“It doesn’t matter what size or business you’re in—when you’re starting your sales and marketing should never be separated.”
—Vik Khanna, Founder of Faronics
You can’t have a business unless you learn how to sell. Faronics has become the leader in making computers used in education safe for students to use. This is the story of how four partners came together to solve a real need, building Faronics into a multi-million dollar software company by selling their product, Deep Freeze.
Faronics started in 1996 as a computer hardware import/export business which then became a white box computer manufacturer and computer parts wholesaler. It was a low margin, high cash, and inventory intensive business in which a significant amount of business was done with local school districts. One of Vik’s local customers was a software company that also bought his hardware. A friendship developed and in July 1999 they asked Vik if he could introduce them to some school district clients when they launched Deep Freeze. Vik immediately asked for the rights to sell this product, seeing it as a high margin and low inventory product line. This turned out to be a wise decision as he ended up having an incredibly successful 18 years with Faronics and Deep Freeze.
Four partners, each with their own expertise, came together, saw a market need and then developed an industry-leading product to address that need. Among the lessons learned:
- Hire sales people who can really dig into the needs of prospects—looking beyond the first one or two objections to dig into the real problem the prospect faces.
- Create a structure that makes sales people hungry, monitoring and managing them on an individual basis.
- It is the calls longer than 30 seconds that really count in sales.
- Teamwork between sales, marketing, and product management has the greatest impact on future sales.
While four partners came together to form Faronics, Vik was the sales leader that took to the road to sell Deep Freeze and who hired and created the sales culture that led to their success. During the process, Vik held himself accountable to the same measures that he held all the other sales people accountable to. The proof of Vik’s strategy is in the worldwide success that Faronics has achieved.
These insights were taken from the Sales chapter of my book Wind In Your Sails: Vital Strategies That Accelerate Your Entrepreneurial Growth. Learn more at windinyoursails.coachdjgreer.com.
