Steak and egg sandwichEarly bright moonUnder the covers with a mooseBudding photographerBuilding a snow wallHe upgraded to a bigger shirt stuffed with more stuff Serious smashing going on#sumo kids


Startup CEOs Need To Do Sales

Doing sales isn’t typically one of the favorite things of most startup CEOs (and by extension, startup founding teams). Certainly they want sales (because sales = $$), but they don’t want to actually do the sales. This is a huge problem for startups.

Startup CEOs need to be very close to their prospects and customers

Startup CEOs need to understand why people are buying and why people aren’t buying. They need to understand the buying and decision-making processes.

Even technical startup CEOs or technical co-founders need to be actively involved in the sales process. Ultimately this is going to make them better founders. It’s also going to help with product development, and the communication within the startup.

Startup CEOs are the only salespeople you need

At least initially, the CEO and founding team are the salespeople. If you outsource sales (whether that’s through hiring or through a channel partner strategy) you can very quickly get into trouble. Setting targets is easy, but understanding why you’re hitting them, or more likely not hitting them, becomes almost impossible if you’re not doing the actual sales work.

Figure out sales first, then hire others to execute

Startup CEOs need to understand the sales process through-and-through so that they can, as quickly as possible, create a genuine sales strategy. Once a sales strategy is in place, you can hire others to execute that strategy and measure their success.

Most startup CEOs aren’t natural salespeople. It’s probably not a significant part of their work history. But if you can’t do sales for your own startup you’re going to end up relying too significantly on others for your startup’s overall success. You won’t be able to communicate appropriately with your Board of Directors, investors and employees on how things are going — because you won’t really know. And you won’t be able to communicate with your customers either; you won’t understand their needs, challenges, frustrations, etc. well enough to respond accurately, intelligently and quickly. Reports from salespeople aren’t enough. Startup CEOs need to “get their hands dirty” in sales.

Startup CEOs: Stay close to your prospects and customers

Don’t make the mistake of outsourcing sales to others while you’re busy doing a million other things. I know you’re up to your eyeballs in millions of decisions and running like a headless chicken, but make active sales participation a priority.

Startup CEOs Make Millions of Decisions

The job of startup CEO is all about making decisions. Lots and lots of decisions.

We tend to focus on and remember big decisions — over-emphasizing their importance in the grand scheme of things. But the trick to being a successful startup CEO is mastering the art of micro-decision making.

Micro-decisions are small decisions — the type that we make tens or hundreds of times per day. And startup CEOs have to make more decisions than most people. I often think about how important all those micro-decisions really are, and how the best startup CEOs consistently move the ball forward, inch by inch, through the power and leverage of micro-decisions.

  1. Micro-decisions are all about delegating. As a startup CEO you can’t do everything yourself, it’s impossible. So you have to delegate effectively and quickly. Remember: indecision kills startups.
  2. Micro-decisions are about prioritization. Startup CEOs have to prioritize their own tasks and time insanely well, but also prioritize for everyone else too. You have to prioritize on-the-fly, and recognize when something warrants a micro-decision versus more attention.
  3. Micro-decisions are about getting things done. An unproductive startup CEO will kill the company. Startup CEOs are often the visionaries, but you have to balance that with flat-out, hardcore, getting shit done.
  4. Micro-decisions are combined to make a difference. You’d be surprised how small decisions can make a big impact. String together a few small decisions and suddenly you’ve had a huge influence on where things are going.
  5. Micro-decisions can’t be ignored. You can’t ignore small decisions as unimportant. And you can’t delay them either. They have to be quick, pulled together with an overall master plan, and executed on.

Startup CEOs have to make millions of decisions. In large part, their job is to act as the final decision maker on things. That likely includes all the major decisions on vision, product strategy, go-to-market strategy, financing, etc. But just as important are all the micro-decisions that have to be made to keep a business operating and pointing in the right direction. You might think that a startup is all about moving from major milestone to major milestone in a crazy, rollercoaster sort of way (and to some degree that’s true!), but it’s really much more about taking individual steps (often many at once, in parallel), plugging away – decision-by-decision.

Freedom

Guy on chair in field

A very wise man once told me (OK, it was recently):

There’s a certain freedom in being completely fucked.

He was quite right. Just to be clear: He was speaking in the context of running a startup. A lot of startups get very close to crashing directly into the wall and exploding. A lot more startups get to that point than you realize (you just don’t get to hear all the stories.) When you get right to the wall and things have nearly completely fallen apart, you can either collapse and give up, or put your head down, crash through the wall and hope that your brains don’t explode out your ears as a result.

Getting to the stage of being completely fucked can be liberating. And the minute you’re free, you have an opportunity to get re-energized, re-inspired and re-focused. You can throw all your plans in the garbage, take the hard lessons learned and apply them and your talents in new ways that you hadn’t previously given yourself the chance to think about.

Crashing into the wall (unless that means you actually go bankrupt and you’re out of business) can free you. It gives you that chance. And as an entrepreneur it’s those moments that you need to seize and own. Otherwise you wither away and disappear.

Thank you wise man.

image courtesy of shutterstock.

« Older Entries
About Ben Yoskovitz
I recently joined GoInstant as VP Product. GoInstant changes how we use the web, making it shareable like never before.

I'm also a Founding Partner at Year One Labs, an early stage accelerator in Montreal. Previously I founded Standout Jobs (and sold it). I'm a hands-on startup guy, helping companies grow successfully from the idea forward. You can reach me at byosko at gmail dot com.

Follow Ben on TwitterFollow this blog via email
Startup Tools
Recent Posts
Find Stuff
Startup Resources
Please Check Out:
NextMontreal.com I Spy Montreal
Key Categories
Topics
Disclaimer
The opinions and commentary on this site are mine and mine alone. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions or positions of my employer, GoInstant.

Instigator Blog runs WordPress and uses the Minimal theme by Curt Ziegler.