Generating a good flow inbound leads is just the first step towards building an effective sales machine. Here is quick slideshare presentation on a very simple but critical step in making the most out of your inbound leads.

Coming across an interesting read on how many startups end up hiring highly experienced salespersons and executives from Fortune500 companies only to realize it doesnt always work out in every case. It got us thinking about our own experiences and what we have seen with candidates from different sales backgrounds and which ones seemed to fit better in a startup environment. What we could conclude based on these (and not to an absolute extent) is that those who had sales experience in a smaller business and products similar to our own were the best fit for us.

The more experienced candidates who have been managing sales at larger businesses were quick to understand the requirements, know the products and services quicker and were clear with their concepts. However they were perhaps less ‘hands on’, used to more resources for executing, getting leads qualified, lead data ready in their CRM systems, access to expensive subscriptions of databases and used to following a process for getting customers. These are not negative traits in any respect because beyond a certain stage to close volumes of sales that larger businesses need, these are things that will help you close them. However start ups don’t always have access to these kind of resources and sales can be more about adjusting to what you do have and using them to close those first few customers that can take the business to that next step. The start up sales person may have to wear multiple hats and switch from building lists, to qulalifying leads, to hosting demos and closing sales within the same working day. Selling higher value products with longer lead times may not have the same dynamics as selling larger volumes of lower cost products where the buying can happen quicker and experience in one may not mean you will be an instant success at the other.

So when you are selecting for a startup sales team, keep in mind:

• The type customers you are going after
• The size of accounts/deals you are going after
• The roles that salesperson will have to play and whether his/her skills match
• The kind of sales experience they had prior
• There is a clear match in expectations on both sides
• What has worked best for you im your organization

I just finished an interesting conversation with a CEO at a security software company and he told me something that made me think about the underlying strategy. He said a well known startup in the email space that was acquired by a large public company started off with one part of their sales and marketing effort focused on selling into accounts that were using their competitors product. At the face of it, it might seem strange and unnecessary. But if you think further it can be a very good strategy for some businesses:

• Targeting your competitors’ customer defines the target market for you very easily. You know that the customers have a need, suffer a pain point and are using something. You, obviously, have to show something to differentiate from your competitor, but this strategy solves an important issue of finding target accounts who have a pain point. 
• If you can sell into your competitors’ customers it helps you to validate your product and build confidence in its ability to address well defined requirements of customers who are already using another solution and have their requirements clearly identified. It helps you to whet your product and sales pitch very well. 
• If your customer has a large customer list, then focusing on those customers may be a good for your startup to go out and get some quick wins without having a heavy duty list building, lead generation, lead qualification and appointment setting process. You can go straight to the decision makers and pitch. They already know what you are trying to sell them. 

How to go after your competitors’ customer is a topic for another post that I will cover soon, but dwell on this and see if this is applicable to your startup. 

When you are selling into mid-sized and large organizations, most likely you have multiple business contacts within your target account who drive, influence and take decisions. Depending on the industry vertical as well as the way your target accounts are organized, it is possible to have varied business contacts who take part in the decision making process. For example, if you are selling a web security product in the Education, Banking and Health care markets, you will find that the types and roles of contacts who drive the final decision in each of these verticals are varied. Understanding the web of contacts that drive and influence decisions for your product is critical for your sales and marketing success. Before you embark on expensive email, direct mail and telemarketing campaigns, the first order of business must be to acquire all business contacts at your target accounts who are expected to take part in the overall decision making process.

It is also critical to understand how every industry vertical may be different before defining who are your target contacts in each of the verticals. We recommend that you identify these by the roles and responsibilities they hold so that you get the right set of contacts to start with. Missing the mark on this critical foundational piece can lead to failure of all subsequent sales & marketing campaigns. Focus on understanding your decision makers and define them well for every vertical. Then simply build out a list of such role-specific decision makers and influencers to create your core CRM database of business contacts who you care about the most. Getting this right is crucial and its important to use the right team internally or outsource list building to the right vendors who gets it.

Fail on the core list and you will just see more failures in your sales & marketing campaigns. The list is at the heart of your sales machine, and its success or failure.