Enterprise Sales | Startup School
Summary
TLDRIn this insightful talk, Pete Kuman, a YC partner and alumnus, offers a step-by-step guide for software startups to close their first enterprise customers. He emphasizes the importance of the sales funnel, from prospecting to implementation, and shares tactical advice and lessons learned from his time at Optimizely. Kuman dispels the myth that technical founders can't sell, highlighting the advantages they possess. He stresses the significance of understanding customer problems deeply and providing solutions, not just products, to build long-lasting customer relationships.
Takeaways
- 🚀 **Startup Selling Belief**: Founders of early-stage startups are capable of selling their products, especially if they have technical backgrounds and a deep understanding of the product and the problem it solves.
- 🔍 **Sales Hypothesis Importance**: A clear sales hypothesis helps in identifying potential customers and focuses the prospecting process, making it easier to find companies that might need the product.
- 📋 **Prospecting Tools Utilization**: Tools like industry lists, filtering criteria, and platforms like Builtwith can be instrumental in narrowing down the target list for prospecting.
- 🤝 **Warm Introductions Favorability**: Getting a warm introduction or generating inbound demand can be more effective than cold outreach, as it increases the chances of securing a meeting with a prospect.
- 📧 **Cold Email Personalization**: Personalizing cold emails and ensuring they are concise and clear can increase the likelihood of getting a response, and they should be something the sender would be excited to receive.
- 🚫 **Avoiding Anti-Patterns**: Founders should avoid talking to anyone who will take their call, as this can lead to wasting time on bad customers and not getting valuable feedback.
- 💡 **First Call Focus**: The initial call with a prospect should focus on qualification and understanding the customer's problem rather than immediately pitching the product.
- 🎬 **Demo Storytelling**: A successful product demo should tell a story that demonstrates how the product solves the customer's specific problem, using personalized elements to connect with the audience.
- 💰 **Pricing as an Experiment**: Pricing involves a degree of trial and error; startups should use early conversations to gauge customer reactions and adjust pricing strategies accordingly.
- 📉 **Avoiding Undervaluing**: Underestimating the product's value or offering it for free in exchange for feedback can be detrimental; higher prices can indicate a product's worth and seriousness of the customers.
- 📝 **Procurement Process Understanding**: Recognizing and understanding the procurement process within a company is crucial to avoid surprises and ensure a smooth transition from agreement to purchase.
- 🛠️ **Implementation Ownership**: Founders should treat the customer implementation as their responsibility, actively managing the process to ensure the product is used effectively post-sale.
Q & A
What is the main focus of Pete Kuman's talk?
-Pete Kuman's talk focuses on guiding software startup founders through the process of closing their first enterprise customers by discussing successive steps in the sales funnel, including prospecting, outreach, qualification, pricing, closing, and implementation.
Why is sales the number one concern for most founders during the batch at YC?
-Sales is the number one concern because it is a critical skill for early-stage startup founders to master in order to successfully sell their products to other businesses, and it is often a challenging skill to learn, especially for those with technical backgrounds.
What is the first big lesson Pete Kuman wants to impart to the audience?
-The first big lesson is that if you are the founder of an early-stage startup building a product for other businesses, you are capable of selling it yourself, and it's likely that you will be the only person capable of doing so initially.
Why might hiring a talented salesperson not be the best approach initially?
-Hiring a talented salesperson initially might not be effective because sales before finding product-market fit is fundamentally entrepreneurial, requiring vision, credibility, and a tight feedback loop with the product builders, which is a role better suited for founders.
What advantages do technical founders have when it comes to selling their products?
-Technical founders have the advantage of being experts in the problem they are solving and the product they are building, as well as having conviction in their product's ability to solve the customer's problem, which are important factors in effective sales.
What is the purpose of a sales hypothesis?
-A sales hypothesis clarifies who you should be talking to by stating which customers have a particular problem that your product can help solve, making the prospecting process more targeted and efficient.
Why is it important to identify the right humans at potential customer companies during prospecting?
-Identifying the right humans ensures that you are reaching out to individuals who are likely to be interested in and have the authority to make decisions about purchasing your product, increasing the chances of a successful sale.
What is the main goal of outreach in the sales process?
-The main goal of outreach is to get the attention of potential customers and ideally schedule a meeting with them to discuss your product further.
Why is it a mistake to talk to anyone who will take a founder's call without being selective?
-Talking to anyone who will take a call can lead to wasting time on bad customers who are easy to talk to but not actually interested in buying the product, which gives a false sense of progress and can be counterproductive.
What is the purpose of the first call with a prospect?
-The purpose of the first call is to qualify the prospect by understanding if they have the problem you are solving, the budget, and the decision-making authority to purchase your product, and to schedule a follow-up call for a product demo.
How should a founder approach a product demo?
-A founder should approach a product demo by telling a story that shows how their product solves the main character's problem, personalizing the demo for the audience, and avoiding a simple feature tour.
What is the key to delivering a great demo?
-The key to delivering a great demo is to make it feel like a good story with a clear flow, personalized for the audience, and including 'magic moments' that surprise and delight the audience with the product's capabilities.
Why is it important to ask questions during the qualification call?
-Asking questions helps to deeply understand the customer's problem, which is essential for providing a relevant solution and demonstrating that you are listening and care about their specific needs.
What is the biggest mistake founders make when it comes to pricing their products?
-The biggest mistake is often underpricing their product or making it free in exchange for feedback, which can devalue the product and not accurately test the market's willingness to pay for the solution.
How should a founder approach the procurement process with a potential customer?
-A founder should ask questions to understand the procurement process, work to streamline it where possible, and maintain constant communication with the customer's champion to help navigate any obstacles.
Why is implementation considered a crucial part of the sales funnel?
-Implementation is crucial because it is the phase where the customer actually starts using the product, and it is the founder's responsibility to ensure a smooth transition from product to solution, which can lead to long-term customer satisfaction and retention.
What is the final step in the sales funnel according to Pete Kuman?
-The final step in the sales funnel is when the customer is habitually using the product, indicating a successful implementation and the potential for a long-term customer relationship.
Outlines
😀 Introduction to Enterprise Sales for Startups
Pete Kuman, a group partner at YC and a YC alumnus, introduces his talk on closing enterprise customers for software startups. He outlines the sales funnel steps: prospecting, outreach, qualification, pricing, closing, and implementation. Kuman emphasizes the importance of founders being capable of selling their products, especially in the early stages, and shares his experiences and lessons learned from Optimizely. He also discusses the common misconceptions about sales and the advantages technical founders have in selling due to their expertise and conviction in the product.
🔎 Prospecting and Outreach Strategies
The script delves into the first two steps of the sales funnel: prospecting and outreach. Prospecting involves identifying potential customers and creating a list of companies and individuals who might need the product. Tools like industry lists and 'builtwith' can help in this process. Outreach aims to get the attention of these prospects, ideally by having them reach out to the seller. The speaker advises against cold emailing without personalization and warns against the anti-pattern of talking to anyone available rather than focusing on potential customers who align with the sales hypothesis.
📞 Qualification and the Art of the First Call
In this section, the focus is on the first call with a prospect, which is crucial for qualification. The goal is to determine if the prospect has the problem the product solves, the budget, and the decision-making authority to purchase. Founders are cautioned against immediately pitching their product and instead encouraged to ask questions to understand the prospect's needs. The speaker highlights the importance of listening and tailoring the sales approach to the individual rather than treating companies as monolithic entities.
💰 Pricing Strategies and Negotiation Tactics
The script discusses the complexities of pricing a product, especially in the absence of a one-size-fits-all formula. It suggests asking probing questions early in the sales process to gauge the customer's budget and the problem's cost to them. The speaker advises against undervaluing the product and emphasizes the importance of using pricing conversations as learning opportunities. They also note that higher prices can indicate a product's necessity and seriousness to the customer.
📝 Closing the Deal and Navigating Procurement
The paragraph covers the process of closing a deal, which involves more than just a single conversation. It includes understanding the procurement process of the customer, which can involve security, privacy, legal, and compliance reviews. The speaker warns against being surprised by the complexity of this process and recommends asking questions to anticipate potential hurdles. They also stress the importance of keeping legal documents simple and leveraging the customer as an ally in the procurement process.
🚀 Implementation and Ensuring Customer Success
The final paragraph discusses the often-overlooked aspect of implementation, which is critical for customer success. The speaker shares experiences from Optimizely, where they realized that selling a product is not enough; ensuring the customer implements and uses the product is key. They suggest treating customer implementation with the same priority as an internal project, involving detailed plans, task ownership, and regular check-ins. The ultimate goal is for the customer to habitually use the product, leading to long-term success.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Enterprise sales
💡Sales funnel
💡Prospecting
💡Outreach
💡Qualification
💡Product demo
💡Pricing
💡Closing
💡Implementation
💡Sales hypothesis
💡Inbound demand
Highlights
Pete Kuman shares a step-by-step guide for closing enterprise customers, focusing on the sales funnel from prospecting to implementation.
Sales is a learnable skill, even for founders with technical backgrounds, and is essential for early-stage startups.
The importance of being able to sell your product as a founder, especially before hiring a dedicated salesperson.
The role of vision, credibility, and experimentation in sales before finding product-market fit.
Technical founders have advantages in selling due to their expertise and conviction in the product they are building.
Prospecting involves finding potential customers and creating a hypothesis about who needs your product and how it solves their problem.
Using tools like Builtwith to identify companies likely to suffer from the problem your product solves.
The strategy of getting prospects to reach out to you instead of relying solely on cold outreach.
The effectiveness of warm introductions and personalized cold emails in outreach.
Avoiding the anti-pattern of talking to anyone who will take a call, which can lead to wasted time on bad customers.
The importance of qualifying prospects during the first call to ensure they have the problem, budget, and authority to buy.
The misconception that selling to companies who buy quickly is always beneficial, regardless of their suitability as customers.
The role of demos in convincing prospects that your product can solve their problem, rather than just showing off features.
Pricing strategies for startups, including the importance of asking questions to understand the customer's budget and needs.
The danger of undervaluing your product and the benefits of charging higher prices to gauge customer demand and seriousness.
Managing the procurement process effectively by understanding the customer's buying process and involving the right stakeholders.
Implementation is not just the customer's job; founders must treat it as a high-priority project and manage it actively.
The importance of ongoing communication with the customer throughout the sales process, especially during procurement and implementation.
The sales funnel does not end with a signature; it concludes when the customer is habitually using your product.
The value of learning from sales experiences, making mistakes, and continuously improving your sales approach.
Transcripts
[Music]
my name is Pete Kuman I'm a group
partner at YC and a YC Alum I was
co-founder and CTO of optimis Le in the
winter 2010 batch in this talk I'm going
to walk step by step through the process
of closing your first Enterprise
customers I'm going to do that by
focusing on successive steps in the
sales funnel prospecting Outreach
qualification pricing closing and
implementation I'll do my best to
include lots of tactical advice and
counterintuitive lessons I picked up
while I was learning how to sell at
optimized Le I'm going to focus on
Enterprise sales for software startups
but this talk should still be broadly
useful to any founder getting started
with sales regardless of the size of
your customers or what you're selling
why am I giving this talk well first I
know there's demand for this sales is
the number one concern during the the
batch for most of the founders that I
work with at YC second I know from
experience that sales is a learnable
skill my co-founder Dan and I both had
technical backgrounds we knew how to
build a product but we didn't know how
to get people to use it we figured it
out through trial and error and that's
the first big lesson I want to impart
today if you're the founder of an early
stage startup and you're building a
product that you're hoping other
businesses will buy you are capable of
selling it that's the good news the bad
news is that you're probably the only
person capable of selling your product
that is if you aren't able to sell your
product yourself at first chances are
you're not going to be able to hire
somebody else to do it for you now if
you're anything like we were you're
probably thinking there are lots of
talented salespeople out there wouldn't
it be faster to hire one of them than
try to do it ourselves after all that's
what you probably do with any other role
like designers or lawyers or accountants
the problem is that sales before you
find product Market fit is very
different from sales after you find
product Market fit sales pre pmf is
fundamentally entrepreneurial it
requires vision and credibility with
customers and lots of experimentation
and a tight feedback loop with the
people building the product this is a
role for Founders so does that mean if
you're a team of technical Founders
building a product you should go find a
business co-founder to do sales well you
probably don't need a business
co-founder to sell either I've worked
with many technical Founders who turned
out to be great at selling in some cases
very much to their surprise so why is
that well if you're a technical founder
building a product you have several
advantages that will give you a big leg
up in selling first you're an expert
both in the problem you're solving and
the product you're building and second
you have conviction you sincerely
believe that your product will solve
your customer's problem expertise and
conviction are surprisingly important in
sales this is especially surprising to
people who mistakenly think that selling
is a dark art full of psychological
tricks sales isn't about tricking people
it's fundamentally about helping people
solve their problems and Engineers are
great at doing that anyway now that I've
hopefully convinced you that you're
capable of selling your product let's
talk about how to do that like I said
we're going to go through the step in a
typical sales funnel together let's
start with prospecting prospecting means
finding potential customers the output
of this step is a list of companies you
think might need your product and the
specific humans at those companies you
think might buy it there are lots of
tools you can use for prospecting but
before you start you need a hypothesis a
sales hypothesis goes something like
this customer X has problem Y and our
product will help them solve it a good
hypothesis makes prospecting Easy by
clarifying who you should be talking to
for example at optimizely our initial
hypothesis was something like this
marketers at small and medium Tech media
and e-commerce companies want to run AB
tests on their websites but they can't
because offthe shelf experimentation
tools require users to write code
optimizely will enable them to run AB
tests without writing code and once you
have a clear hypothesis like that you
can get to work on prospecting start by
identif identifying companies that are
likely to suffer from the problem you're
solving one way to do this is to buy
industry lists of all of the companies
in a given sector and then use some
filtering criteria to qualify those
companies and narrow your target list
for example at optimizely we used a tool
called builtwith to figure out whether
prospects were using analytics tools and
JavaScript Frameworks because those were
signals that a company was relatively
sophisticated and cared about their
website once you have list of companies
you'll need to find the right humans at
those companies and their contact
information there are tools that make
this easier this video was recorded
during the winter 24 batch and many
Founders in the current batch are using
Apollo and Linkedin sales navigator for
that now that you have a list of leads
that is specific humans that are likely
to buy at the companies you're selling
to you'll need to get their attention
this step is called Outreach the goal of
Outreach is usually to schedule a
meeting with your prospect most Founders
think of cold Outreach as the primary
mechanism for doing this but the easiest
way to get a meeting with a prospect is
to get them to reach out to you even if
you're planning on using a sales Le
approach you should still do everything
you can to generate inbound demand
launch early and often create technical
content like videos and blog posts that
prospects can find while searching for a
solution to their problem build
self-served demos that people can share
find online forums where your customers
hang out and establish yourself as an
expert by answering questions there's no
one way to do this but the better you
get at grabbing your customers attention
and getting them to reach out to you the
more efficient your sales process will
be on that note if your customers all
hang out and Industry conferences you
should be there too find a way to get a
list of attendees ahead of time and set
up lots of meetings in advance once
you've identified a specific Prospect
you want to talk to start by trying to
find a warm introduction if you can look
on LinkedIn for shared connections and
ask for an intro sending cold emails is
usually the least efficient way of
getting prospects attention but it can
still be effective if you approach it
the right way start by writing each
email by hand make your email short and
to the point and make the ask clear you
should also make it clear why you're
reaching out to each recipient
specifically humans have built-in spam
filters and if your email looks like it
was sent to thousands of people it's
going to get deleted on this last Point
there's a handy rule of thumb to keep in
mind for cold emails only send emails
that you yourself would be excited to
read if you wouldn't be excited to get
the email you're about to send your
prospect probably won't either before we
move on I want to spend some time
talking about a particular anti pattern
I see with a lot of YC Founders many
Founders start by talking to anyone who
will take their call and the problem
with this approach is that it selects
for the people who are easiest to talk
to not the people who will be be great
customers so if you're not disciplined
about it you'll end up wasting all your
time chasing bad customers that are easy
to talk to I see YC Founders make this
mistake all the time and I get it when
you're starting a company it's hard to
get people to pay attention to you cold
emailing is a demoralizing grind so it's
tempting to go after the people who will
talk to you even if they won't ever buy
your product and the reason this mistake
is so dangerous is because talking to
bad customers gives you the illusion
that you're making progress when you're
not you'll get lotss of great product
feedback from people who think they're
doing you a favor but because you're not
actually talking to someone who needs
your product this kind of feedback is
useless at best and counterproductive at
worst in practice I see Founders make
this mistake in two ways first by trying
to sell enterprise software to startups
now if your product solves a problem
that companies only have when they get
big like for example an HR information
system then trying to sell it to
startups is a waste of time but Founders
still do it all the time because other
startups are much easier to talk to than
busy big company Executives and the
second is trying to go bottom up with a
product that needs to be adopted top
down and that's a little jargony so let
me illustrate it with an example imagine
you're building productivity software
like notion your product can be adopted
bottom up meaning that individual
employees or teams can start using it
independently without having to
coordinate with anyone else inside the
company and in this case talking to
individual contributors or their direct
managers is totally fine but what if
you're building building software for
large hospitals in order for a hospital
to start using your product you're going
to need a lot of different teams to
coordinate with each other so you might
need the CIO to sign off on your
security and compliance and you need
their software team to integrate your
product with their in-house systems you
need the doctors to enter billing codes
at after each appointment and you need
their Ops Team to manage Collections and
so on and so on and in this case talking
to an individual doctor won't be useful
you need to talk to a senior leader like
a CFO or a CIO to do a deal now there's
a meme that YC says you should sell to
companies who will buy quickly even if
they aren't good customers this is a
misconception you should try to find
companies that will buy quickly but you
shouldn't spend time trying to sell to
companies that don't actually need your
product or won't be good customers you
need to find people who have the problem
you're solving and the budget and
decision-making authority to buy your
product we'll spend more time on this
point later let's get back to our sales
funnel so you've managed to get your
prospect on the phone your job on the
first call is not to sell your product
that comes later in the first call we're
just trying to do two things first we're
trying to qualify our Prospect by
figuring out whether they have the
problem we're trying to solve and the
budget and decision-making authority to
buy the product and second we're trying
to schedule a follow-up call for a
product demo now many Founders face
plant in the first call by diving
straight into their pitch these Founders
are making one of the biggest founder
sales mistakes not asking enough
questions and they make this mistake
because they misunderstand how sales
work they think of the company they're
trying to sell to as a big monolithic
entity and they think of the sales
process as adversar
where it's their job to come up with a
perfect pitch that will break down their
targets defenses but outside of some
used car dealerships that's not how
sales works in the real world in the
real world you're almost always selling
to an individual human not a big
monolithic entity and that's good news
because humans are easier to understand
than organizations and that turns out to
be really important in the real world
sales is not adversarial it's about
deeply understanding a customer's
problem and help helping them solve it
and great salespeople spend most of
their time listening because that's the
best way to understand someone's problem
they ask all sorts of questions what
made you decide to take this call tell
me about this problem how long have you
had it how bad is it who else does it
affect how do you quantify the impact
why haven't you solved it already what's
your budget for solving it how does your
organization buy software who makes the
buying decision who else will need to
weigh in on this decision now sometimes
when you ask questions like these you
discover that your prospect doesn't
actually have the problem you're trying
to solve or they have it but they don't
care enough about it to buy a solution
or they don't have any budget or any
number of other reasons that they won't
actually be a good customer for you and
if you do that that's great you just
saved yourself and your prospect a lot
of time and you can focus your energy on
other prospects that are more likely to
buy now if on the other hand it turns
out that your prospect does have a
problem you can solve you're in luck
you've earned the opportunity to show
them how your product works the next
step is a demo most Founders think of a
demo as a chance to finally show off
their product in my experience thinking
about it this way is a Surefire way to
deliver a bad demo that's because your
job in a demo is not to show off your
product it's to convince your audience
that you can help them solve their
problem and one helpful trick I've
learned is to think of your demo as the
script for a great movie a great script
always starts with a recap of who the
main character is that's your user and
the problem she's trying to solve this
is your chance to demonstrate how well
you were listening during your first
call if your audience believes you
understand their company and their
problems they're going to take you
seriously when you talk about how to
solve them when you're ready to show the
product resist the urge to take your
audience on a feature tour where you
walk from screen to screen showing them
everything your product can do instead
tell a story that shows exactly how your
main character solves her problem and
this is the point great demos actually
feel like good stories they have a flow
where each step leads to the next and
every feature you show has a clear
reason for being there they usually have
one or more magic moments where you
surprise your audience with how easy or
delightful something is and great demos
are also personalized for the audience
this is where you get to use all of the
information you collected during that
first call tailor the demo to their
company use their logo their website
their customers uh the names of the
people on their team the more you can do
to help them visualize exactly how your
product would work in their company the
better I'll give you an example from the
early days of optimizely when Dan and I
started building we booked demos with
all of our competitors and every single
one of them used a website to show what
it was like to use their products to run
AB tests and we thought this was really
lame so we spent weeks building a
feature that made it easy to demo our
product right on our customers websites
instead of a dummy website and I knew it
was worth it when I saw marketer eyes
light up when they watched us change
things on their landing page that would
have taken them months to do on their
own so if you do a good job your
prospects and their team will come out
of this meeting convinced that you can
solve their problem and if that's the
case it's time to talk about pricing I
get a lot of questions from Founders
asking how to price their products and
the truth is there isn't a simple
formula for doing this so if there isn't
a formula how do you pick a number well
fortunately you can ask questions
earlier in the process that will make
your job easier here like how much is
this problem costing your company how
many people are responsible for
maintaining your in-house solution
what's your budget for solving this
problem how much are you spending on my
competitor and it's okay to wait to
share your pricing until you've had a
chance to ask these questions in fact if
your product requires lots of work or
customization to implement you probably
shouldn't quote a price until you
understand exactly what your customer
needs in any case even if you asked all
of these questions upfront the reality
is that pricing involves a lot of
guessing in the beginning and the advice
that I give to startups is to think of
each pricing conversation you have as an
opportunity to run an experiment in
which you test a price point and then
learn from your prospect's reaction to
it in the early days of optimizely we
had published self-serve pricing for
customers who just wanted to swipe a
credit card for a basic version of our
product and an Enterprise plan that
required you to go through sales we
didn't publish pricing for the
Enterprise plan which gave us the
flexibility to try a different price
each time the pricing mistake that
Founders make most often is charging too
little for their product or even making
it free in exchange for product feedback
Founders do this because they're worried
about charging too much they think
they're going to scare customers away
one of the most surprising things I
learned was that when a customer really
wants your product it's hard to scare
them away by quoting a price that's too
high for example I remember my
co-founder Dan coming out of a sales
call and telling me that he'd worked up
the nerve to quote the prospect $10,000
a month for our software and the
prospect ended up talking us down to
2,000 a month and then buying our
initial quote was 5x what they were
willing to pay and they still bought in
fact higher prices can help you figure
out whether customers actually need your
product the cison brothers famously
charged more for stripe in the beginning
than their competition did the fact that
they were able to sell their product
anyway was compelling evidence that they
were on to something and it helped them
focus on the customers who were most
desperate for a solution high prices
make customers more serious this brings
me to another important point about
pricing remember that the most important
conversations about pricing will happen
without you in the room your prospect
will need to convince others in the
organization that your product is worth
the price you're asking you can make
their job easier by giving them slides
or a PDF one pager that explains how
your pricing works it's usually a good
idea to include an overview of your
product and the benefits of using it in
case your prospect needs to talk to
people who aren't familiar with it in
any case don't spend too much time
thinking about pricing in the beginning
pick number ideally one that makes you a
little uncomfortable and pay attention
to how your prospect reacts it's okay to
let them negotiate you down remember in
your first few sales you're optimizing
for learning not unit economics now that
you've agreed on a price it's time to
close the deal closing is not a single
conversation it's a bunch of things that
need to happen from the moment your
customer decides they want your product
to the moment they actually buy it big
companies especially ones in highly
regulated Industries have formal
procurement processes that usually
include stuff like security and privacy
reviews legal reviews and signoff from
compliance teams it's less formal in
smaller companies but you should expect
at a minimum to go through a redlining
process with their legal team the
biggest mistake that I see Founders make
at this stage is getting surprised and
discovering that what they thought was a
done deal is in fact not done at all and
may take weeks or months of additional
back and forth or fall through
completely now the way to avoid getting
surprised is once again to ask a lot of
questions asking your prospect upfront
how they buy software and who needs to
sign off will give you a clear picture
of the hurdles you're going to have to
overcome in order to get a signature you
should do everything you can at this
stage to move through the procurement
process quickly ask explicitly if there
are steps like filling out a security
questionnaire that you can get started
on early and execute in parallel and
keep your legal documents as simple as
possible I recommend starting with the
open- source templates published by YC
company common paper keep timelines and
scope of work out of the legal contract
if you can and put them in an order form
or a shared project tracking document
instead and most importantly remember
that your prospect who at this point has
become your Champion is your biggest
Ally you should be in constant
communication with them and when you
need help getting something unstuck you
should ask them first remember they
can't solve their problem until you get
through procurement so they're heavily
incentivized to help you make it happen
now that you have a signature
congratulations it's time for your
customer to actually start using your
product this is the implementation and
it's the last step we're going to talk
about today and I'm going to lead with
this the single biggest mistake that
Founders make is thinking that
implementation is the customer's job we
made this mistake more than once at
optimizely in fact we closed six figure
deals with customers that were excited
about product and then we discovered a
year later when it was time for them to
renew that they hadn't run a single AB
test with optimizely and this was
confusing at first why would a customer
who is willing to pay so much for a
product fail to use it at all in this
case the approximate cause is that the
marketing team who bought our software
couldn't convince the software
engineering team to help them install it
on their website the real cause though
is we didn't do our jobs we thought our
customer was buying a product so we sold
them one and left the rest up to them in
reality our customers were buying a
solution to a problem and all of the
work required to get from product to
solution was our responsibility we
learned to start asking marketing
leaders about the work required to
implement optimizely very early in the
sales process we started building
detailed implementation plans with
marketing and Engineering leaders well
before a contract got signed and in fact
if we weren't able to do that we
wouldn't sign a contract at all and the
trick we learned was to treat the
customer implementation the same way
that we would a high priority project
inside of our own company by project
managing it so we put together a shared
road map we made sure that every task
cuted owner we set up regular check-in
meetings to hold everyone on our side
and theirs accountable for getting it
done your sales funnel only really ends
when your customer is using your product
habitually and when you get to that
point congratulations hopefully you have
a customer for life all right we've
covered a lot today from prospecting to
doing your first call delivering a great
demo pricing closing and finally
managing the implementation of course
there's so much more to learn about
sales and the best Founders devour
everything they can on the topic if you
want to go deeper I recommend Peter
kazi's book founding sales it's a
fantastic resource and it's free online
but like most most of the hard things
about building a company the best way to
learn is by going out and doing the
thing so if you only remember one thing
it should be this just get started
you'll make mistakes but with enough
attempts you'll figure it out and
selling will start to feel natural
pretty soon you'll discover that you've
acquired a new superpower you'll find
it's useful not only in getting
customers and revenue but in fundraising
and hiring too and soon enough you'll be
the one giving advice like this to new
Founders thanks for watching
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