Cash Machines

"Tom, why do you share your revenue numbers on Linkedin?"

Was a question asked of me by a business colleague recently...

And it made me think... why do I do it?

• Because it gets more attention? Probably
• Because it helps people? Probably
• Because I like it? Probably

But ultimately... I do it, because I can.

There is no investor there to make rules about what we can share and what we can't. So why not?

In this episode of Confessions Of A B2B Marketer I share:

👉 Why we moved our treasury to Bitcoin
👉 What happened when we acquired another podcast agency
👉 Where the new clients came from
👉 Lesson's from this growth you can apply to growing your marketing team

Enjoy this episode... and please don't share it with our competitors ;)

P.S.

And of course, we can't forget our sponsor: Ahrefs Webmaster Tools.

Sign up to get these three things for free:

1. Backlink alerts
2. SEO health
3. Keyword tracking

It's a no brainer ;)💡 Want a personalised takeaway from this episode? Answer 2 quick questions and get a custom action plan in your inbox: https://forms.fame.so/confessions-of-a-b2b-entrepreneur?ep=v85x412n

Corey is on a journey.

A journey through the world of marketing: from student to growth lead to thought leader.

It all started many years ago when Corey joined an early stage tech business in Los Angeles as their first marketing hire... doing a little bit of everything. 

And he fell in love...

Now I've seen Corey around for the past few years:

👉 Always adding value
👉 Always growing cool things

Since spending a couple of years growing Baremetrics, Corey has ventured out on his own with a few marketing focussed ventures.

And, so I had to bring him on the show to learn a few things:

👉 How he got started on his marketing journey
👉 How the personal brand that Baremetrics helped him grow is helping him on his entrepreneurial journey
👉 What marketers should stop doing

We touch upon a few solid marketing nuggets AND learn more about how Corey leverages social, reputation and his network to build and grow new marketing focussed businesses.

Here are some additional links from Corey:

• Swipe Files: https://www.swipefiles.com (discount code: CONFESSIONS)
• Everything Is Marketing Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/everything-is-marketing/id1549291757
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/coreyhainesco

Thanks for listening... any feedback please leave it in the form of an Apple Podcasts rating and review or just hit me up directly on [email protected].

Keep growing,
Tom - SaaS Marketer

And of course, we can't forget our sponsor: Ahrefs Webmaster Tools.

Sign up to get these three things for free:

1. Backlink alerts
2. SEO health
3. Keyword tracking

We use Ahrefs to track SEO progress for both Fame and bCast... you should too!

And finally, if you would like a shout out on the show... simply head to Apple Podcasts, leave a rating and review and then send me a screenshot to [email protected]
💡 Want a personalised takeaway from this episode? Answer 2 quick questions and get a custom action plan in your inbox: https://forms.fame.so/confessions-of-a-b2b-entrepreneur?ep=q80w51kn

Nick has no SEO experience.

He's a sales person.

Yep somehow... he's been able to generate insanely good results for the clients of Content Distribution (we're talking from 0 to 400k organic sessions in months not years).

How?

Well this lack of SEO experience actually helps Nick... instead of hinders him. It means that he can ignore SEO dogma from previous Google Updates that are no longer relevant.

It's a simple approach to SEO:

👉 On page metrics now matter more than backlinks👉 Improve on page metrics by finding better writers and making posts longer👉 Hire expats living in cheaper countries👉 Aim for $150-200 per 2k word articles👉 Build the writing system and then scale FAST
Nick just executes this better than anyone else. Fortunately for us, he breaks this down in more detail in the podcast episode so you can set this up for your B2B business, without having to pay an agency... though feel free to reach out to Nick if you do have budget for their services!

We then move on to understand how Nick has built Content Distribution up to a team of 25 employees and also their internal SaaS product Cluster.ai to over 1,000 users.

Nick initially built Cluster.ai to help with their internal keyword research and has since released the product out into the world with a SaaS model... similar to what we are doing with Fame (agency) and bCast (SaaS).

Here are some additional links from Nick:

• 0 to 479,000 organics/month in 16 months: https://contentdistribution.com/seo-case-study
• Cluster.ai: https://contentdistribution.com/keyword-grouping-tool
• SEO & Content Marketing: https://facebook.com/groups/contentdistributionengine
• Building Stronger Remote Teams: https://web.facebook.com/groups/strongerremoteteams

Thanks for listening... any feedback please leave it in the form of an Apple Podcasts rating and review or just hit me up directly on [email protected].

Keep growing,
Tom - SaaS Marketer

And of course, we can't forget our sponsor: Ahrefs Webmaster Tools.

Sign up to get these three things for free:

1. Backlink alerts
2. SEO health
3. Keyword tracking

We use Ahrefs to track SEO progress for both Fame and bCast... you should too!

And finally, if you would like a shout out on the show... simply head to Apple Podcasts, leave a rating and review and then send me a screenshot to [email protected]💡 Want a personalised takeaway from this episode? Answer 2 quick questions and get a custom action plan in your inbox: https://forms.fame.so/confessions-of-a-b2b-entrepreneur?ep=183x73ln

Around August last year I started to get some heat in our Facebook Group.

One group member was having doubts about the lifetime deal we were running on AppSumo at the time.

His doubts centre around my flaky work history and the potential  unsustainability of the deal.

His suggestion to others in the group was that maybe they would purchase the deal, only for the business to go bust in six months, causing everyone to lose their investment.

It's a fair argument. I don't blame this person, or others for thinking this.

The only logical step was for us to both jump on a podcast episode to has out these differences.

​So here we are.

It just so happens that Vineet Devaiah (CEO of Teliportme) is an experienced entrepreneur himself...

​So we discuss:

• Vineet's story
• Vineet's beef with bCast
• The pros and cons of AppSumo

Enjoy...
Big news... Ahrefs FREE Webmaster Tools have signed up to sponsor the podcast for six whole months... massive.

During this time I will be taking you on a journey of how I used Ahrefs every single day to tweak and improve our SEO for Fame, bCast and SaaS Marketer.

More on this in future episodes... but for now... if you haven't signed up for these free tools, then you will need to if you're going to follow along in this journey.

Do that here: Ahrefs FREE Webmaster Tools.💡 Want a personalised takeaway from this episode? Answer 2 quick questions and get a custom action plan in your inbox: https://forms.fame.so/confessions-of-a-b2b-entrepreneur?ep=vnwv46k8

Approximately four years ago, I spent 6 hours detailing how we bootstrapped the build of our software business: Virtual Valley.

I then published this onto the blog of an up and coming influencer marketing/outreach tool: Ninja Outreach.

Ninja Outreach were a few steps ahead of us:

• They had significant MRR
• A small team
• An awesome CEO

That CEO was Dave Schneider.

Dave went on to grow Ninja Outreach and ultimately sell it.

He now runs health and wellness eCommerce agency: Shortlist.

I wanted to bring Dave onto the show to understand:

• How he built Ninja Outreach
• Why he sold Ninja Outreach
• And why he transitioned into starting an agency

Take a listen... and let me know if I achieved these things!

Keep growing,

Tom - SaaS Marketer

(Originally posted here: https://saasmarketer.io/selling-a-saas-then-starting-an-agency-with-dave-schneider-ceo-at-shortlist)💡 Want a personalised takeaway from this episode? Answer 2 quick questions and get a custom action plan in your inbox: https://forms.fame.so/confessions-of-a-b2b-entrepreneur?ep=28x2mr38

The last few months have been solid.

Solid growth...

Both from bCast (podcast hosting SaaS) and Fame (podcast hosting agency).

Here are the stats:

Nov 18, 2020:

• bCast $250 MRR
• Fame $14k MRR

Jan 10, 2020:

• bCast $400 MRR
• Fame $20k MRR

Slow but steady progress…

In this podcast episode I share:

• More details on why I think these numbers are going up
• The top three focuses for each business in 2021
• What I think I need to do in 2021 in order to hit our revenue goals

Enjoy!

(Originally posted here: https://saasmarketer.io/ep-017-january-income-report-2021-goals)💡 Want a personalised takeaway from this episode? Answer 2 quick questions and get a custom action plan in your inbox: https://forms.fame.so/confessions-of-a-b2b-entrepreneur?ep=vnwvly48

I used to be Head Of Marketing at a B2B SaaS...

I remember sipping my black coffee early one gloomy afternoon in London, exhuasted from an active morning of meetings... just refreshing my email.

And something pops up... that initially I coudn't understand.

It was like no cold email I had ever seen before... and it had came from Geoff Atkinson of Huckabuy.

I won't go into the details here as Geoff does a better job of that in the full episode.

What I will say is that it will blow your mind...

We then go on to discuss:

• Other cold email strategies
• How Huckbuy are currently getting customers
• Why Geoff thinks that SEO should be a crucial part of your growth plan

Enjoy and of course... check out:

• Huckabuy
• Geoff On Linkedin

And yes... if you have ANYTHING to say about this episode... jump over to Apple and leave a review... as always, if you do, I will get you a shout out on the show :)

This episode is brought to you by Ahrefs super, freaking, awesome, free Webmaster Tools.

You can:

• Monitor the health of your site
• Check for backlinks
• See which keywords are working for you

By simply signing up here.

(+9026 people signed up in the past 7 days!)

Originally posted here: https://saasmarketer.io/saas-cold-email💡 Want a personalised takeaway from this episode? Answer 2 quick questions and get a custom action plan in your inbox: https://forms.fame.so/confessions-of-a-b2b-entrepreneur?ep=p8l242l8

After our previous episode, Sujan causally mentioned that he would love to talk further about growing bCast...

I jumped at the chance and asked Sujan if he would be happy to record them: he was.

We didn't speak about it again until we jumped on another call to record... I think Sujan did approx. 5 minutes of research before. He then proceeded to brain dump 4 MASSIVE growth strategies for bCast:

•  Focus on features that help existing customers GROW
•  10x SEO volume
•  Pure backlink hustle
•  Get to know the influences

We could have gone on for another 30 minutes, but we only had 30 minutes to record.

Each of these have been put into practice since we recorded approx. a week ago and I will update you with how we do right here on this blog. We may even bring Sujan back on in 6-12 months to debrief on progress.

Check out:

• Sujan's blog
• Sujan's Twitter
• Mailshake

Also... thanks for reading/listening and of course... if you jump over to Apple and leave a review... always, if you can leave a review I will get you and your business a shout out on the show!

This episode is brought to you by Ahrefs super, freaking, awesome, free Webmaster Tools.

You can:

• Monitor the health of your site
• Check for backlinks
• See which keywords are working for you

By simply signing up here.

(+9026 people signed up in the past 7 days!)

(Originally posted here: https://saasmarketer.io/ep-015-sujan-patel-shares-4-saas-growth-strategies-for-bcast)

💡 Want a personalised takeaway from this episode? Answer 2 quick questions and get a custom action plan in your inbox: https://forms.fame.so/confessions-of-a-b2b-entrepreneur?ep=pnl2qq5n

Sujan Patel is on a rampage.

He’s leveraging agency cashflow and a strong personal brand built by a book downloaded 50k times into the growth of Mailshake – a monster of a sales cadence SaaS.

I HAD to understand more about Sujan’s strategy, we discussed:

• How much organic traffic Mailshake is getting (HINT: it was over 300k sessions in Sept 2020)
• How they get MASSIVE backlinks
• The benefit of AppSumo
• Why every marketer should spend time working in an agency
• Sujan’s favourite link building strategy
• Why each marketer should build a personal brand
• Mailshakes first (and final) growth strategy

Overall… the theme of the discussion was long term thinking.

“Focus on the long term, don’t try and milk the value today.”
I loved this chat so much… Sujan is going to come back on to give feedback on the bCast growth strategy live on the show this week. Can’t wait for you to hear that.

Check out:

• Sujan’s blog
• Sujan’s Twitter
• Mailshake
• How I Made $342k From an eBook Without Amazon Kindle
• How I Sold 40K+ Copies of My Ebook
  
  

Also… thanks for reading/listening and of course… if you jump over to Apple and leave a review… always, if you can leave a review I will get you and your business a shout out on the show!

Originally published here.

💡 Want a personalised takeaway from this episode? Answer 2 quick questions and get a custom action plan in your inbox: https://forms.fame.so/confessions-of-a-b2b-entrepreneur?ep=5nzzqkwn

AJ had a problem.

People were signing up for his Gmail SaaS product: GMass, but a big segment of them didn’t know what to do.

The hard part had been done… he had convinced people to invest their time and money into his tool. They just got lost after sign up.

So what did he do?

Built what I believe to be one of the smoothest onboarding flows in the history of SaaS.

He takes the users through the process of building a mail merge in their Gmail inbox… and then actually sends it to test email addresses.

His users now understand what they need to do AND more importantly, have the belief that they can do it (as they were just guided through the process).

They can also now see the value of the tool as the evidence is left right there in their inbox.

I first wrote about this here approximately a year ago… and just had to bring Ajay on to the show to learn more about:

• Why he built this flow
• The impact this flow had
• How GMass has grown to over $130k MRR

Anyway… thanks for reading/listening and as always, if you can leave a review for the podcast on Apple I will get you and your business a shout out on the show!
Originally published here.💡 Want a personalised takeaway from this episode? Answer 2 quick questions and get a custom action plan in your inbox: https://forms.fame.so/confessions-of-a-b2b-entrepreneur?ep=0njj3j5n