"Hi I'm from YOURCOMPANY and I saw you wrote/spoke on/commented about RELEVANTTOPICORTHEME and thought you may be interested in learning more about YOURCOMPANY. I'd love to set up a demo to show you how it can help you with PROBLEM. What day is better for you, Tuesday or Wednesday?"
I think this is way too direct. You atleast need to qualify if they really have the PROBLEM (even if you know they have the PROBLEM, it will atleast involve him in the conversation). Probably after that you can explain very briefly how you can solve the PROBLEM and give out few good names from the current clientele that have solved same/similar PROBLEM and then ask for a demo day. No?
Hard to argue with this post. It really breaks out the "everyone can start a company" myth into something I've been trying to explain for a while.
The analogy I've been working with is comparing startups to the mid 2000s Poker boom - once the internet made it easier for anyone to play competitive poker, more and more people started doing it. Once one "regular guy" - Chris Moneymaker - won the WSOP and ESPN televised the hell out of it, poker rooms were flooded.
But who did you see still sitting back there taking in this new money? The same old guys who had been grinding out livings on the card table for years. The same guys you see regularly placing in the top 20 at WSOP events around the occasional flash in the pan newbies who get a hot streak.
It is really odd to think of the skill development it takes to be in the top 20 of poker, or your niche league. Does this have anything to do with 10k hours of development time or being built as a 6'9" athlete (or the intellectual, or drive equivalent).
This isn't really true in poker - the online poker boom created tons of new poker celebrities and lots of online pros who are technically better and more profitable than old-school grinders.
I agree the old saying "dont throw stones and hide your hand" applies here I think thats why blogs and comments on the internet are so nasty at times you can make some crazy screen name and lose all responsibilty for yor words and it brings out the worst in people
Nonsense. Anonymity doesn't bring out the worst in people. The attitudes and opinions and intelligence of the person behind the comment is what brings out the worst in their expression, or style of expression online.
Don't blame the presence or absence of a number on the letterbox of the house for the behavior of the occupants inside the house.
Strongly disagree. Anonymity comes with the promise of zero responsibility. You don't need to be a natural dickhead to find that tempting. Anonymity means you don't have to think too much because even if you're wrong nobody will know it's you
It's cool you disagree. When it comes to publishing our credentials, I hope it's okay to have variety in the community.
Your handle is another name for you in this moment. Relative to this discussion, to this forum, one's username is the cornerstone of each post. Perhaps forgotten easily between threads. But in $this thread is often where it counts.
In the beer garden, should all chatter be recorded and archived? Sure, why not. But then authored, as does a professional writer and editor? The skills needed not to say things that could result in noisy, inaccurate, too long, not long enough, or any number of other things that would make an unsubscribable Flipboard. Skills of few.
The username I gave myself, is more truthful of my state of mind, and point of view relative to this forum. The name means more here than the first name given to me by my parents, and my last name on loan from past generations. I'm proud of my real name, but I'm going for relevance and fun online.
Contextual, in the moment, not "published by Paul, all rights reserved". It's a casual comment only. And I don't know who you are anyway, even if you tell me your real name and Twitter feed.
My username on HN is not tied to my personal identity. The difference is I can jettison this persona, and all comments associated with it, at a moment's notice. It is difficult to do the same with my real identity.
That's what I mean when I say anonymity comes with the promise of zero responsibility.
Same philosophy here. I do use privacy settings in FB and G+ just to avoid spamming folk - I'll post things to public which I think anyone who follows/finds me may like, then use privacy for "audience targeting" as sharepoint folk would call it.
LinkedIn is the obvious answer.
SellerCrowd may not be a bad idea if you don't mind anonymous sources
Conferences are easy finds for sales people in the exhibit halls.
The level of elitism in the Ruby and by extension Rails communities never ceases to amaze me. Having attended several ruby and rails conferences over the last few years, the belief that Ruby is the language of "good programmers" is so prevalent as to be off putting.
I actually agree with much of this. Having attempted to "re-learn" to code since my time in college I got several lessons in before hitting a wall where the on-site messaging failed to be helpful anymore. I loved the concept, and was more than able to find help with Google and friends, but to keep things on-site and cohesive, they'll have to improve some of that.
PS- I know that most developers google answers as much as they write things
Speaking as a salesperson this article has a few things that I find difficult to agree with:
1) Sales vs BizDev - As described in the article the sales people he's looking for are great for one off transactions, not for building a real client base that will refer and keep coming back. Remember how you like to be sold, for bigger things most people want to know and trust the person they are buying from.
2) Domain Knowledge - which is easy to teach, sales or what you do? Hire a good salesman and teach them your business
The idea is sound and I've seen a number of startups go the wrong way with it, but those two stood out to me.
Conrey-I agree with your point about things not being black and white between sales vs biz dev . It boils down to how many resources do you have to invest in go-to-market initiatives. For most startups, customers decide to trust and buy based on their interactions with the founding team and the CEO. In fact if the founding team isnt actively involved in the deal closure process that is a red flag. Given this assumption what you need is a person on the team who is obsessively focused in generating prospects. Once a prospect has been engaged then the founding team will have to wing into action in closing the deal.
On domain knowledge-certainly its easy to teach what you do than teach how to sell. Always better to get a strong sales guy than the other way round. In the article I was reference the difference between one with industry knowledge and product knowledge.
I would not recommend hiring a sales person who you cannot trust to close deals or build long standing relationships with customers. I have been the head of sales at Zencoder for almost two years. While there were certainly deals where interaction with the founders was critical to winning the deal because it had strategic impact on the business, they certainly weren't involved with every deal. While the founding team shouldn't be completely disconnected with sales efforts, if the founding team has to win every deal, you haven't hired a very successful sales person and certainly not a partner who can help you strategically grow your business. You have hired a telemarketer (the difference between 'generating leads' and 'winning deals' is crucial here).
Also, I feel like focusing on domain knowledge too narrowly can lead the hiring process astray. I think you are spot on regarding hiring for intelligence and acumen but I think it is a mistake to think that those attributes can only be found in those with domain knowledge. I can tell you that I knew nothing about video encoding before becoming Zencoder's head of sales and had it been a requirement, I wouldn't have been hired. We were able to grow that company rapidly to acquisition with only myself focused on sales.
My opinion is that a good sales hire should be
1. fully committed to learning your product inside and out and have the technical acumen to be able to execute on that.
2. Should think about sales the same way the engineering team think about product (test, iterate, listen,)
3. Should be able to sell themselves they way you want your product to be sold. Listen to how they talk about themselves in the interview. This is how they will sell your product.
re: winning deals vs generating deals:
winning deals = generating leads + proposing a solution/pitch + dealing with contracting + get technical/architectural support from core team + following up on sales commitments.
Anything else?
Re domain knowledge: value of hiring smart reps> hiring reps with marketspace knowledge > hiring reps with product knowledge
Re how candidates carry themselves: one of the things to watch for is how they conduct themselves with customers. I have in the past taken candidates to networking events to get a feel for how they work in a social setting.
It's all about having the right campaigns and optimizing for conversion. It isn't easy, but it is certainly doable for most people. Adwords is like golf - it's a simple game to play but the being good requires a mastery of nuance and fine details that takes lots of experience.
