Whenever an entrepreneur or sales manager faces problems with his sales, the natural reaction is to believe that the salespeople are not trying hard, that the manager does not charge, that the commission model is not working. But not always the answer to the problem is the most obvious. There’s a quote from April Dunford that I love: “Most sales problems are positioning problems in disguise”, in Portuguese, “Most sales problems are positioning problems in disguise” . Who introduced me to this phrase was Thiago Oliveira, at the time head of sales and CS at Runrun.it, in a conversation about building inbound sales machines . You can check out the podcast episode below. Not even the best sales team, with the best sales management practices, will bring extraordinary results if you are selling to the wrong customer.

Segment your market and reap the low-hanging fruit

At the beginning of building your sales process. You will be faced with the question of who you should focus your efforts on, that is. Which group of people you suspect represents your potential customers. One big mistake I see is that companies don’t take the time to segment their market and Colombia Business Email List identify the “lower fruit. Much has already been written about the importance of being focused, and. I strongly believe in this strategy, especially in startups or companies that are just starting out. Where you have extremely limited resources and everything you do has to pay off. If you’re not convinced of this, I highly recommend reading Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm , which remains one of the most important literature for startups and which I recommend to all my mentees.

It could be a specific sector a certain size of company or some other characteristic

Look for buyers who have latent pain (a serious problem) and at the same time have the ability to buy. A sense of urgency and good adherence to the functionality of the current version of your product. Crossing The Chasm – Geoffrey Moore This also allows you to develop your ultra-focused Country List marketing and sales message. Which will certainly attract your audience’s attention much more than a generic and over-inclusive message. It will also help to define your product roadmap and know which features you should build next. As you are focused on meeting all the needs of a single segment. A common mistake is a product that meets 80% of the needs of different market segments. Because the leadership was not able to focus.