startup marketing & sales

Deliver Powerful Pitches to Investors

in 10 Minutes

Start-upSales + Marketing

Top 10 Things To Know

Caroline Cummings | @iamcarolina

Ideators

Innovators

Starters

Growers

Exiters

What’s Wrong?

AskListenImplementRewardThank

Include Customers in your R&D

MVP

Early Market Validation

Tell A Story

Know what

word(s) you want to own in the mind of the consumer…

If you were about to give a speech to a large audience,

and someone asked, “what is your talk about?”

You’d say__________________!

Driving

Safety

Social Network

Building a company

Means

Selling things

Means…

Building a brand!

Know what you want to own

How you will defend it

Your CompetitionClearly communicate your Value Proposition

Due Diligence on Competition

City/LocalFocus

No CharacterLimitations

Free toPost

Can IncludeImages

SocialMedia

FriendlyEasy to search

Local Newspaper

✪

✪

✪ ✪ ✪ ✪ ✪

Who are you selling to?

Target Markets

Target Markets

1st2nd3rd4th5th

Beta Market, Addressable Market, Market Segments, % of Revenue/Market, Potential Market...

Highlight any Key Research

TAM: total possible demand for your product

SAM: based on your current business model

SOM: based on practical limits of your business model

Target Markets1st Harvard/Stanford

2nd Ivy League

3rd Colleges/Univs

4th 14 – 34 yrs old Businesses…5thFastest growing demographic

Women 55+ years old

Acquiring Your Customers?Including the cost to acquire a

customer

Assumptions are King!

It’s the #’s Behind the Numbers that matter!

Selling & Marketing is

Listening

• Monitor• Learn• Compare• Respond

www.google.com/alerts

Listen Online

“Nice to see a large company listening.”

Respond!

GatherCitizen

Marketers

Customer evangelists who generate media (primarily online) on behalf of products, services, companies, or people who generate inspiration.

Citizen marketers

10

1%

“Anything Worthwhile is

Difficult.”-- Coco Chanel

How to Step Outside of Your Comfort Zone and Sell Faster,

Better, Smarter…

Caroline CummingsVP of Biz Dev & SalesPalo Alto Software

Comfort Zone = A type of mental conditioning that causes a person to create and operate mental boundaries

Comfort Zones Define Us

What’s it look like?

Fear

ComfortZone# 5 Deep Water

# 4 Financial Problems

# 3 Insects and Bugs

# 2 Heights

# 1 Public speaking

ComfortZone

PublicSpeaking

Starting a Vlog

ToastMasters

Making Sales Calls

A Healthy Dose of Anxiety

Anxiety can improve performance…

…but, if you step beyond your optimum performance zone…

Danger Zone

Danger Zone As levels of anxiety or discomfort increase to high levels – performance can decline rapidly

Traveling to Cairo During Social

Unrest…

If you don’t step out of your comfort zone

you WILL miss opportunities

How to do it?

Unleash Your Inner Hero

Defending the Underdog

Convince in Style

Kick AssTake Names

Don’t sell…

Enchant !!

“Enchantment transforms

situations and relationships. It converts hostility into

civility.

It reshapes civility into affinity. It changes

skeptics and cynics into believers.”

If you don’t step out of your comfort zone

you WILL miss opportunities

Opportunities like:

Raising fundsWinning customers

Recruiting talentLanding partnershipsGetting promotions

…

4 Tips for Winning Sales

Tip #1

Never make a cold call!!

Due diligenceMedia mentionsLinkedin profiles InterestsCompetitorsThink quality not

quantity

Tip #2View a “No”

as an opportunity

NegotiationsOpen…

Fail Fastor

Scale Fast

Tip #3

Find a Minimum Viable Partnership

Tip #4

One way I am going to step outside of my comfort zone is by_________________.

How to Step Outside of Your Comfort Zone and Sell Faster,

Better, Smarter…

Caroline CummingsVP of Biz Dev & SalesPalo Alto Software