B2B Sales

My 3 Lessons Learned in B2B Sales

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I have a background in product development. I’ve never been responsible for generating revenue until I started my company, Cooleaf. What I learned is that sales is hard. Really hard.

We’ve been through a lot at Cooleaf and we’ve had some really nice wins along with our share of rejections. The wins are so more meaningful because you know how hard they are to achieve. And it still hurts your soul when you’re rejected. Anyone who says it doesn’t is full of it.

Here are three lessons I’ve learned along the way. My hope is that you can take my lessons and apply them to your own startup.

  1. Sell to buyers that have budget and authority

Sorry to all my HR friends but HR is one of the worst place to sell into inside an organization. Exceptions can be made of course but in general, HR is a poor buyer because they are not a revenue generating part of the organization which means they have less authority when seeking budget. My advice is to NOT sell into a cost center for a company. Instead, pick a buyer such as head of sales or marketing who are in a direct path to revenue for their organization. I know for me, if my lead sales rep. came to me and said that if we buy this new software it would help them sell more, I would be interested.

  1. Make it easier to say yes by limiting the number of people who need to say yes

Top down sales slows your sales cycle significantly. When the whole organization has to adopt your product, it means that more people will be involved in the decision making process which means inevitably, you will experience a longer sales process. We’ve started working directly with team leaders such as a VP of X and offering a solution directly for them with their team. Our goal is to make them a champion to grow our product inside the organization. Even C-level people don’t want to make a decision to buy some new software unless they know their people will value it and adopt it.

  1. Remove the budget barrier

One of the most common barriers to a sale is the line, ‘we don’t have budget’. Well, why not just temporarily remove this barrier by offering a free trial or pilot of your product? I’ve found that one of the biggest fears a buyer has is that if they buy, what if the product fails to get adopted inside the organization. It’s less about the money and more about them looking bad that is the real issue. By letting them use the product first through a trial, it eases this concern. However, you have to be careful because people value what they pay for and that last thing you want is for the buyer to say that the trial didn’t workout but in reality it’s because they did not commit to using your product.

I’m still learning every day but these are a few of the lessons I’ve found meaningful. I hope you do too!

Life in a Startup – Walking a Line Between Death and Greatness

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My co-founder, Prem Bhatia likes to say that the default state of a startup is failure and each startup is furiously working to avoid that state until it finds product-market-fit. He is absolutely right.

Last year was a good year for my company, Cooleaf. We grew our revenue by 477%. I preference that number by saying that it’s a lot easier to put up a big number like that when you’re starting small, but regardless, it’s strong growth. We implemented a new iteration of our product last March and were able to close several large enterprise deals. Our largest contract being $50K.

This all sounds great and it is. However, it still is not good enough. Despite having our best year ever with huge potential in the future, we are still working towards achieving product-market-fit and being financially secure. We have steady MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) and are growing but we also have grown our expenses, primarily investing in our technology.

Based on the feedback we get from customers and our own market discovery work, we believe there is a path to scale the business faster through our product. We are seeing more frequent and stronger signs of product-market-fit and therefore, we plan to continue investing in our technology to get us there.

One big challenge we face is that B2B enterprise sales cycles are long. Much longer than we expected. We’ve found that company leaders can absolutely love our product but since there is no line-item in their budget, we have to wait until the next budget cycle to get approved which may take a full year. This puts a strain on cash flow for a small company like us. Bottom line is that we have to find ways to shorten the sales cycle by providing more value through our product resulting in it being considered a ‘must-have’ for the the customer.

It is a strange feeling that can only be summed up as being part of the life of a startup when you have the sheer excitement of that feeling in your gut that you are on to something really big, all the while feeling a burning on the back of your neck from the pressure knowing that the clock is ticking and you have no choice but to fight like hell every day to survive.

Here is to kicking some ass and breaking glass in 2015!

B2B Selling using LinkedIn

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LinkedIn is an amazing sales tool. There is no reason why you can’t be able to get a conversation set up with any company you’re trying to sell into, regardless of industry or location.  Once you have your prospect, you can drill into strategies to close that organization as a new client. Here are a few thoughts on how I approach B2B sales using LinkedIn.

Once you pick out the prospect company you want to target, use LinkedIn to review your network for connections inside the company. A simple search will give you a list of people that you have 1st,  2nd, and 3rd connections with.

Review the 2nd connections you have and find individuals as part of the executive team if possible. I’m looking for a decision maker, preferably at the VP level or C-suite.

Once I find the person that I want to reach out to, I write them a message similar to below. This may vary depending on the role they have in the company, how you’re connected to them, and what is relevant to them. I’m usually looking to learn about how they are building a strong culture inside of their company and share about how we (Cooleaf) are working with clients to see if there is a fit for us to work with them as a client.

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Hi ____,

We’re connected through ______. I’m the founder of a company based in Atlanta called, Cooleaf.

I would really value getting your feedback about how you approach building a strong, innovative and collaborative culture at your company. I would also be happy to share what we’ve seen from other organizations on how they approach reducing turnover and attracting the best talent.

I would really appreciate you connecting with me.

-John

__

If they connect with me, I follow up with a thank you e-mail for connecting and asking if we can set up a phone call or time to meet over coffee or lunch. You would be surprised how effective this is. After all, you are only asking for feedback.

You won’t always get a response but if you take some time to research how and why to connect with someone, you have a decent shot. After that, it’s a numbers game. I believe timing plays a big role in making these connections. You will never make any connections unless you reach out to people in a meaningful way.