Scott Dorsey in his 2013 address at the Chicago Ideas Week spoke about 5 ideas to sell better.
1. Look Big – You need to project that you are not a scrappy startup. Same reason you wear a suit to your VC meetings. You want to look professional, in control. Everything needs to be sharp and needs to look established. Website, Social Media presence ( do not promote your Twitter handle if you have 23 followers). Invest in professional collaterals. Keep great company. figure a way to partner with marque logos.
2. Don’t rely exclusively on the web to sell the web – Build your sales organisation. Most early stage companies underinvest in sales distribution as it is hard and expensive. Imagine capacity 2/3 years out and then plan backwards and build capacity.
3. Hire in groups of 3. This was from Bob Compton, (the first Angel investor in Exact Target and Mentor to Scott Dorsey). Remember there are only two things to do when you startup. Build and Sell. Hire in groups of 3. Train at the same time. You will learn if the transaction model is working and not whether the salesperson is working or not. With one person it is often impossible to figure out.
4. Test different sales models – inside sales or field salesforce – which is better? You will only figure out through testing. For exact Target both worked fine.
5. Build Channel Distribution – While most companies in the early stage avoids building channel partnerships it is an amazing way to get reach. National Distribution.
Where I learnt it #206
