If you lack a basic understanding of sales management and personal selling, see the resources at the bottom of this list. They don't address the startup context specifically, but they provide an excellent introduction and overview of the sales function. A hat tip to my colleague Frank Cespedes, HBS's expert on B2B marketing and sales, who referred me to most of these basic readings.
Educators designing courses on startup sales may wish to review the syllabus for the Harvard Business School MBA elective, Entrepreneurial Sales and Marketing.
Companion pages listed to the right and also in the nav bar above cover resources and insights related to lean startup logic/methods; product design; product management; business development; and marketing, among other topics.
Startup sales management: general issues
- The book, The Sales Acceleration Formula, by HBS colleague and former HubSpot head of sales Mark Roberge, provides a roadmap for startup sales management; Roberge on lessons learned at HubSpot
- Harvard Business Review article by Mark Leslie and Charles Holloway on the sales learning curve. Academics: note that Leslie, former founder/CEO of Veritas, has helped build a terrific case-based course on enterprise software sales management at Stanford Business School, STRAMGT 351.
- David Skok of Matrix Partners on building a sales and marketing machine;how sales complexity impacts customer acquisition cost -- and how to mitigate its impact; and customer buying cycles and triggers
- Upfront Ventures' Mark Suster on the importance of a Unique Selling Proposition, scaling a salesforce, tools/information required by a startup salesforce, on dangers that startups face when they rely on channel partners for sales, and what motivates salespeople
- Lina Vashurina on the buyer's journey and how to map content to it
- Tae Hea Nahm on organizing to serve key accounts
- Flybridge GP (and my HBS colleague) Jeff Bussgang on the challenge of scaling different types of sales models; John Doherty on the same topic
- Bussgang on the sales operations role
- Wiley Cerilli shares lessons learned about tech startup sales, as does Tres Griffin
- Google Ventures' Joe Kraus on how to match different types of salespeople to requirements at different stages of a startup's evolution
- Suster interviews Vince Thompson and Mo Ali, who discuss startup sales best practices.
- Steve Blank on how sales culture must change as an enterprise software startup matures and on customer development in big companies
- Suster on how to shorten sales cycles; how to deal with large accounts' demands for product customization; how to find a champion to refine your product and sales process
- Entrepreneur Mark Birch examines conversion rates for different sources of sales leads
- David Skok discusses how to build trusted sales relationships
- Steve Blank on the challenges of closing a complex B2B sale with multiple decision influencers; Suster on the same topic.
- Brent Adamson et al. on how/why the best sales reps avoid "talkers" who superficially show enthusiasm but are unable/unwilling to mobilize organizational support for a purchase.
- a16z's Ben Horowitz on how the priorities of enterprise customers have evolved.
- Steve Blank on firing customers.
- Steve Blank on the often contentious relationship between sales and marketing in startups.
- Michael Woloszynowicz on managing the risk of feature creep when sales offers input during the customer development process.
- Jason Lemkin on how to hire a Sales VP, how to quickly assess a new Sales VP's performance and whether your VP Sales should start as a "player/coach"
- Bob Marsh, founder/CEO of LevelEleven, on the changing role of the sales manager
- Ben Horowitz on hiring salespeople; Jason Lemkin on the same topic; Peter Kazanjy on the same topic
- Suster reflects on excuses offered by startup salespeople and discusses when to hire sales people in an early-stage startup and how to choose them.
- HubSpot co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah on building a sales team; HubSpot VP-Sales Mark Roberge on the how to use analytics to build a scalable sales team.
- Suster on why seasoned sales reps often don't work out
- Cespedes and Weinfurter on hiring sales reps
- David Skok interviews Aaron Ross on why salespeople shouldn't prospect
- Whitney Sales on crafting a pitch based on a startup's origin story
- Entrepreneur/investor James Altucher offers advice on personal selling
- Suster on objection handling
- Software entrepreneur David Cummings on cold-call hit rates.
- HubSpot co-founder/CEO Brian Halligan on how to manage inbound sales; Scott Irwin on the same topic
- USC's Steve Martin on the growing importance of inside sales
- The Bridge Group's blog on inside sales
- Work-Bench's enterprise sales guide
- Deva Hazarika on why SaaS sales plans fail
- David Skok interviews HubSpot VP-Sales Mark Roberge on SaaS sales best practices.
- Skok provides a link to a Bridge Group report on metrics and compensation data for SaaS inside sales.
- My HBS colleague Frank Cespedes has written extensively about the sales function. His work includes a new book, Aligning Strategy and Sales, and many articles, such as “How to Identify the Best Customers for Your Business” and “Teamwork for Today’s Selling.”
- Neil Rackham, SPIN Selling. SPIN stands for “Situation. Problem. Implication. Need-Payoff” -- a classic framework used in sales training. The book presents a practical, structured approach for selling complex products in settings with multiple decision makers.
- Philip Delves Broughton, The Art of the Sale. Broughton interviews successful salespeople around the world and synthesizes research on personal selling. He does a great job of exploring ethical issues and psychological pressures confronting sales people.
- Daniel H. Pink, To Sell Is Human. Describes how technology and other macro trends are changing the sales function and summarizes behavioral research on the attributes of successful sales people.
- Aaron Ross & Marylou Tyler, Predictable Revenue, provides a practical summary of best practices for personal selling and sales management based on Aaron's experience at Salesforce.com.
- A. Zoltners, P. Sinha, and G. Zoltners, The Complete Guide to Accelerating SalesForce Performance. A superb reference book that covers all the elements of sales management, including hiring, training, compensation design, territory assignments, quotas, etc.
- The research firm CSO Insights, run by former HP executives Jim Dickie and Barry Trailer (CSO = Chief Sales Officer), publishes frequent blog posts on a range of sales management topics.