salesMany software developers launch startups with little-to-no experience in sales. When preparing for in-person sales meetings, it can be daunting going into a process outside of one’s comfort zone. What is the most common misstep software devs make stepping into the sales side of a startup?
IME, the biggest single issue for techies moving into sales is believing that the product sells itself. You only have to show the product to someone, and then they’ll buy it - passive selling. I know several techies who have migrated into sales and discovered one powerful truth:
Ask the prospect to buy.
It is astonishing how this can transform a failing techie into a sales superstar. In techdom, we’re used to building a product to specs, and having qualification criteria. Product owners/managers will tell us when we haven’t met the objectives. So we’re used to a passive completion activity. We get told when we’re done, and handing over something that isn’t ready is a career limiting move. Sales… mostly not the same. You usually get better results when you ask how many they’ll order, than by passively waiting after a presentation.
The second thing is…
Don't be frightened of rejection.
As developers, it is a tragic career mistake to hand over something that wasn’t asked for. We’re trained to avoid that rejection. In Sales, you need to welcome rejection - it means you’re reaching people outside your normal safe networks and the reasons for rejection will let you tune your offer the next time. Rejection is not a bad thing, of itself, in Sales. So techies are often reluctant to pick up the phone and talk, to find out whether the target is interested, for fear that they won’t be. It grates to the bone the first times you try it, but rejection handling is what eventually leads to sales success.
I do know some people who’ve made the transition so happily, that they won’t go back to coding or electronics.
A list of the top ten mistakes software developers do in sales is hard to produce or find. I think part of the reason for that is in your question.
You could turn the question around and ask “What’s the most common misstep sales people do when programming a piece of software?”. Sales people shouldn’t develop software and vice versa!
If you want to make sure not to do missteps that could kill your startup, find better and more competent people to help in areas too far from your comfort-zone!
I’m a programmer who has made a few small companies and through experience I wouldn’t do sales myself. I’ve been lucky to find some intern who has helped me with sales strategies: they have better theories, tools and competencies to solve these strategies than I do.
If you can’t find interns, contact your local university or business school and offer your case for students to solve. This gives them experience and you the answers and strategies you need. It’s a win-win.
If you have money, hire someone to do make a good strategy for you and focus on your strong areas.
I believe a frequent misstep is to approach sales as a predictable, deterministic activity, much like a developer would program.
Although seasoned sales people have recipes, patterns, and strategies, sales deal with human beings, not computers, in an always-changing legal, emotional, biased environment.
One of the biggest problems for developers in the sales world is morale! Basically you need to be the guy who sells freezers to eskimos to be successful in sales, while the average developer is used to sticking to facts. You can see this brought to extreme when you watch the new tv series “halt and catch fire”. If you watch it and still want to do the sales part afterwards, you will have no hiccups. ;-)
It could be a great thing to find a sales guys as a partner in some way. You might not find the right person. And even if you do, you’re still going to have to do sales to some extent. You’ll have to meet with clients and make presentations do training, etc.
Education is primarily a shortcut to experience. Get some training/coaching in sales and emotional intelligence.
The most common and deadly mistake I have seen done programmers-become-entrepreneurs is:
There is nothing wrong with it per se - this is the market developers understand the best and:
Well - here is the problem. Because this is the market they understand the best and so many developers are out there, it becomes incredibly crowded and competitive. Just google any idea you are thinking of, specifically for developers, and you’ll be surprised! Which is great if you are a customer! But not so if you are looking to sell.
There so many great quality open source products for developers that are either cheap of free, so selling yet another one to the same crowd is damn hard. The way they normally make big bucks is providing support for people who not developers, i.e. addressing a different market.
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