Start-up Sales Advice from Three Sales Champions

It’s not everyday that southern tech companies run sales-oriented events in Manchester, and I was really glad that I signed up to attend NewVoiceMedia’s CloudFest event at Manchester City Football Club.

While I was there I asked for one piece of advice from each of the panel members.

• Fergus Gloster, Non-Executive Director, NewVoiceMedia: Only hire sales staff after proving the value proposition and the sales process.
• Maria McMenamin, Sales Manager, Emerging & SMB UK, Salesforce: Tap into the Salesforce network by listing on the AppExchange. 
• Basil Choudhry, Head of Marketing, EPOS Now: It does not matter if all the questions are not answered. Get out there and sell. 

The context to this advice is that my company UnifiedVU is a start-up, currently in the process of commercialisation.

It was good to catch up with Salesforce development celebrity Phil Walton after a long time, and listen to a sales master class delivered by veteran Fergus Gloster, who helped build sales teams for Salesforce and Marketo in the UK and Ireland.  Maria McMenamin shared how Salesforce uses its own product to manage the sales process and achieve continuous growth. And Basil Choudhry had an awesome story to share. EPOS Now hit a wall which helped the company to appreciate the value of great systems and processes. A very candid and passionate story!

Held on 10 September, NewVoiceMedia's CloudFest was an afternoon packed with innovation and insight. Visitors learnt how to sell more, serve better and grow faster with improved efficiency, reduced churn and greater customer advocacy using Salesforce and NewVoiceMedia.

Manoj is founder and CEO of UnifiedVU