Only things that have made a measurable impact for me - marketing is sales: 1. Mom Test - https://www.momtestbook.com/ 2. Do more sales calls + customer interviews. Then rewatch the call and debug what you're doing, saying. What is landing and not landing. I miss the majority of the signal while I'm on the call - I don't actually get anything from it until I rewatch/see how people react to different things I say. 3. Rinse, iterate, and repeat. Your goal is to solve a customer problem. How you describe it, market it, etc. depends on how a customer describes the problem, where they spend their time, when and how they find solutions to their problem.
Three years ago I started consulting as an interim CTO for a company doing sales and marketing on behalf of other B2B SaaS. I had to onboard myself into this domain and it was quite hard as there are many snake oil sales men selling snake oil.
The first book I would read is Crossing The Chasm by Geoffrey Moore. After this, in no particular order you could have a look at:
- This is Marketing by Seth Godin
- Positioning by Al Ries
- The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson
- Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross
- Traversing The TRaction Gap by Bruce Cleveland
- From Impossible to Inevitable by Aaron Ross and Jason Lemkin
I would also have a look at the models created by Winning By Design [1]. But be sceptical! These models do however hold some value in terms of visually presenting the sales funnel and gaining understanding of land and expand.
Best of luck to you!
I think the main battle is mindset. The willingness to be seen attempting to persuade others to buy your product or invest in you or whatever. A lot of people, including engineer types, have a deep aversion to this, which may remain unexamined even after theyâve consciously recognised they need to âlearn marketing and salesâ.
I suspect success in this area might be only 20% about learning practical methodology. The other 80% would be some kind of self-examination, then analysing and resolving whatever aversions you discover - or deciding on a different strategy such as teaming up with someone who is already comfortable with marketing/selling.
Firstly, it's worth understanding that building a software business today is hard.
There's lots of competition, and most customers are already using something to help with their problem.
What worked for me 25 years ago is not going to work as well today. Well it will, but its much harder to stand out from the crowd.
Some things don't change though. You need to find customers before you find (ie build) product. Ideally you get a deposit before you start writing. Getting customers is harder than writing code, so do that first.
Finding customers is hard. You need to get close enough to see their pain. You need to make that pain go away. It's seldom as easy as you expect to make pain go away (the devil is in the details.)
The good news is that it is possible. And it's hard enough that it keeps the competition away. Do it well, carve out a niche, and you can build something good.
And always remember- customer service is what you are really selling, not software.
I've been doing go to market for technology businesses to some degree for the better part of 20 years now and I still learn more every day. I don't really see it as something you can easily learn by reading about, mostly because there is a lot of nuance.
That said, it basically boils down to 3 things:
Personas
Channels
Messages
You have an archetype of someone in your head that would like your tool, you want to test if that archetype exists. That persona likely consumes content, your job then is to understand the channels that persona typically likes to consume their content, and try to serve them a message they can understand in the time you have to serve it. There are thousands of personas in millions of channels consuming billions of messages, that is why it's hard.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41693844
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39316653
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39316653
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37021837
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36922114
Some good recs in the above threads. You'll be able to learn and thrive with those, IMO.
(opinions) picked up from doing enterprise/gov sales as a startup founder, relevant to early days of a saas mostly
- you can't outsource sales before pmf, and you probably don't have pmf yet
- talk to (at least) a potential customer every day, keep track of what you said and how they responded
- make and give your leads materials they can use to sell internally, figure out who makes decisions (probably not who you talked to first) and make sure it's relevant to them; you may need multiple versions
- aggressively think about pmf, don't worry too much about official definitions here. just ask yourself: "if i took a month long vacation, could sales ostensibly be on autopilot?" if no, you don't have it yet. if yes, take the vacation you're doing great
- look for pmf by making your idea smaller, not bigger, or you will waste money and time
- when you can make a product idea really tiny in scope, and someone will still pay for it, you've identified a strong pain point you can exploit (aka charge for). Build the product/platform around that, not the other way around. Never convince yourself you have to build a huge thing before you can sell it, you're most likely wrong. optimize for finding that tiny scope early on
- when i say look for or find or think about pmf i mean come up with a way to pitch your product, and then pitch it to someone new. then compare that to the last times you did it. you have to talk to a lot of people for this to work, way more than you think. your product will not sell itself, you will have to talk to a lot of people. as many as physically possible to get the feedback you need to create a sales cycle that runs without you i.e. pmf. this is something that took me multiple years to internalize. you're just never talking to enough potential customers
- don't ignore seo, and pick names that are easy to say and read; figure out where your customers consume media and get your content there. every business will be different here, and you gotta get creative
- something i saw on reddit that stuck with me: first time founders think about product, second time founders think about distribution. i operationalize this as: do not begin engineering a product until you're clear on how it will be marketed and sold, bonus points if you can convince someone to sign a contract saying they want it-- and remember in B2B/gov this can (should?) be a sales channel partner not just an end-user
Market is saturated and it's getting increasingly hard to build sustainable software. One good thing is that the price of SaaS has gone up. That creates an opening for the folks who are good at execution. I'm betting on that.
I'm out of new ideas so I'm competing on price and building tools in a crowded space like Calendly and Loom. https://neeto.com/cal and https://neeto.com/record.
The Founding Sales book is a good resource. It's written by a startup founder who built startup sales teams from zero to hundreds of ppl. It explains how sales is different at each stage of a company. It teaches what is important at each stage.
Some tactical advice:
- Search for online app directories like product hunt/indie hackers and put your app entry.
- Search for relevant reddit forums, become a member, start answering questions related to your product and add a link at the end.
- Same a last one. Add a post with lot of content of how to solve a problem that community faces and then add your product link.
- On Twitter join the indiehackers/build in public community. Regularly post your updates/screenshots. Engage in community.
- Write a ebook related to you domain. Create a landing page to collect email to deliver ebook. Mention how users can solve the problem by just using your app. Create ads to market the free ebook.
- Split ebook into smaller tweets/reddit post and regularly post them.
- Cold outreach to member on reddit community and ask for app review.
Just listen and help people with your expertise. Be a good advisor. Focus your efforts on finding a good fit for their needs, not selling them something. Talk positively about all the options on the market and the pros / cons. Why youâre a good fit or not for them. Make referrals to the âcompetitionâ. Itâs not a zero sum game.
The trust you earn by trying to genuinely be of service to the market pays back dividends. Not in an easily quantifiable RoI. But eventually it will.
The other bit of advice is you need to set some boundaries and expectations for working together. This includes closing the sale (we need contract back by X date or we canât work together) and when executing / serving them (we canât exceed this limit, we need payment by Y or service will be paused). Hold yourself to being disciplined and not people pleasing. Youâll regret the latter usually. Sometimes the best thing you can do is NOT close the deal.
Donât undersell yourself. Set a price point where half of your inbound is unable to work with you. Eliminate bad fits early.
As a solo entrepreneur your time is extremely limited. So boundaries and setting a good price point are very important so people donât waste your time.
And because youâre probably still looking for PmF these trusting relationships turn your potential customers into advisors. Treat your best customers advice as sacrosanct. Youâll find a niche in partnership with them.
Iâm a YC founder who did 0 to 2M ARR in founder led sales with absolutely 0 sales background. Iâm basically a self-learned coder who had to take CEO role, therefore doing sales.
I find this video about enterprise sales from Pete Koomen (YC Partner) to be the best summary:
I've built successful products (https://chatgptwriter.ai and more) and here's what works for me:
Step 1: Offer your product for free. Free (and useful) products spread organically on internet. If people aren't using your product even when it's free, no amount of marketing will make it successful.
Step 2: If people are "consistently" using your free product over time, you can then offer additional value at a price or try any other pricing strategy.
Not all products can be offered for free, and that's okay. It's worth spending some money initially (if you can) because your primary goal is to reach Step 2.
Iâm hesitant to simply say âread thisâ, but please consider The Mom Test. Itâs a quick read & teaches how to structure conversations with potential customers.
Rob Walling's books are pretty good and his first one "Start Marketing The Day You Start Coding" is a free download from his website https://robwalling.com/#books
you need a coach, for both knowledge and accountability. Sales is hard, youâre going to fuck up important calls and need to postmortem them correctly in order to improve and succeed. In the US a coach starts at about $300/hour (3-5 hours per month) for someone who is successful but not too successful. Which implies - I will state up front - you need to have some money. Otherwise, without a viable team in place with all the necessary skills to succeed, and/or a credible plan to rapidly acquire the skills you are missing, you are gambling not investing and you will pay a much higher cost: failure, liquidation of your personal assets, and liquidation of multiple years of your life, with little to show for it at the end. Ask me how I know this. My company is working now but it took two tries, i.e. i liquidated myself twice before beginning to see success. The first was the price of education. The second was the cost of identifying the right team. I was able to raise some money at this point.
People will tell you about product market fit but honestly, just enter a space that's already proven to generate revenue.
Also don't be afraid to build "boring" software, many times this is what will bring the most steady revenue.
I was looking for the same a while ago on HN. Below is the thread. Not specific to solopreneurs, but a lot of relevant advice, including top comment by a solopreneur with 3 successful businesses.
I'm creating a desktop app, a Python editor designed for beginner data scientists. The biggest shift for me was changing how I talk about it. Instead of focusing on the app's features, I started talking about the benefits it gives users. For example, the app automatically installs Python and all the needed packages. I now describe this as: "Painless Python setupâinstall everything you need automatically." Thinking more about users and their problems has made a big difference in both marketing and sales.
I've been trying for about 2 years now. I've had 1 commercial success, but it was pure luck really. I had a post about my project go viral, and it gained many users. It was a free product, but a group of people wanted to buy it off me.
I think its
- right market
- right time
- right product
- right attitude
Rather than building web projects, I'm not shifting my attention to overlooked areas (C, CLI, other low level areas)
Sales is hard because it's less about building and more about listening. You need to figure out what customers actually need and that starts with talking to them directly. Hereâs a framework I use, based on the Customer Development Ladder I wrote about in my upcoming book. It breaks down the process of learning about customers into four kinds of interviews. Each interview takes you one step closer to a sales call and the last step invites them into a sales process.
1. Exploratory Customer Development - Start with broad conversations. Reach out to potential customers and ask them about their world: their challenges, goals, and frustrations. Donât pitch your idea, just listen. The goal is to uncover problems worth solving.
2. Focused Customer Development - Once you notice a pattern in the problems people describe, you want to make sure it's shared by a wide subset of customers.
3. Paper Feedback Demo - Before building anything new, create a low-fidelity prototype (mock-ups, sketches, or slides) of how you might solve the problem. Share it with prospects and get their feedback.
4. Real Feedback Demo - When you have a working version of your product, test it with those same prospects and ask for feedback. The goal is to see if the thing actually solves their pain. If it does, you can invite them into a sales process. âLooks like it might help, can we set up some time to explore what it would look like to implement at your company?â
This approach isnât magic but it works. The best part is that it teaches you how to find customers and what messaging will resonate with them. Resources like The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick are great for learning how to have these conversations without bias.
Can you give examples of things youâve tried and failed?
One thing I see often is that people forget that marketing begins before you even start building a product.
Before you begin building anything you should know, who the product is for, and where those people hang out. Then as youâre building you need to go to where those people hang out and start talking to them. That should be step one most of the time at least.
The answer to every marketing question is 'it depends'. How to best market your product depends on your personality, skills, market, product, price point etc. No-one else can really tell you what will work for your product (a direct competitor might know, but they won't tell you). Try to learn some basic principals from blogs, videos, books, peer etc and then experiment.
I have zero experience in sales and marketing, but I was wondering how I would start if I had to do that. After reading a bit about it and googling around, I stumbled upon Alex Hormozi and his YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@alexhormozi
It has a lot of content & good presentation (minimalistic, but crisp). All about sales and marketing. I have no idea how an experienced sales or marketing person would rate it, but to me it sounds reasonable and useful. Give it a try (e.g. try this video: https://youtu.be/FMzKk73iUhw -- his videos have clickbaty titles, and are pretty long -- don't let that discourage you).
He also has two books (sales and marketing), but I didn't read them yet. The reviews say that they are somewhat basic. I'll still give them a try.
How big is your targetable market ? How many customers would you have if you had a 100% monopoly. If the number is in the thousands or more, then you're best off trying and failing than getting it right from the start.
Every company is unique. But at your scale, you can throw blind darts until something sticks. Most tiny companies do not require a principled approach to sales or marketing. You want to try proposing different price points, contract terms, outreach methods & channels. Keep each experiment small, fail fast and pivot.
Once you gain a few customers, feedback & recommendation based organic growth is a good 2nd step. But, your first few wins can totally feel like a crap shoot.
All that being said, the best products market themselves. A problem is only worth solving if it is immediately painful to company bottom line. Sales & marketing only works if the product alleviates such pain.
First off: you've got this! I'm sure lots of people on HN have felt this way (:hand-raised:)
My approach is roughly: "getting out of my comfort zone" + repeat what worked and drop what doesn't.
With a BIG caveat that this is all running off my own money, not investors. I get tempted by marketing/sales tools (eg: apollo.io, za-zu), vendor exhibitions, paid ads, etc but if I'm not fairly certain I'll get the $-spent back, I do the free/harder way first until I understand that system more. Dollars can give leverage, but aren't certain to.
Also, publicly track the experiments you run as an accountability system (and doubles as a bit of marketing for your product)
EG: Scroll down on 24HourHomepage.com to see a history of how I've thought about growing it roughly week over week
Interesting thread. Here's a story: long ago when I found myself running a bootstrapped startup, I worried that I didn't know what I was doing, business-wise. I had worked for, and knew, a guy who had become something of a business guru and VC and wealthy and successful. Everyone here has heard of him. I called him up and set out my situation and asked him how he recommended I should approach things. He listened and said something like "Oh dude, I'm out there on the ledge with you, I don't really know what to do most of the time." So I never worried about it again.
There's a bunch of good advice and resources here but in the end sales and marketing is not that different from coding.
To do it well, you have to do it a lot. And you're going to suck at it in the beginning.
The good news is that if you're good at coding then you already know how to be persistent and self-critical and disciplined. You'll see what is working and what isn't and do more of the former and less of the latter until you get good.
I know that's not particularly useful in terms of "how do I speed run this" but I think it's something that most devs don't want to fully grok.
Opposite side of the same question, but how can I better approach solo devs to help with marketing? I have led marketing at several startups/companies (3 acquisitions, 1 current unicorn, and 1 public company). Most developers are rightfully cautious bc of being either burned by marketing types in the past or just don't like the overall vibe (I don't blame them). I work best 1-on-1 with a builders and would like to do this more to get out of the bureaucracy of larger companies, but have mostly spun my wheels.
That's quite tricky to describe because it's just always different in everyone's experience. I would say it's a good start if you can get your first deal from your network or friends. And then you need some pilot cases to support your product success. And you need a long run in building your product reputation, your SEO ranking, etc. Then it seems that it can be a bit easier to get customers...
still on this way as well :)
I would imagine you would need to learn how to be a "Sales Engineer" on top of being a solopreneur. I've been one for a long time and put together an ebook that I would be more than happy to provide you with. All I ask is you give me your feedback on the content I put together. I'm working towards something else but created the ebook to see if it resonates.
While I am not somebody who succeeded in the field of running a SAAS, I gave myself the same question.
One answer (or better, one idea) I came up with, was to join a network marketing organization. While I am reluctant about this step, it would definitely pull me out of my comfort zone. And I think you can learn a lot sales wise in a network marketing organization.
I would love to hear what others think of this.
I've posted many resources for people to take a dip into different paths and different teachers for marketing on this page: https://steveiscritical.com/smma-info/
I should clean it up and organize it better at some point, but there is a big variety these days.
I've been in sales for a while and in my opinion, speaking to experienced sales people about the things you want to sell is an amazing eye opener. I don't know how many times I've explained a person's product to them and they have a mini epiphany as they never saw it that way before.
In my experience, many product makers who describe themselves as being bad at sales just can't get their head out of their own view point. So even speaking to a person who is just marginally above average at sales and describes it as an outsider can really shift their way of thinking. The customer may not use the product in the exact way you think they will when you made it. Having the benefit of seeing how others see your product will put you on the same footing when you pitch it to them.
Also, find a way of presenting that fits your personality. I'm pretty mater of fact and my sales pitch has always been sort like "we have some cool stuff for sale, you use some of the exact kind of stuff we sell, let's talk about whether our stuff would be good for you." Then I just ask them questions. Sales people have the (deserved) stereotype of blathering on about their product or service and being tone deaf to whether it's a good fit or not. I ask and I ask. People will talk about themselves quite a bit and in my mind, I am taking notes on what may be a good fit for them and what might not be.
Eventually, they've run out of things to talk about and I'll start talking about what I think they should look at and why. That brings me around to another thing--fitting in. I have no problem telling people if one of our offerings is not something they should consider. I don't want to force something on someone, when they are smart enough to know it isn't right for them. Cajoling someone into a sale that isn't a great fit just leads to problems after the sale, then I'm putting out fire with them when I should be selling to others. Not only does it build trust with the customer to pass on things, but it's just the right thing to do.
Think of yourself not as a salesperson, but as a problem solver. If they have a business problem your product can solve, tell them.
Good luck and I hope this helps!
Iâve not taken the course but follow the author on LinkedIn where he distills typical B2B content approach with clarity. https://www.pierreherubel.com/course
Richard Grove offers an online course called Autonomy that teaches these skills and more. Good course, I took it a few years ago. One of the topics is how to sell without being cringy, in my words.
Spending money makes things easier to do and easier to fail at. Ads targeted at customers is the simplest way.
The ideal thing to do is become your customer, hang out with them, learn from them. Shape your product around them. They will tell you what they will buy for how much.
Only a few products are so innovate that everyone understands what it is and the value it brings and they demand it and only you can give it to them : think ChatGPT. Those products market themselves once word gets out. Is that your product? If not you have to tell people or show people.
Book recommendation: Philip Kotler, Marketing Management.
It's both easy and deep reading. Long but worth it. It changed marketing for me from smoke and mirrors to a systematic, fun, creative analytical process.
Hey! Team up w a PM or find a (paid) sales/BD mentor. Listen, Copy and Adapt. Talk 24/7 with customers and work on positioning/messaging.
Here is a very practical, well-reviewed book for founders to get their first sale and then keep going:
https://www.amazon.com/STARTUP-SALES-FIELD-NOTES-Methodology...
See also YC Startup School and other videos in the YC channel https://www.youtube.com/@ycombinator/videos
Lots of great experiences retold - from the startup world rather than some Coca Cola exec.
Michael Porter's books on marketing (esp. "Competitive Strategy") are well-regarded.
We've helped 125+ b2b software startups marketing and sell more software over the last 9 years if you're looking for expert help: https://www.reifyworks.com
I find this to be an impossible problem because everything that any consumer could possibly want already exists. In fact, there are too many things and wealthy people are literally going insane trying to absorb the enormous supply and range of goods and services that are available to them. Sales is basically a zero-sum game of one useless product or service stealing market share from another useless product or service.
The only real problem which exists in society is the problem that the system itself prevents us from solving. The problem of allowing people to obtain money to buy the damn stuff that is being produced and whose production could be easily scaled up at will and there is nothing save climate change and other doom narratives getting in the way of massively scaling up production and automating everything. Letting the pie grow as big as is required to satisfy everyone. Ask just about anyone on the street what they need and if they're honest, 99% of them will tell you that they need more money to buy the stuff that already exists. The government could essentially give free land and free money (UBI) to everyone, new cities would be built and the system would expand and decentralize outward, creating an abundance of opportunities.
How do you solve the problem of helping people to get more money when the entire monetary system is designed to concentrate wealth, to take away opportunities and wealth from the masses. The only solutions to the most important problem in society are political. There are no business solutions for this problem within the current political framework.
There is no incentive to actually automate anything (beyond the point when it satisfies only the elite) when the masses are systematically broke and desperate for money. People will always be as cheap as machines. Slavery exists on the periphery and will grow in the current system. It will come down to the cost of food for a slave or electricity for a machine... However, the slave can produce their own food in the same way that an intelligent machine could produce its own electricity. The net cost is 0 in both cases. Slavery is more achievable, even today.
Now if you're interested in ways to make money without solving the only problem that matters, then you need to basically come up with a solution to make the problem worse; which helps concentrate the money faster, more surveillance, more control, more plausible deniability, more dulling of the senses, more inequality, more suffering... Basically anything that helps to prevent political change. Nothing else pays in the current political framework besides protecting the current political framework.
Iâm a solo founder myself, and hereâs whatâs worked for me so far:
Start with the Basics: I spent some time wrapping my head around the fundamentals. Books like "Influence" by Cialdini, "Crossing the Chasm" by Geoffrey Moore, and "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing" by Ries & Trout helped me get a grip on core concepts like positioning, target audiences, and the psychology behind persuasion.
Focus on One Channel and Iterate: I learned the hard way that itâs tempting to try every platform, but thatâs overwhelmingâespecially when youâre solo. So I picked one channel that made sense for my audience (initially, email outreach and LinkedIn). I ran small experiments with subject lines, tone, calls-to-action, and watched what worked.
Engage in Conversations, Not Sales Pitches: A big part of sales, I realized, is listening. I started hanging out in niche forums and Slack/Discord channels where my potential users might be, answering questions, and offering help. When people realize youâre there to support them, not just push a product, it builds trust.
Use Low-Cost Tools and Communities: Hacker News, indie hacker communities, and entrepreneur subreddits are goldmines for getting feedback on landing pages, pitch decks, or just your general marketing approach. I regularly post progress updates or ask for opinionsâsometimes the feedback can sting, but itâs invaluable.
Document Everything: Whenever I tried a new marketing tacticâbe it a cold outreach email or a small Twitter ad campaignâI noted my assumptions, what I did, and the results. Over time, I built up a playbook of what actually moves the needle for my audience.
Build Real Relationships: Early on, I put a lot of effort into meaningful relationshipsâboth with early customers and other solo founders. A quick Zoom call or a coffee chat can lead to referrals, partnerships, or just great insight. Honestly, itâs usually more about genuine curiosity and a willingness to help than any formal pitch.
Adopt a Continuous Learning Mindset: Marketing and sales tactics change quicklyâalgorithms, consumer behavior, best practices, all of it. I keep reading, trying, and asking questions. And I keep telling myself that every âNoâ is actually a âNot yetââitâs just data to improve my approach.
Thatâs how Iâve been tackling marketing and sales as a solo entrepreneur. Keep things simple, learn by doing, and stay genuinely curious about your customers. Itâs an ongoing process, but one that becomes more intuitive with each experiment. Good luck!
I used to work as a stock broker and it helped tremendously with my soft skills.
Competing against luck by Clayton Christensen, how brands grow by Byron Sharp
It might not help directly with digital, but if you get on the phone to sell something that gives a sort of fundamental understanding of sales that can inspire plans for other avenues of sales and marketing
Getting it in front of the customer after it's built is too late.
First find qualified PROSPECTS and ASK them what they want. In person.
I have a lot of experience with this. Happy to have a call to give you some tips - my email address is in my profile.
Get admitted to online UIUC iMBA or BU OMBA, take the marketing/sales/entrepreneurship courses, quit.
Free advice: Be active on social media, build your online presence and expand your networking knots.
Hire someone who knows and learn from them. Seriously.
This is who I'm learning everything from right now: John Rush.
1. X account: https://x.com/johnrushx
2. Directory guide: https://johnrushx.substack.com/p/directory-playbook-build-grow-and
I would start by going back and studying all of his threads.
"The Futur" is a great youtube channel and broader resource I've found helpful.
impossible without a budget of $2-300/month
There's a lot of great (and some remarkably bad) advice in the replies here, but one thing I can share from my two decades of having my hands in sales, engineering and service is that customers, regardless of they are B2B or private, are going to weigh your product on two things;
1. Does this solve a problem we have?
2. Can we afford it?
That's it. There's no magic tricks or dark patterns to be exploited, contrary to what a variety of sales/marketing books might tell you (those books are selling you the books, nothing more).
Here's a few easy things to remember:
1. Your customer has needs. Meet them or walk away before you waste valuable time and create resentment.
2. Your customer is a human that values honesty and wants to make an informed decision, so be prepared to give them the information they need to do so.
If you go into a presentation knowing your product and knowing your customer's needs, there's really no other controls you can account for that will sway that deal one way or the other. So, do your homework. Use OSINT techniques to gather info on your customer, build a profile of what they already use, what their pain points are, etc and don't forget to just talk to them. Not every interaction has to result in a sale, in fact, most are fact-finding/info-gathering sessions for both parties, in my experience.
Despite doing well for myself when I was operating in a sales capacity, I do not do sales much these days mostly because I prefer the troubleshooting and development side of the industry I'm in, but if you approach it with a Troubleshooting Mindset, you're better off. It sets you up to offer the right solution for the right problem if you think of your customer's workflow/processes as something to be studied so that it can be improved.
I say this because I have met countless salesmen in my day that think they can human-hack their way to a deal because they watched Glengarry Glen Ross too many times, or read a Malcolm Gladwell book. They're the reason why we have a used car salesman stereotype and why movies like Wolf of Wall Street are made (that movie is not about a hero). Approach with caution any advice that a behavioral economist or anyone claiming to be a market expert offers; none of these people have crystal balls or mind-reading capabilities and they make money by convincing people they do. You're in a position where a lot of that might seem attractive and I was there once myself, going so far as to paying real money to attend a Tony Robbins seminar more than once when I was first starting out. It's all nonsense in the end, boiling down to getting yourself out there, building relationships with people, spiced with a bit of luck and privilege.
Best advice is all negative, and may not be applicable.
Don't go a month without your biggest clients hearing from you. - Just pick up the phone. Doubly so if you bill monthly vs hourly.
Don't send a shitty boilerplate email to keep in touch with clients.
Don't forget old clients when new ones come along. - I cant count the number of times I have seen a variation of "We spent 500 dollars a month on your product for the last 4 years, but when we wanted to renegotiate we couldn't get any time, now I pay this guy 300 per month on a new 4 year contract"
Don't leave a customer with a problem alone. Solve the problem, or get them to someone they can. - Like for real, the number of successful businesses I have seen where the person making all the money overall spends time discussing and referring support for problems that have no bearing on their product is immense. Be the expert, lest another expert comes along and suggests they cut costs via removing your service.
Don't push a solution that's not viable. - The number of times I have seen customers effectively quiet quit a service is crazy. If they cant get it to work, and they stop trying, they are leaving.
tl;dr for the above is that sales doesn't end when a contract is signed.
Good sales leads will come through your network. If you have a good product and you treat your customers well, they will recommend you.
Keep an eye on upwork and similar sites. Facebook industry groups too. Lots of people who don't know what they want ask someone on upwork to make a plugin or macro or patch some hole or something. You will recognize that they might have a problem for which your product can be the solution. These people know they don't know what they want and often respond well to a pitch. Something like 1 in 10 will give you some time. Again these people probably don't want to pay for a stopgap solution, but will want someone who can talk about their problem and offer a permanent solution.
If you land a big fish, and they have needs outside your product scope, consider changing your product scope to suit the fish. Generally these businesses love something bespoke, and they have competitors in the same verticals with the same needs. Especially if you have experience in their vertical. Partnerships can also work here. The number of times I have seen "We used to be a XYZ business, we developed our own software in house\with a partner and now we are a software company to the XYZ industry" is enormous. Legal. Geophysics. Manufacturing. Solve one problem, and go horizontal.
Dont be afraid of the big fish either, even if you need help landing them. I have seen a few instances of small guys getting really scared to offer their product to a large customer. With a push it has turned out that these large customers had large suppliers and those large suppliers were delivering really shitty products and the large customer was actively looking for alternatives. Friendly advertising is just information, and people with limited options love having information even if they dont action it.
Start with putting in at least a consummate amount of effort into learning selling as you would learning a new programming language. Like your second language, not your fifth. Read, watch, study, practice (in the mirror, with friends, online). Learn to sell anything, not just your thing. There is a wide range of literature, ranging from academic to motivational. Try to reverse engineer a sale that took place. Like why is a football game called the ServPro First Responders Bowl? Someone closed that deal. How, who was involved in the decision, why did they agree to proceed, what are their anticipated benefits and outcomes? What else could that money have gone towards that proved less valuable than naming rights? If you had to sell the naming rights to a football game, who would you approach, or who might approach you?
Read case studies on the scale of sales youâre pursuing. A $10 /mo subscription is sold very differently than a $10m contract, but is often bought for the same fundamental reasons. Case studies illuminate the sales cycle at a given scale, and give a glimpse into timeframes, competition, and customers to expect.
Research your competition, big and small. How many people do they employee in sales and marketing roles? Pick one and look at their LinkedIn. What did they do before their current role? How do they sell themselves? What is their quota or target? How many people are they connected with. And who.
Research the crap out of potential customers. What are their hopes and fears? Which align with your offering? Who would trust their decision on a vendor for your product?
Then you can begin the real work of selling which is to favorably differentiate your offering against alternatives to qualified buyers. Spend your precious time with people who have the means, motivation, and mass to make a sale impactful to your company. Many sellers waste the majority of their time pursuing people that can never proceed with a deal, ie unqualified. That is true in both sales and marketing. Learning what a qualified buyer looks like, and where and when to find them is among the most valuable activities in selling.
Finally, sell. If youâre doing it right youâre doing helping your customer achieve the best possible outcome while profiting from it. Sell. Itâs rewarding in profound ways. Itâs survival. Itâs adaptation in action. Itâs thrilling.
All of your code is just trapped electrons sitting idle. When you sell, you shape them to fit someoneâs reality with value, then they start to move and have real effects. Iâm emphasizing this because selling tends to be something developers and founders love to avoid, but it is the lifeblood of a business, what makes it a business instead of a hobby. Getting proficient at selling can be one of the most life-changing pursuits, not just because you can attract money easier, but it puts you in touch with the ur currents of value, the shape of progress. Youâre already on the right track by asking good questions here, thatâs 90% of the technique.
For sales you do yourself, I highly recommend just listening in on the free stuff by Jeremy Miner and other "new sales gurus" that talk about "building the gap" as the main thing to focus on, rather than selling your product. I just like Jeremy Miner for his additional emphasis on the "tonality" over the phone.
Having said that, consider just getting salespeople who would work on commission. The good ones would do it, if you have a high-ticket item.
Now, when it comes to sales at scale, through webinars and courses etc, there's a whole other science to group psychology. As someone who built the "Groups" app for the app stores, and working on CRMs and building community platforms with my open-source platform, I can write a whole book about it. I'm going to make a course, actually. But the basics are:
1) Whenever you are at events, focus on effortless and fun communication, showing off the unique things your stuff can do, but never overtly selling it. The best is if you could make a group activity facilitated by your app, by involving everyone scanning the QR code and getting into your demo thing on your webpage. Just make the onboarding easy (e.g. scan QR code)
Anything that involves friction, do 1 on 1 (e.g. private chat) and put all the structural stress on a third party (e.g. some onboarding process, or your app, or someone who gave you the questions to ask, or whatever)
2) Once people have made a commitment or purchase, invite them in a group chat (social proof)
... make it exclusive and valuable access, for both networking opportunities and content, and access to celebrities you bring, access to recordings, and ability to show off the access by bringing a +2 to events
3) Use social proof (e.g. when asking them to do an action, show actions others like them have taken, with their faces / results)
4) Control the messaging (e.g. if they leave a positive testimonial, make it easy for them to spread it, but if they leave a bad review, route it to a support team internally and don't make it easy to share it publicly)
5) Economics: reward them with credits every time someone follows their link / comes through their video etc. The credits can even be something like 10% of whatever the people they bring in spend
Don't think in terms of money only. For example, if someone brings a Twitter celebrity, you can have the celebrity auth with twitter and get their follower count. And then that is a valuable thing in and of itself, so you should scale the rewards both the celebrity and the person who brought them. Make this clear to your community. But it's only valuable if your app has integration with at least Twitter intents, allowing this celebrity to keep posting stuff on their channel, which links back to the app. Make every invite link unique so you can track and reward the one who posted it when people who come through the link make a purchase.
Group psychology opens up a whole set of interesting possibilities, up to an including starting an entire movement or viral brand. Look up the video "leadership lessons from the dancing guy" to get an idea of what's possible.
I could go on and on, but "group psychology" is a huge subject and a lot more fun, in my opinion, than trying to hack the sales with 1 on 1 prospects. But having said that, current state of the art in sales is the 1 on 1 thing. So just have salespeople who do that on commission, and their goal is to get prospects to buy something or book something (setters) and then you verify it and put them into a larger group... and do the group psychology.
You can have recurring memberships and much more.
You can train AI agents to essentially do the "sales calls" but they won't be very good at the "tonality" part.
In terms of what you offer:
1) you should have what's called a value ladder, which is that you keep delivering things to them of increasing value, while they keep increasing the amount of money. ideally have a way to deliver free and customized value first ... but them using that thing gets them invested (entering data, spending time, inviting friends, are all forms of non-monetary investment)
During the initial call you can also have them authorize $1 for some small demo, make sure to explain to them that's all you're going to charge, until they actively indicate that they want to start. Then the goal is to get them to invest so much "non-monetary" stuff above, that they don't want to "lose all that investment" and they'll actively agree to a recurring subscription to "maintain it". Just like you'd pay to continue your hosting or email service.
2) do "consultative sales", in that you walk through what your customers need, and then produce a "statement of work" for them. Whenever you set up the next call, always ask "same time next week?" and "until then, I will have the team prepare the proposal" and ask for their email.
Encourage them to bring other decision makers on the call (this is a form of investment and preventing objections from people behind the scenes).
The "same time next week?" is a good default question if you don't have their calendly, and also allows your prospects to fill a certain "weekly time slot" until they are closed and become customers, and are handed off to a case manager etc. It also allows your sales team to manage their calendars better. If people correct you and change the time to another that's fine too.
The key in sales is to keep the conversation going and either anticipate or address all objections. Including the ones of "hidden decision makers". You can sort of get a sense of how important someone is by how much time they take to talk. If they don't talk very much they have a lot going on.
3) As long as you deliver something customized that "took a lot of effort", they will appreciate your text 24 hours before the next call, and they will make sure to get on the call (it's the "least they could do" after you did 90% of the work for free).
4) When discussing the cost, designing your statement of work, give people a choice of A, B or A+B in same time frame, so this way they can choose to pay the large A+B amount if they want it "fast" for the same price it would take doing it piecemeal.
Meaning, never put them to a "yes" or a "no", but always a continuous trade-off, so they are likely to choose something on that curve. That is somewhere in your value ladder and once you get a foothold, the relationship grows, the trust and dependency grows, their stakeholders will be telling them to keep going with you.
5) my favorite hack: open a company specifically for the new product, and if your product still has bugs, offer your customers shares in your company in addition to the product (legally allowed under Rule 506b if there is a substantial pre-existing relationship, or through Test the Waters leading up to an upcoming crowdfund through Reg CF, e.g. https://wefunder.com/Qbix).
Today I wrote a post specially for those like you. It little bit fuzzy, coz I didn't edit it down to a clean version. Hope you will find it useful. If you need more details let me know.
Headline There are many points of view in marketing, and it's always this one that works. (An ocean of options in marketing, and it's always this one that works.)
Description There are no one-size-fits-all strategies in marketing - each is created for a specific business, audience and product. But there are fundamental principles that underpin any successful campaign. These are not magic recipes, but time-tested benchmarks. What are these principles? Let's break it down step by step: (1) You need to know your target audience. You need this for marketing. (You need this for product creation, but we're not talking about that right now). How? (a) In detail, in depth, become her. The best way to do this is to watch YouTube interviews with people who will buy from you. Watch 5-7 interviews. You will form a collective image of your customer in your head. You can conduct interviews, but it is expensive and not always necessary. b) It is necessary to collect a map of interests about your audience. That is, everything you have learnt should be written down. Briefly, what they eat, what they drink, what they watch, what they read, what they wear, what they drive, where they go on holiday, what places they go to, what kind of lifestyle they lead, everything. It's going to be necessary further down the line. You will understand.
(2) You need to create a pledge. Or recycle an old one if you've inherited marketing. How? a) It needs to be simple, it needs to be clear to your audience, Keep it simple. My product will solve something for you. b) It has to be relevant to your audience. c) It has to change something in a person's life. Get rid of something, that's most often the case. If your product is improving, it has to improve multiple times, otherwise it will be hard to sell, because improvement is a movement from good enough to better. When the audience is happy with everything, it's hard to sell something even better. I recommend Getting rid of something, it's easier.
(3) Find a sound problem from your promise, you need this later for marketing. How. (a) Look for the sound of what the problem you are getting rid of might sound like.
(4) You need to create a value proposition. If you don't have one and you create one, then by creating one you may see a significant increase in sales if you implement just this one thing. How? a) You need the perceived value of what you're selling to be higher than what people pay for it. Ideally 1 in 10.
(5) You need to think of a product line, for re-monetisation. This is a super important step, it's the only way to create a long-lasting business. Think about this. You've spent a resource on attracting an audience. Why would you spend a resource on attracting again? It's not rational. and the right thing to do is to create related products for the same audience. So you pay once for the attraction.
How? Think about what else you can sell to the same audience.
We need all the previous points to do marketing. Basically produce content and distribute it. Here's a little bit of theory. Marketing is a simple thing. There's a person (you) and there's another person (the customer), there's words between you. That's it. You just need to answer the question, what words should I say to get him to buy my product. Here is everything we have previously worked through, we need to use further in our marketing. I divide marketing into 4 functions. 1) Attraction 2) Retention 3) Nurturing 4) Monetisation
(6) We need to do âAttraction.â How? a) Create content, depending on your company's available resources, create content across all platforms. To create content, use the audience knowledge you have gained earlier. For example, you sell âPrams for Kidsâ, you can create content about weight loss. Build on the interests of your audience, even though they are not directly related to your product. Do you understand why? I hope so. At this stage, you need to attract attention and sign up for yourself. Subscription is mandatory. This is the determinant of the success of this type of content. If you don't subscribe, you've just wasted a resource on content creation and distribution.
(7) You need to make content for Retention and for Growth. The audience that subscribed to you should stay subscribed to you, you have already spent a resource to attract them, we don't want to spend a resource to attract them again, it's not rational. How? a) Retention. I will tell you through an example. There is an account of one company in the social network âProstokvashinoâ called, so they do not do retention, do not know how . Imagine they have an audience of grandmothers and bodybuilders. So Grandma is interested in watching how to cook pancakes with cottage cheese from Ivlev, and bodybuilders, for example, it is interesting to watch another, certainly not about fat pancakes. So retention should be aimed at the interests of your audience. That's why we worked them out earlier. b) Nurturing. This is a topic that nobody understands at all. I'll try to explain it with an example. You have a classmate, and he was so bad in school, he did not fulfil promises, sometimes he said one thing and did another, but at the same time he is predictable for you because you have studied with him for 10 years, you know in what situation you can deal with him, and in what situation it is better not to deal with him. And from what kind of person, what is your assessment of him, from this depends on whether you are ready to go with him on the case or not. So the lack of information of the client about the person and the organisation from which he will then buy the product, greatly hinders the purchase of goods.
(8) It is necessary to produce content for monetisation. I think it is clear. Except that we do it badly, 99.5% of businesses that I observe. They don't know how, nobody taught them. How? a) We need to do it natively, we do not sell buy-buy-buy-buy. People don't like it that way. Example, talk about one ingredient your product is made of, then the next. Tell how you produce it (or the manufacturer). Show the product indirectly rather than directly. People realise it's about your product. Sell natively with an offer to buy. b) Sometimes you need to sell right away without the first stages. Well, because you can buy traffic and immediately pour it into the selling page. That's how we do it too. In the text or video talk about what problem we solve, what we promise if he buys, you need a personal story about what changed when you used the product. The text appeals to what benefit the customer will get from it, what problem will be solved, what will change financially, what will change emotionally, what will change socially. c) Monetisation uses an offer (previously created)
Today I wrote a post about it. But I did not post it yet. I wrote it on russian, I did not clear the post for posting yet, but let me translate it for you. Hope You will find answers. And if you need help let me know.
Headline There are many points of view in marketing, and it's always this one that works. (An ocean of options in marketing, and it's always this one that works.)
Description There are no one-size-fits-all strategies in marketing - each is created for a specific business, audience and product. But there are fundamental principles that underpin any successful campaign. These are not magic recipes, but time-tested benchmarks. What are these principles? Let's break it down step by step: (1) You need to know your target audience. You need this for marketing. (You need this for product creation, but we're not talking about that right now). How? (a) In detail, in depth, become her. The best way to do this is to watch YouTube interviews with people who will buy from you. Watch 5-7 interviews. You will form a collective image of your customer in your head. You can conduct interviews, but it is expensive and not always necessary. b) It is necessary to collect a map of interests about your audience. That is, everything you have learnt should be written down. Briefly, what they eat, what they drink, what they watch, what they read, what they wear, what they drive, where they go on holiday, what places they go to, what kind of lifestyle they lead, everything. It's going to be necessary further down the line. You will understand.
(2) You need to create a pledge. Or recycle an old one if you've inherited marketing. How? (a) It needs to be simple, it needs to be clear to your audience, Keep it simple. My product will solve something for you. b) It has to be relevant to your audience. c) It has to change something in a person's life. Get rid of something, that's most often the case. If your product is improving, it has to improve multiple times, otherwise it will be hard to sell, because improvement is a movement from good enough to better. When the audience is happy with everything, it's hard to sell something even better. I recommend Getting rid of something, it's easier.
(3) Find a sound problem from your promise, you need this later for marketing. How. (a) Look for the sound of what the problem you are getting rid of might sound like.
(4) You need to create a value proposition. If you don't have one and you create one, then by creating one you may see a significant increase in sales if you implement just this one thing. How? a) You need the perceived value of what you're selling to be higher than what people pay for it. Ideally 1 in 10.
(5) You need to think of a product line, for re-monetisation. This is a super important step, it's the only way to create a long-lasting business. Think about this. You've spent a resource on attracting an audience. Why would you spend a resource on attracting again? It's not rational. and the right thing to do is to create related products for the same audience. So you pay once for the attraction.
How? Think about what else you can sell to the same audience.
We need all the previous points to do marketing. Basically produce content and distribute it. Here's a little bit of theory. Marketing is a simple thing. There's a person (you) and there's another person (the customer), there's words between you. That's it. You just need to answer the question, what words should I say to get him to buy my product. Here is everything we have previously worked through, we need to use further in our marketing. I divide marketing into 4 functions. 1) Attraction 2) Retention 3) Nurturing 4) Monetisation
(6) We need to do âAttraction.â How? a) Create content, depending on your company's available resources, create content across all platforms. To create content, use the audience knowledge you have gained earlier. For example, you sell âPrams for Kidsâ, you can create content about weight loss. Build on the interests of your audience, even though they are not directly related to your product. Do you understand why? I hope so. At this stage, you need to attract attention and sign up for yourself. Subscription is mandatory. This is the determinant of the success of this type of content. If you don't subscribe, you've just wasted a resource on content creation and distribution.
(7) You need to make content for Retention and for Growth. The audience that subscribed to you should stay subscribed to you, you have already spent a resource to attract them, we don't want to spend a resource to attract them again, it's not rational. How? a) Retention. I will tell you through an example. There is an account of one company in the social network âProstokvashinoâ called, so they do not do retention, do not know how . Imagine they have an audience of grandmothers and bodybuilders. So Grandma is interested in watching how to cook pancakes with cottage cheese from Ivlev, and bodybuilders, for example, it is interesting to watch another, certainly not about fat pancakes. So retention should be aimed at the interests of your audience. That's why we worked them out earlier. b) Nurturing. This is a topic that nobody understands at all. I'll try to explain it with an example. You have a classmate, and he was so bad in school, he did not fulfil promises, sometimes he said one thing and did another, but at the same time he is predictable for you because you have studied with him for 10 years, you know in what situation you can deal with him, and in what situation it is better not to deal with him. And from what kind of person, what is your assessment of him, from this depends on whether you are ready to go with him on the case or not. So the lack of information of the client about the person and the organisation from which he will then buy the product, greatly hinders the purchase of goods.
(8) It is necessary to produce content for monetisation. I think it is clear. Except that we do it badly, 99.5% of businesses that I observe. They don't know how, nobody taught them. How? a) We need to do it natively, we do not sell buy-buy-buy-buy. People don't like it that way. Example, talk about one ingredient your product is made of, then the next. Tell how you produce it (or the manufacturer). Show the product indirectly rather than directly. People realise it's about your product. Sell natively with an offer to buy. b) Sometimes you need to sell right away without the first stages. Well, because you can buy traffic and immediately pour it into the selling page. That's how we do it too. In the text or video talk about what problem we solve, what we promise if he buys, you need a personal story about what changed when you used the product. The text appeals to what benefit the customer will get from it, what problem will be solved, what will change financially, what will change emotionally, what will change socially. c) Monetisation uses an offer (previously created)
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I built and run a saas product solo (> $500k/year). Honestly, I have never found any advice useful. I've been to saas founder meetups (like microconf), I've read the books, etc.
Any advice I give may not apply to you and your business. My business is b2b and it's a platform for certain kinds of professionals as well as an API that powers many well known businesses.
I've only had success through two general strategies:
1. Networking (friend of friends, friend of customers, etc). Leverage your network to find more customers.
2. The "Long Game" (SEO, word of mouth, etc). This is where I get most of my customers.
I'd say focus on the long game from day one (blog posts, good marketing pages, etc). Use networking to determine how valuable the product is and if people give a damn about it. If no one wants to talk to you about it, no one is going to want to pay for it.