Are you a tech founder

looking for constant flow of

potential clients?

SALES
FOR
TECH
SMEs

1 guide by Teofil S Sales for tech SMEs. Guide by Teofil S.

 THIS GUIDE IS FOR YOU.
And it’s especially for you, if you’re a
founder or a CEO at:

/ tech startup
/ software development studio
/ software dev company
/ digital production company

or in general, tech­focused SME.

2 Sales for tech SMEs. Guide by Teofil S.

 CONTENT

PART I

OUTBOUND
OR

INBOUND
1. Outbound sales
2. Inbound marketing
3. I ‘m confused.
With what should I start with?

3 Sales for tech SMEs. Guide by Teofil S.

 FOREWORD
It’ s great, isn‘t it?
You started your tech company, built a team with great
people in it and now you’re fully operational.
Past several years you’ve worked only by referrals and
it was going great. The team was fully
committed to your clients, the cash flow was stable,
everything was going as planned.

Now the company is still growing and the team is still

committed, but something has changed.
What is it?
You need to grow!
You have the desire to do so, but there’s a problem
here - you never didsales. Neither has anyone in your
team.You’re wondering which direction to take
-if you hire a salesperson, you don’t have the time nor
the knowledge to train them.If you hire an A player, he
will drown your budget and the results may come too
late.

What can you do?

You can start learning the basics and realise what’ s
best for you - to hire a person, hire a consultant or go
for a dedicated sales team.

Let’s start with the learning!

Teofil S. / ttheoss.com

4 Sales for tech SMEs. Guide by Teofil S.

 PART I

OUTBOUND
OR

INBOUND

5 Sales for tech SMEs. Guide by Teofil S.

 DO YOU HAVE THE
TIME TO SELL?
Sales for tech SMEs can be a sensitive topic especially if
you find yourself in the scenario above.

You’re a techie or engineer and simply you don’t have time.

You’re managing a company, you’re dealing with deadlines,
you’re the face of the company when a client issue arrises.
Most of all, you’re still on the fence, dealing with the daily
tasks and supporting you’re mates.

To start with sales, you need to first learn some basics:

the difference between outbound/inbound and what’s the
best for you.

Outbound sales
Outbound sales is the game that allows you to have
targeted approach. You seek for companies that sooner
or later could become your own clients.
Outbound sales is the process of going in the ocean with
potential clients with harpoon, ready to “shoot” your targets.
You send your value and check what could you do to make
these accounts your clients.
Outbound sales is done by sales development
representatives (SDRs, popular term by Aaron Ross’s book
“Predictable Revenue”). What SDRs usually do is to set
up a list with cold leads, research all they can about these
people, then contact them via email or phone suggesting
a further meeting. SDRs never close, they just qualify.

6 Sales for tech SMEs. Guide by Teofil S.

 Inbound Marketing
By HubSpot’s definition, Inbound marketing is: “about
using marketing to bring potential customers to you, rather
than having your marketing efforts fight for their attention.

Sharing is caring and inbound marketing is about creating

and sharing content with the world”. By using inbound
marketing strategies, you’re setting up a various and
intriguing content on your website or blog and waiting for
the clients to come. Of course, to attract them in the right
way, it’s not only about waiting for those clients to appear,
but rather spread the word about your content. This can be
done via Facebook, other social medias and forums,
where your clients could be active. To make an active
inbound marketing strategy you need a skilful person
who’s not only producing content, but also distributing it in
the right way possible.

Let’s return on your daily activities.

No time for extra tasks, right?
That’s an excuse.
You need new clients and you need those now!
With what to start then?

In an ideal organisation, inbound and outbound

departments are working closely hand in hand, generating
new businesses every quarter. When you’re small to midsize
team, you have to make a decision with what to start.

Let’s check the possibilities here.

Scenario I: You hire a marketer
Scenario II: Going for a Freelancer
Scenario III: Hire an Inbound Agency

7 Sales for tech SMEs. Guide by Teofil S.

 Scenario I:
You hire a marketer
Skillful would mean­the cost will
be more. If you go for junior -­less
of a cost, but more time to train.
You explain your business
foundations and hope this person
will catch up as soon as possible.
Then he starts producing content,
spreading the word, trying to get
attention.
Scenario II:
Going for a Freelancer
The steps are the following:
- you create account on Upwork.
com or any other website where
freelancers get hired
- you hire a freelancer based on
the skills/abilities/background
you’re seeking for
- adhoc, you’re giving this person
the tasks and responsibilities
- you pay for exact results or time
spent
- you’re following the quality this
person works with in every single
detail, especially at the beginning
of the process
8 Sales for tech SMEs. Guide by Teofil S.
Chances this works:
Sometimes.
Reasons:
It really depends on who you hire,
how much time you dedicate to
train this person and what are the
results you’re expecting.
Sometimes it just takes too long
and it’s inefficient.
Chances this works:
Sometimes.
Reasons:
It depends on the person you find
and what their responsibilities are
going to be. If the freelancer is
active in the field and has
previous experience with
working for companies like yours,
it might just work. In longterm, this
is a person that’s never going to
give a priority to your company,
nor she’s going to be part of your
company’s culture.
 Scenario III:
Hire an Inbound
Agency

- outsource the whole process Chances this works:

- spend a decent amount of
money
- wait until it works out
Sometimes, depending on who
you hire
Reasons:
It really depends on the budget
and the agency you find for this
tasks. There big players out there,
who are dealing with automation
(HubSpot, Jumplead) have built
systems that can allow to have
great results. There are also local
players in each market that do
distributed tasks and the results
they bring could take a time. If you
want to focus on inbound, I’d
suggest you go with a local player
and scale from there. Going local
has many advantages ­people
speak your language, you share
the same (business) values, etc.
Going international also could
work great, especially if you find
a dedicated team that has clients
with businesses similar to yours

9 Sales for tech SMEs. Guide by Teofil S.

 WHAT HAPPENS
IF YOU DECIDE
TO GO FOR THE
OUTBOUND
SALES?

Based on my experience I’d say: Smart Move! I’m offering

you three scenarios here and you’re welcome to choose
one (or all three).

Scenario I: Hire a salesperson

Scenario II: Hire a Freelancer
Scenario III: Hire sales as a service agency
(outsourcing sales to a team)

Scenario I: Hire a salesperson

Logical for most companies, but once you start analysing
it deeply you learn it may not work as planned. Let’s dig
deep:

10 Sales for tech SMEs. Guide by Teofil S.

 Case I:
Hire an A player and spend a
decent amount of money
Case II:
Hire a junior sales rep, train him,
spend time to teach them what
your company actually does and
wait for results. you have the time
to spend on teaching this person
about the core of what you do,
how you do it and why. You’re
committed to show the right ways
(it’s all about perception you have,
remember you never really did
this before) and the person will be
taught to company’s culture first
hand.
Conclusion
11In the first case, the person could bring results fast Sales
network, skills and abilities to quickly adapt could bring you the desired results
Chances this works:
Only if the A player have previous
experience in selling for tech
SMEs and is ready to produce
results from Day 0.
Reasons:
You should be careful hiring such
type of people, because the A
players usually find SMEs small
for their ambitions. They feel good
climbing ladders and being at the
top, being admired and nurtured.
While this is totally fine for some
companies, for others (such as
startups or mid-size enterprises)
it may not work. Be careful if you
go in this direction.
Chances this works:
Sometimes. The person might not
get the technical aspect of selling,
his outbound skills might not be
enough, he might be afraid to pick
up the phone. Sometimes the
sales cycle would take too much
and he’ll get discouraged by how
potential prospects are replying.
Worst, he’ll not get any feedback
on his sales process, simply
because he’s the only one sales
person aboard.
Reasons:
Budget and experimentation.
If ou’ve never had a person like
that in your team, then it’s worth it
spend some months to train and
wait for results. If your pipeline is
in good condition and you don’t
expect miracles, go for it.
enough to justify the cost. His
for tech SMEs. Guide by Teofil S.
 Scenario II: Hire a Freelancer
The magic of UpWork.com is that
when you go there you can easily
find anything from people all over
the globe. In this case, you’re
seeking for a professional who
can do outbound for you.
To break this into pieces, the
person could do: lead generation
and prospecting, outreach and
general sales outsourcing. You
could also build lists on your own
and then go and find a freelancer
who’s going to place everything in
order, find the emails of the
people and give you the repaired
list. Or even contact them for you.
Choices are countless and if
you’d like to do so, make sure
you really do screen your future
collaborator and check his
background and success stories.
12
Chances this works:
Well, simply put, it depends on
what you want. I’d suggest you go
with this if you want a list of
hundreds, if not thousands of
leads (if you know what to do with
them next, of course) and pay per
lead generated.
The thing here is that sometimes
it’s bulk work and the quality
would be questionable.
Still, experiment and decide on
your own.
Reasons:
Reasons to go with that:
primarily finances and if you’re
seeking quick pay­as­you­go
approach.
You can get a lot but it will take
time and definitely a lot of
inclusion from your side.
Sales for tech SMEs. Guide by Teofil S.
 Scenario III: Hire sales as a service agency
(outsourcing sales to a team) If you pick this
option, make sure you start with a local
player.
Check their record, previous
clients, conditions and very
important ­profile of the founders
and the members (if applicable).
It’s great if the founder and
members have experience in the
tech industry, because it will make
their on boarding as quick as
possible. Collaborating with a
sales (outsourcing) agency could
work best if you realise the
importance of full pipeline, if
you’re seeking to have yours in a
good shape and most of all, if you
need results to start happening
from Day 0. It’s really important to
know, that if the agency is well
experienced, these folks start
working right away; you have the
lead gen phase finished by week
1 and then outreach in the
upcoming periods. The best thing
about working with sales as a
service company is that all of its
employees will be engaged with
you as a client, seek for your
needs and act
upon them.
13
Chances this works:
In the time when you realise you
need a partner who could easily
understand your business and
turn into remote sales
department. If the people are
with tech experience, you know
things will start happening fast.
It may be pricey, but usually they
form their pricing around the
industry average for a SDR salary.
Reasons:
Reasons to go with that: most of
the sales as a service agencies
are built in a way to act as your
stealth remote sales partner (a lot
of adjectives here).
Personalisation is what they’re
going with and if you’d like to have
a fullyfunctional sales team that’s
on a payroll based on specific
results and criteria fulfilled, then
go for it. Don’t go for it if you’re
expecting deals closed after the
very first month (tough it may
happen). Sales is great, but it’s
tough field where everyone’s
trying to get the clients you’re
aiming at. Be patient and choose
the best to work with!
Sales for tech SMEs. Guide by Teofil S.
 FINAL NOTES
TO YOU,
THE FOUNDER
Sales for tech SMEs could be a daunting task.

The founders should be the first one selling and that’s a

must. If you have a company that has sales in its DNA,
than the founders would be much more willing to
experiment and try different solutions like the ones
described above.

These founders have the profile of “I know what it takes”

and are great to work with and under ­they guide,
encourage and are welcoming about all the possible
solutions out there. In the end of the day, you sales runs
the business.

You have the tech backbone ­the driving force of the whole
company, but the sales is giving the air to breath and
conquer new heights. On the other side of the spectrum
you have the the tech founders who has never done sales
in their professional careers.

These are the people who have always been tech­focused,

making sure that the backbone is tight and carries the load.
The companies these founders have established usually
play on the referral game ­they’ve been connected to or
referred to potential clients over the years or since their
companies were founded.

These founders, unfortunately, have no idea how to bring

and retain sales talent. They are impatient with the new
reps or give so much credit, that it takes months or years
to figure out that the sales strategy didn’t work at all.

14 Sales for tech SMEs. Guide by Teofil S.

 Then comes the point when they’re reluctant to take any
news reps because they don’t know what to do with them ­
they don’t have the time to train them, nor they want to take
the financial risk.

In the end, what’s the recipe?

As a sales guy myself, I’d say that what sales people need
is constant feedback on what works and what doesn’t and
a goal to strive for. To the founders I’d say ­with sales reps
aboard or outsourced to outbound agency, make sure your
pipeline is full and constantly evolving.
Make sure you’ve got your value distributed to as many
qualified leads as possible. Sooner or later someone will
respond.

Drawing the line,

you’re there for the long game.
It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

15 Sales for tech SMEs. Guide by Teofil S.

Hi, I’m Teo.
If you have reached this far I hope what you got has been
interesting and beneficial to your current situation. I created
this eBook one autumn afternoon thinking about what
I’d like to share with technical founders. This publication is
based entirely on my experience working with techies all
around the globe.

A little bit about me.

For the past 5 years I’ve been working for non-tech and
tech companies selling products and services and creating
beneficial partnerships. With practical experience in
Asia, Europe, North and South America and
network all around the globe, I’ve managed
partnerships and closed deals for various
types of companies.

My preference tough is selling for tech

startups and SMEs. I love skiing so every
winter you can find me on the top of
some slopes in Europe. I’m an AIESEC
alumni and lately became member of
the Association of the Bulgarian Leaders
and Entrepreneurs (ABLE).

If you want to get in touch you can

find me on Instagram (@ttheoss),
where I post some practical sales
mantras every day. If it’s on a more
professional note, check me on
LinkedIn or drop me a line at
me@ttheoss.com.

Thank you,
Teo

16 Sales for tech SMEs. Guide by Teofil S.