I'm a software engineer trying to build an agency, would love to hear anything(literally) about how can an engineer learn to generate leads and convert them.
Thanks!
The fundamentals of software sales haven't changed much since this. While B2C SaaS is different, the B2B platform world is still much as described in this book, and more importantly, the buyers are still the people who were buying when this book was published.
While selling today should have changed, many of the enterprise procurement processes that were being set up as this was published are still the same. That makes this an excellent foundation for understanding how to change it up.
That said, you said building an agency ... so do you mean selling software, or selling the ability to deliver solutions that a company can't get off the shelf?
4 reviews. 3 stars. A hundred quid. This has got to be the most erudite book recommendation in the history of HN. I’m very tempted to get it just to see the fuss.
As someone who has made lots of purchasing decisions for software (ERPs, Electronic Health Records, productivity tools) at places I've worked over the last 18 years:
I don't want to talk to salespeople, only product designers, developers, executives, and support staff. They are the people who make the stuff and/or are left holding the bag for the product when the salesperson is jetting off to their next meeting.
Same goes with service contracts for leased business equipment (copiers, postage machines, alarm/security systems) - let me talk to the "support" staff who don't read their own technical bulletins BEFORE I sign so I can decide not to go with a vendor who "requires" full admin rights to my server to manage their copiers.
This doesn't necessarily scale past small-mid size businesses (mine have been up to $20ARR and ~150 people). The occasions I've talked only with sales, there have been broken promises, missed deadlines, and a big mismatch between what we were sold and what we got.
> I don't want to talk to salespeople, only product designers, developers, executives, and support staff. They are the people who make the stuff and/or are left holding the bag for the product when the salesperson is jetting off to their next meeting.
Lots of people overestimate their value in the process, including buyers. You don't want to talk with sales people, but from the other side, why should the sellers (in any function) talk with you?
I've purchased products. And sold them. Lot of waste from both sides, primarily when people aren't prepared, don't understand their problems, misunderstand use-cases, don't know product, etc. The list of grievances is long.
> I don't want to talk to salespeople, only product designers, developers, executives, and support staff. They are the people who make the stuff
Designers and devs and makers too busy doing their jobs to bother with your arcane requirements and need to do an 'apples-to-apples' comparison on every bid, respond to hundred-page RFPs in nitnoid detail, buy you drinks so they can suss out why you don't actually know your own requirements, navigate your own effed up procurement process, your politics, your internal power struggles, and your primadonna self-belief that you are special.
Buyers are in the power position for sure; you write the checks!
But just know that there's a whole layer of people out there who end up in sales who have to clench their teeth and endure the bullshit of dozens of companies in their portfolio – in the same way you might feel like you have to endure theirs.
Be a qualified lead. Show you have your shit together, and then yeah we can start bringing sales engineers and devs and designers into the conversation so you're not wasting their time.
If you want an easy procurement process and no regrets, follow best practices: come to the table with your internal and external research done, with a clear list of requirements, an executive sponsor with actual decision-making power. Understand that if you change your requirements midstream the budget will change. Pad your budget so I don't have to pad my estimate.
Sales guys can be douchey for sure, but that doesn't mean they're trying to scam you. Their incentives are more closely aligned with yours than anyone else's.
I work as an application engineer in the semiconductor industry; basically tech support for engineers. I get customers from "We're going to build a product" to "Design is finished and we're ready to sell our system". As such, I work daily with the field team who are out there winning business. I can say without a doubt that whatever a buyer's perception of their sales rep, that person is the best internal advocate they're ever going to get.
The salesperson has a vested interest in getting the customer everything they need to win business so they get their commission. A good one is an utter pain in the ass internally because servicing them and the customer is quite often at the expense of everything else. 1:1 sales tactics don't scale unless the customer is huge. It's a classic 80:20 rule - 20% of customers normally drive 80% of revenue, so it's only sensible to focus on certain customers and ignore others - but obviously that only makes sense in a vacuum where businesses don't rise and fall, and suppliers alongside them, so you need to toe the value threshold when it comes to exposing customers to engineering - which is where a good salesperson is gold.
Product designers, developers, executives, and support staff - all of them have better things to do than service a single customer most of the time. Building features, marketing, hiring staff, documentation, validation, and making new products. All these things are 1:N activities. If they're sucked up talking to one customer, they're not doing 1:N. It quite often feels like the salesperson works for the customer, not us, because it's clear to everyone that the demands are hurting the product in the long run by sapping everyone's time doing servicing when the opportunity:cost ratio isn't there.
To your point, it feels great when a customer follows the expected flow. Planning/marketing/engineering/executives can be brought in as and when needed, rather than when they're demanded of. Almost all customers demand the time and attention of everyone but the sales team, but I've often found that the ones who provide all the info and jump through all the hoops get what they want much faster.
> come to the table with your internal and external research done, with a clear list of requirements, an executive sponsor with actual decision-making power
Putting an executive on the phone is not going to happen that early. A lot of vendors don't seem to accommodate research starting with a demo set up by one engineer on a small team in the org who might have a corporate credit card for the search.
I think those people can, and often times should, be involved in the sales process. Espcially for big ticket B2B sales. But really those people just need to be available for demos, technical questions, etc.
If those people had to do their jobs, plus manage pipelines, plus BDR work, plus chasing leads that went cold, plus negotiating over contract language and price. . . well you get the point.
For big ticket B2B stuff, you really need a sales person (sorry Account Executive) running point. It doesn't mean that's the only person you talk to, or really even the person you talk to the most, but an AE needs to own getting the sale closed.
At a fundamental level, selling, or buying, expensive enterprise software is hard.
Primarily its hard because a large sum of money will leave a buyer (they're sad to see it go) and there's uncertainty if the software purchased will achieve the goals they are seeking. (Incidentally this is true regardless of the definition of "large".)
It's hard for the seller because the software is expensive. So customers are always inclined to do nothing, or buy something cheaper.
Buyers have procurement processes to try and hedge the risk. Some "standard terms and conditions" seem crazy to me (as a seller). Sellers are wary of buyers with unrealistic expectations, and buyers who aren't clear regarding their needs and goals.
The deal is seldom just "software off the shelf". There's usually a commissioning phase, services, support etc. Proper sales staff, and proper buying staff, learn to spot red flags, ideally before too much time is sunk.
Yes, there are bad sales staff, bad customers, just like there are bad everything else. But good ones are a pleasure yo work with, and add huge value, regardless of whether you are the buyer or seller.
On the flip side, as the customer, involve the people who'll actually be using the software. You only have to go one manager up to miss crucial day-to-day operation requirements.
My impression is the profit margin of B2B anything relies on selling things with high price tags to people who won't actually use the product and under-deliver the product to the poor souls who have to work with it.
I honestly don’t know many companies any more that are going to give easily on moving past the sales team. I have seen Sales Engineers, Product Managers, and executive sponsors come to sales calls once you’re a pretty qualified lead and at a certain spend point.
Tbh OP, if you’re looking to scale, selling to people like the above commenter isn’t going to get you there. (No offense to said commenter.)
Basically, there's a lot more to sales than just "generate leads." You need to pick a "right-sized" market, tailor the product to the market (but not too much, so you can go after other markets,) and then as you grow, move to bigger markets.
The markets you go after when your company is small are very different than when your company is established. Furthermore, small differences in your product are critical: A tiny feature or option might be critical in a tiny niche that you need to get started; but a completely different feature or option is needed when you're able to target a larger audience.
Chasm is more about the meta process of sales and product. It's not really about sales per se.
It's worth a read just to understand it, but it won't help you with sales. It might help when your sales dry up, but 'traction' would also help because maybe the issue is your channel has dried up and you need another one.
Founding Sales is a great book for non sales people who need to learn sales for their own startup / business. Sounds like this is what you're after. Free to read, too. https://www.foundingsales.com/
Second vote for Spin Selling from me. Spin Selling is a must read for anyone doing long-term sales-- in particular, selling software that has a long sales cycle like a year from the time you get a prospect until you close the sale. But it has other key concepts for smaller software packages too that you'll find useful if you're doing something smaller.
Not about sales, but if you haven’t yet, try Getting Real by 37signals (Basecamp, HEY).
It’s for anybody working on software, whether building a SaaS or working for a client or anything in between. A ton of solid advice on project management, client relationships, interface design, code and more.
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Selling Microsoft - https://www.amazon.com/Selling-Microsoft-Secrets-Successful-...
The fundamentals of software sales haven't changed much since this. While B2C SaaS is different, the B2B platform world is still much as described in this book, and more importantly, the buyers are still the people who were buying when this book was published.
While selling today should have changed, many of the enterprise procurement processes that were being set up as this was published are still the same. That makes this an excellent foundation for understanding how to change it up.
That said, you said building an agency ... so do you mean selling software, or selling the ability to deliver solutions that a company can't get off the shelf?
That's quite different.
I don't want to talk to salespeople, only product designers, developers, executives, and support staff. They are the people who make the stuff and/or are left holding the bag for the product when the salesperson is jetting off to their next meeting.
Same goes with service contracts for leased business equipment (copiers, postage machines, alarm/security systems) - let me talk to the "support" staff who don't read their own technical bulletins BEFORE I sign so I can decide not to go with a vendor who "requires" full admin rights to my server to manage their copiers.
This doesn't necessarily scale past small-mid size businesses (mine have been up to $20ARR and ~150 people). The occasions I've talked only with sales, there have been broken promises, missed deadlines, and a big mismatch between what we were sold and what we got.
Lots of people overestimate their value in the process, including buyers. You don't want to talk with sales people, but from the other side, why should the sellers (in any function) talk with you?
I've purchased products. And sold them. Lot of waste from both sides, primarily when people aren't prepared, don't understand their problems, misunderstand use-cases, don't know product, etc. The list of grievances is long.
Designers and devs and makers too busy doing their jobs to bother with your arcane requirements and need to do an 'apples-to-apples' comparison on every bid, respond to hundred-page RFPs in nitnoid detail, buy you drinks so they can suss out why you don't actually know your own requirements, navigate your own effed up procurement process, your politics, your internal power struggles, and your primadonna self-belief that you are special.
Buyers are in the power position for sure; you write the checks!
But just know that there's a whole layer of people out there who end up in sales who have to clench their teeth and endure the bullshit of dozens of companies in their portfolio – in the same way you might feel like you have to endure theirs.
Be a qualified lead. Show you have your shit together, and then yeah we can start bringing sales engineers and devs and designers into the conversation so you're not wasting their time.
If you want an easy procurement process and no regrets, follow best practices: come to the table with your internal and external research done, with a clear list of requirements, an executive sponsor with actual decision-making power. Understand that if you change your requirements midstream the budget will change. Pad your budget so I don't have to pad my estimate.
Sales guys can be douchey for sure, but that doesn't mean they're trying to scam you. Their incentives are more closely aligned with yours than anyone else's.
The salesperson has a vested interest in getting the customer everything they need to win business so they get their commission. A good one is an utter pain in the ass internally because servicing them and the customer is quite often at the expense of everything else. 1:1 sales tactics don't scale unless the customer is huge. It's a classic 80:20 rule - 20% of customers normally drive 80% of revenue, so it's only sensible to focus on certain customers and ignore others - but obviously that only makes sense in a vacuum where businesses don't rise and fall, and suppliers alongside them, so you need to toe the value threshold when it comes to exposing customers to engineering - which is where a good salesperson is gold.
Product designers, developers, executives, and support staff - all of them have better things to do than service a single customer most of the time. Building features, marketing, hiring staff, documentation, validation, and making new products. All these things are 1:N activities. If they're sucked up talking to one customer, they're not doing 1:N. It quite often feels like the salesperson works for the customer, not us, because it's clear to everyone that the demands are hurting the product in the long run by sapping everyone's time doing servicing when the opportunity:cost ratio isn't there.
To your point, it feels great when a customer follows the expected flow. Planning/marketing/engineering/executives can be brought in as and when needed, rather than when they're demanded of. Almost all customers demand the time and attention of everyone but the sales team, but I've often found that the ones who provide all the info and jump through all the hoops get what they want much faster.
Putting an executive on the phone is not going to happen that early. A lot of vendors don't seem to accommodate research starting with a demo set up by one engineer on a small team in the org who might have a corporate credit card for the search.
If those people had to do their jobs, plus manage pipelines, plus BDR work, plus chasing leads that went cold, plus negotiating over contract language and price. . . well you get the point.
For big ticket B2B stuff, you really need a sales person (sorry Account Executive) running point. It doesn't mean that's the only person you talk to, or really even the person you talk to the most, but an AE needs to own getting the sale closed.
Primarily its hard because a large sum of money will leave a buyer (they're sad to see it go) and there's uncertainty if the software purchased will achieve the goals they are seeking. (Incidentally this is true regardless of the definition of "large".)
It's hard for the seller because the software is expensive. So customers are always inclined to do nothing, or buy something cheaper.
Buyers have procurement processes to try and hedge the risk. Some "standard terms and conditions" seem crazy to me (as a seller). Sellers are wary of buyers with unrealistic expectations, and buyers who aren't clear regarding their needs and goals.
The deal is seldom just "software off the shelf". There's usually a commissioning phase, services, support etc. Proper sales staff, and proper buying staff, learn to spot red flags, ideally before too much time is sunk.
Yes, there are bad sales staff, bad customers, just like there are bad everything else. But good ones are a pleasure yo work with, and add huge value, regardless of whether you are the buyer or seller.
Tbh OP, if you’re looking to scale, selling to people like the above commenter isn’t going to get you there. (No offense to said commenter.)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39316653
From that posting this comment seems useful:
The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully by Gerald Weinberg
https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Consulting-Giving-Getting-Suc...
He's a software engineer who's been building his business in the open for the last year and is sharing what he learns along the way.
Basically, there's a lot more to sales than just "generate leads." You need to pick a "right-sized" market, tailor the product to the market (but not too much, so you can go after other markets,) and then as you grow, move to bigger markets.
The markets you go after when your company is small are very different than when your company is established. Furthermore, small differences in your product are critical: A tiny feature or option might be critical in a tiny niche that you need to get started; but a completely different feature or option is needed when you're able to target a larger audience.
It's worth a read just to understand it, but it won't help you with sales. It might help when your sales dry up, but 'traction' would also help because maybe the issue is your channel has dried up and you need another one.
It’s for anybody working on software, whether building a SaaS or working for a client or anything in between. A ton of solid advice on project management, client relationships, interface design, code and more.
Free to read online (and a free PDF): https://basecamp.com/books/getting-real