How Great Founders Approach Sales

1. DCDalton Caldwell0:00

   If I'm trying to sell you a burrito you don't want-

2. MSMichael Seibel0:03

   Yeah, yeah

3. DCDalton Caldwell0:03

   ... trying to keep cutting the price doesn't make you want the burrito.

4. MSMichael Seibel0:08

   No.

5. DCDalton Caldwell0:08

   If anything, it make, it makes it kinda worse if you keep discounting it-

6. MSMichael Seibel0:12

   100% worse

7. DCDalton Caldwell0:12

   ... 'cause you're like, "What's wrong with this burrito?"

8. MSMichael Seibel0:13

   Yes. [laughs] [upbeat music] All right. Welcome to Dalton + Michael. Today we're gonna talk about startup sales, and specifically mess-ups, screw-ups, misconceptions. Like, I think that, uh, instead of trying to make a sales 101 style video, we wanna make it more entertaining by talking-

9. DCDalton Caldwell0:34

   [laughs]

10. MSMichael Seibel0:34

    ... about when people screw up. And, uh, that's always the most fun stuff. So when you're in office hours with a founder and you're just sitting here, you know, you're hearing kind of, kind of a, a ho-hum story, something didn't work, and then, like, you just hear something that makes you cringe.

11. DCDalton Caldwell0:50

    [laughs]

12. MSMichael Seibel0:51

    You're just like, "Eh." [laughs] Like, tell an example of that, like where you're just like, "Oh."

13. DCDalton Caldwell0:55

    Look-

14. MSMichael Seibel0:56

    [laughs]

15. DCDalton Caldwell0:57

    ... I certainly was the type of founder who wasn't excited about the concept of sales, and I had a lot of cartoonish ideas-

16. MSMichael Seibel1:05

    Fair

17. DCDalton Caldwell1:05

    ... about what sales looks like, right? You picture, like, a used car salesman or an insurance salesman or just, like, a high-pressure, um-

18. MSMichael Seibel1:13

    Yeah

19. DCDalton Caldwell1:13

    ... timeshare salesman. Oh, you love those, right? And so I'm like, "Man, I never wanna do that. That's bad."

20. MSMichael Seibel1:17

    Yes.

21. DCDalton Caldwell1:18

    I think that founders may resolve themselves they need to do sales, like it's a nec- necessary thing.

22. MSMichael Seibel1:26

    Yeah.

23. DCDalton Caldwell1:26

    But they deep down are still thinking about the used car salesman-

24. MSMichael Seibel1:30

    Yeah

25. DCDalton Caldwell1:30

    ... somewhere.

26. MSMichael Seibel1:31

    It's like they never had a canonical example of good sales.

27. DCDalton Caldwell1:34

    It's like this. It's that good sales is so good it doesn't feel like sales.

28. MSMichael Seibel1:38

    Yeah. Yes.

29. DCDalton Caldwell1:39

    Like, think about service providers.

30. MSMichael Seibel1:41

    Yeah.

Episode duration: 21:00