Book: The Ultimate Startup Guide To Outbound Sales (50% discount... or free)

The Ultimate Startup Guide to Outbound Sales View this email in your browser Startup Sales Success Email Course: Lesson #13 50% Discount Code: "awesomesauce" BUY NOW we were just talking about discounts, weren't we? Well, I've written a book on outbound sales, and since you're on my list, you'll get the full book for half the price.  Want the book free? Or even get it free! I want you to try our sales software. And I'm willing to give you my book for free if you sign up for a free trial of the software right now. It takes just 1 minute. No credit card required. If you're not in love with the software after 14 days, you don't need to do anything, we'll automatically cancel your trial. Here's what to do: 1. Sign up for the trial. 2. Send me an email to steli@close.io and say: "I signed up for the trial. Send the me book so I can crush it :)" 3. ... crush it! ;)   Are you a founder? Do you work in a startup sales team? I know you're busy. You want actionable advice. Things you can implement into your business right now that will make a measurable difference: Strategies Scripts Templates What exactly do you say when cold calling prospects? How do you get them to listen, and set up appointments? How do you qualify prospects? Simple steps to managing any objection What questions should you ask, and when is the right time to ask them? How do you engage prospects in a conversation that leads towards a close? How do you sell to large businesses when you're just a tiny startup, or even a bootstrapping solo founder? A strategy to overcome their doubts towards you and turn it into trust How to use references the right way? What's the best way to ask for referrals? Which mistakes should you avoid? (You'll get our "referral gameplan" and the exact words to use when asking for referrals). This book is filled with specific and detailed advice, rather than general fluffy ideas and concepts. Do you have 1 hour? Set aside one hour to read this book cover to cover. It's as close as you get to downloading startup salesmanship mastery into your brain. You get maximum learning in minimum time. You need to get the finest nuance of every detail perfect – you just need to build a good-enough sales process that quickly puts you on the path to success. Get the big things right first, then start polishing. Do you read the Close.io blog? If you're a long-time reader of our Hack & Hustle blog, and subscriber of this startup sales course, there's nothing new in this book. This is simply a curated collection of posts, structured in a way that will make it easy for you to set up and optimize a sales process for your startup. You can head over to blog.close.io and read everything that's in this book (and more). So why would you want to buy the book? Because it'll save you hours of time trying to put the pieces together in the right sequence. Is your time worth more than $19 an hour? Then buying the book is probably a sensible investment for you  BUY NOW 50% Discount Code: "awesomesauce" Happy Selling! Steli PS: There's a lesson in this email too: Don't be shy asking for a close repeatedly and boldly. So start your trial to get your free book! You're receiving this email because you signed up for our startup sales course. Elastic, Inc. 501 Forest Ave Suite 1201 Palo Alto, CA 94301 Add us to your address book You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list at any time.

Ugh! Another discount request…

Startup Sales Negotiations 101 - How to Respond to Discount Inquiries View this email in your browser Startup Sales Success Email Course: Lesson #12 People will sometimes reach out and ask for a discount on your product before they took the time to sign up for a trial and use it at all. What do you do when that happens?  Instead of debating if you should or shouldn't offer them a discount right away, you need to refocus their energy on what really matters: your product! Let's explore the 3 core reasons why you never want to negotiate pricing before someone had a chance to trial your product and determine that it's a good fit. #1: You're starting the relationship on the wrong foot People who ask you to lower your prices before having invested any time using your product are usually trouble. This can often lead to winning a new customer that is going to expect you to give 24/7 premium phone support, prioritize features based on their needs all while trying to pay you pennies on the dollar. If you start the relationship by giving them everything they ask for, don't be surprised if they keep asking for more in an unreasonable fashion. This is ultimately unsustainable and unhealthy for both sides. #2: They're buying for the wrong reason  At this point they can't tell if your product is a good fit for them since they never used it. Your first priority should always be to help people explore and discover that your product is really solving their problem before negotiating what the final pricing should be. Discounting your product upfront might help you close some deals faster but will often lead to these customers ultimately discovering that they should have never bought in the first place. Always be wary of prospects that don't want to do their homework upfront. Nothing sucks more than a new customer that cancels immediately after having created a ton of support and onboarding cost.  #3: You're negotiating on price vs. value  The problem with people trying to negotiate pricing before testing your product is that you are forced to negotiate on price rather than value. They didn't have a chance to build up any desire to buy and discover the massive value your product could deliver to them. All of the sudden your product turns into a commodity and your only differentiation is offering them the lowest price possible.  #4: You're negotiating without leverage The more time people invest in your product the more "invested" they become and naturally the harder it is for them to "throw away" the time they put into exploring your product and making it part of their daily workflow. You always want to postpone the most difficult/complex parts of the sales negotiation till the end of the sales cycle. That way you ensure the right amount of momentum as you move forward in the sales process and avoid too much upfront friction.  Here is what your response should be when someone asks for a discount without having tried your product: "Thanks for inquiring about pricing options! Why don't you sign up for a trial and give the product a go? If you find out that it's a great fit I'll take care of you and make sure you get a price that makes you happy. Sound fair enough?" This works every time. The reply you usually get will be: "Great! Just signed up and giving the product a go. Thanks!" What's the result you should expect? 9 out of 10 times the people that turn out to be a bad fit will self select during a trial and just leave. The prospects that are a good fit will love your product so much that they will not negotiate hard for a discount since they now really understand its value.  Even if they do it's fine to give great customers a good price because you know they are buying for all the right reasons and will probably stay with you for a long time. We've done this thousands of times and it always works. I hope this startup sales negotiation tactic serves your business as much as it has ours :) P.S. The same tactic doesn't just work for people that are "unreasonable" and potentially a bad fit. Even when uber nice prospects are worrying about pricing upfront we tend to ask them to first discover if the product is even a good fit for their needs. See below a recent twitter exchange as a good example for this: Happy Selling! Steli You're receiving this email because you signed up for our startup sales course. Elastic, Inc. 501 Forest Ave Suite 1201 Palo Alto, CA 94301 Add us to your address book You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list at any time.

The Virtual Close

Sales Kung Fu: How To "Virtually" Close Every Single Customer By Asking This Powerful Question! View this email in your browser Startup Sales Success Email Course: Lesson #11 Founders come to me for advice on big deals that they're trying to close. A lot of times they describe how they met with a buyer from a huge corporation, demoed their products, answered all initial questions, and seem to be getting some good buying signals. They just finished their first really good initial meetings and then send follow-up emails to schedule the next face-to-face—and now they enter uncharted territory. They worry: Is this deal really realistic? What do I need to do next to make this happen? Are they really interested or just being nice to us? How long will this take? When and how should I follow up? Should I wait until they get back to me or be proactive? If so how much? At that point, I ask them if they took the chance to actually have the potential customer describe to them in detail what it will take for them to become a customer. Most of them say no. And that's the problem. The solution to this is something I call the "virtual close." This sales tactic will help you accomplish these objectives: Figure out the roadmap of all the steps its going to take to close the deal Discover major red flags and issues that will slow the deal down or prevent it from happening Guide your prospects or their internal champion—someone within a prospect's company that's on board but needs to convince others—through all the steps he or she will have to take to make the deal happen Make your prospect imagine and visualize a future where he or she has become a customer of your product or service Uncover whether there is no real buying intent How? Simply ask this question: "Dear potential customer. Now that you know what we do and we answered all your questions, it seems to me that we are a perfect fit. What are all the steps we have to take to help make this happen? Then shut up and listen. If the prospect says something to the effect of: "Well, not sure..." or "Well, we wouldn't buy before 2023 since we are locked in the current contract…" You're in trouble. This means there is no real buying intent. Move on with life. In all other cases, you have to put on your investigative hat and actually keep following up with questions until you both reach a point where a deal can happen. Here's what a typical conversation should look like: You: "Dear customer. What will it take for you to buy our product?" Customer: "Well, I would have to show it to my boss and some colleagues and see what they think." You: "Great. How do you typically get feedback? Scheduling a meeting? This week? Next week? Do you make a presentation or how does this typically work?" Customer: "Well, we have a weekly standup meeting and that's when I will present this." You: "Awesome. What happens when your boss and teammates really like the idea and want to move forward?" Customer: "Then we would schedule a follow up call with you and all stakeholders to answer all questions." You: "Makes sense. Let's assume we have a great call and I can answer all questions to the teams satisfaction and we're all happy to move forward. What happens next?" Customer: "Well, then it would have to go through legal." This is the point where most people would stop asking questions and feel happy about what they have learned. That's a mistake. Keep asking questions until you've arrived at the virtual close. Like this: You: "Of course. How does this process typically work for you? Have you purchased something similar to our product in the past six months and can you describe to me what we'll have to do to make the process as smooth as possible?" Customer: "Yes, we'd have to run through a few higher-ups, then the purchasing department and ethics committee." You: "Oh interesting. Could you describe this process a little more?" Customer: "Well, purchasing usually takes a couple weeks to review, and if it looks good, then they move it on to ethics, who has the final sign off." You: "Great. But THEN we're in business right?!?" Customer: "YES!" Now you know what it will take to make this happen. You have a roadmap to: Forecast accordingly Start preparing all steps and run some of them in parallel to save time Decide if you really want to pursue this deal On top of that, you've made them create a world where they are customers and have already made a small mental commitment to it. After this conversation, you'll have all the information you need, the customer has thought through the deal—and you have everything you need to make good decisions and make every deal happen. Happy Selling! Steli What people who are closing deals with Close.io say:   You're receiving this email because you signed up for our startup sales course. Elastic, Inc. 501 Forest Ave Suite 1201 Palo Alto, CA 94301 Add us to your address book You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list at any time.

[Video] A Crash Course in Sales Hacking & Deal Closing

Here's a 45-minute talk on sales hacking and deal closing on stage at Pioneers 2013 in Vienna. View this email in your browser Startup Sales Success Email Course: Lesson #10 In November 2013 they flew me to the Pioneers Festival in Vienna to speak about startup sales. You can also download the audio-only version (mp3) if you prefer that. Although it's almost 46 minutes long, it's the shortest condensation of startup sales hustle wisdom around ;) I highly recommend you check it out if you want to up your sales game. Happy selling! Steli P.S. Let me know what your favorite takeaway from the talk was after you listened. What startup hustlers say about this course: "Great email series! Especially the follow-up hustle lesson is super valuable for sales professionals." - Garrett Clark, Account Executive at KnowledgeTree Inc. You're receiving this email because you signed up for our startup sales course. Elastic, Inc. 501 Forest Ave Suite 1201 Palo Alto, CA 94301 Add us to your address book You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list at any time.

You need to call your customers. No excuses.

Why most startups are not calling their free trial users and how they are losing out on sales because of it. View this email in your browser Startup Sales Success Email Course: Lesson #9 Nowadays it seems that most of the tech startups in Silicon Valley are not employing the phone as a viable business tool. Perhaps they feel this process is outdated. As a result, even most B2B startups have stopped asking their users for their phone numbers and are not taking the time to call their sign-ups once they have captured their attention. Some may say: "Why would I call a potential customer and be forced to talk to them on the phone when I can simply send them an automated email?" Well, you'll find that there are plenty of reasons why. For starters, when you pick up the phone and have an actual conversation with a potential client you can see an increased activation rate. In addition, you will be able to build customer development quicker, obtain feedback sooner, and gain more pertinent market intelligence right from the source. You will also see a higher closing rate, increased customer success and loyalty, all while setting your brand apart from your competition. You're positioning your company as one that goes the extra mile for your customers.   Increase Activation Rate Let's face it, when most people sign up for a free trial they almost immediately forget about that offer the moment they leave the site. At a minimum, they should be getting automated emails from the company offering the trial, but sadly this isn't the case in many scenarios.  This is unfortunate for the startup working hard to capture an audience's attention, as there is a simple solution to this obstacle. By adding the additional layer of customer care, calling those interested prospects during their trial period, you will find that directly communicating with the prospect is an incredibly effective way to remind them about your service and give you the opportunity to solve the problem they sought you out to solve. Another great thing about making an actual call is that it is much harder to ignore than an email. This means that you will be able to talk to your trial users, even if it's just a quick conversation. Offering them your full attention makes a great impression. Make it a habit to call your new sign-ups regularly and then watch your conversion and activation rates go up.   Customer Development / Feedback / Market Intelligence Many startup founders will argue that it makes no economic sense to call all your trial users. Now while this might be true in the long term, the idea is, at first, you need to test different models to arrive at your Customer Life Time Value (CLTV) and Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC). You shouldn't try to optimize too early for profits, but rather focus on learning more about your customers and your market in order to create a scalable sales model. There is simply no action more valuable than talking to your users and potential customers.  The goal in the early days of making these calls shouldn't be to close every single potential customer. Once again, your goal at this point isn't to focus strictly on the revenue, you'll get to that goal soon enough. Instead, get your head around obtaining a deeper understanding about what brought them to your virtual doorstep. Here are five questions you should ask when calling your trial users: How did you hear about us? What is it that you're looking for? What's the biggest challenge you face in your business in regards to that? What questions do you have regarding our product so far? How are you going to make a decision if our product is a good fit? Higher Close Rate Once you see your activation rate improving and you get a grasp on what it is that your potential customers really want, you can begin to dig a little deeper. For example, you can start to see how your market on a whole works and what the consumer expects from you and your product. Once you know you can deliver on those expectations, you can start building a sales model that includes calling customers and closing them on the phone. You'll be able to close more customers and make more revenue if you call every single one of your free trial users. Period. The question is simply, can you do it efficiently enough to make a profit and be able to scale the process to fit the demand? There is a lot of science that goes into answering that question. The simple math here is that if you cannot generate a CLTV above $3,000, it won't likely be profitable to call your customers and free trial users in the long term. If you're CLTV is higher than the $3,000 threshold, you need to start setting up your business in a way that will empower you to focus greater on phone sales.   Customer Success / Loyalty You'd be surprised how many times a simple call to "check-in" on your trial users will turn into a full blown support call that allows you to fix some huge issue they've had or better yet discover a major bug in your software. There is simply no substitute for talking directly to potential customers and offering them your personal attention. This type of help translates into more people being able to succeed with your product and with more of them becoming happy repeat customers. These real world conversations are also the perfect way to give a software product a human touch that allows you to connect on a personal level with your customers. After all, people are much more likely to feel loyal to another human being rather than to some anonymous software. Remember, the more successful your customers are, the longer they will stick around. The longer you're in a working relationship with them, the higher their customer lifetime value will be.   Brand / Differentiation / Positioning If your competitors are not calling their sign ups/users and you are, then you have already begun to set yourself apart from the competition. Not only does it impress upon your users just how much time and effort you are willing to invest into them, but it's a great way to differentiate yourself and your company in a crowded marketplace. Most companies don't have the time and willingness to pick up the phone and call a prospect to simply say hello. That is why when your company does, it will prove to your target customer that you care. It will prove that you are different and special.   How do you get started? There are two things you need to do now: Start collecting your user's phone numbers (this can be optional, yes it will decrease your sign up completion rate slightly but it probably is worth it) Start calling your customers. As I've mentioned earlier we've built Close.io in a way that allows you to make calls with 1-click right out of the app. All your calls will be automatically tracked and all lead information will popup as soon as the phone rings so the data you need is always at your fingertips. Most startups that have been using Close.io have seen an increase in call volume of 30% or more and as a direct result have seen sales and revenue pick up dramatically. See for yourself why many sales people think it's the best phone integration in a sales software EVER! :) What would your business look like if you made 30% more calls?   Start a 14-day free trial of Close.io (It takes just one minute to sign up for our 14 day free trial. No credit card required and you can start calling right away). Happy Selling! Steli What startup hustlers say about this course: "Love your content." - James Dougal, Chief Marketing Officer, GrowthForce You're receiving this email because you signed up for our startup sales course. Elastic, Inc. 501 Forest Ave Suite 1201 Palo Alto, CA 94301 Add us to your address book You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list at any time.