Good sales strategy for startups?

I am one of the first employees of a start-up and joined with a technical background. Now a few years down the line, I would like getting into sales. While I am getting good results, I know they can be a lot better.

What are some good sales strategies to ensure that my conversion rate from leads to clients is higher?

Any good resources I can refer to? We are into the services business, so don't really have a product to showcase (but we do have a pretty neat portfolio)

Thanks.

I agree with Joseph. I wanted to add: the main mistake start-ups are making is concentrating their efforts on too few nice leads. I mean there is nothing wrong in hoping but selling is the game of numbers.

I would say that if your target market is more than 100 companies you might need to figure out the sales math - how many leads you would need to have a one sale? Answer to that question could be valuable cornerstone for your sales strategy.

Example if you need 10 contracts per month then you need to figure out, how many proposals do you actually need, and then again - how many meetings or phone calls would you need. So finally you can come up with the number: how many leads would you need to to get your sales goal. After that you can set up a really simple action plan - every day I would need to do # calls/meeting/proposals to be on the safe side. Selling is the game of numbers - smart sales teams concentrate on hard work and smart work simultaneously.

Well, it depends on:

• What you are selling
• Who you are selling it to
• Who is going to make the decision to buy it
• Why they would want to buy it
• Why you are better that someone else
• How they receive the serivce
• How they pay for the service
• Where you are located
• What your budget is
• What the value of the customer is

In other words- there is no "one" or even "best" sales strategy for a startup (or service startup) - it will be as unique as your company. The sales strategy you develop and sucessfully execute will be as important as your techinical service delievery platform.

It mmay also take just as much time and energy to successfully develop.