This past week we held our first ever Sales Sprint Week at Galileo, essentially a private conference for founders we invest in that happens once a month. The theme this time was…sales!
The coaches we bring in are extremely experienced, in this case they tuned in from AU and USA and have all help grow sales from $0 to $50m or even $100m+ across various technology companies.
Our whole accelerator program has a huge focus on sales and sales leadership because we believe building sales discipline in early and forming the right sales function within your business will have an outsized impact on the team as they grow – and will be a competitive advantage. Plus, Aussies typically aren’t that great at sales, being honest!
Full thread below + some graphs too from the week:
Early sales is not selling its ‘partnering’ with early customers as they help you develop the roadmap
— You need to find customers with the right expectations. Find people that are willing to take the risk on you!
Sales is not about going after everything under the sun — it’s about identifying who can ‘lighting fast’ sign now.
Things in motion stay in motion, things at rest stay at rest — capture initial (sales) inertia! ‘oh thats cool’ = no real interest! vs ’thats cool but how does that work for me’ or better = ‘I have biz reason I need to buy this on this timeline’
Creating urgency is the hardest part!— what is the compelling event to buy your product?
Give/Get sales:
– They asking for discount <> You ask to buy tomorrow
– They ask to come onsite for demo <> You ask to intro to CEO or someone else in the decision making group
Product Trials — no more than 30 days (imagine test driving a car for 30 days!). Get their goals at the outset and hold them to it.
How to answer the ‘Why now’ question for your product? Translate customer pain into a measurable metric. Amplify their pain so it raises the urgency.
Cold email outreach: Subject line needs to be enough for me to open it on my phone then;
1. Provocative Opening: The first 2 lines need to be enough for her to read and action
2. Reason to meet with you (all you care about)
3. Call to action that is crisp, authentic and you
Pricing impacts sales (and your business model!). A $1 difference in Xero monthly subscription increased LTV by 9 months (between 2016 and 2018)
Having something ‘marginally sellable’ is big advantage over waiting until complete feature set. Ask would be customers to buy early!
Finally, be aware but don’t focus on competition. Keep moving fast, innovating and iterating, by the time they copy you’ll be onto the next thing already.
Huge thx to our coaches and guests from this week!
