How do I learn to sell
Hi guys,
I'm finished with my product and realized I haven't got any experience selling stuff.
Although I don't have difficulties talking to people, I do think I need to get better at selling and need some books/blogs to learn more.
Where did you learn how to sell?
I was just listening to the podcast episode #53 with Steli Efti, he was talking about sales and by the end he gives tips for developers who want to learn how to sell.
That's awesome. I haven't listened to all podcasts yet so I just skip to number 53 (Y)
You can also check Steli Efti videos on Youtube. He's awesome.
Read How I raised myself from failure to success in selling. It's an old book and doesn't come off as 'the latest psychology trick in sales'. It runs similar to How to win friends and influence people.
Thanks for the great tip!
I read this yesterday and I found it quite useful https://stripe.com/atlas/guides/starting-sales
I'd love to invite you to my Slack channel where you (a) get to hang out with and get marketing tips from other creative people like yourself (b) can use our Slack bot to guide your marketing and selling efforts.
The bot prompts you every day with different ways of selling and building product awareness.
Here's an earlier IH post explaining the concept in more detail
Great! I've applied for the channel!
Love it. Pinging you there now.
There's an old saying in sales, you have 2 ears and 1 mouth, you should be listening twice as much as you're talking.
There's a whole process that goes into it such as identifying your buyers or buyer persona, where they hang out online and offline, qualifying (this is whole new subset of process), etc.
The easiest thing to do is listen to people and see if your product can solve their problems. The trick is to provide info about your product so that it excites them. Ultimately, just have a normal conversation and sprinkle your product in it.
Sound like something I'm already doing :)
Sales skills are overrated in my opinion. Build a good product, something that people truly want and make sure your marketing is functioning optimal.
Having done the above; you'll see that your product will just sell. You might need to pick up the phone or answer an email once in a while, but hardcore sales skills shouldn't be needed.
Disclaimer: this applies to small to mid tier B2B. If you're doing enterprise level sales, it becomes a different matter all together. The above also does not hold true if you have a crappy product where you actually need to trick people into buying it.
This makes sense. My target audience is small to mid B2B and my product is the best, so I would think the software will sell itself.
But I guess I'm a bit naive about it so some extra learnings could make a difference.
In that case I would definitely focus on marketing first, and worry about sales later (if at all). Getting your product in front of the right people with the right message is going to move the needle in ways sales chops simply can not.
Being naive is an upside; you'll look at things with a fresh, unspoiled perspective!
Good luck!
Share the link of your product
I did in a different topic and some guy was mad with me for promoting my own product. It's https://www.reviewtycoon.com/