses that a challenge might be in their wheelhouse. All they have to do is apply for consideration through the platform.

    We’re still in beta, but we’ve already indexed over 100,000 start-ups with many dozens that have embellished their profiles with case studies and more. We have well over 100 enterprise accounts, including otherwise inaccessible companies like Walmart, Cisco and Kohl’s. It’s sort of like a digital innovation speed-dating service for start-ups and enterprises. We also make it really easy to pilot interesting solutions without drawn-out legal review.

    The idea is to disrupt the insanely awful B2B sales/buying process, allowing salespeople to close self-nurtured leads instead of all the other crap they have to do. It also means the buyer does not have to invest time sorting through indistinguishable pitch decks. Check it out. http://www.iterate.ai.

    Reply
  2. Divya Ramamurthy Avatar
    Divya Ramamurthy

    In the business world, you need to have a plan to be successful. In this article, you explain the steps to successfully starting up a business and specifically increasing its sales. This is already an effective article because you are providing a plan for an entrepreneur to follow. I believe that the most important step is developing an ideal customer profile because when you are selling a product and marketing a product, the customer is what matters the most. Directing all goals towards the customers will make your business the most successful.
    For marketing services and more info, visit: meramarketing.com

    Reply

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