Sales Calls
topic on 7 shows · 10 statements across 10 episodes
Startups For the Rest of Us 
Lenny's Podcast 
the Startup Ideas Podcast 
A Product Market Fit Show 
Top Founders 
the a16z Podcast 
20VC
10 statements about Sales Calls, every show
Hoffman: MailScale spent $10k testing ads to hit $300 cost per booked call
“They said it took five to 10 ads until they were able to book calls reliably for 300 dollars. They spent 10,000 dollars to get to this point, so you do need to have that 10,000 dollars is the only thing I will say, but you can see it's like they're acquiring c…”
Courtney: Products under $2,000 do not need 1-on-1 sales calls
“So anything below 2000 dollars, we don't do calls or We also tell our clients don't do calls. You can sell it right there at the end of the webinar.”
Greenberg: Founders must personally take the first 100 sales calls
“I think as a founder, it's your responsibility to be taking the first hundred sales calls, because again, you're figuring out pricing, you're figuring out who the right customer is, et cetera.”
Walling: Founders can criticize competitors on sales calls but not publicly
“Cause you can talk as much smack as you want on a sales call versus putting it on in public on a marketing site.”
Abel: Prospects who refuse to schedule follow-ups on calls are usually uninterested
“If they won't give you time on the calendar you could say, listen, great, like, feel free to email me. Maybe they're just being honest and they don't have their calendar available, but nine times out of 10, it's usually I don't have the heart to tell you I'm n…”
Mahtani: Founders should join every sales call until reaching 100 customers
“I do strongly believe that founders need to play an active role In the creation or the co-creation of the sales playbook. And I would also encourage all founders early stages. I don't know, until you get to a hundred or more customers, you need to be on every …”
Dunford: Demos should occupy over half of a standard sales call
“If we think about a typical sales call, like let's say a sales call is half an hour, 45 minutes, I would expect to spend more than half of the time in the sales call in this differentiated value phase.”
Walling: Products must sell for thousands of dollars to justify sales calls
“You need to sell thousands and thousands of dollars per sale to make it worth sales calls.”
Lawson: A working software prototype is worth a thousand sales calls
“The prototype is worth a thousand sales calls.”
Hill: Softening sales pitches with humor and subject changes maximizes conversions
“I always, always soften the pitch at the end, so I'll give it, and then I'll change the subject type slightly, or like joke about something so that it doesn't feel like a hard sell and then, you know, answer some questions and stuff, and I find that always wor…”