Sales cycles and startups

Today I attended the TiE Midwest sponsored 'Sales Cycles for Startups' presentation. A few tips I picked up:

* Don't rejoice on your first sale - rejoice only when you know that your customer is actually using your product
* Intellectual honesty helps - remember that people aren't always out to cheat you - its in their best interest to see that you remain in business if they put their skin in the game
* Never give your product off for free - ensure that your customers put their skin in the line = this also ensures that you get greater buy in and more people than just the folks you interact with agree to the utility of your product
* Entrepreneurs go to VCs in a moment of weakness - Interesting statement by Mohan Warrior
* Enterprises may be early adopters in their core area of business - Investment Bankers deal with information and therefore may invest in information tech. that gives them a competitive edge, while a manufacturing firm may be an early adopter in manufacturing tech but not necessarily IT
* Try to get a sponsor/champion for your product at your customer site
* KNOW your customers before you approach them with a solution. Don't force a solution on them unless you truly believe it will help them.
* Be ready to punt - in case you've tried selling to a customer for a long time or someone corners you into a negotiation that can make you go under - be ready to let go

Some more tips:
* You may want to give discounts to your customers in exchange for publicity such as a press release stating they use your product
* Get a recurring revenue stream from something simple - like a BPO operation - to feed your product development