Last week we wrapped up a three-week Revenue Intensive within the Repeatable Sales Club.
We had early-stage founders join from across and even outside of America, from top accelerators like Techstars, NYCEDC’s Founder Fellowship, Blue Ridge Labs, Fast Forward, and more.
The conversations during each session were rich and vulnerable in a way that's hard to come by. You could see founders connecting the dots, grappling with previously-held notions, and shifting their thinking in real time.
One of the standout moments for me came at the end.
A participant shared the following:
"It's great to hear you explain the concepts, and it’s great to get the exercises and pre-work. But sticking with the system, actually doing the pre-work week after week — that's what made everything click. By the end, I felt like I actually got it."
I was absolutely over the moon. And I wasn’t surprised at all.
Because, too often, founders come to me looking for answers:
They want clarity on things like:
- Who should I be selling to?
- What should my value prop be?
- What’s the best way to generate leads?
- How do I get them to close?
I want that for every founder, too. Without that clarity, in fact, it’s essentially impossible for a startup to survive.
But the answers to these questions don’t live inside me. They don’t live inside any one person -- including a startup’s founder.
They live within the market, and only within the market.
No training, workshop, or intensive can, on its own, give you clarity on your market.
What it can give you is the systems and the tools to go find that clarity.
But finding it? That part is on you, and there’s only one way to do it. By going out into the market and selling.
There’s no shortcut. If there was, that’d be what I’d be teaching you instead – trust and believe!
If you don’t sell, you get stuck in what I call Hypotheticalsville.
In Hypotheticalsville, you’re doing customer interviews. You’re having great conversations with subject matter experts and end-users. They tell you things like “this product needs to exist!” or “this is so cool!”
This all sounds exciting. And it all seems to indicate you’re headed in the right direction.
That is, until months later, you finally bring the product to market, and those same people say things like:
- “I love this, but my priorities have changed.”
- “Unfortunately we just don’t need this right now.”
- “I want to use this but my boss isn’t on board.”
Hypotheticalsville feels productive, and it feels like clarity, but it isn’t.
Clarity on how to get traction in the market only comes from the gritty, ugly, crazy-making work of properly selling it to that market.
When you do that work of selling into the market to find clarity, here’s what happens:
- Who should I be selling to? → You thought you knew your target buyer. But none of them closed. So you try a different segment, and finally see some traction.
- What should my value prop be? → You closed one buyer for one specific reason. Now, you can test that as your lead value prop going forward.
- What’s the best way to generate leads? → Your buyer isn’t a desk worker, so you decide to stop emailing and lead with cold calls. You notice that when you mention a specific part of your background, this buyer gets excited to meet, so you double down on it.
- How to do I get them to close? → You lost a deal by demoing to the wrong stakeholders too early. Bummer, but a lesson learned – now you know that you need to pair with the champion more to prep the timing and content of follow-up demos.
Now, we're talking. Now, we have clarity on what's working and what's not. What to double-down on and what to stop doing.
I can teach founders the systems and tools that will help you go to market. These methods work. But only if you use them.
Another founder put it this way: “Clarity is a gift, time-saver, and a money-saver. For some time, you might be shielded from the impact that this lack of clarity will have on your business. But eventually, the cost of waiting will become too great, and you’ll have to pay that toll. You’ll wish you’d paid it earlier.”
The cost of waiting is real. The antidote is simple, but never easy: sell.
This is Extra Extra, a newsletter about the tactics and mindsets that drive early sales. I’m Caroline Fay, an exited social impact founder who’s spent my career launching and selling new products. I help non-traditional tech founders build sustainable, recurring revenue.
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Caroline Fay
