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Selling for Survival
By Vivek Wadhwa   |   Wednesday,August 12,2009   |    2 Comments
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I found it not difficult to rise above departmental politics.

Then, from a relatively safe haven as vice-president of technology in an investment bank, I assumed the position of chief technology officer of a software spinoff.

In a startup, everyone quickly learns that survival depends on the company's ability to sell its products. No matter how unusual or wonderful your products, the stark reality remains that you're always competing with someone else. Even though you may have a better product that the world really needs, your competitors are likely better at selling than you are. And your prospective customer will have never even heard of you.

"SELLING BOOT CAMP." I was fortunate to be working for one of the best salespeople I have ever met. Our company's CEO, Gene Bedell, had run billion-dollar businesses and reached the executive levels in investment banking. In an industry in which financing companies furnish funding for tech outfits, he had persuaded IBM (IBM ) to provide seed money for a software spinoff from Credit Suisse First Boston (CTNX ), one of the richest investment banks.

Gene started by putting all of our software-development staff into "selling boot camp." It took my team and me a while to figure out why we were learning about qualifying prospects and closing sales rather than the latest software-debugging tools.

But within months, we were closing multimillion dollar sales with blue-chip customers across the globe. We did this with only two experienced sales reps and part-time sales support from our development staff. Our developers became so competent at sales support that our reps would often leave the selling to them. We would compete with some of the largest software companies in the world -- and win the sale almost every time.

UNDERSTANDING BEHAVIOR. With a culture that put customer support and sales above everything else, we built our little startup into a $100-million-a-year revenue machine within five years. Our developers formed long-term bonds and friendships with our customers. They would go to great pains to understand customer requirements and build products that would sell. More often than not, new development projects would be funded directly by customers. Whenever there was a customer-service problem, our top engineers would voluntarily work around the clock and fly all over the globe to personally provide support.

There are probably as many selling techniques out there as there are diets. Every few months, another best-selling book comes along claiming to have the magic formula for success. Some of these prescribe selling tricks to manipulate customers into buying something they really don't need. These are ideal for the scam artists depicted in Hollywood movies. Others focus on selling customers what they really require and creating a successful business. The only way to succeed in the long term is to make your clients successful, after all.

Most selling techniques are founded on the same marketing principles, however. It's all about understanding human behavior and motivation, fulfilling needs, and communicating clearly and effectively. And most important, each of these techniques creates a well-defined and repeatable process for completing a sale. I've read more than a dozen books that I liked, but my favorite, and perhaps the easiest to read is 3 Steps to Yes: The Gentle Art of Getting Your Way, by none other than Gene Bedell.

PROMISE FULFILLED. The lesson for the entrepreneur is to learn how to sell. It's much too easy to fall in love with your own product or believe your own hype. Most entrepreneurs I know believe that "if you build it, they will come" -- but this almost never happens. It takes a lot of hard work and discipline to create the right formula for success.

Mastering the art of selling is what can make the difference between simply having lots of potential and actually realizing it.

Earlier published in Business Week. The author of the article is Vivek Wadhwa, a Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School and an Executive in residence at Duke University.
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Reader's comments(2)
1: Every sales dog needs to read this. Good one Vivek.
Posted by:Veera Shakthi - 2nd Sep 2009
2: Good article
Posted by:Pankaj Pandeys - 6th Jul 2009
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