Common Mistakes Early Stage Founders & Marketplaces Make With Sales

26 Feb 2023 · 2 min

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This content was created by Max Brun. This content was uploaded by Max Brun. This is a YouTube video titled "Common Mistakes Early Stage Founders & Marketplaces Make With Sales" (posted 2023-02-26). The excerpt is a short dialog between an interviewer (SPEAKER A) and an experienced founder/mentor (SPEAKER B) about sales for early-stage marketplaces. SPEAKER B advises founders not to outsource sales too early, arguing that acquiring both sides of a marketplace is a core competency founders must learn themselves—develop the sales process, messaging, and a playbook first, then consider outsourcing lead-gen or execution.

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What are some of the biggest, I would say, mistakes or maybe misconceptions about sales for early-stage marketplaces specifically that you've seen?
Outsourcing sales, I think, is a huge mistake. You see that a lot. Listen, there's definitely a time and place for outsourcing it, right? And I talk to— mainly my work with very, very early stages on the mentorship side and doing sort of office hours, calls. And, you know, I just, I get this question all the time, hey, can I just outsource, you know, my lead gen or what have you? Can I just hire a team to send a bunch of emails and so on and so forth? And at the end of the day, I think, you know, talking to, you know, one or both sides of your marketplace and acquiring one or both sides of your marketplace, unfortunately, it's a core competency of your company, right? You have to be great at it. And so the idea that you would outsource a core competency Generally, I think is a mistake. And I think it's very tempting, right? You're like, okay, well, I'm not that great at sales. I'm not that great at writing emails. I'm not that great at doing outreach. I've never made a cold call in my life. I can't show up and visit a business in person and convince them to join my marketplace. Well, so what? You got to figure out how to do it because you can't outsource anything unless you know how to do it yourself. Now, if you're able to figure out how to do it and build a little bit of a playbook, sure, then go ahead and outsource it. But you can't figure out an agency to figure out— I mean, when you think about sales, you got the sales process and you've got the messaging, right? You can't have an agency figure out your sales process and your messaging for you. You as the founder, you as an internal early employee need to figure that out. And then maybe once you figure that out, then you could outsource it to a lead gen company or something like that. So I get that question a lot. I generally, I think it's a mistake to try and outsource things too early. There's definitely a time and place for it, but if it's going to be a core competency, you know, figure out how to do it yourself and then go from there is my advice to founders.