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. The real test of sales and the topic of my post is “why buy now.” It’s what kills most sales cycles including raising venture capital.

Sales 319

Sales Sales Cycle Startup Reputation 319

Both Sides of the Table

OCTOBER 19, 2009

After my company was acquired by Salesforce.com I was asked to stop blogging and they took over my blog as an asset in the sale of the company. I had really positive experiences such as working with Greg Gretsch at Sigma Partners where he championed us to a partners’ meeting where we sort of got crucified.

Venture Capital 274

Venture Capital Term Sheet San Diego Viral 274

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

Business model viability, in the majority of startups, will come down to balancing two variables: Cost to Acquire Customers (CAC) The ability to monetize those customers, or LTV (which stands for Lifetime Value of a Customer) Successful web businesses have long understood these metrics as they have such an easy way to measure them.

Acquisition 103

Acquisition Cost Customer Entrepreneur 103

Startup Lessons Learned

MAY 9, 2012

What are the value propositions, benefits and the messaging (bait), the pricing structure and channels (tackle), and length of sales cycle (how likely a fish will snap your line)? Or will you need to staff and finance a whaling ship to be out at sea for months at a time to catch two or three whales (enterprise sales model)?

Entrepreneur 167

Entrepreneur Lean Southern California San Diego 167

Austin Startup

SEPTEMBER 18, 2017

A chief technology officer (CTO) is a C-suite executive who is focused on scientific and technological issues including web applications, mobile applications, electronic and digital media development. If outward facing, they will attend important sales calls and speak to the technology strategy and vision.

Fractional CTO 54

Fractional CTO CTO Hire CTO Technical Review 54

Mucker Lab

FEBRUARY 1, 2014

As a result, as builders of magical web and tech products we come to view customers/users as an anonymous herd who must prefer to figure out what to buy and how much to pay on their own through endless screens of wizards, forms, and dropdowns instead talking to a human being. Self service is hard.

Sales Cycle 102

Sales Cycle B2B Sales Web 102

Duct Tape Marketing

NOVEMBER 23, 2016

But the unintended consequence of our collective lead generation obsession is that the task of actually determining which of the leads generated are sales-ready is relegated to the back-burner. That ultimately results in sales teams being sent troves of contacts who are either unable or not ready to buy. Lead quantity vs. lead quality.

Lead Generation 28

Lead Generation Baltimore Programming Framework 28

Mucker Lab

FEBRUARY 3, 2014

As a result, as builders of magical web and tech products we come to view customers/users as an anonymous herd who must prefer to figure out what to buy and how much to pay on their own through endless screens of wizards, forms, and dropdowns instead talking to a human being. Self service is hard.

Sales Cycle 87

Sales Cycle B2B Sales Web 87

Up and Running

AUGUST 19, 2014

Though that level of restraint may mean living quite “lean” in your personal life for a while, doing so provides an opportunity to establish solid footing for your business as early as possible, so that you have at least one year to learn from the trends and sales cycles that will emerge once you’re past “break even.”

Salary 119

Salary Sweat Equity Silicon Valley Sales Cycle 119

Duct Tape Marketing

JULY 30, 2019

However, for those who run businesses with longer sales cycles—for example, a B2B consulting firm—your ideal conversion might not be a sale. Search engine marketing, however, will follow your customers across any websites that are ad partners with the search engine you do business with.

Advertising 70

Advertising Campaign Social Media Audience 70

Hearpreneur

MAY 8, 2022

connections and benefit from quicker sales cycles and more opportunities. The more these needs trend, the more you can identify a way for your business to provide them or partner with a like-minded company to offer these services. Thanks to Rodney Warner, Connective Web Design ! #21- Thanks to Drew D’Agostino, Crystal !

Entrepreneur 132

Entrepreneur Audience Social Media Channel 132

ConversionXL

MAY 27, 2022

Sales intelligence platform Cognism cut their lead generation efforts by 90% in 2021. In this article, you’ll learn how to build a demand generation funnel that fuels the pipeline, shortens the sale cycle, and generates revenue. an ebook); Then you blast them with sales messaging (e.g., email, ads, retargeting, etc.)

Demand 124

Demand B2B Distribution Channel 124

www.forentrepreneurs.com

FEBRUARY 2, 2010

So we know from this that the problem is not the quality of those sales people. They also know precisely how much additional traffic will need to be generated to reach the growth targets, and how many sales people are needed at a given productivity level, etc. SolidWorks 2: The best VAR management program in the world?

Metrics 55

Metrics Design Entrepreneur Startup 55

ReadWriteStart

NOVEMBER 16, 2010

In a consumer Web venture, the hustler/sales guy is non-core (a few biz dev deals are important but not core). So if you are techie, find a founding partner that is a hustler. If you are hustler, find a superb techie as founding partner. SaaS reduces your sales cost but also means that VC is needed.

Software 127

Software Startup Architecture Bootstrapping 127

BeyondVC

AUGUST 26, 2008

I have written a number of times about frictionless sales and how on-demand companies have a huge opportunity to reduce their sales and marketing costs and subsequently scale their business more efficiently. As I mention in an earlier post, " The less friction you have in your sales and delivery model, the easier it is to scale.

Cost 60

Cost Sales Sales Cycle Demand 60

Lightspeed Venture Partners

MAY 3, 2016

After graduating from Jiao Tong University, he went to work for JP Morgan in Hong Kong and then was hired by Summit Partners to prospect (cold call) investment opportunities in China. When I first met him two years ago, I knew I was in the presence of an X-man. Vincent was a mathematician who grew up in China. based companies.

Architecture 60

Architecture China B2B Sales Cycle 60

infochachkie.com

SEPTEMBER 24, 2011

If a consultant claims they can enhance your marketing efforts, pay them based on their direct impact on your incremental sales. Basing a consultant’s compensation on the incremental revenue they generate is a great example of a deal that is on The Fringe (for other creative approaches to partnering, see Agreements on The Fringe).

Equity 40

Equity Silicon Valley Cofounder PR 40

Duct Tape Marketing

FEBRUARY 23, 2012

In order to thrive in today’s digitally driven business environment, sales folks need to think and act more like marketers. I’ve often said that getting marketing and sales on the same page was one of the biggest challenges for departmentalized business, but now it’s become an individual challenge. Educating is the new presenting.

Marketing 70

Marketing Social Media Sales Cycle Aggregator 70

BeyondVC

APRIL 29, 2009

  If you are too early and have to spend lots of money educating a market and get engaged in long protracted sales cycles and pilots, you are not going to be able to spend your way to success.   Remember some of my old posts about frictionless sales and leveraging the web for sales/marketing and inside sales? 

Sales Cycle 60

Sales Cycle Cloud Sales Web 60

ConversionXL

NOVEMBER 5, 2020

I put together a one-page website, a list of 100 people to reach out to, and a cold email script that would make seasoned sales professionals cringe. I know this language sounds formal and stuffy, but high-ticket service sales cycles are long. For us, that priority was the sales pipeline. Most B2B buyers know this.

PR 120

PR B2B Lean Audience 120

BeyondVC

NOVEMBER 17, 2008

.  In other words, show me the arms merchants with a recurring revenue model and frictionless sale and I will definitely be interested.   The beauty is that the whole sales cycle is quite frictionless and all web-based which means an oppotunity to scale quickly. 

Cloud 60

Cloud EC2 Sales Cycle Cofounder 60

Duct Tape Marketing

DECEMBER 12, 2018

This transcript is sponsored by our transcript partner – Rev – Get $10 off your first order. So then, the sales cycle just becomes, “Hey I made this thing, maybe you wanna check it out.” Back to Podcast. Transcript. John Jantsch: Everybody wants to scale up these days. Big topic, right?

Sales Cycle 63

Sales Cycle Email Web Canada 63

mashable.com

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Google buzz Advertise Network Blippr iPhone App Mashable France MashDeck Twitter App Mobile Site Social Media Events Twitter Guide Book Facebook Guide Book Partners App Development WordPress Expert Rackspace Hosting MaxCDN Content Delivery Dynect Managed DNS ConVerdge Communities About Us Submit a Tip!

Software Review 78

Software Review Social Media Social Network Software 78

Duct Tape Marketing

MAY 28, 2013

What are you doing to make certain that every single day dozens of unpaid sales calls are being made on your behalf? You may already know some of them or have an idea who you would like to partner with, but I find that if you can dig up few shared connections, your mutual customer, it makes the idea take off even faster.

Sales Cycle 72

Sales Cycle Sales Partner Lead Generation 72

This is going to be BIG.

JANUARY 24, 2011

You can do the same with tips on selling from your VP of Sales, or a bold statement on a blog post like "All sales will be virtual by 2015" in order to bring the community out of the woodwork. Give away an iPad for the most votes on Quora answers for the month to questions like "How can you speed up a long enterprise sales cycle?"

Startup 128

Startup Ruby PR Sales Cycle 128

Cracking the Code

OCTOBER 10, 2008

Only after reaching $1M in CMRR should you consider hiring European sales and services execs behind customer demand. . Be prepared to cross the desert - SaaS requires R&D and sales expense up front for a multi-year stream of revenue, so it demands enough investment capital to fund 4+ years of runway. Posted by Philippe Botteri.

Software Review 48

Software Review North America Europe Metrics 48

VC Cafe

JUNE 7, 2010

The company’s assets will be put on sale as the company only retained five employees for maintenance reasons. Pudding Media’s platform targeted mobile carriers, offering them a turn-key solution to manage the entire campaign lifecycle, across all mobile channels: SMS, MMS, USSD, Mobile Web, voice calls and video.

Media 96

Media Malaysia Thailand Asia 96

ConversionXL

APRIL 12, 2017

Long copy” doesn’t mean “long form sales page”. There’s a time and place for long form sales pages. Tools used: JIRA, SiteSpect, Apptimize, Adobe Analytics, Amazon Web Services. Web forms are often the last and most important mile in a long journey. 23 partner-based projects. Longer decision cycle.

San Antonio 86

San Antonio Metrics B2B Analytics 86

ConversionXL

JANUARY 23, 2013

Looking at not only web pages but also what can be done after the sale has been made to make customers come back again and again. Once you have finished with what you believe is good, show it to people (your spouse, parents, siblings, partners, friends) and ask what they think this site is about and who’s it for.

Stock 105

Stock Software Review New York Sales 105

The Next Web

MAY 12, 2013

Xeround then looked to branch out, seeking to partner directly with other media companies within Israel, and AT&T in the United States. Sales cycles were long and unpredictable. They learned early on that trying to tangle with customers used to working with the likes of Microsoft and Oracle, was not an easy task.

Database 126

Database United States Cloud 126