The Martell Method w/ Dan Martell

DOWNLOAD: Referral System Page Worksheet - https://www.danmartell.com/referralworksheet

“Help me. Help you.”

Nope…

Not talking about that epic one liner from Jerry Maguire.

I’m talking about the inner dialogue your customers experience whenever they try to refer your product to their tribe.

One of the EASIEST ways to acquire a new B2B Saas customer is to have your current users refer you at scale.

Just ask Dropbox ;-)

Only problem is… most companies make that process painfully hard and complicated.

And since not having a simple and effective referral strategy is such a crazy missed opportunity to grow your user base while creating an army of evangelists…

I shot a new video showing you the 4 steps to creating a referral system that acts as a win-win-win…

…  for your current customers… your new customers… and your company.

On a high level, here’s what it takes to implement an effective B2B SaaS referral system:

1. Choose a win
2. Give to both
3. Make it easy
4. Seed it

Of the four, the first one is where most SaaS companies mess up.

Put it this way… if you were a restaurant owner, would people be more likely to refer you:

a) After they’ve booked a reservation
b) While waiting in line
c) When the waiter brings out the food
d) After they’ve eaten… and are waiting for the check.

Same goes for your SaaS.

Make the ask after a nice juicy win… and you’ll be well on your way to implementing a winning referral strategy that exponentially grows your user base without sucking air out of your acquisition margins.

Watch the full video to go deeper into the other steps.

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. (Get the free 3 videos to grow your business here.) He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter@danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

Are you an entrepreneur? Get free weekly video training here:
http://www.danmartell.com/newsletter

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

DOWNLOAD: Idea to Exit Mini-Course - http://www.ideatoexitonline.com/prototyping

“You’re not suppose to succeed!”

“The numbers are against you from day one.”

Those were the words hurled at me across the board room from one of my mentors.

Encouraging, right?

Up until that point I had so much confidence that failure wasn’t an option.

But the truth is – and you hear it all the time – most startups fail.

His words set me down a path of learning and implementing strategies to help protect me, my stakeholders, and my coaching clients  from the 5 highest leading causes of startup death.

Over the years, I’ve had the chance to see the inner workings of 1000+ companies.

I’ve listened to the intimate, behind-the-scenes details and decisions from the founders behind them.  

After seeing what works, what doesn’t, and what gives you a one-way ticket to the SaaS graveyard…

I’ve distilled those lessons into the big five for this week’s video.

When I sit back and look at my failures and those of my friends, I believe they can be traced back to one or more of these.

1. Market Problems
2. Business Model Failure
3. Poor Management Team
4. Running out of Cash
5. Product Problems

What’s hilarious, and part of #3, is the amount of companies that fail due to co-founder in-fighting…

… meaning they couldn’t see eye to eye on a critical part of the business (funding, product roadmap, market strategy, etc).

The one I see the most often when it comes to technology and innovation is #1…

… founders running around with some cool tech, with no clear customer problem to solve.

It’s a solution in search of a problem.

Always a scary proposition and the opposite of the way I encourage first time founders to start off (find customers before you develop your tech).

If you’ve got questions about either one of these five, be sure to leave a comment with the specifics and I’ll help you turn things around.

Keep up the hustle!

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. (Get the free 3 videos to grow your business here.) He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter@danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

Are you an entrepreneur? Get free weekly video training here:
http://www.danmartell.com/newsletter

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

DOWNLOAD: Rocket Demo Builder - https://www.danmartell.com/rocketdemo

Are you acting like a 5 year old when demoing your product?

Last week my son Max (5) asked me to help him with his show & tell presentation.

So I taught him a simple 3 step process.

1. Start with the problem. (Story)
2. Pick 3 benefits & features to highlight (Demo)
3. Ask if they want to play afterwards (CTA)

These 3 steps are just a compressed version of what I teach my SaaS coaching clients… focus on the pain, peg it to benefits delivered via features and go for the close.

What do you think the other kids did?

They just went up and showed their toy, awkwardly rambled on about the things it could do, then sat down.

Almost makes you wanna cringe, right? Thing is…

Most SaaS Founders act like 5 year olds doing show & tell when they demo.

It’s not a product tour you’re doing… it’s a sales demo. You need to connect the dots for your customers in less than 30 minutes.

If you’re frustrated with low sales conversion numbers from your demos, or the amount of time it takes to close deals, then you’ll want to watch this week’s video where I share my 5 step process for crushing your sales quotas by demoing like a boss.

No mindless rambling about all the “cool” things your product does.

No tumbleweed silences that you awkwardly break up with a classic “oh, did I show you it can also do X?”

Just a clear, efficient, value-driven exchange that sets up the sale without eating into anyone’s lunch plans.

Maybe you already have your demo setup so that it’s short & concise, but are you following these other 5 steps?

1. Demo not tour
2. Connect to pain
3. Lead by question
4. Peg the money shot
5. Virtual close

The last one is the key to ensuring you reduce your sales cycles by future pacing the process with your prospect so they can get in the mindset of having bought.

Also, small tip – use BAMFAM in your demos.

Book a meeting from a meeting.

Never hang up the phone from a sales demo without agreeing upon a specific next step, ideally a call to review any questions that might come up, or to loop in other people on their team to define a proof of concept.

To help you crush your demo script, I’ve outlined a 9 box model called the Rocket Demo Builder that you can use to design your specific demo and get started closing more deals faster.

So what’s your favourite closing question? Post it as a comment and I’ll be sure to add a few others that I love using to get customers to say yes on the spot!

Have an amazing day!

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. (Get the free 3 videos to grow your business here.) He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter@danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

Are you an entrepreneur? Get free weekly video training here:
http://www.danmartell.com/newsletter

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

Exclusive Resource: Revenue Retention Cheatsheet™ - Stop The Bleeding & Scale Your Marketing With Confidence - http://bit.ly/36LMR4H

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Has a customer ever punched you in the face?

No?

Has it ever felt like that?

Every time I’ve had a customer sign-up, stick around for a few months, and cancel (aka churn) it sure feels that way.

It doesn’t matter how long I’ve been building businesses, nothing frustrates me more than having a customer that I spent a ton of time, energy and money attracting, leave because we missed the mark.

What’s different about my approach is that I take 110% accountability for customers churning.

Meaning, I want to know EXACTLY why it happened… and see how I can fix it. Or at the very least, make sure it’s the first and only time someone ever leaves for that reason.

Too many founders just chalk it up as a numbers thing… pegging it as normal.

I don’t agree, and I’ve outlined the 5 steps I take to ensure I reduce my churn as fast as possible while scaling up my revenue.

That’s what I cover in this week’s video.

When it comes to reducing churn in your business, I’ve outlined a comprehensive 9 step checklist that my coaching clients use to get results fast, called the Churn Buster Checklist…

You can download it here.

… however, what I want to share with you in this video are the 5 areas that I think most founders completely ignore:

1. They don’t measure their metrics
2. They don’t learn from their cancellation process
3. The product is too easy to switch off of
4. They don’t automate dunning management
5. No one is paying attention to customers who show signs of cancelling

At the end of the day, the holy grail for any SaaS startup is net negative churn… a point where your expansion revenue grows faster than your churned MRR.

The fastest way to get there is to bust the churn you have, and grow your existing accounts by 20-30% per year.

Once you’ve hit this nirvana, the sky’s the limit.

Keep up the good fight!

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. (Get the free 3 videos to grow your business here.) He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter@danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

Exclusive Resource: Revenue Retention Cheatsheet™ - Stop The Bleeding & Scale Your Marketing With Confidence - http://bit.ly/36LMR4H

WATCH: Follow Up Formula Training - http://bit.ly/2suTQiK
DOWNLOAD: Worksheet - http://bit.ly/2BWqoGt

All SaaS companies need sales people.

Even products like Dropbox & Slack have sales teams.

If you look at the Montclare SaaS 250 list, they all have sales teams.

So why do startups push off making this hire for so long?

It’s usually because they don’t know what to look for and are scared that a new fancy pants sales person wouldn’t close enough deals to cover their cost.

A totally legit concern.

But one you need to quickly blast through if you have any serious hopes of scaling.

I hired my first sales person in 2006 and it changed my business.

It unlocked a huge roadblock that I had in my ability to follow up, sell and keep revenues flowing as I was flooded with other tasks required to continue scaling my company.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t all rev-gen rainbows and scaled up sunshine.

What I missed in that hire were these 6 characteristics that forced me to replace him 2 months later.

If you’re about to make your first hire, or want to improve your sales team, then be sure to look for these characteristics:

1. Dedicated to Prospecting
2. Follows Sales Process
3. Social Researcher
4. Curious About Customer’s Needs
5. Add Value to Every Interaction
6. Leverages Micro-Moments

During the video I go deeper into what these mean and specifically how to test for them.

But the main thing to get right is to have a hiring, training and onboarding process for your salespeople to get them productive as fast as possible.

While getting an “out of the box” ROI may be a bit ambitious…

My rule is that every salesperson should be hitting 80% of quota within 6 months of hiring, if not, replace them.

If you have questions about compensation, be sure to leave a comment and I’ll give you my simple formula for making this brain dead simple.

Have an amazing day!

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. (Get the free 3 videos to grow your business here.) He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter@danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

Are you an entrepreneur? Get free weekly video training here:
http://www.danmartell.com/newsletter

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

DOWNLOAD: 5 Productivity Hacks - http://bit.ly/2E14QKl

Want to know one habit ultra-successful people have in common?

They read.

A lot.

In fact, when Warren Buffett was asked about the key to his success, he pointed to a stack of books and said:

“Read 500 pages like this every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.”

It’s why you’ll find a bookshelf or library in most wealthy people’s homes… reading is a leading indicator of success.

Now, it doesn’t guarantee it, but it is one huge part of it.

The truth is, success leaves clues and over the years I’ve discovered that some of the simplest strategies to getting the most out of life, like reading, can be boiled down to these 8 steps.

If you know my story, you know I spend a lot of time working with at-risk teenagers helping them build their confidence by building a business.

By doing that work I’ve had to distill a few habits that are easily understood and simple to take action on…

For me, they come down to these:

1. Read every day, at least 10 pages of non-fiction.
2. Focus on high-level tasks, things that move the needle.
3. Make your health a priority and treat it like a high performing race horse.
4. Learn from people you admire and model their actions.
5. Plan your day the night before so you can crush the following day!
6. Keep your goals in front of you so you can remind yourself of the outcome.
7. Take action on the scary stuff… that’s the true definition of hustle imho.
8. Have a powerful inspiring “why” that pulls you forward like a magnet.

If you want to squeeze every minute out of every day, then follow these strategies and it will generate a huge level of ROI.

I’m sure there’s dozens of other things you could be doing to succeed more in life and your business, so please leave a comment and let me know your favourite strategy.

Can’t wait to read them all!

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. (Get the free 3 videos to grow your business here.) He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter@danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

Are you an entrepreneur? Get free weekly video training here:
http://www.danmartell.com/newsletter

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

Have you ever been talked into do something you knew was dumb?

*raises hand*

Back when I was scaling my company Spheric Technologies, a friend introduced me to his buddy who did outsourced sales.

Essentially, a quick fix “easy button” for business owners who can’t be bothered to take full control of the lifeblood of their business. Smart right? 

His big promise was that he could get me scheduled meetings with qualified buyers for our services…

… so I gave him a try.

The cost was about $5K/month + a $5K setup, so I gave it a try to see if it would move the needle.

My average deal size was $60K, so I figured just one new customer every month would be a huge win. No brainer, right?

But it all fell apart. Fast.

The meetings were horrible.

The prospects unqualified.

And the whole thing turned out to be a huge waste of time, energy, and money.

That’s when I decided to smarten up, take full control of the selling process, and build my own sales team in house.

I went “all in” and immersed myself in everything I could about building and scaling a sales team.

That’s what I want to share with you in this week’s video.

If you want the bulleted list of activities that’s required for scaling a software sales team, here’s my prescription…

1. Pay a base salary
2. Set a quota
3. Provide a commission
4. Use accelerators
5. Hire a sales manager

Now, the truth is, in the early days you’ll likely be doing all the selling, but the best way to backfill this work is to document everything you do to achieve results.

This includes creating a demo script using my Rocket Demo Builder framework, your system for qualifying, and the follow up process.

It’s how my coaching clients and the founders I advise have scaled their sales teams to over 150+ sales people.

If you have any questions about scaling your sales team, leave a comment below and I’ll be sure to reply.

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. (Get the free 3 videos to grow your business here.) He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter@danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

Are you an entrepreneur? Get free weekly video training here:
http://www.danmartell.com/newsletter

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

3 Forces of a Sales Pipeline: https://vimeo.com/237859087/fbbb78d3b5

Wow.

Every once in a while I re-watch one of my videos and just laugh…

This time around, I can’t believe how many times I said “distributed team”??!

You could easily play a drinking game on it and end up loaded within 10 minutes.

Not recommended btw.

For real. Don’t do it.

Instead, I wanted to take a few mins to show you how I’ve been able to manage large teams virtually, and the process I use to do this.

Many entrepreneurs struggle with the concept or the structure of having people work outside an office, but for me – it’s only ever been that way.

So over the years, I’ve built systems that have allowed me to scale up my teams quickly, take advantage of reduced salary costs, day parting (which you definitely want to be taking advantage of), and sourcing talent from a large pool (i.e. the world).

If you’re struggling to get the right people behind your mission… or are about to hire your first remote team member, then watch this training.

If you do nothing else, be sure to implement step 3 – holding daily & weekly meetings.

I use the Scrum process for project management, but the big win is in the daily stand-up that can also be delivered digitally via chat or video conference.

The key is to have everyone answer 3 questions…

1. What did you do yesterday?
2. What will you do today?
3. Are there any impediments in your way?

Your job as a leader is to help everyone get unstuck (#3) and ensure their priorities (#1 & #2) match up with your expectations.

That alone is a game changer.

So be sure to watch this week’s video and leave a comment with some of your best strategies for collaborating with remote team members.

Don’t let where you live stop you from hiring incredible talent.

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. (Get the free 3 videos to grow your business here.) He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter@danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

Are you an entrepreneur? Get free weekly video training here:
http://www.danmartell.com/newsletter

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

Do you remember the first time you had someone buy something from you?

For me it was when I convinced a bunch of bed & breakfast owners in Atlantic Canada to send me cash in the mail to have their property published online.

Still not sure if that was legal.

Suspect cash collection methods aside…

What they didn’t know is that I was a 17 year old kid with no formal “business.”

Just a laptop and a dream.

That moment triggered something inside of me… and really kicked off the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey.

It also got me thinking, what are the other aspects of business that I need to learn so that I can be “successful.”

What I teach in this week’s video are the 5 areas of business that every entrepreneur needs to master to be able to stay alive and thrive.

When you look at any business, software or other, they all work exactly the same way.

Sure, you can go crazy filling up your Amazon cart with books about the best way to do X, or Y, but if you spend the time to actually understand how the engine that is business works, you’ll be able to race around the track at top speeds.

One of the five areas I share is Product: what does it take to turn a sale into a raving fan?

Not a customer, client, or transaction – but a RAVING FAN.

Someone who will sing your praises with Adele-like passion.

Someone who will pick up the phone and tell someone in their close circle about your service.

Someone who will send you stacks of cash in the mail in the rare event that your shopify checkout breaks down. (kidding… sort of)

How do you measure that? As you dig in, you’ll learn about things like NPS scores.

Also known as The One Number You Need To Grow.

If you’re still looking to master the game of business, be sure to watch this week’s video to build the foundation…

… then leave a comment with the best resource that you’ve found to teach you one of the 5 key areas I mention.

Remember, mastery is the goal. Not just good enough. World class.

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. (Get the free 3 videos to grow your business here.) He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter@danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

Are you an entrepreneur? Get free weekly video training here:
http://www.danmartell.com/newsletter

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell

Your product or service tells a story.

It either tells one that’s clear and coherent, highlighting the challenges you’re most ready to solve for your ideal customer…

Or it confuses them.

The story you’re telling depends on whether you’re being thoughtful in the process, or building it blindly.  

And the difference between the two has a massive impact on your prospect’s ability to buy from you.

Years ago I was visiting some friends at Twitter and I had the privilege of learning this lesson first hand from one of the best growth guys out there: Josh Ellman (LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter).

His process was clear… ask yourself:

“What does this communicate to our customer about the problem it solves, the value they’ll get, and is it for them?”

At the time he was revamping Twitter’s sign-up process to help activate more customers after their first time using it.

That conversation sent me down a path of studying the best onboarding experience for SaaS products and creating the Product Story framework.

This is how you build powerful products.

In this week’s video I deconstruct each path.

You’ll learn the key elements that drive results, and how to line them up so you can connect with your customers quicker.

After reading a ton of books, speaking with some of the best product minds out there, and testing the strategies on my own companies, I now break it down into 3 core areas of the product:

1. The Homepage: This page requires a strong “Hook”… it’s the statement that answers the “What is this?” question, followed by the “Promise”, it answers the “How do you do that?” question.
2. Onboarding: These pages really act as the setup… they are the minimum required steps that you ask of your customer to ensure you have what it’ll take to WOW them. It also matters the order you put them in, and the information you ask for to help reinforce your product’s positioning (i.e. The Story) that they’re building in their mind.
3. Core Value: This is the specific result a customer will get that makes them think “crap, that’s awesome”. Every great product has it. You might have it, but it’s buried, and only a small % of your users have seen it. The key is to front-load this in the experience for all new users. Some call it the “Must Have” experience.

Watch the video to get a deeper sense of how the complete story is told, and how each piece plays a critical part.

After working with thousands of startups over the years, I’ve come to believe that some of the biggest growth comes from refining their product story.

The fun part is, it doesn’t take much work.

It could be as simple as changing the language on your homepage, or re-ordering your onboarding experience…

… but once it clicks, growth occurs.

Got specific questions about your product? 

Post them below in the comments and I’ll answer them soon… I’d love to help you create a story that reinforces the innovation you’re building.

Remember, it’s an iterative process…

… so keep testing till you get there.

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. (Get the free 3 videos to grow your business here.) He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter@danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

Are you an entrepreneur? Get free weekly video training here:
http://www.danmartell.com/newsletter

+ Instagram (behind the scenes): http://instagram.com/danmartell
+ Facebook (live trainings + Q&A): http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Twitter (what I'm reading): http://twitter.com/danmartell