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Why Your Startup Needs a Sales Methodology

Both Sides of the Table

Like most startup entrepreneurs, when I began my first company in 1999 I had no formal sales experience. I did have the wherewithal to visit potential customers and try to understand the pain points that I thought could be solved with our solution. This article originally appeared on Inc.com.

Sales 393
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Customer Validation - 33 Great Articles

SoCal CTO

In both cases, the answer was that the founder would go to find other ideas, turn those into paper descriptions and validate it with customers. Customer Validation 101. The Fallacy of Customer Development Hubris Versus Humility: The $15 billion Difference Less is More, More or Less Yes, but who said they’d actually BUY the damn thing?

Customer 227
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StartupRoar - Great Content for Startups

SoCal CTO

This site aggregates and filters content from thought leaders who talk about topics such as Marketing , Sales , Design , Revenue , Hiring , Social Media , Business Models , Metrics , PR , Venture Capital , Angel Investors , Bootstrapping , Incubators , Agile and many others.

Content 175
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5 Tips to Becoming a More Customer Centric Organization

Both Sides of the Table

We spent time out in the marketplace talking with customers, looking at their solutions, comparing ourselves with our competition and then squirreling ourselves away in our offices designing our next set of features. Our sales guys were on the front line and heard what they needed to win deals. Back then it seemed foreign.

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10 C-Level Positions That Are Red Flags For Funding

Startup Professionals Musings

Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers. Chief Brand Officer. Chief Risk Officer.

CTO Hire 100
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Domain Experience Gives Entrepreneurs an Unfair Advantage

Both Sides of the Table

I’ll publish the final post in this series this week and then move on to my next series – sales & marketing. I’ll be covering my PUCCKA sales methodology. The exact same team had worked on 2 previous customer service startups (and 1 non-CS product). It will be controversial – I know.

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10 Job Titles Never Found in an Investable Startup

Startup Professionals Musings

Chief Sales Officer (VP Sales). What you really need is a VP of Marketing and Customer Development, who can help with lead generation and honing the message, rather than an executive to manage a sales team and existing customers. Chief Brand Officer. Chief Risk Officer.

Startup 97