The Selling of the Presidency
If there's any common thread I see in tech startups that don't make it, it's this: they lose sight of the fact that ultimately they have to have something that sells. So someone has to do the selling.
Common thread among successful companies? The CEO has domain experience, and spends a lot of time with customers. In other words, the CEO sells. Not only that, but that advocacy for the customer pervades all the CEO's decisions. I can't stress this enough: you have to start with what customers want, then move that back through the food chain to the product design. Not the other way around.
Those of us in the Northwest from time to time get the privilege of hearing Tom Huseby of SeaPoint Ventures speak. Sure, Tom's a VC, but he's also been a successful CEO of a couple of startups and done the executive stint with larger companies. About a zillion years ago he was a salesman, and he never forgot what he learned selling.
What has he learned over the years? A few interesting thoughts:
- Nobody ever gets to sell exactly what they have. The customer will ask for stuff you don't have, so that's what you sell. But you must meet expectations before money changes hands: don't ever let desperation turn to deceit.
- The message is what the customer wants to buy. Every time you talk to customers, you'll learn something. When you learn enough, change the message. When you change the message, make sure everyone else does, too.
- Never hire commissioned salespeople until your business model is proven. Why? Because when you change the model you tick off your sales staff.
- Make the customer everyone's job: make everyone feel like they personally have saved the company by giving the customer what they want.
- Never put dollars in your sales pipeline until the customer has actually asked for a quote.
