Ask A Founder: What is the key to selling?

Ask A Founder with Meg Reiss, Founder and CEO at SolidIntel Inc., Fernando Rodriguez-Villa, Co-founder & CEO at AdeptID, and Anthony Tassone, CEO & Co-founder of Truleo

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Tune in as we sit down with three visionary founders: Meg Reiss, Founder and CEO at SolidIntel Inc., Fernando Rodriguez-Villa, Co-founder & CEO at AdeptID, and Anthony Tassone, CEO & Co-founder of Truleo. In this episode, these founders each share their number one tip for selling.

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What is the key to selling?

We asked these founders what their key to selling would be for fellow entrepreneurs. Here’s what they said:

“The key to selling in my view, is to be convicted by what you’re building.”

And then it won’t feel like you’re trying to convince someone to buy something they may not need. Instead, you’re driven by mission. And at that point, it’s not selling. It’s building together.”

Meg Reiss, Founder and CEO at SolidIntel Inc.

“I do think people buy when they think that you believe in the thing you’re selling, but they also need to feel like you’re in a rush to get this into not just their hands, but everybody’s hands.”

Fernando Rodriguez-Villa, Co-founder & CEO of AdeptID 

“The key to selling is to be super authentic and to ask super high-quality questions.”

You want to become an expert in the pain or the problem that the person sitting across from you has. Your goal is not to sell software or to sell some solution to them. Your goal is to understand their pain or their problem as quickly as possible so that you can explain to them how your solution solves that pain. And so I spend a lot of time getting to know the problem, asking a lot of questions about why did you say that? Or Why do you feel that way? Or why is that not an option? I think it’s really key to sit back and let somebody else talk. I think if you’re in a sales meeting and you talk more than 50% of the time you’re talking at someone, you’re selling at them. And I think people, it triggers a lot of sales resistance when that happens. So my tips for being a good salesperson is to ask really good questions and then be quiet and listen to the person speak.”

Anthony Tassone, Co-founder & CEO of Truelo

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The show is produced by Alumni Ventures, which has been recognized as a “Top 20 Venture Firm” by CB Insights (’24) and as the “#1 Most Active Venture Firm in the US” by Pitchbook (’22 & ’23).

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