Actually, they never departed. The lone wolf salespeople, you know them – the ones who hate process, think CRM systems are junk food for metrics-minded idiots, and blow out their numbers – are alive and well. Any endeavor, any product, trends toward homogenization. Unique products attract knock-offs. Cutting-edge ideas are overwhelmed with imitators, sold cheaply. […]
Would you found an enterprise software company, take all the risk, go into debt, maybe mortgage your home if you had a built in tax of 40% – 70%? That is what companies are paying today for the ridiculous sales and marketing costs of every new dollar in revenue. For each dollar they bring in,
Cost of Enterprise Sales—The Vast Not-So-Hidden Tax Read More »
A friend and customer from a major telco had a last-minute emergency and asked me to stand in for him to speak to a group of Fortune 100 technology scouts at their annual meeting. I did not know there was such a thing as a tech scout but apparently, there is such a job and
Tech Scouts — In Search of Disruptive Technologies Read More »
After a startup has had its third Sales VP, is perhaps on its E round of funding and it still is not breaking out, it is what one would call a restart—or a restart is what it needs. It is at the edge of the Dead Zone. That is the space where many tech companies
Fundamental change in societies occurs at the edges and works its way to the center. The edge is often a border where different cultures interact in much different ways than at the center where a society reinforces its basic characteristics. The edge of the enterprise software civilization comprises the raw startups who have potentially disruptive
Several former colleagues called because they want a sales job with a disruptive startup. They are tired of their life at VMware, HP, Oracle and want both the financial upside and the thrill of doing something really innovative. Delivering disruptive technology is like being a farmer—everyone wants to do it at 11:00 in the morning but
So You Want To Work for a Disruptive Startup? Part 1 Read More »
Last week, the CEO of one of the hottest security startups in Texas visited and wanted to know how to set up his early market sales force. His product, while still in stealth mode, has won three Fortune 50 logos and one of the 3 largest telcos—as their means of cyber security for their enterprise-wide mobile
Why A Sales Quota Should be $5 Million Per Year—And Zero Base Salary Read More »
Early stage startups often look at a category and see it as a daunting marketing and sales exercise requiring massively expensive (dilutive) infrastructure. They look at a B2B market, with the Fortune 1000 as prospects and think they need outside venture capital to build massive marketing machines. They embrace dilution as the only way to
You Can Disrupt Any Industry if You Know 532 People Read More »
The first thing we usually tell a friend launching a startup is to stop writing checks. Just stop. Sequencing means building a strategy toward only one goal—obtaining those first 5 paying customers. So what needs to be done to get that accomplished? There are some basics all raw startups need done—one is protect your IP.
Sequencing—Doing What Matters—Skipping What Don’t Read More »
A B2B technology startup with an innovative, differentiated technology should sell to the early adopter, the innovator—period. Often, however, these startups get marketing and sales advice from potential investors or the brain dead management types who inhabit large technology companies and thus think they know something about how a new technology finds its market. Invariably