Join us for a series of Startup Sales Fundamental programs.
All of the trainings will be live, in-person in the Training Room at the ISU Research Park CORE Facility (1805 Collaboration Place, Ames).
Who Should Attend: any startup founder (all business models welcome, not just B2B SaaS)
Please contact Hannah Kirkendall with any questions at hkirkend@iastate.edu
Friday 4/19 1-5 Sales Foundations for Startups
Startup companies are constantly navigating new (and often unpredictable) waters to find their niche customer, get their product to market, and scale successfully. Founders must prioritize sales to drive the outcomes they want. This training will cover a wide variety of sales foundations for startups, including how to build and scale a successful sales team, how to foster a sales-centric culture that amplifies collective results, and how to leverage solution selling to improve conversions and earn customer loyalty. Attendees will leave feeling confident that they have the tools needed to build a robust B2B sales function in their startup.
Topics covered (but not limited to):
Friday, May 17 1-5 Art of Pipeline Development for Startups
Building a pipeline of qualified leads is often the lifeblood of any startup company, and often one of the biggest pain points to scaling. Defining and attracting potential customers is nuanced and complex, and takes strategic measures to ensure it’s developed right. To attract potential customers, startups need to stand out with content creation, outreach, multi-threading sales touches, and other marketing strategies to ensure their solution is visible and create curiosity. This training will focus on the art of pipeline development in the B2B space and how to track these efforts in your CRM.
Friday, June 21st 1-5 Solution Selling for SaaS: Art of a live Demo
For most SaaS B2B companies, the demo stage of the sales lifecycle can either make or break a deal. How each demo gets prepared for, executed, and follow up on will dictate conversions and individual close rates.
Attendees can expect to leave feeling confident in their ability to lead with curiosity and tailor demos with every prospect, every time. Having a process and structure around this process means it can be replicated. When you start to see conversions improve, you scale faster.
Topics covered (but not limited to):
Friday, July 26th 1-5 Land and Expand: Close Deals and Make Happy Customers Happier
Objections are almost always about value. Confidence is one of the strongest undercurrents to negotiating successfully. It can show up in areas of communication like the clarity of our ask, the importance of asking the right questions, mirroring/empathizing, and even being mindful of our tone and body language. To gain value alignment, we will train on how to lean into “no” instead of shying away from it.
Attendees can expect to leave feeling empowered, confident in their bargaining power and abilities, and ready to tackle negotiations while selling. This training will also cover the importance of customer experience (CX) post-sale for retention and referral opportunities, and how to grow accounts through strategic wallet expansion.
Topics covered (but not limited to):
