Sales is hustling!…
So why do I need a sales process??
As a Founder of a start-up you are supposed to “hustle” for new clients, and “hack systems” in your favour. You should be agile, test-driven, and “fail fast”. You should have bulletproof confidence in your product, yet be humble enough to accept advice and pivot when needed.
When everything you are taught about how to be a good start-up founder is focused on trends, rapid changes, and how to use uncertainty to your advantage, what role does process have to play? If you have a hustling, entrepreneurial mindset then, like me, you may feel that the word “process” inspires words like ‘shackles’, ‘overheads’, and ‘boredom’. But nothing could be further from the truth.
A start-up without any processes may be successful for a time, but hustling can only get you so far. At some point, if you want to continue to grow, you need to create a scalable organisation and that includes putting processes in place. The corporate graveyard is littered with businesses whose owners did not manage this step. More recent high profile examples of companies that almost failed because of their hustling founders include Uber and WeWork where the initially successful founders (Kalanick and Neumann) were replaced with more seasoned operators (Khosrowshahi and Mathrani).
