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Sales for Startups: Accelerate Your Success with a Better Go To Market Strategy

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This document provides guidance and best practices for startups to improve their go-to-market strategy and sales process. It identifies common mistakes startups make, such as hiring a VP of Sales too early or spending money on marketing too soon. The document outlines a four-step process to develop a better sales plan including quantifying goals, defining customer profiles, mapping the buying process, and planning initiatives. It also provides tips for various aspects of the sales process such as engaging prospects through social media, generating and repurposing content, managing the sales pipeline, and overcoming challenges in selling.

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Sales for Startups: Accelerate Your Success with a Better Go To Market Strategy Matt Heinz President, Heinz Marketing Inc matt@heinzmarketing.com @heinzmarketing
Housekeeping • Copy of this deck • Offers for you – 10 minute brainstorm – Successful Selling – Modern Marketer’s Field Guide • Email me or bring me a business card with what you want – It’s that simple…
Last Slide First 1. Understand your customer, product & objective before planning (let alone executing) 2. Use the resources you already before spending money 3. Review & assess/adjust your priorities, focus areas and execution at least weekly 4. Fire lots of bullets 5. Manage actively and openly 6. Sales & marketing is too important to leave to salespeople and marketers
Five common startup sales mistakes 1. Hiring a VP of Sales first 2. Spending money on marketing too early 3. Building a sales process that doesn’t map to how your customers buy 4. Selling beyond the early adopters 5. Building a sales team too fast, too early
Four steps to a better plan 1. Do the math (quantify what success looks like) 2. Create a clear customer profile 3. Map the sales and buying process 4. Plan to fire lots of bullets
Every initiative is filtered through: • Customers • Products • Objectives
Prospect Engagement Funnel Customer Targets (based on persona profiles) Network / Open Community Channels: Twitter, Facebook, Blog, LinkedIn Goal: Drive Registration Drip Marketing Channels: Email Newsletters, CRM System Goal: Drive Active Prospects Active Sales Cycle Channels: CRM, 1:1 Goal: Sell New Customer Next Step Accelerator Ideas Network-exclusive access to content Value-added special offers Discovery events White papers, top ten tips, etc. Testimonials, Success Stories Profile-Specific Messages New product/service offers New Opportunity Alerts 1:1 with Existing Customer In-Market Events Referral & Tell-a-Friend Offers Network / Community Invites
Calculating what you need Assumptions Product A ASP Product B ASP Opp/Close % Lead/Opp % Product A CPL Product B CPL $ $ $ $ Q1 2010 50 8 58 Product A Sales # Product B Sales # Total Sales # Product A Sales $ Product B Sales $ Total Sales $ 150 25 175 Q3 2010 63 10 73 Q4 2010 69 11 80 TOTALS 238 38 276 170 28 198 190 30 220 210 33 243 $2,250,000 $2,550,000 $2,850,000 $3,150,000 $1,250,000 $1,375,000 $1,500,000 $1,625,000 $3,500,000 $3,925,000 $4,350,000 $4,775,000 Product A Leads Product B Leads Total Leads Product A Lead Budget Product B Lead Budget Total Lead Budget Q2 2010 56 9 65 $ 742,500 $ 841,500 $ 940,500 $1,039,500 $ 3,564,000 $ 412,500 $ 453,750 $ 495,000 $ 536,250 $ 1,897,500 $1,155,000 $1,295,250 $1,435,500 $1,575,750 $ 5,461,500 Product A Pipeline # Product B Pipeline # Total Pipeline # Product A Pipeline $ Product B Pipeline $ Total Pipeline $ 15,000 50,000 33.0% 10.0% 15 35 1500 250 1750 1700 275 1975 1900 300 2200 2100 325 2425 $ 22,500 $ 25,500 $ 28,500 $ 31,500 $ $ 8,750 $ 31,250 $ 9,625 $ 35,125 $ 10,500 $ 39,000 $ 11,375 42,875 $ 8350 148,250
Marketing plan in 5 questions 1. What/who are your targets? 2. What do they care about? What outcome are they seeking? 3. Where do you find them? 4. What or who influences them? 5. How do they want to engage and (eventually) buy?
Your customers
Put your marketing budget on a diet • • • • • Combine PR and social media Hire your customers Use more content (yours and theirs) Join and participate in communities Build and launch remarkable products
Management essentials • • • • • • Roles & responsibilities Triage Scorecards Meeting rhythm Transparency and trust Track to the close
What do customers care about?
The buying progression Problem/ Pain Solution Objective/ Outcome
5 tips for better customer-centric sales 1. Use “you” instead of “I” 2. Treat the first sales call like an interview 3. Align yourself with existing customer priorities 4. Respect their time 5. Let your current customer sell for you
Custom messages by role Audience Drivers Pain Points Value Propositions(bullet points) Key Messages Drivers Pain Points Value Propositions(bullet points) Key Messages Vertical #1 CEO IT/CIO CFO CMO Audience Vertical #2 CEO
Three content questions • What do I want people to see, hear and/or learn? • What do I want people to think? • What do I want people to do?
Social media for sales • • • • Target individuals and keywords Watch for early-stage buying signals Participate as a peer Teach sales & customer service reps to interact directly • Use tools to manage, assign, etc.
Top sales reps – social tips 1. Get new introductions from existing network 2. Get new introductions from others in their organization 3. Watch for buying signals across the social Web 4. Target both individuals and keywords 5. Build deeper, early relationships with new prospects 6. Directly share information, become an expert, generate a following
Finding more sales on LinkedIn • • • • • • • • Read the Daily Digest…daily Join and participate in groups Keep your profile up to date Give skill endorsements Ask for specific referrals and introductions Create saved searches Use LinkedIn Contacts Use trigger event tools
Finding more sales on Twitter • • • • • Follow your prospects Follow your partners Curate customer-centric content Listen for buying signals Watch and use hashtags
Nine Social Selling Tools 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. HootSuite Nearstream TweetAdder Dlvr.it Timely.is UnTweeps TextExpander or ActiveWords Email Alerts Morning Coffee
Top Social Selling Tools
Daily Do Lists • Objective: Engage with social selling best practices daily • Cost: Free • How It Works: – Schedule a daily meeting with yourself at 7:30 am (or whenever you start your work day) – Work through the list @heinzmarketing
Matt’s Daily Do List 1. Schedule (yesterday & today) 2. Touch Base (birthdays, Likes) 3. Endorsements (skills, Kred, Klout, Connect.me, MeritShare) 4. Spam folder 5. Network (Twitter adds, G+ Circles) 6. Engage (Comments, LinkedIn Groups) 7. Prospecting @heinzmarketing
Three types of content 1.Proactive 2.Reactive 3.Participatory
Planning content Week 1 Theme 1 Theme 2 Theme 3 Theme 4 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4
Editorial calendar example Market Leader Q2 2010 Editorial Calendar Q2 May Week of May 3 Week of May 10 Spring Season Heats Up Corporate Theme Content Theme Company News (PR) Agent productivity tools - Creating a customerwhat's recommended, centric brokerage (blog) what's working (blog, AR) 12 ways to motivate, excite and retain your agents (blog) What productivity tools are your agents using? Any that have been adopted across the brokerage? How many conferences to do you attend each year? Which are your favorites and why? What are your best practices for motivating, exciting and retaining your agents? Leading RE free trial Industry Calendar Broker Ops (Bob) Training & Education Broker LinkedIn Group Questions Leadership (Ian) Agents & Teams (Scott) How to share best practices across your team (blog, AR) What does customercentric mean at your brokerage? What are your best practices around this? The best customer service Early listing season advice I ever received observations (blog) (blog) Team collaboration best practices (blog, AR) Leadership Commentary Market Leader Voices Five Ways to be a Market Leader (Video) Ian's Leadership Videos What is your brokerage doing with social media? Can you measure specific new business from these investments? Why listings matter even in a buyers market (blog) How has business been since the home-buyer credit expired? What new promotions have you instituted to replace it? What is your brokerage doing to encourage and facilitate teamwork and resource sharing? Combining resources across a team to increase marketing impact (blog, AR) Seller marketing tips from real estate veterans (blog, AR) How to increase your Twitter followers (blog, AR) Guest Posts: Broker Web site success stories (pull from Exit customers) 5 ways to improve your search results (Thad) Best practices for listing presentations (blog, AR) Why your Web domain is How to be immediately so important (and why it's responsive to your Web not) (blog, AR) leads (blog, AR) Guest Posts: Best customer service you ever gave or received 5 ways to build a business within a business (Ian) Five Characteristics of a Successful Real Estate Business 5 ways to instantly improve your customer service (Scott) How much training do you provide your agents? What topics do you focus on? Attracting & recruiting agents (blog) How to be more efficient when you don't always share the same workspace (blog, AR) Sales & Marketing Advice (anon) Five seller appeasement strategies that won't break the bank (blog, AR) Search & Web Tips (Thad) June Week of June 14 Week of June 21 Week of June 28 Are you growing your market share? Week of May 24 Week of May 31 Week of June New Vision for Real Estate Industry Bringing it all together to grow your business Gathering of Eagles 200th MLS Keynote Recap Mid-year NAR Top 10 reasons why brokers should care about social media (blog, AR) Fiji Release Week of May 17 TBD Building a CustomerCentric Brokerage TBD How to help local Using social media to buyers/sellers find your market your listings (blog, Web site (blog, AR) AR) Guest Posts: Tips and Tricks to Establish Yourself as the Market Leader TBD Why Lead Management Matters (and why it's often ignored) TBD TBD Knowing when technology is important, and when it's not
Five common content marketing mistakes 1. Not having a plan up front 2. Writing for the company instead of the customer 3. Not encouraging and participating in twoway communication 4. Not promoting, aggregating and curating great content from others 5. Only producing written content
Repurposing
How to create more content • • • • • Write more ideas down Keep a single, ongoing list of those ideas Ideas, then outlines, then drafts Write ahead of time Use guest contributors
10 sources of content inspiration 1. Customer questions 2. Stuff you read 3. People you disagree with 4. Your customer-facing teams 5. Trade press 6. Conferences, panels & Webinars 7. Twitter hashtags 8. LinkedIn Answers 9. The news 10. Things you see that are dumb
Keys to effective pipeline execution • • • • Use a lead management system Clearly define lead & opportunity stages Focus on great content Make it easy for prospects to self-select and move forward
Leads & Opportunities
Six reasons why your sales (might) suck 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Are you selling to the right buyer? Are you selling benefits or features? Do you sound desperate? Do your sales & marketing teams agree? Do your customers want what you’re selling? 6. What are they saying behind your back?
When prospects go dark… 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Try a different channel Try a different contact Share something unrelated Try a different angle Engage their influencers Move on
Don’t forget… matt@heinzmarketing.com
Questions?

More Related Content

Sales for Startups: Accelerate Your Success with a Better Go To Market Strategy

  • 1. Sales for Startups: Accelerate Your Success with a Better Go To Market Strategy Matt Heinz President, Heinz Marketing Inc matt@heinzmarketing.com @heinzmarketing
  • 2. Housekeeping • Copy of this deck • Offers for you – 10 minute brainstorm – Successful Selling – Modern Marketer’s Field Guide • Email me or bring me a business card with what you want – It’s that simple…
  • 3. Last Slide First 1. Understand your customer, product & objective before planning (let alone executing) 2. Use the resources you already before spending money 3. Review & assess/adjust your priorities, focus areas and execution at least weekly 4. Fire lots of bullets 5. Manage actively and openly 6. Sales & marketing is too important to leave to salespeople and marketers
  • 4. Five common startup sales mistakes 1. Hiring a VP of Sales first 2. Spending money on marketing too early 3. Building a sales process that doesn’t map to how your customers buy 4. Selling beyond the early adopters 5. Building a sales team too fast, too early
  • 5. Four steps to a better plan 1. Do the math (quantify what success looks like) 2. Create a clear customer profile 3. Map the sales and buying process 4. Plan to fire lots of bullets
  • 6. Every initiative is filtered through: • Customers • Products • Objectives
  • 7. Prospect Engagement Funnel Customer Targets (based on persona profiles) Network / Open Community Channels: Twitter, Facebook, Blog, LinkedIn Goal: Drive Registration Drip Marketing Channels: Email Newsletters, CRM System Goal: Drive Active Prospects Active Sales Cycle Channels: CRM, 1:1 Goal: Sell New Customer Next Step Accelerator Ideas Network-exclusive access to content Value-added special offers Discovery events White papers, top ten tips, etc. Testimonials, Success Stories Profile-Specific Messages New product/service offers New Opportunity Alerts 1:1 with Existing Customer In-Market Events Referral & Tell-a-Friend Offers Network / Community Invites
  • 8. Calculating what you need Assumptions Product A ASP Product B ASP Opp/Close % Lead/Opp % Product A CPL Product B CPL $ $ $ $ Q1 2010 50 8 58 Product A Sales # Product B Sales # Total Sales # Product A Sales $ Product B Sales $ Total Sales $ 150 25 175 Q3 2010 63 10 73 Q4 2010 69 11 80 TOTALS 238 38 276 170 28 198 190 30 220 210 33 243 $2,250,000 $2,550,000 $2,850,000 $3,150,000 $1,250,000 $1,375,000 $1,500,000 $1,625,000 $3,500,000 $3,925,000 $4,350,000 $4,775,000 Product A Leads Product B Leads Total Leads Product A Lead Budget Product B Lead Budget Total Lead Budget Q2 2010 56 9 65 $ 742,500 $ 841,500 $ 940,500 $1,039,500 $ 3,564,000 $ 412,500 $ 453,750 $ 495,000 $ 536,250 $ 1,897,500 $1,155,000 $1,295,250 $1,435,500 $1,575,750 $ 5,461,500 Product A Pipeline # Product B Pipeline # Total Pipeline # Product A Pipeline $ Product B Pipeline $ Total Pipeline $ 15,000 50,000 33.0% 10.0% 15 35 1500 250 1750 1700 275 1975 1900 300 2200 2100 325 2425 $ 22,500 $ 25,500 $ 28,500 $ 31,500 $ $ 8,750 $ 31,250 $ 9,625 $ 35,125 $ 10,500 $ 39,000 $ 11,375 42,875 $ 8350 148,250
  • 9. Marketing plan in 5 questions 1. What/who are your targets? 2. What do they care about? What outcome are they seeking? 3. Where do you find them? 4. What or who influences them? 5. How do they want to engage and (eventually) buy?
  • 11. Put your marketing budget on a diet • • • • • Combine PR and social media Hire your customers Use more content (yours and theirs) Join and participate in communities Build and launch remarkable products
  • 12. Management essentials • • • • • • Roles & responsibilities Triage Scorecards Meeting rhythm Transparency and trust Track to the close
  • 13. What do customers care about?
  • 15. 5 tips for better customer-centric sales 1. Use “you” instead of “I” 2. Treat the first sales call like an interview 3. Align yourself with existing customer priorities 4. Respect their time 5. Let your current customer sell for you
  • 16. Custom messages by role Audience Drivers Pain Points Value Propositions(bullet points) Key Messages Drivers Pain Points Value Propositions(bullet points) Key Messages Vertical #1 CEO IT/CIO CFO CMO Audience Vertical #2 CEO
  • 17. Three content questions • What do I want people to see, hear and/or learn? • What do I want people to think? • What do I want people to do?
  • 18. Social media for sales • • • • Target individuals and keywords Watch for early-stage buying signals Participate as a peer Teach sales & customer service reps to interact directly • Use tools to manage, assign, etc.
  • 19. Top sales reps – social tips 1. Get new introductions from existing network 2. Get new introductions from others in their organization 3. Watch for buying signals across the social Web 4. Target both individuals and keywords 5. Build deeper, early relationships with new prospects 6. Directly share information, become an expert, generate a following
  • 20. Finding more sales on LinkedIn • • • • • • • • Read the Daily Digest…daily Join and participate in groups Keep your profile up to date Give skill endorsements Ask for specific referrals and introductions Create saved searches Use LinkedIn Contacts Use trigger event tools
  • 21. Finding more sales on Twitter • • • • • Follow your prospects Follow your partners Curate customer-centric content Listen for buying signals Watch and use hashtags
  • 22. Nine Social Selling Tools 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. HootSuite Nearstream TweetAdder Dlvr.it Timely.is UnTweeps TextExpander or ActiveWords Email Alerts Morning Coffee
  • 24. Daily Do Lists • Objective: Engage with social selling best practices daily • Cost: Free • How It Works: – Schedule a daily meeting with yourself at 7:30 am (or whenever you start your work day) – Work through the list @heinzmarketing
  • 25. Matt’s Daily Do List 1. Schedule (yesterday & today) 2. Touch Base (birthdays, Likes) 3. Endorsements (skills, Kred, Klout, Connect.me, MeritShare) 4. Spam folder 5. Network (Twitter adds, G+ Circles) 6. Engage (Comments, LinkedIn Groups) 7. Prospecting @heinzmarketing
  • 26. Three types of content 1.Proactive 2.Reactive 3.Participatory
  • 27. Planning content Week 1 Theme 1 Theme 2 Theme 3 Theme 4 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4
  • 28. Editorial calendar example Market Leader Q2 2010 Editorial Calendar Q2 May Week of May 3 Week of May 10 Spring Season Heats Up Corporate Theme Content Theme Company News (PR) Agent productivity tools - Creating a customerwhat's recommended, centric brokerage (blog) what's working (blog, AR) 12 ways to motivate, excite and retain your agents (blog) What productivity tools are your agents using? Any that have been adopted across the brokerage? How many conferences to do you attend each year? Which are your favorites and why? What are your best practices for motivating, exciting and retaining your agents? Leading RE free trial Industry Calendar Broker Ops (Bob) Training & Education Broker LinkedIn Group Questions Leadership (Ian) Agents & Teams (Scott) How to share best practices across your team (blog, AR) What does customercentric mean at your brokerage? What are your best practices around this? The best customer service Early listing season advice I ever received observations (blog) (blog) Team collaboration best practices (blog, AR) Leadership Commentary Market Leader Voices Five Ways to be a Market Leader (Video) Ian's Leadership Videos What is your brokerage doing with social media? Can you measure specific new business from these investments? Why listings matter even in a buyers market (blog) How has business been since the home-buyer credit expired? What new promotions have you instituted to replace it? What is your brokerage doing to encourage and facilitate teamwork and resource sharing? Combining resources across a team to increase marketing impact (blog, AR) Seller marketing tips from real estate veterans (blog, AR) How to increase your Twitter followers (blog, AR) Guest Posts: Broker Web site success stories (pull from Exit customers) 5 ways to improve your search results (Thad) Best practices for listing presentations (blog, AR) Why your Web domain is How to be immediately so important (and why it's responsive to your Web not) (blog, AR) leads (blog, AR) Guest Posts: Best customer service you ever gave or received 5 ways to build a business within a business (Ian) Five Characteristics of a Successful Real Estate Business 5 ways to instantly improve your customer service (Scott) How much training do you provide your agents? What topics do you focus on? Attracting & recruiting agents (blog) How to be more efficient when you don't always share the same workspace (blog, AR) Sales & Marketing Advice (anon) Five seller appeasement strategies that won't break the bank (blog, AR) Search & Web Tips (Thad) June Week of June 14 Week of June 21 Week of June 28 Are you growing your market share? Week of May 24 Week of May 31 Week of June New Vision for Real Estate Industry Bringing it all together to grow your business Gathering of Eagles 200th MLS Keynote Recap Mid-year NAR Top 10 reasons why brokers should care about social media (blog, AR) Fiji Release Week of May 17 TBD Building a CustomerCentric Brokerage TBD How to help local Using social media to buyers/sellers find your market your listings (blog, Web site (blog, AR) AR) Guest Posts: Tips and Tricks to Establish Yourself as the Market Leader TBD Why Lead Management Matters (and why it's often ignored) TBD TBD Knowing when technology is important, and when it's not
  • 29. Five common content marketing mistakes 1. Not having a plan up front 2. Writing for the company instead of the customer 3. Not encouraging and participating in twoway communication 4. Not promoting, aggregating and curating great content from others 5. Only producing written content
  • 31. How to create more content • • • • • Write more ideas down Keep a single, ongoing list of those ideas Ideas, then outlines, then drafts Write ahead of time Use guest contributors
  • 32. 10 sources of content inspiration 1. Customer questions 2. Stuff you read 3. People you disagree with 4. Your customer-facing teams 5. Trade press 6. Conferences, panels & Webinars 7. Twitter hashtags 8. LinkedIn Answers 9. The news 10. Things you see that are dumb
  • 33. Keys to effective pipeline execution • • • • Use a lead management system Clearly define lead & opportunity stages Focus on great content Make it easy for prospects to self-select and move forward
  • 35. Six reasons why your sales (might) suck 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Are you selling to the right buyer? Are you selling benefits or features? Do you sound desperate? Do your sales & marketing teams agree? Do your customers want what you’re selling? 6. What are they saying behind your back?
  • 36. When prospects go dark… 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Try a different channel Try a different contact Share something unrelated Try a different angle Engage their influencers Move on