Like many entrepreneurs, I am more an architect with an idea than a gifted sales person, to say the least. Yet as our own company helps sales people, sales people have not been our forte, yet. I want to share our experience in the hope that we will get good feedback/advice, have other companies like us learn a lesson or two...
Successful entrepreneurs like Mark Suster fervently advocate that the founder be the sales person in the early stages. That you need to be "ready" with product, clients, sales materials, positioning etc. well defined before a sales person can take over. Well, I didn't read these articles early on and... we dived right in.
Here are various kinds we crossed paths with. Not to say one of them may not have clicked for you. But looking back, it made us wonder, how could we have thought this person could be successful? Perhaps we were just blinded and believed it was going to work.
The One Hit Wonder: Has one (or two) close friends and gets you to the right person and company. We manage to get a deal, but then river dries out.
The Opener: Opens many doors, but can't close. Lots of excitement, meetings, proposals, activity, but few become significant deals.
The Procrastinator: Is just parking between jobs. Was making decent money, got cut because didn't make quota and then found you through the ski (make up your own) club. No activity, don't hear from them (because they are busy dialing, you think). Then you ask "are you doing anything" and get a reply "my friend made this awesome offer".
The mega-ME: Wants this, wants that, wants stock, wants expense account, wants a personal assistant. Great resume from a large company handling a large existing account. Nope, startup is not their game.
The Rolod-ex: Great biz dev background, worked with companies like yours, even same industry; have a lot of "contacts" -- we can get in you there, here, everywhere. Then you find out most of their rolodex is, well, EX. used to be in that company but left, used to be in town but moved. Give you a list that's a non-list.
All these were wonderful people, but just not cut out for a sales people for a new company. Fortunately we spotted and cut them early. When I ultimately find that fantastic sales person, I will update this post. Until then, we will keep our customers happy and ask for more business and referrals. Biz Dev the old fashioned way.
