The Art of Building a Successful Salesforce

To the founder, selling is an art. To the sales manager, selling is a process.

We needed to build a successful salesforce. We knew if we were going to grow our company into something meaningful and valuable, we had to do it. 

Building a successful salesforce begins with the founder being the most successful salesperson in the early stages of the startup's development. The founder, full of passion, expertise, and purpose, is the best opportunity to make those first few sales. They know the prospect better than anyone else. They know the problem better than anyone else. And they know the solution better than anyone else.

The founder's commitment to solving the prospect's problem is why those early adopters buy. I know. I've worked with amazing founders. I know, because I am a recalcitrant early adopter. I suppose that is why I hang out in early-stage investing. I love entrepreneurs who are trying like crazy to crack a new market.

And as an early adopter, I am open to new solutions to my problems. I am always looking for a better way, a more innovative way, a cooler way to do what I do. And founders bring these characteristics in spades when they talk to me. Just listening to them makes me want to be a part of what they are doing, assuming it makes sense. 

And making sense means it is a better way to solve the problem. It is not so unique and innovative a solution that I can't picture myself using it. It can't be a long leap from the way I do it now. But it must appear to me to be markedly better, maybe even 10x better, with a promise of improving my life. That's when it makes sense.

And it is up to the founder to be the first person pitching this new idea. It can't be a hired hand, a salesperson. A salesperson is a guided missile. Great salespeople are very creative when dealing with a prospect. Where they are not gifted is in creating the overall sales strategy for a startup. My experience is this: salespeople will not crack the product-market fit puzzle. Only the founder can do this.

It took a couple of years in my first startup and many false starts to learn this lesson. But we finally did get there. We arrived at a sales strategy that worked for our market. We hit on a marketing strategy that supplied good leads. And we finally figured out the sales process that was teachable and replicable. The process piece of the puzzle brought it all together. It delivered scale. Within two years of implementing this sales process, we went from one salesman who was kind of successful to thirty sales people, the majority of whom were on quota. It was a great sales team. Never experienced one better.

And here is how we got there.

We hired a sales manager who had an engineering degree. 

When I first interviewed him, I didn't think he was the right guy. He wasn't outgoing and gregarious. He was dry, focused, and a bit prickly. In short, he wasn't the kind of person I immediately warmed to.

But thankfully, I was overruled, and in came Wendell. He was in charge. And his charge was to build a sales force that sold software to CPAs nationally. And boy did every do it. He was intelligent, inquisitive, and disciplined. And he was laser-focused on being successful. Lastly, he knew his methods worked and he was confident on who he was and why these methods worked. And they did work.

Here are the steps he knew would be successful.

Talk to the founder

Interview him on how he sells. Talk about his past experience on specific deals. As a process thinker, capture the steps the founder went through from first contact to close. This is the beginning of documenting a repeatable process. Then watch him sell deals to test what he told you is what he, in fact, does.

When you ask a founder what the sales process is, be prepared for an answer like, "There really is no process. I get into a conversation with the prospect and tell them stories about how other people just like them solved their problem by buying our product."

Then they'll say, "I don't know how to teach someone what I do. Any salesperson I hire will never have the experience and understanding of the product that I have." In short, they don't even realize they follow a process to bring a prospect along and then close the deal.

It is up to you as the sales manager to think process and listen well.

Document the process

Write down the steps you observed by watching the founder sell. The first process you document is just the start. Once it is written down, you can begin testing it and improving it.

Test this by following the process yourself. That's right. You, the sales manager, need to follow the process yourself. This will give you the first-hand experience necessary with the prospect to improve and perfect the process.

Remember: Your goal is to define the sales process for the startup so you know:

1 The salesperson profile and incentive plan

2 The training necessary to prepare the salesperson for a territory

3 The tools necessary for the the sales process and how the tools are used in the process.

4 References for credibility

5 Clarify pricing, discounting, payment terms, and contracts

Hire, train, coach

With the sales process defined and tested by you, it is time to bring on the new salespeople. The first thing they'll ask is:

Who do I call?

What do I say?

How much is the product?

Your answer is: Learn the process. Show me you learned the process. Then, and only then, will I cut you loose on your prospects.

Monitor and measure the process

This is the heart of CRMs. The first step in setting up is to define the process. Don't use their CRM vendor's process. Use your process. You know how you sell to your market. You know how you want to measure success. After all, you defined the process.

And Wendell was brutal on those who did not follow the sales process to the letter. He was a stickler for process consistency. His belief was simple. "It works when you work it."

Improve

Every process, including the sales process, must be improved. The improvement will come from the people running the process, the salespeople. Watch the winners. They are creative and know how to make a process work to their advantage. And when the process works to their advantage, it will surely benefit the company.

Wendell was a winner

I watched Wendell build and manage this process. But what also made him such a great success in building a great salesforce was leadership. His people trusted his leadership and his representation in the company. They were a team. A team that was well trained and tested. And every team member knew exactly where he stood compared to every other member on the team. And they all wanted to be #1.

One more thing I'll never forget

As the salesforce grew and the territories were filled, Wendell always had a couple of salespeople in training. As they became closer to proficiency, it was clear to the sales people at the bottom of the sales performance chart that they were in jeopardy. He created a very, very competitive environment. All top performers. An elite team.

Even this was part of the sales process.

Process is tedious to the founder. Process builds scale. Scale builds value.