Q: We have started selling and are looking for resources for a lean approach to sales, in particular for new product introduction.
Lean Approach To Sales at Lean Startup Conference 2012
Scott Sambucci and I presented a workshop at Lean Startup 2012 on “Engineering Your Sales Process.”
The deck is posted at http://www.slideshare.net/SalesQualia/engineering-your-sales-process
About 70% of the workshop is interaction with attendee on their specific early sales challenges so it’s not something that we video record.
Scott Sambucci has two books out that address early sales issues:
- “Startup Selling: How to sell if you really, really have to and don’t know how”
- “52 Sales Questions Answered: A Q&A Guide to Customer Development & Sales”
Two articles that offer useful overviews for defining a sales process:
- The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Sales by Mark Duncan and Sean Murphy
- The Sales Learning Curve by Mark Leslie and Charles Holloway (2006)
Revised in 2011 at “Sales Learning Cycle“
Other books you may find helpful:
- SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham
- Solution Selling by Michael Bosworth
- You’ll Never Get No for an Answer by Jack Carew
- Secrets of Consulting by Gerald Weinberg
- Getting it Right the First Time: How Innovative Companies Anticipate Demand by Christy and Katsaros
Here is a long interview I gave to Gabriel Weinberg on early stage B2B sales that many entrepreneurs have found useful: Sean Murphy on the first six to twelve enterprise customers
All of these resources talk about a systematic approach to selling for new products. I continue to offer “Engineering Your Sales Process”® as a workshop for early stage teams. Please contact me if you would like to arrange for a workshop.