Every growth is founder-led first
Learn how to sell in a non-cringe manner
Dear GTM Strategist,
Are you sales-shy?
Don’t be - because it is damaging your business.
One of the founders that I mentor - Nikola, a technical cofounder in the AI space - said it best:
“Yes, I do not like sales, but I learned how to do it anyway because I want to hire more developers, finish the product faster, and seize the window of opportunity in our market.”
This is the best mindset ever.
And guess what Nikola did next - he did not hire a “networking coach” or attend cringe classes on how to build a sales system.
No, Nikola opened his phonebook, saw that he has a colleague working in a local bank, and sold their first pilot, which is expected to create $1.5 million in savings this year. What a stud 🙌
The secret ingredient of every early-stage sales success: problem-solving.
All that you need to do in early-stage sales is:
Understand who is making a decision, and what matters to them (criteria).
Convince them how you can solve the problem cheaper, better, faster.
Get your foot in the door with a pilot deal.
It gets more complicated, but let’s first rewire our brains a little to warm up for our sales discussion.
Rewire your mindset: Sales = Problem Solving
Let’s face it, 95% of founders and product people hate sales.
Here is what we do not hate: solving problems.
This is why we are in business in the first place.
How do you solve a problem?
Learn more by talking to people who have the problem you’re solving (discovery interviews).
Come up with an effective MVP solution for their problem (solution and offer design).
Circle back to people who have the problem and ask them to take your solution for a spin (testing).
If that was a success, your job becomes to generate evidence that you can do this repeatedly - find more people with the same problem.
Then it becomes your holy duty to do sales because if you do not, your ICP will continue to suffer from this problem.
Become the best salesperson in your company (because there is no other choice)
Let’s face it, there is no one else but you to do it.
I crafted this process diagram of founder-led sales based on my business's best practices.
It goes like this:
Learn more about the problems that your ICP has - interviews, phone calls, Q&As, sales calls, mingling at events, and scanning what they are complaining about on social media and online communities.
Develop an offer for a solution that your ICP has and present it in a PDF, at a meeting, or using Miro board + Loom.
Craft the target list of 10 people who can benefit from the offer and have a willingness to pay for it.
Walk them through and listen to their feedback carefully. Correct an offer if you have to and circle back to them. In my experience, you can easily sell to at least 3-5 of those people.
Do well for them and get their testimonials/recommendations to build social proof and trust for your solution.
Now magnitude up! Find more people like them and do not forget to ask your early customers for referrals. Who else would benefit from the solution?
This is not difficult to do.
You just have to do it.
This week I interviewed the outreach legend Guillaume Moubeche. His most famous product is lemlist. Guillaume founded Lempire and went from 0 to a $150M valuation in 3.5 years bootstrapped. He provided many useful examples of how to convincingly get new leads to your ecosystem by doing outreach, building relationships, giving back to communities, and building in public.
This is how you build trust and access to the target audience.
Watch the video on YouTube:
If you prefer to listen on the go, find the GTM Strategist Podcast in your favorite podcast app.
I hope you liked this post!
I was very inspired to write it because everyone else is talking about ABSs, ABMs, SQLs, PQLs and whatnots - but I genuinely believe that sales is all about building trust, goodwill and relationships in the early stages.
Want to chat with me?
I was so inspired by your active participation at our Userpilot GTM Webinar - over 500 people registered, 176 attended, and the engagement was through the roof. Many thought that Q&A was even better than the presentation.
This is why I will try to continue this content stream. To help you meet each other and unlock new business opportunities, I decided to have open Office Hours every Thursday at 18:00 CET for a month as an experiment.
You are welcome to register for a Zoom meeting here & ask whatever questions you would like, for example:
How to do growth, marketing in sales?
How to run a consulting business?
How to grow products?
How to build your team?
Whatever you need - I am here for you.
Do things that do not scale before you can scale.
Hope to see you all at our meetups every Thursday at 18:00! ✌️
Maja
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