He instilled in our eight-person sales team the crucial four C’s. To sell, you had have 1) the competence — expert knowledge of the product you were … - Ben Horowitz

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He instilled in our eight-person sales team the crucial four C’s. To sell, you had have 1) the competence — expert knowledge of the product you were selling and the process to demonstrate it (qualifying the buyer by validating their need and budget; helping define what their buying criteria are while setting traps for the competition; getting sign-off from the technical and the economic buyer at the customer, and so forth) so that you could have 2) the confidence to state your point of view, which would give you 3) the courage to have 4) the conviction not to be sold by the customer on why she wasn’t going to buy your product. Cranney was obsessed with training every salesperson, testing them, and holding them accountable on the four C’s.