This is from @seanblack, CEO of SalesCrunch.  This is so true.  Most of us still don’t really understand or appreciate the art and science of sales and difference between an effective and excellent sales professional and the lingering “cliché” back slapping salesperson.

Because in the internet tech world, money is sexy, but sales is often perceived as dirty.  I am constantly astounded how few technology CEO’s and other key management team members at startups understand or respect sales.  At the end of the day, sales is the lifeblood of most any company and, like or not, every key member of a startup from marketing to product to engineering and operations plays a critical role in the success or failure of a sales organization. The primary reason for this ignorance in Internet technology is that most of the companies are started by people with product and engineering backgrounds who have had little exposure to sales.  The other reason is that there is a naïve and rampant belief in our industry that if you build it they will come.  And if they don’t come you can just keep raising venture capital until they find their way.  The irony is that the very companies most widely perceived as having built self-serve revenue models like Google, Facebook and Yelp have huge sales teams driving the majority of their revenue.

Businesses live or die based on the sales and client service effort, period.

Brick