Post Cards from the Edge: Unexpected tales from the wacky life of startups. Part 1
Sales weren’t going according to plan at a startup I worked for way back in the early days of Web 2.0! The company was burning cash on the 18 plus salespeople (me included) that had been hired off the back of a money raise where excessive amounts of capital had been thrown at a business plan that had not yet found market fit. In short, there was no way we were going to be able to meet the 6-month aggressive sales target that had been set. So a sales consultant was drafted in to do ‘urgent’ training with us to try and improve performance.
What we needed at that time was more practical training, how to field calls, how to collect information on clients, how and when to call, how to gather valuable data, how to pitch accurately etc. Instead what we got was the importance of values and building a steady foundation for a progressive sales operations culture in the company. Now I am not disagreeing with the approach, in fact, consistent values and a team that are well orientated towards these is the recipe for success in all sales operations. In our case, the requirement was more time-sensitive. We needed tactical changes and quick fixes while we focused on the longer strategic play and we needed those fast.
