Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 4, 2009

Most start-up entrepreneurs have little or no sales experience. But through nearly a decade of startups I learned that sales comes down to three essential elements: 1. Even businesses that attempt to sign up customers directly on a website need to answer this question for people albeit programmatically and through good website copy.

Sales 319

Sales Startup Platform Tips 319

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. From these meetings you can really tell the leaders that care deeply about their customers and those the look down on them. You’d be very wrong.

Customer 341

Customer Custom Venture Capital Software Review 341

Berkonomics

AUGUST 3, 2017

First customers are critical. Your first customers for any product or service form your reference base, the important group of allies that your marketing and sales people rely upon when attempting to create buzz and make a mass market for a new product. Make your customer a partner in the process.

Customer 243

Customer Custom Resource Sales 243

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 26, 2010

Social proof is defined as “looking for others to guide our decisions&# and is also one of the most important techniques in acquiring customers in your company. We would take every day users from our customer base and make them heroes. Taking reference calls from prospects considering using our products.

Marketing 294

Marketing Customer Custom Technical Review 294

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. The show refers to the salespeople as "consultants," which reinforces each store's problem solving approach to selling.

Sales 251

Sales Startup Activity RSS 251

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 20, 2013

In my first enterprise software company we developed a methodology for sales that we called PUCCKA , which I wrote about previously. Having a good sales methodology can help you ensure your company runs more disciplined campaigns and focuses scarce resources on your best opportunities. It the second rule of sales, “Why Buy Me?”

Sales 336

Sales Startup Competition Customer 336

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. This might mean helping customers buy traffic, arb’ing deals, helping with RTB pricing or trading, etc. Minimize Any Custom Work That Will Not Feed Back Into Your R&D. Referenceability is the lifeblood of sales.

Software Review 321

Software Review Software Services Companies 321

Berkonomics

MARCH 24, 2010

First customers are critical. Your first customers for any product or service form your reference base, the important group of allies that your marketing and sales people rely upon when attempting to create buzz and make a mass market for a new product. Make your customer a partner in the process.

Customer 149

Customer Custom Resource Sales 149

Berkonomics

AUGUST 2, 2012

And that behavior results in leaving little time for outreach to the most critical possible component in your chain – your key customers. Email readers, continue here.] Do customers know what they want from their suppliers for future products? Do customers know what they like when they see it? Of course they do.

Customer 159

Customer Custom Course Email 159

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. For sake of grammatical convenience, I will refer to Sam as a male in the remainder of this entry. The story begins with the unwitting, future customer relaxing and reading the paper.

Sales 219

Sales Entrepreneur Startup Product 219

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 25, 2011

Early in a services business there is usually no profits as the company reinvests in hiring people to grow, but by $20 million in sales the company should at least be pulling in 10% profits (if not more) depending on how much is reinvested. Often in this strategy you end up giving them the product for free and bill them only services fees.

Services 332

Services Venture Capital IP Startup 332

Both Sides of the Table

JANUARY 6, 2014

The functions of an early-stage board are pretty obvious and well understood: Providing introductions to customers, biz dev partners, recruits, the press, other investors, etc. Over time you start to figure out who you customers are and how to sell to them or how to get them to adopt your products if you’re a consumer-oriented startup.

Startup 325

Startup Sales Technical Review Software Review 325

socalTECH

MARCH 19, 2014

Sales tax compliance is not a typical sexy startup area. So, it was a surprise when a number of smart, insider angels -- including Roy Rubin (founder of Magento, which he sold to eBay), and Dan Rose (VP of Partnerships at Facebook)--put their money behind TaxJar (www.taxjar.com), a San Diego startup developing sales tax compliance software.

Sales 149

Sales Software Startup Commerce 149

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

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 364

Venture Capital Coach Writing SaaS 364

socalTECH

JUNE 30, 2011

The bill requires out-of-state retailers to collect sales tax on purchases if they have any affiliates in the state of California. Affiliate programs allow website owners to collect a small fee for referring customers to e-commerce retailers, and have been a common way for web sites to monetize their Internet traffic.

Web 217

Web Commerce Marketing Sales 217

Both Sides of the Table

JULY 19, 2011

Often recruiters want to handle the final negotiations on package and/or do the reference calls. I’m also reluctant to hand over reference calling. I know that no recruiter will agree with me on this point, but I’ll tell you that I’m certain there’s a positive bias in reference calls.

Venture Capital 319

Venture Capital Pricing Startup Outsource 319

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Net Promoter Scores (NPS) are the darling of many Big Dumb Company (BDC) product marketing and customer support executives. Created by consultants to generate additional fees, such scores attempt to rate a company’s overall customer satisfaction. The higher your company’s NPS, allegedly the higher your customer satisfaction.

.Net 182

.Net Satisfaction Entrepreneur Customer 182

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 358

Social Media Yammer Invest Organization 358

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. It has also influenced my thoughts, as evidenced by the six infoChachkie blog entries which reference Art. I was not disapointed. Tricking The Jedi.

Technical Review 279

Technical Review Blogging Class Entrepreneur 279

Berkonomics

JUNE 27, 2019

And that behavior results in leaving little time for outreach to the most critical component in your chain – your key customers. Then, what is a benchmark for customer outreach? But, do your customer know that they want? Do customers know what they want from their suppliers for future products? That’s bad behavior!

Customer 120

Customer Custom Course Email 120

Berkonomics

MAY 4, 2017

With a wide track, angled aggressively at the curves, and being told to hug the wall on the straightaways, there was little reference available to a novice driver as to speed. I had that thrill when a student at the Richard Petty Stock Car School of Driving at a motor speedway in California.

Metrics 266

Metrics Screening Email Customer 266

Both Sides of the Table

JUNE 21, 2014

” Who cut you in on their bonus because even though you’re “just an sales engineer” they know you really deserved more credit for this deal. When you’re hiring most reference checkers focus on the person’s former bosses. Who in stead said, “That’s what Skype is for?” ” Wowza.

CTO Hire 320

CTO Hire Startup CTO Coach Venture Capital 320

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 21, 2010

As startup entrepreneurs we all want to work with them because having their name as reference clients makes it so much easier for marketing, PR, selling to other customers, fund raising and even recruiting. While I’m a huge believer that sales bonuses should always be uncapped, I think capping PBW’s is a good idea.

Startup 298

Startup Sales Slides Metrics 298

InfoChachkie

JULY 7, 2016

As such, I understand the degree to which hand waving and vaporware can influence investors and potential customers. An interface that is engaging can fool customers into trying a sub-par product. However, if a product with a mediocre GUI is consistently adopted by customers, it may signal a lucrative investment opportunity.

Venture Capital 176

Venture Capital Product Software Review Technical Review 176

InfoChachkie

NOVEMBER 18, 2010

Net Promoter Scores (NPS) are the darling of many Big Dumb Company (BDC) product marketing and customer support executives. Created by consultants to generate additional fees, such scores attempt to rate a company’s overall customer satisfaction. The higher your company’s NPS, allegedly the higher your customer satisfaction.

.Net 168

.Net Satisfaction Customer Custom 168

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 12, 2013

He shared tons of information about how how they were using marketing to quantitatively make marketing decisions at HauteLook and acquire customers for prices that were far cheaper than similar companies. I made some reference calls. I instantly hit it off with Greg because we was a fountain of knowledge. They were effusive.

Venture Capital 360

Venture Capital GRP Partners Startup Invest 360

socalTECH

JULY 16, 2012

I like to refer to that as the ultimate brand fan page, or to take the example from the apparel industry, where I come from, a virtual look book for a brand. Customers, fans, and buyers can get a brand's essence, their personality, and vibe, in one, visual display. That's where the initial idea for Fliptu came about.

Social Media 268

Social Media Media Social Network Seed Funding 268

Both Sides of the Table

MAY 14, 2018

Detailed roadmap of features you plan to build Detailed customer information Salary information Any other information you wouldn’t want seen or know by your competitors or a larger audience In short, there is nothing in your deck that should give you pause or make you feel like you can’t just send the damn file to somebody.

Funding 239

Funding Venture Capital IP Email 239

Startup Professionals Musings

JANUARY 24, 2021

Others schedule exhaustive training sessions for everyone on the team, including showcase customers, to make sure that everyone paints a consistent picture. Due diligence always involves on-site visits, informal discussions with any or all members of the team, vendors, and good customers as well as bad. Traction in the marketplace.

Technical Review 151

Technical Review Startup Satisfaction Invest 151

InfoChachkie

DECEMBER 15, 2014

In their book, The Leadership Challenge , James Kouzes and Barry Posner reference three surveys, each of which lists honesty as the most admired trait among successful leaders. Employees, investors, customers and suppliers seek entrepreneurs they trust.

Entrepreneur 189

Entrepreneur Sales Writing Customer 189

socalTECH

MAY 7, 2012

Fine Art America handles all of the details of fulfilling sales for images. By prints, I am referring to anything that hangs on a wall, whether that's a framed photo, framed canvas, acrylic. You hit submit, and your images are instantly available for sale as prints on our website. all of that for more than a 100,000 members.

Santa Monica 258

Santa Monica Pricing Sites Sales 258

Both Sides of the Table

MARCH 13, 2011

You may choose some where your customers aggregate, others where you hope to find biz dev partners & still others where you want to meet investors. Feel good in knowing that while they’re at the latest conference, you can be back home stealing all their customers ! Another similar strategy is with customers.

Conference 289

Conference Startup Technical Review Writing 289

Both Sides of the Table

SEPTEMBER 20, 2009

The promised to follow up with: calls, using your product, talking to customers or “noodle on things.&# Will they? This is not unlike a major biz dev deal you’re trying to sign or a big sales campaign into the VP of a major company. I like to tell entrepreneurs to treat it like a sales campaign.

Venture Capital 277

Venture Capital Startup Email News 277

Berkonomics

SEPTEMBER 28, 2023

First customers are critical. Your first customers for any product or service form your reference base, the important group of allies that your marketing and salespeople rely upon when attempting to create buzz and make a mass market for a new product. These first customers are critical. What if my resources are limited?

Resource 156

Resource Customer Custom Product 156

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 3, 2020

On the product side, once you have a proven product and business model, all you need is money to build inventory, and a sales and marketing operation to drive the business. For example, both need to provide exemplary customer service, build customer loyalty, and provide real value for a competitive price.

Startup 174

Startup Training Services Writing 174

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 27, 2010

They come in the form of personal references. 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. I learned how to establish sales targets and how to manage a sales pipeline.

Startup 285

Startup Venture Capital Sales Software Review 285