Most startup disasters are caused by a failure to connect with the customer. The commonly acknowledged startup killers — premature scaling, running out of capital and a lack of market interest — all have a root in broken sales strategy.
Here are four secrets entrepreneurs can use to nail their messaging, map their sales process and scale into sustainable sales revenue.
1. Embrace salesmanship.
Many of the brightest innovators have a toxic reaction to selling and immediately look to delegate anything that has to do with the sales process. What they fail to embrace is that selling is a reality that everyone, regardless of role, engages in every day.
Selling is merely an exchange. It may be a product or service, but it can also be an interview, an action or a presence. Every interaction you have is exchanging something with someone.
“Even if your role has nothing to do with selling in a tangible way, a broader perspective of the sales process will reveal the innumerable exchanges you have engaged in throughout your life. The good news is that you don’t necessarily need to change anything. The best sales technique is being genuine and authentic,” says Brad Harker author of The Laws of Influence: Mastering the Art of Sales, Leadership, and Change. Harker is also a consultant that helps entrepreneurs build sales strategies that catapult their startup’s sales revenue.
2. Focus on value.
Once you embrace the reality that you are always selling, it becomes imperative to understand what you are selling. The product or service you offer, or money you receive in return, isn’t as significant as the perceived value of what you are exchanging. Consider for a minute that your customer is not buying the widget that you sell. Rather, the customer is buying the value that widget creates for them. Customers don’t care who you are or what you offer until they can see that it can create value for them. Does it solve a problem they have? Does it save them money? These are the kinds of…