August 28, 2021
How To Sell
Read more
Always be Closing! Famous words from Alec Baldwin in the classic Glengarry Glen Ross. Also famous words from unsophisticated salespeople.
No one likes being ‘sold’ to. It’s like being in a group text message that you don’t want to be in and can’t get out of.
^The obsolete sales strategy
Our whole CIVILIZATION is now informed. Information is abundant and available at all times. Communication is nonstop. The internet has granted access to more information and access than anyone could have ever imagined.
Salespeople used to have an informational advantage - that was the edge. Sales teams were armed with specific information. They had access to specific information and had a head start to go out and spread the word. It was a numbers game - share new information with enough people, you were bound to get a bite! 1 out of 10, 100, or 1000 times and convert a sale.
Thanks to the internet, now everyone has access to information, that edge has evaporated.
It's harder than ever to bring value to your client base. You need to be more than a master of small talk. We don't have time for it in our lives and that's what your uncle Lou is for anyway, not professional time. :)
The old picture of a salesperson is obsolete and no longer acceptable. How do you get to the next level in the world of sales?
.gif)
Be genuinely interested! In B2B sales, your clients are highly invested in whatever they're working on. Think about it, they’re dedicating a significant chunk of their lives to this particular problem. (usually about 40 hours/week) It's their livelihood. It’s amazing what you can learn from a person just by asking them what they’re looking for, sitting back, and letting them talk through it.
This is most important (and coincidentally hardest to remember) when you're new. Being green (new) in the field is a catch 22:
On the negative side
On the positive side:
What you'll learn as you progress through your career is that there are none. Ever. At any stage of your career. Be prepared to look foolish in the short term.
When you begin a new career you’re going to be unsophisticated in whatever marketplace you enter. Sorry top tier B School graduates, your debt and syllabuses are no substitute for specific industry knowledge, verbiage, and network, so be prepared to be a student again, indefinitely (at least in the world of sales).
In life, particularly in sales, being curios is far more valuable than being smart. Curiosity and motivation lead to action, which then produces results. The faster you are able to come to this realization, the quicker you will become a subject matter expert. Trust me.
By asking subject matter experts (your clientele) questions, you are able to hone in on a couple of important factors:
#1 - You get a clear picture of what your client is actually doing. It's amazing how often people have been working with an individual or company for years, but cant' articulate exactly what he/she/the company actually does. This is a bad sign. You do NOT want to be in that position.
#2 - You can figure out the ROOT cause of their current issue. What is the REAL problem or circumstance this person is trying to SOLVE. If you're able to articulate (or have them articulate) this problem when you provide a solution, the next logical step will be using your solution (ie, closing the sale).
Broad open-ended questions help you achieve #2
Open-ended questions are leading questions that force your counterpart to think deeply about a problem set. It is easiest to get people to respond to these questions when they are heavily engaged and already thinking about the topic at hand. Done correctly, you discover problems/solutions that neither party was previously aware of.
Here are a few examples of broad, open-ended questions:
** Nothing that you can answer with a simple yes/no response **
For this particular exercise, get out of the weeds (where the tacticians live) and attempt to get a view of the entire jungle. (this is the vantage point of the entrepreneur, someone thinking long term, not looking for immediate results, and capable of seeing multiple scenarios, different types of players on the board, etc)
This is how you’re able to differentiate yourself from normal salespeople. When you associate yourself with being an individual that focuses on complex, long-term solutions, you’re actually adding value, not simply saving 10%.
You’re now a collaborative growth agent - not a transactional order taker. This is the space you have to operate in to be great.
Action items: (here is how to sell)
1 - Be Curious.
2 - Ask broad open-ended questions.
3 - Work collaboratively and provide solutions to actual ROOT problems.
4 - Always Be LISTENING
As always, follow @itschriskeith on Twitter for more frequent updates.
Question : Why do startups, (especially software companies) raise money?
Answer : They are unable to cover their expenses with revenues generated (in the early days). In order to stay alive, they need to raise a chunk of capital. This gives them a runway (amount of months you can continue to pay your bills/ employees), which allows them to build, scale, hit revenue goals, and ideally, raise another round.
This is also why you hear about startups raising multiple rounds of funding:
(Pre) Seed -> Series A, B, C, D, E, etc.
They were at the end of their runway (or didn’t have one to begin with) and needed to raise capital to cover expenses and continue to grow.
I recently took a job at an early stage software startup. Now, a lot of people have asked/thought, why would you take a chance at a startup? There is so much uncertainty, you're going to have to move across the country, change your life, and what are you doing to do if it fails!?
There isn't just one answer to this question, there are many. I like building stuff, so being in at the ground level of any company is appetizing. Writing the playbook for bringing something that didn't exist, (or was almost dead) back to life, is arguably the hardest (and most exciting) thing you can do professionally.
But the primary reason is the potential for exponential growth.
Exponential growth is the reason that Amazon, Google, and Microsoft are the biggest companies in the world. It is the reason that funding is available for startups in the first place, and why Venture Capital firms not only exist, but employ some of the smartest, most successful and well connected people in the world.
Exponential growth is the reason companies (especially software companies) are able to raise $9M at a $200M valuation with <$1M in revenue.
Here is a visual representation of what exponential growth looks like:
Red = Linear
Blue = Cubic
Green = Exponential
In the above graph, think of large corporations or established businesses as the red line. They are looking to grow +/- 10% YoY, and have been doing that for the past 20+ years. Which is great!
But at a startup, you have the ability to be the Green Line. The hockey stick.
Now, granted, it takes longer, and is definitely riskier, but you have the ability (if successful) to not grow 10% YoY, but 1200%. That is the power of exponential growth. More on this phenomenon by Paul Graham in his piece, Startup = Growth.
Let's break out the numbers in the above chart and pretend that the X axis is months to help wrap your head around actual numbers:
Red = Linear
2 months = 50x2 = 100
8 months = 50x8 = 400
15 months = 50x15 = 750
Blue = Cubic
2 months = 2^3 = 8
8 months = 8^3 = 512
15 months = 15^3 = 3375
Green = Exponential
2 months = 2^2 = 4
8 months = 2^8 = 256
15 months = 2^15 = 32768
Look at how silly the things start to get when exponential growth is applied for a period of time. 32,000 vs 750. It's a 42x difference.
So you can't apply the fundamentals of established, blue chip companies to the startup world. You can't run the traditional Wall Street financial models and expect to get a perfect valuation at a PE ratio that makes sense.
Companies that realize the exponential growth rate are extremely rare, and absolutely do not play by the rules.
It's exciting to have the opportunity to try and build one 🙂.
As always, follow @itschriskeith on Twitter for more frequent updates or email itschriskeith at gmail dot com with any thoughts/concerns!
Starting a business is the best.
You learn so much about everything. Life. Puzzle Solving. People. Human interaction. Motives. Game Theory. Projecting. Growth. Sadness. Rejection. Euphoria. Winning. Everything, lol.
But, it’s hard. Damn it's hard! And the learning curve is STEEP! Even when the dollars and stakes are relatively low, there's a lot going on and even more to try and manage.
This post is meant to help entrepreneurs save time. I’m going in depth about the main lesson learned while building my eCommerce brand, redrO Hanger Company, the past 15 months and spending about 27k of my own money. The good news is, when operating in this space (being an entrepreneur), there really isn't any time or money 'wasted', because you're in constant learning mode. The bad news is, looking back, you realize you agonized for days, weeks, even months over things that were irrelevant and spent a lot of $$$ on things you didn’t need to.
Also, just for perspective, the timeline here is 15 months because I’m still working a full time day job, so all of this is going on during nights and weekends. I would highly recommend you also take this approach before quitting your job until your side project is throwing off more than what you currently make. (pro tip - it's going to take you a lot longer than you anticipate) Don’t strangle your golden goose before you truly have a cash cow that is more valuable.
Ok, so getting back to the lesson... Building a business, just as anything else in life, is all about the 80/20 rule. 80% of results are going to come from 20% of time spent. Nice cliché, Chris, wtf does that actually mean?
It means, focus your VALUABLE time, effort, and energy on a few things that are really going to MOVE THE NEEDLE for your business. It's that simple.
^^ This is why most businesses fail, especially companies that are brand new. They're unable to focus (or even recognize) what is getting them TRACTION or making them MONEY. This is avoidable. Hopefully, this short essay helps.
Here is the lesson: There are the only 3 aspects of your business to focus on when you’re starting out:
This is where 80% of your time and money should be spent. Everything else is noise.
Let’s get deeper, starting with the list of things that are absolutely not essential:
** Keep in mind, when you're starting your business, these are all going to be VERY IMPORTANT TO YOU. Which is good! It's yours! You're proud - and you should be. But guess what? Your clientele care far, far less concerned about any of these things, and trust me, the following points aren’t worth anything more than minimal time, effort, and energy, and $$$ on the front end!
Example 1:
A few short months ago, our state of the art fulfillment center (my buddy Sam’s basement) was humming right along, (meaning my Bose noise cancelling headphones were on, and I was organizing boxes/products by myself and humming deep house tunes far too loudly) when Ryan rifled down the stairs. My friend Ryan is the founder of a SaaS company for medical devices, and is abundantly familiar with founder mindsets and the startup scene. He has been there before, always knows the right thing to say, and when to say it.
Right before bringing redrO’s website live, I was procrastinating. There were a whole host of extremely important reasons to delay the perfect product launch! The packaging wasn’t just right, and we didn’t yet have my black branded stickers for the front of the boxes. We didn’t have the inserts with the redrO tagline for the inside of the boxes either. What about the tape and better yet, the correct device to use to apply the tape to the boxes!
Ryan goes, “Chris, these hangers are sick, why aren’t you selling a ton of these!?”
"We're not ready to ship yet, it isn’t perfect! I’ve got all this important stuff to get dialed in, like the packaging stickers, inserts, and tape and whatnot."
He laughed and said, “Listen to yourself! That's what YOU think - you sound ridiculous! It’s never going to be perfect. You have an awesome product that you’ve been working on for months at this point. You’re never going to be ‘ready,’ SHIP it now!!!”
Well, I pushed the site live that night, got my ads running, and got a sale the following afternoon.
Orders have been coming in since, and the process has improved dramatically since then. (meaning we actually have a warehouse in south Denver at this point :)
But Ryan was right. I was more than ready to ship - just needed a little push. This is where you likely are as well. Like Paul Graham says, Release Early.
The best part, people loved em! 0 returns till order 47 (but who’s counting) AND and we got fantastic feedback! Issue with our first return? That the hangers were ‘too big’.
I guess not every guy wants to be well hung… (hehe see what we did there?)
OK, so now that we’ve talked about a ton of scenarios that you THINK are important when just starting out, but really aren't, let’s get to the meat and potatoes of the essay:
Here are the 3 things that ARE ABSOLUTELY VITAL when starting your business:
So, in your funnel -> GIVE SPECIFICS ABOUT HOW YOUR PRODUCT OR SERVICE WILL CHANGE THEIR LIFE!
If you’re getting a significant amount of traffic to your website (see point 3) but no conversions, you either have a 1 - good/service problem (too expensive, your service isn’t actually valuable, etc) or 2 - you have not shown enough VALUE through your acquisition funnel.
It’s that simple.
THAT’S IT
Ironically, this goes directly, hand in hand with a favorite tweet from Naval:
1 - Quality Good / Service (Build)
2 - Acquisition Funnel (Build / Sell)
3 - Audience / Traffic To Funnel (Sell)
Example 2:
I was sprinting towards my desk at home to get my laptop set up. It was August of 2019, and I had just published my first blog post from a nearby coffee shop before slamming my screen shut to head back home.
It was such a euphoric feeling! Hours of writing over months of time had finally come to a close. Pressing publish on the first piece publicly was an accomplishment in itself. Having the balls to publish publicly is tough the first few times you do it. You’re exposed, people are going to judge you, there’s likely going to be grammatical errors, you’re finding your voice and trying to not sound like a complete moron, everything.
But this post was an absolute winner. Everyone and their mother was going to be interested in the perspective I was going to share about Wins and Losses. It was going to help people get into the right mindset for the professional world, make everyone on planet earth a better salesperson, looking at L’s as lessons, not losses, and not taking them personally. I was essentially going to be dubbed a modern day Gandhi. There were quotes from the Godfather in there and everything - this was going to change peoples lives.
It had been about 2 hours from pressing publish, and I had purposefully gone 0 dark 30 like my guy Lebron in the playoffs, including having my iphone on airplane mode, so the suspense was now at all time highs...
How many people had read the article? How many comments? How many new emails and texts and twitter followers were going to accompany this life changing event?
I finally got back home and got the computer set up. I connected to the wifi. Turned off airplane mode on the phone, and waited for the notifications to roll in.
Guess what happened next?! Absolutely nothing, hahahahaha!!!
No one had even seen it. I checked the Squarespace analytics page and there had been 1 viewer with 2 sessions. That person was obviously me. Tight.
It was at that moment I thought to myself, Chris, ‘No one gives a shit about you, but you’.
And suddenly it was obvious. I had no audience, I hadn’t done anything to promote the post. I hadn’t pushed it through platforms like FB or linkedin where there are people I’m connected to who are genuinely interested in what I have to say. I hadn’t paid for any traffic to go to my blog. Why would anyone have seen this thing?
I had selfishly thought that because I built something, people would come.
That’s not the case.
First you gotta provide value. That was evident with the blog post. But I hadn’t pushed any eyeballs to view the page, which is insane. Of course no one noticed it.
It was at this moment I also realized that equal focus needs to be put on the ‘selling’ of your good or service than does the building of it. Without an acquisition funnel and traffic for your rock star product or service, you have a beautiful mansion built with no roads leading there, and no doors to let people inside.
Remember this.
Hopefully that short story helps illustrate that process to you as well, and saves you some valuable time/heartache as you’re building your business, whatever it may be.
In closing, here are the 3 Main Lessons Learned from 27k of my own dollars spent bootstrapping a business over the past 15 Months.
Everything else is noise.
I'll be publishing a lot more on this topic, haha, cause there is a lot to it... But seriously, if you're just starting out, FOCUS ON THE 3 ABOVE TASKS and you'll save yourself a lot of time and effort and money. You’ll simultaneously figure out exactly what you should be focusing on and where your business should grow.
Lastly, always remember,
It Will Never End!
As always, follow @itschriskeith on Twitter for more frequent updates or email itschriskeith at gmail dot com with any thoughts/concerns!
The key to becoming anti-fragile financially is Multiple Income Streams. If you lose one income stream, there are others to make up for it. Most people have 1 (or, in corporate America, a weak 1+2 punch). This leaves a ton of exposure to your cash flow/income statement, as all of your eggs are in one basket. If something happens and you lose your primary income stream, you’re not just fragile, you’re ruined.
It’s always best to have options in life, while simultaneously minimizing exposure.
Here are the 4 main ways to build multiple income streams (AKA dramatically increase monthly cash flow) in your life:
1 - W2 / Hourly Work
2 - Investments
3 - Real Estate
4 - Moonlit Businesses
(The numbers below are arbitrary, using them strictly to make a point, so keep reading :)
W2 = $6k / month
401k = $250/ month
Personal portfolio (assuming you have a good investment pop) = $1000/ month
^^ Starts to add up!!
Rental Income = $400/ month
Appreciation = $500/ month
^^ Begins to add up over the years!!
The most straightforward are online businesses/services. They allow you to build once and sell many times, so you’re making money in your sleep. But this can be any area in which you have expertise and people will pay for your services.
FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU LOVE - AND LEAN INTO THOSE!!
For me personally, I love to sell stuff and build stuff.
Moonlit Business = $650/ month
Back to our initial point:
If you were only a W2 employee, and not purchasing assets or ownership pieces of companies through financial investments, not buying any real estate assets, and not moonlighting any businesses, here’s your monthly cash flow:
W2 - 6k x 12 = 72k
However - IF you’re working to be anti-fragile, Here is what that looks like with multiple income streams:
W2 - 6k x 12 = 72k
401k - 250 x 12 = 3k
Personal portfolio - 1000 x 12 = 12k
Rental income - 400 x 12 = 4.8k
Appreciation income - 500 x 12 = 6k
Moonlight business - 650 x 12 = 7.8k
= 105.6k
^^ That gives you a lot more wiggle room. Once you get these income stream flywheels started, they too begin to compound. The toughest part is getting em started. Once they’re built, they take on a mind of their own! (and less time consuming, as they should also be heavily automated, by design :)
Now you’re probably thinking, “whoa that’s going to take a lot of time.” And yeah, you’re right. It’s not going to happen overnight, it's going to take years/decades. Think about this from the real estate perspective, it takes 30 years to pay off a mortgage… But once it’s paid off, you own an asset, worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, free and clear.
This isn’t a get rich quick scheme, lol. But it’ll work. You’ll get rich, or at least, become anti-fragile financially.
Keep chopping wood.
Also know/understand, that the above activities are legit my favorite things to do. They are my main hobbies. They get me out of bed early in the AM and keep me awake late at night. When I’m working on this stuff, I feel the most fulfilled and energized possible. Some people love to ski, to travel, escape to the mountains for months at a time, or watch a lot of TV.
That’s all good! But I love this stuff. This is what I do.
It Will Never End.
If you like the article, follow me on twitter @itschriskeith.
Most Important Lessons to Learn in Your 20’s.
On June 15, I officially turned 30.
This is an opportunity to take a look back and think about / contextualize what you did over the last 10 years. In your 20's, ideally, you have went through some pretty metamorphic changes. Personally, professionally, from a maturity standpoint, an income/asset standpoint, perspective standpoint, etc.
It's actually incredible how much changes. I’m a completely different person from 10 years ago. Proud of that.
There are likely a handful of reasons this is such a volatile/changing time. The main reason being that we're still so young, lol! We’re still figuring out who we are as human beings! Think back to yourself right out of undergrad - how much has changed for you? My legit THOUGHTS are different now.
In that vein, these changes are absolutely instrumental in who you will continue to grow to become as you age, and become a contributing member of society (an adult). Don’t ever let someone tell you ‘you’ve changed’ and use it in a negative context. Personal growth and development is instrumental in becoming a sophisticated individual.
Anyone with the opposite mindset is generally a negative person, and should be at least limited from an interaction standpoint as they are more worried about themselves / do not want you to succeed. That sounds harsh, but it's generally true. Be critical about who you choose to consider friends/mentors and who you spend time with, as it plays a massive role in what you will become. You’ve got to be vigilant about time spent.
Here are the top lessons (from my perspective) to try and come to terms with during your 20s:
Reading this is easy. Understanding and implementing is hard + time-consuming.
Good luck out there - keep chopping wood! Feel free to reach out with specific thoughts @itschriskeith on twitter.
IT WILL NEVER END.
When was the last time you were in a position of uncertainty? How did that make you feel?
The above words/feelings come from a general lack of understanding or uneasiness with a given circumstance/situation.
Do you know what the cure is for all of the above feelings?
EXPERIENCE. Having been there before. Having lived through whatever situation or hardship currently faces your day to day life.
Think about it! When you’re in a time of crisis who do you reach out to? Your parents? Your mentors? Your therapist? Your financial advisor? Your boss? Your closest friends? Someone in your industry you know and trust? An expert in whatever field your problem is positioned?
Why do you fall back on/trust these folks to deliver advice in your time of need?
When you’ve been there before, there is a calming sensation you bring to a scenario. There is a presence and belief in the fact that you have navigated through these stormy waters and can successfully do it again.
That's powerful. That is precisely what other human beings are looking for in times of crisis and uncertainty.
That is why you want to expose yourself to as many circumstances/people/industries/experiences/companies/roles, etc, as humanly possibly. So that you can develop a mindset that always falls back on: “We’ll be fine. I’ve been here before.”
This is also why as you ascend to higher levels of corporate leadership, the talent pool gets drastically smaller. Companies are often looking for people who have been there before. They are looking for executives who have been in a similar position, and know all of the levels of nuance that come with it. These specifics cannot be taught at a Wharton MBA program, or blogged about online (hehehe the irony!!), you have to have actually done it.
Couple of my favorite authors talk about this phenomenon. Here are the specific passages:
James Clear in Atomic Habits:
Hope declines with experience and is replaced by acceptance. The first time an opportunity arises, there is hope of what could be. Your expectation (cravings) is based solely on promise. The second time around, your expectation is grounded in reality. You begin to understand how the process works and your hope is gradually traded for a more accurate prediction and acceptance of the likely outcome.
Now, don’t lose hope. Don’t ever lose hope! But be aware when your lack of experience is leading to abnormal levels of hope which could be clouding your judgement. As James points out, the second time around, you’ve been there before, so there is a certain gravity of reality that is now associated with a more realistic outcome. More about this in the post, Lessons, not Losses.
Coincidentally, the more experience you get/the more exposure you have to different situations, you will not get as high on your wins and as low on your losses. Important to understand. Tough to describe until you’ve lived through the circumstance, though!
Experience teaches you to be realistic. This is what people talk about when people are “weathered”. A weathered salesperson tries to keep themselves from getting too high on winning a deal and too low on losing one. They have years of real world expectations that come from lots of examples of being grounded by reality :).
In a perfect world, you want to find some sort of a balance between being too weathered, and not excited about anything, or (worst case scenario) having a negative mindset about everything because of previous experiences.
You’ll find that if you’re easily excitable and generally a positive thinker/optimistic person, people are going to want to work with you and you’ll find more opportunities in life. Don’t fall into the trap of being “realistic but negative” all the time. There’s a word for that, it’s pessimistic, and it's miserable.
Jordan Peterson also talks about this in The 12 Rules to Life, specifically when he had to teach his 2 year old son a lesson:
A patient adult can defeat a two-year-old, hard as that is to believe. As the saying goes: “Old age and treachery can always overcome youth and skill.” This is partly because time lasts forever, when you’re two. Half an hour for me was a week for my son.
What perspective - that one hit home! The younger we are, the less amount of raw hours we’ve actually lived through. This sort of perspective helps describe the interaction between older, more seasoned professionals, and younger, greener folks just starting their careers. You’ve got some catching up to do.
Keep in mind, early on in your career winning and losing a deal seems life changing. Your 50 year old counterpart has been doing this for 3 decades. She’s been there before :)
As Aristotle noted, “Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope.”
Aside from having the job itself, or being 85 years old and having subjected yourself to a lot of life’s lessons about relationships and work/life balance, what’s really important, loving, winning and losing, there are ‘shortcuts’ or cheat codes you should be pursuing on your path to acting like you’ve been there before.
1 - READ
Reading is a vital part of the deal.
Reading helps you act as though you’ve been there before. When you read something that someone else has written, you are legitimately getting direct access to their brain and experiences! You are learning about them as a person, or how they built a business, mistakes and journeys they have been on and learned from or some form of human interaction they felt strongly enough about to put in writing!
People write books to share their experiences with you (at least nonfiction). Think about how valuable that sort of thing is.
2 - Subject yourself to as many circumstances/people/industries/experiences/companies/roles, etc, as humanly possible!
Roll the dice, take chances. Step outside of your comfort zone for social interaction. Join that young professionals group that you don’t know anyone in. Work hard on the application and apply for that job you don’t check all the boxes for. Send that cold email to a potential mentor. Follow up and ask for the sale!
Best time to do this is when you’re young and have little to lose. It's easy to stay in your comfort zone and only do things that you already know. Tough to grow that way though.
3 - Fake it till you make it.
We’re all making this up as we go. Seriously! The only way to become an expert in something is to start as a beginner.
The first time someone starts a company or is appointed CEO, they don’t know what the hell they’re doing. But they’ve put in the hours, done their homework, and are figuring it out in real time. Before you know it, 3 years has passed, and you’re starting to get pretty good at this thing. In 5 years, you’ll be great!
Same rules apply to all aspects of life.
Act like you’ve been there before, and before ya know it, you’ll have been there for years :)
Cheers to your continued success! As always, follow itschriskeith on Twitter for more regular updates.
“Find three hobbies: One that makes you money, one that keeps you fit, and one that makes you creative”
— unknown
As an easy example, we’re going to take the hobby of working out to be our first illustration.
There are a handful of ways one can choose to get in shape physically. Regardless of what activity you choose, please make sure you’re doing something to work out. It’s important. BUT, for the sake of comparison, let’s talk about training for a marathon vs. playing squash.
When you are training for a marathon, you are alone. You are running alone. You are by yourself. You are able to do some deep thinking, which is extremely valuable, but you are there, alone, with your own thoughts. That’s the extent of running long distances.
Training for a marathon takes up quite a bit of time. It takes a long time to run 26 miles. It also takes a long time to get your body acclimated to the point that it is capable of running that long of a distance.
You should likely start by running shorter races, so you can get a feel for how your body responds and what your cadence should be like for the long haul. You’re also going to have to go on a run multiple times a week, with the long run getting up in the neighborhood of 20+ miles, once a week, while running 5+ miles multiple other times a week.
Again, this is a lot of time spent alone. (listening to a podcast/audiobook would be a valuable use of time spent here, but that’s damn difficult when you’re running, haha!) You’re looking at 15+/- hours of training/week. Running. Alone.
You could also argue that there are diminishing returns once you get to that level of cardiovascular fitness. One could say that as long as your body is capable of running 5 miles without stopping at any point in time, you’re probably in pretty good cardio shape. 26 is arguably overkill. Again, all good, but this is an argument that could be used.
15+/- hours is a lot of time spent alone, where you’re not really improving any skill set other than your cardiovascular fitness (or your ability to run - which is likely not changing a whole lot). This is important, no doubt, but potentially not the most valuable use of hours in the day.
Now, take a cardio intensive sport, like squash, for example, showing the other side of the coin.
You’re extremely active during squash games. It is very fast-paced, (think tennis, but 2x faster) so you’re getting an excellent workout. Usually, you can burn well over 500 calories if you play for about 45 minutes. Check the box for cardio - and higher ROI (for time spent) than distance running.
Another advantage - it is extremely social! You have to play squash with an opponent. It could be a buddy, it might actually be someone completely random, who also just simply wanted to get a game in. But you’re interacting with this person. You’re learning about what they do, what they’re working on, what they’re interested in. You’re learning about a new industry, or at the very least, how to improve your squash game cause they’re beating you so badly! You’re increasing the size of your network. You could also be playing doubles, which increases the number of players from 2 to 4. This adds even more human interaction.
There is also competitive banter/real wins and losses. The feedback is immediate, not delayed. You have this when you’re running as well, but it’s a bit different competing with yourself vs. others. (at least for me - everyone is different though!) You also have immediate satisfaction/response from intense competition. From my experience, you don’t have this same feeling when running or training for ultra-endurance events.
You’re also fine tuning a motor skill. Squash is hard. You have to play regularly to get better at it. You have to train your mind / develop muscle memory to advance to a higher level of opponents. This is forcing the mind to stay active.
When you run/complete a marathon, you achieve a massive goal. And that’s cool. Check it off the box. But, I’d argue, you want to be more of a systems person in your approach to life. More to come on that later.
Another example of this type of behavior -we’re going to compare to the type of work you could do professionally. Let’s take being an accountant vs being in some sort of a sales position.
Of course, there is a ton of nuance to being an accountant, and every position is different, but, at a high level, here is the thought process:
As an accountant, often, you’re crunching numbers. You have an excel sheet in front of you, and you have inputs. It’s your job to figure out that puzzle and provide adequate outputs. Now, while building the model, you’re doing a ton of problem-solving, working with a bunch of people, etc. You’re optimizing tax strategies, and the corporations may differ, but day in day out, year in year out, you’ve probably seen the majority of this stuff before.
Now compare that with someone in an outside sales role.
In sales, your role is changing on a daily basis. At the highest level, you’re learning about how best to interact with other humans, at every time of every day. This is valuable for life in general, as you are going to be forced to interact with humans, at every point of every day for the rest of your life. It helps you get along better with your brothers and sisters. It helps you get along better with the hinge date you lined up earlier in the week. You’re dealing with a ton of people, so if nothing else, by the process of osmosis, you’re learning what to do and what not to do.
You learn about negotiation. You’re in more negotiations. You learn how far you can push some people. You learn how to get to the root cause of what the other person on the other side is getting at. You learn that what is important to some is not at all important to others. You learn how to set an anchor and come back to more realistic compromises. You learn that it isn’t personal, but it is serious.
You have to establish a relationship with your clientele, often starting from scratch. You have to communicate the wants and needs your client has back to your organization at large, and vise versa! You have to communicate with other team members. You are constantly learning the value of effective communication, and how to get better at it.
The difference is subtle, but can you see why the argument could be made that even something as simple and personal exercise or your day job can be compounded if you get yourself into one activity vs. another.
The way that you spend your time matters. It matters above all else.
There is a huge difference between putting on mainstream news channels in the evening and listening to biased nonsense for hours every night, or streaming a youtube chat from legend John Malone talking about the past and future of the cable business. Subtle changes to inputs, with massively different outputs.
Analyze and choose how to best spend your time. If you can optimize what you like to do/time spent around activities that check multiple boxes, you are living a more efficient life that will inevitably lead to more opportunities and circumstances and fulfillment and success.
The best part about living life along these lines is that it will not be forced, it will be normal. Accidental almost. But it’s not by accident. You designed it by carefully choosing what to be interested in and where to spend your time.
Scott Adams talks about this concept in How To Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big:
1 - Think about how and where you spend the majority of your time. Are there any activities that could be optimized? If so, how hard would it be for you to work in those optimizations? There is no need to completely upend everything you currently do, but you likely can cut waste from your current regimens. Be brutally honest with yourself.
Look specifically at some activities, and if it’s easy to make a minor change, start there. Soon you’ll begin to notice things that are happening that weren’t in the past. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Trust me!
2 - “Find three hobbies: One that makes you money, one that keeps you fit, and one that makes you creative.”
Cheers to your continued success! As always, follow itschriskeith on Twitter for more regular updates!
Here is how to grow your IG following starting from 0, courtesy of the redrO team!
Over the past few months (Late September -> Late March) redrO grew its IG following from 0 to 10,000 followers. Just the beginning, but a cool achievement for sure. This was completely organic, we had 0 outside/celeb help, none of us even referenced redrO from our personal accounts. Strictly organic. We legitimately know maybe 9 of the (now 12k) followers.
We have had a few people ask how it was possible. Here’s how:
You have to be engaged with your audience. You also have to be adding value. The best way to do that on IG is by posting.
What’s really cool here is that you can take other people’s content, and reports/reshare, just be sure that you are giving that person the credit they deserve.
Here is an example of what we’ve been doing:
Matthew Kobach runs social media for the NYSE. He feels strongly that oftentimes on social media, you can just deliver cool shit that your audience is looking for. No need to be more complicated than that. He also said no one cares about your brand, they only care about what your brand can do for them.
Well, keeping that sort of thought specifically in mind, we started the redrO IG. We just started posting cool shit. Specifically high-end fashion outfits and luxury stuff. It ranged from clothing to accessories to hotels to views.
RedrO is a luxury brand (starting with the best, most premium high-end clothing hangers on the market). We are weirdly passionate about hangers and the way our closets look/the care that we take of our clothing when it's not being worn. Hence our business. However, we also understand that the majority of people don’t find a whole lot of value in a bunch of pictures of clothing hangers or people holding hangers.
So you adjust and fill the void of what people want/need, which is pictures of badass outfits, and luxuryass settings. That’s something valuable and that people will jump on board with.
That's what we’re posting. CONTENT.
Post multiple times a day to start. Start early in the day. Always better to post early than late, gives you the best chance to get more eyeballs/momentum. We begin early AF MST (like 6AM). Stagger the posts out a few hours each, so for instance, 7AM, 9AM, then 11AM.
We recently throttled back from 3x/day to 2x/ day, but we had a critical mass (10k followers) before that happened.
It also helps to have a wizard running this process. Luckily for redrO, we have Joey Engelman running point on this entire process. He was able to find some of the best content out there, and then repurpose it for our audience. This sort of thing is pretty crucial! If it would have been up to Chris, this thing would have crashed and burned a long time ago!
Hashtags are the secret sauce of IG. This is where you can start to build some serious traction on the platform.
The best way to build up a following and get some momentum going is to pick a set of hashtags (about 15-20 that are related to the audience you’re trying to build) and stick with em. Hammer them home. Copy and paste the same set of hashtags for every post. Trust us.
Play around here a little bit. There is a nice tool called hashtags (that you can download from the APP store) which helps with this process. It at least gives you recommendations and whatnot. Easy to figure out on your own.
Now what you will want to do after you perform some initial research and play around with a handful of the hashtags that are in your niche, is begin to post all of the hashtags as a comment on your post right underneath your actual post.
Here is an illustration of redrO doing just that:
Then, once a day, actually click on each one of those hashtags and like a handful of posts at the very top of each hashtag. This gets your account directly engaged with the hashtag that you’re referencing. The IG algorithm picks up that you’re active and interested in this space. As with everything else on the internet (and honestly technology-related in general) engagement matters; the more you give = the more you get in return.
As you continue to post/keep up with your hashtags, you'll quickly realize which hashtags make the most sense for you and which ones you want to swap out. It's okay to swap them in and out, especially when you're first starting. However, when you do land on 20ish hashtags that you want to stick with, stick with them and hammer them home. Once these start to hit for you, it will really help you and your account gain traction.
At least a couple of times a week, make sure that you are rotating through all of your hashtags and liking all of the top posts from them. The IG algo likes to see that activity + begins to learn and understand your interests.
There are a few ways that you can approach the hashtag research phase. With redrO, we started strictly with men's fashion/style/and outfit posts, particularly clothing. We’ve since pivoted to more of a luxury brand approach. Right now the majority of our hashtags still are related to men’s style and fashion but we are actively working on working the other luxury hashtags into the mix.
You don’t want to be manually posting every single post multiple times a day. It just ends up being a ton of work. And frankly, not really sustainable.
We utilized an app called later.com that allows you to set up the story feed for your Instagram account way out in the future. Ideally, you dedicate one day a week (Sunday afternoon) to putting all of your photos and captions up for your IG posts that week. LATER will then post stuff to your Instagram account for the rest of the week which means you don't manually have to do it.
This obviously saves you a ton of time and sanity, so you can focus on other, more strategic stuff during the week.
What you want to be doing in conjunction with this approach is actively monitoring the hashtag research and other accounts in real-time, day-to-day. It's a lot easier to scroll through and like things, etc, than it is to manually post all this stuff on a regular basis.
LATER allows you to have all this stuff set up and already in motion and automated so you don't have an excuse not to stay on top of it.
The next aspect is not complicated and it's probably the toughest part. Consistency! We started the redrO account late September in 2019 and we finally hit 10K followers in late March 2020. Now we're at over 12k just a couple weeks later. (so we got another 2.2k followers in 3 weeks) Once you start to get serious momentum it just becomes another flywheel and compounds on itself.
The tough part is getting started and staying consistent early on, because you're starting at ground zero. You don't have any momentum and you have to get stuff built. There will be ups and downs, just stay steady.
Keep in mind it's going to start slow - but you have to keep chopping wood every day in order to get things off the ground and finally moving. Take advantage of the early days to test a ton of stuff!
An easy way to quickly get a handful of eyes on your account is to actually follow a bunch of people. What we recommend to do would be after you complete some hashtag research, find a handful of accounts that you like that are also in your niche and follow them.
As you go through the hashtag research phase, feel free to follow people who are liking other content in that research and then as you follow other people that are related to your account follow those followers that like the content of the other creators that you're also following.
All that we're doing here is directly engaging with a like-minded audience. We're not recreating the wheel.
We know that these are users that are active in the audience that you're targeting, so just directly engage with them. As long as you’re posting good content, people will follow you back and start engaging/interacting with your account as well.
This is a direct way to get a ton of eyeballs and traffic and help you build momentum very early on.
Don't follow a bunch of people and then unfollow them all right away, because Instagram doesn't like that type of activity and it is a good way to quickly get yourself blocked or locked out of the account. (More of an issue on the unfollowing route than the following route - just be aware.)
Follow people and keep following them until you build up to a critical mass (we were at 12k when we unfollowed the majority of people)
On the business side of Instagram, while you are building up an audience you will want to be sure that you are adequately tracking everything that's going on. What you can do is click on this area:
And it will take you to your content activity in audience overview. This is where you can see which of your photos and videos are performing well. You can see specific activity:
and followers you're getting.
All of this information is important to keep in mind and make sure you are at least aware of as you're posting content. Obviously different people and demographics are focused and interested in different things so make sure that your goals are aligning with your audience.
Have a good time with this. It is Instagram after all, lol!
When you're first getting started the stakes are low. If you're unsure about something, just put it up and see what the reaction is. If people don't like something, it's not the end of the world. In fact, it doesn’t matter at all! Maybe transition or stay away from particular types of media or material. Fail fast.
Try new stuff/different types of content!
We also have been playing around with videos and they appear to be doing really well. (at least from the redrO standpoint) We're getting a ton of views and impressions from both the hashtag research as well as the explore page on Instagram so that has actually been a huge boost to our follower count as well as overall Impressions it's something that we've been happy with.
Play around don't be shy! This is supposed to be fun - have some damn fun with it!
Do your best to throw theoretical situations out the window. Test don't guess. Try stuff!
Hashtag Research
Constant Content
Plan and Execute / Stay Consistent
Follow People
Track / Test Don’t Guess
Have Fun!!
Again, we can’t thank Joey Engelman enough for driving the lion's share of this process! He’s the mastermind behind it!
Follow @orderredro on IG and buy hangers here. :)
Cheers to your continued success out there!
This question is the answer to so many ‘unknowns’. Ranging from -
“They won't call me back or answer my texts” to
“I can't get another meeting with that person” to
“The CEO doesn't seem to have enough time to sit down with me” to
“'Bob won't meet me for happy hour anymore”
There are always multiple dynamics in play when dealing with the phenomena of human beings. We’re complicated and have a lot going on. We become (as it should be) particularity complicated when you’re asking to utilizing our most valuable commodity of all - our time.
For this reason specifically, when it comes to sales (in any regard), your value add proposition is the most important factor.
Why?
It comes down to status. Call it social status or professional status, it's a status play.
For a person with lower levels of status, it's harder to get access to higher status people. Easier to talk to a field engineer than the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. Easier to get the sales rep on the phone than the founder of the company. Easier to talk to an extra on the Game of Thrones set than trying to get ahold of Sansa Stark. (Sophie Turner seems like a legend, btw.)
When you become successful, wealthy, or famous, (insert word here) doors open up that otherwise would not. This makes their time more valuable simply because they have access that the majority of the population does not have. It doesn't mean they think they're better than you, but, it does mean it'll be harder than usual to add noticeable value to their lives.
The higher you climb on the social or professional ladder, the tougher it is to gain access.
There are a few reasons time gets more valuable as you ascend the ladder of success:
1 - Success compounds. Much like the Flywheel Concept from Jim Collins, once you start to gain momentum, the leverage from building whatever it is you had been working on begins to compound, and results become extraordinary. This means your time is valuable and you spend it wisely. Doors and opportunities open up to you that are not available to most people.
See - Social Media Influencers with a large following, Founders of Technology startups, Warren Buffet’s Net Worth
2 - Freedom. When you're in a position of power and leverage, you have more freedom. You choose what you want to do, when you want to do it, and who you want to do it with. You have the final say in how you spend your time, and you spend it wisely, or at least on exactly what interests you.
3 - Optionality. Generally, people who are successful and ascending the social/professional ladder, or are already in a position of decision-maker, have OPTIONS available to them. They are not backed into a corner, with no way out. In fact, oftentimes it’s just the opposite. Often times, they’re being flooded with requests from people and companies just like you. This makes your value proposition that much more important/critical to be keeping in mind and demonstrating during every interaction.
Scott Adams has coined the moist robot theory for human beings. Think about your life. How much of your time is spent doing what others are telling you to do vs. choosing how you’d like to spend your time? Be honest. We talk about this deeper in the post, being caught in motion vs. taking action.
People of high social or business status are not moist robots. Keep this in mind when trying to engage.
Now, back to the topic of this thought at large, Are You Adding Value….
If you’re unable to get a meeting, a sit-down or feel as though you’re being blown off, it's because the other party does not understand your value proposition.
This is why you have to focus on making sure you highlight the reasons WHY they NEED to meet/work/interact with you.
There needs to be something that stands out as valuable for your meeting. (or in their eyes, the time spent interacting with you).
Why are you there? What value are you bringing to the table? How are you helping them or their situation? If you can’t clearly articulate that, you’re wasting their time. (and frankly, yours)
Noah gets it!
The TV show Billions makes this dynamic abundantly clear. (Worth watching if you're not familiar.) It's about power brokers in New York City, a couple of them hedge fund managers, a couple of them high ranking government officials. Though exaggerated, favors are the amino acids of character interaction. Everything comes down to a favor someone can do for someone else.
Professionally, this mindset has been monumental in my approach when trying to land appointments with big-name companies or higher ranking business people. (Think Fortune 500 companies and CEOs/Owners)
With companies and people of this magnitude, it's usually tough to get in the door. When you run into this hurdle, you need to think smarter and be operating at a high level, because you're in the big leagues. Ben Horowitz compares this type of dynamic to being a street fight vs. being in the ring vs a heavyweight boxer. Make a mistake in the ring, and you're looking at KO.You’re not going to have another shot.
Put yourself in your target's shoes. WHY are you there? What value are you bringing to the table? How does your solution improve their business or make their life easier? If you can’t clearly articulate that, you’re wasting their time. (and frankly, yours)
Be dynamic! What edge can you offer that they currently don't have? Can you work your network to get some sort of warm intro? How does your current product or solution make their lives easier? Save them money? Focus in and make that your mission. What services do they NEED that you can provide? Make it about them - not about you.
Action item:
Regardless of your current circumstance, no matter the situation, figure out what your unique value add is. Before any meeting or interaction you have, be sure you are focusing on your particular area of value add and make it known to the person on the other side of the table.
You’ll be amazed at how quickly your life advances.
Cheers to your continued success! As always, follow itschriskeith on Twitter for more regular updates!
Welcome to the 2020 Ultimate Growth Guide - the 17 Best Ways to increase sales for you or your organization. This is a long piece with a lot to digest, so feel free to jump around to those aspects most valuable to you here and now.
These are all of the possible ways to grow your business. Doesn’t matter what you’re selling. Could be hardware or software. Could be a Fortune 10 company or a startup. You could be 65 years old or 18. These are the ways you grow.
Some of these methods are going to make more sense for you than others. That’s all good. There’s no one method for success in this game. You can get to the number 10 a lot of different ways. 8 + 2 isn’t better than 5 + 5, it’s just different.
Use whatever methods work best for you, your company, and your clientele. Test em all!
Hopefully some of the resources talked about explain the WHY side of the sales approach. We talk about the difference of Google and FB, and demand generation (FB) vs demand fulfillment (Google). We also talk about BIG THINK and Edward Bernays approach to PR, along with many others.
Below is a googlesheet to help you keep track of and manage all of these as well as links to some of the references discussed.
It’s available here : Chris Keith - 2020 Ultimate Growth Guide - 17 Best Ways to Increase Sales
File -> Make a Copy -> Fill out your own!
Wanna know the best news about the vast majority this stuff? You can do them from HOME! No QUARANTINE EXCUSES!
Growth Never sleeps!
Let’s dive in.
2B Monthly active users (can be more depending where you look)
This includes:
This can be a lot to digest, but here are a few resources for you to get started
Long story short, there is a ton of advertising real estate available through the google machine. I’d recommend starting small with a small budget and SMART campaign. TLDR - SMART campaigns optimize your campaign for you using Google’s AI.
They’ve recently made it easy to at least dip your toe in the water with SMART campaigns. Can start off with a small budget ($10/day) and googles AI optimizes your ads for target audiences. At the very least, you can run these (2 weeks minimum is a good idea) and gather data /see whats working and move on from there!
Keep in mind, this is the demand fulfillment part of the sales funnel. Think about it, when someone goes to google, they are looking to get an answer to their question. Keep this in mind as you are working on your verbiage for the ads. Answer the questions you believe people will be asking.
As always, TEST - don’t GUESS. You can spend $150 and at least get good info on what people are searching for that relates to the product/service you’re selling.
When this gets working in your direction, you legitimately can tell people what the demand for your product is, ONLINE. That’s power.
2.37 Billion monthly active users (can be more depending where you look)
This includes
There is an incredible video where a Senator asked Zuckerberg was asked how FB can be such a big company when their platform is free: WE RUN ADS. (worth a watch) LOL.
FB advertising makes all if this possible through the back end, your business manager and ad manager. All of the ads are managed through there. Often times it makes sense to try and partner with an advertiser in this space as you really look to scale up.
Getting started isn’t ultra complicated:
Keep in mind, with everything FB and IG related, you’re in the Demand Generation part of the funnel. Unlike Google, which is where people often go to get an answer to a question, FB is simply a platform for people to communicate. So, for these ads, you want to make your creative/verbiage extremely appealing to someone that didn’t know they were interested in whatever it is you’re selling. You need a strong call to action/demand generation to get significant traction here.
Here is a list of the other major social media platforms that you can pretty easily advertise on:
^^ All of these websites have paid business manager options for your advertisements.
There are obviously a ton more…
There is value on being active on every one of these websites. Now, depending on what you're selling, some make more sense than others. But, there really is no such thing as bad press, especially when you're trying to grow.
Focus on a couple of these and put effort there. You run the risk of spreading yourself a bit too thin if you try to attack all of em at once.
Ahhh - this is where we’re trying to figure out Google’s secret sauce!
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is organically ranking for TOP positions in Google. On the front page. ORGANIC means you can't pay for it. You cannot directly influence this, it comes with time, quality, and domain expertise.
There is a bunch that goes into SEO, and depending on what you read and who you follow, you hear different things. Again, this is Google’s secret sauce, no one knows exactly how to crack this nut, and they're not gonna tell us any time soon.
This article from Growth Machine does a great job of explaining how to approach coming up from ground zero.
Long story short, put up content for a few months. Something. Anything. Make it relate to what you’re selling. As you grow the depth of your website and page, it ads to the legitimacy of your domain from Google’s perspective. Growth Machine will even help you find quality writers at different price points!
It’s also a great way to build a very engaged following. If you have a blog and loyal followers, you've created warm leads. Quality content production creates just this.
Here are a few other articles / thought leaders in the SEO space if interested:
SEO takes a while to get built and then up and running, but once it starts to click, its tough to break and really gets going for you. It’s autopilot, and you’re not having to pay for all the traffic you’re organically receiving.
How much more sales/traffic would you generate if you showed up at the very top of the front page of all of the questions your potential clientele would ask about? Let me answer that, a ton. That is why SEO is important.
Email / Messaging is huge - capitalize on your already loyal client base!
Email campaigns can be used to get people to purchase again. They can be used to launch a new product. It can simply be used as a tool to get people back on the phone.
But you need to stay focused here to engage and re-engage your audience. In his book, Pre-Suasion, Robert Cialdini talks about the importance of attention:
This form of pre-suasion accounts for what many see as the principle role (labeled agenda setting) that the news media play in influencing public opinion. The central tenet of agenda-setting theory is that the media rarely produce change directly, by presenting compelling evidence that sweeps an audience to new positions; they are much more likely to persuade indirectly, by giving selected issues and facts better coverage than other issues and facts.
The media cannot tell you what to think. You control that. But they absolutely can control WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT. This is extremely important and why they are such powerful entities.
You want your clientele thinking about you (or your brand/company) when appropriate. Email and SMS is the best way to do that.
Play around with a few different approaches. If you have a subscription company, but together a joint email and SMS campaign, urging people to re-up on whatever good or service they are in need of. Test, don’t guess!!
If you’re launching a new product, put together a campaign that asks for feedback! Double down on your most loyal/repeat customers. Engage with them, make them feel like part of the brand!! Capitalize there.
Please - DO NOT overdo this stuff. I hate being bugged via email and text all the time. Less is more. Make it valuable and relevant when you do reach out.
If you get the chance, read Modern Monopolies by Alex Moazed and Nicholas Johnson. (notes).
The book breaks down platform companies, and how valuable it is to simply create massive marketplaces that put supply directly in touch with demand.
Think about why Uber is valuable. It's not necessarily PROFITABLE all the time, but it is VALUABLE. It’s a massive platform that puts cars directly in touch with potential riders. (and now a lot more than just that)
The same goes for the APP store w/ Apple. Sure, Apple makes fantastic hardware, and that is the majority of where their revenue is generated, but can you put an actual dollar value on the worth of the Apple App Store? How many companies exist there and are making a killing, because they built an app for IOS? A lot!
So, what does this mean for you or your business?
Same can go with Amazon:
Want people to read your post?
SPOTIFY is quickly becoming a king in the music/podcast/audio space. They’re more than just music. They want to be the the go to platform for ALL of the audio you’re consuming (just bought The Ringer for 200M)
CHROME! (the internet browser for Christ’s sake!)
Long story short, if you have a good or service that you can be selling in these platforms - GET ON THESE PLATFORMS. Touch base with them to see how you can be featured, etc.
HUGE potential. Platforms aren’t going away any time soon.
This is legitimately how the largest companies (or certainly those with the most users) in the world have been made. Think TikTok most recently, but how FB/Google/Amazon also expanded exponentially.
Viral Loop definition from TRACTION:
The Formula: (again, from TRACTION)
Could be a clever video like dollar shave club or a cool app that puts me in touch with cars like Uber.
This sort of exponential growth is tough to find, but exactly the type of things VCs look for. Do you know where we’ve seen this type of viral growth/trajectory most recently? The spread of COVID-19. Tech people/high finance/the VC world were early adopters on the virus, because the infection numbers and spread were so staggering you could not ignore them.
When things go viral, you can change the world! Powerful stuff.
Moving Forward w/ the Viral Approach (again, very hard to do):
Arguably the easiest way to get a conversion or drive new customer acquisition.
GIVE PEOPLE SOMETHING FOR NOTHING (or at least very little).
This is not a new phenomenon and not one that is going to be getting old any time soon. People like free shit.
A huge benefit of giving people something for nothing is that it invokes the reciprocity principle (also from Cialdini’s Influence), a strong feeling of obligation that you owe them something in return. It’s a major subconscious part of human nature. Capitalize on that!
Perhaps its a PDF, or some other form of engineering,.
For instance, hubspot allows you to use a free CRM. Pretty easy way to get customers, lol.
BRICKELL - legit gives you their starter kit for free! OPRAH - FREE CARS! Youtube TV (and so many other software companies) let you try their stuff for free for a couple weeks. It gets you hooked. This isn’t accidental.
You get the point. If you can work this in somewhere, try it.
A great person to study/read about in this space, often referred to the Father of Public Relations, is Edward Bernays. Great resources: (book highlights below)
Bernays has been credited with getting Americans to standardize on a Bacon and Eggs breakfast. (among others, like making it cool to smoke cigarettes, etc) He was working for a ham manufacturer, and they wanted him to sell more ham. Rather than tell everyone how their ham was better than other ham, he put together a full scale PR campaign on the American public based around eating a hearty, balanced, bacon and eggs breakfast. It ranged from famous people talking about how much they loved bacon and eggs to multiple studies referencing PHD’s and how beneficial it was to eat a large breakfast.
Worked pretty well, bacon is still a go-to breakfast food today!
BIG THINK. Sell your vision, not just the current product!
Valuable insight to keep in mind when approaching PR.
Alright, lets transition back to some PR Specifics:
Reporters
Podcasts
Obviously gaining a ton of traction over the past few years. Great way to get in front of an audience that relates to you or whatever it is you’re trying to promote.
PR Firms / Agencies
If you work with a PR agency, they have connections to larger, big name brands. Think GQ, Forbes, etc.
They can get you featured and whatnot, so you can put on your website, AS SEEN IN THE WSJ. This is more valuable from a social proof perspective, rather than driving sales, but it all depends who you are working with, type of product, etc!
Unconventional PR
Think Elon Musk, Richard Branson, Donald Trump (pre presidential era), etc. The stunts that these guys are pulling aren’t by accident, they are carefully thought out and always have an end goal/call to action in mind. Nothing happens by accident, especially with people at that level. Keep that in mind.
Wendy's Twitter is account is another example. No one is safe, haha!
Also, GODADDY - the superbowl commercials, LOL. They were talking about registering domains back in 2008! Many people had no idea what the hell that meant. But they sure as hell had heard of GODADDY.
PR works, but try to be unique when approaching it! Make you and your brand/company memorable!
Lots of nuance to sales. Here are some key themes to start with, explained in detail by previous posts.
The level of nuance necessary for sales is incredible. There are countless books written on this topic. Here are the most important aspects though:
You Can Do Anything, But you Can't Do Everything
Expectations Are the Root of All Evil
EFFORT Will Win People's Hearts (and close deals)
At a high level, you pay someone a commission to advertise and sell your stuff!
Neil Patel does a nice job in this article describing Affiliate Networks. In the Affiliate space, you can either be a brand or an advertiser.
The following are the large affiliate networks that exist out there today:
There are hundreds more.
If you follow someone online, and they recommend that you buy a product or service, there is about a 99% chance that the link they’re sending you is their “affiliate” link, and they’re getting a percentage of the proceeds from that sale. Doesn’t matter if its a book or an amazon trinket, or a 1000 software package. They’re getting compensated somehow. It’s affiliate marketing.
For the majority of the above Networks, as a brand, you have to be doing about 1MM onlines sales, sometimes higher than that (>5M sales), for them to work with you/partner with you directly and get featured on their website and in their network. Just the reality.
However, if you’re just starting out, ShareASale is a great option. You’re all in for about $650. Good way to dip your toe in the water with Affiliate marketing.
You can sign up to be an advertiser in these networks at any time. Some affiliate marketers make a great living.
There are also marketing agencies in this space that specialize specifically on managing affiliate marketing, if you’re looking to outsource. Mike at Advertise Purple is great!
One thing about this option is the fact that both the affiliate advertisers (and agencies) work on a commission structure. So, you pay them a percentage of sales, yes, but you’re not blindly throwing money and hoping it works. When they succeed, you succeed. The classic Win-Win!
KNOW YOUR PAYOUTS/understand your numbers! Make sure whatever incentive/commission you’re paying your affiliates isn’t eating too far into your profitability.
Standard Partnerships / Joint Ventures
Win win for both organizations!
Is there some sort of approach or deal you can crack with another big company? Competitor or just a large company in your space? Pursue if possible! Could potentially be a win win - sales is not always a zero sum game! Keep this in mind!
Distribution / Supply Partnerships
Licensing
If you’re in this sort of position - go ahead and look to pursue it, lol.
Influencer Partnerships
So most of you are familiar with influencers and have seen them active on social media and now mainstream. Got news for you, this trend isn’t going away.
People relate to people. Influencers are COMPANIES/BRANDS in themselves. This is will continue.
The dollars that flow in this space are incredible. For high traffic influencers, you’re talking >$100K PER POST!
The tough part with trying to go this route is finding the right ones.
Upfluence really helps with that problem. They’ve created a software platform that allows you the search specifically for the type of influencer you want to partner with. It could be twitter or IG. It could just be a blog. It might be across the US, or perhaps you just want to focus on your local market (Denver, right now).
Upfluence lets you target these searches, then gives you contact methods and acts as a CRM to manage the relationship/transactions.
Costs a few hundred dollars/month, but a great first tool when dipping your toes in this market.
Once you find the rate partners: Try to get them to use/love your stuff!
Targeting Blogs
The same as the influencer piece above, but these people are generally more writing focused. Upfluence also good to help find people here.
TEST don’t GUESS.
Up until 25 years ago or so... This was it. Haha! Isn’t it ridiculous how quickly and dramatically things change?!
These all pretty much speak for themselves. Leverage them if it makes sense.
Out of the Box thinking:
Track as best as possible… Use specific code, etc.
Not spending too much time here.
TEST don’t GUESS.
Social proof holds massive validity with human beings, whether you realize it or not. Something as simple as a ton of positive high quality reviews turns a cold prospect into a warm lead. This matters. Make sure you are thinking about it and doing whatever possible to capitalize on it!
Build a product that people think highly of and want to use/tell their friends about, and it will speak for itself. Word of mouth is by far and away the highest ROI sales/marketing action in the business.
Focus on providing an experience that people enjoy, and they will be forever loyal to you and your brand! This will sell itself.
If you curate a personal brand that is smart and valuable - people will WANT TO WORK WITH YOU.
It's really simple. Here are some of the best examples of this I've found on the internet in no particular order:
Naval Ravikant falls into the realm of consuming whatever he puts out there. There are not many people that make it to that level, he's incredible. Imagine a modern-day startup/entrepreneur Gandhi, who speaks the best English you've ever heard. Worth your time investment, regardless of the field you're in.
*****This specific thread is arguably the best content available on the internet.*****
Randomly stumbled on Nat's blog. It's great. He's got a couple of companies that are crushing it, not surprisingly. Follow/read his stuff. A couple favorites:
Found Growth Machine because of Nat’s personal writing!
Patrick OShaughnessy is the CEO of OSAM asset management in NYC. However, what grabbed my attention was his podcast, Investor Field Guide, specifically the following guests/episodes:
But all of the episodes are quality. Can only image how many more clients Patrick has brought into OSHAG due to this Podcast and the materials he puts out.
Best sports opinion guy out there. Always relates current sporting events and scenarios back to the business world. Analogies on point and does a great job of playing the long game in a media landscape that makes it increasingly more difficult to do so. His 'Best Of' podcast is a great way to catch up on the sporting world daily for 30 minutes or so.
Scott gained notoriety for being the inventor of Dilbert, but has far more to offer than comic relief. He's a fantastic writer (books are excellent and fun to read) and a huge proponent of Persuasion and Rhetoric.
Paul is one of the Founders of Y Combinator, amongst other companies. He's incredibly insightful on twitter and his essays are some of the best advice out there.
You bet your ass I think Y Combinator is a quality organization. Research their returns :)
Shane Parrish is the author of Farnham Street, a website and podcast dedicated to the mastery of mental models, or teaching your brain how to think. He's an exceptionally deep thinker. There's nothing more important than living and thinking deliberately. Farnham Street is the go-to resource.
Absolutely valuable to work with Shane (if you can get on his client list)/have bought his book as well!
This turns cold calls into warm leads. Invaluable from a sales perspective.
Create a personal brand that revolves around being a value add solution provider. Someone that people CAN’T AFFORD NOT TO WORK WITH!!!
Do whatever you possibly can to get in this space.
There is no one size fits all of this approach. Figure out what you're best at or what you like to do the most, and do it.
The following 2 growth methods are a bit harder to do while Working From Home, BUT STILL VALUABLE!
Trade Shows
Can be extremely valuable, especially if it’s a crowd that you are looking to target/break into.
Keep in mind, try to set breakfast/lunches and dinners with people, as that is where most business is done. Not at people’s booths. Do your research and the companies and people coming, and try to get some one on one time. If you can host a fun event or dinner within the event, your odds of being successful go up pretty dramatically.
You don’t necessarily have to have a booth at the conference. Go to one that is in your industry and just swing by the booths and introduce yourself/your company. You can make legit hundreds of contacts with people in a day. Just be sure to follow up afterward!
Conferences
Tim Ferriss talks about how he was able to use conferences to help him build a world class network in record time.
These are big business. Jason Lemkin is a SaaS conference advocate, and it seems to have done well for him/they get a decent lineup of speakers at the conference on an annual basis.
Sam Parr actually leveraged Hustlecon the event to start getting major legs with The Hustle.
All you need is to make one connection or find one valuable contact from these events and get a massive ROI. Keep that in mind!
17 - COMMUNITY BUILDING
A great way to think about this is doing things that don't scale, a Paul Graham Post.
Host Meet ups, or exclusive events for your top clientele!
Harley Davidson is legendary in this space. The Harley Owners Group. Jeep has a similar type deal going on. (Think the Jeep wave)
Instead of offering discounts to nonusers, Mac Weldon automatically gives you a % off your order if you have an account set up with them.
Wheels Up encourages you to connect with other members to coordinate trips.
DRINK HAUS has done a great job of this, recently went to a Happy Hour they hosted here in Denver.
Legit - throw/sponsor a party. This building businesses is supposed to be fun anyway 🙂. Sell stuff that has your branding on it that people recognize. (Think Lulu) It all plays!
FB Groups is a huge part of community building. A ton of brands have created a nice niche here.
Exclusive Launches are something companies like SUPREME and MSCHF have perfected. Scarcity is a real thing.
Your Community is what defines you! Don't skimp!
******************
You can capitalize on the majority of these growth areas WORKING FROM HOME!!! Use this time for growth!
Re-Read the article. Figure out what areas make the most sense to focus on to start. Save the resources you find most valuable and ad them to your customized spreadsheet version of 2020 Ultimate Growth Guide - 17 Best Ways to Increase Sales
Fill out / and start trying different areas for growth!
TEST don’t GUESS
Good luck out there :)
as always, follow @itschriskeith on Twitter for more frequent updates
