I recently read The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson of the Corporate Executive Board and then picked it up again, with a highlighter and red pen and started again.

If you haven't read it, I'd highly recommend it. It's a no-brainer if you're in sales or live in or around the sales or buying process as product marketing, product management and others do.

At my company we’ve had the privilege to work with dozens of early stage startups, helping them establish their sales processes. Some ask us to build their process from the ground up. Many come to us solely looking for guidance as they develop their own sales processes and teams. In both cases, the best campaigns are those in which the founders are actively involved with developing the process, or have conducted their startup’s early sales themselves.