Founders need to sell

Author

Ganesh Shenbagaraman
January 28, 2025

Founders need to sell. Whether you’re a startup, scaleup, or a mature company, founders need to sell. How it happens may change as you grow, but it should never stop.

Why?

  1. Founders personify their ventures, lending credibility when engaging with clients. Their involvement signals commitment, often crucial in gaining trust and securing deals.

  2. Founders' intense zeal and vision turn sales pitches into stories that align with client goals and challenges, making them more impactful.

  3. Founders' deep product knowledge enables them to handle complex questions on-the-fly and offer unique insights, often tipping the scales in negotiations.

Typically, if founders step in, it’s late in the sales cycle, either to clinch or save a deal. But what if founders were brought in early, right at qualification? Could it affect win rates, ACV, and/or sales velocity? 

Why not conduct a simple test to discover the impact? Take ~20 accounts, split them into two groups of 10: one as a control with the usual approach, and the other as a test with your founder involved.

Here’s a quick checklist to implement the test effortlessly. (link to assets in the comments) The results could be eye-opening - it has been for many of our customers. 

✅Identify the Decision Maker (DM) at each test account

✅Have the reps send personalized message requests for meetings between founder & DM

✅Once meeting is scheduled, compile concise opportunity brief for the founders 

✅Hold meeting with founders’ goal to be advancing deal to next stage 

Still on the fence? Then consider an eye-opening fact: research by Bain, as reported by The Harvard Business Review, shows that S&P 500 companies with active founder involvement have outperformed their peers by a remarkable 3.1 times over the last 15 years.

We know some amazing founders that sell: @, AB Tasty, TravelBank, Medigate, Aureus Analytics, ARInspect, Stuut, TrueContext, RaPL, Perimeter 81, OpenDialog AI, HigherLogic

Let us know in the comments who we missed.