Startups are ultramarathons, even though most of us are sprinting every day –

Sprinting to the next product release...

Sprinting to nail down the next sale...

Sprinting to get to the next funding round...

Even though you're sprinting every day, it's important to remember that the path you chose is a long journey.

Over the past six months, I've been training for the Western States 100 – the oldest, arguably most prestigious ultramarathon in the world. Over 7000 people wanted one of the 369 spots available.

I'm a week away from the starting line, and over the past six months, I've learned a lot about myself, what's possible and how to break ceilings I didn't think I could break.

My goal is not just to finish the race, but to finish in under 24 hours to earn the Silver Buckle Award.  It's going to be close, and I'll execute my best race, and even then I might now make it.

The struggle is guaranteed; success is not.

I'm sharing a few "Lessons from the Trail" – how running and building a startup is just like training and running an ultramarathon.

Here's the first installment.

Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

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In this episode of the Startup Selling Podcast, I interviewed Alexine Mudawar & Gabrielle Blackwell.

Who is Alexine Mudawar?

Carrying 8+ years of SaaS sales experience, Alexine is backed by numerous President’s Club awards, quarterly high achievement recognitions, and a consistent track record of surpassing quota. 

Outside of her day-to-day sales role, She is an Adjunct Professor and teaches sales courses for Aspireship, Victory Lap, and Re: Work Training. 

She’s a champion for diversity and inclusion in the workplace and has founded two women-focused Employee Resource Groups. She currently serves as Co-Founder of the Women in Sales Club alongside Gabrielle Blackwell.

Who is Gabrielle Blackwell?

Gabrielle Blackwell, also known as The Sales Development SaaStress, started her career in as a sales development representative and has since then held positions as an Account Executive, Sales Enablement Manager, and has now focused her career pursuits on Sales Development leadership. 

She is currently leading a Sales Development team at revenue intelligence platform, Gong.io and co-hosts Women in Sales Club, a Clubhouse event focused on enabling, empowering, and promoting women within the sales profession.

Some of the key topics and questions that we covered in this podcast are:

• Community questioning the inner critic 
• Owning your voice
• Personal branding 
• The stigma of sales
• Tokenization of an individual 
• How The Women in Sales Club came into existence
• How Alexine and Gabrielle came to working together
• Core issues such as race, gender, sexual preference, and other diversity markers
• The importance of being empathetic
• Understanding what it means to be a woman in the workplace
• Strategies of how men can do better to support women

Links and Resources:

LinkedIn page: www.linkedin.com/company/women-in-sales-club

Clubhouse club: www.joinclubhouse.com/club/womeninsales

Alexine on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/alexine-mudawar

Gabrielle on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/gabrielleblackwell

Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

BluBrry | Deezer | Amazon | Stitcher | Spotify | iTunes | Soundcloud | SalesQualia

 Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you’re listening to the show.

Demos are where sales opportunities go to die.

Unless you've got a Prospecting Partnering System in your #sales process.

It's fun finding new leads, diving into problems, and talking about what's possible with your help.

Demos – Nothing more fun than showing off your product to an eager prospect.

Proposals may not be fun to write, but there's the excitement & anticipation of landing your next big customer.

Contracts? Some sellers really dig this part of the sale – they get jazzed when it's time to get down to negotiate and talk numbers.

Then there's deployment – where all the work over the past 3 or 6 or 12 months finally comes to fruition.

But you know what's not fun?

Project management.

Chasing the IT guy for data file access. 

Finding the risk officer whose only job seems to be telling vendors she can't approve the purchase. 

Wrangling the compliance team's checklist. 

Quibbling with procurement about their request for audited financial statements.

It's never easy navigating the quagmire of internal bureaucracy. 

But it gets a whole lot easier (and maybe even a little more fun) if you've partnered with your prospect and built a mutual action plan where you've assigned teams, tasks, and timelines to every step along the way from demo to implementation.

Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

BluBrry | Deezer | Amazon | Stitcher | Spotify | iTunes | Soundcloud | SalesQualia

Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you’re listening to the show.

“Demo” should NEVER be a stage in your sales process.

In fact, your entire sales process should minimize your product as much as possible. 

Yes, really.

That’s why Demo Design is one of the 9 Sales Accelerators.

If you're running your demos the wrong way, I bet every one ends with three things ––

1/ Lots of applause

2/ A request for a proposal

3/ Three months of “Chase the Prospect”

Am I right?

But, if you build your Demo Design the right way, your demos will be short, focused, and even better, move you quickly into conversations about IMPLEMENTATION.

Demo Design is NOT about your product – it’s about your PROCESS.

In this video, I’ll show you why you MUST establish a Demo Design system and more importantly, why your demos should have almost nothing to do with your product.

If you want some help with your Demo Design process or any of the 9 Sales Accelerators, send me a DM or an email – scott@salesqualia.com.

Let’s do this.

Listen to the LinkedIn LIVE here:

https://www.linkedin.com/video/live/urn:li:ugcPost:6717478141436284928/

Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

BluBrry | Deezer | Amazon | Stitcher | Spotify | iTunes | Soundcloud | SalesQualia

Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you’re listening to the show.

3 Things I'm excited about (including lots of running and baby goats...)

#1:  The last stretch of training for the Western States 100. I've got a 50-mile trail run on  Saturday, and another 22 on Monday. 

#2: We're now proud owners of a baby goat. 

My wife spent her nights this week building their pen. Because she's cool like that.

#3: I'm teaching a LIVE Training on Thurs, June 3rd – "Your Q4 Sales Start Now."

I'm teaching 5 tactics to put to work in the next 6 weeks that will help you nail your 2021 number.

Here is the registration link: https://salesqualia.com/webinar/

2 People to follow –

Check out Jason Bay and Meghann Misiak. Both are AWESOME at their craft. They coach our clients here in our Startup Selling Coaching program and ALWAYS deliver.

1 Parting Thought –

If you're in the US, Monday is Memorial Day. Take a day off - no email, no texts, no nothing. You need a break. Your family will appreciate it. 

The company won't fail if you take 24 hours to just be.

Listen to the LinkedIn LIVE here:

https://www.linkedin.com/video/live/urn:li:ugcPost:6804211947190464512/

Listen & subscribe to The Startup Selling Show here:

BluBrry | Deezer | Amazon | Stitcher | Spotify | iTunes | Soundcloud | SalesQualia

Thanks so much for listening! Tell a friend or ten about The Startup Selling Show, and please leave a review wherever you’re listening to the show.