Sales Hacker’s Max Altschuler on selling more with less

Whether you’re at an early-stage startup that’s just made its first sales hires, or part of a fast-moving sales team in a large organization, the key to success often comes down to efficiency.

How can you capture, qualify and convert the right leads for your business while working within your means? Max Altschuler has made a career seeking out efficiencies in sales – hacks, as he calls them – and sharing them with the wider SaaS and sales community.

Today, Max is the CEO of Sales Hacker: a global conference, event series, and an online publication that brings together proven sales execs and emerging startup founders to share their lessons and experiences in sales automation and tech sales. He’s also the author of Hacking Sales, which includes many of the lessons he learned the hard way as an early sales leader at Udemy and AttorneyFee (now LegalZoom Local).

What follows is a lightly edited transcript of the conversation. Short on time? Here are five quick takeaways:

1. If you’re an early-stage company you don’t just need to build a sales team, you need to build an efficient sales team. That means your focus should be on building the right customer profile and developing precise messaging to reach them.
2. When it came to finding content creators for Udemy, Max hired virtual assistants to comb sites for relevant keywords and went down the rabbit hole to compile contact information in spreadsheet of potential contributors. Then, the sales team went to work.
3. When making a sales hire, Max pays attention to the way candidates approach getting the job. Do they back channel? How did they in touch with the company? In his opinion, the hiring process is a preview of their sales technique.
4. Max is a proponent of combining old-school techniques with new tools like using messengers to catch potential customers when they visit your site looking for a specific answer. It’s easier to qualify leads, and it saves time.
5. Every Monday, Max makes a list of what happened the previous week, what’s stressing him out, and what he’s grateful for. It’s an empowering way to break through malaise and see what incremental gains you’re making as a human and in your career.