David Dulany is the founder and CEO of Tenbound, a research and advisory firm focused and dedicated 100% to sales development performance improvement. He is also author of "The sales development framework: How to build and scale highly productive sales development program." We talked about his book, naturally, but we talked a lot less about the art and science of selling than you might think. His sales development framework spends a lot of time on culture and leadership and being proactive, and building a plan. It's an exercise in speeding up by slowing down. His framework will help you see precisely how to set up a successful sales development team in your company.

More about David:

* On Linkedin

* David’s company, Tenbound:

* The Book

In this episode, Bill Cushard talks about the difference between defensive customer success and offensive customer success; and how to move from one to the other. Most software companies probably engage in defensive customers success, which is designed to retain customers. High-performing software companies engage in offensive customer success and grow customers. The question Bill addresses is how to move from being defensive to being offensive.

Two ways:

Step 1: Start measuring net revenue retention (NRR).

Step 2: Redesign the company business model so that value propositions on the business model canvas align to the revenue streams, so that all a customer success has to do is help customers achieve the value propositions, such that it naturally flows to purchasing additional products and services.

Enjoy the episode.

Three-time Helping Sells Radio guest Donna Weber is back with her new book, Onboarding matters: How successful companies transform new customers into loyal customers. You know that expression, "an ounce of prevention is worth if pound of cure?" Well, that's what onboarding is; a proactive prevention prescription for customer success. Whatever your downstream customer problem, chances are you can follow the flow upstream to a solution of improved onboarding. Donna calls it orchestrated onboarding.

More about Donna:

* Her book: Onboarding Matters: https://www.amazon.com/Onboarding-Matters-Successful-Companies-Transform-ebook/dp/B091BH8SZ1

* Her website: http://www.donnaweber.com

* On Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/donnaweber

* Donna was on episode 109 and episode 38.

Wayne McCulloch is one of the world’s leading customer success experts and a Top 100 Customer Success Strategist. Wayne McCulloch works with Google Cloud’s entire SaaS portfolio as the Customer Success Leader. He’s a keynote speaker and the recipient of multiple industry awards with more than twenty-five years of experience in customer-focused roles.

His new book is out; “The seven pillars of customer success: A proven framework to drive impactful client outcomes for your company.” We talked about implementing customer success in a variety of business models, what customer success is really responsible for, and how someone can use his book to implement customer success in way that fits their business.

For more information about The Seven Pillars, including downloadable templates and training and certification materials, visit www.cspillars.com.

Here's a lesson in customer education. Coinbase is hiring a director of content to "Make Coinbase *the* place to go to learn about crypto in a way that is easy to understand and approachable."

Two observations:

* Coinbase aims to "create a market" of crypto investors, Wall Street analysts, journalists, policy makers and regulators in order to grow the entire pie......AND build trust. Creating a market is the ultimate goal of customer education......which is outlined in the Customer Education Growth Framework. More here: https://lnkd.in/gX8hz8b

* Coinbase is aiming to be the "Go-To" in the #cryptocurrency space. Something Theresa Lina describes in her book "Be the Go-To." I get to meet Theresa on Helping Sells Radio and discuss her book. Though we've had to reschedule because of me.

Assignment: Fill in the rest of this sentence that Coinbase put in their job description for this role: "Make ___(your software company name)______________ *the* place to go to learn about __________(your market category)____________" in a way that is easy to understand and approachable."

By the way......here is a link to that job description: https://lnkd.in/giGxcf7

Mickie Kennedy is the Founder and President of eReleases, the small business leader for press release distribution, now celebrating 22 years in business. He is an expert at helping small businesses increase their visibility and credibility and he’s here today to share some valuable insights.

We talked about how to increase credibility using press releases, how PR helps you close more sales, and how to hone your unique selling proposition to make you irresistible to the media.

More about Mickie:

* His company: eReleases

* On Linkedin

* Free master class: How to build a PR campaign designed to get massive media coverage

This is Rav Dhaliwal's second appearance on Helping Sells Radio. See Episode 208. Rav is an investor and venture partner at Crane Venture Partners. He previously led customer success organizations at Slack, Zendesk, and Yammer, and before that support at Salesforce and IBM. 

We talked about his latest article, "The missing piece of software sales" in which he makes the case that the way we create and service software products has changed, but the way we sell it has stayed the same. And it's holding us back. The missing piece of software sales is a business model innovation that Rav says more software companies need to embrace.

More about Rav:

* His article: The missing piece of software sales

* On Linkedin

* Crane Venture Partners

Jonathan L.S. Byrnes is a senior lecturer at MIT and acknowledged authority on profitability management. His extensive experience spans virtually every industry, including healthcare, transportation, software, retail, financial services, distribution, and others. He is chairman of Profit Isle, a SaaS solution that enables ongoing profit growth.

Jonathan is here to talk about his new book, Choose your customer: How to compete against the digital giants and thrive. We talked about a new way to segment customers and that is based on profit. He describes in his book three profit segments into which we should place our customers: profit peaks, profit drains, and profit deserts. Jonathan argues that the way to compete against the digital giants, and win, is to segment customers into these three profit segments and organize your entire management system around these three segments. Each segment requires a different approach, a different strategy, and a different team. Yes, a different team.

More about Jonathan:

* Get the book.

* His software company, Profit Isle

* More about Jonathan at MIT

Ian Bower is the founder of Graphic Rhythm, an innovative graphic design firm that helps small businesses build customer confidence and loyalty through strong visual content. We talked about the importance of bolting a design agency to your business, how to create images that convert, and most importantly for me, how to communicate effectively with a designer or design agency.

Ian and the team at Graphic Rhythm is offering Helping Sells Radio listeners $100 off their first month on any Daily Design Subscription. Just click here to learn more.

More about Ian:

* Ian on Linkedin

* His company Graphic Rhythm

Anika Zubair is the VP of customer success at InSided, a customer success community platform aimed at customer success teams and community professionals looking to increase engagement, advocacy, and effectively gather product feedback. Anika is also co-Founder and community leader at the London Customer Success Meetup.

I'm not done.  

She is host of two podcasts, InSide Scoop on Customer Success and The Customer Success Channel.

More about Anika:

* Anika on Linkedin

* The London Customer Success Meetup

* The InSide Scoop on Customer Success podcast

* The Customer Success Channel podcast