Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

Yet in this age when customers have a thousand alternatives, and are overwhelmed by a multitude of messages, sales efforts can make or break a business. In fact, I believe modern entrepreneurs need to be super sales people, in the most positive sense, to their team as well as customers. No pain usually means no sales.

Sales 139

Sales Training Startup Customer 139

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 25, 2009

I’ve sat through a lot of VC pitches and having been CEO of an enterprise software firm for many years I’ve also sat through many customer meetings with sales teams. After the sales meetings I would ask the exec afterward, “how do you think it went?&# We used to do this in our sales slides.

Venture Capital 275

Venture Capital Sales Slides Startup 275

InfoChachkie

JANUARY 14, 2013

If you have your eyes and ears open, you can discover sales lessons in unexpected places, including the cable TV show, Say Yes To The Dress. There are a number of solid sales techniques on display by the Say Yes team. Throughout the sales process, they continually probe and modify their sales approach, based on the bride's feedback.

Sales 251

Sales Startup Activity RSS 251

TechCrunch LA

OCTOBER 7, 2021

An edtech startup called Entity Academy — which provides women with training, in areas like data science and software development; mentoring; and ultimately job coaching — has raised $100 million on the heels of strong growth of its business, and an ambition to improve that ratio.

Mentor 297

Mentor Training Startup Course 297

socalTECH

JUNE 8, 2012

Mojave-based XCOR Aerospace , one of the Southern California companies developing space vehicles, said that it has named a General Sales Agent for the firm's space tourism flights. XCOR said it will focus on development of its spaceships, with SXC focusing on ticket sales, training missions and astronaut relations.

Sales 154

Sales Southern California Training Design 154

InfoChachkie

JULY 4, 2011

Man or woman, the tactics deployed by Sam are applicable to any sales situation and can be put to use by any salesperson, irrespective of their gender. Right from the start, Sam must endure the most painful of all forms of sales rejection, the personal attack. He continues smiling and deploys a rudimentary sales technique.

Sales 219

Sales Entrepreneur Startup Product 219

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 9, 2013

This is final part of a series that describes a sales methodology for technology companies or frankly many other types of companies, too. Well think of it this way – you have your sales process. And with scarce resources it’s your job to decide which door this lead must go through – sales or marketing.

Customer 324

Customer Custom Marketing Newsletter 324

socalTECH

APRIL 12, 2017

Fullerton-based Digsy has rolled out a new, sales software platform specifically aimed at helping commercial real estate brokers better manage their sales teams. The company said it has users at such companies as CBRE, JLL, Cushman & Wakefield, Colliers International, NAI Capital, Sandler Sales Training and others.

Sales 124

Sales Tech Coast Angels Software Training 124

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 19, 2013

The era of VCs investing in successful consumer Internet startups such as eBay led to a belief system that seemed to permeate many enterprise software startups that hiring sales or implementation people was a bad thing. But the “no sales people” mantra isn’t what I’m here to take on. I believe it’s flawed.

Startup 403

Startup Sales Software Review Technical Review 403

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 23, 2010

This is part of my ongoing series on startup advice but also filed under my sales & marketing posts. The only problem is that you can’t afford all of these expensive direct sales reps to go and sell it. Sort of amortizing the costs of their sales reps over more products. You decide to go out and hire a sales rep.

Startup 293

Startup Sales Marketing Product 293

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 21, 2014

The problem with shelfware is that if you have great sales people, you have raised tons of VC money from prominent investors, you have some marquee clients and you thus likely have some great press about you it can be hard to tell true success from that which is ephemeral. Did they do a major training program? Sales Startup Lessons'

Marketing 354

Marketing Case Study Metrics Sales 354

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 15, 2009

On the other hand, I had never had to do the detailed work to get an intuitive feel for what customers wanted or how to train and service them. This includes writing product specs, going on sales calls, handling customer complaints, building the financial model and a host of other activities that will ultimately owned by functional experts.

Startup 299

Startup Venture Capital Technical Review Training 299

socalTECH

APRIL 6, 2011

ReachLocal said it will train SureFire's dedicated sales force to sell its products and services. Woodland Hills-based ReachLocal , the provider of online marketing services for small and medium sized businesses, said Wednesday that it has expanded into New Zealand, via a strategic alliance.

ReachLocal 227

ReachLocal Woodland Hills Yahoo Training 227

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 15, 2013

And a natural sales person. When he was 7-8 my wife used to sit down with him to do homework and train him the importance of getting it done early and well. I’ve sat through so many meetings where sales reps didn’t ask for the order. ” Great sales people are trained to “ask for the order.”

Sales 416

Sales Class Training Technical Review 416

socalTECH

JUNE 8, 2011

Jimmy Hendricks: We make a percentage of every sale. I was hired to run their tennis division, and I built our the sales division for their tennis team. Our project manager, a couple of our advisors, and a couple of our sales people, our head of business development--we're all from Active. How do clients license your software?

Platform 263

Platform Training Software Review Advertising 263

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 21, 2013

So when I meet with GRP portfolio companies that do enterprise sales I try to emphasize the following: 1. Often your sales engineers can do the customizations without bugging the core eng team. Integrate PS Work Into Sales & Marketing Processes. Referenceability is the lifeblood of sales. rollout support.

Software Review 321

Software Review Software Services Company 321

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 16, 2011

After college Joanne worked for 4 years in retail apparel at Macy’s where she initially managed sales reps on the floor and then worked as a buyer of clothing. This is where she first developed sales skills. She doubled her salary by going into sales. to $12m in sales. “A lot of sales is innate.

Startup 311

Startup Sales Venture Capital Entrepreneur 311

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2009

Everyone in the outside world is talking about how great you are but internally you know that your sales aren’t ramping, your product isn’t shipping on time, you have doubts about the quality of your code, you’re not convinced you’re doing a good job on marketing – whatever. Your solution? My advice: don’t.

Startup 327

Startup Sales Class CIO 327

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

The path I went down after a few years was to hire more process driven people and devolved more daily operational ownership to people running individual functions such as product management, sales management, finance, etc. One of the most obvious places where you see this is in sales & marketing. Ditto the CFO. I was the laggard.

Sales 296

Sales Pricing Startup Customer 296

Berkonomics

MAY 3, 2018

Many executives and managers have made the mistake of using the financial and sales forecast to plan and execute hiring of new employees – so that they could be trained and up to speed when the demand arrives. Well, you may not be alone. The balance between preparedness and cost.

Training 226

Training Layoffs Demand Resource 226

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2010

I recently did a post for startups on understanding sales people. VP’s of Engineering are essential to making sure the trains run on time. They still have the respect of their team because they’re technical by training. A few people have asked me to try and define the perfect startup organization chart.

CTO Hire 400

CTO Hire Fractional VPE Startup Outsource Development 400

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 4, 2014

Calabasas-based travel booking site CheapAir.com says that it has begun accepting those two cyber-currencies -- which are similar to Bitcoin -- for booking airline flights, hotels, and train seats. CheapAir.com--which has been accepting Bitcoin since November of 2013--says it has seen sales of more than $1.5M

Calabasas 207

Calabasas Training Sales Sites 207

socalTECH

FEBRUARY 12, 2013

Cornerstone OnDemand said its new Cornerstone for Salesforce directly embeds learning management into Salesforce.com, giving sales and service firms direct access to training from within that tool. Pricing on the new software was not announced.

Cornerstone OnDemand 171

Cornerstone OnDemand Santa Monica Training Resource 171

socalTECH

AUGUST 29, 2016

The company went from a hot startup--with over $200M in sales and 400 employees--to bankruptcy, in less than two years. Remember Los Angeles-based kids tablet maker Fuhu ? The Los Angeles Times dissects the implosion of Fuhu, which once had hoped for an IPO, and was later sold to Mattel for a mere $21.5M out of bankruptcy.

Training 133

Training Startup Los Angeles Sales 133

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 7, 2014

I spend a lot of time with startups and thus hear many companies talk about their approach to sales and their interactions with customers. Given customers & sales are the lifeblood of any organization you’d imagine everybody would respect their customers. Contrast that with a VC conversation I had. Startup Lessons'

Customer 341

Customer Custom Venture Capital Software Review 341

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 11, 2015

Yet in this age when customers have a thousand alternatives, and are overwhelmed by a multitude of messages, sales efforts can make or break a business. In fact, I believe modern entrepreneurs need to be super sales people, in the most positive sense, to their team as well as customers. No pain usually means no sales.

Sales 106

Sales Entrepreneur Customer Custom 106

InfoChachkie

FEBRUARY 19, 2014

For most companies, existing customers are the most economical and lucrative source of incremental sales. In fact, the authors of Guerrilla Selling recommend that companies focus 60% of their sales efforts soliciting additional revenue from their legacy customers. 1% - 3% of the additional sales). Consistency Matters.

SaaS 215

SaaS Pricing Sales Customer 215

Berkonomics

MAY 25, 2017

Train and transfer technology to each new distributor within 90 days of signing. Assign one of our corporate employees to support sales and installation efforts by all distributors. Note that the strategy calls for cooperation between business development, sales, marketing, product development, installation and support.

Resource 243

Resource Training Sales Demand 243

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 14, 2011

Startups often have advisors that help on recruiting, fund raising, biz dev, sales, etc. Get Media Training. Yet with some simple media training you can be an effective communicator. are all parts of effective media training. are all parts of effective media training. No media training for me = no ABC.

Startup 329

Startup Press Training Media 329

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2010

You’ll get sales information from your VP of Sales, marketing information from your VP Marketing, tech information from your CTO and so on. An obvious example would be in sales. By going on sales calls you pick up directly the feedback of what customers want and also what they’re telling you about competition.

Startup 308

Startup CTO Coach Technical Review CTO Hire 308

Berkonomics

APRIL 19, 2018

He observed that the process we follow to be humane in our handling of under-performing employees, manage the risk of future lawsuit, finally then move to separate the employee, define the open position, recruit the candidate, train the new hire and count the new hire as up to speed in the job can take all of eighteen months.

Training 226

Training Course Sales IBM 226

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 10, 2012

When I started my first tech company in 1999 I had pretty good tech chops and had led teams but had very little exposure to many other things that matter in a startup including sales, marketing & business development. And most of us start with zero training. His lawyerly training has helped him become an excellent negotiator.

Startup 322

Startup Training Outsource Development Design 322

Berkonomics

APRIL 19, 2012

Widen your search to include companies with products peripheral to yours, where extension of their product would seem logical, especially if you plan to be successful early in making sales into their market. If you are training your sales staff, work especially hard on responding to emotional and factual counters to a final close of a sale.

Competition 189

Competition Slides Sales Ideas 189

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 9, 2009

It was 2003 and I was training for a marathon so I was in great shape (yes, I know this was YEARS ago but I did complete it in 3:57). I was looking for a person to head up my UK sales team. Within the first 5 minutes of the meeting we had discussed that I was training for a marathon. Small story. I used to work in the UK.

Venture Capital 264

Venture Capital Startup Training Sales 264

TechCrunch LA

APRIL 23, 2020

The proposal sets out four big initiatives, including zero-emissions vehicle manufacturing, assembly and adoption; zero-emissions infrastructure investments; commitments to public transit investments; workforce development; and job training. There’s $25 billion in money set aside for public transit and $12.5

Southern California 261

Southern California Los Angeles Rosemead Incubator 261

socalTECH

DECEMBER 1, 2021

Santa Barbara-based Invoca, which develops artificial intelligence powered, sales conversation tools and call tracking products, says it is launching a certification program for its agency customers.

Artificial Inteligence 113

Artificial Inteligence Santa Barbara Training Sales 113

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 17, 2017

It was a stock option incentive related “expense” but I bet you didn’t know that because in an era where we only read the headlines — they must be a train wreck losing billions. The most obvious way to explain this is with sales people. COGS” represents the amount that each sale costs you.

Startup 227

Startup Venture Capital Sales Course 227