Over the past few months, I have been learning about sales processes at different companies. I have talked to people from companies of many different shapes and sizes, learning about simple sales processes, complex sales processes, and everything in between.

Curtact is a project designed to help shed transparency on how B2B companies operate.

When I first started Curtact, my goal was to build software to help people sell better (You can still find the original minimum viable product at Curtact.com/legacy). I wanted to learn as much about sales as possible, so I emailed everyone I know that works in sales.

My goal was to find a part of the sales process that looked like it needed to be fixed or improved upon. When I spoke with friends, I asked them about their job. I asked them about their day to day activities. I asked them what kept them up at night and what part of their job could be improved.

When I was looking for ways to help companies solve problems in their sales’ processes, I came up empty—but decided to keep talking to companies anyway because I’m fascinated by the sales process. Sales is results orientated. You either succeed or you don’t. And it’s so different at different companies, but when you boil it down, you have to build a relationship with someone to show them how your product could improve their problems, and then you have to take their money. This is sales at it’s core—learned by even the youngest person when they are selling lemonade, or girl scout cookies, or candy bars.

When talking to companies, I encountered many pain-points—but for each salesperson, these pain-points were different. There wasn’t one clear problem that I should solve. After all of these conversations, the main lesson I learned is that B2B companies are not created equal. The sales process will be different based on every company’s customer, industry, price point, and stage of the company.

At first, I didn’t think anything would come of those initial conversations, but, after some thought, I realized that I shouldn’t keep all this information to myself—instead, I should share these stories with the world.

Maybe it’s because I don’t work in sales. Maybe it’s because I tried to start companies in the past, but failed because I wasn’t great at selling. Maybe I just like hearing about the work other people do. To be honest, I’m not really sure why I find these stories interesting, but I do.

Over the next few weeks, I will be blogging about how companies sell.

I want to answer questions like:

  • What does the typical sales process look like at different companies?
  • Do companies still cold call?
  • Is cold email the wave of the future?
  • What the hell is an SDR?
  • What does it take to be a good sales person?
  • What are the best sales podcasts to listen to?
  • What is the best sales stack?

These are how companies sell. This is Curtact.