Sales can be a challenging area for startups to conquer. Tech founders often excel at creating products and services, but many haven’t been faced with building a successful sales strategy before. The mistake of hiring senior sales roles too quickly can be expensive and frustrating. Working with a sales consultancy like Sales for Startups can help overcome the common pitfalls and build the revenue engine your scaling business needs.
Where does the value of consultancy lie?
External perspective
It’s easy to get blindsided when everything’s internal. You can lose some perspective because you’re always right in the eye of the storm, and it’s hard to take a step back and look at the situation objectively. It doesn’t just happen in startups, it can happen in any business or organisation.
Using a sales consultancy brings an external perspective, and they can look at your current setup objectively. There’s no bias – they only focus on the goals you want to achieve, putting a plan in place to reach it in the best way possible.
Experience
Hiring a head of sales can feel like a sensible step, but there’s no guarantee that they will be deliver in your business. For instance, a top salesperson from a corporate might look great on paper, but it might have been a long time since they had to roll their sleeves up and makes sales themselves.
A sales consultancy knows what’s required to scale up and set the foundations for a company so it can have a blueprint for how to move forward. At Sales for Startups, for example, we’ve worked with more than 80 startup companies and know what it takes to scale.
Easier to make changes
Founders look to sales consultancy when they know they need to change but they might not be sure how to take it forward. It can be hard to make changes internally when people have their day jobs, and it’s easy to get distracted by other company-related engagements.
The sales consultancy also becomes the catalyst for change. It can be hard to affect change from within, but a sales consultancy looks at the entire picture with a clear, unbiased view and takes the necessary actions.
Upskilling
As your business scales, what it needs changes. This doesn’t need to mean that you start from scratch each time. But it does mean upskilling and developing your team is important.
External consultancy done well integrates upskilling. Your team will benefit from our knowledge and experience, both formally and informally. Once the consultancy ends, your team has the confidence, skills and experience to continue increasing revenue.
Building a commercial engine
Only 19% of startups make it to Series A. It’s not because the idea is bad, it’s because they failed to build a commercial engine.
An effective commercial engine isn’t one dimensional. It’s not just about the talent, it’s also about the processes, the systems, the mindset. Consultancies like Sales for Startups haven’t just done this once or twice, it’s what we do every day.
The value of sales consultancy
A sales consultancy can be a difference-maker for startups. You don’t need to make expensive mistakes. Instead, buy the expertise that enables you to get it right first time.