Sales Is a Numbers Game

A founder told me today: I reach out to 3000 people a month. I have about 1 client conversation a day. I don’t have enough revenue from these clients. I am converting only 1% of the outreach into qialified leads and even fewer into customers.

Poll: Is their sales pipeline good enough? (Respond in comments)

My answer: No.

Top of the funnel is the most important metric in sales. The more people you speak to, the higher the chances you make a sale. That’s it. That’s sales in a nutshell.

But what about conversion? #

The founder continued: I need more capital. If I improve the product, I will be able to take 10 calls a day. I’m bound to get more paid customers, then!

Well, if you look at it, 1 conversation a day is 30 a month, and 10 day is 300 a month. That’s a 10X improvement in conversion. Easy enough? Not really. Think about how much the product might have to change, the messaging has to improve to get a 10X(!!) improvement in conversion.

On the other hand, if the founder somehow reaches out to 30,000 people a month, the same 1% conversion rate gets them 300 conversations! That’s easier to achieve. Through various databases, social media, events, and so on, one can increase the top of the funnel.

That which is seen, is sold #

If you’re not top of the mind, you’re not going to make the sale. It doesn’t matter what you have to do to stay on top of mind. Recently there are a bunch of founders who’ve ‘hacked’ the memetic algorithm on twitter, so to say. THey’ve used this virality to their benefit, and significantly increased their sales.

The problem with founders who are learning to sell is this: They’re scared of selling. They’re scared of being rejected. This may manifest in many ways, including “Well, the product isn’t good enough.” The product is never going to be good enough for customers. They will always have problems. It doesn’t matter. Your product will improve. Go and sell.

While you’re here, invisible, scared of being judged or failing, that founder out there is selling and making money.

Don’t complicate Sales. Sales is a numbers game. Just go out and talk, go out and sell, to as many as you can.

I’m excited to work with founders with the right mindset. Reach out to me at startups at vatsalkanakiya dot com.

If you’re exploring how to work with AI to scale your business, reach out at consult at vatsalkanakiya dot com.