Member Page – 2016 Sales Acceleration Calls: Archive

Webinar Builder Worksheet: https://salesqualia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/MM-WebinarBuilder-Worksheet.pdf

The Startup Selling Webinar Playbook: https://salesqualia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Startup-Selling-Webinar-playbook.pdf

Wins: Chris @ LinkSquares: “Chris: “We had a killer November. We ended up closely $35k ARR in the month. Closed everything we were trying to.” #salesstud

Close Plan Worksheet {member site]: https://salesqualia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/The-Startup-Selling-Sales-Map-Close-Plan-Worksheet.pdf

Next Year Starts NOW! Webinar Recording: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jw43bnxgwxhj06j/2016-12-01%2013.00%20Need%20to%20Fill%20Your%20Sales%20Pipeline%20for%20January%3F%20Next%20Year%20Starts%20NOW%21.mp4?dl=0

See the comments below for links to these presentations.

• 6:00 – Prepping for “The Big Meeting” with VSP tomorrow
  • Using The Q Framework for qualifying and establishing need
  • What Problem? Who are the Buyers? Why will they by? How will they buy (what’s the plan)?

Prepping for the Big Meeting (Member site training series): https://salesqualia.com/member-page-big-demo-training-series/

The Q Framework Overview (Member site): https://salesqualia.com/member-page-getting-started-with-startup-selling/

Bill Gross TED Talk – Factors influencing startups’ success

Impact VC (Sacramento area): http://impactvc.com/

Takeaways:

1. First pass on recent leads to see where they left off, and what is next step.
2. For colder leads – send blog post about the launch and mention
3. Use the white papers to re-engage in conversations with leads

Notes:

 Friday, 11/11/16

• Step 3 – Anchor to a higher full price (i.e. “New customers now paying at least 2x” or “We’re raising prices starting in 2017.”)

• 33:00 – Initial Pilot Project with Case Study
  • What to do about pricing vs value of deliverable
  • Getting specific on outcomes and deliverables for pilot project
  • Clarity on deliverables
• 45:00 – Value-based pricing

Notes:

1. On-campus ambassador gets early downloads of a free app ahead of time
2. Email campaign to pilot users
3. Going to onsite to promote and train on Thursday with Chalkboard signs to download app
4. Feedback sessions scheduled for content & the UI/product
5. Winner’s Award – competition for $150 cash prize

• 22:00 – Conference follow ups. Develop a multi-touch and multi-channel follow up campaign, and a strategic plan for each new opportunity:

• Thank you emails
• LinkedIn
• Summary emails of meeting with next steps.
• Check for confirmation/agreement to next steps

• NDAs
• Setting meetings/test file prioritizing
• When can you test the data?
• Talking with additional buyers/influencers
• Building Close Plans

• Add to marketing list
• Send over a report, article, item of value

 

• 26:00 – LinkedIn Tips & Tricks

• 30:00 – Communication tips & tricks —> When to use email, when to use the phone
• 35:00 – Sell the Next Step & BANT Qualification
• 38:00 – Lead development & Value Propositions
  • Showing how a pilot would pay for itself. i.e. Sustainable Development Tax Credit = $5k for pilot, $8k in tax credit = pays for itself
  • But focus on the key Value Prop: Tenants will pay more (Increase revenue, profitability)
• 42:00 – Revenue Acquisition Portfolio
  • Focus sales activities only on those which yield the best fruit i.e. conferences vs cold calling

Notes:

 

Tuesday AM, 10/25/16

• 1:00 – Adjusting new customer launch strategy to reduce initial scope
• 2:00 – Working with a new, super-interested lead in a market you don’t yet cover
  • Attended Conference last week
  • Using new clients as partners
  • Developing a “New Customer Partner Program” to have the customer assist with product development, and get paid to do it.
•  22:30 – Chris sharing a big win with a new customer!
  • Going from Qualification Call to Proof-of-Concept to Pricing to Start
  • Nudging up prices as an experiment
  • Lead source: BDR rep from outbound selling
• 25:30 – What to do when a Pilot Project doesn’t lead to an immediate sale
  • Looking at use cases and Buyer Typers
  • Setting up pilot project expectations
  • Avoiding Never-ending pilot
  • Extending a pilot with a trial close on new metrics

Notes:

Tuesday AM, 10/11/16

• 0:00 –  About the New Sales Map Worksheet
• 9:00 – Sales Productivity – Key Tasks & Focus Areas
• 12:00 – When to Use a Pilot Program, and when to sell a full license
• 16:00 – Setting up Prospecting Sales Projects
  • Building cohorts
  • Focusing on 5-10 contacts per day
  • Focus on one list/cohort per week
• 43:30 – Partnerships & Channel Partners
  • What to do with inbound partnership requests
  • Starting slowly and deliberately and growing from there

Notes:

Tuesday AM, 10/04/16

• 2:00 – Building a better sales workflow
• 3:30 – Moving deals in the pipeline
  • Slowing down a deal to perform due diligence on the customer
• 6:40 – Qualifying a customer in the pipeline
  • Budget issues
  • Selling to the Economic Buyer
  • Price vs Value
• 31:00 – Sales Productivity & Tasks
  • Just-in-time vs Just-in-Case
  • HubSpot CRM
• 45:00 – When to say no, how to say no to prospects that don’t match your Buyer Personas
  • “I’ve got to get THIS deal” = bigger problem
  • Sales Mapping

Notes:

Preparing a List of Sales-related tasks – Module 1 of Building, Hiring & Managing Sales Teams (Member site):https://salesqualia.com/building-hiring-managing…/

HubSpot CRM: www.hubspot.com/crm

Stages of the Sale (Member site): https://salesqualia.com/member-page-stages-of-the-sale/

Sales Mapping, aka “Key Metrics & Milestones” (Member site):https://salesqualia.com/member-page-key-metrics…/

Friday, 9/30/16

• 1:00 – Wins & Learnings: Pilot Programs
  • Selling pilots at big companies like IBM
  • Using that your product is “exotic” as reason to do a pilot
  • Starting with a small, manageable pilot, and growing from there.
• 12:50 – Developing “pillars” around your product to position & educate your market
  • Leveraging government initiatives
  • i.e. “The Three Pillars of Sustainability for CSR initiatives”
• 22:30 – How “Productize” your product, vs being viewed as a service
• 33:00 – Accessing User Buyers: Offering onsite talks & workshops
  • Lunch & learns
  • Table talks & roundtables
  • Create a groundswell of product support

Notes:

Tuesday PM. 9/27/16

Hi Everyone! I had some time at the beginning on the call to myself (no one was there at first!!), so I offered my perspectives on the article – “Should You Choose Cold Calls, or Cold Emails” – https://blog.pipedrive.com/2016/05/cold-calls-vs-emails/

Harsha dropped by later in the call, and we discussed cold calling, cold emailing and building a multitouch strategy as part of your outbound selling.

Definitely worth a listen!

Notes:
Should You Choose Cold Calls, or Cold Emails: https://blog.pipedrive.com/2016/05/cold-calls-vs-emails/

Simon Sinek – “Start with Why?” –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sioZd3AxmnE

The Q Framework Workbook:
https://salesqualia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/The-Q-Framework-SalesQualia.pdf

Prepping for “The Big Meeting” [Member site]
https://salesqualia.com/member-page-big-demo-training-series/

Tuesday AM, 9/27/16

• 2:00 – Getting across the finish line in a big sale
  • Following up on “The Big Meeting”
  • “Can you add in a few more things?”
  • Dealing with references checks with you don’t really have any references
• 21:30 – Content Selling
  • Writing a brief or content
  • Positioning the title and intended audience
  • Reusing the content from a white paper in a webinar, then in short video clips
• 52:00 – Customer requests on your Product Roadmap
  • Premium product features and price increases
  • Establishing additional forms of “payment” for early customers, such as Case studies, Testimonials, Webinar guests
  • Keeping product lines and product packages “clean” over the long run after you’ve established initial traction with your first customers

Thursday, 9/22/16

• 1:00 – Dealing with “Budget Season” and a general lack of urgency
  • Pay attention to lead sources – inbound vs outbound. Is there a difference in the urgency factor?
  • The sales process may the same, but the customers may behave differently
  • Creating urgency when the prospect says – “maybe we’ll wait until next year…”
  • Finding and talking with the Economic Buyer
  • Using new hires as leverage in the sales conversation
• 31:00 – Developing Compensation Plans for Salespeople
  • Hiring sales people
  • Metrics and KPIs and compensation
  • Lead —> Qualification —> Project Overview —> Technical Conversation —> Estimate (25% close rate) —> Close
  • Focusing sales rep activity on achieving key milestones in the sales process
• 1:03 – “The Big Demo” (Case Example: Selling to Apple)
  • Preparing a “Situation Slide”
  • Focusing the customer’s attention on Critical Business Issues & outcomes they can achieve with your product
  • Open loops from demo meeting to discuss Pilot Programs

Tuesday PM, 9/20/16

• 0:00 – Discussion around outsourcing and virtual assistants
  • Building task lists
  • What to outsource
• 16:00 – How much to spend on sales and Marketing
  • Early stage, most $ is spent on product development and little on sales and marketing
  • Once you hit product-market fit, that should flip.
  • If you have PM fit, then it’s all about gas on the fire
• 29:00 – Building sales processes
  • Thinking “Just-in-time” vs “Just-in-case”
  • Applying the 80/20 rule – 80% of results come from 20% of efforts
  • Identify your “Revenue Acquisition Portfolio”
  • Tracking ROI for sales & marketing processes and events
• 37:30 – What to do when you drop the ball on a follow up

Tuesday AM, 9/20/16

• Free Trial & Pilot Wins
  • Importance of setting up weekly calls with trial/pilot customers
  • Pricing Pilot Projects (i.e. Look at annual plan fee, reduce back to 1Q,  charging a premium for a shortened period of time.
• Pricing & Value Metrics
  • Pricing Purgatory for enterprise software produces
  • Charging $5-10k, vs $10-25K, $25-100K
  • What’s your Value Metric?
  • Looking at HubSpot and Altos Research as examples
  • Identifying “Buyer Zombies & Vampires”
  • How to handle the “How much is it?” question when it’s asked early in the sales process
• Product Development & Pricing Strategies
  • Getting customers #1, then 10 more
  • Looking at customer usage to identify trends and cohorts so that you can begin to charge premiums for specific features and create pricing tiers
  • Annual prepayment vs monthly subscriptions

Friday, 9/16/16

• 1:30 – Wins & Learnings: Demand Gen Campaigns
  • At big companies, there exists all kinds of support and people to push out campaigns, which is more difficult in a smaller team environment. – One must really have to manage all facets
  • Because product is niche, takes more time to explain
  • Thinking about your opportunity cost of time for the campaign and tasks
• 4:00 – Proposals vs Work Plans
  • Qualifying your leads – DON’T SEND PROPOSALS
  • Identify key elements of an implementation to qualify a lead
• 12:25 – Hiring a sales team
  • Process & Using Behavioral Assessments
• 15:00 – Product Improvements to solve ancillary customer problems.
• 20:30 – Dimitris back in saddle
  • Closed two of the biggest clients
  • 2 months vs 3 months
  • Importance of
  • Buyer Types – User Buyer, Technical Buyer, Economics
  • Two cold calls – IP manager, and started to talk
  • Stockholm.
  • Team from –
  • Two testers in US, Two in Japan,
  • Focus on Value Proposition
  • One from Dimistris, one from Christina. then Veiktor took over.
• 25:00 – Up-selling to existing customers
  • Finding a Product Champion at your current customer to help you with the internal presentation to other business groups
  • Using Case Study Builder to organize thoughts and outcomes for your presentation.
• 32:00 – Asking the Budget questions
  • Giving a range, then asking for a meeting to discuss details
  • Stretch the Gap
  • Look for strategic initiatives to match up problem/product
• 41:00 – Apple & Google –
  • Using implementation planning/support
  • Pricing Pilot programs
  • Building Pilot Programs
  • Previewing information in a proposal before you send it out to a prospective customer

Friday, 9/9/16

• 2:00 – Selling a Pilot Project
  • When to sell the full product/implementation and when to sell a Pilot Program
  • Using BANT for Qualification – Budget, Authority, Need, Timing
  • Pricing strategies for pilots – keeping it low so the decision stays local, but also getting exposure to higher level managers that will need to be involved with the full purchase
  • Thinking of Pilots as “technology-based consulting” so you can access ALL of the issues and problems within a target.
• 16:00 – Call to action for Free Workshop
  • How to sell at an informational event you are hosting – i.e. workshop, webinar, seminar, etc without feeling like you’re selling.
  • Allowing attendees to opt-in the next step after the live event
• 29:00 – Sales Mapping
  • Identifying Taking Small Steps in the sale
  • Focusing on Customer Need & Qualification first, then taking small steps, one-by-one to move closer to the sale
  • How to avoiding selling too early in the process with a lead or prospect
  • Building your “sales map” for your sales opportunities
  • See Member site: https://salesqualia.com/member-page-key-metrics-milestones/
• 38:00 – When your Point-of-Contact isn’t responding
  • Working with other executives on the client side
  • Developing an “executive-to-executive” conversation between your company and the director/main sponsor on the other side

Wednesday, 9/7/16

• 0:00 – Sharing Wins & Learnings
• 5:30 – Email outreach campaigns and multi-touch strategies
  • Emailing/contacting multiple key people at the same target account simultaneously (vs sequentially)
  • The goal is to get them talking and to reply
  • When and how to leverage a white paper as part of an outbound sequence
• 19:30 – Chris from LinkSquares shared his work on a multi-touch campaign
  • Using ToutApp to automate the drop
  • Drafted 8 emails over 45 days
  • Emails 1-2 received a good response, then saw a drop-off in emails #3-4, then a pick up again in emails #5-8
  • Customize with first names in the email, which helps with response

Leveraging the white paper as webinar topic

• 23:00 – Content on Drip Campaign
  • 100% value driven
  • LinkSquares use 6 ebooks and blog posts
  • Response rates for email campaigns.
  • Measuring “success” all the way through the next steps in the sales funnel. ie. did they set a time, did they show, was it a good conversation are there next steps
• 34:00 – Prepping for “The Big Meeting:
  • Getting the “User Buyers” on Board
  • Contact everyone invited to the meeting BEFORE the meeting to do discovery and analysis.
  • Using the “Situation Slide” and short Demo sequences.
  • Member site resource: https://salesqualia.com/member-page-big-demo-training-series/
• 55:00 – How do I stay efficient as deals in the pipeline grow?
  • Giving customers homework assignments
  • Setting meetings two weeks in advance to avoid the “I’ll circle back…”
  • Using Sales Mapping – giving your prospects a view of the typical next 3-4 steps in the sales process so they have a view of the future.
• 1:18 – Should I provide a prospect with a demo account?
  • Replace demo accounts with one-hour active sessions
  • Or look at Paid Pilots

Friday, 9/2/16

• Topics covered:
  • Recruiting & hiring a sales development rep (SDR)
  • Segmenting a targeted lead list
  • Developing a multi-touch strategy for your outbound efforts
  • Getting the customer to experience your product as part of the sale, not just demo it

Wednesday, 8/31/16

• 0:00 – Outbound email strategies
  • People worth checking out:
    • Heather Morgan @ SalesFolk
    • Matthew Kimberly
    • Ben Settle

• 12:00 – Using Behavioral Assessments in recruiting and hiring
• 38:00 – Facebook ads & Building community around your product or service
• 51:00 – Competing against large, established companies

Tuesday AM, 8/30/16

• 0:30 – Working deals in the pipeline
  • Downside of offering price discounts before the selling is done
  • Using BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing) for qualifying leads
  • Running the technical sale along side the business sale

• 18:41 – Outreach to new prospects
  • Targeting accounts and contacts with cold outreaches
  • Think LOW FRICTION in your outbound vs “Would love to do a pilot…” Don’t sell the pilot

• 33:10 – Pipeline pull-through Strategies

Monday, 8/22/16

• 1:30 – Preselling a product
  • Red Ocean vs Blue Ocean
  • Developing a framework to drive the conversation
  • Coining terminology that you can use to frame and drive the conversation with your target market

• 21:00 – Launching a Partnership Campaign
  • “Assessment” vs “Free Consultation”
  • Working with your partner to reach each other’s audience
  • Calls-to-action in the announcements

• 36:00 – Vetting & leveraging a well-connected contact in an industry

Friday, 8/19/16

• 6:00 – Webinar Results
  • – Handling questions post-webinar
  • – Engaging with attendees and registrations that did not attend
• 13:00 – Content Selling for sending email to target prospect
  • Did you get my email?
• 17:00 – Locating email address
  • – Using “Email Hunter” plugin
  • – Outsourcing to virtual assistants
• 22:00 – “Revenue Acquisition Portfolio”
  • – Identifying and executing on 2-3 key strategies for sales and prospecting
• 24:30 – Cold/Outbound Email campaigns
• 29:00 – Using and re-using content for lead generation
• 32:30 – Targeting & contacting a prospecting list
  • – “What would Scott do?”
  • – Using LinkedIn, Company websites, Google News
  • – Finding customer needs and challenges
  • – Showing expertise in your outbound call
• 48:30 – Getting & Leveraging from Case Studies, Testimonials, References

Tuesday PM, 8/17/16

• 1:45 – Working through the RFP Process
  • Matt Cameron on selling Salesforce: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oy8Gu8v5HaQ
  • Working with and through decision committees

• 15:20 – Lead Generation strategies for a short-term increase in prospects
  • Work Past leads
  • Take a “Content Selling” approach
  • Posting and re-posting on LinkedIn profiles, groups, and online communities

• 25:00 – Targeting companies within a market segment
  • Leveraging your content pieces to re-post in new places
  • Building an email marketing list from your email Inbox/Outbox, LinkedIn contacts
  • What is Content Selling vs Content Marketing

• 54:00 – Pricing strategies
  • PriceIntelligently: http://www.priceintelligently.com/blog/how-to-find-the-best-pricing-strategy-for-a-saas-product

Tuesday AM, 8/17/16

• 3:00 – Developing Lead Generation Strategies
  • Content Selling: Starting with a General Purpose “Brief”
  • Typically talking with IT Groups (Technical Buyer). Not always ideal for business reasons.
  • To validate the content of the brief, starting with email list of CEO and CFO, and top-tier Technical Buyer

• 8:00 – Email list segmentation example
  • Choosing SIC codes
  • Then by Company revenue
  • Three title groups – CEO/CFO/Top-Tier technical buyer equivalent
  • Identified existing vs not customers
  • Hiring a phone dialer to follow up with email and brief
  • http://www.five9.com/

• 21:00 – Using LinkedIn
  • LinkedIn for saved searches based on Target Market
  • LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator
  • Posting to Groups
  • Using LinkedIn ads
  • Having a clear call-to-action (CTA)

• 29:00 – Teach, Tailor, Take Control

• 38:00 – Hiring onsite vs telecommuting

Friday, 8/12/16

• 2:00 – Identifying & adjusting target buyers and companies for your product/service
  • Thinking like an anthropologists – observe behavior of your target buyer that indicates they are researching and considering a purchase
  • Focusing your niche and market to highlight expertise
• 34:00 – Selling the Product Now vs the Future Roadmap
  • Solve today’s problem with today’s product
  • Configuration vs Customization
  • Advantages of being an early customer
  • Leveraging future features as a reason to buy now
•  54:00 – Selling to the Economic Buyer
  • Using the “Customer Pain and Problem Worksheet” (member site)
  • Using the “Why Buy Worksheet” (member site)

Tuesday PM, 8/9/16

• 0:00 – Content Selling Strategy
  • Metrics on likes, posts, and comments
  • Fishing for the right targets with the right content bait

• 39:00 – Buyer Vampires & Zombies (i.e. Gatekeepers)
  • Pushing a deal forward when you have a single POC driving the communication
  • Expanding your communication web with your target account

Tuesday AM, 8/9/16

• 03:00 – Time management & productivity techniques

• 8:30 – The advantages of making sales calls during holiday seasons (Summer, Christmas, New Year)

• 13:00 – Dealing with requests for detailed product reviews from User Buyers
  • Taking Control of the sale vs “send me the info”

• 31:00 – Pushing through User Buyers
  • Summarizing Needs Analysis Calls vs sending a brochure, with a focus on 1) Customer Problem, 2) Cost to the Prospect’s company, 3) How your product solves the problem
  • Agreeing on the outcome of the internal presentation to the “boss”
  • Using the Technical Buyer angle – “My experience talking with hundreds of companies like yours is that we’ll need to do a security review and risk assessment before a purchase is made.”

• 42:00 – “Can I get a login to play with your product on my own?”
  • Using “Yes, and…” to maintain control
  • Putting short time limits on logins
  • Requiring demos and access to the team before sending

Friday, 8/5/16

• 1:25 – Handling Information Security Reviews
  • 3 items that can kill the deal – Security, Legal and limitation and liability, financial viability of the vendor (representing X% of the total revenue)
  • E&O Insurance, SOC 2, External third party audits & Penetration Testing
• 13:45 – Cold Call Strategy with Content Selling
  • Going from “content & ideas” to a sales conversation
  • Working vertically vs laterally in an organization
• 22:30 – Demand Gen & Lead Development
  • LinkedIn Premium accounts
  • How to reach contacts on LinkedIn via Groups, Introductions, Open Profiles

Tuesday PM, 8/2/16

• 1:00 – Recruiting & vetting a potential sales hire
  • Establishing up a compensation plan that aligns interests ie. (salary/commission/equity)
  • Setting up specific outcomes and metrics
  • When to hire, when not to hire

• 19:00 – Industry conferences
  • Establishing success metrics ahead of time
  • Getting names and attendee names
  • Contacting conference organizers for discounts or volunteers
  • Using refund policies to your advantage
  • Conference playbooks: https://salesqualia.com/member-page-the-startup-selling-guide-to-industry-conferences/

• 26:00 – Taking the lead in preparation for a demo to a large group
  • Accessing more influencers ahead of the meeting
  • Assessing needs before the demo
• 28:45 – More conference ROI discussion
  • Setting appointments ahead of time
  • Leveraging contacts to ask others about an event before you register
• 40:00 – Handling a stalled deal
  • Accessing the Economic buyers
  • Resetting the sales conversation and the problem that needs to be addressed
• 52:30 – Pipeline Pull-Through Strategies
  • Using the 9-Word email
  • Adding value with articles to restart conversations

Tuesday AM, 8/2/16

• 1:30 – Wins and Learnings
  • Building and targeting a list Built list of 70 people – 30 cold calls, 15 LinkedIn Emails,
  • Doing 50 calls/day —> 4-5 connections
  • Getting a couple of SVPs on the phone
  • Focusing on the outcome, and shifting sales approach if needed
• 6:00 – Using the phone to keep control vs email
• 9:30 – Cold Calling Strategies + Content Selling
  • Breaking down an approach on a cold call
  • Using a White Paper as a value-add in the call
  • “I have a couple of ideas…”
  • Using LinkedIn Groups to generate “likes” and conversations
  • Posting & Promoting webinars on LinkedIn groups
• 21:00 – Working through Big Company Org Charts
  • Starting high in the organization
  • Finding the “Delivery Excellence Person”
  • Importance of working the whole team in outbound, as many as 3-5 people in the same business unit
• 26:00 – Reviewing a derailed sales opportunity
  • Demo prep and involving all attendees before the demo
  • Outlining capabilities and needs before the demo so you can set the rules to the demo
  • Trial closing when asked for additional features
  • Building a plan with your Product Champion on next steps
• 53:00 – Closing a Pilot + Complete Contract
  • Managing pilot timing with full contract pricing
  • Merger and acquisition constraints and opportunities at the target customer
• 1:05 – Herding cats to get the critical demo meeting
  • When the Economic Buyer is a roadblock because of time constraints
  • Getting permission to accessing other team members

Friday, 7/29/16

• 20:00 – Getting a deal across the finish line
  • Scheduling meetings for implementation kickoff prior to closing the contract
  • Giving incentive to take action and sign the contract
  • Using product changes as leverage
• 04:00 – “Content Selling” Success Story
• 25:00 – Facebook Ads & Targeting
  • Email targeting custom audience
  • Using blog posts in ads to generate clicks, then retargeting
  • Using “Retargeting” to show ads to company website visitors
  • Using a White paper for lead generation
• 44:00 – When a “free trial” doesn’t happen
  • Free Trials vs Pilot Programs
  • Working through the Buyer Types
  • Using the Pipeline Analysis Worksheet
• 1:00 – Best practices in Pilot Programs

Tuesday PM, 7/26/16

• 23:30 – BANT Qualification
  • Identifying if the prospect has Budget
  • Withholding pricing information about your product or service until the deal is done
• 14:00 – Dealing with Referrals
  • Post-introduction communication
  • Positioning yourself as a resource, and leveraging for a 20-minute call to mutually qualify
• 45:00 – Engaging prospects
  • Building a webinar strategy
  • Calls to action in your webinar
  • Using webinars to build white papers

• 1:00 – Targeting the right buyers with content
  • ie. writing a brief vs a white paper

Tuesday AM, 7/26/16

• 2:00 – Reducing risk for your prospects
  • Selling against competitors
  • Reducing friction and offering optionality to your clients
  • Offer guarantees and migration assistance

• 13:40 – Getting an audience with the Economic Buyer
  • Identifying specific reasons for face time with your Economic Buyer
  • Helping your point-of-contact/champion discover that it’s better to have you there than not.

• 27:00 – Handling final questions; Getting to the close
  • When your prospect sends you a list of questions in an email
  • Maintaining control of the sale
  • Trial closes

• 38:30 – Product Pivots
  • What to do when you’ve discovered your product solves an “important, but not urgent” problem
  • Implicit vs Explicit needs

Monday, 7/25/16

• Content Selling, Content Selling, Content Selling!
  • We spent 100% of the call dissecting and building a Content Selling Plan of Action for the team at Septium.
  • Jack & Harvey wrote a blog post that they are posting to LinkedIn, and sending to both their network and potential leads.
  • We walked step-by-step how to post on LinkedIn, how to construct your outbound emails for sharing the content, and how to manage a “Hot Potato” email sequence to build enough momentum for a qualification or referral call.

Tuesday, 7/19/16

• 5:00 – Developing incentive programs for channel partners and resellers

• 21:30 – Prospecting Strategy
  • What to do when you’re getting traction with User Buyers in your market, but not with Economic Buyers
  • Focusing on a small specific problem ie. training new reps, remediation
  • “Founder Selling” vs typical salesperson selling
  • Discussing the mission and vision of your company

• 46:00 – Content Selling – Specific plan for maximizing a single blog post
  • Sending in “waves” to connections, posting in LinkedIn Groups, sending to new leads
  • Using LinkedIn and upvotes to spread the message
  • Asking contacts and networks to help your promote a post for maximum ROI

Tuesday AM, 7/19/16

• Spent the hour breaking down a sales opportunity with Chris @ LinkSquares. He had a “Big Meeting/Big Demo” set for a sales opportunity.

• 2:00 – Prepping for the Big Demo
  • Diagnosing the deal from start to finish
  • What problem are you solving?

• 7:00 – Buyer Types
  • Who’s in the room?
  • Do we have the right people to make a decision and take action?

• 8:00 – Why Buy?
  • What’s Value Proposition?
  • How will the prospect determine ROI for the investment in the purchase?
  • Looking backwards AND forwards to examine the size and scope of the problem, and the gain by purchasing.

• 17:30 – How & Implementation
  • Working with external platforms i.e Box
  • Using urgency around a specific project or outcome in the short run

• 33:30 – Going from “here’s the big problem” to “This is how we get started…”

• 38:00 – Wrapping up a sales presentation, and establishing next steps
  • Summarizing the call
  • Taking the lead on next steps with recommendations
  • Discussing how to communicate price

Friday, 7/15/16

• 1:00 – Using deadlines with prospects to initiate action

• 7:00 – Identifying prospects from inbound leads with personal emails

• 17:00 – Content Selling Strategy: Using blog posts & white papers as outreach to leads and prospects

• 22:00 – Selling to Big Companies
  • Leveraging a Product Champion to gain access to the next level up in the management and decision process
  • Using multiple activities and events with a company to create groundswell of movement with your sales opportunity

• 32:00 – New lead development from public pitches

• 37:00 – Why you should avoid sending the dreaded “one-pager,” and what to do instead

• 43:00 – Selling through partners & distributors
  • Finding early champions and documenting success stories
  • Building case studies.
  • Mapping our a “Sales Playbook” for partner sales teams to make it super easy to sell your product

• 55:00 – Content Selling: Deep dive on a draft blog post
  • Where to post your content – company blog, LinkedIn, PDF
  • How to use your content for generating sales conversations

Tuesday PM, 7/12/16

• 1:00 – Strategies for working  through the organization to access Economic and Executive buyers
  • Example: Key contact is the Director of IT
  • IT Directors often have their own group, and they think they have more autonomy that they do.
  • How to get the CIO & CFO involved

• 19:00 – Risks in selling to Big Companies (i.e. Google, Apple)
  • Build vs Buy process for leading global companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, Goldman Sachs
  • Considering your opportunity cost of time vs going after the Tier 2 & 3 players in the market

Tuesday AM, 7/12/16

• 1:00 – Sales Pivots: Evaluating feedback from prospects
  • Identifying places in your target companies that best match product capabilities
  • Evaluating your target market to look for niches
  • Positioning early sales as project-based or consulting to get a foot in the door

• 20:00 – Getting movement on a deal where you have a possible advisor, investor, Board member

• 31:30 – Selling propositions: “Get Cheese vs Avoid Cats”
  • Changing value propositions based on the specific buyer, even at the same account
  • Example: Selling to Sales Operations Managers (Proposition = Improve Efficiency) vs Account Executives or Sales VPs (Proposition = Increase Revenue)

Friday, 7/8/16

• 5:30 – Selling against entrenched competition
  • When customers want to buy a name brand for resume building and personal gains
  • Focusing the customer on their needs and problems, vs their aspirations to buy a specific product
  • Getting all Buyer Types involved – Economic, Technical, User Buyers
  • Using a “temporary sale strategy” to gain a foothold (akin to running a Pilot)
  • Think “AND” nor “OR” in your selling strategy
• 25:00 – Working through a Big Hairy Corporate Deal EMC deal
  • Getting approval when budgets and purchasing decisions are frozen
  • Implicit vs Explicit Needs
  • Managing timing and pilot program expectations when the product isn’t finished
  • Pushing for a seat at the table with Finance to discuss pricing, payment terms and budgets

• 47:00 – Referral strategy for new customer acquisition

Tuesday AM, 7/5/16

• 03:00 – Building & Using Case Studies in your sales process
  • Detailed review of the “Case Study Builder Worksheet”
  • How to use case studies both in written form, and in sales presentations

• 22:00 – Prospecting; Finding the right executives to contact at your target companies
  • What to do if LinkedIn isn’t a reliable source
  • Using industry organizations. Example: German Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property: http://www.grur.org/en.html
  • Using past & future industry conferences to access speaker & attendee lists. Example: IP Litigation Summit: http://www.iplitigationsummit.com/Speakers.aspx

Tuesday PM, 6/28/16

• 5:00 – Success story: Asking a current client about more projects and expanding the relationship

• 5:30 – Why you shouldn’t take meetings with “Business Development” executives at big companies.
  • Find decision-makers with P/L authority and responsibility

• 11:00 – Creating urgency with a deal on the fence

• 16:30 – Turning a “closing” sales call into an implementation call
  • Giving your prospects a view of the future
  • Motivating action by reducing the anxiety of a purchasing decision

•  21:00 – When to push a client, and when to step back in the sales process

• 27:00 – Case Study: Building a 9 word email to a dead line

• 34:45 – Working a referral strategy

• 39:00 – What to do with “opened” but not “replied sales emails

• 42:00 – Should I try a live event to market & gather decision-makers?
  • Alternatives to organizing your own event
  • Using Meetup Groups for leverage
  • Identifying industry organizations and events

Tuesday AM, 6/28/16

• [Entire Call] – Case Study: Working through an outbound sales email campaign
  • What to do when open rates are high but response rates are low
  • Doubling back to Customer Development Interviews
  • Using referrals and network to get quick wins and build mojo
  • Give yourself a clear set of tasks and follow ups with each group you are targeting

Friday, 6/24/16

• 2:00 – Motivating a key target customer to get on the phone.
  • Building a multi-sided strategy
  • Working with partners
  • Looking at how add value to them, before trying to sell

• 18:30 – How to handle early leads that have gone dark
  • Using the 9-word email
  • Identifying key customer challenges and problems, and focusing on how you solve those problems. Think “strategic”

• 30:00 – Referral strategy with your closest contacts – i.e. your “A List” contacts
  • Step-by-step process for using your top network connections for referrals.

• 45:00 – Starting conversations with your “B” & “C” list network contacts

• 51:00 – Webinar promotion strategies (Content Selling)
  • NOTE: Check out next week’s TUESDAY TRAINING for more help:
  • https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7456077894523747588

Tuesday PM, 6/21/16

• 0:01 – Wins & Learnings
  • Firing a customer
  • Sending out a Split Version of emails for a sales lists.
  • Using Meetup Groups for lead generation
  • Using Rapportive

• 7:30 – Building a Value Proposition to use with outbound emails

• 16:00 – Following up on “The Big Demo/Big Meeting”
  • What to do with

• 20:00 – Focusing on Referrals from your network
  • Grouping your network as A-B-C contacts
  • Importance of personalizing emails

• 28:00 – Prospecting and working through a list of targeted Buyer Personas
  • Using LinkedIn InMails vs Emails
  • Multitouch strategy

• 35:30 – Structuting outbound emails/InMails
  • The “Confirm – Ask – Explore” Framework

• 40:00 – Recruiting for potential sales hires
  • Follow up emails to target prospects
  • Keeping initial tasks of new hires small to assess performance and grow from there.

• 55:00 – Advantages of LinkedIn Premium.

• 1:00 – Why Proposals Suck, and how to taking control of the sale
  • What to do when you’re asked – “Send me a proposal.”
  • Using your Product Champion to help you craft a “Work Plan”
  • Finding the additional buyers/influencers in the purchasing decision.

Tuesday AM, 6/21/16

• 1:00 – Starting with a Wins & Learnings
  • Upselling to existing clients
  • Walking away from a deal because of price
  • Using competitor and market information, then proposing solution to a prospective client
  • Work on The Q Framework Workbook (from the Startup Selling Member Site)
  • Progress on two deals to “demo” phase

• 6:00 – Filling up the top of pipeline Ramadan in Middle East in July China is also a target.

• 7:00 – How to get a stalled renewal moving with an existing customers
  • Why isn’t the client renewing? Could the client be changing strategy?

• 10:00 – Partnering with the client to provide better leads and more value
  • Pre-qualifying of leads for the client
  • Setting up training and new market opportunities

• 17:30 – Tim problems with Basecamp.

• 27:00 – Selling a customer that is skittish about working with a startup
  • Risk vs Reward of working with startups.
  • Focusing on the customer problem & solution benefits

• 39:00 – Prepping for “The Big Demo”
  • Don’t sell past the sale

• 44:00 – Using scarcity to your advantage
  • Introducing pilots and “concierge service” to early customers

• 46:00 – Creating and leverage Product champions
  • Look for signals of “Product champion” vs “Gatekeeper”
  • Getting introduced to additional influencers at the target customer

• 50:00 – When and how to bring on sales help
  • Roles & responsibilities
  • Oversight and knowledge transfer
  • Vetting & interviewing

• 60:00 – Product management and product decisions

Friday, 6/17/16

• 5:00 – Figuring out pricing on a product

• 6:00 – Using the 9-word email

• 10:30 – How do run the demo/sales process when you have an incomplete solution?

• 19:00 – Filling the top of the funnel.

• 23:00 – Working with procurement teams, and ricing consulting contracts and agreements.

• 24:00 – Role of Procurement in large companies

• 27:00 – Value-based pricing for consulting projects

• 29:00 – How to deal with unpaid consulting hours from travel and related expenses.

• 35:00 – Sales Email questions
  • What to do if your email isn’t perfect
  • Reaching out to totally cold leads – i.e. nothing in common, no common contacts
  • Tracking emails using “email open” software i.e. Sidekick, Toutapp, YesWare

Tuesday PM, 6/14/16

• 1:30 – Importance of meeting prep before “The Big Meeting/Demo”

• 3:30 – Taking action > doing nothing

• 5:45 – CRM discussion. Key functionality to look for in a CRM.

• 13:30 – Hiring and developing a sales team.
  • Breaking apart “sales” into components: 1) Prospecting, 2) Closing, 3) Implementing
  • Key aspects of hiring a “Sales Development Reps” for Prospecting work
  • Ideas of where to source candidates
  • Managing early hires

• 33:30 – Effects of big companies moving into your space. i.e. recent ApplePay announcement
  • Leveraging big announcements to your advantage
  • Building a “Content Selling” piece to use with your network to generate conversation through education and expertise

Tuesday AM, 6/14/16

• 3:00 – Working with a Product Champion
  • Bringing in other buyers after initial demos
  • Using scarcity for pilots and early customers
  • Getting to the finish line

• 5:00 – Selling early customers on being early customers

• 8:00 – Telling the story of the company, why you started the company and are building the process.

• 12:30 – Getting your customers comfortable with the deal and working with you as a startup

• 17:00 – Using opt out clauses for early customers

• 23:00 – Buyer & User Personas

• 28:00 – Focus on the decision-maker first, then the users

• 35:00 – User Groups

• 40:00 – Are you selling? Selling to the HipChat teams

• 42:00 – Building a target list

• 45:30 – Managing a deal when your Product Champion is hard to track down, and is blocking you from access to users and other influencers on the decision.

• 50:00 – Breathing new life into a deal with “updates” and “ideas”

Friday, 6/10/16

• 7:00 – Prepping for “The Big Demo” with a BIG company

• 12:00 – Breaking down how to lead the meeting and attain the outcomes you need.

• 16:00 – Taking control of “The Big Demo” meeting
  • Using seating charts
  • Asking each participant why they are at the meeting and their intended outcome.
  • Leveraging your Product Champion

• 33:00 – More on “The Big Demo”
  • Example: A weekly team meeting with 16 people from all over the world is now dedicated to doing a Product Demo

• 36:00  – Positioning vs internal projects intended to solve the business problem at hand.
• 40:00 – Avoiding customer’s tunnel vision about the “Why Buy?”

• 43:00 – Using the field reps for anecdotes in the sales presentation

• 48:00 – Getting other key executives involved with the sales i.e. VP of Sales

• 55:00 – Reducing the anxiety of the product demos
  • Why you don’t need to talk about Price in your product demos.
  • Setting yourself up for the next step in the sales process and after demos.
  • Why you should always, always, always charge for your product.

• 1:03 – Focus on Now Now. Worry about Later Later.

Tuesday PM, 6/7/16

• 04:00 – Putting a pause on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook ads to identify the effects.

• 06:45 – Creating more valid traffic to website.
  • Google Ads = “Stupid traffic”
  • vs LinkedIn where I can target by title i.e. Product Managers, or CEOs

• 8:00 – Make the conversion rates higher with existing leads.

• 13:30 – Using nurturing – 30% open rates.

• 15:00 – Driving users to a short coaching call to give yourself a chance to identify if they can be up-sold from a free plan.

• 21:30 – Sending out first emails to target buyers/segment.

• 24:00 – Using data the right way with data
  • “We can increase your online revenues by 22%”
  • vs “We helped a company just like you save $40 mln a year.

• 35:00 – Using referrals and how to ask for them.

 

Wednesday AM, 3/23/16

• The importance of setting up metrics for pilot programs. Make sure you are partnering and collaborating with your customer.
• The smooth migration from the sales process to the implementation process. Running the final contract and procurement steps in parallel with starting with a pilot or implementation.
• Working through the “User Buyer” that can see the strategic reason or economic benefit for your product. Ideas of accessing the next level up in the organization and turning the conversation from “salesperson vendor person” to “executive able to help me with my problem.”
• How to use a speaking invitation as an opportunity to earn some revenue, and more importantly, begin the sales process.
• The difference in selling your product to the business team, and communicating with corporate development teams about strategic investments. (Hint: Keep ’em separate!)

https://youtu.be/Q1e47IbrLpg

 

Thursday, 3/17/16

• Strategies for waking up dead leads. When and how to use email vs phone.
• Building a marketing list from your dead leads.
• Using Rapportive (Gmail plugin)
• Dealing with customer stall issues around a pilot program.

https://youtu.be/_mXovFj4ceU

Wednesday PM, 3/16/16

• Handling the “single contact isn’t getting back to me” situation.
• Making your product an “AND” not “OR” option for customers when you’re going against a big, entrenched competitor.
• Discussing an implementation plan for pilot programs.

https://youtu.be/fgQwBzybeds

Wednesday AM, 3/16/16

• Using a Product Champion that sits in the middle of the organization – the User Buyer that loves your product and needs executive approval to move forward with the sales process.
• How to use the “pilot program” to smooth away the risk for companies evaluating your product.
• Using the “Hey… is Company XYX in your market?” as a way to spur activity from a lead that continues to kick their decision down the road.
• How to involve yourself in the technical evaluation of your product.
• Strategies for setting up follow up meetings using tools like Assistant.to
• Using stories as part of your investor pitch deck

Friday, 3/11/16

• Getting an introduction to an Economic Buyer from your Product Champion/User Buyer
• Prepping for short conference sales meetings – how run the meeting, taking control, follow up after the meeting.
• Dealing with “price zombies” – what do you do when companies bombard you from price quotes but never buy.

Wednesday PM, 3/9/16

• Team selling – When and how to use individual contributors on our team in sales calls.
• Webinar planning – who to invite, how to separate sales conversations from partner conversations.

Wednesday AM, 3/9/16

• Product Demos! We spent 45 minutes discussing product demos – how to qualify before you get to the demo, how to pull in all of the stakeholders and influencers to run a single demo session, instead of demos to one person then hoping for another demo with a larger group later.
• We mapped out a 4-step sales process to use with all of your deals, which helps to you maintain control in the sale and accelerate the time to close.
• The “price question” – when to discuss price in the demo meetings and how to establish a range, anchoring to a higher price.
• Handling leads and contacts resulting from a webinar.

Friday, 3/4/16

• After many “Are we a fit” discussions, where the conversation has gone well with the HR Director and it’s been determined that other execs will need to give approval, often times things stall. I do consistently push for a follow up date for a conversation with the entire team, but more often than I would like these deals fizzle. Any thoughts as to trial close questions or other tactics to move these forward?
• We have a large deal that’s been in motion. The customer is risk averse because of poor experience with a previous partner. Can I use/how should I use a pilot program in this case?
• If a prospective client does not return items in the agreed to timeline before a conference call…Do you delay conference call to keep control, or let it slide and use opportunity to discuss other relevant items?
• We’re filling the top of the funnel, what’s the best way to send out individual emails to the list we’re aggregating from our virtual assistant?
• So, I have a customer that keeps asking for price quotes and its been a 2 week process of emails back and forth every day. I’ve beat their rates a few times, but still haven’t gone with my rate. How much longer do I continue to spinning my wheels with this customer. when is enough enough?

• https://youtu.be/XuuDRNhGR1Q
• So, I have a customer that keeps asking for price quotes and its been a 2 week process of emails back and forth every day. I’ve beat their rates a few times, but still haven’t gone with my rate. How much longer do I continue to spinning my wheels with this customer. when is enough enough?

Wednesday PM, 3/2/16

• Setting up and pricing pilot projects, and building out an implementation plans
• Getting back in touch with a sales prospect that went dark.
• Cold calling strategies – “ghosting,” working more than one person in the company, developing a cadence.

Wednesday AM 3/2/16

• Prepping for the “big meetings” after getting referred up in the organization.
• Deciding on which type of customer and sale to focus on – inbound leads that are smaller in terms of revenue and potentially faster to add as customers vs hunting for big deals/whales
• Travel planning – setting up appointments, working with local partners, scheduling, cold-calling, giving prospects a reason to meet with you, being the creator of idea

Friday, 2/26/16

• Organizing and rolling out pilot programs with new customers.
• Taking leadership of the sale and rollout – being confident to know that you know what you’re talking about to assure that your pilot programs are successful.
• “Big Demo” meetings – how to run the demo using a “Situation Slide” and keeping the product demo SHORT. (Check out “Great Demo!” by Peter Cohan)
• Setting up meetings at a conference and networking event, including Twitter advertisement hacks, setting up a group on LinkedIn, using publication editors and marketing managers, and becoming friends with the conference expo organizers.

 

Wednesday PM, 2/24/16

• Administering and organizing a webinar. Using the webinar to progress sales.
• conversations. Making sure you don’t get lost in an interesting project that doesn’t yield sales fruit.
• Prepping for “the big meeting” – emailing attendees ahead of time to identify issues and topics.
• Handling Economics Buyers that don’t have a proclivity for technology, or seem uninterested in the actual product, but… are definitely interested in buying.
• Assigning local “captains” as part of your implementation planning to make sure you have a local advocate and ears on the ground as you roll out.

Wednesday AM, 2/24/16

• Working through User Buyers in the sales process, including the price question, and getting access to the Economic Buyers and decision-makers – examples and discussions from several teams.
• Running a sales meeting when you’ve ben introduced “up” in the organization – setting meeting agendas, what to accomplish, focusing on customers needs vs product.
• Balancing questions in a sales meeting and when to show display expertise.

Friday, 2/19/15

• Using an NDA early in the sales process to vet a lead.
• Turning the “price question” into a conversation with more stakeholders.
• Isolating price as the last variable in the sale – focus on value and benefits first, then discuss prices.
• Handling the – “So how big is your company? Do you have investors? How many customers do you have?” questions.
• Using a senior/top executive to help you with implementations across the organization, then leveraging the relationship to grow the deal.

 

Wednesday, 2/17/15

• TONS of great questions this morning.
• How do I balance onsite vs phone meetings with clients, whether they are outbound, inbound or introductions.
• How do I keep in touch with prospects when the sale is legitimately on hold for a few weeks? (Hint: Use Google News and Newsle.com)
• What’s the best way to handle the “passed to technology” situation in a sale after the business team is good with our solution?
• What’s the best way to build credibility and authority with sales prospects? (Hint: blog posts on LinkedIn or your own WordPress instance, or Webinars.)

Tuesday, 2/16/15

• Preparing for a second or third meeting with a key executive or decision-maker. How to plan for the meeting, what to cover, how to make progress, how to find who else will be involved with the decision or roll out.
• Breaking down meetings into thirds – 1/3 strategic conversation, 1/3 tactical, 1/3 outcomes and next steps.

Friday, 2/12/16

• Reality of dealing with long sales cycle…. I’m starting to bring more accounts that I can effectively handle, how and when is it ok to hand an account to someone else, past the initial “yes” of further down the cycle?
• I keep hearing from everywhere that you should focus on a single market and get really deep in there. But I’m not sure I want to do that or that its the right approach for us. What’s the right strategy here?
• What are ideas for leaving a compelling voice message for someone to actually try to call back? because no one actually picks up the phone.
• How many times do you re-approach a potential client before letting it go? do you ever let it go? what does a contact/approach curve look like?

Tuesday, 2/9/16

• Focusing prospecting efforts around the customer problem – “What problem are you solving?“
• Looking at strategic goals of the target company – what are their big outcomes for the next 1-3 years? How does your product advance the attainment of those strategic goals?
• Establishing metrics around a pilot program where the timeline is compressed (30 days) and only 6-7 users that might not provide a huge amount of data.
• How to use anecdotal information is a semi-quantitative way to show evidence that the product is working.

Friday, 2/5/16

• Setting up cadence with your new customers, and getting hands-on with early communication.
• Establish weekly “stand-ups” for your new customers and pilot programs
• Format to use – Simple three-slide deck: 1) what we accomplished last week, 2) what’s ahead for next week, 3) where we need internal suppoer ie. emails to the team about usage, access to other departments, etc.

Wednesday PM, 2/2/16

• Discussed when it is okay to send a proposal, and when it’s not.
• Approaches for cold emails/InMails. Looked at examples for setting up appointments at industry conferences and initial conversations.

Wednesday AM, 2/2/16

• Creating filters in your early leads. ie. do you allow inbound leads to simple “sign up” and get access to your product, or is it better to create intermediate steps such as a 15-minute orientation call first to qualify and train.
• Looked at how companies like Hubspot require paid onboarding. If your product requires user effort to get up and running, and using effectively, this might be a good strategy.
• Other topics: What to do when you’re asked for info to be forwarded to vendor management, getting introductions from your connections at target companies, handling the price question early in the sales conversation, organizing a multi-touch campaign for leads.
• Technology tip: Check out appointment-setting software to save time and reduce friction in setting up calls. I used Assistant.to and Calendly. Plenty of options out there. Key here is to avoid the back and forth in email.

Wednesday PM, 1/27/16

• Lots of talk about how to handle the price question. Really good conversation and worth a listen

Wednesday AM, 1/27/16

• Going back to previous leads that said “no budget” with a pilot program idea.
• Using your market and problem expertise to generate meetings. “I’d like to share my findings with you, and have 2-3 ideas that might be a good fit for your strategic direction.”
• Using scarcity on pilot programs to vet out your “contenders vs pretenders.”
• Identify lowest friction possible to get to the next step.
• Pricing strategies for pilot programs.

Wednesday PM, 1/20/16

• What to do when your prospect tells you – “We just selected another partner…”
• Thinking “AND” not “OR” in your approach.
• Teaching for differentiation, tailoring for resonance, taking control of the sale (from “The Challenger Sale” [book])
• Content marketing ideas to generate expertise and valuable content to teach your customers about their problems and market.

Wednesday AM, 1/20/16

• Setting a simple customer success plan with early customers so you can take leadership and prove success.
• Follow up strategies for inbound leads that aren’t responding to your efforts to get in touch ie. demo, call, etc.
• Reducing friction in early communication with leads.
• Using blog posts as a basis for white papers, webinars, and workshops.
• Using manual sales efforts like workshops to win early customers.
• See:”The SaaS Long Slow Ramp of Death” presentation by Gail Goodman, CEO @ Constant Contact.

 

Wednesday PM, 1/20/15

• What to do when your prospect tells you – “We just selected another partner…”
• Thinking “AND” not “OR” in your approach.
• Teaching for differentiation, tailoring for resonance, taking control of the sale (from “The Challenger Sale” [book])
• Content marketing ideas to generate expertise and valuable content to teach your customers about their problems and market.

 

Wednesday AM, 1/20/15

• Setting a simple customer success plan with early customers so you can take leadership and prove success.
• Follow up strategies for inbound leads that aren’t responding to your efforts to get in touch ie. demo, call, etc.
• Reducing friction in early communication with leads.
• Using blog posts as a basis for white papers, webinars, and workshops.
• Using manual sales efforts like workshops to win early customers.
• See:”The SaaS Long Slow Ramp of Death” presentation by Gail Goodman, CEO @ Constant Contact.

Wednesday PM, 1/13/15

• Navigating the organization when calling into the CEO/top level
• Email strategies and structure for initial outreaches
• Identifying smaller sales and target segments when resources (time and money) are scarce to prove your business model before widening focus and attempting to disrupt industries.

Wednesday AM, 1/13/15

• Heavy discussion about implementation planning for your first customers – how to lower friction and the work customers have to do to get up and running with your product.
• Identifying concierge service to do with early customers to ensure success
• How to treat price with early customers
• Focusing on target market segments as a startup based on hypotheses.

https://youtu.be/yvdCy9yh3gk

Wednesday AM, 1/4/15

• Reducing your sale to a “single point of failure” – keeping your initial sale really small to avoid the decision-maker having to “check with the team to see what they think.”
• How to use offers from advisors and investors for introductions – who to ask to meet/talk with, what is the ask?
• Mapping out YOUR sales process – what are the steps that you want you prospects to follow so that you stay in control of the process and can identify where your process is breaking down.
• Selling what you have – it’s never about the product.

https://youtu.be/SyyYEJrcR3c

Wednesday PM, 1/4/15

• Strategies for cleaning out your 2015 pipeline – creating scarcity with a “new pilot program,” asking for permission to close a prospect’s file, having a second person on the team ask a dark prospect why they chose not to go forward last year, asking for time to do a customer development call vs a sales call.
• How to navigate a large organization in finding the right person.  Owning your ignorance about who you should talk to, and asking CEO administrative assistants for help.
• Using LinkedIn to map out a company’s org chart by using the “People Also Viewed” and search.
• Subject lines for emails

https://youtu.be/IU3rhnabuxk

Wednesday, 12/30/15

• Training your customers to consolidate customer support requests.
• Developing scarcity for early customers so that you are in more control of the sales process.
• Introducing a “sales map” early in the sales process to check for buy in from a potential champion/influencer.
• Ideas for cadences and number of email/phone/outreaches to cold.
• Recommended book: “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert Cialdini.

https://youtu.be/7UYOGQL64EU

Friday, 12/18/15

• Stop emailing, and start prospecting. Get personal with your research and emails. Experiment with ten super personalized emails vs large email blasts.
• Building a prospecting system, starting with LinkedIn, researching companies and prospects, sending an email, then following with a call.
• Dealing with pilot project vs full implementation pricing.
• Ideas for prospecting for conferences.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo2iiFytJvM

Wednesday, 12/16/15

• Avoiding “sales indigestion”- balancing time managing current customers, building documentation & presentations for deals in the pipeline, and prospecting.
• Discussion around “training customers” on your response times to their emails. If a non-urgent email comes in at 10am during a prospecting time, wait until 2pm to return the email.
• Setting up a customer service system/email to train customers to send all support requests to a single location and out of your inbox.
• Using social media to find success and fail cases of the problem y0ur company/product solves.
• In conversations with prospects, asking the prospect to tell you how important the problem is to solve, why it’s critical, and how much it’s costing them.

https://youtu.be/Y1yE_CUfx1U

Wednesday, 12/9/15

• Using the time as the year winds down to investigate and research social media avenues for prospecting – i.e. searching Twitter for hashtags relevant to your business.
• High-low selling – contacting two or more people in the same organization looking for traction on your offering.
• Tech tool: Boomerang for Gmail

https://youtu.be/MR_0SokARVc

Friday, 12/04/15

• Discussed how to prepare for a longer vs shorter presentation
• Techniques for leading a meeting when you are “ambushed” with more participants than you expect.
• How to maintain control of the presentation and sales conversation when you have a larger than expected audience.

https://youtu.be/jxILGmPW2Yg

Wednesday, 12/02/15

• Lightweight & free CRMs. Discussed HubSpot CRM (free) and Highrise (partially free I think….)
• MineMyMail.com as a resource for pulling email addresses from Gmail to look at past/forgotten communication
• Walking through a winning sales process  – retracing steps to identify key points in the sales process ie. signing an NDA, having CEO talk to prospective customer, etc.

https://youtu.be/E1GP1EqD8Bc

Wednesday, 11/25/15 (PM)

• Managing the sales process among new prospects vs active deals vs existing customers.
• Introducing steps in the sales process to that enable you to maintain control and reduce the amount of “push” vs “pull” information shared with prospects.
• Handling sales during the holiday season.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO9isvi-3vU

Wednesday, 11/25/15 (AM)

• How changing the message and positioning can improve your conversions
• Using BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Time) as a checklist in early sales conversations with new leads & prospects
• Prospecting a new vertical.
• Email prospecting tips – using tools like LeadIQ, YesWare, ToutApp, or Sidekick to track email opens
• Steps for researching prospects and crafting personalized outbound messages
• How to maintain control of the sale when the prospect wants to see a demo by creating additional steps in the sales process with qualification calls and setting up demo calls for a couple weeks forward.

https://youtu.be/LTryFVVAesE

Friday, 11/20/15

• Outbound/cold email strategies
• Calling into large company main phone numbers and working through to the right person
• Asking assistants for help in finding the right people
• Using LinkedIn to map out a target company
• Strategies for finding the right people to target at a company on LinkedIn
• Using Google News daily to find articles to cite in outbound emails and appointment requests

https://youtu.be/c_XVCrivKGw

Friday, 11/13/15

• Pros/Cons of setting up a webinar for attracting new leads. Discussed working backwards – set up the webinar with a summary of the content you plan to explore, then promote to see if you get conversions. Do this before spending the time on developing the deck and materials.
• LinkedIn Ads – Discussed these. General sense is that they are expensive and ineffective unless you’re really clear on what/who you’re targeting
• Using LinkedIn – Follow from last week in discussing formats to contact individuals cold. Some good success shared about the merits of spending 15-20 minutes crafting a single email and doing the research about the person before hitting send.
• Using Twitter chatter from a company – finding senior execs from a target company on Twitter, reading tweets, and using as a reference to get in touch with key people at the company.

https://youtu.be/vMlPftpTPT8

Wednesday, 11/11/15

• Strategies for contacting pure cold contacts i.e. no network connections for an introduction.
• Dividing up an outbound lead list into smaller parts and running A-B Tests on subject lines, content, and value propositions.
• Using LinkedIn for prospecting, including current connections, groups, InMails, and messaging tactics.

https://youtu.be/fq4ihoJ6dTc

Friday, 11/6/15 (audio only)

• “LobbyCon” – strategies for getting to conferences, setting meetings, when to use conferences and when to bail.
• Setting up “sales stages” in your sales pipeline – what are the right stages from “Qualification” through to “Implementation.”

Wednesday, 11/4/15

• Delivering product demos: Keeping them short, generating interaction early in the meeting, prepping.
• Identifying buyer types, managing buyers within target accounts
• Sales technology: Discussion around lead management software, including Hubspot + Sidekick, Outreach.io, Insightly, a few others…

https://youtu.be/BNAgs3OYwVM

Friday, 10/30/15

Wednesday. 10/28/15

Friday, 10/23/15 (audio only)