Sales

Aug 07

The 3 Activities of the SaaS Sales Process

By Dan Martell | Sales, Startups, Strategy | No Comments

What would it feel like hiring 150 sales people for your company in 6 months?

That’s the question I asked Scot, the founder of Classy, a few months ago.

I’ll fast track his answer… essentially, he started out for many years being the primary salesperson, then hired around him, but remained inseparable from that process.

After years of hustling and grinding he eventually hired his first VP of Sales.

I still remember our first advisory board meeting and how excited I got about their new plans to scale sales.

How did he do it? Read More

Jul 17

The Audience Triangle – 5 Stages of Customer Intent

By Dan Martell | Marketing, Sales, Strategy | No Comments

If I grabbed 100 people, and asked them how many needed to buy a pair of jeans – only 3 would raise their hands…

… but 7% would be “In Market” (the 2nd stage of the Audience Triangle) and will be buying soon.

What about the other 90%?

How do you speak to them?

That’s what I cover in this week’s video where I define the 5 stages and the different “buying intents” of each.

If you do this right, you can create marketing content that will take care of the market until they’re ready to buy.

Here’s how it works. Read More

Jun 12

3 Basic Steps To Sell Anything

By Dan Martell | Growth Engine, Sales, Startups | 4 Comments

When I started in business I couldn’t sell to save my life.

After two failed companies I decided to fix that.

My solution?

Driving around nights & weekends in my silver, 94’ Volkswagen Jetta listening to every sales audio book I could get my hands-on.

Some nights, I had Ziglar riding shotgun.

On other nights, it was Carnegie, Tracy or Hill.

And after dozens of books, I’ve distilled it down to 3 key areas: Read More

May 29

How to Shorten Your Sales Cycle and Avoid Wasting Time

By Dan Martell | Sales, Startups, Strategy | 3 Comments

If I asked you to name a credit card company that rhymes with latex…”

Could you guess who I’m talking about?

Yes? Got it?

Good, so now you’ll understand the size of the company I was trying to sell to.

The challenge with big companies is that they have all the time, resources and money in the world, so wasting your company’s time isn’t a big deal.

For a small company, this imbalance of resources can mean death.

So to even the playing field, I developed a technique I call the Commitment Fee™. 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

Apr 10

Don’t Let Your Marketing Get In The Way Of Attracting Bigger & Better Customers

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

Are you proud of the work you do?

Are your customers demanding?

Is there enough revenue for you to do your best work?

When I first met Julie she was trying to stay afloat.

Her agency was doing $800K in revenue but she hated her job.

When I brought her team together, I could tell that everyone was super talented but there was no “energy” in their voices.

All I asked was “Are you able to do your best work?”…

… and everyone quickly said “No!”

So then I asked “What would it take for you to have the time & resources to do so?” Read More

Nov 14

The Best Strategy For Sending Your Customer a Thank You Video

By Dan Martell | Education, Marketing, Sales | 14 Comments

Do you have a business coach that pushes you to do things outside of your comfort zone?

If not, you should.

Recently one of my good friends was brainstorming new strategies for generating sales within the next 30 days.

We sat down, brainstormed ideas for quantity THEN ranked based on effort and impact.

(Side note: always separate the idea generation from the idea quality filter, it will help you come up with better strategies).

At the end of this process, one of the clear winners was to send past customers quick videos thanking them for their business and asking if there’s anything else we could do to help them.

We called it the Customer Re-Engagement Video strategy. Read More

Nov 07

The 4 Roles of a Sales Team

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

If you think “sales” is a dirty word, then you’re going to hate today’s video.

But if you believe that it’s not just your right, but your flat out responsibility to share your product / service / program with as many people who can benefit from it as possible…

… then read this carefully.

Implementing this strategy could be the main difference maker between mediocre (but unenviable) success…

… and building a rockstar company that customers line up to buy from (and Silicon Valley suitors line up to invest in)

The dirty secret? Read More

Sep 26

7 Types of Content Marketing That Converts Customers

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

My brother Pierre builds houses.

Huge, jaw-dropping, “how-do-those-even-exist” kind of houses.

A few years ago he asked me what he should blog about to attract the type of customers who could even buy those kinds of houses.

And I said…

“Anything that you think they would want to read.”

So he took action – that’s my brother – and started writing things like this: Read More

Aug 29

The Agency Model: 3 Part Framework For Streamlining Your Business

By Dan Martell | Marketing, Sales, Startups | 16 Comments

Want to know the secret to building a profitable consulting/agency business?

It’s simple…

… and once I tell you, you’ll be looking for it everywhere.

It’s the methodology.

Here’s what I mean…

… if you do any consulting, and you’re just charging for the service (coding / design / copywriting, etc) then you’re getting paid for the hour.

If you have a methodology, then you can shift and start getting paid for the value you bring to that hour. (that’s a Jim Rohn quote btw) Read More