Community

Jun 04

The 5 Secrets to Ensure Your User Conference Is a Smashing Success

By Dan Martell | Community, Events, Marketing | One Comment

Imagine taking the stage for the opening keynote of your own customer conference.

Hundreds (or even thousands) of your users in front of you.

Enjoying that super cool inflection point where you can literally see the community you’ve built right in front of your eyes…

And at the same time, unlock a hidden series of growth levers that your competitors (who shied away from the whole conference thing) will never have a chance to pull.

Pretty cool, right?

Here’s a short list of what a successful conference can do for your growth: Read More

May 28

5 Steps To Incredibly Productive Weekly Team Meetings At Your Startup

By Dan Martell | Community, Leadership, Productivity | No Comments

If you run a small team of just 5 employees/co-founders…

Your weekly meetings are likely costing you well north of 50k/year.

Simple math…

… average hourly rate x number of people x 52.

That’s how much you’re spending to run your weekly meeting. Read More

Apr 23

Recruiting Channel Partners? Here Are 5 Secrets to Help You Succeed

By Dan Martell | Community, Growth Engine, Marketing | No Comments

Leadpages used *this* strategy to scale their growth at a ridiculous rate.

So did my company Flowtown.

As well as a recent SaaS Academy client who hired an army of over two thousand “salesmen” to promote his accounting software… for free.

If you haven’t caught on…

We’re talking about strategic partnerships.

Partnerships are one of the fastest and most efficient ways of scaling your software business.

It’s essentially outsourcing your customer acquisition… and only paying a pre-negotiated commission if the user converts.

Predictable acquisition costs? Read More

Jan 29

The Top 5 Problems with Distributed Teams and How to Solve Them

By Dan Martell | Community, Productivity, Startups | 3 Comments

Wow.

Every once in a while I re-watch one of my videos and just laugh…

This time around, I can’t believe how many times I said “distributed team”??!

You could easily play a drinking game on it and end up loaded within 10 minutes.

Not recommended btw.

For real. Don’t do it.

Instead, I wanted to take a few mins to show you how I’ve been able to manage large teams virtually, and the process I use to do this. Read More

Jan 15

Using The Power of Story To Build Powerful Software Products

By Dan Martell | Community, Growth Engine, Startups | No Comments

Your product or service tells a story.

It either tells one that’s clear and coherent, highlighting the challenges you’re most ready to solve for your ideal customer…

Or it confuses them.

The story you’re telling depends on whether you’re being thoughtful in the process, or building it blindly.

And the difference between the two has a massive impact on your prospect’s ability to buy from you. Read More

Oct 02

3 Question Frameworks You NEED To Use For Product Development

By Dan Martell | Community, Marketing, Startups | 4 Comments

It’s 2011 and I’m pacing back and forth in a parking lot in LA.

I’m about to go on This Week in Startups to talk about Flowtown which had just been acquired, but I’m stressing out…

I’m on the phone with Sean Ellis – the creator of the Customer Development survey – walking through the customer feedback I’m getting for a new product I’m starting to work on called Clarity.

I’m having a hard time figuring out my next steps.

People are signing up, but many aren’t making calls or coming back…

… so I’ve sent out a survey to ask them specific questions so I can better understand their needs and expectations.

That’s when Sean shares with me the Rosetta Stone of understanding my customer’s suggestions. Read More

Aug 28

How To Divide Ownership Fairly When Forming A Startup

By Dan Martell | Community, Financial, Startups | One Comment

How does Richard Branson manage 400+ companies?

He doesn’t.

Over the years he’s learned how to build teams and split ownership in a way that drives everything forward.

In 2004, after 2 failed companies, I finally learnt this lesson.

When I started my company Spheric Technologies I started it with partners.

Why? I realized if I wanted to go far – and get there faster – I needed other people on the team that had a piece of the business.

One of the strategies I teach my high-end coaching clients ($5M+ / year in revenue) is how to build and structure teams to take on new initiatives outside their businesses.

I’m all about focus, but it doesn’t mean you can’t bring other ideas to life… Read More

Jul 31

The Emotions To Nail When Creating a SaaS Lead Magnet

By Dan Martell | Community, Marketing, Startups | No Comments

If you want a good laugh, watch this week’s video.

There may be some singing / rapping in it (if you want to call it that).

What’s important though, are the lyrics.

“Nurture – nurture – nurture that lead!”

Even more important…

… how many leads are you generating per month?

If that number is 0, or not growing, then the business isn’t growing.

Period.

The best way to capture a visitor who’s on your site is to offer them valuable content… Read More

May 22

How to Run a Remote Team – 5 Strategies To Keep Them Productive

By Dan Martell | Community, Leadership, Startups | No Comments

Did you know that Slideshare.net built their product in India?

Automattic (creators of WordPress) – 2,000 people in a distributed team.

Even GitHub (raised $250M+ in funding) has a global team of remote workers.

The future of teams are distributed.

Over my past 3 companies (Spheric, Flowtown, Clarity) and everything in between, I’ve always had world class team members work from wherever they lived.

In many cases we had an office, but not everyone worked from there – and truth was – we just used it to get together and meet with partners.

Now, over the years I’ve learned A LOT about building and managing distributed teams without sacrificing our culture. Read More

May 15

7 Live Chat Steps for Startups To Increase Sales

By Dan Martell | Community, Marketing, Sales | 2 Comments

Can you explain your business to someone who’s outside your industry?

That’s been the benefit of having a father who has no clue what I’ve done for most of my career :).

It’s also helped me learn how to explain my company’s benefits to a new customer.

One way to do that in a scalable way is to use live chat on your business site.

A few months ago I was in the middle a of a big sales project and I had chat setup on the page.

After a few days, I finally decided to dive into the trenches.

The experience blew my mind. Read More