Back when I was growing Clarity.fm, we were getting a TON of organic traffic. At its peak, we were clocking in at over 100K unique visitors/month. Which on the surface sounds like a number worth fist-bumping over. Problem was… Barely any of those visitors were actually converting into free accounts or paid calls. About 2% to be exact. (I can’t believe I thought that was OK) And it’s not like the leads were bad either.

During Flowtown’s peak, I had TWELVE people reporting to me. That was on top of my own workload that I was responsible for delivering on. Talk about overwhelm. I was literally inundating myself with reports/metrics/managers that didn’t necessarily serve the growth of the company. Rule of thumb:

A Mclaren F1 tops out at about 650 hp. A “street legal” Camry screams its way to 200. Both have engines. Both have 4 wheels. Both are technically “cars”. So what accounts for the difference in velocity? Simple:

When I was 25 and building my first company, Spheric, I closed an enterprise level deal with Procter & Gamble. Not only was it an “arrival point” for my company… But in the negotiations, I actually got P&G to fund an entire slate of new integrations and features, while we retained the IP. Pretty cool, right? Thing is, none of that would’ve been possible had I made the mistake that most founders make…

Nightmare scenario: You just spent 30 mins delivering an amazing product demo. The guy on the other end of the Zoom call is all hot and bothered. Loves your solution. Sees the value. Wants it yesterday. So you go in for the close…

If nobody’s pushing back on your pricing… That’s a problem. You might be thinking: “But Dan.. isn’t it a good thing that everyone’s saying YES to my price without resistance? Why would I want to rock that boat?” Simply put:  

Are you acting like a 5 year old when demoing your product? Last week my son Max (5) asked me to help him with his show & tell presentation. So I taught him a simple 3 step process. Start with the problem. (Story) Pick 3 benefits & features to highlight (Demo) Ask if they want to play afterwards (CTA) These 3 steps are just a compressed version of what I teach my SaaS coaching clients... focus on the pain, peg

All SaaS companies need sales people. Even products like Dropbox & Slack have sales teams. If you look at the Montclare SaaS 250 list, they all have sales teams. So why do startups push off making this hire for so long? It’s usually because they don’t know what to look for and are scared that a new fancy pants sales person wouldn’t close enough deals to cover their cost. A totally legit concern. But one you need to quickly blast

Have you ever been talked into do something you knew was dumb? *raises hand* Back when I was scaling my company Spheric Technologies, a friend introduced me to his buddy who did outsourced sales. Essentially, a quick fix “easy button” for business owners who can’t be bothered to take full control of the lifeblood of their business. Smart right? ;) His big promise was that he could get me scheduled meetings with qualified buyers for our services... ... so I

How much does it cost you to acquire a customer? Understanding that will help you understand your model. Most founders think it’s just the cost of your advertising spend. Nope. It’s everything you spend on marketing (people + ad spend + contractors, etc) AND sales (everyone involved in the process + tools, etc)... And that still doesn’t include anyone you might have to qualify, or the cost of running webinars, etc.