AWS Startups Blog
Author: Mark Birch
Mark is a community builder, software entrepreneur, business development expert, and startup advisor. He currently works at AWS as a Principal Startup Advocate advising founders and sharing the stories of how startups across Asia-Pacific successfully build and scale their startups on AWS. Previously, Mark founded the Enterprise Sales Forum, a global community of 25,000 B2B sales professionals, and DEV.BIZ.OPS, a newsletter and blog. Mark was also with Stack Overflow to help launch and commercialize their Enterprise Q&A platform and then led efforts to expand business in APAC working with C-level executives to help them understand how to build internal tech communities in order to improve software delivery performance. Before that he launched an HR tech startup, invested in numerous B2B tech companies and worked at a diverse group of leading technology companies including Oracle, E.piphany, and Siebel.
Putting It All Together (Startup Founder Sales Series, Conclusion)
AWS Startup Advocate Mark Birch concludes his Founder Sales Series with advice on how to put all his tips and tricks together to create a more effective sales strategy for your startup.
Negotiate & Close the Deal (Startup Founder Sales Series, Part 12)
In the final post of the Founder Sales series, AWS Startup Advocate Mark Birch shares how to avoid the 11th hour close.
Contract and Legal Traps to Avoid (Startup Founder Sales Series, Part 11)
In part 11 of the Founder Sales Series, AWS Startup Advocate Mark Birch shares some of the more common sticking points and areas of caution when it comes to legal side of closing deals.
Navigating the Internal Sale (Startup Founder Sales Series, Part 10)
In part 10 of the Founder Sales series, AWS Startup Advocate Mark Birch walks through the common mistakes that can lead to a good deal unraveling and how to address them.
Finding Your Internal Champion (Startup Founder Sales Series, Part 9)
After you have had successful preliminary sales meetings, the next step is to build upon these initial meetings to develop internal support for your solution and ensure your efforts lead to a signed deal. AWS Startup Advocate Mark Birch walks through how to do so in part 9 of the Founder Sales series.
More Effective Sales Meetings (Startup Founder Sales Series, Part 8)
As a founder of a B2B startup struggling to book sales meetings, it is frustrating to experience getting ghosted. This is when all communication ceases between two parties. For salespeople, this is a common occurrence. AWS Startup Advocate Mark Mirch walks us through how to book more effective sales meetings in part 8 of the Founder Sales series.
Qualifying for the Right Customers (Startup Founder Sales Series, Part 7)
For startup founders, the time is your biggest constraint. You are running a company, seeking capital, guiding product, hiring staff, and leading marketing and sales. If four out of five deals turn out to be duds and each deal take ten hours, you have lost a week of time. This is why rigorously qualifying your deals is so vitally important. You need to focus your time on finding the right customers. In part 7 of the Startup Founder Sales series, AWS Startup Advocate Mark Birch tells us how.
Prospecting Mechanisms (Startup Founder Sales Series, Part 6)
In part 6 of the Startup Founder Sales series, Startup Advocate Mark Birch walks you through the process of putting these leads to work through a repeatable outbound prospecting process.
How to Build Lead Lists (Startup Founder Sales Series, Part 5)
In part five of the Startup Founder Sales Series, we dive into how to find the contacts to reach out to and where to find this data from.
Building the Right Messaging (Startup Founder Sales Series, Part 4)
In part four of the Startup Founder Sales Series, we explore the topic of sales messaging and what it takes to create copy that starts sales conversations with the buyers in your ICP.