The biggest challenge for growing businesses is often sales. Growing revenue is hard and can mean success or failure for startup businesses. Many times the owners or founders of a company have technical, financial, or operational experience, but often not sales. The good news for Canadian startups is that there are many free or nearly free B2B sales resources that they can use.
MaRS
MaRS is the hub for startup resources in Ontario. There are many resources available including:
- Entrepreneurs ToolKit with a lot of information on a number of sales tools
- Entrepreneur 101 sessions on sales
- Best Practices presentations
- Blogs
MaRS also has many videos of presentations on the site so if you missed it, you can watch it live. My presentation on Sales Strategy from March, along with a summary is available on our site.
Communitech
Communitech has many events during the year and some have a sales focus. They also have an active blog that does feature some sales features as well. One unique feature they do have is their separate Peer2Peer groups on sales.
The Business Development & Senior Sales
The Business Development & Senior Sales meets on the third Tuesday of every month.
The topics includes business development versus sales, lead generation, closing deals, recharging team batteries, sales team training, competitive intelligence, and going from start-up to mature company.
Tactical Sales
Tactical Sales meets on the first Wednesday of every month. Topics include cold calling strategies, prospecting techniques, effective proposals and managing customer expectations.
Innovation Factory
The Innovation Factory Café if sessions have had a regular focus on sales.
Sales and Marketing for Canadian Startups Linkedin Group
This group has information on sales, marketing, and social media for Canadian startups. There are many discussions, information shared, and events posted.
Other Sales Leaders
I also recommend checking out Anthony Iannarino and Paul Castain. They have regular blogs and new sales content on their site. I also find that they have great twitter feeds as well.
If you have any other great free, or nearly free, sales resources please leave a comment or contact us. VA Partners also has a wide array of free information posted on our site. A great way to get an update is to sign up for our newsletter.
