Having spent the time and money to hire a great salesperson, how do you ensure that you will actually accelerate revenues? And that the first trickles will scale into a significant stream?

Earlier in this blog, we established that without specific product knowledge, even the greatest technology salesperson will almost certainly fail. And that means that the company will have failed as well.

The fastest way to make this transfer of knowledge happen is to have the company’s product champion work with the new salesperson. This product champion may be one of the founders, the key product manager, or even someone from development. The important thing is that the salesperson learns from one of the insiders. And that they spend a lot of time together. That way you don’t just transfer information as to how the product works. But also why it works as it does. Which is often key for presenting the product in the best light in any given situation.

Knowing the why’s of product design and implementation is essential for sales success. Such knowledge enables great salespeople to adapt their presentation to just about any opportunity. This ability can make or break any sale. And it lessens the load on technical resources, be they pre-sales or development.

Sure, it can be quite an investment to dedicate tech resources to this transfer. But it will accelerate revenues – and yield solid feedback for the product organization as well.

To accelerate revenues all components must be scalable

To create a sustained acceleration of revenues, the company must ensure that both the product and the company continue to evolve to support the sales process. In other words, how do we make the product easier to sell? How do we make the product appeal to more prospects? Does our company image help or hurt in this regard?

These considerations indicate that having a scalable product is not enough. If, for example, we imagine a software product, it is well-known that the delivery platform, the hosting environment, must also be scalable. But so must the sales process and everything associated with it.

That means that the salesperson must be able to replicate the process from one sale to the next. If the process must be invented in every instance, either the company, the salesperson, or both will not have a financially viable situation.

This development of the company itself and its processes is new to most nascent technology companies. The company’s founders and/or developers may have handled sales initially. But when the first professional salesperson arrives, it’s not just about: “Here’s the product – go out and sell.”

It’s a very intensive two-way flow of knowledge. One that carries a significant price tag with it. But also one that may unlock the revenue acceleration that will make the owners very wealthy.

In future posts we will examine some of the processes that support sales. And we will look at some success stories.