Ask HN: First sales call for new startup, any pointers? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: First sales call for new startup, any pointers?

2 pointsvital1014 comments

I've been working the past few months on a new startup idea called RedemFit (https://redemfit.com). RedemFit is focused around incentivized corporate wellness. I did a soft launch yesterday on Reddit to get some feedback, and apparently someone thought it was worthwhile enough to get in contact and set up a call for today. I've done my due diligence and the company is legit and has been around more than 20 years with lots of corporate customers.

Since I've never done a sales call like this, let alone a sales call for my own startup, do you have any pointers? Things to not say, things to not promise, and what happens if I get a contract and/or paying customers out of this? I don't yet have a LLC formed so I imagine that would be first, but thats putting the cart before the horse.

Anyways, any pointers at all would be greatly appreciated.

Basic Sales Tips are always good to re-itterate

1) Create Urgency: Sale needs to happen now, not later.

2) Have the better product: Know the who/what/when/where/why you are better. If you aren't, or think you aren't, or can't BS your way into being better close up shop.

3) Relax: People can smell fear, even across a phone line.

4) Be persistent, but not pushy.

5) Understand the customer's use case: Most customers think this is great service. You care about them, you want to hear about what they do. You are making them special. But really you just make them show their hand and tell you why they're interested in you. Gives you more ammunition and potential routes to work a sale.

Great tips. I have this sneaking suspicion they may end up asking for a "white labeling" service, where they throw their brand on my product. I'm 100% open to this, but its not supported yet. Is selling something that isn't even built yet common?

> Is selling something that isn't even built yet common?

When Microsoft "sold" their operating system to IBM to run on the future IBM PC's. They didn't own an operating system, they didn't have a working operating system. At that point they had wrote a few apps for Macs, and a BASIC compiler.

One of their co-founders knew a guy, who might sell them his, maybe, for a good price.

I'm not joking. Stuff that doesn't exist gets sold every day.

Good point. I should pay attention to my history a bit more. In this case I could probably whip together the solution in a week or two, so it might as well already be built ;)

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