Ran Some Sales / Marketing Experiments To Adapt To Changes (Pandemic)

And depending on how you get your clients / customers, it might help you adapt and overcome during uncertain times.

Many were wondering, “how is this going to effect my startup / my business / revenue streams?”, and nobody could say they were certain 100% about what to do.

As someone who foolishly relied on public speaking, cold calling / cold emailing, and think tanks to get clients, I couldn’t stick around and wait for an answer. Especially since i gave up my book of business to found a new startup with a team I’ve successfully exited with before, that was soon evaporate after just 2 and a half months in.

I was filming a behind the scenes documentary as well on what it takes to grow a digital marketing agency startup into a global agency from scratch since we’d done it before. The twist? All savings, previous earnings, dividends, etc. put on DO NOT TOUCH - locked and stored away from me so I can’t access.

I mention this only because the perspective of this post is specifically for those who:

1. Need to bring in revenue quick
2. Lost their business and livelihood
3. Don’t have budget and their only resource is time

Even if you’re aware of these changes, there’s a certain power and confidence that comes with confirmation.

-Recession-proof businesses were no longer recession-proof. About 45% of my prospect list was healthcare companies and only ~18% were left.

What does that mean for you?

Especially if you don’t have referrals or inbound flowing in, outreach efforts have become even more time consuming since a lot of calls or emails end in crossing them off your list. You’re just trying to find who’s still around - those who got laid off didn’t update their LinkedIns right away.

-the need for Sales enablement is almost at the ‘non-negotiable’ point now, no longer a “nice to have”.

-mass blast cold emailing isn’t just ineffective, it’s dead. You can hurt your sender reputation and in extreme cases get blacklisted from sending anymore. Touchy spam filters was already a trend, but seems the pandemic just pushed this over the edge.

-cold calling isn’t dead per se, but with so many out of office, a lot of your phone numbers on your prospect sheet become useless as many used it as an opportunity to get a new phone number.

-Cost Per Lead for outbound has skyrocketed. Especially if you set meetings, demos, appointments, etc. every lead needs to be treated like gold so make sure those 15 minutes they give you are worth every second for them.

-You need to be on more channels than ever and if you ever have a little bit of extra money, targeted LinkedIn ads to support your on going emailing and calling is worth it.

-Content repurposing and relentless editing are highly sought after skills now. For good reason too. They’re crucial to cutting through the noise and holding your audiences dwindling attention span.

-YouTube as part of your inbound strategy if you’re business offering is service oriented is pretty weak and the AHREFs keyword analytics back this up.

-for now, live streaming can be a juicy competitive edge if you learn how to use it properly. The growth numbers for prospect preferences is ridiculous. If conveys authority and authenticity in a world of overly polished editing.

Until public speaking comes back, this is the next best thing.

Anyways, just some highlights I found interesting and thought you might to 🤷🏽‍♂️

Let me know if you have any questions, the chances are good that I have a good answer for you.

-House