The ultimate guide to founder-led sales | Jen Abel (co-founder of JJELLYFISH)

Lenny's Podcast: Product | Growth | Career

Lenny Rachitsky

Technology, Business, Entrepreneurship

5 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2024

⏱️ 76 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jen Abel is the co-founder of JJELLYFISH, where she and her team have worked with over 300 early-stage founders to learn how to sell, do early customer discovery, and set up a repeatable sales motion on the way to their first $1M ARR. In our conversation, Jen shares:

• Why founder-led sales is so crucial early on

• The sales process, step by step

• How to craft effective outreach messages

• Where to find leads

• What three channels work best for outreach

• What to say on your first call

• How to maintain momentum

• Strategies for navigating procurement and closing deals

• Common pitfalls in the sales process and how to avoid them

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Find the transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/master-founder-led-sales-jen-abel

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Where to find Jen Abel:

• X: https://x.com/jjen_abel

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/earlystagesale

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Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

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In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Jen’s background

(02:20) The importance of founder-led sales

(08:24) The steps of a sales cycle

(12:01) Tactics for effective cold outreach

(16:47) Conversion rate vs. win rate

(20:20) The time it takes to find product-market fit

(23:06) Identifying and engaging prospects

(30:58) Nailing the first phone call

(34:14) Buying vs. selling

(38:08) Testing the questions to ask

(41:57) Avoiding common sales questions and securing the second call

(43:08) Co-authoring with customers

(45:06) Time-boxing service contracts

(49:20) Why you should avoid demos on the first call

(51:05) Dealing with procurement

(54:22) The power of enterprise sales

(58:14) Getting a signature

(01:00:15) Choosing a focus and overcoming sales challenges

(01:02:19) General timelines

(01:04:27) Final thoughts and advice

(01:13:32) Working with Jen

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Referenced:

• Wiz: https://www.wiz.io/

• JJELLYFISH: https://www.jjellyfish.com/

• Clay: https://www.clay.com/

• A guide for finding product-market fit in B2B: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/finding-product-market-fit

• Airtable: https://www.airtable.com/

• Figma: https://www.figma.com/

• GitHub: https://github.com/

• Vanta: https://www.vanta.com/

• Christine Cacioppo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ccacioppo/

• Glengarry Glen Ross: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104348/

• A step-by-step guide to crafting a sales pitch that wins | April Dunford (author of Obviously Awesome and Sales Pitch): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/a-step-by-step-guide-to-crafting

• Sales Pitch: How to Craft a Story to Stand Out and Win: https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Pitch-Craft-Story-Stand-ebook/dp/B0CHY6BNDN

• Sprig: https://sprig.com/

• Zip: https://zip.co/

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Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].

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Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.

Get full access to Lenny's Newsletter at www.lennysnewsletter.com/subscribe

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I've always wanted to create a very tactical episode on how to do sales, especially with a focus on founder-led sales.
0:06.6	A lot of early-stage founders get tripped up as they're taking late-stage sales advice.
0:11.1	The founder is the product.
0:12.2	You have studied, you have experienced something that most of the market hasn't even had a chance to maybe see or visualize yet.
0:19.3	A billion SaaS tools emailing me constantly about their product.
0:22.0	How do you get someone to even want to talk to you and be open to learning about what you're doing?
0:25.2	So if you can focus the messaging in a way that speaks to something that is a bit of shock value or is counterintuitive, you'll get them to continue reading.
0:33.6	When a problem is truly being felt by the market, people will get on the call.
0:38.1	People will respond. The next step I imagine is you're on the phone with them, trying to convince
0:41.5	them to actually care. What do you do there? How do you get them to engage further?
0:45.8	You need to be vulnerable. I would be very open and honest with where you are. Hey, I'm an early
0:50.5	stage startup. We have a lot to learn. Can we kind of gain your insight into like how this problem is manifesting on your side?
0:58.6	Founder-led sales is not about revenue on day one.
1:01.1	It is about learning as fast as humanly possible to get to that pulse so that you can earn
1:05.9	the right to sell.
1:13.6	Today, my guest is Jen Abel. Jen is the co-founder of Jellyfish, where her and her team help early stage founders learn how to sell, do early customer discovery, and set up a repeatable sales motion.
1:23.6	Prior to Jellyfish, Jen was an enterprise sales director at the Muse and a General Assembly,
1:28.3	and she's obsessed with helping founders in the zero to one stage of their journey.
1:32.3	In our conversation, we get extremely tactical and in the weeds on how to actually do sales as a founder.
1:38.3	We talk through each step of the sales process, and Jen shares what you should be doing and saying at every step.
1:44.8	We go through how to find your first set of leads, how to reach out to them, what to say
1:48.8	in your message, how to structure your first sales call, how to get through procurement, and
	...

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