Founders Need to Be Ruthless When Chasing Deals
4 days ago
- #enterprise sales
- #startup sales
- #customer validation
- Startups in B2B markets often face the risk of wasting engineering resources on custom prototypes for potential customers who may not be serious about purchasing, leading to demoralization and lost opportunities.
- A key lesson is to validate the path to a purchase order before investing in prototypes; this involves asking critical questions about budget, decision-makers, timeline, and success criteria to avoid assumptions and wasted effort.
- Using a 'fully cancelable purchase order' as a forcing function helps qualify serious prospects, starting conversations about the entire approval process and filtering out those not ready to commit, thereby increasing demo-to-order conversion rates.