The Builder's Guide to the Tech Galaxy

8B2B Sales Excellence Creating brand advocates & pipelines full of sales opportunities

With Karan Sharma

Major pitfalls for scale-up builders to avoid

• Running sales development, account management, pre-sales and product marketing in silos.

  Many scale-ups insist on keeping their sales, marketing and customer success management teams in silos, which can result in a disjointed experience for the customer. This experience should be shaped as a continuum – from sales development to customer success.

• Insufficient investment in customer success management.

  Sometimes sales teams believe that if they sign contracts, the promised value will materialize on its own accord. However, customers often require support in navigating a company's product in order to fully appreciate its value. This is why a B2B startup should consider employing a customer success manager among its first 10 hires. Their job is to make the promises of the sales team come true and to identify customers who may churn early (see Practice 62).

• Insufficient investment in hiring and retaining a world-class sales team.

  “If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you are with.” This is a poetic sentiment, but it is not one that makes for good advice when hiring a world-class sales team. More substantial ways to attract and retain a world-class sales team include creating clear career paths that start in sales ...