These two Harvard B2B sales lectures by Kent Summers are absolute gold for early-stage founders.
Want to put this out openly because I see too many of us struggling with the reality of enterprise sales. If you're building in the B2B space, you need to watch these two sessions from Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs featuring Kent Summers. The guy is just phenomenal at what he does.
He breaks down the actual tradecraft of B2B sales and dispels the myth that you should just go out and hire a professional salesperson to solve your revenue problems early on. He argues that as a founder, you have to be the first one selling so you intimately understand the blocking issues and the exact pain points your product solves. He also goes deep into managing a weighted pipeline and proactively purging the "slow no"—those prospects who take up all your time but never actually pull the trigger.
Here are the links:
Session 1:http://youtube.com/watch?v=OaNi0dntHfU
Session 2:https://youtu.be/A8Pl17h7h2Q?si=muSrqgh_5x-ZR3R0
As a technical founder currently building an AI visibility audit platform, this material was a massive reality check. It actually reinforced exactly why my top priority right now is finding a co-founder with a strong B2B sales and marketing background. The mechanics of enterprise sales are a completely different beast from building the tech, and having a partner who intrinsically understands pipeline discipline and customer acquisition costs is make-or-break.
Highly recommend blocking out some time to watch these if you're trying to figure out your go-to-market motion!