Hack & Hustle

Most companies have realized that a blog can be a powerful inbound lead generator. But it has the potential to be so much more.

Many of us are so focused on acquisition and growth, that we aren't taking advantage of our blogs throughout the entire sales process.

Here are the different ways your blog can help you sell, from prospecting all the way to making upsells.

Your product’s taking off. You’ve got traction in your market, and you’re looking to go even further. Your self-service SaaS model has accomplished wonders for your business so far, but after weighing the various factors involved and taking a close look at the market, you’ve decided to start building your sales team.

Now what?

This is a critical juncture for many startup founders, and one that people often struggle with. We like to paint a picture of salespeople as cowboys, who walk in with guns blazing. The best salespeople are go-getters, who seize initiative and take charge. You might think that it’s best to just hire amazing sales talent, and let them hit the ground running.

MicroConf is the conference for self-funded startups and single founder software companies. That's why Steli gave a talk at MicroConf on how to build your own SaaS sales machine if you don't have piles of money from venture capitalists lying around.

In this video, you're going to learn the core principles of selling, how to write emails that get opened, why 90% of sucess is in the follow-up, and a ton of other useful things!

Sales isn’t always a high-octane race, where you close deals left and right at 200 mph. There’ll be times when the market slows and everything moves at a glacial pace, especially if you work in a seasonal space like tourism or retail.

It can be rough, and demoralizing to boot. You won’t score a bunch of new bookings, or see new cash hit the bank—but that’s exactly why you need to maximize downtime.

Think of yourself as a professional athlete. If you just go hard during the peak season, and relax during the off-season, you put yourself at the whims of your own business cycles.

When you work in a seasonal business, you have to stay disciplined at all times, and take charge of your own fate. Let yourself slide, and your muscles will atrophy and deteriorate.

We’re happy to announce a new integration with our sales software and QuickMail.io, an email automation tool which allows you to send personalized emails at scale.

In case you’ve missed them or are in serious need of sales motivation quotes, here's every quote we've ever published.

Theoretically, since each video is less than a minute long, you could watch them in less than a few hours. Although we can’t guarantee what will happen to you if you do!

If you’re not getting them delivered every morning to your inbox, sign up for a free daily dose of sales motivation!

Warning: Binge-watching these videos could have a serious effect on your life, business, and finances. Side effects include but are not limited to: more sales, better attitude, business growth, personal growth, less bullshit. These videos may also act as a gateway to other business knowledge such as blogs, podcasts or books.

Please watch responsibly.

Here are the quotes. Click on "Tweet this!" to tweet a particuarly inspiring quote to your friends or "Watch this" to watch the video with an awesome related action item.

Your sales team is crushing it. They’re closing deals left and right. Revenue is way up, and your growth looks off the charts. At this rate, that huge valuation you’ve been dreaming of seems well within reach.

Three months later, it’s all fallen apart. Half of those new clients have cancelled their subscriptions, they’re badmouthing your product, and your churn rate is through the roof. You’re no longer meeting your revenue goals, let alone exceeding them. And that valuation you were hoping for? Not going to happen.

It’s a classic sales mistake. In their haste to close all those deals, your salespeople didn’t stop to think whether they were the right deals. It’s only natural. They’re hustlers—the idea of turning away a willing customer and leaving a commission on the table offends them.

But, selling to the wrong customers is toxic for your business. It’s your job to get your salespeople thinking about the company’s health beyond the immediate deal.

Side note: If you want to work with an obsessively customer-focused team, check out our current job openings, we're hiring in all departments!

Building a SaaS sales team from scratch? Watch this interview with Justin Gold where he shares from the frontlines of a fast-growing SaaS startup in San Francisco: Poll Everywhere. 

In this interview, Justin and Steli talk about developing a company's initial sales process, hiring the first reps, coming up with a sales compensation plan, managing the sales team and establishing sales in a strongly product-focused startup.

You’ve hired a couple of snazzy new sales reps. They’ve impressed you with their natural hustle, competitive spirit, and initiative. Dollar signs light up in your eyes as you imagine all the new bookings and revenue these new reps will bring to your business.

Surprise! Until your sales people reach full activation, they actually cost you money. The average new sales rep at a SaaS company takes 5.3 months to reach full productivity. That’s almost half a year where your business is actually losing money per rep.

Proper onboarding is the most powerful way to close this gap, and get your sales reps quickly up to speed. It allows you to build a scalable sales process that will accelerate the growth of your business and blaze past the competition.

And since you're reading a post about sales rep onboarding: We're hiring SDRs! If you want to work with the team that's written the book on startup sales and think you've got the stuff to win, apply now!

SeamlessDocs didn’t set out to revolutionize the way governments digitally process forms. The startup—whose software instantly converts PDF or Word docs into dynamic, smart, cloud-based forms—wasn't even thinking about the government.

They began like many other startups—with a vision, a couple of people, and a rough product. They had found some traction with small businesses, but not enough to achieve the kind of growth they aspired towards.

The turning point came two years ago, as Marc Ende, the company’s Director of Sales, was working late into the night. The phone started ringing: “Hey, can I get a demo? I work for the state of Tennessee. I’m in the HR Department, and was wondering if I can use your electronic signatures on my forms.”

This call changed the future of the company. (Here's Marc telling the story himself.)