Sales
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The selling function is arguably the most important to achieve success, yet it an area that many startups struggle with.
2013
- The Salesforce.com blog has a post on the 6 Dashboards Every Sales Leader Needs, and 10 Things Every Sales Manager Should Know About Sales Performance. Both offer valuable sales management insights.
- Lindsey Gurian from the OpenView blog has 3 questions to ask a prospective sales person job candidate, prior to nailing their compensation, in What Do Your Sales Candidates and Rappers Have in Common?
- Martin Zwilling covers the basics in 7 Steps to Outstanding Sales Growth for Your Startup
- Startup Sales is Hard, But Hiring a Successful First Sales Rep is Harder.
- You need to know When to Sell vs. When to Market to Customers.
- Aaron Ross explains how to triple your pipeline, by understanding the 3 segments: Spears, Seeds and Nets.
2012
(Courtesy of Tom Eisenmann, mixed with SUM curation)
- Mark Leslie and Charles Holloway wrote a paper entitled The Enterprise Sales Learning Curve: A Framework for Building Startups and Launching New Products. It is a must read for any company that is building a new SaaS sales force. (pdf)
- Bootstrapper Robert Graham offers advice on cold calling early customers via email.
- Steve Blank on the challenges of closing a complex B2B sale with multiple decision influencers; Mark Suster of GRP Partners on the same topic.
- David Skok provides a link to a Bridge Group report on metrics and compensation data for SaaS inside sales.
- Mark Suster on when to hire sales people in an early-stage startup and how to choose them.
- Mark Roberge of HubSpot on how to use analytics to build a scalable sales team.
- Brent Adamson et al. on how/why the best sales reps avoid “talkers” who superficially show enthusiasm but are unable/unwilling to mobilize organizational support for a purchase.
2011
(Courtesy of Tom Eisenmann)
- David Skok discusses how to build trusted sales relationships and interviews HubSpot VP-Sales Mark Roberge onSaaS sales best practices.
- Mark Suster reflects on excuses offered by startup salespeople and interviews Vince Thompson and Mo Ali, who discuss startup sales best practices.
- Steve Blank on the often contentious relationship between sales and marketing in startups.
- Michael Woloszynowicz on managing the risk of feature creep when sales offers input during the customer development process.
