Make the Ask
Make the Ask
And other thoughts on how to sell to employees, investors, and customers
Have you ever had a sales job? If not, when was the last time you sold something? Have you gotten a series of “no’s”, followed by a “yes”? How did you get that person from maybe or no to yes?
Sales is hard, but it’s a (critically important!) skill that can be learned. For those with limited time (as I’m sure most of you reading this are…), here’s the simplest advice I would give…don’t be afraid to make the ask. Here’s some examples of frequent “asks” in startups and venture:
In hiring engineers: “would you want to join us full-time?”
In raising venture capital: “would you like to come on board as an investor?”
In selling to customers: “would you like to buy our product?”
There’s three key things to remember when framing an ask:
It should have a yes/no response. Anything other than yes, is no.
If you get a no, it should be followed up with “what would have to be true to get you to yes?”
Be tactful…have a sense of when the right time is to make an ask, and how to ask this direct question. You will get better at this with experience.
Ultimately, the purpose of making a clear ask is about effectively using the most limited resource we all have…time. The faster you get to a “no”, the sooner you can move on to more likely prospects, but ideally armed with additional insights from the quick “no’s” that help you increase the likelihood of getting to yes in the future.