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? 😉
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
Do you remember the first time you had someone buy something from you? For me it was when I convinced a bunch of bed & breakfast owners in Atlantic Canada to send me cash in the mail to have their property published online. Still not sure if that was legal. Suspect cash collection methods aside… What they didn’t know is
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
One of my favourite questions to ask someone is “Who’s the best [CMO/CTO/VP of Sales] you know?” I don’t care if they already have a job… I just want their name. Actually, I prefer if they’re already working because it allows me to build a relationship with them without the pressure. My approach once I have a name is to
Every startup wants to grow fast. And while there’s value in modelling the tactics and strategies that have fueled the rapid success of companies they look up to… There’s even MORE value in identifying the core, underlying principles that serve as the backbone for that success. Over the years, I’ve identified 5 core elements behind the perfect software business. I
When I started my SaaS (that stands for Software-as-a-Service) startup Flowtown my co-founder Ethan and I had a tough decision to make… How do we fund the company? Even though I had the capital to self fund the whole thing, as I had just sold my previous company Spheric, he was 23 and didn’t have a penny to his name.
Have you ever struggled with your marketing website? Sure, they have templates and super slick WYSIWYG editors. But that doesn’t deal with the hard part: The content. WTF do I put on those pages? How do I turn lorem ipsum into monthly recurring revenue? How many pages should I have on my site? What should those pages be?… I need
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
How do you build a $100M revenue business in 3 years? That was the question my coaching client Larry asked me with a straight face. Now, before you dismiss his question, you need to know that he just exited his previous startup a few months earlier. So I knew he had the chops. What a great question I thought …
