[Video] Startup Snacks: Sales for Startups

In this Startup Snacks interview, we talk with Perry Wiggin, VP of Sales at Raken, about building a sales team at a startup. He’ll discuss what he looks for while hiring a team, solving challenges while working in a startup, and how the customer always comes first.

Check it out below and follow Startup Snacks for similar content in the future!

So my background in sales has been yeah, we’re just either being on the front lines as an individual individual contributor or leading teams in sales and coaching and mentoring them to be successful in their trade. So, you know, I’ve enjoyed sales over a number of years. I know historically, you know, been in sales most of my life and certainly enjoy the the opportunity to work with customers, to speak with customers to learn their challenges and certainly helped them get through some of those challenges with products and services that are provided to them.

What drove me to sales is I had grown up with a father that was in sales, that was always part of the family and something that I kind of fell into and it’s always always enjoyed, so my background has been again working in mostly software, but I’ve done things from selling garbage trucks to selling pizza so growing up in the world of sales has always been part of who I am and what I enjoy and I think will always be a part of part of my life going forward.

I look for people that are like minded, focused on customers and providing a quality product and service to customers that, you know, I think you’re going to help them do their jobs better, so when we when we have challenges it’s typically about finding the right people that are going to do that and then certainly resources.

As you step into the start up world, you know, resources can be scarce, so sometimes you’ll have to do different things, and we’re gonna have to just pick up the slack or sometimes something may get left, you’re not going to necessarily have just one job all the time you’re going to be wearing multiple hats, doing different duties throughout the day throughout the week, so understanding that and knowing that and being able to tackle that without the resources that maybe a much larger organization would have is certainly a challenge, but it’s also allows for a lot of flexibility and freedom.

There’s a number of things that we look for in the inside sales team there’s there’s obviously industry experience in addition to working in the construction space so it’s, sometimes you’re not always going to find that, but I think some of the key components to hiring the right people in sales is are they are they here because they believe in what we’re doing? Do they have the vision and do they do they have on understanding of what we’re trying to accomplish in? Are they excited to come and work and be here every day and be a part of something. What’s nice about the startup is, you know, there’s there’s many voices that contribute and have a thumbprint and have a voice to the growth of the company. So i think bringing people in that have fresh ideas, that I want to be a voice in the growth of the company just in the company itself.

The product, and how the product develops and working with customers, I think, is really, really important. So certainly if you think about you all the things that go into hiring a good salesperson, certainly it’s there’s a competitive side which I think is always a healthy thing they have in sales, I looked to people who have worked on teams have learned to collaborate that can work together and solve a problem, collectively have a voice of the table and want to be heard, but the same time can also accept constructive criticism in order to get better. So, you know, when you look at somebody that, you know, is going to be a good person, somebody is going to do well in the start of environment, it’s, it’s really having that open minded being part of something bigger than themselves, but also, you know, having a voice and contributing to the success of so one of the things I think in solving some of the challenges inside a startup organization is having access to your customers listening to your customers understanding their challenges and when we’re able to do that those are going to be the pieces in the keys to success so when we can understand who our customers are put the direction of the company and a product you know ahead of the customer so that we’re solving those problems for the customers I think is certainly one of the ways that you know we’re able to overcome some of the challenges in the startup organization, particularly in sales so as a product grows we listen to our customers you know their feedback is always critical and key to the development, the product and the direction the company so you know, appreciating that feedback whether it’s negative or positive it’s always good to ensure that we have a pulse on what the customer’s doing if we lose that if we lose that that understanding if we lose that communication then it makes it very difficult for us to develop a product that’s going to be you know, make a difference and help our customers out of the way to stay successful.…