Tag: sales

“Communication is a very important skill for founders — in fact, I think this is the most important rarely-discussed founder skill.

Tech startups need at least one founder who can build the company’s product or service, and at least one founder who is (or can become) good at sales and talking to users.” — Sam Altman

While engineering a product is essential to building a company, conveying that idea is just as important.

I think every present or potential founder should make a purposeful, significant effort toward becoming a better communicator. You can learn to communicate and sell in so many different ways, oftentimes coming from the most unconventional of means.

I first started paying close attention to my communication skills when I was building my first business, selling produce at farmers’ markets and to restaurants, hotels, and distributors. I was forced to take a close look at how I communicated because the business depended on it. Of all the things I learned with this venture, the importance of communication in sales may have been the most valuable. I was able to improve our business, grow from just one booth to 9+ different locations, hire 10+ people, and distribute across the community. I trace this success back to hard work and lots of practice communicating our product.

Communication: The most under-prioritized skill

1. Understand your product

My story is a great example of the effect you can have by simply better understanding your product.

At my farmers’ market booth, I sold tons of different things. At the time, I was a 15-year-old high schooler from the suburbs of Scottsdale, Arizona. What the heck did I know about hydroponic produce, let alone specialized house plants? The truth is, nothing. But I learned, because I needed to if I wanted to sell anything. Whether it’s the internship you’ve always wanted or the business you’ve been dreaming about, sometimes you just need to start learning. No one will come and do it for you.

I learned about 23 different varieties of tomatoes. I learned about Dieffenbachia Janet Craig (a type of indoor house plant). The list goes on and on.

But simply knowing your product will only take you so far. You have to understand it.

You have to know what each tomato tastes like and where it belongs on the menu. You have to know what part of the house to place any given indoor house plant and how much water it needs a week. You have to know if you can give a discount if someone wants to buy 40 pounds of tomatoes. You have to know if any pesticides were sprayed on any of the plants.

Learning and understanding the product can be really challenging, and oftentimes the only way to really do that is through experience, something I was lucky enough to have plenty of early on.

2. Learn to improvise

Is it even possible to have all the answers for each and every customer? What are you supposed to do when you inevitably run into a customer that asks you something you genuinely do not know?

It is hard to put it into words, but all you have to do is learn to improvise. Think on your feet.

At the farmers’ market, that meant coming up with prices on the go and using your quick wit to recommend dishes for using a Japanese eggplant.

In business, and in life, people will ask you really hard questions. It will never be possible for you to prepare all of the answers beforehand. Therefore, you must learn to adapt—and communication will be your favorite tool in doing so.

3. Be genuine

Here is the point, though, where many people steer in the wrong direction: They take improvisation as a means for lying to the customer.

The customer knows when you are lying, always.

I have seen it time and time again, so do not let it happen to you. This holds true not only for sales, but also for friendships and job interviews.

Your customers are humans. They favor relationships over sales. And honesty lives at the core of most relationships. Communication predicated on a lie is bound to fail.

I wish someone had told me this earlier: If you do not know the answer, do not say you do.

Your customers want the truth, not fluff.

I have found that in life, you can cut out most of the fluff and, instantly, you will become a better communicator.

Though business leaders communicate all the time, very rarely do we focus in and try to understand how we can improve. Only when we dissect our language and structure can we learn how to improve.

Editor’s note: For more stories from one of Olin’s most prolific student writers, subscribe to Jordan’s weekly newsletter.

This post was originally featured on Medium and was republished with permission from the author.

TopOPPS is neither on the leading edge nor bringing a novel solution to an industry. Actually, they don’t fit into an industry at all. In fact, the landscape which they are driving toward full speed doesn’t even have a name yet (*it is coming soon, according to our sources). Their solution solves issues within a step of the selling process so underserved that TopOPPS has an opportunity to define their entire category –and our CELect team gets to help them get there!

TopOPPS satisfies an important missing link in the CRM value chain by streamlining the sales process. Most CRM software plug-ins focus on the marketing portions of the value chain – generating awareness lead generation, maximizing click-through rate, attracting and keeping people at company websites. TopOPPS focuses on the next steps after these marketing-focused services stop providing value. Their sales automation software uses predictability and performance analytics to drive sales rates and increase win percentages. Targeted toward sales team managers and vice presidents of sales, the TopOPPS CRM plug-in allows leaders to forecast more accurately, allocate sales resources effectively and spend more time strategizing how to close deals rather than going through the painstaking process of simple information gathering.

Working with a quickly growing organization like TopOPPS is an exhilarating experience. Upon entering their offices, the speed and excitement of a rapidly growing company is impossible to ignore. Team meetings take place throughout their spaces and ideas are written on white boards. Watching the interactions of their staff is also amazing – they have a culture of listening and learning from everyone’s ideas…and, of course, a lot of passion for the product.

This culture of posing problems and listening to smart people solve them was cemented from day one of the company, when its founder, Jim Eberlin, posed the sales process CRM problem – the concept for TopOPPS – to 200 programmers in the GlobalHack competition and came up with a great idea only 48 hours later. Additionally, he found his first group of talented programmers to hire into TopOPPS to build the product. Jim, who has previously founded and successfully grown Host Analytics and Gainsight, sees great opportunities for the rapidly expanding company, which just moved to new office spaces across the street from the T-REX spaces at the Lammert Building in downtown St. Louis.

On one end of their new office space is their customer sales team and, yes, they do use their own product to drive sales and adoption of TopOPPS. On the other end is their marketing team, a group which our CELect team is fortunate to work with to best define the category into which TopOPPS is boldly treading.

The TopOPPS product is so unique, we have the opportunity to determine how best to explain the product to customers. Working with TopOPPS marketing group is our CELect team consisting of Ben Evans, Shai Hatsor, Ty Holder and Ryan Plotkin – all 1^st year MBAs at the Olin Business School. The team is evaluating their current marketing communications and identifying items which best resonate with sales managers and Vice Presidents of Sales. Using this data, we will then be able to focus TopOPPS messaging to effectively and efficiently create the greatest impact on its prospective customers.

By understanding the largest value drivers through surveying techniques, we will be able to identify which customers make the most sense to pitch which proposition and how to communicate those values to the target segments. Our goal to create a clear and concise message that resonates with TopOPPS target customers will be a key factor in the continued growth of TopOPPS. We cannot wait to see where this semester of investigating how to pique interest in a brand new market segment helps guide TopOPPS and we look forward to following how our recommendations continue to guide the positive long term trajectory of TopOPPS.

CELect TopOPPS team: Ben Evans, MBA; Shai Hatsor, MBA; Ty Holden, MBA; Ryan Plotkin, MBA.