Interview: Stories of first sales meetings

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來自 HEC Paris 的課程

Entrepreneurship Strategy: From Ideation to Exit

153 個評分

HEC Paris

Entrepreneurship Strategy: From Ideation to Exit

153 個評分

This course covers in the chronological order each defining step of an entrepreneurial project. It begins with very personal considerations related to getting to better know yourself better so as to decide if you are ready for the multiple challenges of entrepreneurship. It then deals with creativity in order to provide the right set of tools to find an idea with the right potential to disrupt an existing business. We then discuss how to gather a founding team, how to raise money to initiate the project, and how to deal with day to day cash management. Later in the course, we discuss the art of selling, focusing on business to business sales, and how to measure the product launch phase using cohort analysis. Later on, we discuss the challenges of HR in an entrepreneurial environment, and of recruiting at a point where nobody knows your company. We then describe very practical techniques to initiate the international development of a small company. Last, we cover the exit strategy topic.

從本節課中

Igniting your project

In this module, you will learn the basics of day to day cash management as well as selecting and monitoring the right financial indicators. In the second part of this module, you will learn the importance of Selling: the great art of creating. We will also discuss about how to maintain rapport and how to launch a product by using the cohort analysis.

Getting your First Meeting with your Prospect: Part 15:22

Getting your First Meeting with your Prospect: Part 24:03

Interview: Stories of first sales meetings6:22

The Sales Meeting and the Art of Creating Rapport: Part 16:29

The Sales Meeting and the Art of Creating Rapport: Part 22:15

Interview: Stories of defining moments during sales meetings7:10

與講師見面

Ambroise Huret
Partner at Eleven Strategy & Management
strategy and management

[MUSIC]

It was very easy, I took the Yellow Pages, found the telephone number,

and called Carrefour in Levallois, next to Paris.

It's very common sense.

You can be in contact with who you want on the planet with common sense.

"Hey guys, we already have cookies, so are your cookies unique?"

And by the quality of the ingredients,

by the shape, by the technology, it was bringing something new.

The best way is to give a cookie to our clients so they can taste it.

And it's really different.

Well, my first client was a tennis player, of course.

I remember when I came to him he was injured,

so he was not competing anymore, he was out of the tour.

As it sometimes happens, no one really believes in you at that time.

I would say I was efficient just because I was authentic.

And because I was showing him that I still believed in him,

and that we could still achieve great things together.

Through our own network.

The good thing about having new customers who like your service

is that you can ask them to bring some of their relationships,

to become your extra new customers.

The first clients, or the first prospects we got, were mostly

from my personal network, friends, family, people I had worked with.

We did a big launch event where we called out everybody we knew.

The other thing that really helped us at first was PR.

We hired a small PR agency

and they got us a lot of press, because we had a very cool device.

That helped us convince Total,

which is the big energy company in France.

Well I haven't done much B2C in my life, so I wouldn't really know the difference.

But in B2B meetings, it really depends.

I think they want to know, or at least they should be asking you

whether it makes sense for them to get the device.

The other difference is that very often,

there are several people that you need to convince.

The people that you need to convince may not be in the room that day.

So you have to gather more information when you're in a sales meeting,

a B2B one at least.

It's still the same five years later,

because we've improved on the technology and the result that it produces.

It's the same one: "wow, this is cool".

So we get that initial feeling,

but very often after that comes the question: "what is the ROI?"

And that's very tricky, because we are selling something very innovative

that hasn't been proven, that hasn't been used before.

We cannot tell them, "look, you're going to get your investment back

in 5, 6, or 12 months".

So that's the difficult part.

But we've built upon trust with the current clients.

And we now have enough references that this question becomes easier to deal with.

I would say number one is be relentless, just go bug them as much as you can,

as much as you think they'll take,

because even if it's too much, fine.

But very often, you'll notice that some people will actually start talking to you

very far into that bugging process.

And the other piece of advice I would give them

is do not give anything for free, even if it's very little money.

Just show that you believe in the value of what you have.

You can do trade deals, if you want.

You can barter some stuff.

But make sure they have a vested interest in doing business with you.

I think calling remains the most efficient way to find customers.

A lot better than emails.

In my particular case, I really enjoy advising my customers, who are B2B,

helping them to sell, be more efficient with their customers, in their case B2C.

I've discovered that I'm a lot better at advising people how to sell

than selling B2C myself.

In my case they're always saying the Internet is bad,

it's only for people looking for very cheap quotes and so on.

Which, at the beginning, was actually true.

But people are using it all the time now.

I would say I arrived at the right time,

at the beginning when the Internet was becoming more accessible in my area.

When you start a business, you need to face your customer.

Once your business is ongoing, you can do everything by phone.

But at the beginning, you have to face your customer,

because you'll get a lot more insight from a face to face discussion than by phone.

[MUSIC]

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