Bill Dickinson has spent over 35 years selling business to business, building sales teams, and working with CEOs on optimizing their sales processes for many hardware suppliers. From building access machines to communication equipment to IT components, Bill has helped build a number of companies to multi-millions in new sales. Today Bill is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers should apply sales to getting your product going, start with your first sales hire or sales partner, and scale your product business through sales teams, especially when selling to other business like retailers, distributors, and wholesalers.
Today you will hear us talk about:
- Sales is critical to any hardware start-up or scale-up, from selling yourself, selling the business, selling
- Hiring for personality is better than hiring for product or industry knowledge
- What type of product are you selling
- What methods are you going to use to sell
- Sellers need a quality product, at a fair price, that has great service and/or support.
- Before you start selling, first ensure you have a need.
- Timing, luck, and skill, in that order, when doing cold calling.
- Make sure you have a product that is at least a little bit different, and unique.
- Spend time and effort finding detailed lists.
- Relationship selling. Build credibility and trust early, and in a small way.
- If you can make the purchaser’s life simpler, they will buy a lot more, and more new products
- 3 sales streams - Straight sales, existing customer sales, and business development
- Some new, existing, and future.
- More connections to a buyer, the higher the probability of an eventual sale.
EPISODE LINKS
Bill Dickinson Link:
The Product Startup Podcast Links:
Mako Design Links:
Kevin Mako Links:
About: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop-shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories. Also, our founder Kevin Mako hosts The Product Startup Podcast, the industry’s leading hardware podcast. Check it out for tips, interviews, and best practices for hardware startups, inventors, and product developers. Click HERE to learn more about Mako Design + Invent!
