Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 22, 2009

Only Hire A+ People Who Punch Above Their Weight Class. I believe that you should always hire people are are looking to “punch above their weight class,&# which means to hire people who want to be one league above where they are today. Weight Class : Let’s take sales. I’m not one of those.

Startup

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 31, 2012

Jeff (also an HBS alum) co-teaches the LTV course with Professor Eisenmann about a student of theirs who had written a blog post about sales taking on some of my previous assertions. That student is Erin McCann who formerly worked in sales at Google, so she has some ground to stand on in her assertions. Specifically, 1.

Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 13, 2020

Having the best solution is a good start these days, but a solution alone is no longer enough to keep customer attention and loyalty. The challenge is to transform and hardwire your entire team to think in these terms, rather than the default focus on distinct towers of product quality, closing the sale, or fixing a complaint.

Customer

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 5, 2012

Steve's first question was, “Who are our customers?" I) took the 300 latest cards, personally wrote a questionnaire and called 300 customers. SuperMac's main customer base were color desktop professionals. All of a sudden I now had customers telling what market, how to reach them and what applications are important.

Marketing

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 25, 2014

Recruiting – One of the hardest tasks of any startups is recruiting world-class talent. Enterprise Sales – The very first thing a potential customer does when you email or call to set up a meeting is Google you. So does the enemy who is fighting for the customer to choose another vendor. Ironic, of course.

Press

TechEmpower

MARCH 4, 2024

Key Functions with High Impact Generative AI is revolutionizing sales by enabling dynamic pricing and personalized customer interactions, boosting conversion rates and customer satisfaction. Post-sale, AI analyzes customer data to improve service and loyalty, making it a cornerstone of modern sales methodologies.

Generative AI

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 1, 2015

“the ecommerce company gained fauxmentum by raising artificially high amounts of venture capital and spent lavishly on customer acquisition despite long payback periods and questionable LTV” __. I’m not saying don’t hire sales staff or market your products aggressively. __. faux·men·tum.

Startup

Both Sides of the Table

AUGUST 25, 2011

Even from a young age, my experiences as president of my college fraternity were more formative in my experiences as an entrepreneur than my economics classes were. But poly sci taught me critical thinking and writing skills that I didn’t get in my econ classes. My political science degree was more helpful than my economics degree.

Class

Berkonomics

JULY 11, 2013

That’s impressive sales leverage. The major focus that used to be in using the direct mail business to drive sales is now focused upon email marketing campaigns, social networking marketing, building buzz, and location-based sales using tools to recognize shoppers at the point of sale.

.Net

Tech Zulu Event

JANUARY 18, 2013

A traffic jam of expensive cars lined up to pull into the packed parking lot of MuckerLab for its second graduating class demo day. Tech Coast Angel investor Dale Okuno came out because he believes that MuckerLab attracts better talent because they keep their class size small and focused. And build great business they have.

Class

TechCrunch LA

MARCH 2, 2021

“ We were targeted to a small number of very premier customers. Sales, Sony Music Entertainment, in a statement. . Instead of relying on incumbent distribution platforms, customers control the audience relationship directly and maximize engagement and monetization in a way that fits with their brand objectives.

Tool

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 20, 2010

I recently did a post for startups on understanding sales people. Trying to work without this person is like wanting to build a world class sky scraper but not having a great lead architect and civil engineer. They care about the quality of what is build more than they care about end customers.

CTO Hire

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 4, 2010

Reading it felt like read a university book for an economics class and no wonder since he’s a professor at Harvard Business School. This is important because the customers they serve (the red line) demand a product that meets their complex requirements. So the startups tend to focus on totally new customers. billion.

Startup

Both Sides of the Table

DECEMBER 3, 2013

But what if you’re a credit card company and you want to know where to find your next customers? ” How can businesses not incorporate information into their marketing and sales funnels? Already 2/3rds of our customers are ingesting 2 or more data sources including Facebook, Tumblr, WordPress, Bit.ly ” Steve.

Social Media

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 9, 2022

Most businesses spend big money testing their brand logo, catchy marketing phrases, and demographics, but spend little time training and validating that their employees can and do deliver exceptional experiences to their customers. Keep your team happy to create engaged customers. Build relationships and stop surveying customers.

Customer

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2023

Having the best solution is a good start these days, but a solution alone is no longer enough to keep customer attention and loyalty. The challenge is to transform and hardwire your entire team to think in these terms, rather than the default focus on distinct towers of product quality, closing the sale, or fixing a complaint.

Customer

Both Sides of the Table

NOVEMBER 14, 2017

There is nothing more pure than building a product, putting it out in the world and seeing paying customers using your product and in some cases loving it. Sam’s vision was to build a world-class “reverse logistics” company that could be as ambitious as Amazon has been in delivering goods to our houses.

Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 29, 2014

Most businesses spend big money testing their brand logo, catchy marketing phrases, and demographics, but spend little time training and validating that their employees can and do deliver memorable experiences to their customers. Keep your team happy to create engaged customers. An unhappy team member can’t create an engaged customer.

Customer

InfoChachkie

APRIL 25, 2011

If you are a leader at a startup and you are reading a business book, you are not closing customers, raising capital, improving your product, or spending time with your loved ones. I have used Guy’s previous book, The Art Of The Start (Art ), in my UC Santa Barbara New Venture Creation class for the past five years. Tricking The Jedi.

Technical Review

socalTECH

JANUARY 9, 2012

What do you do when a new industry, which serves the same customers as you do, suddenly appears and starts to grow astronomically? It takes mo bile, email, and retail into a single engine, which increases the value of new and existing customers. What kind of customers are using your product?

Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

SEPTEMBER 1, 2013

Most businesses spend big money testing their brand logo, catchy marketing phrases, and demographics, but spend little time training and validating that their employees can and do deliver memorable experiences to their customers. Keep your team happy to create engaged customers. An unhappy team member can’t create an engaged customer.

Customer

socalTECH

SEPTEMBER 15, 2014

We spoke with Mazen Fawaz , founder and CEO of the startup, to learn why the company thinks it can do a much better job of finding you a real estate agent, by digging through home sales data. We mine historical home sales data, years and years of data, and determine who is the highest performer for a given type of house.

Help

InfoChachkie

JULY 21, 2011

You decide how much you want to invest in your employees and then you give your employees the control to build a custom perk package for themselves. Every day, let’s learn from our customers, and I did that in Iraq. 3) I’ve heard some great stories about your weekend sales “boot camps.”

Summary

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 22, 2014

Of course it is super helpful if a VC can drop you in to important people for business development, recruiting, PR, sales and eventually M&A. Simply put – I’d be in search of a VC who had an intuitive sense of my product, my customers, my organizational issues, my competitors, etc. Connections? EQ and Team Leadership?

Venture Capital

Berkonomics

AUGUST 2, 2018

There are five major classes or niches a company should examine and make its own in calculating positioning in the marketplace. There are exceptions, based upon cost of sales. Mercedes offers a premium automobile with its customers expecting luxury first, quality second, service third, and price a distant fourth. Innovation.

Pricing

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 27, 2013

In this period (less than 2 years) he has brought on incredibly talented senior execs is sales, marketing, product management, client services, finance, vp engineering and more. So if all I need to do is make some customer calls, interview potential employees or help with his fund-raising decks – hallelujah.

Tips

InfoChachkie

JUNE 16, 2016

Custom Wharton Degree. When I arrived at Wharton many moons ago, I was told that all first-year students take the same set of Core classes. Like a sheepeople, I dutifully signed up for the required classes. I handed him my class enrollment form, which he quickly scanned, murmured something unintelligible and signed.

Entrepreneur

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 16, 2019

Most businesses spend big money testing their brand logo, catchy marketing phrases, and demographics, but spend little time training and validating that their employees can and do deliver exceptional experiences to their customers. Keep your team happy to create engaged customers. Build relationships and stop surveying customers.

Customer

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 29, 2009

Three reasons: There is a relative valuation between the price a VC pays and their expectations of what it will exit for in an IPO or trade sale. Also, it’s harder to pay a $30 million pre-money value on an unproved company when you see public companies with $100 million in sales trading for less than $20 million.

Venture Capital

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 17, 2013

You can ask them to come and watch your videos at your owned & operated websites (O&O) where you can make higher margins as well as ask directly for more meaningful customer information such as Facebook connections, Twitter oAuths, email addresses and the like. Build Direct Relationships with Customers. And production matters.

Company

Berkonomics

JULY 19, 2011

Here’s a phrase I created in the early 1980’s to describe what I clearly saw as the last chance to make high margins on the sale of computer hardware to businesses. No employee of our customer company could do this because no employee knew our software and its requirements for database setup, multi-user security and more.

Pricing

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2010

It was a great chance for the class to interact with the community in LA. We’ll be conducting a series of educational programes covering: fund raising, team building, product development, sales, marketing, business development and how to prioritize your time as a CEO. And of course we had, TheMan. Watch this space.

Company

socalTECH

JUNE 21, 2011

Anyone who has been in sales, business development, or just works a lot with others is familiar with contact management software--tracking who you have been talking to, when, notes, and more for sales teams. But, sales people don't have time to copy and forward their emails to multiple places.

Google

Berkonomics

JUNE 4, 2020

That’s impressive sales leverage. And that’s why the major focus that used to be in the direct mail business to drive sales is now focused upon email marketing campaigns, social networking marketing, influencer marketing, and location-based sales using tools to recognize shoppers at the point of sale. And that’s power!

.Net

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2010

That is when no customers wanted to work with Internet startups because we as an industry had burned so many customers. I learned how to integrate customers into our product development process. But in our first year of sales (and those were really shitty years to be selling software) we sold $2.1 We all learned.

Startup

Eric Greenspan

APRIL 11, 2013

If you knew what your customers were thinking (and saying) about your product, service, or staff, imagine what you could do with this data. I once tweeted “hello from first class” to @virginamerica and they responded immediately with “what are they serving for lunch today?” If they need more, you can sell them.

Custom

socalTECH

JULY 31, 2013

The firm recently raised a $15M series C funding, and we caught up with Kevin to learn more about why its customers, and investors, are interested in its technology. What''s the gap in the market which would make your technology important to your customers? What does OnRamp Wireless do? Kevin Hell: That''s a great question.

Technical Review