Government grants are valuable but Atlantic Canada’s technical founders need to stop focusing on perfecting their products and understand their own sales propositions and strategies straight off the bat, says Kent Summers, a Boston-based B2B sales expert who recently presented in Halifax.

Summers, founder and managing partner at the Spinnaker Sales Group, was one of the B2B sales experts at RevGen Atlantic 24, a two-day sales training event for startups and scaleups held at Nova Scotia Health Innovation Hub.

“Sales is a bit of a mystery to a lot of technical founders,” Summers told Entrevestor.

“Founders join accelerators to get non-dilutive government grants to support the growth of their company.  They get in the habit of getting these grants so they can perfect their products...

“Technical founders think, ‘When I have perfected my product, I will sell it by hiring a sales person.’ Founders reach out to career sales people to help them, but that rarely works well because they are hiring sales people too early in the process.”

Summers said founders need to find their own ideal client profile, they need to know what type of industry they are targeting, the end user, etc. Founders need to find reference clients (clients who share their positive experiences with a product), and target market leads themselves.

“Don’t hire your first sales person by asking them to figure out who your customers are,” Summers said. “You need to ask them to find another 100 customers just like these initial ten. You need a model that is repeatable. This is not well understood.”

Summers said around 60 founders, heads of accelerators and others from the four Atlantic provinces attended RevGen 24 and learned practical tools and strategies for boosting customer adoption and scaling revenue.

“We took them through the entire sales process from end to end, from how to get leads, refine your message, how to evaluate leads, the questions to ask leads to ensure they are worth your time. Don’t try to sell straight off, learn about the client. When you are selling a higher priced offering, there are many people involved in the decision-making process and you need to know how to navigate that.”

Summers said his programming began taking shape in 2008 when he started teaching at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a course he still teaches today.  

“For the first ten years, I was smart enough to know what I didn’t know,” he said. “I asked for feedback from founders, asking them what I missed, etc. It took me about ten years to curate the content to the point where I didn’t get useful feedback. In 2018, I started taking the material around the globe.”  

To date, he has presented at the Canadian Technology Accelerator in Boston and at the PEI BioAlliance, among many other locations.

“All founders are the same,” he said. “Their comfort zone is the technology, the product. They are all dying for practical information on how to get paying clients. They need to be growing a business, not stuck in an expensive hobby.”

Kevin Rimmer, founder of Halifax-based B-Side Group which supports companies in health, wellness, and human performance, partnered with Summers in bringing the training to the region.

“Startups are selling products that are still evolving, often to customers who are established, cautious, and resistant to change,” he said. “It’s an uphill battle, and without the right tools and mindset, many founders struggle to succeed.

“One of the key takeaways (of the training) is that this responsibility cannot be outsourced…Hiring traditional salespeople too early often leads to failure because selling as a startup is fundamentally different—it’s not just about the product; it’s about building trust, credibility, and relationships from scratch.”

He said the customer-first approach empowers founders to grow their business without relying on external funding.

“The message is that success in sales isn’t tied to a degree or pedigree. Whether you’re a Harvard graduate or didn’t finish high school, the path to success is the same: a practical, common-sense approach, a willingness to learn, and the discipline to refine your processes and skills through repetition.”

Summers said he will be back in Atlantic Canada next year.

“There will definitely be a RevGen 25,” he said. “Our objective was to establish the bar, to show this is what sales training should look like,”

RevGen 24 was offered free of charge thanks to the sponsorship provided by PEI BioAlliance, Life Sciences Nova Scotia, Bounce Health Innovation and the host, Nova Scotia Health Innovation Hub.