sales is more than ok
it's so very necessary, yo
After hundreds of conversations and countless interactions with SaaS people over 6 years, I feel comfortable saying that sales gets a bad rap.
Self-serve, product-led, community-led, etc. are sexier because at first glance they seem like low cost/high reward ways to grow a business. Sales has forever suffered from a strange duality in most of our minds.
We see sales people as confident and capable of closing deals. We also look sideways at their work as voodoo or trickery.
If you say “I’m in sales” to a crowded room, the snake oil salesman, the used car dealer, and the Wolf of Wall Street probably come to mind before Sara Blakely (founder of Spanx) or Richard Branson (all the Virgins).
Ben McRedmond and his team are building a cool company at Equals.com. I admire how they operate and was delighted to see Ben talk about their love of sales.
Entrepreneurship starts with sales: Pitch investors, confirm a partnership, win that first customer. Startups live or die by their founders’ and early teams’ ability to sell. This is true for B2B and B2C.
Helping > Selling is how great reputations are made: Companies known for their value-add sales process have better brands and general perception. A good reputation is a wonderful way to start a flywheel.
Sales comes before the other motions: Consultative and collaborative sales and onboarding is when to learn what makes a good self-serve or product-led motion.
Jason Lemkin of Saastr talks up sales a lot. In a recent blog about the 10 things entrepreneurs get wrong, not doing sales was on the list. I’m guilty of not wanting to do sales, but as we build Accoil it’s clearer every day that it’s the one thing the company needs.
More than another blog post or witty LinkedIn wisdom, I have to go hunt for customers we can help. Sales has to be more than ok. It has to be the biggest and best part of my day until we have the momentum to carry us into another growth motion like PLG.
Happy selling,
Peter
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Well said Peter. You understand; I love this newsletter 😝 👏🏻🔥, and yes: sales is definitely your first priority.