No sales, no revenue.
No revenue, no funds to keep the business going, no money to cope with life.
Yes, we love to believe that our product is the best. Or, our service is the best in the market. But that doesn’t matter if we cannot sell.
Salesmanship is About Reaching Out and Establishing a Consensus
When you need help, reach out.
That is how I think about sales in a startup environment. We are still selling, fundamentally. What is different, however, is this. We are not always selling a product and service.
Note. Not always.
This is because salesmanship goes beyond the act of establishing a monetary transaction. It is about our ability to relate, negotiate, persuade others to do something we want them to.
I did plenty of investor funding work in one of my startups (I sold my stake many years ago). Known to the guys as the Chief Pitching Officer (CPO), my work was to pitch and secure funding. It was no different from a sales job, except that I speak to angels, early-stage venture capitalists, or family offices instead of customers.
I thought I was pitching, but honestly, I was selling. I was attempting to cash in on the future prospect of the startup selling a growth story and our ideal path to profitability. The transactions are measured in X% of equity for $Y.
To solidify the equity-cash exchange, I needed to create a consensus with my investor prospects within 20, 45, and 60 minutes of my pitch. No matter the time duration, it is almost always equally stressful to take someone from 0 to 1 and then get them to part with their cash.
I got my fair share of successes and rejections. It depends on my ability to transfer certainty through salesmanship.
When others understand what we say, and fast, then we have a shot at getting what we want. And this is not just about the investor funding pitch.
Everyone in the Startup Needs to be Responsible for Business Partnership Agreements and Client Pitching
I say everyone because the early-stage startup has limited pairs of hands (or mouths).
Too many startups spend too much time worrying about their product. I agree that half-baked products rarely sell. However, even the best products need a salesman push. And that last-mile push can come in many formats, such as securing product demonstrations, webinars, immersion workshops, and pilot initiatives.
Our salesmanship must be flexible and creative enough to connect with people from all walks of life and in any form of environment setup. My product tech guy can execute a product demonstration in 10 minutes and 60, with a storyline covering all feature highlights. My branding girl can present our needs for a business alliance to partners in 30, 45, 60, and 90 minutes.
As I said, everyone is selling.
Our YouTube Channel – Knowledge Topics
On our Youtube Channel, we produce content to uncover topics that permeate all walks of life. Our community can understand what it means to be in the trenches of our interest.
Here are some topics of interest we recorded with high viewership:
Search Engine Optimization (S.E.O.).
Why we buy what we buy.
Mindset and Career.
Marketing on a Dime.
Green Technology.
Robotic Era.
Mental Health.
Our goal is to share our research with our community from a practitioner's standpoint.
Summary
Sales is the lifeblood of any business.
It is the most organic form of funding, and cashflow keeps us going. Keep selling, and keep forging ahead to keep the business alive.
The job of Bottomsup Perspective is to research, discuss, and share our findings so our community can grow with us.
This topic is one example of sharing our practitionership.
Do you believe in what we do?
If you do, push this big purple button.