Learn to Build, Learn to Sell

There are two fundamental components to creating a successful business.

Product
Getting Customers

“Learn to sell, learn to build, if you can do both, you will be unstoppable”
-Naval

Most of you are builders. So today, I'll walk you through everything I have learned in my 8+ years of tech sales to make you unstoppable.

What Sales is NOT

Sales can be intimidating due to the way it's perceived. Let's start with what sales is not:

Sales is not forcing someone to buy your product
Sales is not just for extroverts

Your Product Will Not Sell Itself

Every tech company has a sales team. Even with the best and most intuitive product you still need sales reps. Sales reps represent your product. While one person may understand its value not everyone in the organization will. As a sales rep you job is convey your product in a way that the entire org can understand. In B2B sales you are rarely selling to just one person.

Good Sales is Education, Great Sales is Alignment

Sales is not forcing someone to buy your product. You may be able to convince someone to buy your product but if they don't need it they will cancel and never recommend your product to anyone.

When selling you want to (1) make sure the person has a problem your product can solve and (2) show how your product can solve this problem.

The most basic way of doing this listing out all the features, benefits, and value of your product, typically through a product demo. Educating your buyer in this way is helpful because it gives them the opportunity to know everything your product is capable of. The problem with education alone is that the person on the other end may not know how this directly impacts their business. In fact, if they have never heard of your product or haven't used it before they certainly don't know.

This is why it's important to align your knowledge of your product with the pain points your potential customer faces. See you've seen many customers with these same problems and the success they have had with your product. You must relay this information with real life examples.

How Do We Do This?

Let's jump to the good part, the part y'all came here for. How do we conduct a sales call in a away that not only helps sell your product better but makes your customers excited about buying your product.

1. Prove Your an Industry Expert: you built this product because you felt this was a problem that must be solved. You've spent countless hours researching the problem, industry, competitors, etc. You know this but your customer's don't. Don't be afraid to remind people of your mission and vision. Not only will this show you are passionate about your product but it will help you build credibility and trust.

2. Feel Their Pain: Good salesmen find their customer's pain points, great salesmen feel their pain. they know the effects it has and can quantify their customers pain. without knowing their pain you cannot offer a solution - the best you can do is try to sell a product with cool features.

3. Connect the Dots: Being an expert in the industry and knowing your product inside out can connect the dots to where your customers currently are to where they want to be. Your product is the vehicle to get them there. Your goal is to show them how the vehicles works and give them directions to their destination.

What Tools To Use

In the beginning you can wing it. Tools cost money that you don't have. But once you get the point where your doing a few sales call per day or you have a team of sales reps it can be beneficial to invest in tools that can multiply your outcomes.

A tool I have found super helpful is MeetingIQ (linked below). I love this tool because it gives me all the information I need on someone right before I meet with them. The person's name, role, company, what products they offer, how our product fit's into their product, possible pain points, and how to handle any objections. What I like most about this product is that it does not require any action from me whatsoever. I just get an email or Slack message sent to me 5 minutes before my meeting.

Check it out here:
https://www.builtwithatlas.com/meeting-iq