Blog: The Boost

Startup founder or salesperson? Should you be both?

Jonathan Cogley
Startup founder or salesperson? Should you be both?
Common advice given to founders is to be the sales person in their startup and only hire sales people later.  This makes some sense as the founder is usually the best person to sell the startup’s product/service.  This is because they are passionate about the problem area and really understand the industry.  This makes them one of the most effective people to close deals later in the company’s...
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Customer pains: Know them, fix them – and you’ll get new customers

Jonathan Cogley
Customer pains: Know them, fix them – and you’ll get new customers
Startups should focus on specific customer pains and provide a solution to solve those customer pains.  Customer pains should be things that the customer is prepared to pay money to solve.  This is advice for product management, marketing, demos, business strategy and even sales.  In fact, this is something that should be engrained into all parts of your business.  The customer is not buying...
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How to fire bad customers, and why it’s good for your business

Jonathan Cogley
How to fire bad customers, and why it’s good for your business
Fire bad customers – some of them just won’t be worth keeping.  Either they pay too little and want too much or they take up too much of your time.  You can try to change your business model and make more money from these customers if possible. But sometimes it is easier to just let them go and focus on customers who are more profitable.  Make sure you understand the profiles of your customers...
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Do you have the qualities of a successful entrepreneur?

Jonathan Cogley
Do you have the qualities of a successful entrepreneur?
I am sometimes approached by people thinking about starting a business or going out on their own.  Unfortunately some of these folks don’t seem to have the right stuff.  So how do you tell – are you an entrepreneur?  There are checklists on websites and probably personality tests you can take but I can only speak to my own experiences.  Some characteristics seem to work and others don’t.
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