This article is by *Peter Kazanjy, co-founder of* *Atrium. It's excerpted from the* sales narrative and product marketing chapter in his book, *Founding Sales__, which tackles everything founders and first-time sales staff need to know about acquiring early customers, building and scaling winning sales teams.*
When Pete Kazanjy and Jason Heidema first started selling their new recruiting product, TalentBin, they got the same question over and over:“Why should I pay for software to find good candidates when I can just use LinkedIn or post to job boards?” Naturally, the answer to this question became one of the pillars of their sales pitch, but it also called attention to what a good pitch has to include: It must take existing solutions into account — and it must be crystal clear why the product you're selling is not only different but better.
After three years landing clients like Facebook, Microsoft and UPS, TalentBin got bought by Monster, and Kazanjy emerged with proven wisdom about building an effective sales strategy from the ground up. The first step?Building a persuasive, bulletproof narrative that will grab people's attention, get them to question existing solutions, and ultimately convince them that not using your product is costing them big.
A sales narrative is not to be confused with a sales pitch. Rather, it's the core story that can be adapted for slide decks and presentations, demos and calls. And despite popular belief, it shouldn't be a laundry list of why your company is awesome (in fact it should bake in some not-so-awesome facts too). In this exclusive preview of his book on enterprise sales, Kazanjy speaks directly about how startups can build a powerful narrative to expedite traction and scale.
Start with This Framework
What do you want in a sales process? First, you want it to be effective. It should inspire customers to convert and help you beat your goals. But second — and this is important or you'll regret it down the line — you want it to be repeatable and scaleable. That's why you need a narrative — a comprehensive story with all the components you need to then create slides, spoken messaging, website copy, videos, etc. You probably already have a lot of the language you'll want to use somewhere — either in product descriptions or fundraising pitches.But to make sure you have everything you need (in the right order to make a good argument to customers), it's critical to have structure.
Note, structure does not mean that your narrative should be set in stone. As you talk to more people and get customer feedback, you'll learn a tremendous amount about your market, your own strengths and what resonates with people. So keep it agile, and make sure you establish a healthy feedback loop between product and sales so that they can evolve side-by-side. That said, here's what I would recommend.
I am a fan of the Problem - Solution - Specifics framework:
These three steps will make up the skeleton of your narrative. Once you have that, you can build in other things specific to clients or situations (i.e. what competitors are doing, features coming down the line). But the benefit of this bare-bones structure is that each part builds on the one that came before, allowing you to make an increasingly stronger case.
This way, if someone disagrees with how you're defining the problem you set out to solve, you can focus on that (or end the conversation), rather than rehearsing parts of your pitch that aren't relevant. If the person you're talking to agrees with your problem, but isn't the one at their company who needs your solution — great — you save time and they can point you in the right direction. The narrative unfolds in a way that optimizes efficiency on both sides.
Once you have this framework mapped out, you can start filling in each section with the information that will make the biggest difference for prospective customers.
What's Your Problem?
As quickly and clearly as possible, you need to identify the business pain point that you're trying to solve so your audience can just as quickly assess whether it speaks to their needs.
As an example, TalentBin's problem statement was:“Technical recruiting is hard. It's hard to find software engineering talent with the relevant skills that people need to hire for, and even if you can find them, getting in contact with them is tough. And once you've found and contacted the relevant talent, keeping on top of all those conversations can be a huge time suck fraught with dropped balls, all leading to slower hire times and raised cost of hire.”
Or in the case of, say, Groupon, it might be: “Finding new customers for your local business is hard. With all the time you spend running your business, who has time to figure out how to drive new business through the door? But if you don’t grow your customer base to find new, repeat customers, how can you get off the hamster wheel and grow your business?”
Or in the case of Salesforce, it might be: “B2B sales is hard. You’re working on a million things at once, and it can be really easy to lose track of deals and let things fall through the cracks, which hurts your ability to reach your quota. And as a manager, it’s hard to know that your teams are working on the right things, that their efforts are directed towards the highest value opportunities, and how they’re tracking against their goals. Which leads to underperforming teams and missed forecasts. It’s tough.”
Or in the case of HubSpot, it might be: “Being an online marketer is hard. Sales wants more leads. And there’s so many things you could be spending your time on, but you’re constantly pulled in many directions, many of them not particularly fruitful. Really, you just want an all-in-one solution that can help you do the right things, automate them, and help you keep track of your success.”