If you regularly follow this blog, you know that our managers and consultants publish business-oriented advice and best practice articles for young start-up leaders on the excellent online media Les Echos START: (re)-discover our previous 2 articles “Start-ups: 5 tips inspired by (good) salespeople to sell your project” and “4 key steps to (sell) yourself on social networks”. Here is the third article in our series, proposed by Fabien COMTET – founder and director of KESTIO, to support start-ups during the – sometimes critical – phase of commercial growth.
Is your startup's sales activity starting to reach a significant business volume and experiencing very rapid growth in your sales performance? This is very good news, and the moment when your greatest dreams finally come true! It's also, paradoxically, a critical moment that can be fatal in some cases: when the commercial stakes become higher, the internal organization through its sales management is directly impacted, and the need to structure your sales development quickly becomes apparent. Where until now, a fairly "instinctive" sales approach and the opportunistic activation of the individual networks of the founding members may have been sufficient, it is now necessary to think of a more sustainable model that can be "duplicated" for the new arrivals that the team will certainly welcome...
Don't panic, a takeoff is always good news, and this phase can be very well managed with a little anticipation and by following these few tips:
1 – Identify your sales success stories
Using success stories, which have enabled the startup to develop, is a good starting point for structuring its sales efforts.
2 – Involve all employees in creating a profile of the ideal customer
In moving from the status of a human-scale startup to that of a larger and more structured company, it is possible that the first employees no longer fully recognize themselves in the new way of operating. Involving them actively is necessary, so as not to see certain key members leave.
3 – Define the right sales “method” and identify what's missing
The right sales method should emerge from experiences lived internally and can then be compared to external best practices. In that order. Not the reverse.
4 – Equip yourself with the right tools for each stage
When a startup becomes a larger company, the reflex is often to turn to dedicated (and costly) customer relationship management software. Mistake! There are now many free or nearly free tools available, and it is not essential to start immediately with very complex solutions.
Read the full article « Help, my start-up is taking off! Keys to a successful business expansion» on Les ECHOS Start website.
You can find out your level of commercial momentum with our tool, SCORE 7. Take the test for free in one click on the link below:
KESTIO is a company specializing in services and solutions for improving Customer Performance. For over 10 years, we have been helping companies secure and sustainably increase their revenue by acting on all the levers that allow them to acquire and retain their customers.
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