So Outlook just asked me if I want to upgrade to... bigger ads?
I've never in my entire life been more confused by the intent behind a piece of copy...
Introducing... the Anti-A/B-Test Framework 🎉
The perfect replacement for almost any decisions you're tempted to A/B test during your first 18 months building a business.
Most founders fail at sales before they even start selling.
Why?
... because they don't understand what doing sales actually involves.
So what does a good sales cycle look like? 🧵
Want to grow your newsletter or email-list faster in 2021?
Here are 21 tips, channels and tactics that'll help you beat your subscriber goals for next year... 🧵
Can confirm. I’ve spoken to 4 of the top ~50 Substack writers (based on revenue) in the last month, and every single one of them is actively moving to another platform.
The challenge
@SubstackInc
will have, is that anyone who hits $25-50k in membership will quickly realize that giving 10% of your revenue (i.e. $2,500 to $5,000), is totally unnecessary... there are services like GHOST that charge $29 a month for a white-labeled solution
Woke up today to two new emails in my inbox:
#1
— from a $29/month customer — asking to reschedule their support call at the last minute (for the 2nd time)
#2
— from a $229/month customer — asking for my mailing address to "send me a little something as a thank-you for my help"
Obviously can't share sources that correspond with a lack of success. And correlation != causation.
But - in my experience - founders who quote the following people are *much* more likely to see significant progress...
-
@amyhoy
-
@robwalling
-
@robfitz
-
@nathanbarry
My (scattered) thoughts on why founders should try sales before marketing (and why they don't). Inspired by
@csallen
and discussions on
#indiehackers
.
Tech Twitter has gone crazy arguing about
@NotionHQ
vs
@RoamResearch
.
Seems like the perfect time to launch my new course...
How to keep all of your notes in one big TextEdit file you haven't closed in 4 years and just assume autosaves.
@r00k
1. Ratio of "customers lost to competitors" to "customers won from competitors"
2. % of employees who (when asked anonymously) would recommend joining the company to their best friend's significant other.
Last Friday, we announced that SparkLoop is teaming up with ConvertKit!
The result: a total game-changer for newsletter operators everywhere.
Here's what's changing at SparkLoop (and what isn't) 👇
This week on Twitter:
✅ Sara Blakely sells her 10+ year-old company (Spanx) for $billions — employees get $10k each — everyone praises her generosity
✅ Mailchimp founders sell their 10+ year-old company for $billions — employees get $50k-100k+ each — everyone is furious
🤷♂️
🎄 Sales for Founders Advent Calendar 🎄
Over the past 18 months I've helped thousands of founders learn how to do sales and acquire their first customers.
Here's a thread with 25 useful tips for founders looking to get started with sales (1 tip/day)...
Something I've noticed about bootstrapped SaaS founders...
- very few founders make it from $0 to $3k MRR
- with good advice & a bit of cash, nearly all can go from $3k to $20k MRR
- very few have what it takes (team, market, ambition) to get past $100k MRR
Everyone wants to grow their newsletter audience in 2022. But hardly anyone knows what actually works.
Last year, I got insider-access to how 1k+ newsletter operators & media brands grew their email-lists.
🎁 Here are the top 18 channels, tactics & strategies to try in 2022...
📣 NEWSLETTER OPERATORS LISTEN UP...
Did you know you can "hack" Facebook ads to get THOUSANDS of new subscribers every week... for FREE?
Here's the 5-step playbook 👇
Niche newsletters are awesome, highly-profitable assets.
But most people who start one never even reach the 500 subscriber mark.
Here's the playbook I'd follow to go from zero to 10k subscribers in four months — for less than $3k...
All these newsletters with *crazy* growth trajectories…
Its almost like they’re all using some really amazing newsletter growth tool that most operators haven’t yet realized is genuinely game-changing 🤫
We announced
@BayAreaTimes
just over 2 months ago.
Today we cross 100,000 subscribers.
That is 5x growth in ~ 70 days.
One of fastest growing media properties on the internet.
No employees.
Welcome to the future.
After spending a year helping hundreds of founders become better at doing sales, I've noticed some interesting patterns.
For example, I can now pretty reliably predict if a new founder will be successful (or not) based on the sources of business advice they quote.
🎉 New payout record!
Soooo close to our first 6-figure payout in a single month to one newsletter operator... 🤯
(spoiler alert, it's already guaranteed to happen for several next month)
Rain ruined my plans for today, so let's try something different...
Newsletter creators — reply with:
1. a link to your newsletter
2. your current subscriber count (or revenue)
3. how often you send (daily/weekly etc)
... and I'll show you how I'd 2x it in 3 months or less!
This is the cold email I received from Kirill.
It's a very good cold email.
Not because of any 'hacks' or copywriting skills (although they are good).
But because he nails the fundamental, important stuff.
Let's take a look at what he got right, and what could be improved...
I'm on a mission to build the perfect newsletter landing page.
Step
#1
: My team spent two weeks building the library of 300+ high-converting newsletter landing pages... with real conversion rate data 🤯
Want it?
Comment "yes" and I'll DM you access to the full library 🤝
If you think about it, having newsletters show up in your email inbox makes about as much sense as having podcast episodes mixed in with your voicemails.
Let's say you have a product idea and 10 friends agree to each prepay < $100 for it.
Have you...
a) "validated" that there's demand for your product?
or
b) proven that you have at least 10 friends?
Run a newsletter that's *just* too small for sponsorships?
Here's a quick, fun and affordable way to grow your subscriber numbers *and* build relationships with potential sponsors...
Something important I’ve noticed recently:
The decisions and processes that allow a founder to build a $10-20k/month company are the exact same decisions and processes that prevent them from building a $100k/month company.
Doing outbound sales? Then you need to replace the concept of "follow-ups" with "nurturing"...
Too many founders mistakenly lead off with a 'big' ask (eg a demo call), and then "follow-up" 2-5x via email.
Instead, build up to the 'big' ask with a series of valuable small asks.
Absolutely speechless... Just used
@convertkit
,
@rightmessageapp
and
@podia
to set up segmentation and personalised funnels for the presales of my new online course.
What would have taken 100+ hours coding a few years ago took me all of 15mins and ~3 lines of code... 🔥🙏
@JonathanPieNews
And I said "what about Breakfast at Tiffany's"/
She said "I think I remember that film/
And as I recall, I think, we both agreed it was full of outdated attitudes, language and cultural depictions which may cause offence today"/
And I said "well that's the one thing we've got"
@stephsmithio
I really don't think this is true.
Almost *everyone* thinks they work harder than average. AFAICT, the most successful people I know definitely didn't.
Instead, IMO it's a mix of:
- working hard
- working smart
- luck
- optimising "surface area" for luck
- starting assets
Steal this newsletter trick 👇
My newsletter has a 65%+ open rate with thousands of subs and no list cleaning.
How?
I stole the idea of a "closing hook" from top YouTubers and applied it to my newsletter...
It's simple: At the end of each newsletter, tease the content of the
Amazing customer support is your founder superpower.
But most new founders *suck* at customer support. Especially technical founders.
Here are 8 customer support mistakes you probably don't even know you're making — and how to fix them 👇
I've been wanting to do one of those "two people chat weekly about growing their businesses" podcasts for a while now.
Know someone who'd be a good co-host?
Bonus points if they're...
✅ a female founder
✅ $0-10k monthly revenue
✅ in SaaS, ecommerce or info-products
Thanks!
Proud to say we finally passed the most significant milestone in becoming a "real" SaaS business this week...
Not one but *two* potential customers asked about a SalesForce integration 😇
The next most requested feature is building a newsletter referral system similar to The Hustle or Morning Brew. We worked with the team at
@SparkLoopHQ
to get everyone a free account.
Seeing the results from creators with early access is pretty impressive!
First up, what Kirill got right (the basics):
1. He hooks me with the value ("why should I care?")
2. He explains how (more on this later)
3. He gives relevant social proof of the value
4. He ends by *giving* something valuable *to* me, not *asking* for something *from* me
Just got out from an unexpected two weeks in hospital (recovering fine).
Working (slowly) through DMs and emails this week.
Not ignoring you, just exhausted :)
Celebrating a very "bro-ey" milestone today...
🗓 May '21: Benchpress 140kg
🗓 June '21: Get a nasty brain infection
🗓 August '21: Leave hospital, too weak to use stairs or lift a shopping bag
🗓 November '21: Manage one kneeling push-up
🗓 April '22: Benchpress 4x100kg ✅
Before I start writing a piece of content, I've started firing up an AI tool to see if it can do the work for me.
If it can, the piece probably wasn't worth writing in the first place.
bad news: we had to upgrade our infrastructure at SparkLoop and now pay ~2.5x more than before 😩
good news: it happened because 2 of the top ~1000 largest newsletters in the world started using SparkLoop at the same time (and we expect it to happen again in the future) 🥳
I have this small side project idea that I can't get out of my head.
Super easy for me to grow in 2-3h per week, but no time to (relearn how to) build it myself.
A decent dev could ship a version worth charging for in 2-3 days.
Where do I find the right dev to hire/partner?
Fun idea I've been playing around with for 2021...
- partner with a different newsletter creator each month
- spend 2h/week helping them grow their subscribers/revenue faster
- record *everything* and share it + the learnings/results as we go
What do we think?
So it turns out I've found the ultimate growth hack for my business...
All I have to do is set aside 4-5 hours for some deep focus work, and *BOOM* - a flood of emails and calls from potential customers who want to start paying ASAP!
Prediction: the hottest (non-dev) role in SaaS over the next 2-3 years is going to be in Partnerships.
Every SaaS company is waking up to how important this role is right now.
And proven candidates with experience (+ sales & marketing chops) are basically non-existent.
Here's a free tip from lesson
#1
:
To ensure you can easily find it, give your TextEdit notes file a memorable name.
Mine, for instance, is called "Untitled 2"
Somehow I forgot
@patio11
on that list.
If I had to guess at why their advice correlates more strongly with success, I'd point to their shared tendency to prioritise telling you what you *need* to hear over what you *want* to hear.
Good newsletters can grow 30-300% faster with a referral program.
But most don't... because they use the wrong referral rewards.
👇 Reply with a link to your newsletter — and I'll give you 2-3 referral reward ideas perfect for your audience 📈
So what DOES a good sales cycle look like for B2B SaaS?
What's a useful way to break down the steps involved?
Well - from teaching thousands of founders how to do sales - I think it should look something like this...
@earthlingworks
Unfair distribution advantage wins.
Could be a boatload of VC Money, could be amazing brand-building, could be a founding team with huge personal profiles/industry connections.
Trouble is, people never admit to their unfair advantages publicly. So you rarely realize it.
Trend you should be aware of:
Both
@FOS
and
@MorningBrew
are expanding from "news" products (ephemeral, low willingness-to-pay) into courses/professional development (long-term value, high WTP).
Very smart move. Expect more media brands to follow.
I just released my first ever YouTube video 🫠
There are 100 super obvious things I got wrong… but I’m putting it out there anyway.
Any and all feedback appreciated 🙏
Today I taught a live masterclass on newsletter growth.
700+ smart newsletter operators learnt how to grow to 10k subscribers — for free — by the end of 2023.
Here are the top six acquisition channels they (and you) NEED to use this year 👇
Started writing a quick blog post on how to grow your newsletter faster using cross-promotions and swaps...
A few hours later, it has ballooned into a 5k+ words playbook that anyone can implement to 10x their newsletter growth, for free 😅
Coming Tuesday 👀
Say you have a 10k sub newsletter...
📉 savings you'll make by choosing the cheapest email platform: ~$50/month
📈 extra revenue you'll make by choosing the best* email platform: $50'000+ per year
Smart newsletter operators don't choose based on price.
(*best for you)
Talked to a newsletter operator today — 10k subscribers — who will make over $3k this month from the
@SparkLoopHQ
Partner Network.
That's an extra $40k/year income. With basically no work involved.
This is huge.
Today I learned SparkLoop powers >95% of all paid newsletter recommendations 🤯
And I just got off a planning call for the feature that can take us to 99% this year!
So it looks like someone I sponsored & spent a lot of time giving advice/support last year is building a SparkLoop clone. Without even warning me.
I've gotten pretty good at dealing with sketchy people and not taking it personally over the years.
But this one hurts different.
It's funny how some of the qualities that make a founder *incredibly* effective at going from $0-10k MRR can also be the exact same things that hinder them from ever reaching $100k MRR.
Side project idea I'm kicking around:
> take 3-5 operators in early stages of building a media/newsletter business
> challenge them to see who can grow their email audience & revenue most by end of 2022
> winner gets $$$
> record & share weekly progress insights
Thoughts?
Does your newsletter have double-opt-in (email confirmation) enabled?
💡 "no" --> show new subscribers a thank-you page
💡 "yes" --> show new subscribers an "almost there" page... NOT a "thank-you" or "success" page
You. have no. idea. how. many. subs. this. is. costing. you.
@awilkinson
Having been a founder who made that silly mistake before, my $0.02 would be to try extra hard to make sure the founder knows this is how you operate.
If they're scared to share something, that's at least partly on you. They're worried about your reaction to the bad news.
I want to outsource some content creation.
But any content worth creating requires too much niche/customer knowledge to be viable to outsource.
Is there a solution for this?
Bracing myself for the inevitable book launch in 6-12 months, detailing at great lengths why it’s smarter, more ethical business to drastically reduce headcount and have a small, close-knit team with a singular, distraction-free mindset.
Joined a paid community a few days ago.
So far, not a single person has welcomed me or prompted me to introduce myself.
The probability of me becoming an engaged member of the community is extremely low.
Such a simple thing...
Trying something fun...
Do you have a product you'd like to get in front of more of the right people?
Shoot me a DM and I'll match you with up to 3 suitable newsletter creators who'll share your product with their audience *for free*.
Any kind of product.
Would you feel nervous/uncomfortable asking customers to pay if you worked at McDonalds?
No?
Then why should you feel any different when it comes to your SaaS product?
Last week, a newsletter operator told me they want to grow from 5k to 10k subscribers by Dec. 31st.
It took ~20min to set them up with the beta of our new
@SparkLoopHQ
Upscribe tool.
Even if they never spend another minute working on growth, they'll hit 10k subs by Christmas.
@shl
The right cofounder > no cofounder > the wrong cofounder
It's very, very difficult to tell if a cofounder is the right fit or not. So no cofounder is the safest option (but not the best possible outcome).
Why people will open your newsletter today:
❌ ... because you wrote a great subject line
✅ ... because they see your name pop up in their inbox and remember they enjoyed your last email
Theory: Founders who don't put up a landing page until *after* they have acquired 3+ customers are **significantly** more likely to succeed.
#indiehackers
Serious question:
If you've been building a product and now you "need to figure out who your target customer is"...
... who have you been building the product for up till now?
Tomorrow I'm interviewing
@bentossell
for the Sales For Founders podcast!
Ben is the founder of
@makerpad
& an awesome marketer who's probably *the* expert in no-code building today!
Have a question for Ben? LMK & I'll get an answer!
Plus, his revenue growth looks like this...