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Telling the stories of startup founders and creators and their unique journey. Each episode features actionable tips, practical advice and inspirational insight.
Welcome to the Founders Journey podcast. Inspiration education for founders by founders welcome back to the Founders Journey podcast curation for this week we're talking about sales hacks for startups. And like, we filed the format last week when we talked about fundraising. I'm going to actually you, Peter, as we go through this a little bit, because Peter's the guy in our podcast team here that really lives and breathes the startup world every day. So as we go, mean, I know we're talking about sales hacks for startups, but I also know you hate the word hacks. Talk about that for a second.Â
Yeah, well, unless there's sales hacks that you have to let go. So there's that connotation of a sales hack, but insinuates.Â
Got it.Â
Hack insinuates that it's this special little thing that if you just do this, then you're going to get sales and everything's going to work. But it doesn't work like that, unfortunately. It's a lot of hard work, but there's orientations and things you need to think about that could be things that really change your outcomes. And so that's kind of what we're talking about. But sales is like sales and startups. And, you know, you've been in this environment for a long time. It's really hard. It's where most of these companies really struggle and a lot of failure. There's a lot of failure in sales and it's difficult.Â
So where does somebody start? What's the very top of where a founder needs to be thinking about really building out their overall sales strategy?Â
So it's really interesting because we interviewed Jason Ferrara, who we've both worked with multiple times, and he's been through this for a long time. And so he's learned a lot. And one of his comments really drives it home. Like, you really need to talk about it as a team and come up with who's your ICP? Who are the customers that really should buy from you? And this is a pitfall people fall into. I know we have been part of the team together, and we did, we chased the wrong customers. When you're in sales mode, you sell people and you're probably overselling. And sometimes you sell someone that's going to churn, and it's really a waste of resources and time. And so this is a track about Jason talking about getting together and finding the right people to sell stuff as.Â
Basic as who are we? How do we explain what we do? Seems so fundamental. And for a founder who's between zero and 5 million. Maybe they've done that and maybe they haven't. So that's to get your team together. Like, clearly, what is our strategy? Who do we sell to? What do we do? Why do we do that?Â
Now that we just heard Jason talk about really understanding who you're selling to, I think there's a layer deeper that you have to go. Right. And I think you've got to really start to dig deeper into this. Can you talk about that a little bit, Peter?Â
Yeah. So there's kind of the top level who we're selling to, but then there's some deeper demographics and thermographics and all this data that you can find. And Lily's really an expert in this. That's her field.Â
This is who you're referring.Â
Yep, yep.Â
Absolutely. And she does a really good job of talking about looking at that deeper level. So you know really who you should be.Â
Yep. And this is Lily Gilvaletta, founder of Culture Plus Group.Â
What I tell founders or business leaders equally is just go do the homework. Where do you live? Where is the consumer and population growth coming from? What are their unmet needs and how do you fill those needs? And just don't be blinded to the fact that when you are inclusive in understanding everybody's needs and those segments that are driving growth is not just because you're excluding and segregating is you're just being so.Â
Okay, so you've started at the top like we talked about with Jason Ferrara. We heard from Lily, talk about really getting super granular and really understanding the market. And I think now you're starting to expand out and figure out who you know in that market. How do you do specific? How do you start to connect with the specific individuals you really need to be selling to?Â
Yeah, Jen makes a really good point in this next clip. Jen Openshaw yeah. So she talks about there's people in your community that you may not know have influence in what you could be doing. And so look around you first. If you're in LinkedIn, that's a good place. We're going to talk about Harris in a minute and his comments there. But look at LinkedIn and kind of move all the rocks and you never know who actually is going to be someone that can help you in your journey when you're first starting out and selling.Â
Yep. So here's Jen Openshaw, CEO of Girls with impact.Â
I do think it's really important when you're reaching out to somebody cold to find a way of connecting with them because you really are very likely to get a delete if they don't see any connections. So I saw that you wrote that, or I know we haven't met, but you know, my neighbor who also went to blah blah school or something, there's usually a way you can come up with to make a connection. I see you have a daughter. She went to my so and so school or something.Â
Okay. So we just heard from Jen. She's talking about how to find connections. But it's not just about identifying. Right. It's also about really getting creative about how you actually build relationships and what you have to do to really start to build those relationships. Right?Â
Yeah. And something that I know is really close to you and I and all the people that are trying to grind and sell today, there's so many people sending emails, there's so many people reaching out. You really need to add some real value and be original and relevant, really relevant to your audience. And that value could actually be your product and service and talking about what that does for the company. And so it doesn't have to be something off the wall, but actually adding value to your audience. And this is a huge key. What Harris Feneroff is talking about, LinkedIn.Â
Selling what your messaging should be on. LinkedIn is not sell. Not, hey, how can I get Peter to buy this? It should be, how can I get a conversation with Peter where I'm going to provide Peter value? And cool. If Peter then wants to know about what I'm selling him, awesome. But that is by no means my goal. If I want to have any success with it. Like, what will Peter find value in? Do I have a direct resource specifically for Peter? That's a valuable message. Can I connect Peter to somebody in my network? That's a valuable message.Â
Okay, so we've kind of gone pretty deep here, right? We've sort of started at the really high level about how to really identify your market and how to get more granular in that, and then really how to find connections within that market and how to build value, build relationships, things like that. We're kind of going up again to the top. What is another major factor that we really need to be thinking about? Founders really need to be thinking about.Â
In the market, timing is super important. Martin Bapinek talks about it sometimes. You may be really early, and those macroeconomic trends haven't really gone your way yet, but if you're in that moment and you see those trends getting a tailwind, it's super important for growth and sales. It makes it a lot easier because.Â
I'm one that looks at the longer term. I make a lot of my decisions based on macroeconomics and trends and feel that the best way to be a successful entrepreneur is to find trends that you can put wind to your back so that as trends unfold, you're building something that could be more valuable a few years from now than maybe what's recognized by other people today. So I looked at the trends and the whole thing made sense to me.Â
All right, so we just heard from Martin. So we're going to wrap up this curation this week with, I think probably the most important question. If you had a stack rank, Peter, the various things that we talked about today. Right. And I'm going to add one more to it. If you had a stack rank, getting your messaging right, understanding your target market, how to build value, how to create the right connections, or the fifth one I'm going to add to the list is the relative importance of dressing up like a moth. What would you put at the top of that list?Â
I think dressing up as a moth is really important. Andy Anderson talks about it and this is a true story. He got out and he was trying to figure out how to get people into his fitness studio. He dressed up like a moth and he signed up his 1st 50 customers. But I think there's an important lesson that you got to not be afraid to get out there and do something that's uncomfortable. It's really uncomfortable to do sales. If you're a technical founder, you got to step out of your comfort level. Now, Andy's comfort level is a little different than the rest of us, but here's Andy talking about how he sold his 1st 50 customers, got them into a studio that grew into like an 18 studio company or 18 location company eventually. So this is Andy Anderson, our founder from Down under.Â
We had no clients, we had no money, so I had to learn how to get clients. And basically my next strategy was hit the streets. So there's a lot of people, I got a clipboard. I used to dress up in this. It's called a morph suit. I don't know if you know what they are, but they're like those one piece, you can't see the face. They're actually really scary. I don't know if it was a smart marketing tactic or not, but it's weird. It's different. I'm going to run around like this giant freak and run up to people and get their details. And so look, I spent six months running around the streets of Melbourne, scaring people, getting their details, going back, calling them, getting them in, signing them up as members.Â
And our first hundred memberships we signed up off the street, and that was sort of how we launched the first business.Â
All right, well, so this is all about sales hacks are really much deeper than sales hacks. We sort of titled it that. But really about sales strategy and really thinking through and really understanding your market and understanding how to connect with the market and things like that. So see you next week on the next Founders journey podcast. Bye.Â