15.387  Technology Sales and Sales Management

“There are damn few hunters…but everyone likes to eat meat”

– Jim Brown, NFL Hall of Fame

Nothing happens until a sale is made. That simple point underlines the critical importance of sales to the entrepreneur. Almost every business plan “assumes” a certain amount of sales, but that assumption is the tipping point. Without sales the entire business model is an exercise in frustration.

The entrepreneur must not only understand the sales process but also embrace the fact that the ability to sell is the single most critical success factor of any new enterprise.  This course does not approach sales from the vaunted perspective of ‘strategy’. It gets right into the very practical and tactical ins and outs of how to sell technical products to a sophisticated marketplace. Then it moves into the more complex subject of how to build and manage a sales force and covers subjects such as building compensation systems for a sales force, assigning territories, resolving disputes, and dealing with channel conflicts.

In a larger sense, the entrepreneur has to “sell” his vision to perspective employees, to angel and venture investors and to strategic partners. While all true and all necessary, but this course focuses directly on selling to customers, whether that is through a direct sales force, a channel sales force, or building an OEM relationship. Sales is the one function that can’t hide behind the veil of corporate doubletalk; sales goals are either made or not made. Every entrepreneurial activity leverages off of that single fact. Markets are not totally rational organizations and the firms with the best sales teams will usually win.