Becoming a Community Member to Supercharge Sales Growth
It’s true that ‘Web2’ businesses dwarf Web3 businesses in team size, allowing Web3 salespeople to reach out to decision-makers directly, but even though you can reach out to the CEO doesn’t mean they’ll answer. There’s so much fluff in this industry that you need to be known or know the right people in order to get results.
Joining a team as an SDR, or even being a seasoned sales professional entering the space may feel like a daunting task. How do you go beyond pure outreach and achieve elements of scale to build your pipeline? I asked myself that exact question when I was getting started, and found that there was more I could do than automation to get the results I wanted.
One of Web3’s core values is ‘the power of community’. Businesses are built and governed by decentralized communities, community members build on top of blockchain networks enriching the ecosystem, and teams give ownership to their communities via tokens. You can join all types of communities, like ones tied to specific protocols or even generalized communities like WolvesDAO (the leading Web3 gaming community).
Reaching out to community members, or scraping the member list is helpful, but being active is your best bet. Communities value active members. Share every new partner launch, and every major announcement and people will want to tune in because they’ll see that you’re building something real. On top of being active, opportunities to connect with other community members will arise and you should take every chance to extend your network with these opportunities. Whether that’s a side event at ETHCC or a small meet-up at the Louvre during NFT Paris. This is a strategy that will pay off over time and has netted me deals that I wouldn’t have found otherwise.
I’ve even seen people take this strategy a step further by building their own community. In this case, they’ve niched down and are the ones providing the opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals in Web3. This way they have more leverage than if they were a community member in another group. This of course takes much more time and effort than joining an existing network.
To sell in this industry you have to align yourself with the underlying values of the space. There are flavors to doing that, whether that’s providing direct value to an existing network or creating the place for others to provide value. Build your process, be authentic, and build a reputation that enables you to scale your offering across the market.
Follow along here and on X if you’re interested in learning more about navigating sales in our increasingly digital world.
