Since the Covid period, I have been giving virtual workshops to Startup Founders, who are facing challenges in selling their products.
One of the biggest mistakes that many of them made was if the product was ready, clients be waiting to buy. No, it won’t happen. If the product is good, it will sell by itself without going out to announce. Again, it won’t happen.
Not everyone knows how to ‘sell’ and this is the problem that many startups founders are facing when they start their businesses. Many made the mistake of just hiring someone to do that job for that.
It won’t work in the long term, because as a Startup your products are still evolving and the needs and wants of the target clients may also change. Thus it is important to know how to sell the product yourself as the owner of the business first.
As a founder, you should be the first salesperson of your startup. This is because you have the deepest understanding of your product and its value proposition and you know the changes that are happening in your business too.
This is the part where the workshop comes in handy as I will work with the Founders on the definitions of their product to build the foundation of what its business is about. It is rare to have 1 product that meets everyone’s needs.
Founders also need to identify and understand who are your customers.
Success in sales hinges on deeply understanding your customers. This involves creating ideal customer profiles and understanding their needs and wants who is the best person to know the type of products that can meet the needs? The Founder.
Building solid relationships with customers and actively leveraging their feedback can significantly improve product quality and sales processes and the best person to kickstart this will be the Founders themselves to go down on the ground to do exactly that.
Founders should also know about tracking sales performance through key metrics, as it is vital for aligning sales efforts with business goals and making data-driven decisions for scaling. This is where Founders need to have everything at their fingers’ tips.
Learn to generate quality leads, enhance persuasive communication and negotiation skills, and leverage sales automation tools and CRM for efficient processes are the basis that anyone who runs a business must know.
One of the topics that is most responsive by the attendees is sharing how they can overcome obstacles, build resilience, and foster a winning sales mindset with each other. We know that these are essential for long-term success but not everyone shares about how failure propels them to be stronger and better.
