CHENNAI: Let’s accept it — geeky and nerdy founders hate to sell. Maybe, hate is a strong word here – but we the geeks often believe that a great product sells on its own (correct me if I am wrong!). Inspired by Silicon Valley success stories, a lot of nerdy founders focus their entire effort on building the technology piece and do not worry about selling to customers. Most of the time, they are shy to talk about sales, but the reality is that the company needs to sell something – otherwise what’s the point of starting a business (unless you are heavily funded with no pressure from investors to show revenue numbers)?!
I am often asked how nerdy founders can handle sales. Instead why not hire an experienced sales person to do the sales job? Here is a quick 101 guide and some perspective that will help you.
First of all, please understand that founder is always the best sales representative for the company — especially during the initial days. Why? Because nobody else can articulate the product better than the founder himself/herself! During the early days, your product may not have taken final shape, but your customers need to know your vision and how the next iteration(s) of the product will help them solve their problems.
Founder has to (and I repeat — has to) listen to feedback and answer tough questions directly from the customers. This not only helps you with the product roadmap, but there is no better way to gauge the usefulness of your product but by listening to customers queries and how it fits into their current scheme of things. After all, what’s the point of building something nobody wants?
Now the next question is to how to go about sales! While there are many books that can teach you negotiations and strategies, do understand that your customer isn’t just buying your product. They are buying into a relationship (with you and your startup).
Can you make them feel comfortable doing business with you? Can you make them sell your solution to their management? That is, do you inspire enough trust in your customers that they bat for you when they are talking to their senior management? Can your product/solution help them with their next promotion or appraisal cycle? If the answer is a ‘Yes’, then they will bat for your solution everywhere they go!
Great founders do not sell a transaction. They sell value proposition and focus on building a relationship (even if they fail to sell in the first go). Remember that sales is a function of how deeply you understand your customer, their pain points and how you can pitch your solution to bridge the gap. Sales isn’t about flashy powerpoints or fluent English — it’s just about finding a pain point, creating trust, building relationships and living up to the promise.