In all my work with founders, there are two things I’m always going to cover:
- How to start selling before you feel ready.
- How to run a sales call.
I’ve been noticing something, though.
Founders will get on board with selling early pretty quickly – but when it comes to actually scheduling those sales calls, they get stuck.
They revert to a prior line of thinking: “I’m not ready.”
They share objections like:
- “Well, I don’t know what I’m selling yet.”
- “I don’t want to be salesy.”
- “I don’t know if they want to buy, so I shouldn’t try to sell to them.”
These founders have already agreed that they should be selling early. Yet they now have hesitations.
I have a hunch as to why.
I think the problem is with the terminology I’m using. Sales call.
This phrase seems to immediately manifest objections in a founder's brain. It creates hurdles that are not actually there.
If I could turn back the clock, I'd probably call them something different. A “non-sales call.”
I know. Confusing! But at least your first reaction might be “wait, what?” rather than, “but I can’t do a sales call, ya see, because…”
Here’s why I joke about calling it a non-sales call.
It’s because the goal of your first call with a potential buyer is not necessarily to sell.
The goal is to learn something about the person you’re on the call with. To learn something tangible about the market you’re targeting.
Specifically, you need to understand what the buyer may have demand for.
Buyers in your market are walking around with certain needs and beliefs. Consciously or not, they are harboring certain demands for solutions in their life. We have no control over what they have demand for. We can’t manufacture a need that isn’t there. We can only uncover and identify what they have demand for.*
So here’s where the “non-sales call” of it all comes in: if they do not have demand for anything related to your product…. it was never a sales call.
It was research! It was research into your market.
If you’ve followed best practice, and done the right discovery to understand what the prospect does and doesn’t have a need for, and it’s clear their demand exists in a different area from your product… why would you sell to them?
You shouldn’t.
The outcome of that call was never going to be revenue.
The outcome is learning.
It was simply an incredibly valuable opportunity to learn about what is actually high priority for your current target buyer right now, even if it has nothing to do with what your startup currently does.
Now on the flip side, if you determine they do have demand for something in the ballpark of your product, then yes, this call is now a sales call.
If they're trying to get something done that your company can help with, they'll want to hear about it. If they really need help and you think you can help them, they'll be genuinely thrilled you brought it up.
This is why I push founders to run these calls early and often: they exist primarily to help us understand where demand is. This needs to happen early because, without demand, your startup cannot survive. It will not find escape velocity or PMF.
Run these calls within a sell-to-learn cycle, and they become the engine that powers your startup to success.
Ten calls with the same kind of buyer in two weeks is a remarkably rich and concentrated dataset.
Look back across those calls and ask: what trends show up across the prospects who did have demand?
This is how you’ll isolate undeniable data on where demand exists in the market, and how it presents itself. Isolating that data is how you get to repeatable sales. It doesn’t happen without these calls.
Call them whatever you like. Sales calls. Non-sales calls. Prospect calls. Whatever’s your pleasure.
Regardless, remember that your primary responsibility as a founder seeking PMF is to confirm demand through real conversations with prospects.
Run calls, as many as you can. Do great discovery. Stay curious if they don’t have demand and let it influence your direction and assumptions. Sell if there is.
In my Repeatable Sales Club community, you get access to the nitty-gritty specifics of how to run these calls. Scripts for first calls, second calls, demons, and beyond. Plus office hours every week, where you get real feedback on your calls to accelerate your revenue momentum.
*The concept of demand is usually a major unlock for startups looking to ramp up sales. If you want to understand it better and aren't in my community, check out Demand-Side Sales 101 by Bob Moesta and The Power of Pull by Rob Snyder.
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
