Extra Extra

EXTRA EXTRA A newsletter about early sales from The Extra Group Read in browser “I’m not built to do sales.” So many founders silently carry this self-limiting belief from sales call to sales call. It was a story I told myself a lot, in fact. But the stories we tell ourselves often aren’t true. You know, stories like, "if I catch the next subway, I'll be three minutes late max," or “scrolling before bed definitely won’t give me anxiety or stress dreams.” We tell ourselves we couldn’t possibly...

If you’ve worked with me before, you know that I’m weirdly into cold outbounding. I wouldn’t say it’s an obsession, as I reserve that designation for the likes of Survivor and Bruce Springsteen -- but yes, I’m a big fan of cold emails as an outreach strategy. At the most basic level, I like cold outreach because it needs to be part of your strategy if you're serious about sales. Relying on referrals or hoping for inbounds will not provide the necessary volume for sales momentum. Beyond this,...

Consistency is the final, critical pillar of early-stage sales. And it's the one that makes everything else possible. In the past two newsletters, we’ve gone through the first two pillars: We’ve got to avoid Hypotheticalsville and climb Mount Market Signal, despite the discomfort, because selling is the way to find product-market fit. When we manage any judgments we hold about selling, and instead build a sales-positive mindset, early sales happen faster and easier. But even with the right...

I believe selling is the most important thing you can do to find product-market fit. This means selling is more important than doing customer research, running discovery calls, or building a product or prototype. Way harsh, I know. I'm dead set on this because real, confirmed signal from the market is exponentially more impactful to your business than hypothetical insights... and the only thing that provides actual market signal is selling. Think about the difference between asking a prospect...