If you could start over, how would you go about learning sales?
As indie hackers, we're often responsible for not only building our products but also selling them. However, for many of us, sales don't come naturally. It can be a daunting task to figure out how to market and sell our products effectively, especially if we don't have prior experience in sales.
So, if you could start over and learn sales from scratch, what approach would you take? Would you focus on reading sales books or attending sales workshops? Would you practice your sales skills by cold-calling potential customers, or would you try to learn by observing successful salespeople in action?
I'd love to hear from the Indie Hackers community about your experiences learning sales. What strategies have worked best for you? And if you could go back in time and start over, what would you do differently? Let's start a discussion and help each other improve our sales skills!
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If I had to go back to Day 0 and start over with learning sales I'd probably:
Hop on a trend (Notion Templates, ChatGPT, etc) and start selling via LinkedIn Cold Messages to Zoom Meetings.
I find people respond more frequently and with a more positive via LinkedIn plus the people on LinkedIn think in a referral mindset (I've had 1 LinkedIn connection help me secure 5+ opportunities from 3+ different clients)
If I had to study an approach to selling it would be Outcome and Partner selling.
My latest sales strategy involves selling potential partners on outcomes so they view me as a partner supporting them to a future they'd like to achieve.
This is a great question. I've consulted for technical founders who want to learn sales. I think the biggest challenge here is you will learn best by doing and not reading. Although I would highly recommend reading, finding software sales professionals to follow and consuming content, you will only learn best by doing and trying different strategies.
The greatest way to learn sales is failure and being told no. It's why so many entry level sales jobs are cold calling and email heavy. You need to fail to learn how to iterate on strategy but also build up scar tissue. No is a good thing, you just qualified someone out and learned something new.
This happens at all stages of the funnel as well from prospecting to closing deals. Just have to get used to the grind!