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59 Tips for Scaling Startup Sales: Announcing a New eBook from Upshift!

When some of our Upshift advisors suggested we develop an eBook to help encapsulate some of the great teachings that are part of our 12-week curriculum to help accelerate the growth of tech startups, I thought, ok, I’ll add it to our project sprint for that week. Four months later, I couldn’t be prouder of the detailed, yet easy-to-read summary of 59 tips, directly from the mouths of some of our stellar team of advisors, that can help any startup hone in on the process necessary to scale successfully. We all know “learning from mistakes” is part of the drill when it comes to startup growth, but who wants to make mistakes? Wouldn’t it be great if you could minimize some of the pain that comes with turning your passion into a profitable enterprise? In this eBook, startup founders will come to understand some of the common pitfalls made by young companies in the early days so you can do your best to avoid them. For some, it will provide the structure and organization that your company currently lacks; for others, it will be a refresher on what you know to be true about building exceptional sales teams but are too caught up in the day-to-day tasks to act upon it. The eBook is divided into six sections which closely mirror the stages of growth acceleration Upshift implements through its curriculum:

  • Setting Your Foundation
  • Creating Systems & Processes
  • Developing a Sales Playbook
  • Hiring & Managing
  • Testing & Optimizing
  • Scaling for Growth

We’ve interviewed some of the best and brightest minds in startup growth and distilled down their knowledge into these powerful tips, including advice, lessons learned, and “aha moments” from: Arjun Dev Arora, Chairman of the Board and Founder of ReTargeter David Baga, SVP of Revenue & Operations for Rocket Lawyer Andrew Riesenfeld, VP of Field Sales for GuideSpark (formerly, VP WW Sales Development + Pipeline at Responsys) Mark Roberge, Chief Revenue Officer of the HubSpot Sales Division Aaron Ross, #1 best-selling author of Predictable Revenue and The Predictable Revenue Guide to Tripling Your Sales David Skok, Venture Capital Partner at Matrix Partners, and the author of the ForEntrepreneurs blog Navid Zolfaghari, Founder of Pinpoint Mobile (formerly, early team member at Wildfire Interactive) And their advice is not always what you would expect. For example… On Setting Your Foundation,  Aaron Ross says: “Set it up right from the beginning. Dedicate an inside sales team or role 100% to prospecting and generating opportunities to pass on to the Account Executives/closers. This is always priority #1! Plan to segment your inbound and outbound teams; don’t expect the same sales reps to do both.” On Hiring & ManagingArjun Dev Arora says: “Understand that hiring is one part research, one part execution, and one part gut. For the research, investigate what they sold before. For execution, give them an assignment and see how they do. Don’t rely solely on gut; look for signs or past examples of flexibility, consistency, intelligence, follow up and creativity. Do they have a desire to close and win? Are they driven? How badly do they want it? It may be hard to quantify these; that’s where the gut comes in.” On Scaling for GrowthMark Roberge says: “Create your own space and own it.  As competition grows, your original vision may be copied or done better by another company. Don’t duke it out in a bloody battle. Figure out where you excel and focus on that, and market yourself that way. Be prepared to pivot based on market conditions. What works now may not work three months from now.” The eBook includes a special bonus section that shares personal wisdom in the form of What Every Startup Founder Should Know. Here, David Skok candidly advises new Founders: “It’s not a straight line to success; you need to have the ability to go through walls to get to your dream. The journey is much harder than what most people romanticize. Most people who succeed will tell you they’ve had some horrendously hard moments and had to reach deep into their souls to figure out how to survive. You have to have unbelievable fortitude to make it happen.” Of course, you’ll also find lots of advice from me throughout the eBook, as I have definitely learned a few things along the way to founding, bootstrapping and selling my own startups that I would love to share. Together with my partners and advisors, we’re building Upshift to be a premier resource for startups that are ready to take their businesses to the next level. Are you one of them? If so, check out our new eBook and let me know what you think by leaving a comment below. Or reach out to us here and tell us about what your company does and why it’s ready to scale. We’d love to hear from you!

You Can Download Your Ebook Here