My 3 Lessons Learned in B2B Sales

I have a background in product development. I’ve never been responsible for generating revenue until I started my company, Cooleaf. What I learned is that sales is hard. Really hard.

We’ve been through a lot at Cooleaf and we’ve had some really nice wins along with our share of rejections. The wins are so meaningful because you know how hard they are to achieve. And it still hurts your soul when you’re rejected. Anyone who says it doesn’t is full of it.

Here are three lessons I’ve learned along the way. My hope is that you can take my lessons and apply them to your own startup.

1. Sell to buyers that have budget and authority

Sorry to all my HR friends but HR is one of the worst place to sell into inside an organization. Exceptions can be made of course but in general, HR is a poor buyer because they are not a revenue generating part of the organization which means they have less authority when seeking budget. My advice is to NOT sell into a cost center for a company. Instead, pick a buyer such as head of sales or marketing who are in a direct path to revenue for their organization. I know for me, if my lead sales rep. came to me and said that if we buy this new software it would help them sell more, I would be interested.

1. Make it easier to say yes by limiting the number of people who need to say yes

Top down sales slows your sales cycle significantly. When the whole organization has to adopt your product, it means that more people will be involved in the decision making process which means inevitably, you will experience a longer sales process. We’ve started working directly with team leaders such as a VP of X and offering a solution directly for them with their team. Our goal is to make them a champion to grow our product adoption inside the organization. Even C-level people don’t want to make a decision to buy some new software unless they know their people will value it and adopt it.

1. Remove the budget barrier

One of the most common barriers to a sale is the line, ‘we don’t have budget’. Well, why not just temporarily remove this barrier by offering a free trial or pilot of your product? I’ve found that one of the biggest fears a buyer has is that if they buy, what if the product fails to get adopted inside the organization. It’s less about the money and more about them looking bad that is the real issue. By letting them use the product first through a trial, it eases this concern and then all of a sudden they're able to find budget. However, you have to be careful because people value what they pay for and that last thing you want is for the buyer to say that the trial wasn't a good fit but in reality it’s because they did not commit to using your product.