Former Yelp Sales Leader: If You Want a Great Sales Process, Start with Your Foundation

If you’re a founder of a startup, odds are you’ve never been a salesperson, don’t appreciate the value of sales, and may not realize what it takes to build a stable sales process.

According to CBInsights, the top two reasons startups fail relate to sales. Forty-two percent of startups fail because they lack a market for their product or service. Twenty-nine percent of startups run out of cash.

The best day to start selling was yesterday

If you haven’t started to think about building your sales engine, now is the time. Too many founders wait until the “product is perfect,” or the “user growth is big enough,” or other aspects of the startup are “ready” before attempting to sell.

“Sales success comes after you stretch yourself past your limits on a daily basis.” — Omar Periu

Don’t wait until other things are in place before you start selling. As a founder, there are things you must do today to set the footing for the sales foundation.

Pay proper attention to sales

As a founder, you’ve put your passion into motion and have created a great new product or service. To that end, you are likely resourceful at getting answers and overcoming challenges. You do not need to be an overnight Head of Sales. Similarly, if you are not a technical engineer, you aren’t expected to become an experienced CTO.

Some founders think a Google search for “how to build a sales team” will provide them with all the knowledge and resources needed to build a sales team. That will only get you so far. Your time is better spent in the areas where you excel, while utilizing proper sales resources to fill the knowledge gap.

In order to fill the knowledge gap, founders and startups must have good self-awareness when it comes to sales. Identify the areas where you need the most help and gain resources to address those areas. If your company is like most startups, you are lacking in most likely a few aspects of sales expertise. Have you hired, trained and managed metrics of a sales team? Are you familiar with sales systems needed? Do you know how to create a predictable sales process? Are you familiar with sales compensation? Identifying areas like these, and addressing them will not only ensure your sales foundation is built for the future, but will give you an unfair advantage over other startups as they fumble through or Google through building their sales efforts.

Where to start?

There’s no shortage of diagrams, methodologies, or experts with opinions on exactly how you should be building your sales efforts. With so many options where should you start? As a founder and a sales leader for companies like Yahoo!, Apple, Yelp and countless other angel/VC backed companies, I’ve learned that building a repeatable, scalable sales process is tough and you need proper resources to make it work.

If you’re interested in exploring how Mile Square Labs can help your sales efforts let’s start with our Founder’s Sales Questionnaire.

Originally published at weworklabs.com on February 22, 2019.

Preston Junger — Co-Founder, Mile Square Labs

Former Yelp VP of Brand Sales and lifelong builder & believer in disruptive ideas and great people — bringing new products to market, building from scratch and scaling sales teams.