Posted on February 21st, 2010Every business has only one end goal: to make a sale. It can be a car, a book, a program, anything – there is always something that a company offers to customers in exchange for money (or, in rare cases, other goods).
And this is normal, as it would be impossible for the business (and the people behind it) to survive without capital and income. Even companies working with and for the open-source community have a product or service they sell to more demanding and wealthy clients. In most cases it is premium customer support and customizations, sometimes it is an advanced version of the software (like Novell does).
Take for example, Google, a very young and generous company that offers most of its very useful products for free. They still make money from them using advertisements for other people’s products.
Google Search has search ads, Gmail has AdSense ads, Google Analytics has a premium version with no restrictions (the standard Analytics account has a limit of 5,000,000 monthly views, which is enough for 95% of all websites, but the remaining 5% have to pay a fee to be able to use the service). Even their open source, free mobile Operating System, Android, has an app market (similar to Apple iPhone’s), for which developers pay a commission on every sale.
A company can have a brilliant, once-in-a-thousand-years idea that would revolutionize the world and hire the best engineers and customer support staff in the best locations in the world, but if it doesn’t make any sales it will undoubtedly fail. Most of the times, to be successful, a business needs a slightly better than average product and a very good marketing department and sales representatives (which, for new startups, is often one person 
.
Now that you understand how important sales are, let’s see what any entrepreneur needs to learn in order to create a profitable and successful company:
1. Perfect your sales pitch. With a good sales pitch (or – if you work exclusively online – sales letter) you can sell a used car to an auto dealership owner . Just take a look at Steve Jobs’ presentation of the iPad and you’ll really start believing that it’s “magical” and you need one right away. There are a lot of better alternatives (Dell’s XT2, Fujitsu’s tablet PC’s or HP’s slate or tablets if you need a full computer or a Kindle if you want a reader, to name a few), but the iPad will still be a better sold device just because of the marketing and the sales pitch. Granted, Jobs has his trademarked Reality Distortion Field to help him, but anyone can write a great sales letter with a little focus and research. Find out what your customers are interested in, what life experiences they’ve had, connect these facts to your product and you’ll most definitely be successful.
2. Know your customers. You just have to know who is buying from you; otherwise you may end up selling steaks to vegetarians. Do some extensive research, learn what your clients like and dislike, what they’ve been through, and only then write (or correct) your sales pitch to be laser focused only at that category of people. Of course, you can sell the same product to other types of customers; you only need to make another customized copy of your sales letter. Super targeting always works.
3. Be fast. In everything you do. You have to be faster than your competitors, or you’ll end up losing. And with the amount of things a startup owner must do, speed is always an important advantage. Closing the contract before your competitor will ensure your customer or investor stays with you, even if the other company had a better deal.
4. Be very flexible. Most big companies have a fixed schedule which they follow, and most of the times it’s not the best one. You must always try to plan everything better and have a more flexible personal and business life. If you planned to finish your prototype by 20th, but have to present it today, you have to learn to quickly change the plan and either rewrite your sales pitch to not include the demo or demonstrate an unfinished, buggy prototype that has only the most important features working.
In our dynamic world, it would be very hard to succeed without having the above attributes. In fact, that is why old-school companies are failing – they haven’t learned to adapt and are too slow by current standards. You’ll have to work a lot to make sure your business doesn’t become like that.