Leveling Up with Eric Siu

Tune in to hear some incredible tactics to get your consulting business up off the ground! These strategies will apply for agencies and consultants alike.

We talk about why community is the ultimate unfair advantage and why now is the best time to build one!

HubSpot has grown into one of the most credible names in the marketing and sales game in the last few years and we are lucky enough to have Kieran Flanagan, their VP of Marketing on the show today! If you listen to this podcast it is more than likely you know a lot about HubSpot already as we often refer to them, as happy customers of the company and having had a few of their team on the show already. The focus of today's conversation is Kieran's work on the freemium project at HubSpot and the impact that this initiative had on the company and their progress going forward. We speak about freemium and who it might work for; Kieran believes it is not a surefire way to success for every kind of company and links its usefulness to HubSpot to their product-led model. We also get some great insight into the company and how they approach tasks and challenges and Kieran breaks down their pod method for creating teams. Tune in to get it all!

TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES:

• [00:19] Before we jump into today’s interview, please rate, review, and subscribe to the Leveling Up Podcast!
• [01:08] Kieran's career path, moving from coding to marketing and SaaS.
• [01:54] The GrowthTLDR Podcast that Kieran cohosts currently. 
• [03:18] Kieran's place at HubSpot and a little of the company's journey.
• [05:04] The freemium offer from HubSpot and Kieran's experiences on this project.
• [09:25] Kieran's position on freemium offers and who they might serve.
• [11:30] Reasons that HubSpot has experienced its particular successes.
• [12:28] Kieran's systems for the marketing team for growth and customer acquisition.
• [16:33] The pod structure for integrations with companies and promotion. 
• [19:04] Who gets selected for each pod and how the process works at HubSpot.
• [19:57] Content and playbooks; models for automated cluster building and more.
• [23:25] Courses and the academy that are readily available to customers.
• [24:51] Kieran's use of podcasts for learning and improving in the realm of growth.
• [25:52] Team-focussed strategies and creating an empowering environment.
• [26:04] Kieran's favorite business book and most-used tool for his job!

Resources From The Interview:

• Kieran Flanagan on Twitter

• Must read book: Sprint

Leave Some Feedback:

• What should I talk about next? Who should I interview? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments below.

• Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review here

• Subscribe to Leveling Up on iTunes

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Connect with Eric Siu: 

• Growth Everywhere

• Single Grain

• Eric Siu on Twitter

Recently, a couple of entrepreneur friends (+ their families) did something genius that I thought I'd share. Everything is negotiable. During times where the economy is practically shut down, you can find deals in almost every sector. Whether it's booking a great AirBnb to get a peaceful getaway or getting discounts on that software you always wanted to try, these tips will help you destress and enjoy the moment.

Marketing teams know one thing, sales another, and Founder-CEOs yet another, but having a positioning expert in the middle of them all can tease out a bunch of value for a young B2B company. Most people tend to conflate positioning with branding, but the truth is that the former is a more fundamental step in the journey to refining corporate identity. Today’s guest is April Dunford, a positioning expert, entrepreneur, angel investor, advisor, and author of Obviously Awesome. She joins us on the show to discuss the positioning methodology in her book, lend insight into her consultation process, and sketch out some of the value she is able to add to her clients’ scaling journey in that respect. April works mostly with smaller B2B businesses helping them define their services and ideal client. In today’s episode, we hear about April's career trajectory as a multiple vice president to positioning consultant, having worked with successful startups and global giants in the tech space. April defines positioning for listeners before getting into the five steps that a company should take in order to get a laser-sharp focus on their exact product and ideal customer before taking that data froward into a sales pitch and marketing campaign. For a load of great value and information about positioning, and to learn how you can take your B2B business to the next level, make sure you hear what April has to say.

TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES:

• [00:20] Before we jump into today’s interview, please rate, review, and subscribe to the Leveling Up Podcast!
• [00:39] April’s focus on startup positioning and acquisition/divestiture for larger firms.
• [00:58] Why April moved from being a vice president to focusing on positioning. 
• [01:45] How Obviously Awesome gives April’s positioning methods for distant clients.
• [02:22] Tech giants April worked for such as IBM, Nortel, Sybase, and Siebel.
• [03:50] What positioning is: finding one’s market and niche in a nutshell.
• [05:39] How April repositioned a database product as a data warehouse to great success.
• [07:55] The five steps to arriving at your company’s positioning.
• [07:56] Competition, unique capabilities, value, customer segmentation, and market category.
• [09:46] How to think through the five steps in the correct order.
• [09:50] Finding out what one’s best customers would use if your business did not exist.
• [10:40] Figuring out what one has that one’s competitive alternatives don’t.
• [10:51] Applying the ‘so what’ question to gauge the validity of one’s competitive features.
• [11:11] Arriving at one’s value themes: the basis of one’s value proposition for customers.
• [11:26] Defining a good B2B customer as businesses that would benefit from one’s values.
• [11:40] Figuring out which market category to dominate using the last two steps.
• [12:03] Taking positioning and turning it into a pitch and branding starting point.
• [12:24] Companies April has worked with which grew from small to large, through positioning.
• [14:28] How April helps companies clarify vague, broad definitions of target audience.
• [16:19] The way April generated huge revenue from a single ad through knowing her audience.
• [16:50] How April structure her services through a two-day positioning workshop.
• [18:07] Pricing structures that April uses for her amazing services.
• [18:44] Must read books for April: Crossing the Chasm, Four Steps to the Epiphany...

Resources From The Interview:

• April Dunford
• April Dunford on LinkedIn
• April Dunford on Twitter

• Obviously Awesome

• Jana Systems
• Nortel
• IBM
• Siebel
• Sybase

• Crossing the Chasm

• The Lean Startup

• Four Steps to the Epiphany

• Challenger Sale

• Challenger Customer

• Zoom

Leave Some Feedback:

• What should I talk about next? Who should I interview? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments below.

• Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review here

• Subscribe to Leveling Up on iTunes

• Get the non-iTunes RSS Feed

Connect with Eric Siu: 

• Growth Everywhere

• Single Grain

• Eric Siu on Twitter

1. Instead of being upset at lost revenues, they're pumped about new opportunities.
2. Instead of being worried about the short term outlook, they know they'll emerge stronger than ever.
3. They take EXTRA good care of their team during this time (even the ones that were let go).

Today using funnels for conversions seems like a vital part of marketing your products but so much of that is thanks to our guest for today, Russel Brunson. Russel is the CEO of Click Funnels, a SaaS product that provides everything you need to market, sell, and deliver your products and services online through funnels. Click Funnels is approaching $200 million in revenue and they haven't raised a cent in venture capital, so our conversation with Russel today is mostly about the funneling strategies they use to make this possible. First up though, Russel tells the story of Click Funnels’ conception, which involves his initial entrepreneurial ambition of selling DVDs containing instructions for making potato guns. After learning about sales funnels through this venture, and then developing Click Funnels, Russel found that nobody even knew what sales funnels were. We hear from him about how this problem led him to write all his books, which both act as instruction manuals for using and optimizing funnels but also behave as funnels for his company. This leads Russel to speak about the other clever ways he converts people into customers and keeps Click Funnels growing, such as webinars and challenges. Other interesting tidbits from today’s episode are the stories of how Russel made $3.2 million selling Click Funnels to the audience of Grant Cardone’s 10X event, and how Apple completely blocked his number one podcast. As you’ll find out in this episode, Russel’s love of storytelling is a key feature of his success, so make sure you catch this interview. 

TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES:

• [00:21] Before we jump into today’s interview, please rate, review, and subscribe to the Leveling Up Podcast!
• [00:22] An intro into Russel, Click Funnels, and their revenue despite raising no venture dollars.
• [00:57] Potato gun sales funnels and how that led to Russel’s partner coding Click Funnels.
• [02:24] How Click Funnels makes money through tiered SaaS subscriptions.
• [03:04] Russel’s use of funnels in such a way that Click Funnels doesn’t pay for growth.
• [04:24] Funnel shelf lives and how Russel rotates through different funnels to keep fresh.
• [06:29] How Russel’s books guided customers to see they needed his product.
• [06:30] Using, optimizing and getting people into funnels: Russel’s three books.
• [10:16] Marketing Click Funnels to different communities through Funnel Hack events.
• [12:09] How customers’ need for Click Funnels informs Russel’s view on giving free content.
• [13:46] Why Russel shut down his lucrative mastermind at the top of his funnel.
• [14:28] Russel’s love of storytelling and why he wants Click Funnels to be worth $1 billion.
• [15:15] Storytelling over techno-babble: learning how to sell your product.
• [17:11] How Russel sold $3.2 million worth of SaaS on stage one year and failed the next.
• [20:13] Russel’s confusion around why his podcast got choked by Apple.
• [17:11] The top three funnels that work the best: books, webinars, and challenges.
• [21:57] Timeframes for when Russel makes new funnels.
• [22:26] Russel’s must-read books and favorite business tools.

Resources From The Interview:

• Click Funnels
• Russel Brunson

• DotCom Secrets

• Expert Secrets

• Traffic Secrets

• Unlock the Secrets

• Funnel Hacking Live
• Gabe Schillinger
• 10X Growth Con
• Traffic Secrets Website
• Expert Secrets Website
• Secret Funnel Strategy Webinars
• One Funnel Away
• Salesforce
• Opidis
• Joovv

• Must read book: Behind the Cloud, American Kingpin

Leave Some Feedback:

• What should I talk about next? Who should I interview? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments below.

• Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review here

• Subscribe to Leveling Up on iTunes

• Get the non-iTunes RSS Feed

Connect with Eric Siu: 

• Growth Everywhere

• Single Grain

• Eric Siu on Twitter

Should you create content in today's climate? In today's episode Eric talks about how to deal with imposter syndrome and how to build a habit around making content.

During these unprecedented times, Eric is opening up a live Q+A to help you protect your mental clarity and grow your business. You see, it doesn't matter how good you are at marketing and sales if your mind isn't screwed on right during turbulent times.

If your mind isn't screwed on right, you're screwed. Your mindset will affect your diet, how often you train, how you sleep, how you communicate and much more. Sometimes, life comes at you and you have to learn how to weather the storm. That's the theme for right now: to navigate the rough seas. 

ConvertKit is one of the biggest success stories of the 2010s online business world. Today we are joined by their founder and CEO Nathan Barry! Nathan started ConvertKit after realizing the value of email marketing and the ways in which companies were missing important parts of the service he envisaged. We get to hear about this part of the story, leading up to the beginnings of the company and then the early successes that they experienced after launching. A completely transparent company, Nathan shares a lot of vital and interesting statistics from ConvertKit before we get into Nathan's strategy for targeting new customers that has served them so well. He also emphasizes the importance of storytelling at ConvertKit, believing that customers do not only buy into the service but also the story. We discuss product-led growth, ConvertKit's recent adoption of the freemium model and public appearances that Nathan makes at the moment, so do not miss it!

TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES:

• [00:21] Before we jump into today’s interview, please rate, review, and subscribe to the Leveling Up Podcast!
• [00:44] The full range of services offered by ConvertKit and their company mission.
• [01:08] Nathan's background in design, blogging, and writing, and how this led to ConvertKit.
• [02:59] Early days at ConvertKit and the success they experienced from the get-go.
• [04:02] Nathan's approach to entrepreneurship and why he chooses to focus on one company.
• [07:29] Growth phases for the company and how long it took to get up to 100k MRR.
• [10:17] The pricing model at ConvertKit and how they charge. 
• [10:57] Important numbers from the business and their choice to be transparent.
• [11:53] Smart targeting and the lessons that Nathan learned about zeroing in. 
• [15:01] Nathan's social media strategy and becoming visible to new prospects.
• [15:57] ConvertKit's choice to make the shift to a freemium model recently. 
• [19:56] Benefits of a great free and product-led growth.
• [21:10] The role of webinars and podcasts in the trajectory of ConvertKit.
• [24:50] How many podcast appearances Nathan makes at the moment.
• [25:53] Nathan's must-read book recommendation!
• [26:21] A great tool for business growth according to Nathan.
• [27:32] The founder and company that Nathan is currently following.

Resources From The Interview:

• ConvertKit

• App Design Handbook

• Must read book: Anything You Want

Leave Some Feedback:

• What should I talk about next? Who should I interview? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments below.

• Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review here

• Subscribe to Leveling Up on iTunes

• Get the non-iTunes RSS Feed

Connect with Eric Siu: 

• Growth Everywhere

• Single Grain

• Eric Siu on Twitter

Raising capital is an essential part of a founder’s journey, and until recently this process has been rife with barriers due to legal restrictions since the Securities Act of 1933. Enter today’s guest, Howard Marks, who has been working to democratize the capital raising space in his capacity as CEO and founder of StartEngine. Howard’s firm helps startups raise capital more easily by utilizing recent Reg D, Reg Crowdfunding, and Reg A Plus legislation, thereby bringing them closer to achieving their dreams. We kick off our chat with Howard hearing about his fundamental mission to help all entrepreneurs succeed and the amazing updates at StartEngine since the last time he came on the show, such as how they have raised over 150 million dollars so far! He talks about the extremely low price point StartEngine sets funding barrier at, before sharing the three things that any company seeking funding should be doing. We get into some of the legalities around capital raising in the history of the US, and Howard reiterates how recent lifts on restrictions is allowing StartEngine to remove the barriers to deal flow for angels. He shares some of the ways he vets new companies looking to raise capital and also talks about common mistakes entrepreneurs make during this process. Our conversation digs a little deeper into Howard’s philosophy of setting an ‘impossibly’ high goal for his company, and he explains how it all fits into the foundational ideas of the American Dream. Our chat winds down with some of Howards most favorite books, useful tools, and an argument for why Tesla is such an inspiring company. Make sure not to miss this great conversation about new developments in the capital raising space!

TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES:

[00:41] Before we jump into today’s interview, please rate, review, and subscribe to the Leveling Up Podcast![00:58] The mission at StartEngine and updates on its progress.[03:17] Allowing investors to invest in companies earlier; LiquidPiston’s success story. [05:58] The extremely low bar StartEngine sets funding rounds at.[06:20] The catch: not all companies can drive the excitement that LiquidPiston did.[06:37] Three things any company looking to raise money should do.[08:39] Removing barriers to deal flow (the name of the game in the VC world). [10:05] How regulations to investing implemented in the 1920s were lifted somewhat in 2012.[12:00] The five-week process that companies need to undergo to work with StartEngine. [13:56] How StartEngine vets the value of companies seeking funding.[15:33] Legal red tape to raising money publicly or privately since 1933.[17:09] Newer, more open regulations since 2016 that StartEngine works within.[20:14] Whether funding according to Regulation C could get you sued or not.[23:32] Mistakes many young entrepreneurs make raising capital around work and execution.[25:58] Capital raising, the American Dream, and why StartEngine’s mission is so big.[28:40] The value of having an unattainable vision for reaching further.[30:40] Why the leadership and software at StartEngine outdo their competitors.[31:26] Shattered dreams, raising wrong, and the story of Howard’s work with Sugarfina.[36:35] Where investors can go to buy a business or merge with a company.[40:20] Howard’s favorite book, business tool, and company.

Resources From The Interview:

• Howard Marks on LinkedIn
• Howard Marks’ Blog
• Activision
• StartEngine
• LiquidPiston
• Lyft
• Uber
• Tesla
• Apple Pay
• Marc Andreessen
• Sequoia
• Charles Schwab
• Kickstarter
• Knightscope
• Clickflow
• Ford Motors
• Microsoft
• Josh Resnick
• Sugarfina
• Rosie O’Neill
• Flippa
• FE International

• Zero To One

• Lean Startup

• Innovator's Dilemma

• Slack
• Google Docs
• WordPerfect
• Elon Musk
• Oaktree Capital
• Howard Marks of Oaktree
• Must read book: Sapiens, The Fountainhead, Business of Platforms

Leave Some Feedback:

• What should I talk about next? Who should I interview? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments below.

• Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review here

• Subscribe to Leveling Up on iTunes

• Get the non-iTunes RSS Feed

Connect with Eric Siu: 

• Growth Everywhere

• Single Grain

• Eric Siu on Twitter