The Martell Method w/ Dan Martell

The other day I had an old highschool friend invite me to a private facebook group for their network marketing product.

When I scanned the posts in the group, they were ALL promotional and salesy.

Nothing added value to their customers lives.

It was all about them.

Unfriend.

I have a real problem with any company that doesn’t think of helping their customers BEFORE they ask for a sale.

It just seems backwards.

But how do you do that?

By offering visitors highly valuable content that helps solve a problem in exchange for their email, typically called a Lead Magnet.

Where most people get this wrong is they think they need to give something HUGE… like a 75 page e-book / report, or a free multi-series video training program…

… but the the truth is, the best performing lead magnets follow the 5-10 Principle.

In this week’s video I also share a simple strategy using S.A.G.E, created by my friend Taki Moore.

Over the years I’ve been involved in creating hundreds of pieces of content that we offer in exchange for a customer’s email.

This is especially important if you have a software product, and the only thing on your site is a signup button.

Add some content to capture your potential buyer’s email even if they’re not ready to sign up at that moment.

That way you can keep in contact, add value, and prime them to become buyers in the near future.

Here are the stats: 67% of the people visiting your site won’t buy today but they could in the future.

Create a great Lead Magnet to start the relationship.

So, what are you going to create?

Leave a comment describing the specific piece of content you’re going to create to serve your customer.

Don’t be a full time promoter.

Share the knowledge, build the relationships and continue adding value.

See you in the comments.

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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

+ Join me on FB: http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Connect w/ me live: http://periscope.tv/danmartell
+ Tweet me: http://twitter.com/danmartell
+ Instagram awesomeness: http://instagram.com/danmartell

What would it feel like hiring 150 sales people for your company in 6 months?

That’s the question I asked Scot, the founder of Classy, a few months ago.

Their story is EPIC!

I’ll fast track his answer… essentially, he started out for many years being the primary salesperson, then hired around him, but remained inseparable from that process.

After years of hustling and grinding he eventually hired his first VP of Sales.

I still remember our first advisory board meeting and how excited I got about their new plans to scale sales.

How did he do it?

That’s what I share in this week’s video inspired through the experience I gained from watching Scot execute…

… and listening to the other pros in the room, like Alex Bard who at the time was the youngest executive vice president at SalesForce, accountable for a BILLION dollar division.

Over the years I’ve coached many of my clients on building & scaling their sales teams.

It really comes down to these core phases:

• Sourcing
• Closing
• Developing

In this week’s video I dive into each phase, and the key areas you should be focused on.

Also, at the end I share a tip for when it’s the right time to hire the next person in the chain.

So…

Do you have a sales team?

If not, what’s holding you back?

Leave a comment below with your answer and I’ll be sure to point you in the right direction.

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

+ Join me on FB: http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Connect w/ me live: http://periscope.tv/danmartell
+ Tweet me: http://twitter.com/danmartell
+ Instagram awesomeness: http://instagram.com/danmartell

If you want a good laugh, watch this week’s video.

There may be some singing / rapping in it (if you want to call it that).

What’s important though, are the lyrics.

“Nurture – nurture – nurture that lead!”

Even more important…

… how many leads are you generating per month?

If that number is 0, or not growing, then the business isn’t growing.

Period.

The best way to capture a visitor who’s on your site is to offer them valuable content…

… many people call these Lead Magnets.

If you’re doing it right, a great lead magnet will attract your best potential customers,  and entice them enough to exchange their email address.

Over the years I’ve created 100’s of lead magnets, but I always use this framework to evaluate my ideas to make sure they work.

When it comes to creating lead magnets that convert, you need to consider the following:

1. What’s your focus?
2. Are you helping them overcome a discomfort, or achieve an aspirational result?
3. Does this solution meet an urgent need? or is it simply interesting?
4. Are you targeting a general problem? Or making it hyper-specific and targeted to your most qualified customers??

In this video, I dive into all 4 of those questions and provide a simple framework that you can use to evaluate your lead magnet ideas and pick the one most likely to convert your ideal customer.

If you’ve got an idea for one right now, post a comment with your business / industry and the lead magnet idea.

I’ll reply with my thoughts!

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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

+ Join me on FB: http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Connect w/ me live: http://periscope.tv/danmartell
+ Tweet me: http://twitter.com/danmartell
+ Instagram awesomeness: http://instagram.com/danmartell

“This is totally a company you would create!”

That’s what people would say every time I showed them the prototype for Clarity.

My passion for connecting people to have a conversation was something I had been doing for years…

… first starting with Founder Dinners, and morphing over the years to my entrepreneurial events like Maple Summit, Idea to Exit, etc.

What I quickly realized is that most great companies were started by founders who had a passion for the problem way before they discovered the solution.

For example, some people say that Travis Kalanick (CEO of Uber) was an optimizer his whole life.

For me, it was helping people get unstuck (the original Clarity slogan).

In many ways these videos are a bi-product of that focus.

This week I want to share the 5 keys to startup success – Product/Founder Fit being #1 – to help you understand what makes a great idea.

Now, you don’t need all 5 to be successful, but two or three is a great place to start.

The most challenging is #5 – building a moat (i.e. being hard to copy).

I can’t tell you how many times I got a Google News alert for someone posting a job on UpWork.com for someone to clone Clarity or Flowtown (my previous company).

Not exactly the best feeling in the world.

One of the keys to a great startup idea is defensibility.

So what’s got you excited about what you’re building?

How is it connected to one of the 5 keys to building a successful startup?

Leave a comment with your answer and share your excitement with the community!

This is especially important for you if you’ve never left a comment.

Today is your day … go from being a digital introvert to one who’s publicly proud of what they're building.

See you in the comments.

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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

+ Join me on FB: http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Connect w/ me live: http://periscope.tv/danmartell
+ Tweet me: http://twitter.com/danmartell
+ Instagram awesomeness: http://instagram.com/danmartell

If I grabbed 100 people, and asked them how many needed to buy a pair of jeans – only 3 would raise their hands…

… but 7% would be “In Market” (the 2nd stage of the Audience Triangle) and will be buying soon.

What about the other 90%?

How do you speak to them?

That’s what I cover in this week’s video where I define the 5 stages and the different “buying intents” of each.

If you do this right, you can create marketing content that will take care of the market until they’re ready to buy.

Here’s how it works.

I believe marketing is crafting a message and inserting it into a market that wants to hear from you.

The way you do that AND attract 90% of the potential market is to create content that’s valuable to them.

It plays a double role…

1) It should repel those who aren’t interested in buying EVER (saves you from the tire kickers).

2) It will educate them over time about your business and get them excited to buy from you when the need arises.

Think about it this way… great content marketing focuses on either their aspirations, or desperations.

It either teaches them how to avoid a pain, or achieve a gain.

But for now, let’s focus on a pain they’re having that you can solve – or better yet…

Leave a comment and let me know what are the 5 biggest pains you solve for your customer?

If you’re struggling to list them, drop me a short description of your services, and I’ll help you expand on them.

Can’t wait to read.

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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

+ Join me on FB: http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Connect w/ me live: http://periscope.tv/danmartell
+ Tweet me: http://twitter.com/danmartell
+ Instagram awesomeness: http://instagram.com/danmartell

When I first built Clarity.fm, it wasn’t a marketplace.

It was a call list app.

The concept was that I could add anyone to my list, with phone number and description, then it would robo call each person, reading to me the name of the person and reason for the call.

In short…

I was building a productivity tool, NOT a marketplace.

A strategic “face palm” that would greatly handicap the business’ potential for growth. (#2 on my list of inputs to build great product).

Even after I held a 300 person launch event in my hometown of Moncton, I refused to build search into the product.

What I did instead was build a page that listed all of the experts who were available for a call.

Stupid.

It wasn’t until after months of getting emails to our support team that I realized we needed to add a search feature.

What happened next was the beginning of what made Clarity a huge success.

We launched the feature and it doubled our growth.

What I break down in this week’s video are the 3 inputs (or categories) of feedback you have to leverage to build a great business that doesn’t ignore it’s customers AND builds real revenue.

Over the next two years, we leveraged this framework to help our product roadmap strategy…

… each team member brought ideas and categorized accordingly:

1) Market and Needs: Is this something the customers are asking for in numbers? What are they expecting that we don’t offer?

2) Business Goals: What features do we need to add (like search) to help the business grow and succeed?

3) Key Features/Differentiators: What makes our product different, or offers a product hook that we can lead with to differentiate ourselves from existing solutions?

Understanding each of these buckets allowed us to quickly sort and build a product roadmap that would deliver the traction we needed to grow.

So my question to you is…

Do you have a way to capture & categorize customer feedback?

What about the input from your team?

How is it managed?

If you don’t, create one now…

If you had that in place, how would it change the way you build your product or service today?

Leave a comment below with your answer!

Have an amazing week!

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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

+ Join me on FB: http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Connect w/ me live: http://periscope.tv/danmartell
+ Tweet me: http://twitter.com/danmartell
+ Instagram awesomeness: http://instagram.com/danmartell

Have you ever heard of the Kano Model?

I hadn’t either… until my buddy Merv told me about it.

Here’s a diagram that gives you a visual:

If you think that looks complicated, you’re not alone.

It took a bit of marinating for my brain to fully “get” how much value this model has to offer.

But let me tell you…

It was SO worth it.

What I learned was simple… there are really only three ways to deliver value to your customers based on their needs…

… and from those there are only two ways to improve it.

If you do those right, you get GROWTH!

Simple? It can be.

That’s what I go over in this video to help you build a simple model of how to deliver on what your customers want most.

Here’s my simplified explanation:

1. You need to focus on your customer’s needs… they come in 3 ways.
2. They’re either Expected, Expressed or it Excites them.
3. Those drive you to either a) Improve, or b) Innovate your service.

If you follow that process and categorize your strategies and filter through that model, you’ll experience growth.

Business at its core is stating and delivering on a promise you make to your customers.

Understanding what promise to make is where the Kano Model comes into play.

Leave me a comment on which NEED you think you need to spend more time on.

Can’t wait to read your answers!

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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

+ Join me on FB: http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Connect w/ me live: http://periscope.tv/danmartell
+ Tweet me: http://twitter.com/danmartell
+ Instagram awesomeness: http://instagram.com/danmartell

What’s your churn?

If you don’t know this number, get it.

Better yet, do you know why they’re churning?

When I was building my company Flowtown, we had a 12% monthly churn.

Not good.

That meant that after only 8.3 months we had lost ALL of the customers we had worked so hard to attract & convert?

Just so you know, that makes for a HORRIBLE business.

Your goal should be 8% PER YEAR (for B2B SaaS)!

So if you’re bleeding customers, what do you do?

It comes down to one (or all) of these 5 things to ensure that you’re doing everything you can to keep customers happy and sticking around for the long term.

Now, if you sell to VSB’s (Very Small Businesses), know that your customer’s failure rate (ie. going out of business) – #5 on my list – will definitely impact your growth.

I learned that one from Gail, the CEO of Constant Contact – the first public SaaS company EVER!

Her insights were invaluable…

… and inspired this super simple strategy that can drastically cut down your churn rate.

At the end of the video I share the key tag you should be marking your most “at risk” customers with…

… and how doing so sends a clear signal to your customer success team to step in and save the day!

Once you watch the video, leave a comment and let me know where you’re going to dive in next.

What are do you need to spend some time to help retain paying customers to help re-invest profits into your growth!

Can’t wait to hear from you.

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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

+ Join me on FB: http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Connect w/ me live: http://periscope.tv/danmartell
+ Tweet me: http://twitter.com/danmartell
+ Instagram awesomeness: http://instagram.com/danmartell

Are you down with SOP’s?

Some call em’ Standard Operating Procedures, I call them Playbooks.

If you’re tired of putting out fires in your business, then you’ll need them to keep your sanity.

Recently I had the privilege of having dinner w/ the Godfather of system design for entrepreneurs, Michael Gerber (author of The E-Myth / 10M copies sold).

I shared my story of how his book transformed everything for me.

At 23 I was set on starting another company for the 3rd time (the first two failed), but I was deadset on doing it differently.

Listen to the full story on my Facebook page (10m21s).

Gerber’s book, taught me a new way to think about business.

I’ve used this process to create a framework called the Business Playbook™.

The goal is to teach you how to have others complete the work in a way that’s as good, if not better than you!

Also, if you do it right, it becomes the easiest way to crosstrain anyone new on your team.

Watch the video to learn how to set this up.

1. Start with a program
2. Add to weekly team meeting
3. Ingrain it into the culture
4. Create 3 sections: Procedures, References, Templates
5. Use it for onboarding / training

#5 is the most important… it will allow you to quickly hire, train and onboard anyone to your team in a streamlined fashion.

Have you implemented systems in your business?

If so, please leave a comment and let everyone else know how it’s impacted your life.

If not, get going… read below for a tip to make this a no brainer  :)

Here’s to living a bigger life and business.

To check out my Business Playbook™ Templates, click here: http://lp.danmartell.com/playbook

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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

+ Join me on FB: http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Connect w/ me live: http://periscope.tv/danmartell
+ Tweet me: http://twitter.com/danmartell
+ Instagram awesomeness: http://instagram.com/danmartell

When I started in business I couldn’t sell to save my life.

After two failed companies I decided to fix that.

My solution?

Driving around nights & weekends in my silver, 94’ Volkswagen Jetta listening to every sales audio book I could get my hands-on.

Some nights, I had Ziglar riding shotgun.

On other nights, it was Carnegie, Tracy or Hill.

And after dozens of books, I’ve distilled it down to 3 key areas:

1. Connect & Qualify
2. Needs Assessment + Close
3. Follow Up

I actually made a HUGE mistake calling this “101 stuff” because there’s nothing basic about it.

Without the time I invested, and the thousands of hours of selling under my belt it would’ve been hard to see the pattern.

Over the years, I’ve taught this to hundreds of people and they’ve gone on to close new deals in less than 30 minutes.

Nothing pumped me up more than to hear someone take a call and walk away with an order.

In this week’s video I break it down so that anyone can do this and get the same results.

One of the most important skills you can learn is to communicate with someone else, and quickly assess if you can help them.

To do that requires great questions.

So, what do you ask to get to a customer’s challenges or issues?

What do you ask to help move the sale forward?

One of my favourite questions is, “What would it take to make this a no-brainer for you?”

Leave your best question as a comment and if I see at least a dozen I’ll share a couple more.

See you in the comments!

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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

+ Join me on FB: http://FB.com/DanMartell
+ Connect w/ me live: http://periscope.tv/danmartell
+ Tweet me: http://twitter.com/danmartell
+ Instagram awesomeness: http://instagram.com/danmartell