Posts in Start-up
The Ultimate Checklist Before Your First Sales Hire

Imagine you are the founder, owner, or CEO of a young, ambitious company. You have developed a great new product. You have taken it to some potential clients. And some of those clients were so impressed by the product that they purchased from you.  You are now ready to go to market. 

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The Perfect Storm For Interim and Fractional Sales Leadership

The OECD defines a scaleup company as a company having an average annualized return of at least 20% in the past three years with at least ten employees at the beginning of the period.

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The Ultimate Guide to Pre-Selling

Presales is the entire process of successfully closing a sale of a product that does not yet exist. Like the infamous vaporware, for example, a software or hardware product that has been advertised but is not yet available, either because it is only a concept or because it is still being written, designed or produced.

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5 Signs Your Small Business Is In a High-Growth Phase And Needs a Fractional CFO

We’re talking about 5 signs your small business or start-up is in high-growth mode and how you can collaborate with a Fractional CFO to ease the pain.

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The Ultimate Checklist on Gig Executives

The terminology used to describe this type of engagement is sometimes confusing: contractor, interim, fractional, 1099, gig, on-demand, project-based, hired gun, virtual, third-party, temporary.

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You Have the Choice – Now Let’s Make the Right Decision

A sales team without a leader is like a ship without a captain or a sports team without a coach. So, when a business loses or never had a true sales leader, the void has to be filled. There are several choices available to the Board, the CEO, the Owner, or the Founder. And as in so many situations, the right decision is often dependent on the circumstances, or the details of the scenario.

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Pivoting or the Art of Moving to Plan B

I hate the word “pivot”… and use it all the time. In disliking it, I am not alone. In recent years business publications like Inc. have included the word “Pivot” in their list of buzzwords labeled “overused,” “ridiculous,” “worst,” and “to avoid.” It is indeed an overused term.

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Do Not Hire Your First VP of Sales – A Case for the Interim Executive

The founder has taken the product to potential clients, hired a couple of salespeople, and sold it a few times. At this point do not HIRE your first VP of Sales! The executive recruiting process is going to take 6 months, cost $50-70k, and you will fire the person after 12-18 months and start over.

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The Start-up Dilemma - How Much to Spend on Sales & Marketing

I invested all my funds in product development and have nothing left to put towards sales and marketing. As a sales leader and an entrepreneur, those are the last words I want to hear. it is not a chicken-or-egg type dilemma. It is part of the continuous entrepreneurial challenge.

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