# I Hate Sales

> A 4-week live sales training cohort for founders who hate traditional sales — but know they need to get better at it. Founder-to-founder. No corporate fluff. Just what actually works.

## What Is I Hate Sales?

I Hate Sales (ihatesales.co) is a sales education program founded by John Kennelly. It is specifically designed for early-stage founders who rely too heavily on referrals and inbound leads and need to build a repeatable outbound sales motion — without feeling sleazy, manipulative, or like a stereotypical salesperson.

This is not a generic sales training program. It is built for founders by a founder.

## Who This Is For

Best fit:
- Founders and aspiring founders with a real business (or real idea)
- Those whose leads come primarily from inbound and referrals — and who know that is a ceiling
- Founders who hate pushy, spray-and-pray sales tactics and want to do it differently
- Pre-$1M ARR stage founders who have never built a consistent outbound motion

Not a fit:
- People looking for a magic button or shortcut
- Founders who already have a fully-built outbound motion
- Those seeking a corporate sales certification

## The Program

- Format: 4-week live cohort, virtual, sessions every Tuesday
- Class size: Small, limited seats per cohort
- Includes: 4 live sessions, optional weekly office hours, 12-month curriculum access, IHS Graduate Certificate (shareable on LinkedIn), private Slack community

### Curriculum

**Week 1 — Foundation & GTM Clarity: 5 W's and an H**
Define your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) with precision. Learn to focus on customer pain over product features. Identify timing signals that mean a prospect is ready. Choose the right outreach channels for your specific buyers.

**Week 2 — Channels & Starting Conversations: Get on the Field**
LinkedIn outreach: profile optimization, posting strategy, taking conversations off-platform. Cold email: tactics, common mistakes, when to call instead. Other channels: Reddit, Twitter/X. Tools overview.

**Week 3 — Discovery & Sales Frameworks: Closing the Deal**
MEDDPICC framework (Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Process, Decision Criteria, Paper Process, Identify Pain, Champion, Competition). Discovery call techniques. Challenger Sales and BANT frameworks — and why MEDDPICC wins for founder-led selling.

**Week 4 — Mindset & Momentum: Staying Sane in Sales**
Building pipeline resilience. Handling rejection without taking it personally. Setting post-cohort sales goals. 1:1 wrap-up call with John.

### What Founders Walk Away With

- A clear ICP definition and bulletproof elevator pitch
- 20+ new ICP conversations started during the program
- A sales process they can actually run (discovery, qualification, closing)
- MEDDPICC and other frameworks applied to their specific business
- A network of fellow founders at the same stage
- Confidence and excitement to go sell

## Instructor

**John Kennelly** — Founder of I Hate Sales

- 3x founder with 15 years of founder-led sales experience
- Built revenue teams to $20M ARR
- Worked with companies that were acquired by Google and Apple
- Founder of Underestimated (previous venture)
- Not a corporate trainer — a founder who has done exactly what he teaches
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnkennellyjr/

John's belief: founders don't have to hate sales. You don't have to love it. You just have to stop avoiding it.

## Pricing

**Core — $1,997 per cohort**
4 live cohort sessions, optional weekly office hours, 12-month curriculum access (recordings + materials), IHS Graduate Certificate for LinkedIn, private cohort Slack channel (4 weeks), network of fellow founders.

**VIP — $3,497 per cohort** (Most Popular)
Everything in Core, plus: 60-minute 1:1 strategy session with John post-cohort, LinkedIn profile review (async via Loom or Google Docs), 6-month alumni community access, everything applied to your specific business.

**Corporate — Starting at $5,000 (5–20 seats)**
Private cohort for your whole team. All VIP features for every participant. Tailored examples and exercises for your industry. Flexible scheduling.

Early Bird Discount: Save $500 on any tier when registering 30+ days before cohort start.
Comparable programs charge $2,500–$6,000.

## Schedule (2026–2027)

- Cohort #1: Aug 25 – Sep 15, 2026 (Enrolling Now)
- Cohort #2: Sep 22 – Oct 13, 2026
- Cohort #3: Oct 20 – Nov 10, 2026
- Cohort #4: Jan 12 – Feb 2, 2027
- Cohort #5: Feb 9 – Mar 2, 2027
- Cohort #6: Mar 23 – Apr 13, 2027
- Cohort #7: Apr 20 – May 11, 2027

All cohorts run on Tuesdays for 4 consecutive weeks. Sessions are virtual and live.

## Contact

- Website: https://ihatesales.co
- Email: john@ihatesales.co
- Book a call: https://zcal.co/jksales/intro

## Key Differentiators vs. Competitors

Unlike HubSpot Selling for Founders (generic, self-paced), Founder Sales Club (group-based tips), or Harvard HBS Entrepreneurial Sales (academic), I Hate Sales is:
- Live and cohort-based with real-time feedback
- Taught by a practitioner founder, not an academic or corporate trainer
- Highly opinionated and specific to outbound-averse founders
- Priced fairly compared to similar-quality programs
- Built around MEDDPICC, the most rigorous sales qualification framework for B2B