How to educate your evangelists 1 April, 2008 By Patricia Pickett

"There are great sales reps and then there are great start-up sales reps," said Goldfield, director of sales with DemandForce Inc., a San Francisco-based online customer demand management platform vendor. If you're in start-up mode, "the key difference is finding people who know how to awaken the unknown in people."

Unfortunately, many start-ups make the mistake of looking for salespeople with completely different characteristics, Goldfield said. "They find people with corporate selling experience who are used to working a sales cycle that already exists, instead of a sales cycle for the unknown." A start-up salesperson, however, doesn't have the luxury of establishing relationships with people who already know the product being sold. "He needs that twinkle in his eye to get you to see things the way he sees them."

Product education is another aspect of sales that start-ups often neglect; when salespeople don't know enough about the product, it can stop them from transferring excitement about what they're selling, Goldfield said. In some cases, "(start-ups) want (their evangelists) to talk about the pitch without knowing the product, but this is folly," he said. "While sales reps should be able to communicate value, at a start-up they have to understand the functionality behind that value."

Being able to explain a product to a potential client in an effective manner is especially important for start-ups, since the product is often something the client has never come across before. "If you can't explain it, they'll never understand it; there are people that own products but don't understand them because they have not been explained," said Goldfield. Besides leaving the customer potentially confused or unaware of all of the benefits and features of the product, lack of product education can open the door for competitors to walk in and explain their version of a similar product, he added.

"(The competitor's product) might not be as good (as yours), but you have the potential to lose to your competitors, because you haven't done the educating," Goldfield said. "It's a step that is missed in a lot of companies, but when it comes to innovators, that's what closes the deals or what opens relationships. The first person to show the 'why' behind the product usually wins."

In educating buyers, it's also important to figure out whether your audience is in the innovator, early adopter, early majority or late majority category, Goldfield said. While innovators may be the first ones to buy a product, and while they do fuel the sales cycle, they do not really have any influence over the majority crowd. "(Innovators) are so far out over the cutting edge that no one follows them," he said. However, without innovators, you can't reach the early adopters, who everyone else listens to. "If you can get (early adopters) to use your products, you get the majority."

The challenge for start-ups is to be able to tailor their sales pitch not only according to the product or concept they are selling, but according to the audience. "The way people behave (in each category) is different, so you need to understand their behaviour, build a sales process around how they buy, and educate the sales people around that process," Goldfield said.

If start-up owners find they lack sales management or coaching experience, Goldfield suggested taking advantage of outside resources to find the right people, whether through a recruiter or through an outsourcing company. "Figure out how much you want to be involved in the sales process, and if you don't want to be involved, look for people who do," he said. "There are consultants that can come in and build the sales organization for you and really help remove the non-selling executives from that responsibility."

For more sales and product evangelism tips, visit Goldfield's blog.