tldr:
In technical saas/service sales, Technical people should try to be more likeable and more personable.
Non-Technical people should try to deeply understand the value they’re providing and craft stories around it.

Observation - Technical

Technical people are typically not great at sales. I generally fall into this category, even though i’ve worked in sales and have been formally trained in sales. When other business owners either in saas or service ask me for advice on gaining/growing clients, it generally falls into 3 buckets (the buckets i work on fixing constantly, with the help of my own sales consultant):

  1. Identify what’s not working and stop doing that, identify what is working and do more of that. It doesn’t matter the strategy (outbound emails, cold calls, door knocking) try it for 3-6 months, record the results, change if it isn’t working. Stop doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.
  2. The larger the ticket item, the smaller the group of people you’re marketing too, the more personal/personable you have to be. This means you can’t avoid shaking hands at networking events when your sales are down. It means everyone you see is a customer and should know what you do, in some capacity.
  3. You don’t get what you don’t ask for. This is true for referrals, upselling, advice, relationships, networks, free trials, discounts, etc. If you want something from someone, one of the first steps is to just ask for it. You should generally be doubling back on existing and former customers on a routine basis, monthly/bi-monthly/quarterly etc.

Observation - Non Technical

Non Technical people have the gift of gab generally. This means they’ll (generally) talk your ear off about topics they have a (typically) shallow understanding of. The hurdle you face is in trustworthiness. You’re a high charisma bard, who’s never made a drop of alcohol, trying to convince the barkeep that you have the best recipe for draft beer they’ve ever seen… okay maybe that’s a bad analogy for non tech people…
You’re a mechanic tool salesman, who’s only ever interacted with tools or a vehicle except through a screen, trying to convince a mechanic that you’ve got the best 12pt 12mm socket ever made.

You have to get through the trust barrier. Here’s some anecdotal advice.

  1. Listen and Learn from your network of experts. This means sitting and listening to people discuss the product/service you’re offering. It means participating in discovery sessions, participating in technical calls (maybe less so, more listening) etc. You must learn the lingo and appreciate the years of dedication it takes to really understand all of the nuances of your product.
  2. Learn to tell stories. Write down, memorize and become fluent in stories of success you’ve heard from your team/product/customers. Everyone knows you’re not the expert, but you should be able to tell an inspiring story that shows the product/services value for the listening audience. I suggest reading more about “showing not telling” and practicing telling your network of experts your story repeatedly and letting the ask questions/correct/coach you through problems.
  3. Stop spamming people. We get it. You warm a cold email up for 2 weeks, you prep 2 months of drip down campaigns and you blast it to 200,000 emails you got from a list. We know the drill. We know it works by sheer volume. But it’s extremely annoying. It’s the window washer in San Fran trying to grift you for 20$ at the stop light. It’s the preacher yelling his message via blowhorn at times square. It should be a lower volume/last resort imo. Specifically in relationship based/high ticket sales.

Resources

There’s some people/books/things i really enjoyed reading and take a lot of my own philosophy from, i’ll share them below:

Alex Hormozi - https://www.acquisition.com/training/leads
The Mom Test - https://www.momtestbook.com/
Zig Ziglar - Goals - https://www.amazon.com/Goals-How-Most-Your-Life/dp/1640950907
Rework Podcast - https://open.spotify.com/show/5JxcIaIkN8zx3Zy7yD9snv?si=6be9460a32c04950
High Profit Prospecting - https://www.amazon.com/High-Profit-Prospecting-Powerful-Strategies-Breakthrough/dp/0814437761
The 1 page marketing plan - https://www.amazon.com/1-Page-Marketing-Plan-Customers-Money-ebook/dp/B01B35M3SM

Conclusion

I’m not an expert, i’ve fucked up more than i’ve succeeded, but i wanted to throw this out into the ether and see if anyone else has any rebuttals or anything to add. Naturally there’s a lot of context and situational anecdotes that render any one of these observations invalid, but they’ve repeatedly popped up for me the past 10 years, i assume others may have opinions as well.