How I learnt to do sales, starting out as a coder

Breaking some personal barriers to actually be good at telling the world about the problem we're solving and the product we're building

If you’re a coder and reading this post, I think you’re already on your way to being a founder. Before I get started, here’s the TL:DR; of this entire blog.

Always be selling.

As a salesperson, the #1 thing I learnt is have full passion and excitement to talk about your work and shamelessly sell to whoever will listen. You never know which person might be the one opening the door for you. And that’s why, just put aside whatever understanding of an introverted hacker/builder you have and focus on being a good person who talks regularly to clients and figures solutions to their problems.

For sales, there are 4 strategies - and you can use them individually but I’ve mostly seen combinations of these succeed:

1. Outbound sales

2. Inbound sales

3. Personal network sales

4. Calls and closing deals

And I’m going to be very direct with the recommendations in each, that I’ve improved upon so you don’t spend time reading much or doing the same mistakes:

Outbound sales

1. This is the most common example that comes in people’s head when we say “sales”

2. What it really means is that “selling to a new acquaintance at the company you’re pinging”

3. Instead of spamming 50 linkedin people, just reach out to 7 or 8 really good well active linkedin users. Go through their profile and send a personalized message with a strong hook.

   Here’ the template that I’ve been using to speak with sales reps and responding manualy, See if it works for you

   “Hey XYZ! “👋

   Pharma sales is super hard and I respect the art. I'm a researching the use of AI agents that helps you spend more time with people, less in managing data (https://recontact.world”)

   Your work experience in this is mind-blowing - can you please spare a quick 25mins to share your views?

1. People who are passionate about the problem and their field are more than happy to chat with a startup, free of cost.

2. Rule of thumb, be personal, and be specific on who you reach out to. Templated spam doesn’t help in the early days. Instead, put the work in, be personal. It’s a numbers game so don’t be demoralized if conversation is at 2/10.

3. Have a good landing page with clickable button to signup - as a simple link to share with people who’re interested.

Inbound sales

What this means is that “getting potential customers to text you, cause you seem like an expert now”

For this, I recommend 2 things:

1. Be helpful, create value from your learnings in the field - share your learnings; can be a LinkedIn post, can be a YouTube podcast, can be a tweetstorm or a blog - whatever form you’re most natural and comfortable in.

   Bottom-line is build an audience in a way that is natural and unique to you. From time to time, you can then share product updates to this audience and grow it and convert it into deals.

1. Offline activities - build rapport at meetups, booths at conferences (expensive), talks you give, etc. This may/may-not work for you. Pick your events, and there, do a stunt to attract people to come and speak with you.

Personal network sales

1. I actually started my current startup, by 1st talking to my childhood neighbour and best friend and he connected me forward. 2 hops later - I was meeting the decision maker. Golden thing for any call is to say this towards the end “Off the top of your head, can you think of any 1 person who you think can help us?” - that would instantly get a name or a basic intro setup cause 1 is not a hard number but it’s finite and the opposite person can easily think of 1 (usually the best 1) and setup an intro.

1. First 5 customers will use when the product is not mature enough - have to sit in their office and observe their flow.

2. These friends can be from university, previous employer, family, founders you run into at SF - same thing - just a couple of people who use and review your product for good feedback.

3. Improve the product with them, give them upto 30% discount or send another token of appreciation

Calls and closing deals

1. Walk into the call with a bright smile on the face, irrespective of how shitty and tiring your day has otherwise been.

2. You’re a doctor: 70% of the initial call, just listen. Actually and note down key-words. If it works, then use those keywords while explaining your solution and showing the demo.

3. Follow up gracefully: After every call you get with a client or user or any person in general, always, always ALWAYS draft a follow up message on email/text - thanking them for their time and the what you learnt. It makes them feel nice and they’d be willing to help you again.

4. Cornering for payment: You can purposely provide wrong info or ask for some small task from their side - so when they come they come in with their effort, it becomes their info and it's accurate. You've shown them the benefit - you corner them and ask them to buy. hard for them to back out now without contradicting themselves. Ka-Ching!

Conclusion

That’s it. 4 basic methods to deal with different funnels of sales. The only parting advice I have is honestly - just be so pumped and excited when talking to customers - that they team up, just cause they like your enthusiasm and are willing to figure out the rest with you.

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