1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,260 Kevin Mako: Hello, product innovators. Today we learn from one of the top salesperson trainers in the country on best sales meeting tactics for hardware founders. 2 00:00:10,850 --> 00:00:20,890 Narrator: You're listening to the Product Startup Podcast, the show that helps bring your product idea to life by chatting with successful inventors, product developers, 3 00:00:22,230 --> 00:00:33,010 Narrator: and hardware industry professionals. Our goal here is to get to the bottom of what makes a product successful, from initial idea to getting your product on store shelves. We're taking you step by step. 4 00:00:33,070 --> 00:00:46,470 Narrator: to build a functional product and scale your product business. Hosted by Kevin Mako, one of North America's leading experts on hardware development for small product businesses. Now, onto the show. 5 00:00:47,270 --> 00:01:01,050 Kevin Mako: Welcome back, everyone. Today, I'm very excited to introduce Joseph Fung to the show. Joseph is the founder of Uvaro, one of the leading training platforms in the world on training how to be a great salesperson for your product. He spent 20 years as a leader in the field, selling everything from small ticket price 6 00:01:01,050 --> 00:01:13,470 Kevin Mako: items to multi-million dollar single transactions. Today, Joseph is going to share some valuable knowledge on how inventors, startups, and small manufacturers can use simple processes to ensure highly effective sales pitches, which applies not just to selling your product, but in pitching 7 00:01:13,470 --> 00:01:27,310 Kevin Mako: every part of your product business to all of your different stakeholders. He'll then dove into the best practices on hiring your first great salesperson to expand your sales capabilities. Now, on the episode. Joseph, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Kevin. This is going to be fun. 8 00:01:27,310 --> 00:01:33,170 Kevin Mako: I understand you're getting excited that the kids are finally allowed back into school and give you some time to work from home. 9 00:01:33,310 --> 00:01:40,690 Joseph Fung: Oh, my goodness. I'm so glad to not have them underfoot. I'm tired of naked four-year-olds running in pretending to be superheroes. They can go back to school. This week good. 10 00:01:41,670 --> 00:01:49,770 Joseph Fung: Yeah, there's definitely some work disruptions. I could hear you there. For sure. And I imagine we're not the only ones. I imagine a lot of people are excited to get things back to 11 00:01:49,770 --> 00:02:01,810 Kevin Mako: some semblance of normalcy. Absolutely. Well, look, today I'm very excited to talk about sales. It's a big topic, a lot of people, whether at the early startup, or whether they're well into scaling their product businesses, sales is top of mind. 12 00:02:01,890 --> 00:02:13,690 Kevin Mako: How do you actually move units and what better person to bring on the show than you to talk about some of those advanced techniques when we're thinking about sales, both as a founder and as you go into actually hiring your first sales rep. 13 00:02:13,830 --> 00:02:22,510 Kevin Mako: So let's kick it off first and foremost talking about considerations and thoughts for a new product founder that wants to start selling their product to the world. 14 00:02:22,650 --> 00:02:31,870 Joseph Fung: That's a tough one. I mean, to give that context, I mean, I am that product founder. It's like engineer by training, sold everything from tiny small products up to multi-million dollar deals. 15 00:02:32,090 --> 00:02:43,370 Joseph Fung: And when you're that founder, it's really hard to separate yourself, your identity, you know, the idea of that product from the actual sales process. And I mean, do you see this? 16 00:02:43,490 --> 00:02:55,770 Joseph Fung: Kevin, a lot of founders who get the idea that building a product is a process and you need to systematize it, operationalize it. But I see very often on the sales side of things, folks don't realize that you have to apply that same rigor of process thinking to your sales methodology. 17 00:02:55,770 --> 00:03:07,490 Joseph Fung: And as a founder, you often just close deals by passion and you completely lose track of the fact that you need to build a process around it. And that's where we see folks get hung up and the ones who really succeed, think about the process really early on. 18 00:03:07,590 --> 00:03:17,630 Kevin Mako: And that gives them a big edge. That's interesting because when you talk to most founders, they're really focused on, of course, features and benefits and all these great things about the product. 19 00:03:17,870 --> 00:03:30,090 Kevin Mako: But very rarely is somebody focusing on, okay, what's my actual process that I go through to sell? And Joseph, I want you to give everybody a bit of a background in your history, because you've been doing this for a long time, sold millions and millions of dollars in sales from 20 00:03:30,090 --> 00:03:39,150 Kevin Mako: small direct consumer sales up to multi-million dollar single transaction deals. And now you, of course, educate entire teams of professionals in terms of sales. So can you just give a background where 21 00:03:39,150 --> 00:03:51,930 Joseph Fung: you started and how you got to the point of the art today? Sure. So the LinkedIn version is, hey, computer engineering, you know, electrical computer engineering and founding my first company while still in school, four different companies selling locally, 22 00:03:52,610 --> 00:04:01,130 Joseph Fung: internationally. You're talking about, hey, flying on planes to have a six-person deal team working through two days of product demos. And yeah, in those you care about things, like who's going to 23 00:04:01,130 --> 00:04:15,550 Joseph Fung: bring the coffee, who's going to bring the donuts, you know, all the way until, you know, small, single-digit transactions. You're saying, hey, yeah, there's a subscription component to this, but we can't spend a lot on the sales cycle. But right now, we're lever leveraging all that experience from myself, from our founding team, and we run a career 24 00:04:15,550 --> 00:04:28,650 Joseph Fung: accelerator. We help folks learn how to sell remotely, sell digitally. And we place people at all the most exciting startups. They're selling hardware, software, services, combinations of 25 00:04:28,650 --> 00:04:40,930 Joseph Fung: products and services. And what's been really interesting is through all of this, we've seen a lot of the techniques to sell have been professionalized and polished. But the stakes over the last couple of 26 00:04:40,930 --> 00:04:51,170 Joseph Fung: years have just skyrocketed. What it means to be a really successful sales professional has amped up a lot. And, you know, very much like we talk about product development, the stakes have risen 27 00:04:51,170 --> 00:05:04,630 Kevin Mako: in your sales methodology, the stakes have risen as well. Let's break it down. What does it take to be successful? Let's start from the founder level. You mentioned something really interesting there in terms of remote selling. Obviously, that's been kicked into high gear because of COVID. 28 00:05:04,910 --> 00:05:16,370 Kevin Mako: But beyond COVID, and as things get back to hopeful normalcy in the near future, how do we utilize those values in figuring out how to find customers and sell to them when we can't physically meet 29 00:05:16,370 --> 00:05:29,730 Kevin Mako: them face to face it, it's a global market today. So COVID or not, you're selling around the world and some of your best customers may not necessarily be in your backyard. So I really like the fact that you focused on remote as a key piece to your problem, which obviously has a lot to do with 30 00:05:29,730 --> 00:05:39,550 Kevin Mako: digital. So if we're talking to founders, new hardware startup, what can they start thinking about? What can they start doing now to prepare themselves either for selling their first units or for amping up their sales that they're already in the market. 31 00:05:39,630 --> 00:05:50,610 Joseph Fung: It's a great, great question because there really is. There's two big things that they can focus on. The first one is how they think about their top of funnel in terms of selling. And a lot of founders, myself included, when we think about top of funnel, we think about 32 00:05:50,610 --> 00:06:01,870 Joseph Fung: the person who fills out a lead on your website or the person you're calling when you're called calling. But you need to think about it much more holistically that the top of level, top of funnel stages are much more robust. 33 00:06:02,230 --> 00:06:08,570 Joseph Fung: And remote selling, the big focus on it is discovery. How do you have really meaningful conversations? 34 00:06:08,590 --> 00:06:20,010 Joseph Fung: conversations that uncover really meaningful pain and, you know, really difficult problems that ultimately you can solve. And the reason why I focus on that is as founders, we 35 00:06:20,010 --> 00:06:30,530 Joseph Fung: tend to gloss over that. You know, your product founders, they've got domain expertise. They know the problem. They've invented something that solves that problem. They know it innately. And they forget the fact 36 00:06:30,530 --> 00:06:43,610 Joseph Fung: they've developed all of this domain knowledge that just it slides off their tongue. They don't even realize it. And they think they're focusing on the product. And you have to get really, really smart, really smart about writing down, scripting down 37 00:06:43,610 --> 00:06:56,130 Joseph Fung: who your target user is, that customer. What are the questions you ask to elicit pain? And how do you then do that at scale? Because if you can, you know, if you can hire one, two, three people to do that, 38 00:06:56,150 --> 00:07:02,710 Joseph Fung: you can do that remotely because there is people are a Zoom call away now. They're a phone call away. So that's the first one. You know, really think about discovery. 39 00:07:03,590 --> 00:07:17,090 Kevin Mako: I like something you mentioned there just to take a quick pause on there about writing it down and identifying those pain points because, as you mentioned earlier in the call, process becomes so important. One of the easiest things you can do to facilitate process is 40 00:07:17,090 --> 00:07:32,010 Kevin Mako: just to educate yourself, even if you already understand it, just make sure that you're writing down. What are the questions you're asking? What are the pain points that are coming up? And then upon those pain points, you're finding those answers. And what you'll find is even if you know your industry inside and out, as you go through this exercise, and we've seen it in many of the heart of 41 00:07:32,010 --> 00:07:45,650 Kevin Mako: our products, we've gone through, even our own business ourselves and product design, as you start to build out this list, you can also tweak and refine and improve that list. But the key starting point is just write it down. And you'll be surprised no matter how good you are. You will always find 42 00:07:45,650 --> 00:07:50,390 Kevin Mako: new angles. You'll always find new pain points. You'll always find new solutions to those that bake 43 00:07:50,390 --> 00:08:05,250 Joseph Fung: into that kind of overall sales journey that you're going to take your customer through or potential customer through. I love your comment about writing it down. And we advocate to our clients. And it's really funny. We tell this to everybody. And it's only the most successful who actually apply 44 00:08:05,250 --> 00:08:15,170 Joseph Fung: this and it's such a silly little thing take that writing it down a step further and make checklists out of everything a good example a really good example we have a 30 point checklist 45 00:08:15,170 --> 00:08:27,490 Joseph Fung: that will equip sales reps with on how to successfully run a sales call on zoom and that sounds really silly do you really need a 30 point checklist but it's little things like at the beginning of the 46 00:08:27,490 --> 00:08:42,450 Joseph Fung: call you said hey we're going to record make sure you click that button yes you know let's let's avoid and make sure that doesn't go wrong you know let's take sure my camera is aligned right Let's make sure that my volumes are good. Let's make sure that my desktop isn't cluttered. So if I share my screen or I want to do a virtual demo, it's there. 47 00:08:42,890 --> 00:08:55,590 Joseph Fung: Let's make sure that my demo product is on the table beside me so I don't need to go like scrabbling into a cabinet. And the reason why we emphasize it is have that really detailed checklist because that'll help you make sure nothing goes wrong. 48 00:08:55,830 --> 00:09:01,310 Joseph Fung: And as a founder, as a sales professional, you shouldn't waste the brain cycles on it. 49 00:09:01,310 --> 00:09:10,030 Kevin Mako: like surgeons use checklists, astronauts use checklists, pilots use checklist. That doesn't make them less of a professional. It just means that they're planning. And we all got to do that. 50 00:09:10,970 --> 00:09:24,510 Kevin Mako: I'm a private pilot. Let me tell you that one of the first things that you're taught is always check over your checklist. Totally. You'll have pilots that have flown 5,000 hours and they'll still pull out that checklist and double check that they went through all these things. 51 00:09:24,630 --> 00:09:36,090 Kevin Mako: These are highly trained, highly skilled individuals. And you know why? It's obvious why after you've done it enough times that it's very, easy to miss something or to slip up on something small, which ends up compounding to something 52 00:09:36,090 --> 00:09:47,010 Kevin Mako: exponentially larger. And it's amazing, you know, that technique of writing it all down and having that checklist also makes it really easy. Because one of the biggest things I find from flying is that 53 00:09:47,010 --> 00:10:00,370 Kevin Mako: it's, it's very comforting to know that I've read through that checklist and I hit everything on the list. You now know that when you're about to hit that power button, you know, throttle up and you're about to take off the runway and you've got folks in the back or whatever, you know 54 00:10:00,370 --> 00:10:02,430 Kevin Mako: everybody's safe because you've gone through that. 55 00:10:02,770 --> 00:10:16,610 Joseph Fung: The same thing's for a sales call. This could be like you've dealt with, but it's Joseph, multi-million dollar sales calls. You'd hate to have one tiny little slip-up be the Achilles heel in that entire situation. Can you imagine being that co-pilot and you're sitting there waiting for your pilot to show up 56 00:10:16,610 --> 00:10:21,570 Joseph Fung: and they come running off the tarmac. I came in hot of another meeting. Let's go. You hit the power button. 57 00:10:23,130 --> 00:10:28,770 Joseph Fung: That's not who you want of the controls. And as founders, as CEOs, we do that all the time. 58 00:10:28,770 --> 00:10:43,130 Kevin Mako: it's terrible. And as we're building out a team and we want to make our team successful, we put them in that position. And I mean, it's not a fair thing to your team, but it also means you're not at your best when you're selling. And that's a crying shame. I really like this 59 00:10:43,130 --> 00:10:53,130 Kevin Mako: concept. Are there other things? Let's just break down this checklist a bit further. So you've mentioned some of like, let's say, technical things on the checklist. Are there items on a checklist from a 60 00:10:53,130 --> 00:11:03,550 Joseph Fung: sales perspective, like make sure you, I don't, ask them how their family's doing, whatever else. Are there things that you like to kind of standardize on that checklist from the communication perspective as well? 61 00:11:05,450 --> 00:11:11,390 Joseph Fung: So it's kind of both yes or no. So I'm not going to give, unfortunately, I'm sure listeners who are tuning in saying, hey, I want this magic checklist for my sales calls. 62 00:11:12,470 --> 00:11:27,010 Joseph Fung: The reality is every organization is going to end up developing their own, you know, call cadence and scripting. I mean, there are some fundamentals you need to do, you know, things like confirm how much time you have available. Like, hey, Kevin, we're on this call. I know we booked 60 minutes. Do you still have 60? 63 00:11:27,110 --> 00:11:40,550 Joseph Fung: Do you have a hard stop? Anything I need to be? You know, pay attention to. You got to confirm that so you can run a good call. You need to set expectations. The thing's like, hey, Kevin, at the end of the call, we're going to reserve just a couple of minutes to see if it makes sense to take the next step. 64 00:11:40,790 --> 00:11:46,930 Joseph Fung: Usually the next step is a deeper product demo. So you don't need to make a decision now, but we'll reserve a minute. So get buy into that commitment. 65 00:11:48,310 --> 00:12:00,970 Joseph Fung: And there's numerous other things. For us, those are the two big things we include. For others, often break down things like the common objections, validating the problem space, actually setting the agenda for what you want to demo, things like that. 66 00:12:01,830 --> 00:12:16,350 Joseph Fung: But all of that should be on the checklist. Because as founders, we're the worst at this. We get talking to someone, our passion takes over. You know, the person on the other hand is like, oh my goodness, you really get this problem. And you wrap up the call and you're thinking, wow, that was 67 00:12:16,350 --> 00:12:31,290 Kevin Mako: great. They said everything I'd like, but you didn't actually get that commitment to the next step or to folding in the next person. And now your sales process has two extra steps in it because you've got to call them. You got to book it. And yeah, having that clarity of expectations is going 68 00:12:31,290 --> 00:12:46,290 Kevin Mako: to save you so much time. I find that's a really powerful thing when it comes to prioritization of meeting agenda. You have your agenda. They have their agenda. And it's very important that you make sure they're aligned to start with, but also to make sure that you're ticking off all the 69 00:12:46,290 --> 00:12:53,370 Kevin Mako: checkboxes, especially the big ones that you need for your meeting. I get pitched a dozen times a week for various things. 70 00:12:54,170 --> 00:13:06,830 Kevin Mako: And you'd be amazed at how many times the conversation veers off to the point where you spend 90% of the call and something which may or may not be important. And then you're scrambling in that last 10% of that call. 71 00:13:07,130 --> 00:13:20,350 Kevin Mako: The person pitching is trying to get all these things that you needed to know that were important to make the decision. But they got left by the wayside. Now, if you have that checklist and you're, you know, however you want to organize, I'm sure there's many different ways. But if you said, well, here's kind of the three biggest things. 72 00:13:20,370 --> 00:13:35,130 Kevin Mako: that I need to get taken care of in this call. It'll make it very easy for you to look and say, like, I'm already halfway through the call and I've only got through one of these. I need to speed this up to get on to the second. And I think a lot of listeners out there would think that this sounds like overly structured, 73 00:13:36,330 --> 00:13:48,630 Joseph Fung: almost like robotic, inhumane or whatever. But that realistically isn't necessarily the case with a checklist. It's just keeping you on task. And that can be very difficult when you get into that conversation, 74 00:13:48,630 --> 00:14:01,870 Joseph Fung: when excitement starts brewing or whatever else, you've got to be very careful to make sure that you've got the eyes on the prize. For when folks, you know, have that concern, like, oh, is this just robotic? Is this just mechanical? And our answer there is it's being a professional. 75 00:14:02,650 --> 00:14:17,570 Kevin Mako: It's like, what's the kind of work you expect if you've got a manufacturing team? You know, what's the level of working behavior that you'd expect in that team? Or if you have a customer service team, you know, what's the level of professionalism and efficiency you'd expect from them? Your sales team, you should expect the same kind of thing. 76 00:14:17,570 --> 00:14:21,510 Kevin Mako: And as a founder for yourself, you should hold yourself accountable. It's the same kind of thing. 77 00:14:23,020 --> 00:14:35,040 Joseph Fung: Let's talk about the founder and selling. What tips do you have for somebody who's starting to do, you know, they've got this checklist or they've started to work on the checklist and some of the best practices that they can 78 00:14:35,040 --> 00:14:48,140 Joseph Fung: employ to start selling themselves? And then, of course, how can they use those to carry forward into hiring their first sales hire? Totally. The first ones, these sound really counterintuitive. 79 00:14:48,900 --> 00:15:00,720 Joseph Fung: And so the first one is to stop demoing. Take your product, put it aside, run your first sales calls without any product. How do you do that? And the reason that feels so counterintuitive is, you know, as founders, 80 00:15:01,640 --> 00:15:15,400 Joseph Fung: we created something. We had an idea. We had a vision for a beautiful product that solves a specific challenge or gets used in a specific way. We want to show it off. It's very natural. But the moment you do that, it becomes a crutch for your conversation. 81 00:15:16,120 --> 00:15:19,860 Joseph Fung: and you're spending the time focusing on the product, not focusing on the customer. 82 00:15:20,760 --> 00:15:26,100 Joseph Fung: And so the first challenge for a founder is to try doing your sales calls without the product. 83 00:15:27,010 --> 00:15:37,290 Joseph Fung: And it's totally fair. Customers are expecting to see the product. And you can say, hey, I've got a couple of photos. Maybe that I'll show up. Or, hey, here's a couple of examples. Maybe we've got a brochure or recorded demo. 84 00:15:37,790 --> 00:15:46,210 Joseph Fung: But we'll save the actual product demo for that second call because today I want to learn about you. So the second part of the tip is to practice. your questions. 85 00:15:47,230 --> 00:15:59,770 Kevin Mako: Founders, we tend to talk too much. So just really good questions about like, hey, that's a pain point. What does that feel like when you're experiencing there? How does that affect your job if something goes wrong? How does that affect your family if that's not working? And 86 00:16:00,530 --> 00:16:15,410 Kevin Mako: when you can uncover those pains, that's giving you two things. When it tells you your product is solving a problem, so you know you've got product market fit. But the second thing is it then gives you the language that your sales and marketing team can use. Because your job as a founder is to equip your future sales and marketing hires. 87 00:16:16,540 --> 00:16:31,380 Kevin Mako: You know, we had a vice president of Staples on the show a few episodes ago, and one of the things that he said is that generally when you even build a very early rapport with that purchasing agent, they're generally fairly transparent and open with you. 88 00:16:32,020 --> 00:16:44,440 Kevin Mako: So one of the easiest questions, or one of the few easy questions, I would say that you could ask is if you've got your invention or your gadget or your hardware piece and you're asking, like, does this, is this a pain point that your customers seem? 89 00:16:44,460 --> 00:16:58,620 Kevin Mako: to have, right? Is this something that you think your market needs? Keep mind, these are purchasing agents and generally with a very specific category. Maybe they're in the toy category from ages six months to two years old. They know their market. They know what their customers 90 00:16:58,620 --> 00:17:09,260 Kevin Mako: are looking for. And they will gladly tell you if there's missing opportunities or pain points within their purchasers because it helps them do a better job at their business. If you can 91 00:17:09,260 --> 00:17:23,400 Kevin Mako: help fill that void. So asking those questions can be very important, especially in the hardware space, people are very hesitant to ask questions, like you said, very promotional of the features of their product. And of course, that's good, but you're missing out on a tremendous 92 00:17:23,400 --> 00:17:36,940 Kevin Mako: opportunity to first listen to what the pain points are. And then you can look at your own product and say, okay, I've got maybe three key features of this product. The first one, based on what that person told me about, they don't care about that at all. So I'm going to use my efforts to focus 93 00:17:36,940 --> 00:17:46,320 Joseph Fung: on my feature two and feature three, because those they did say was a pain point. So all it's doing, it's not necessarily saying you have to change your pitch about your product. It's allowing 94 00:17:46,320 --> 00:17:55,960 Joseph Fung: you to kind of highlight the most important things to that purchaser, who's the one who makes a decision at the end of the day. You're not selling to yourself, you're selling to them. So make 95 00:17:55,960 --> 00:18:09,540 Joseph Fung: sure that you've learned from them first what their customers pain points are, what their buying issues are, what they're buying opportunities are, and then just make sure that you're highlighting those key features of your product to them. Simple as that, especially in hardware, right? It's very 96 00:18:09,540 --> 00:18:11,200 Joseph Fung: straightforward. I'd even go, 97 00:18:12,160 --> 00:18:15,940 Joseph Fung: I'd add even a bit more further to that around, you're absolutely right around the pain points, the customer's pain points. 98 00:18:16,840 --> 00:18:25,060 Joseph Fung: A lot of founders get that. You know, highlight pains, I'm going to solve pains as opposed to, you know, opportunities for improvement, that classic vitamin versus aspirin thing. 99 00:18:26,080 --> 00:18:33,540 Joseph Fung: I'd really push on that. We spent a lot of time with our founders talking a lot about, is this an inconvenience or is this a pain? 100 00:18:34,280 --> 00:18:42,920 Joseph Fung: And when you're asking questions, you're not just leading the witness around, hey, is this a painful thing, but asking them to actually describe it in their own words. 101 00:18:43,380 --> 00:18:57,340 Joseph Fung: Like, hey, if this part of your plant falls behind schedule, how does that impact your job? Or, you know, if you can't make it to the gym on your own, because maybe you're selling a fitness product, you know, if you can't make it to the gym on your own, 102 00:18:57,600 --> 00:19:10,180 Joseph Fung: how do you feel about that? And what you're looking for, what you're trying to get there is you're not, you're trying to look for words, not. like, hey, I dislike this. Or yeah, I'm a little bit behind. Or yeah, it's frustrating. What you 103 00:19:10,180 --> 00:19:15,440 Kevin Mako: want to find are really, really painful metaphors. So they give you an example. We had one client 104 00:19:15,440 --> 00:19:16,620 Joseph Fung: who had that exact comment. 105 00:19:17,480 --> 00:19:30,820 Joseph Fung: They're talking about how they needed to get new sales professionals in. And they have a factory that sells a physical product. And they're saying, hey, we've got to sell online. We've got to learn how to do this. And I'm testing the waters with them. 106 00:19:30,820 --> 00:19:32,740 Joseph Fung: saying, hey, how big is that challenge? 107 00:19:33,680 --> 00:19:42,020 Joseph Fung: And she said, you know, I feel like my pinky's on the chopping block. You know, if we don't hit that quota next quarter, yeah, I'm going to lose a pinky. Those are her words. It's like, oh, 108 00:19:42,800 --> 00:19:48,780 Joseph Fung: she doesn't actually care about remote selling as a skill set or hiring, you know, as a pain point. 109 00:19:48,940 --> 00:20:00,640 Kevin Mako: She cares about hitting that quota because that's where she feels like she's going to lose a finger. Right, finding the root of the problem. Yeah. And for her, that's what was so painful, not the recruiting process, not the hiring, 110 00:20:00,820 --> 00:20:14,460 Kevin Mako: process, you know, not training salespeople, it was quota. That's what she was, you know, getting, you know, stuck to. And when you've got a product, you need to deeply understand, you know, what's that visceral pain? You know, what's that emotional connection that people 111 00:20:14,460 --> 00:20:28,880 Kevin Mako: have with it? And as a founder, you have to find that language because your sales reps can't find it. You need to equip them with, hey, these are the hot button topics. So as a founder, that's a large part of your job. Find that out, document it, and then has it along. 112 00:20:29,500 --> 00:20:42,460 Kevin Mako: Joseph, those are such powerful words. And to the founders out there, you are your first salesperson. And the better that you can figure it out on your own, the more that you can learn, the more you can write down and tweak and refine that list that we talked about earlier, 113 00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:44,540 Kevin Mako: the better you're going to understand the language. 114 00:20:45,400 --> 00:20:59,680 Kevin Mako: This is also, you know, we're talking about sales right now, but this is very applicable to your advertising or your website or your Shopify store or your Amazon store, right? The language is that the pain points that you're starting to hear about here is, start to sell, 115 00:21:00,600 --> 00:21:13,980 Kevin Mako: aren't just valuable to learn how to sell more. They're valuable to learn how to position your entire product. What are the things that people actually care about? What are the things that people don't care about about your product? The more you as a founder can learn from talking 116 00:21:13,980 --> 00:21:23,400 Kevin Mako: to real customers, either end users or buyers who are intending to sell to end users, if you're selling to full sellers, distributors or whatnot, right? You've got both types of customers, 117 00:21:23,400 --> 00:21:34,520 Joseph Fung: your end user and your intermediary buyer, no matter what way you're looking at that, learn from this, especially in the early days, right? The more value, the more people that you can talk to, the more you can understand about your 118 00:21:34,520 --> 00:21:48,740 Joseph Fung: project, the more that you can understand on how to sell it, the better the positioning for your entire company becomes. So that is the power of being a founder-seller in the beginning. Next thing I want to ask you, Joseph, because you've gone through this with so many people 119 00:21:48,740 --> 00:22:02,400 Joseph Fung: at major levels, tons of hardware companies. How do you actually take that knowledge when you're starting? to sell and you've really figured out, you've wrote your list, you've got a great list together that you personally use as a founder to sell. Now you want to actually scale up to train your next 120 00:22:02,400 --> 00:22:17,300 Joseph Fung: personnel. You want to hire your first sales rep. How do you make that transition and kind of what thoughts do you have around that process of scaling up? Yeah. It's such a great question because it's one where a lot of folks struggle and there are a couple of really simple things that 121 00:22:17,300 --> 00:22:24,180 Joseph Fung: give people on Fair Edge that they often don't even realize. The first one is really about that mirror you hold up to yourself. 122 00:22:25,120 --> 00:22:38,080 Joseph Fung: And it's really tough because as a founder, you say, I'm only selling with a quarter of my time. And here's the quota that I'm hitting. A full-time sales rep should be able to exceed that. And you set up these bars. And it's really hard to internalize 123 00:22:38,080 --> 00:22:41,140 Joseph Fung: the fact that as a founder, you have an unfair advantage. 124 00:22:42,040 --> 00:22:54,060 Joseph Fung: I mean, if you talk to somebody, say, hey, Kevin, I got this new product that I think it's to be some time. And I built it. Can I show you what it's like? I mean, when you know I'm a founder, you're innately biased. to want me to succeed. 125 00:22:55,180 --> 00:23:07,880 Joseph Fung: It's very different than if I call you up as a sales rep. Hey, Kevin, I'm selling this product X and I'd love to show you what it looks like because it might help you. I mean, the barrier is totally different. So that first one is being really honest with the advantage you have as a founder. 126 00:23:08,680 --> 00:23:22,980 Joseph Fung: So that set your targets to the right level. I think a lot of founders mess up because their first few hires, they set the target too high. It's just not possible for your first couple hires. The second thing is people over index on product knowledge, 127 00:23:23,100 --> 00:23:24,820 Joseph Fung: over customer knowledge. 128 00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:38,520 Joseph Fung: And this is also really hard. Because as a founder, you think, I've spent all this time understanding the product. I invented it. I know it inside out. I sell by talking about it. So I assume my sales rep has to have that same knowledge. 129 00:23:39,540 --> 00:23:45,740 Joseph Fung: And they don't. They really don't. A great sales rep doesn't need to know anything about the product. And that's a hard thing to understand. 130 00:23:46,620 --> 00:23:49,560 Kevin Mako: What they really need to have is a really deep understanding of a customer. 131 00:23:50,690 --> 00:23:58,330 Kevin Mako: As a founder, you've picked that up. You've internalized that. You just don't think about it. You attribute it to product knowledge. And so a really, really good example. 132 00:23:59,610 --> 00:24:08,070 Kevin Mako: One of the companies we work with, they sell digital signage in malls. You walk around and you see a digital display and there's a map and some ads on it. 133 00:24:09,530 --> 00:24:22,050 Kevin Mako: Their best sales rep was someone whose job was cleaning malls, not a professionally trained sales rep. Because they know, like, how does the schedule work in a mall? When the signage breaks, what happens? 134 00:24:22,050 --> 00:24:35,070 Kevin Mako: And what's the random crap that people stick to the signs or spills on it? And you can empathize with a buyer in the way that an engineer who knows the product just can't. And so when you go out hiring your first sales rep, 135 00:24:35,850 --> 00:24:41,430 Kevin Mako: really, really looking for someone who knows that customer, that buyer first, is going to give you such an unfair advantage. 136 00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:54,140 Kevin Mako: That's powerful stuff. And it comes back to what you were saying earlier about focus on the customer pain point first, then how your product solves that pain point. an opportunity second. 137 00:24:55,060 --> 00:25:07,920 Kevin Mako: And the same philosophy applies to the sales rep. I think the beauty of that is that you don't have to be super concerned that somebody fully understands the engineering intricacies of your product inside and out. 138 00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:17,960 Kevin Mako: I realize there's actually probably a lot bigger bucket of folks out there who could do a good job selling your product because they understand the value of learning from a customer 139 00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:32,760 Joseph Fung: to find those pain points and then translating that to the customer into value with your product. So it's not as scary as you might think to hire that first person, but also understanding, I love that you mentioned that founder bias as well, because to me, that's also a tremendous 140 00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:46,640 Joseph Fung: opportunity. We've got a lot of clients who, they go through the development phase, and now they're thinking about the selling phase, and they start to get really nervous about it. And the most amazing thing is that you're as a founder of a, especially in hardware right now, 141 00:25:46,640 --> 00:25:58,160 Joseph Fung: everybody loves the concept of the inventor and somebody following their dream and creating this like gadget that solves pain points for folks and you're that person who's actually done that 142 00:25:58,160 --> 00:26:09,240 Kevin Mako: and gone through those phases you have such a tremendous opportunity as that owner-founder to get out there into the world and start pitching your idea to folks because of that bias that you mentioned 143 00:26:09,240 --> 00:26:19,980 Kevin Mako: earlier so understand that that very thing that may make it more difficult to hire your first sales rep also is an incredible opportunity as you as an owner-founder if you're nervous about that 144 00:26:19,980 --> 00:26:34,320 Kevin Mako: process going forward. And the best thing about it is, I mean, there's this magical phrase you can use as a founder. You know, you call somebody up, you email them, it's like, hey, I've invented, I've created this thing. You know, I'm a founder who's done this. Can I get your feedback? 145 00:26:35,490 --> 00:26:44,230 Kevin Mako: You know, can I get your feedback? Can I get your thoughts on this? No one says no to that. I mean, they want to know what the new thing is. They'd love to provide feedback. And 146 00:26:45,630 --> 00:26:48,050 Kevin Mako: Those comments that you get, those questions that you get, 147 00:26:48,930 --> 00:27:01,910 Kevin Mako: that's what you give your first sales rep. Because when you bring that person who knows a customer and you say, these are the top questions to ask, here's how our product solves them. They can talk to any customer day or night. They don't even have to be able to demo the product and they can move that deal forward. 148 00:27:03,330 --> 00:27:11,630 Joseph Fung: Yeah, that, I mean, that's very powerful coming from you. It's been in the industry for a long time. And I think it's important for everybody to understand just the power of asking that question. 149 00:27:11,630 --> 00:27:19,190 Joseph Fung: I think that becomes incredibly or exponentially more successful when you prove that you're serious about it as well. 150 00:27:19,510 --> 00:27:29,390 Joseph Fung: So in the product industry, you know, everybody kind of knows, well, there's a lot of idea folks and many less people who actually execute on those ideas. 151 00:27:29,830 --> 00:27:41,130 Joseph Fung: So if you're one of those folks that said, hey, I have executed on this idea, I've, whatever, I've gone to prototyping. I'm in production or whatever else. Like, I'm not just an idea person. I'm a doer as well. 152 00:27:42,410 --> 00:27:48,370 Joseph Fung: And then you're asking the question, you know, can I get some feedback on this? I am the founder myself. Can I get some feedback? 153 00:27:48,850 --> 00:28:02,870 Kevin Mako: That is very powerful because you've, you've not only requested help, which is innately a human thing where people generally just want to help in the first place, but you've also then proven that you're worth the time, that you're serious about it and you're actually putting the effort in. 154 00:28:03,010 --> 00:28:15,330 Joseph Fung: And those two, I find combined really are a powerful tool to at least crack your foot in the door of those conversations. Maybe not necessarily make the sale, but at least you're getting the foot in the door, which a lot of the time is the hardest part. It's often the hardest part. 155 00:28:15,630 --> 00:28:18,630 Joseph Fung: And the interesting that we're seeing is on that, you know, opening the door, 156 00:28:19,930 --> 00:28:31,490 Joseph Fung: everything that we see in the software world about, you know, the separation of account executives and sales development reps and, you know, that idea of the kind of door opener and the closer, all of those 157 00:28:31,490 --> 00:28:42,570 Kevin Mako: are carrying over into hardware and physical world, too. And all of those best practices that you can see in how do you have people who are really skilled at the research, the outreach, opening of 158 00:28:42,570 --> 00:28:55,730 Kevin Mako: that conversation, and how do you have other folks who are more specialized around the technical demos or running the sales process or closing the deal? These are all things that are getting copied. Jumping that wall into the physical products and the companies that we see adopting 159 00:28:55,730 --> 00:29:02,270 Joseph Fung: that level of extreme professionalism, they're just outstripping the competition in terms of deal velocity and closing and volume. 160 00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:17,040 Joseph Fung: That's an incredibly powerful thing because essentially you're just taking what has really worked in the software industry, applying it to hardware, which is relatively new, and immediately giving those hardware folks a major edge. Oh, totally. And we see it left, right and center. 161 00:29:17,280 --> 00:29:31,780 Joseph Fung: I mean, we're seeing sales reps who are doubling quota, tripling quota, because they're no longer, you know, just following what others are doing, you know, relying on trade shows or wholesale distributors or, you know, regular buying cycles. 162 00:29:32,020 --> 00:29:47,020 Joseph Fung: But they're using more inbound marketing. They're using social selling for lead gen. And they're using sales automation that was previously seen as a kind of an enterprise software technique, not really a product or hardware or services technique. 163 00:29:47,780 --> 00:29:54,880 Joseph Fung: That's a great segue. Talk about a bit what you're doing because you're training a number of these, both founders and eventually sales rep teams. 164 00:29:55,900 --> 00:30:10,340 Joseph Fung: You're training them both in the physical hardware space and in the software space. So you're seeing a lot of this happen. Explain a bit about what you folks do and how it works and how it applies. to founders and scaling companies as well and like how that ties into this whole conversation 165 00:30:10,340 --> 00:30:23,380 Joseph Fung: because I find that very interesting. For sure. So for context, we run a 12-week training program that helps folks learn how to sell digitally. You know, use modern selling techniques. It's intense. It's two hours a day, five days a week, you know, 12 weeks. 166 00:30:24,280 --> 00:30:31,860 Joseph Fung: Most of our members go on to be sales professionals at high-tech companies, you know, hardware, software combinations. 167 00:30:32,940 --> 00:30:40,640 Joseph Fung: We do also have founders that'll go through the program. you know typically it's that co-founder who's going to be the head of sales or or the more kind of 168 00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:52,140 Kevin Mako: outwards facing CEO not usually the product side of it but really what they're getting out of it is they're learning not just the tools and the techniques but they're getting real practice time 169 00:30:52,140 --> 00:31:02,420 Kevin Mako: and we include very real practical projects like we're going to do some outreach we're going to do some mock cold calls and hey Kevin in this next next breakout room you're going to be calling 170 00:31:02,420 --> 00:31:17,380 Kevin Mako: into a CFO and that CFO and heads up, this CFO is known for being a real stickler on price. Okay, let's go in. Let's try this out. It's scary. It's really intimidating. And we cap it all off with the toughest, toughest demo competition. 171 00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:32,640 Kevin Mako: We take the four top reps in a class and we give them a head-to-head pitch competition where they need to sell a product to a buyer and it can be something, it has to be something they've never sold before. And they have to run the full pitch in 15 minutes. 172 00:31:33,440 --> 00:31:36,840 Kevin Mako: So it's a tight, tight time. I mean, we've got a gong. We cut them off. 173 00:31:37,960 --> 00:31:45,680 Kevin Mako: And it's been an amazing process. These reps end up crushing quota. They ramp to productivity much faster. 174 00:31:47,120 --> 00:32:00,740 Kevin Mako: But more importantly, they're seeing themselves in a career because they're not just being thrown into the deep end. They're seeing what the potential is. And for me, that's what gets to me really excited because we're building relationships between new sales professionals and 175 00:32:00,740 --> 00:32:04,820 Kevin Mako: companies that previously was a very transactional relationship, and now it's much more of a 176 00:32:04,820 --> 00:32:17,740 Joseph Fung: partnership. And that's a lot of fun. It's so powerful for founders as well, I find just in the confidence boost. You realize that sales is not this big, scary thing. First of all, as a founder, you're always going to be selling. Even if you're not in sales, you're going to be either selling 177 00:32:17,740 --> 00:32:30,040 Joseph Fung: to investors or you're selling to stakeholders or you're selling to designers or selling to new employees or you're selling to actual customers. And a lot of people are afraid of this. They say, I'm not in sales. I'm not a sales person. 178 00:32:31,170 --> 00:32:43,350 Joseph Fung: Everybody's a salesperson in some way or another. When you go to get a job, you're selling yourself with your resume and with your interview and whatever else. So you're always going to be a salesperson. Everybody's a salesperson. 179 00:32:43,850 --> 00:32:58,250 Joseph Fung: The thing that as a founder, as we mentioned earlier, it's not nearly as scary because the world already really appreciates, it generally appreciates what you're doing as somebody who is an innovator, creating gadgets to improve humanity. But also, 180 00:32:59,130 --> 00:33:00,910 Kevin Mako: when you go through these training programs, one of the things, 181 00:33:00,930 --> 00:33:11,110 Joseph Fung: I think that I really find that comes out the other side is just an instilled confidence that this isn't actually as difficult as I thought it was. And yeah, some of these things which are scary 182 00:33:11,870 --> 00:33:16,210 Joseph Fung: aren't actually scary in the end. They're just challenges. They're obstacles. But the greatest thing 183 00:33:16,210 --> 00:33:28,390 Kevin Mako: about these obstacles is that creates your biggest opportunities. Because as soon as you overcome these obstacles, you've made a sale. And those sales are going to, you know, either if you're selling directly or whether you're selling other elements of your business, it's going to improve your 184 00:33:28,390 --> 00:33:38,250 Kevin Mako: life, improve your business, improve your product. Simple as that. The really, the part that I think so, so for context, I'm a very introverted person. I mean, I went to engineering, I'm very technical. 185 00:33:39,630 --> 00:33:49,550 Joseph Fung: So one of the things that I always found reassuring was selling is if I talk about a product, it's a thing. You know, I don't have to ask about how someone's feeling and how they're doing. And so that's where my safe space was. 186 00:33:50,550 --> 00:34:03,850 Joseph Fung: If you get really good as a founder at talking about people's pains, you know, speaking about what causes them anxiety and how your product can solve that you'll actually attract better sales reps because the best sales reps, you know, they don't 187 00:34:03,850 --> 00:34:17,110 Joseph Fung: get into the job because they want to talk about things. They get into the job because they want to solve pain points. They want to help people feel better. And if you get better at speaking that language as a founder, you will also attract higher caliber sales talent. And so it creates 188 00:34:17,110 --> 00:34:29,950 Joseph Fung: a very virtuous cycle. And it's a very powerful thing. If you can get it started right at the beginning, because eventually you'll get there. You will. It's just you can shortcut a couple of years of experimentation and struggle if you start doing that at the beginning. 189 00:34:30,870 --> 00:34:45,510 Joseph Fung: How do folks find out about the program? How do they learn more? Oh, they can always hit us up. I mean, our website is Uvaro, Uv-A-R-O-O-D-com. Or if any founders want to hit me up. I'm always happy to chat about this stuff. I'm on most social media platforms as Joseph Funk, all one word. 190 00:34:45,710 --> 00:34:59,250 Joseph Fung: It's like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. Always happy to connect. I appreciate that. And I'll have all the show notes and links and all that sort of stuff as well if anybody wants to go into the show notes, either if they're listening or on YouTube and whatever else across socials as well, 191 00:34:59,890 --> 00:35:10,410 Joseph Fung: all Joseph's links will be in there. Joseph, really appreciate you taking the time to talk about sales today. It's a big subject, something that's always in top of mind with founders, especially in the hardware space. So thanks again. Thanks, Kevin. 192 00:35:10,850 --> 00:35:24,010 Narrator: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Product Startup Podcast, the show that teaches you what it really takes to bring your product to market and turn it into a big success. This podcast series is brought to you by 193 00:35:24,010 --> 00:35:38,130 Narrator: Mako Design + Invent, the original and leading firm in North America to provide global caliber in-to-end physical consumer product development to startups, inventors, and small product business clients. If you're looking for 194 00:35:38,130 --> 00:35:51,970 Narrator: product development help on your invention, head over to Mako-design.com. That's m-a-k-o-design.com for a free consultation from one of Mako Design's Ford Design Studios from coast to coast. 195 00:35:52,270 --> 00:35:54,310 Narrator: Thanks for listening and see you next time.