Resources for learning about sales, and business development strategies.
I've began my marketing /sales journey. Can you recommend the best way to get the attention of small to medium web development agencies, or even just solo developers?
I would like to start a sales campaign.
Recently, I run into this website here https://marketingexamples.com.
They have pretty good case studies and articles in general.
Cheers Onar! I'm the person writing all the Marketing Examples. Thanks for the mention.
Thanks for the awesome articles.
Btw, working on an alternative page for my product.
Sure!
Bit of a vague question, but here are some resources that could help...
✅ If you're running an agency/doing consulting yourself, check out @brennandunn's excellent stuff over at doubleyourfreelancing.com
✅ If you're thinking about selling a product to small B2B customers and you're looking to make your first sale, check out @robfitz's excellent book on customer discovery, MomTestBook.com
✅ If you're looking for free resources on early stage sales and marketing, my favourite resource is the Close.io blog - you'll have to search a bit, but all of the advice there is very good (which is more than I can say for other places, like the Hubspot blog)
✅ If you're willing to pay a bit to speed up the learning process and only want to learn exactly what you need to know about sales to grow from 0 to $10k in MRR, consider checking out my Sales for Founders course. It includes a copy of the Mom Test for free, as well as a lot of great expert content from successful indie hackers (and myself).
✅ If you're more into podcasts, maybe check out my sales podcast or everyonehatesmarketers.com (for actionable marketing content).
Other resources mentioned here (like @harrydry's marketingexamples.com) have some great case studies and content too.
Cheers Louis! Lots to dig into
Get feedback from your customers, understand why they are using your software. What's important to them? Where do they exist online?
Start working that information into your future sales and marketing materials. Find out what's important to them and focus on that.
Use your existing customers as your first sales base. Referrals will be extremely important for you (PHP devs know other PHP devs who know other PHP devs).
Don't be afraid to ask for referrals. This will be your #1 sales activity, IMO.
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For example, you could use OKRs:
i.e.
Objective: "Become ramen profitable" in 3 months
Key Results:
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Join communities or networks where your target customers exist. Start providing valuable information there.
Add people to your CRM as you become aware of them. Add notes to your CRM about where you saw that person, why you would reach out to them, something to create a relationship.
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The warmer your emails, the better. You should know something about your target, and share that information with them, along with some information about why looking at your solution is worth their time.
It's also nice to reach out to people who are local to you, they will generally respond better.
Good cold calling is "your ability to listen attentively and respond precisely", and I think that is true for cold emailing as well. It's harder to get a response, but that is what our first cold email is about. Getting some sort of response to know the next steps.
I like to be straight forward in my cold emails, and I think it works well.
"I've created {solution name}, I think it will benefit you because {reason you created the software that is relevant to their situation}.
Here's our site{link to site}. If you're interested, it would be great to set up a 15 minute call to show you how it works {link to calendar}"
I like using a checklist format that's easy to read about the benefits.
Listing other businesses like them (or that they would idolize) that are using your software is huge. Social proof is a big one.
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Assume it takes 7+ contacts to close a sale, and structure your sales process around that.
If they click the link, they are a warm lead -> specialized email
If they respond to the email, they're a hot lead.
If they don't open the email, you email them again with a different title and same content.
If they open the email but don't click the link -> second email asking for advice / what they're currently using
Continue down this path until you have a system that is closing deals. You should have templates for each email that takes you to either a yes or a no.
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