Free Sales Advice Friday

hey ishfillet! saw you're pretty good at twitter. Are you using tweetdeck at all? If you use that, maybe even Syften, you could monitor keywords like "new web dev project" "illustrator needed" etc.

This type of project is perfect to follow up on those keyword mentions with a "good luck on the project - these designs should help! makesumo.com"

Hey Vladimirs! Sorry I couldn't get to you this week - I ran out of time. Back again next week though!

Hey Hossein, I ran out of time this week. I'll be back another day to do more!

Hey Niko, I ran out of time to do all these this week. Back again soon tho!

Hey Duce, I ran out of time to do all these. Back again next wk tho!

Hi Ankur, I ran out of time this week before getting to everyone. Back next wk tho!

Hi Anh, I ran out of time (more folks asked than I expected!). I'm back next wk though!

Hi Sivaram, I ran out of time on this one but didn't want to leave you hanging. I'm back on Friday!

Hey Klim! Looks slick.

My suggestion might feel too manual - but it's a similar approach to something I've seen work for years.

If you could, who would be your ten dream clients at 8th studio? These are brands that I'd want to follow. If they make an announcement, or put out a new product, I want to make a quick video with 8thstudio material promoting their product for them. I want to message their social media manager or someone else in marketing (google "Company social media Linkedin").

Just drop a simple: "Hey, love Company, congrats on the launch. Made this video to promote it for you, you can do whatever you like with is. If you like it it's all material from eighth.studio"

And I'd try to show some type of thumbnail in the message that includes something like the business' name or product, so they can see right away it's personalized.

Reason being, if we can get in with them and become a trusted partner, they're going to use us throughout their career, tell other people about us, or just be a damn good user. Building a mountain stone by stone has always worked well for us.

@freezegun AppReviewBot sounds really promising! I'll connect my app and start using it.

Hey Freezegun! Great to see the initial traction you have. Most of my professional career was with a mobile sdk so I'm used to selling to app companies.

Try a free trial of Linkedin Sales Navigator. Create a list with every app from the app store charts. Click over to the tab of "started in the last 90 days."

In my experience, someone starting a new role is great to reach out to because they want to leave their mark and you can help them do that. I'd reach out to people with titles like Mobile, PM, or CX. Just a simple note: Congrats on joining Company! I've been working with (name similar app) to feed all their app store reviews into slack at appreviewbot.com . thought it might help you get a handle on Company sentiment in the market as you get up to speed!

BH, first I'd want to find modern companies that operate in big cities. Googling "NYC tech companies" returns lists like this .

Then, I want to google "(company) HR Linkedin" To find the profiles of HR folks at those companies.

Now, I'll message them straight through Linkedin:

"X, saw you were on NYC's list of best places to work, congrats! (BH, this was on that list I shared in the first link. We want to share something personalized like this in the first sentence).

Not sure when you're planning on returning to the office, but I imagine you're trying to do so as smoothly as possible. We're helping Shopify and Imgur do that with Robinpowered.com.

We'd love to help you through the transition.Are you starting your planning for it?
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If they're of the same mindset, you've explained yourself in a simple enough way that they'll want to know more. If not, you didn't waste too much time going after them.

Hey Xavier!

On the smaller scale, I'd be on IndieHackers, ProductHunt, and Hacker News. Everyone who's launching a product, I want to find their Twitter or Email from their profile and send them something to the effect of:

X, congrats on the launch! Took a look at the app and it's very slick (or something similar, let them know you looked at it with this comment)

Saw you're getting the word out on (platform). I compiled about 400 other places for you to promote it, check it out at spreadtheworld.net.

Hope it helps, all the success to you!

From here, I think you can start to pare down on what types of startups actually take you up on that offer. Is it design startups? 10 person companies? Once you have that data, come back and we'll do the next step!

On the free side, I'd subscribe to Fortune's Term Sheet and check Crunchbase daily to see what companies are getting their Series A or B funding. I'd reach out to the CMO if there was one, otherwise the CEO, and say:

Hey X,

Congrats on the round today! Surely you'll be investing in the marketing of Company.

We've been helping other companies (maybe name drop a similar one) host their marketing events virtually, because my company example.co is an all-in-one tool for virtual events.

Do you have any events planned you're still working on the logistics for? If so, we'd love to take some of the burden of that off of you.

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Keeping this short and sweet, while touching on the main problem (you just got a few mil in the bank and you're likely investing in growth) has gone a long way for me.

If they're of the same mindset, you've explained yourself in a simple enough way that they'll want to know more. If not, you didn't waste too much time going after them.

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On the more paid side, If you can get access to Linkedin Sales Navigator (about $70/m), you can set certain criteria like:

Show me everyone who:
is in this geographic area
is in a C level marketing role
is at a <20 person company
has started their job within the last 90 days
that's the strategy I love, because you can capitalize on someone starting a new job and get in while they're setting up their department!

Thomas, love this because there can be a few great opportunities here!

Knowing Spring is big on community, I went to their community page. I want to find folks working on spring projects, who might be running into trouble, that I can help. I found the Spring Stack Overflow. I'd want to comment on these users posts. You know better than I do what specifically to say, but I'd say something to the effect of:

Hey User,

Had a similar problem - build bootify.io to handle a lot of this for spring projects. happy to get you set up on it as I know how frustrating it can be.

Capitalize on this, this is where people most desperately need your help!

Hey! I thought about this for a while... Who needs document automation software? Then I thought a bit more... Who would appreciate this software? Can we start with them and use them as an indicator as to how we should find our next customers?

My thinking is, Excel nerds would appreciate this. If they're truly excel nerds, they care about automation and are not afraid of working with the formatting of wonky docs to ensure they work with your tool. Especially if it can save them some real time.

If I google "reddit excel" there are so many communities of people who care about excel. I want to watch those communities daily. When someone mentions automating or working with reports, I want to drop a comment:

"Hey, had the same problem. Made a tool to automate it for myself and then put it on mydoctemplate. Happy to help you as it'd probably save a few hours"