Forget
the used-car-dealer image. The ability to show people that your product
helps them succeed is a basic skill crucial to any venture.
If I
were creating a survival guide for entrepreneurs, the first lesson
would be on selling. Yes, you have to learn to raise and manage money,
create great products that your customers actually need, manage and
motivate your employees, and so on. But the single most important skill
that entrepreneurs don't typically learn is how to seal the deal.
During
my days as a techie, I always associated "sales" with the used-car
business. Perhaps movies like Glengarry Glen Ross and Tin Men helped me
conclude that selling equaled hustling. I thought it meant convincing
people to buy things they didn't need, and the key was to close a sale
before they changed their minds.
DIFFERENT BALL GAME. Yet, after
having worked my way up the ranks of Corporate America, cofounding two
tech companies, helping launch a film and a TV venture, and mentoring
dozens of entrepreneurs, I've come to the conclusion that I was
completely wrong. No entrepreneur should even start a company before
undergoing basic sales training.
Selling isn't something that
you do only when seeking money for a product or an investment: You sell
all through life. Whether negotiating with your parents for a bigger
allowance, trying to convince your children to eat their vegetables, or
going for a job interview, it's all about selling. You have to persuade
people to give you what you want, and you achieve this by convincing
them you're offering something good for them.
It was after my
promotion to project manager that I first realized getting anywhere in
the corporate world would involve selling my peers and managers. Life
was so simple when all I had to do was to write computer code.
Convincing others that my ideas made sense and persuading management to
provide the necessary staffing and funding was a different ball game,
however. It required me to listen very carefully to what others were
saying, understand their needs, and communicate honestly and
effectively.
INTO THE FRAY. After I learned to listen and focus
on helping others to succeed, advancing myself grew relatively easy.
Whether it involved my peers, subordinates, user departments, company
customers, or bosses, it seemed that I could always win by helping
others win. And with the primary goal of helping the company succeed, I
found it not difficult to rise above departmental politics.
Then,
from a relatively safe haven as vice-president of technology in an
investment bank, I assumed the position of chief technology officer of
a software spinoff.
In a startup, everyone quickly learns that
survival depends on the company's ability to sell its products. No
matter how unusual or wonderful your products, the stark reality
remains that you're always competing with someone else. Even though you
may have a better product that the world really needs, your competitors
are likely better at selling than you are. And your prospective
customer will have never even heard of you.
"SELLING BOOT CAMP."
I was fortunate to be working for one of the best salespeople I have
ever met. Our company's CEO, Gene Bedell, had run billion-dollar
businesses and reached the executive levels in investment banking. In
an industry in which financing companies furnish funding for tech
outfits, he had persuaded IBM (IBM ) to provide seed money for a
software spinoff from Credit Suisse First Boston (CTNX ), one of the
richest investment banks.
Gene started by putting all of our
software-development staff into "selling boot camp." It took my team
and me a while to figure out why we were learning about qualifying
prospects and closing sales rather than the latest software-debugging
tools.
But within months, we were closing multimillion dollar
sales with blue-chip customers across the globe. We did this with only
two experienced sales reps and part-time sales support from our
development staff. Our developers became so competent at sales support
that our reps would often leave the selling to them. We would compete
with some of the largest software companies in the world -- and win the
sale almost every time.
UNDERSTANDING BEHAVIOR. With a culture
that put customer support and sales above everything else, we built our
little startup into a $100-million-a-year revenue machine within five
years. Our developers formed long-term bonds and friendships with our
customers. They would go to great pains to understand customer
requirements and build products that would sell. More often than not,
new development projects would be funded directly by customers.
Whenever there was a customer-service problem, our top engineers would
voluntarily work around the clock and fly all over the globe to
personally provide support.
There are probably as many selling
techniques out there as there are diets. Every few months, another
best-selling book comes along claiming to have the magic formula for
success. Some of these prescribe selling tricks to manipulate customers
into buying something they really don't need. These are ideal for the
scam artists depicted in Hollywood movies. Others focus on selling
customers what they really require and creating a successful business.
The only way to succeed in the long term is to make your clients
successful, after all.
Most selling techniques are founded on
the same marketing principles, however. It's all about understanding
human behavior and motivation, fulfilling needs, and communicating
clearly and effectively. And most important, each of these techniques
creates a well-defined and repeatable process for completing a sale.
I've read more than a dozen books that I liked, but my favorite, and
perhaps the easiest to read is 3 Steps to Yes: The Gentle Art of
Getting Your Way, by none other than Gene Bedell.
PROMISE
FULFILLED. The lesson for the entrepreneur is to learn how to sell.
It's much too easy to fall in love with your own product or believe
your own hype. Most entrepreneurs I know believe that "if you build it,
they will come" -- but this almost never happens. It takes a lot of
hard work and discipline to create the right formula for success.
Mastering the art of selling is what can make the difference between simply having lots of potential and actually realizing it.
