EXTRA EXTRA

A newsletter about early sales from The Extra Group

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We've reached the final stretch of our journey through the sales myths and mindset traps that can hold early founders back. After tackling "building before selling" and the misconceptions about who makes a good salesperson, it's time to bust through three final limiting beliefs that might keep you from revenue momentum.

Myth: "If selling doesn't go well, I'm a failure."

Many founders take sales challenges personally, whether it’s a lost deal, an awkward sales call, or an underperforming process. You might feel like your startup is failing, or even worse... that you, as a person, are.

"If I just prepare enough for every call, I can prevent failure," you might think.

And it’s natural to fall into that thought pattern and try to prepare your way out of that feeling. The belief could stem from your upbringing, how society has historically treated you, or your professional background.

Heck, if you were trained as a scientist or worked in a field like management consulting, the expectation of sheer excellence isn’t just implicit -- you probably received explicit messages that presenting any imperfect work would be a catastrophe.

But building a startup is different (thank goodness). I'll let comedian Matteo Lane make my case.

In a recent Wired video interview (for their Tech Support series, which is incredible), Matteo was asked about bombing on stage.

He responded, “Bombing is fundamentally the most important thing you can learn… It’s great because you need to know what is or isn’t working. If you’re bombing a lot, you’re not connecting with the audience in the way that you should. You need to go back on stage, every single night, to figure out what works and what doesn’t work.”

Selling is the same.

If your "material" isn't resonating with your target buyer and market, you'll want to make some tweaks, get back on stage, and test it again.

If you bomb and then integrate those learnings into your next approach, you're not failing. The contrary, in fact... you're doing exactly what needs to be done to become successful.

Myth: "I'm not good enough at sales yet."

Founders often feel like they need to learn more about how to sell before they start. And that’s partially true. Certain basic best practices can improve your outcomes (e.g., always set your next call while you’re on the call, don’t send a proposal over email, et cetera).

But let’s return to the standup metaphor.

Let's say you’re an aspiring comedian and you’ve written a standup set. You’ve edited it over and over, and at this point, you wouldn’t change a thing. She's perfect. Now, it's time to perform it.

What you’ve prepared may have you feeling like the next Chris Rock, but when you get on stage, audiences may not feel the same. Plus, you’ve spent so much time perfecting your set in writing, but you haven't worked on your stage presence, your pacing, or your ability to hear and react to the audience’s response.

Comedy doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s only as funny as your target audience thinks it is. Same with sales.

So I recommend learning the basics, but then hitting the “stage” as swiftly as possible to apply those learnings.

No amount of preparation will make you "good enough."

Perfecting your sales pitch isn’t possible until you socialize it with your buyer, and even then, a perfect sales pitch isn’t a reasonable goal anyway.

Instead, your goal is much more attainable and human-centered: uncover whether a buyer is a match with your product, connect with them, and see if you can be of service.

Myth: "I don't have enough time for sales."

Do you feel like, week after week, you don’t accomplish as much cold outreach or as many sales calls as you hoped? Or do you feel like you have too many different priorities going on right now that sales always falls down your list?

If that's you... I’m going to hold your hand when I say this… you’ve got to make more time for sales if you want revenue.

I know that you are balancing so much. I have been there! But for early founders, sales should be the Sun in your solar system of priorities – all other work should revolve around it.

Because of how incredibly valuable getting out into the field is, it’s critical to reorient your priorities and schedule to ensure sales gets the attention it deserves.

Consistent revenue is the way to keep your startup alive and thriving, so make sure that your other founder commitments, like product development, team building, networking, and marketing, don’t supersede your revenue responsibilities. It can happen without you even realizing it.

To that end (and as a little treat for completing this series with me), I’m jazzed to share a tool I recently built: my Consistent Sales Calculator. It will help you audit your time, figure out where your hours are going, and reallocate things so that you can dedicate more time to selling. Additionally, the tool guides you to identify and work around any inflexible commitments, like family responsibilities or a job that's supporting your founder journey, so that you can still build a more consistent sales practice around those essential responsibilities.

Throughout this series, we've addressed some of the most common myths and limiting beliefs that can keep founders stuck:

1. "I can't sell yet because my product isn't ready."
2. "Good salespeople are extroverts."
3. "Sales requires persuasion."
4. "If a sales call doesn't go well, I've failed."
5. "I'm not good enough at sales yet."
6. "I don't have enough time for sales."

Which of these resonates most with you? Are you grappling with another belief about sales that isn’t represented here? I would love to hear from you, and I'd be happy to chat through what's blocking you any time.

This is Extra Extra, a newsletter about the tactics and mindsets that drive early sales. I’m Caroline Fay, and I’m 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.

Caroline Fay

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