The most impactful deal isn’t always the biggest.
Blaise Bevilacqua is taking over the UserGems page today to share one of the best lessons he’s learned from a deal this year. Take it away, Blaise!
—
Most of my career has been spent selling a product with a clear product-market fit. There's a defined sales cycle and customer testimonials to help validate your offerings.?
As a rep, all you have to do is not screw it up and DYOR on the account. An inbound comes in, and you can almost predict what the $ACV will be on the first call.?
The past few months have been a complete 180° of the above for me.?
When a product is still in beta and pre-revenue, you have no idea how the market will react.?
The good news is that when there’s an established competitor that’s not doing much iteration on their product, you’re at an advantage.
I joined Glue as employee 8 and the first GTM hire, pre-revenue, pre-PMF.?
We’ve had a waitlist of users, and my current role is to start onboarding a small test batch of users. Our goal with this approach is to collect product feedback, ensure the maximum value of the product, provide feedback for the engineering team, and ideally close these early users.
Here’s the first deal we closed for $16 MRR (a small but mighty deal). They were our first paying customer and taught us a lot, even changing the trajectory of our product roadmap.
Deal details:
* 2-person design agency using Slack and wanting to migrate off ($8/seat)
* Led by their Founder/CEO
* 1-week sales cycle
* The entire deal was managed in the Glue platform, and speed was on our side since it was faster than email to relay details
Sure, selling mid-market and enterprise deals is fun, but I’m finding it’s even more fun when you’re on the ground floor of building and selling a product.
The most important deals aren’t always the ones with the largest dollar value.?
They’re the ones that teach you more about the market and the real motivators that drive your buyers to action.??
They’re the ones that help you become a better rep by improving your communication and problem-solving skills. That's when you can really help your business move in the right direction.
—
Blaise has been selling for the past 7 years and worked with us here at UserGems as an Enterprise Account Executive. He just moved from NYC to SF 3 months ago. He goes surfing > 4x a week at Ocean Beach, either before or after work. His last name means “Drink Water.”