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Ask HN: How to sell?

36 points by salesnewb ↗ HN
I am an engineer. I have a startup and a co-founder. We have a well-developed product line and an ever-increasing amount of customers.

The nature of the business makes it heavily reliant on offline sales and offline salespeople. In the beginning of our business, I handled product development and my partner handled sales. We have now gotten to the point where my employees can basically handle future product development and maintenance and our biggest bottleneck is our sales process. I've been hesitant to move away from being an engineer, because I love engineering - in fact, I've been procrastinating for quite some time now - but my partner has quite rightly pointed out to me that the area where I can add most value to our business is in the sales process. We both believe my procrastination has helped a competitor catch up to us a bit. I am determined to make the transition to a salesman, because that's what we need right now.

The problem is I really don't want to sell things. I have no background in sales. I don't like being around people - I've been an introvert my whole life and talking to strangers (or even friends) physically exhausts me. But, due to some peculiarities of my business, from a sales perspective I am a unique asset - something my competitors cannot easily copy. In many ways, I should theoretically be the lead salesperson, not my partner.

Do you guys have any recommendations - perhaps books and techniques - on how I can gain confidence and become a good salesman?

27 comments

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russell
I once tried to turn myself into a salesman, but I coulnt. I think that an engineer has to love selling to sucessfully make the transition. One thing that worked for me was to use an intelligent, personable woman to do the initial setup. Then I would come in for the in-depth pitch. It was a lot more comfortable for me. It is important, however, for you to learn the sales process from a good book or, better, a good coach. Engineers tend to over pitch and over promise. There is a non-obvious point in the process to shut up and take the order.
coryl
Do you guys have any recommendations - perhaps books and techniques - on how I can gain confidence and become a good salesman?

Practice, practice, practice. Get yourself out there, expose yourself to bad situations, tough questions. Start small if you have to, cold calls, emails, whatever.

dkokelley
If you do this, start with the 'low value' targets. The last thing you want is to ruin a future big sales contract by making a rookie mistake.
epi0Bauqu
I'm doing a video on this very topic with a great software salesman (security to enterprise) for http://tractionbook.com. Please stay tuned.

I've decided that I need to do more of these "vertical" videos in addition to entrepreneur traction stories. If there are particular aspects you want me to cover, or other topics (in other videos, e.g. SEO), please let me know.

delano
Give yourself a couple weeks to practice selling a product that you're not attached to and that's in an unrelated market.
zackattack
A hardcore introvert can't develop an appropriate skill level in such a time frame. Not possible.

Hire a pro. Have a pro sales friend help you interview him. Read a few sales books too, so you know what to look for.

zackattack
N.B. I don't have much experience in enterprise sales.
skmurphy
For products above 100K in particular, introverts do much better because they are much more willing to listen to the customer and then work on meeting their needs. It's a dangerous myth that introverts cannot sell. You sell with your ears.
[dead] access_denied
Understand that the sales conversation is just another engineering project. You are developing a speech-to-speech algorythm that converts any "no" into a "yes". Input parameters are 'features' of your product that have to be synthesized into 'benefits' by a sub-system, etc
hga
I too am an introvert who's physically exhausted by talking to strangers (but not friends). Here's what I did when my programming and system integration work was behind ~ $3.75 million of $5M total for FY92 of the company I was working for:

Frequently the senior salesman, our "closer" (and he was good), would take me to a customer to convince them we had what it took, understood their problem and would solve it, integrate with their systems, etc. etc. etc. (For verisimilitude I'd be wearing my normal business casual attire of a dress shirt, black jeans and visually quiet running shoes.)

I'd spend up to a few hours before a whiteboard with their people and honestly sell our proposed solution, and it worked very well. I wasn't good for anything the next day, but that was more than an acceptable cost.

Anyway, my point here is to echo russell, you may be able to do this with a division of labor approach. Get some salesmen who are good at sales and good enough with the domain to do the work you find the most hard, and reserve your sales efforts for where you can make the most difference.

Good luck!

lrm242
Don't become a salesman. Become an evangelist for your product. Selling comes in all flavors, but if you're comfortable talking about your product and helping potential customers understand how you can help them, then focus on the pre-sales process and let your partner close the deals. You don't have to be a bare knuckled closer to be a salesman. Many CTOs in startups are actually glorified sales engineers--I know I was. After the engineering grew they became self sufficient and I spent most of my time with customers, helping them understand how my product could help them solve their problems. I never once negotiated a deal, we had "sales guys" for that--but I was most certainly selling.
njl
Really really listen, and steer the conversation with questions. Focus on real pain they have that your product can solve. Let them come to realize for themselves that your product will solve real problems for them, and then get the hell out of the way while your partner closes.

You're selling something you believe in. That makes it easy.

A specific book I'd recommend is "SPIN Selling" by Neil Rackham. He did actual research into successful solution sales cycles. He outlines the best way to go about making somebody realize that your product is exactly what they want. It's from 1988, but most tactical solutions-selling books since have felt to me like a branded rehash of SPIN Selling.

dgunnars
You can probably read thousands of books, take classes and seminars etc. but in order to be a good salesman, all you really need to do is to be willing to listen to your clients, and really try to understand their problems and how your solutions can help them.

Once you really listen to your clients, understand them, and make them feel like you understand them, you're good. The rest will come easy once the client feels at ease, and feels like you are willing to take them time and effort to listen to them and put yourself in their shoes.

treeform
You need to make people like you as a person first. Then you can sell your product.
tkiley
Hire someone who likes sales.

Seriously, hire someone who likes sales.

I hate selling. I like building. I started my company in 2006. In three years, I signed 3 deals. Then I found a partner who lives and breathes sales. In the past three months, I have signed two additional deals and have five more in end stages of negotiation. Thanks to our new head of sales, went from actively talking with 15 concurrent prospects to actively talking with 150 concurrent prospects.

Don't kill yourself doing sales. Kill yourself finding someone who will do it well and love it.

Edit: I should mention that the average value of our contracts is going up too. Well-executed sales strategy can generate more revenue off of the same quantity of goods sold. Don't underestimate it.

shpxnvz
It would be interesting to hear more about how you found your sales partner. Did you search for and evaluate many candidates, or just happen to meet the "right one" and hit it off?
mattew
I agree with the parent comment 100%. You can always learn how to sell later when the stakes are not so high. For now, you need someone who knows what they are doing and will land your more business at a higher margin.
robfitz
First, go read Steve Blank's book (http://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steven-Blank/dp/09...). It puts a comforting amount of structure around the sales process and turns what's normally a big ball o' confusion into a set of tasks with concrete steps & goals.

It also helped me to spend a lot of time in bars and cafes talking to strangers until I was comfortable with both the approach & conversation.

jaddison
I'm reading this book now and highly recommend it - I think it's important to think of developing your business around your customer(s) needs, not your product development.

If you know (not guessing!) what your customer needs/is missing, you can build something that makes sense from a business perspective.

Of course, I'll definitely agree with another reply regarding hiring someone who excels in and loves sales. It will quite likely be worth the salary/commission.

skmurphy
Focus on asking the right questions and then giving good answers (this may often involve follow up in a second conversation). Work as part of a sales team so that the presentation burden can be shared. Develop and maintain an extensive FAQ for your product so that others can also speak knowledgeably about it. In the end introverts can make excellent sales people because they are willing to listen and give thoughtful responses. Most of the time you are "selling with your ears" so help your team succeed. SPIN Selling by Neal Rackham is a good intro book on sales.
metamemetics
Start with Why: http://mixergy.com/start-with-why-simon-sinek/

Basically, start by talking WHY you and your company do what you do rather than WHAT it does. In conversation, people are constantly trying to determine the underlying motives and beliefs of the other party. Don't make them work for it, tell them.

ex: "As an engineer, I enjoy discovering new ways to do things more efficiently. I highly value tools that are pragmatic and well designed. I founded CompanyX to embody these values. We just happen to make the most pragmatic and most efficient Widgets currently on the market."

So you start with Why, and the What(product) will naturally follow.

Start with No: http://mixergy.com/negotiate-jim-camp/

The default answer people will give you is "no", because "no" maintains the status quo and is therefore always a safe choice. If you start by telling the potential customer:

"It's perfectly fine to say NO, I promise I won't personally be offended. If our Widgets are not what you're looking for, feel free to offer suggestions as I was the lead engineer and we are constantly improving our products"

They will become more relaxed and put more genuine effort into hearing what you have to say knowing it's fine to say no.Basically you want to disengage their defense mode.

Also, you can strongly leverage the fact you are an engineer and not a salesman. Literally tell potential customers "I am primarily an engineer not a salesman, but I'm very passionate about the products I've helped design and want to tell people about the cool stuff we've created"

onoj
I agree with many postings here but would like to add the following perspective. I dislike labels and "roles" so I would suggest thinking in the following way - you like creating good, viable solutions. You are prepared to go above and beyond to make something work well and work in all applications.The best and fastest way of achieving this is to meet with people who could use what you do and find out what they need. If you use this as an optimization tool, I believe the "selling" part will take care of itself.
wslh
If you're in the sales/no-sales dilemma and you're a key asset for selling I recommend first to cowork side by side with somebody with experience in sales.

If you came from some engineering field you must have some idea about selling, probably starting seeing sales as an engineering problem, I recommend these articles:

- http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/sales-marketing-machine/jbos...

- http://www.forentrepreneurs.com/sales-marketing-machine/intr...

But in my opinion sales is all about no-procrastination and acting very quickly instead of planning too much.

iworkforthem
do a couple of videos and ask for feedback for your existing customers. preach a lot on how ur solution solve your customer's problem.