How Important Is A Seasoned Sales Person To A SaaS Startup?

Medix CEO, Marc Medina with newly appointed Consultant for 
Sales Development, Dae Bunao.

There is no doubt that a lot of great ideas have emerged over the past few years simply because of the revolution in technology and digital media.  More technopreneurs are born into the scene and a lot of talented and creative individuals have constructed great platforms and applications to fill gaps in our daily lives either as individuals or as professionals.

In the case of Medix.ph, the initial rollout zoomed in on the dental profession, providing dentists with a digital platform which would improve clinic management and systematize patient records.  While this was a nifty idea, just like any other startup, a large user base needed to be built in the shortest amount of time.

We have heard it over and over again that in the startup community, there are a great number of ideas and fledgling ventures who have a solid and scalable back-end, owing to the tech capabilities of the founders who usually serve as highly capable CTOs doubling as newbie CEOs.  And herein lies the rub, the great idea or concept will hardly survive without help from a solid plan in Marketing and Sales.  Such is even amplified 10 times when we talk of Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings.

Thus even with a good marketing plan, the stretch from marketing to sales is still a wide chasm.  It is for this reason that even though I crafted a marketing and media strategy for Medix, drawing from the experience of working with multinational ad agencies, it was imperative to get a seasoned sales person to do the ground work.  This led Medix to draw talent from a totally different field - Real Estate Sales.

No we're not talking about a hotshot broker here.  The type who usually does stellar sales as a one-man-show is not we're focusing on.  We're actually talking of a Group Leader (in the insurance industry they may be called Branch Heads).  Someone who won't just execute the Marketing plan but will also devise his Sales plan as aligned to the larger strategy.  Furthermore, we needed someone who could multiply the sales team via training and spur them in the right way.  Someone who we can think of as a Captain Ball.  Simply put, Marc Medina, Medix CEO, plugged in Dae Fernando Bunao, a seasoned Group Head in the Real Estate whose experience goes way back to the early days of the real estate boom during the 1990s.

This position in the startup team play is highly important especially if one has a SaaS Startup. 

Marketing and media can do what I'd like to call "the airstrikes" but at the end of the day, it's the seasoned sales person who brings in the infantry to win the war.

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Lloyd Tronco is a Certified Digital Marketer and Out-Of-Home Media Strategist.  His experience in entrepreneurship started in Bacolod City, Negros Occidental selling home made ice-candy during summers. He currently does marketing consultancy for startups.

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