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Leaving Government for the Private Sector – Part 2

Steve Blank

The larger the company, the more they’ll separate out business development and sales, with business development focused primarily on lead generation and sales focused on sealing the actual sale of the product or service. Sales roles : The sales cycle is similar to the recruitment cycle of a source.

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Referral Programs: A Guide for Small Business

Duct Tape Marketing

Shorten the sales cycle A strong referral program can significantly shorten the sales cycle. Exclusive Content or Advisory Board You can create exclusive content or an advisory board of your champion customers. They understand our business and they know who would make a good fit for us.

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Thoughts from a recent CIO dinner

BeyondVC

On the well networked side, get a reputable CIO to believe in you and your service, get them your board or advisory board, and have them make a few calls their technology friends to open up some doors. No one wants to be the first, especially if your technology doesn’t work.

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SXSW Startups: UbiGro

Austin Startup

There are other soft factors like sales cycle speed, marketing potential, competition, defensibility, and technology readiness level. We have co-founders of QDVision and Innovalight, both nanocrystal technology companies that were acquired on our advisory board. That’s what led us to agriculture.

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Marketing Metrics 101 for B2B Startups

www.rocketwatcher.com

. # of Opportunities – An opportunity is a lead that is now being actively managed by a sales person and is moving along the pipeline toward either a closed sale or a loss. For long sales cycles, it is important to measure this to estimate marketing ROI for tactics in the short term.

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