The Top Misconceptions in Startup Sales, Episode 2
Over the last 9 plus years, hundreds of founders have come to me for coaching on their sales and go-to-market challenges. And I’ve done my best to help. In the next few months, in the form of weekly episodes, we’ll be looking at the top startup sales misconceptions folks possess. And how I get them to think instead. Reading this series will make you smarter and more aware than most startup operators, as you’ll already know how to think about go-to-market and sales, and avoid some of the biggest pitfalls. Consider this your cheat sheet in shaving months off your revenue growth journey. Here’s your second installment. Read on.
“Asking for feedback won’t get me new customers.”
Feedback is essential for growth.
But asking for feedback is also magical in startup sales.
Yet, it remains underutilized. And when it is used, it’s usually poorly executed.
As a go-to-market tactic, it allows you to ask your prospects what they think of your product. Which usually unlocks a lot of doors. And gets you in front of potential customers.
The reason why?
Most human beings want to be asked what they think. The average person feels like they don’t have enough of a voice. They’d like to express themselves more. When you ask them what they think, you prop them up on a pedestal. And make them feel like experts.
While most humans want to be asked for feedback, some personas in the work world are more receptive to it. Over the years, I’ve found that product folks, engineers and founders/CEOs are some of the most likely to want to take a call with those that want their feedback.
Product Managers live and breathe product all day long and want to see and experience new offerings all the time. They also have strong opinions on how to build great products. Engineers – very similarly – want to share their knowledge on product building, and are interested in seeing the latest and greatest. Founders and CEOs love to provide feedback as they’ve seen it as an essential ingredient to their and their company’s growth. They want to pay it forward. If you’re a founder or CEO, and you have a working product, one of the best entry points into organizations is reaching out to other founder/CEO types and asking for their input. You’re leveraging your natural kinship with a fellow founder/CEO, and you’re also asking them for something they’ve personally benefitted from.
And yet, asking for feedback is underused by startups. And it’s too bad. Because it just works.
As an example, several years ago, we were working with a Latin American SaaS company helping them build their automated email initiative. We tried a slew of different campaigns in the first two plus months of our engagement. None of them were really taking off. Only when we decided to use the founder’s inbox and send emails requesting feedback from other founders did things take off. Our client’s founding CEO later told me, “You know, for a while there, I was worried. I’m glad you guys were able to turn it around.”
As was I.
“That’s all great, Paul. But how do you convert these initial feedback conversations into paid customers?”
I get this question a lot from startup operators. There’s a natural discomfort in changing the tenor of the conversation. The expectations of the initial meeting are for feedback collection. How can we morph it into a sales conversation?
One of the ways to handle this is to leverage a free trial. If you have one, or if it’s possible to create one. At the end of the discovery call, where you’ve collected feedback, you can tell your prospect, “Feels to me like you could totally use our product. You get a ton of value out of it. Why don’t we get you a free trial of it? Ours last 14 days. If you happen to find it valuable during that time, we can then talk about entering into a commercial relationship. But the most important thing is for you to test drive it and for us to get your feedback. What do you say?”
This type of nudge is generally met with enthusiasm, and very little resistance. Particularly if you did a good job selling your product in that initial conversation.
What you’re doing is setting up a smooth transition from a feedback phase to a place where you’d talk about money potentially changing hands. The trick here is that you’re easing into things slowly. There’s nothing abrupt about it. You’re moving from a feedback session, to a free trial, to a potential pricing conversation, to becoming a paying customer. The “paying customer” part feels like it’s in a distant future. So the prospect feels like they’ll get to offer feedback and potentially derive great value from your product all for free. Only then will they have to discuss money changing hands.
Had you not utilized a free trial and moved to close the customer immediately – or even in the short term – your prospect would have most likely backed away. And felt used. That icky feeling would have come from sensing they’d been bait and switched. By transitioning them smoothly, no one feels rushed. Or blindsided. The focus of your conversation stays on deriving value from the product without paying a dime. And providing you with their astute feedback. What’s not to like about that?
Next week we’ll look into why there’s a time and place for a pricing discussion.