Sustaining traction for your start up

Sustaining Traction for Your Startup

Matt Heinz
President, Heinz Marketing Inc
@heinzmarketing

@heinzmarketing


Housekeeping
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Copy of this deck

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Offers for you

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Successful Selling
Modern Marketer’s Field Guide
Content Marketing Best Practice Guide
B2B Sales & Marketing Metrics Best Practices Guide

Send me an email () or hand me a business card with what you want

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Last Slide First

• Sustaining traction requires HAVING traction
• Focus on systems & processes
• Is it repeatable, scalable and predictable?
• Be afraid, stay edgy
• Measure, optimize, test, prove, repeat

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Creating Traction

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A Culture of Failure

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What is your proven playbook?

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Keys to sustaining traction

• Systematize what’s working

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Five keys to a better plan

1.

Do the math

2.

Create a clear customer profile

3.

Map the sales and buying process

4.

What can be automated or process-driven?

5.

How will you measure it?

(quantify what success looks like)

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Systems vs. serendipity

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Keys to sustaining traction

• Become less reactive

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Keys to sustaining traction

• Stay afraid

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Keys to sustaining traction

• Review & reporting rhythm

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Keys to sustaining traction

• Control bloat

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Put your marketing budget on a diet

• Combine PR and social media
• Hire your customers
• Use more content (yours and theirs)
• Segment & stay in touch
• Build and launch remarkable products

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Keys to sustaining traction

• Hire slow, fire fast

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Keys to sustaining traction

• Keep learning

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Five common startup sales mistakes

1.

Hiring a VP of Sales first

2.

Spending money on marketing too early

3.

Building a sales process that doesn’t map to how your customers buy

4.

Selling beyond the early adopters

5.

Building a sales team too fast, too early

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Calculating what you need
Assumptions

Product A ASP

$

15,000

Product B ASP

$

50,000

Opp/Close %

33.0%

Lead/Opp %

10.0%

Product A CPL

$

15

Product B CPL

$

35

Q1 2010

Q2 2010

Q3 2010

Q4 2010

TOTALS

Product A Sales #

50

56

63

69

Product B Sales #

8

9

10

11

38

58

65

73

80

276

Total Sales #

238

Product A Sales $

$ 742,500

$ 841,500

$ 940,500

$1,039,500

$ 3,564,000

Product B Sales $

$ 412,500

$ 453,750

$ 495,000

$ 536,250

$ 1,897,500

Total Sales $

$1,155,000

$1,295,250

$1,435,500

$1,575,750

$ 5,461,500

Product A Pipeline #

Product B Pipeline #

150

25

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170

190

210

28

30

33


Leads & Opportunities
Stage

Definition
New lead, has not been attempted or contacted by sales

Sales Next Step(s)
Begin follow-up to get on the phone live to qualify as opportunity

Marketing Next Step(s)
Provide scripts and response offers as needed to increase call-backs

Open/Not Attempted
Sales has begun the process of following the lead follow-up process to reach the prospect live Continue follow-up attempts via phone, email, "zero out" to reach prospect Provide scripts and response offers as needed to increase call-backs
Attempting to Contact

live
Prospect has expressed interest in ABC Company and/or achieving better results, and is

Once prospect has been qualified, either move into a "Qualified"

Provide collateral, case studies and other information as needed to help

interested in learning more; full qualification criteria intent/purchase timeline still unknown

opportunity or move to Nurture (if timeline is long-term or undetermined)

prospect determine sales intent

Interested

Leads

Prospect is interested, but there is no near-term opportunity to buy (prospect may have other no action

Drip marketing to prospect 1-2 times per month with value-added offers,

immediate priorities, or may just need more time to consider interest/intent)

until they're ready to engage in a short-term buying cycle again

Nurture

Haven't been able to get ahold of prospect after repeated attempts

no action

Drip marketing to prospect 1-2 times per month with value-added offers,
until they're ready to engage in a short-term buying cycle again

Unresponsive

No Further Action

Lead is not a qualified prospect

no action

no action

Prospect has a need & budget, and is actively evaluating solutions

Get demo commitment, plan next steps and timeline to buy (or at least

Provide additional support tools as needed (case studies, etc.) to help

make decision) with prospect

accelerate prospect interest and buying cycle

Get permission to present formal proposal

Provide additional support tools as needed (case studies, etc.) to help

Qualified

Demo has been scheduled or completed; working through objections & questions

accelerate prospect interest and buying cycle
Presentation & Demo

Opportunities

Formal proposal is in process or has been delivered outlining terms, services, fees

Get verbal commitment to buy pending finalization of terms

no action

Prospect has verbally agreed to do business; both sides are working through final

Sign, seal and return baby!

no action

Agreement has been signed and returned

victory lap

no action

Opportunity has stalled indefinitely or is dead

no action

Drip marketing to prospect 1-2 times per month with value-added offers,

Proposal

Negotiation

Close

legal/term/service/fee details

until they're ready to engage in a short-term buying cycle again
Closed Lost

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Custom messages by role
Audience

Drivers

PainPoints

ValuePropositions(bullet points)

KeyMessages

Drivers

PainPoints

ValuePropositions(bullet points)

KeyMessages

Vertical #1
CEO

IT/CIO

CFO

CMO

Audience
Vertical #2
CEO

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If you want more…

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Thank You!
Matt Heinz
President, Heinz Marketing
@heinzmarketing

@heinzmarketing