“When television came along, I’d already done more than 10 years of radio work and I thought everyone would want me. I sat around waiting for the phone to ring – and it didn’t.” -Orson Welles
When selling conceptual products, you need to have 2 types of salespeople on your force. You need to have those that can “sell high” and those that can “sell low.” Mark Suster does a good job of explaining those differences here. Your first sales hires (1-2 people) should be those that “sell high.” These are the guys that are paid 6-figures because they own relationships at the highest levels of various organizations, or sometimes just an insanely large one. If you hire the right high-sellers, they will shorten your sales cycle by 6-14 months on larger deals and also solicit valuable time-saving candid feedback from executives in order to help scale your software for the critical masses. Once scaled, the majority of your salesforce should be comprised of salespeople that can crush it on the phone “selling low” and those low-sellers should be primarily comprised of Millennials.
At my previous startups, all of the salesforces had a combination of members from GenY, GenX and even a few Baby Boomers. I’m fortunate enough to be on the tail end (or beginning) of GenY as we consistently crushed the sales leaderboards at each company. Why? Because we’re digital natives. Granted, our interpersonal communication skills are not as polished as compared to the preceding generations because we’ve grown up texting, IMing and the like; but phone skills can be learned much easier than suddenly teaching yourself to live in technology. Your salesforce needs to be primarily selling low, and GenY is usually occupying the front line positions at the prospect-companies being sold into. Your salesforce needs to be able to inherently speak their language. You cannot have quotes such as these (actual ones I’ve overheard) taking place over the phone or your company will instantly lose credibility…
Baby Boomer, “I have a Facebook account, but I don’t use it.”
GenXer, “I wanted to get a Facebook account, but my wife was suspicious of ex-girlfriends.”
“GenXer, “I think the Twitter API is messing with my GotoMeeting. Do you (prospect) know how to fix it?”
Baby Boomer, “I don’t want to make my client pay for roaming charges. Do we have a toll-free number or just this 855 number?”
Once you’ve figured out how to scale your software, your company should have a 2-step phone selling process and both need to be quick and effective.
Step 1: Qualification…these should be entry level sales people that can get an appointment on the books.They will have about 30 – 90 seconds to get the prospect locked down. The only training these employees should need to have is how to use the software they’re selling. The phone training will come from experience. You cannot afford (time or money) to hire candidates that have to learn standard technologies like Facebook, SMS or how to embed simple java snippets onto a website. Can your sales pros speak the native language quickly and effectively enough to make this happen?
Step 2: Closing…Ideally, your closers at this could be a multi-step process have graduated from the entry-level stage to this one; so they know the product inside and out. The sales pros at this level need to be able to understand the customer’s pain point(s) to find pinpoint a tailored solution at each level of the organization. Speed plays a critical role in these sales. If too many days go by, then your competition will capitalize with a similar product eating up the budget once reserved for your product.
When interviewing people that will “Sell Low,” you should make GenY candidate demonstrate their interpersonal and phone skills to your current salespeople and put the older generations through the ringer on their aptitude and adaptation to emerging technologies.
photo: Diane Cordell
