the best advice I ever got was that 'sales is the heart of the business – always stay close to sales' – the CEO has to sell to everyone – potential investors, clients, employees, etc.

Ben, you make some good points. I second your emotion and say that early says are the building blocks of your business model–a founder/ceo can't raise money or build a business on the right assumptions unless he or she is selling.

And… the founder/ceo job is tied to sales: he/she will need to sell investors and recruit (sell) critical early team members, leverage relationship skills to manage vendors, partners and the board. And, with so many companies “figuring out their monetization models” I imagine investors need to believe the CEO knows (not thinks!) but knows how to get users/customers/members, etc. to pay and as a result will be central to the first handful of deals. Furthermore, as your company grows and ramps revenue, the CEO needs to be credible with customers as there are always issues and those should become opportunities to deepen the “partnership” with the customer–again sales. I didn’t realize my passion around this topic, but CEOs need operational and product skills, but the ability to sell, partner and create mutually-beneficial relationships is key at every stage.

Nice post!

What you said on your article is very true. You need the skills to improve your business marketing and managing. I am a businesswoman, I've traveled from Europe to USA to promote my International Air Ambulance services.

Outsourcing is really about the CEO's attention plus the time management. If he should just outsource the business without investing time supervising, training and setting off a project management system, how will the business help you? It's true that when you outsource, you free up your time to do other stuff but then leaving the business to your team shouldn't be the sentence. The CEO should be the guide at all times even if it takes little time to check on, still, he made the responsible effort to share his support to the team and to the business' success. As starting up, these should be their lessons.

What you said on your article is very true. You need the skills to improve your business marketing and managing. I am a businesswoman, I've traveled from Europe to USA to promote my International Air Ambulance services.

Outsourcing is really about the CEO's attention plus the time management. If he should just outsource the business without investing time supervising, training and setting off a project management system, how will the business help you? It's true that when you outsource, you free up your time to do other stuff but then leaving the business to your team shouldn't be the sentence. The CEO should be the guide at all times even if it takes little time to check on, still, he made the responsible effort to share his support to the team and to the business' success. As starting up, these should be their lessons.

CEOs are the leaders of the company, absolutely. And they do so by keeping an eye on the big picture and managing a lot of the details as well. It's not about over-focusing on one aspect of the business or another, but about making sure that sales remains a key focus. With many tech startups, sales is simply not the focus of the CEO.

I still believe if you can't / won't do the sales yourself as CEO (or member of the founding team) you're in trouble.

Hiring salespeople is incredibly hard; most of them talk-the-talk through an interview quite well, and most startup CEOs won't really know how to recruit for the sales role effectively. And no salesperson coming in will have the insight + passion to sell quickly. So now you've hired someone that will need 3-6 months to scale up. Meanwhile you could have been out closing deals.

Promise: Thank you for stopping by and commenting. I like your point, “CEO needs to be credible with customers…”

Definitely agree that founders should be very close to their customers, but don't necessarily agree that they should personally do the selling. Assuming there is some lead time between startup creation and 1st sale (if there isn't then I ask – did you build anything of value?), you likely have time and possibly capital to add to your team. Founders are a key part of the sales process. And in a licensing (vs subscription) sales cycle, they normally need to go in front of the customer at some point. But I am not sure they should personally lead the whole cycle.

One final point: Selling is a key skill for founders (be it selling your product or selling your shares to investors, or selling your company to key hires).

Agree, start up CEO's have to lead by example.

Ben, your post is yet another example of how hard entrepreneurs have to work in the beginning. I remember when I first ventured out on my own and I thought I would never get more than a couple of hours of sleep in a single night again – all because I was too buys trying to figure out the best way to sell, sell, sell.

The owner, founder, CEO, president (whatever) of a new company has to be willing to work harder, work longer and sell more than anyone else in the company. If the leader won't work hard at selling the company's product or service, then neither will anyone else..Great post. Thanks. Enjoyed it.

I have been runing my business for years and the sales is the most important part. The good point is you have to know how to run the system first so you can step away and let the system run the business.

Ben I agree that early on the CEO should be the main sales force so they can figure out what strategies will and won't work. Without actually being on the front lines the CEO is relying on second hand information. Who has a bigger stake in the success of the company, a hired sales rep or the CEO?

Roy Paeth
Chicago First Time Home Buyer

Agreed. I think it's important for CEOs to work on the sales system, and figure out how to optimize that as best they can, even if they're not experienced salespeople — then pull yourself out of the equation by bringing on others to scale.

Ben, this is key to a start up having success. If the CEO doesn't wan't to do the nitty gritty, then a start-up will be doomed to failure (or ultimately a large and unnecessary waste of resources,

Most of the time Start up CEO have a company which has not more that 2 to 3 members and in this case many of the people wear different hat in order to get hold of the business. And it is always better to know you business before relying on an outsider.

Hey Sales and Selling are vitally important! If you can't sell yourself, your idea, your product or service, then you don't have a business! Because at the end of the day, someone has to sell something to somebody! If you can't sell, then you don't have a business. That is business! It's the selling of goods and services for the exchange of money! Start-up CEOs can't outsource this. It is up to her to do it and be successful and create the company unique sales system.

Good points, especially about what people are good at versus what they need to be able to do. Personally my business partner and I struggle with the actual sales components, but have been helped immensely by our social media presence which seems to break down a few of the doors for us.

Good points, especially about what people are good at versus what they need to be able to do. Personally my business partner and I struggle with the actual sales components, but have been helped immensely by our social media presence which seems to break down a few of the doors for us.