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Startup Selling: Talking Sales with Scott Sambucci

Over the past twenty years, I’ve led three Silicon Valley startups to their first customers and revenue, and sold everything from financial data, enterprise software, and vaporware to cabinet doors, amusement park daily programs, and “would you like fries with that…?” My customers have included the largest financial institutions in the world, top US Universities, cabinet door makers and people that eat at Applebees and go to amusement parks... I’ve learned a lot, and made a few, ahem, well… a lot, of mistakes. Here in The Sales Podcast with Scott Sambucci, I share the lessons learned from my past two decades of selling. In each episode, I discuss a specific topic in selling and sales strategy like how to find new prospective customers, how to manage leads, how to run an effective sales meeting, uncovering customer needs, and developing pricing strategies. Episodes are a mix of guest interviews, observations from the field, and sales techniques that I’m using every single day. And people that care about such things, I’ve written two books, been a TEDx Speaker, been featured on CNBC, The Financial Times and NPR. Oh… I’m also a husband, a dad, and a three-time Ironman triathlete. Build your sales process so that you can have the company you imagine. The Sales Podcast with Scott Sambucci will help you get there.
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Now displaying: January, 2017
Jan 26, 2017
About this episode: 
Louis Jonckheere is Co-founder and Co-CEO of Showpad. Showpad activates millions of pieces of content for over 850 companies around the world, including Johnson & Johnson, Fujifilm, Audi, Intel, and Kimberly-Clark. 
 
Topics we discussed included:
  • What types of content works best to drive sales prospect engagement?
  • How Showpad uses a 14-day free trial and “Soft Contracts”
  • The importance of video for your sales and communication
  • Company culture and hiring practices
  • Customer engagement and customer success
 
Podcast Topics & Notes:
0:00 - Introduction to this episode
 
3:00 - How Louis answers: “What do you do? What is Showpad?”
  • 90% of sales and marketing content is going unused
 
6:00 - Using modern sales tools to gain better insight into customer engagement with marketing tools
 
9:00 - What’s the ONE content piece a startup should build and use for sales? (Hint: It’s video!)
 
12:30 - Using video messages with clients
 
14:30 - Account-based sales and marketing & designing a landing page for each customer (a.k.a “Showcase”)
 
17:30 - Using Facebook Live, social media & texting
 
20:30 - Why a 14-day free trial (vs. 30-day free trial or freemium) and “Soft Contracts”
 
24:45 - Customer Success & Engagement
 
28:00 - Company culture & hiring techniques
    
35:00 - Corporate social responsibility as a startup & The Showpad Cares program
 
39:00 - Biggest lesson and mindset transition from early stage CEO to growth mode, and Showpad’s decision to move to the US
 
43:00 - Where to go for peer support, help and advice
 
 
Websites & Resources mentioned in the podcast:
 
 
 

Find Louis across the interwebs here:
Jan 19, 2017
About this episode: 
Lauren Bailey has been voted "Top 25 Most Influential Leaders in Inside Sales" by The American Association of Inside Sales Professionals 2013, 2014, 2015 & 2016. Lauren is President of Factor 8, an award-winning Inside Sales training and consulting company.
 
After spending nearly 20 years launching and leading Inside Sales organizations around the World, Factor 8 President Lauren Bailey has put her dual background in sales and training leadership to work for companies launching, scaling, and optimizing Inside Sales teams. She's worked with IBM, SAP, Ingram Micro, Microsoft, Grainger, HP, Staples, and many more.
 
Factor 8 works most often with the Vice President of Sales to benchmark their Inside Sales Organization and deliver hands-on training classes for Reps and Managers.
 
Podcast Topics & Notes:
0:00 - Introduction of the episode and Lauren Bailey
 
5:45 - Where do I start selling my startup product if I have no idea what I’m doing?
 
6:30 - Inside Sales vs Field Sales for startups
 
10:00 - Establishing an inside sales cadence for efficiency’s sake. 
  • Call and email on Tuesday & Thursday afternoons from 12-4pm to MWF appointments and demos
  • Call people when they are in their office
 
11:30 - Call the CEO of your target company. Act as if…
 
14:00 - Outsourcing your lead development and appointment-setting
 
15:45 - About SalesQualia & The Startup Selling Coaching Program
 
18:45 - Imagine you’re calling your college buddies instead of a “decision-maker."
 
21:00 - Using your “rock star status” as a startup CEO as leverage
 
23:00 - What to do when someone actually answers the phone...
  • The first 10 seconds are the most important
  • The key to the intro is to get the person to stop typing or looking at their email
  • Say their name first, then do a quick value ear perk, then end with a closed, rote, qualifying question.
 
31:00 - Selling the next step & mapping out your touches
 
37:30 - Why product demos suck
 
45:00 - Tips on hiring and outsourcing sales
 
52:30 - Recommendations to finish a sales year strong, and boost for next year
  • “Is this something that’s interesting to you this year?”
  • “Do you have budget that you need to spend this year, or should we just focus on introducing our product?”
 
Websites & Resources mentioned in the podcast:
 
 
 

Find Lauren across the interwebs here:
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