Strongly disagree with Rule #5: Have a “no-touch sales process”.
That's actually one of the biggest reasons why companies fail. Founders are afraid to talk to people, they just build something and wait until somebody comes and buys it. What happens next I guess all of us know.
You have to interact with your prospective customers and having a high-touch sales process is one way to do that.
I don't think he's saying to be afraid to talk to people. Often when I'm making purchases for my job though I'll run into a product that doesn't show any pricing and says to contact their sales staff if you are interested in making a purchase. I hate that and will pretty much always pass them over for a site that doesn't force me to contact them and doesn't restrict my purchase options.
If I can see pricing and purchase at any time but I still have questions, sure I'll contact them. But don't force me to.
In my previous company we had a solution that cost $1000/mo. When we advertised it on the website - we had virtually no signups at all. When we removed it - some people start contacting us and some of them were converted into customers.
When you don't see the price - in most cases that means that this solution is strictly B2B, so you're not their target market.
That's actually one of the biggest reasons why companies fail. Founders are afraid to talk to people, they just build something and wait until somebody comes and buys it. What happens next I guess all of us know.
You have to interact with your prospective customers and having a high-touch sales process is one way to do that.