One of the things that you must constantly do in entrepreneurial sales is experiment.
You need to experiment on price, on pitch, on the offering, and essentially everything about the product. When you experiment, you learn about what the issues are that are the most important and also what the levers are that will draw the actual close out of a person.
Remember the old campy country song that warned Mommas to not grow up to be cowboys? While I’m completely aware that the song was not intended to be taken seriously, but it of course promotes the professions of “doctors and lawyers and such”
While those are truly admiral professions, I have to say that I am not sure why salesmanship is not promoted more. “Let ’em be doctors or salesmen or such” fits just fine. (My apologies to all the VERY talented saleswomen that I work with – but salespeople was too many syllables, but don’t think that doesn’t mean that I don’t think mommas should push women into sales too.)
I’ve been doing sales for startups for 20 years now. In this time, I’ve learned quite a bit about how to make sales happen. In particular, I’ve learned a lot about how NOT to do something, and also how to read situations well so that I can come to win-win solutions.
Sometimes, I’ve learned these lessons through failing and picking myself up again.
Other times, I’ve learned from talking to people more experienced than me. My sales mentor has been an incredible resource to me.
