Sales are the lifeblood of innovation

A technology company without sales is just a project.

A business is only a business when it has revenues. Customers and revenue are the sine qua non of business – without them, ‘you ain’t got nothing’.

A decent business has good customers. A great business has great clients and a low average cost to acquire more of them.

Innovators and technology companies have a bad track record of belittling the importance of marketing and sales. In my opinion, this is truly misplaced arrogance: innovating is easy compared to figuring out how to get people to pay for something new. Marketing is a complex, difficult and extremely valuable art form, and marketing for anything that is slightly novel or out of the norm is really difficult. So too are sales (and they are quite different, and likely should not be handled by the same folks).

If you want to support innovators and the growth and success of innovative companies, then in my view, the single most useful and valuable thing that you can do is help people understand the importance of marketing and sales – and that the importance of them getting training and putting in the sustained effort necessary to try to master these crucial skills.

Neil