This is a common, reasonable thought process that often follows from the lack of understanding of what (effective) sales people do. But it's also a big part of what make sales people and almost all non-sales people feel somewhat immiscible - especially at a startup where you're probably a tight-knit group.
the #1 thing an effective salesperson does (in any size company) is this:
-> Focus your company's energy to be as effective as possible at closing deals you'll be able and willing to repeat.
How do they do this?
#1 - Avoid wasting your company's precious time on deals that don't convert to paying customers in a reasonable timeframe.
#2 - Close those deals that do. This requires skills like listening, positioning, negotiating, empathy, technical and also truly understanding the actual reasons someone is compelled to buy your technology.
#3 - Manage a pipeline: fill it with more prospective deals that look like those that do close; qualify and then remove those that don't.
#4 - Build trust with prospective and existing customers.
At b2b startups, sales people are there to help discover, build, and tune the repeatable sale -- this important work at a startup will help you (and your board) learn if/where it even exists!
Unfortunately, if you took 10 companies, good at sales but kinda bad at engineering. Another 10, kinda bad at sales but great at engineering -- yeah you know where I'm going with this.
the #1 thing an effective salesperson does (in any size company) is this:
-> Focus your company's energy to be as effective as possible at closing deals you'll be able and willing to repeat.
How do they do this?
#1 - Avoid wasting your company's precious time on deals that don't convert to paying customers in a reasonable timeframe. #2 - Close those deals that do. This requires skills like listening, positioning, negotiating, empathy, technical and also truly understanding the actual reasons someone is compelled to buy your technology. #3 - Manage a pipeline: fill it with more prospective deals that look like those that do close; qualify and then remove those that don't. #4 - Build trust with prospective and existing customers.
At b2b startups, sales people are there to help discover, build, and tune the repeatable sale -- this important work at a startup will help you (and your board) learn if/where it even exists!
Unfortunately, if you took 10 companies, good at sales but kinda bad at engineering. Another 10, kinda bad at sales but great at engineering -- yeah you know where I'm going with this.