The Sales
Operations
Playbook
A Guide for B2B Startups
By Iskender Dirik
1. Creating demand
2. Building your sales model
3. Building a sales team
4. The sales process
5. Managing a sales team
6. Selling through partners
7. KPIs for sales growth
8. Entering new markets
9. Entering the United States
10. How to adopt insight selling in your business
11. Negotiating the best deal
12. Sales hints
13. Rules of thumb around key metrics
14. Book recommendations
15. Acknowledgements and biographies
Table of contents
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Introduction
Increasing sales is critical to the success of B2B software startups. A healthy
customer base is essential to being able to access investment, scale up, and
achieve ultimate success. Yet, many startups are founded by entrepreneurs
who have backgrounds in technology, not sales. They don’t necessarily have
the skills or experience they need to build an effective sales organization.
They aren’t sure where to start, but even the best product in the world won’t
sell itself. As sales expert (and engineer) Stefan Groschupf says, “If you want
to create a successful company, it is as critical (or even more so) to build
your go-to-market functions as it is to build a great product.”
When I talk with B2B enterprise software entrepreneurs that are looking to
scale up their business, and I ask about their biggest challenges, they always
answer "sales". That’s why we’ve created this guide. Based on the insights
of founders, experts, and entrepreneurs who have built successful startups,
4
PS: I’d like to thank all the contributors who’ve so generously given up their time for
this guide—check out their biographies at the end to find out more about them and
their experiences.
Iskender Dirik
Managing Director
Microsoft ScaleUp Berlin
Microsoft for Startups
this guide aims to demystify the entire sales process for startups. This guide
explains where to start, what to do, and what to avoid. It covers everything
from making the first sale to structuring the organization, expanding interna-
tio