The Startup Sales Playbook

‍Introduction‍

Too many companies, startups, and entrepreneurs with great products and services fail — but why? — A lack of sales.

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The opposite on the other hand is having the ability to pull down a lever and watch paying customers shoot out. Having the ability to do this pretty much cures this disease and solves all of the above.

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You can hire the sharpest people.

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You can buy back your time and freedom.

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Put on your suit and cape and become a business superhero.

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You see, after successfully bootstrapping several 7-fgure businesses and helping thousands of companies from the discovery phase through the scaling phase, I see the consistent and guiding principles of sales, marketing, operations, and co.

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In short… I know what works and what doesn't.

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Getting a sales team off the ground, acquiring those crucial and game-changing frst customers, figuring out your acquisition process, and transforming it into a predictable, scalable, and repeatable revenue and profit growth machine…

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It’s thrilling but also soul-crushing at times.

The air is potent with opportunity and possibility… but on a day-to-day basis, you’re faced with so much rejection and disinterest. It’s disheartening.

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Inevitably, there will be times when you doubt everything: Your team. Your sales process.

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Your business model. Your market. And most of all… Yourself.

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I’ve been through this many times in my life — but why is that important?

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Because I helped thousands of founders, CEOs, and salespeople thrive through these dangerous waters and times by being through them already — knowing exactly what works and what doesn’t to now (fnally) share everything with you.

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But before we get started, let’s make sure that dedicating any further time to this book is actually a good use of your time — should you read the startup sales playbook?

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If you’re a founder who’s currently doing sales yourself — this playbook is for you.

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If you’re looking to fnd the right sales reps for your company — this playbook is for you.

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If you’re part of a sales team that is anywhere from 1-10 reps — this playbook is for you.

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If you don’t have an established sales process and you need to acquire customers and generate revenue soon — this playbook is for you.

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This playbook is for top producers who are in the fedgling phase of a business that has high-growth potential and a lot of questions on its mind — what you get in this book are real-world sales prospecting and outreach expertise.

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Study it, use it and crush it.

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Ideal Customer Profling

Who Is Your Perfect Customer?

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Your business exists because of your customers. It doesn’t exist for you, your employees, your investors, or your stakeholders. All of these only exist, for the purpose of your company, to deliver value to your customers.

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If they succeed, your customers will happily keep giving you the money.

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In the early stages of your company, it’s important to be hyper-focused on a very small, clearly defned segment of your market. You want to serve a very specifc customer better than anyone else. Most struggle with this idea because it’s somewhat counterintuitive:

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In order to grow my business, I need to narrow down to a smaller audience?!

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Do not worry — it won’t limit the future potential of your company.

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In fact, the best way to build a widely successful and proftable business is by starting with a teeny-tiny crowd that cares intensely about what you offer — once you’ve found that initial crowd, only then do you fgure out how to grow and expand.

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There are different reasons why a company should create an ideal customer profle, but this chapter is about creating an ideal customer profle so that you can focus your sales and marketing efforts on generating high-quality prospects and sales opportunities.

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I know it’s very tempting to skip this, but every single week, I speak with founders and sales managers who struggle to hit their sales goals because they haven't nailed their ideal customer profle yet — so let's start with the basics…

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What Is An Ideal Customer Profile?

It’s basically a description of a fictitious customer who gets signifcant value from using your product and/or service — and also provides signifcant value to your business.

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How does this fictitious customer get value from using your product or service?

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• You help them make more money.

• You reduce their expenses.

• You alleviate pain points.

• You increase productivity.

• You increase profitability.

• You reduce complexity.

• You raise morale.

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And a thousand other ways...

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How does this fictitious customer provide value to your company?

• They pay you for the value you provide them.

• They refer you and refer other companies to you.

• They become fans and advocates for your company.

• They give you access to resources to grow your business.

• They provide you with valuable insights into new opportunities.

• They're pleasant to deal with and don't require excessive amounts of support.

• They let you use their logo and provide a testimonial that you can use in marketing.

• They are a never-ending stream of positive feedback and encouragement for you.

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But ultimately, in B2B sales, it's about how you affect the top and bottom line.

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If your solution doesn't have a direct correlation with profits or expenses, you should be able to demonstrate how it will indirectly affect the company's finances.

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We said it’s a fictitious customer — but the fiction is based on solid facts and real data.

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You don’t just fabricate an ideal customer profile out of thin air.

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Instead, you systematically identify shared traits and characteristics of existing customers who are using and succeeding with your solution (we’ll talk in more detail about how to do this, but first, let’s look at some of your existing customers).

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Create a list of your 10 best current customers.

You should be able to ask them:

• “How much are you paying us for our solution?”

• “And how much value are you getting out of it?”

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The second number they tell you should be a multiple of the first number.

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It’s not enough that they pay for your solution.

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They need to actually get significant value from it and be aware of the value.

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Sell To Your Customers In 3 Stages

Don't assume that this sale magically happens by itself.

You should take charge of making this happen by selling them in three stages:

1. Before they buy, you need to sell them on the promise and convince them that your solution has the potential to make them successful, and is worth investing in.

2. After they buy, you need to sell them on actually implementing your solution. It’s not enough that they just paid you for it — they actually have to invest time and resources into utilizing it, so that the promised value is actually created.

3. After they've received the value, you need to sell them on realizing that it’s your solution that has created the value. You need to ensure that the customer(s) are aware of the value your solution has created.

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It’s absolutely vital to know that this isn’t something that happens by itself…

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It’s something that needs to be directed.

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Don't have 10 ideal customers yet?

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If you can’t come up with 10 customers, drop everything else.

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Focus on getting these 10 ideal customers.

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One approach you can take is to look at your current customer base and find 10 candidates to support and nurture to that ideal status — another option is to bring in new companies and onboard them to ensure their success with your solution.

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Find Common DNA Attributes

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Now look at your list of ideal ideal customers and ask yourself:

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What do they have in common?

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Consider demographics, firmographics, technographics, and behavioral attributes.

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This is where you have to brainstorm and do your research — dig deep and come up with lots of attributes for each of these 10 customers so you can identify their commonalities. The best way to go about this is to identify which questions are worth asking regarding your ideal customers. Here are some customer profiling questions to get you started:

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• How big is the company?

• Where are they located geographically?

• How many team members/employees do they have?

• What are the titles of all the team members/employees?

• What words do they use to describe their product or service?

• What kind of social media platforms do they use?

• How do they position themselves in the market?

• How long have they already been in business?

• What software tools do they use?

• What's their average deal size?

• How did they hear about us?

• How did we acquire them?

As you can already see, there are hundreds of questions you could be asking. That doesn't mean you should be answering all of these. Get together as a team for a few hours and brainstorm which questions are relevant to your ideal customer profle.

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Outbound, Inbound, Or Both?

One of the first few questions you need to answer are the following:

• How do you reach your ideal customer?

• Should you build an outbound sales process or an inbound sales process?

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The main difference between outbound and inbound sales is who initiates the sale.

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With inbound, it’s the prospect that starts the sales process.

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With outbound, it’s a sales rep (the business) that contacts the prospect first.

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With inbound, the prospect does the searching, the reading of an article, the attending of a webinar or the scheduling of a consultation call. The prospect initiates the contact.

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It could be as simple as submitting their email for a piece of content.

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Then later an inbound sales person might email or call them.

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With outbound, it’s the salesperson cold calling, cold emailing, or cold messaging the prospect. Though it might seem like a subtle difference, it actually represents a tectonic shift in the type of customer that the business is dealing with.

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Inbound prospects are more aware and more engaged to start, whereas outbound prospects are normally less aware and less engaged (at least in the beginning).

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But I want to be clear… neither sales process is inherently better or worse.

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In fact, both techniques can be powerful tools for growing a business.

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The sales strategy you will use is dependent upon a number of variables including:

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The type of business you run, your average deal size and how aware customers are about the solution you offer. Among B2B businesses and startups, many choose to do both:

• 62% of companies adopted a hybrid approach,

• 25% are purely outbound-driven, and

• 13% are purely inbound-driven.

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In this playbook, we’ll focus mostly on outbound sales.

The reason is simple: If you’re an early-stage company and startup, you probably need to generate revenue fast (possibly to stay alive). While we love many things about inbound sales, it takes a lot of time to make inbound sales producing and working.

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Time that you probably can’t afford.

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And the beautiful thing about outbound sales is that it’s the fastest path to learning.

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The market will tell you very quickly whether or not there’s actually demand for what you have to offer, and it will teach you how to best bring this value to the people who would beneft the most from it — it’s the fastest way through the discovery phase.

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Outbound Sales 101

What Is Outbound Sales?

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So, what does outbound sales or outbound prospecting mean now?

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In short, you fnd lead data from scratch to fll your sales pipeline with good leads.

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You identify ideal customers, reach out to them using channels such as email, phone, social media, etc., and introduce them to your company, solution and offers with the goal of turning them into customers.

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It’s true hunting and end-to-end selling.

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In the sense of prospecting, it’s just like a gold miner.

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You are sitting by the river, checking mounds of dirt for a few specks of gold.

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You are trying to create new leads, maybe even researching a new market.

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The point is, you’re starting with a clean slate.

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When you start an outbound sales session (or prospecting) you have no leads and no contact data, and when you’re fnished that session, you have leads and contact data.

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Who Should Be Prospecting?

There are several stages in the life of a company, but really there are just a few different roles that will handle the crucial process of outbound sales and sales prospecting.

1. Founder

In the early stages, founders will likely handle the outbound lead generation.

There are multiple ways to automate the entire process by using lead generation and sales prospecting tools, making it much easier. Here we’re talking about the earliest time of your company. The one where you do the building, selling, etc.

2. Sales Rep

Some companies may have a stage where they have sales people that handle the entire process from lead generation to close. This isn’t a preferred method, but it may be unavoidable for your company. It’s end-to-end selling with sales reps.

3. Outbound Setter(s)/SDR(s)

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If you really want a healthy sales team, it should have both outbound and inbound sales development reps. Inbound SDRs will handle and qualify inbound leads (the other way of getting leads we touched on earlier). Outbound SDRs on the other hand will strictly be responsible for finding and qualifying leads in an outbound sales setting.

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I’ll go over finding and building the perfect sales model for your business at a later stage in this playbook — but for now that we’ve defined the technicalities, specified who should be in charge, I’ll share some details of the process and a few sales prospecting tips.

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What Do Outbound Setters/SDRs Do?

1. Extensive Product Knowledge

Yes, everyone should know the product(s) or service(s) well.

There is a real possibility that those who prospect have to know how to use your product or service better than even account executives (or closers) — an intimate knowledge of the product or service will go a long way to finding those customers that aren’t finding you.

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2. Extensive Customer Knowledge

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• Who are your happiest customers?

• What industry are your customers in?

• What is the avg. revenue of these companies?

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Yes, these sound like the questions you ask when you’re developing an ideal customer profile — setters can use your avatar to quickly profile prospective customers and use that data of those who love your business to deconstruct and fnd new contacts.

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3. Crazy Good Research Skills

Sales prospectors have to dig, right?

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It’s the same thing here, but instead of getting in a river, it’s on websites, social media or countless other sources — the intricacies of lead generation aren’t all covered here, but there are three broad areas that are essential for prospecting:

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1. Researching Firmographics

We touched on this earlier, but firmographics are a playground for good prospectors. Finding new industries/markets and then narrowing down brands by this data to find potential contacts are the entry level of the process.

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• Industry: Finding other sectors or sub-sectors that can benefit.

• Number of Employees: This should be considered when prospecting.

• Geographic Data: Where companies are located can have a big impact.

• Revenue: Small fish may not be able to afford your solution while big fsh (whales) may have a custom solution. Prospectors find those that are just right.

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2. Researching Companies

Now that you have that list, it’s time to find out more about them and become a relative ‘expert’ on things that company and the contacts within might care about.

Look at several things here including:

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• News/achievements: What is the lead company up to? Any news?

• Software: What software/tools do they use? Use Chrome Extensions.

• Social media: What social media platforms are present and active?

• Content: Is any content present? Video, podcast, etc.

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3. Researching Contacts

This makes researching your contact data last on this list, but an indispensable part of research before you begin contacting these new leads — finding the people in the company who call the shots, make decisions and have influence.

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Outbound Programs And Models

So you want to start an outbound program, but you’re beginning from scratch.

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Before you jump in, here are four questions you need to answer for yourself and knowing these will help you make realistic plans and reduce delays or failures, so you can build an outbound program and model right the first time:

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• What’s the right starting model?

• How much revenue can you generate?

• How much will it cost (estimate)?

• How long will it take?

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What’s The Right Starting Model?

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1. Internal Team

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Build your own outbound sales team that is 100% dedicated to do your prospecting.

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If you have the fnancial and managerial capacity to hire and train one or more reps…

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This is ideal as no one will know your ‘stuff’ better than internal people.

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It’s the best long-term ft and solution for most companies.

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However, it can be slower to fnd, train and manage one or more great prospectors.

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It requires more fnancial and managerial bandwidth.

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2. Outsourced Team

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Find an outsourcing service to do the prospecting for you.

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This is sometimes used as an interim step until you’re ready to build your own internal sales team — it’s a great choice if you don’t have the capacity, bandwidth or confdence to hire, train and manage another person or an entire sales team.

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It can be faster and simpler than hiring, requires less (but not zero) management attention, and you can tap into a proven system — BUT outsourcing projects commonly fail when buyers treat outsourcing as a ‘magic pill’ with unrealistic expectations — vendors overpromise and under-delivers… or buyers get leads but waste them.

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3. Parallel Team

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You start an outsourcing project (outsourced team) at the same time you’re building an internal team, designed to complement each other — and work in parallel. This results in faster experimentation, more time-to-learn and results — BUT it’s more expensive and requires more managerial bandwidth.

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4. Scrappy Team

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You’re tight on budget and only want to spend a few hundred dollars (but lots of time)...

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So you can only experiment with outbound in bits and pieces.

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Begin testing and dipping your toes with as little time or money as you have. It might be a good idea to hire a part-or-full-time virtual assistant from the philippines. It’s cheap but might result in unpredictable revenue.

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How Much Revenue Can You Generate?

Let’s assume you hire one or more outbound setters (or SDRs).

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You can expect Revenue Per Outbound SDR =

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(# New Customers Per Month) x (12 Months) x ($ Avg. Outbound Deal Size)

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• Estimating # of New Customers Per Month — One new outbound setter can set about 15-30+ discovery calls per month. Of those, 8 to 15 end up in the pipeline as qualifed leads (or sales accepted leads). We’re using baseline averages and like to see 30% of those qualifed leads close. So in baseline scenarios, assume 2-4+ new customers per month per outbound setter. Run both scenarios for low and high estimates. Qualifed leads per month can be as low as 1 per month in very challenging niches or complex enterprise sales.

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• Estimating $ Average Deal Size — Take the top 20% highest revenue customers, excluding outliers, and calculate their deal size or customer lifetime value — use this as your $ Average Outbound Deal Size.

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Modeling Example — You sell a differentiated product that your bigger customers pay $35,000 annually. You build a 4-person outbound sales team. After ramping, they’ll create:

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Low Case: Add 384 qualifed opportunities worth $13.44M in pipeline per year. Sign 48 more customers worth an extra $1.68M in recurring revenue per year. If retention is 5 years: you’ll add $8.4M in lifetime revenue.

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High Case: Add 480 qualifed opportunities worth $16.8M in pipeline per year. Sign 96 more customers worth an extra $3.36M in recurring revenue per year. If retention is 5 years: you’ll add $16.8M in lifetime revenue.

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How Much Will It Cost (Estimate)?

Salaries make up the bulk of an outbound sales team investment:

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1. Outbound Setters: $36,000–$125,000/Year (full-time, fully-loaded)

The optimum initial frst team size is two or three outbound SDRs that are high-quality “builder” types. You can begin with up to six SDRs if you have a dedicated sales manager, but don’t expand the sales team further until you can measure their results in a sales dashboard and systematically analyze and review how “X effort” leads to “Y results”.

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2. Sales Manager: $64,000–$150,000/Year (full-time, fully-loaded)

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3. Sales Tools: $1,000-$3,000/Year Per Outbound Setter/SDR

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4. Sales Consulting: $10,000 to $150,000+/Year
   

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How Long Will It Take?

• Quarter 1 — You’re developing the program, recruiting and ramping up junior outbound setters and starting to build some sales momentum and a pipeline.

• Quarter 2 — Pipeline you built prior begins to close and the flywheels are turning. Here you also fnd out what works and what doesn’t in your outbound program. Use that data to make the necessary changes to your program.

• Quarter 3-4 — You’re seeing consistency and predictability. The outbound sales process can be standardized, duplicated and scaled. Growth rate is now dependent upon how fast you can innovate, troubleshoot and grow the program. If you’re new to outbound sales, you’ll be sorely disappointed if you expect results (usually deals) in “a couple of days”. This is a realistic timeline. Don’t get sold on fake promises.

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Let’s break down common timeframes, using an Internal Team model:

• Hire and onboard frst SDR(s): 1-2 weeks to get their head straight.

• Ramp and book frst 10 meetings: 1-3 months but meetings may be poor.

• Up meeting quality and quantity: +3 months… now you see the pipeline close.

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Let’s break down common timeframes, using an Outsourced Team model:

If you go with outsourcing, assume the timeframe stays the same (1-3 months to ramp pipeline, predictable revenue in 3+ months). To estimate costs and revenue, for simplicity, assume the costs and revenue are the same as hiring one outbound SDR.

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Here are some things to look for in an outsourcing partner:

There are thousands of them because it’s easy to buy a sales enablement tool, a database, and put up a shingle and make claims —have them share case studies, and intimate deals on how they created that success.

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It’s easy to highlight wins — ask how they handle challenging situations as well as how they know a client is not a good ft. What are the metrics and funnel they focus on, all the way to your revenue?

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So you’re going to invest time, money and energy in a program that won't ‘really’ take off for at least 3 months as the main reason outbound programs succeed or fail is executives:

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• More likely to fail: executive impatience, throwing ‘someone’ at the project whether they’re capable or not, under-investing, or a lack of attention.

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• Less likely to fail: executive urgency, fnding the right people, willingness to invest, or executive oversight. If you are going to do outbound, prepare to do it right.
  

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The Perfect Dashboard

Outbound isn't about email templates, social media, or fancy technologies. Predictable outbound sales growth is about the dashboard. Without an accurate dashboard — whether you’re building your internal team or using an outsourced team — you don’t know what’s working or not or the ‘real’ results.

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Measuring the inbound and outbound SDRs in the same reports... NO! Inbound SDR and outbound SDR metrics have to be separated or you won’t get clean metrics. Outbound sales dashboards are harder because of inaccurate CRM usage and subjectivity in opportunity attribution and qualifcation.

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How often are your closers “doing favors” for setters in accepting opportunities too early or setters taking credit for deals that weren’t really “outbound”?

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Everyone has some version of…

• Outbound activity metrics (email, phone, social, etc.)

• Outbound results metrics (conversations, sales demos, etc.)

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But... do you also measure:

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• # Qualifed Outbound Leads (or Sales Accepted Leads) — every outbound opportunity needs to be reviewed for consistency and integrity.

• Outbound Pipeline Creation Rate — the dollar value of qualifed pipeline created each month and whether it’s trending up or down month over month.

• Close Rates of Outbound Deals — Goal: +20%.
  

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Hiring The Right Team

Building a high-performing sales team is a big challenge.

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Here are the 4 stages of sales hiring for ambitious companies and startups.

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Stage #1: Founder-Led Sales

The frst person to sell your product or service should be you — the founder and your co-founders — even if you hate sales, suck at it and don’t have any prior sales experience.

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Do customer acquisition yourself and be as close to your customers as you can. This will help you immensely later when it is time to scale up sales hiring for the business. The goal here is not only to close deals. Instead, focus on early-stage sales exploration:

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• What objections do they have? What are their pain points?

• How do they describe their problems and pain points?

• How do they respond to your solution?

• What metrics truly matter to them?

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Test different strategies, methods, and tactics to make sales and drive business with cold emails/calls/messaging and write your frst inside sales script. This early-stage is all about getting your hands dirty, fguring out what works and validating your idea with hustle.

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Stage #2: Founder-Led Sales Team (2–3 Sales Reps)

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Once you have some level of success (you've made initial sales and generated some revenue), the question you'll ask yourself is: “How do I grow this?” “How can I take this to the next level?” This is challenging, because you still need to focus on developing your product further too. Balancing these two responsibilities isn’t easy.

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Now is the time to begin your sales hiring process — bringing reps on board and having them replicate the results you achieved in Stage #1: Founder-led sales.

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Notes On Sales Hiring

Don’t hire expensive sales veterans here. You want them young and fnancially motivated in this phase of your sales hiring journey. Hire two or three end to end salespeople at the same time. It’s all about adding frepower to your sales efforts.

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This will create friendly competition among the sales reps as just them knowing that someone else is also sending emails, making calls and closing deals will motivate them to try harder and become better, faster.

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It will also reduce your dependency on any one individual, and give you more fexibility experimenting with different sales approaches (which is highly important in the early stages of fguring out your sales process).

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Now that you have a sales team, you’re responsible and accountable for them.

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Sales thrives in this kind of competitive environment and team spirit, provided you have the proper sales training, process and techniques in place — on top of that, staying afoat in an ocean of rejection will be a lot easier with a supportive team too.

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When you tell your sales reps to try a new sales strategy…

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It might work for one but not for the other.

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In that case, you know that the sales approach is working.

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The problem is with someone's ability to execute on that particular tactic.

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If you take a slower approach to sales hiring and have only one sales rep, you don’t really have anything to measure against. Two or three sales reps are still far from perfect for validating data, but it's a lot better than just one.

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At this stage in your sales hiring, you still need to be deeply involved.

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You’re managing, leading and motivating this team.

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You’re still pitching, doing outbound, inbound, working with your reps, and listening to feedback. You can’t outsource this. There are still too many critical decisions to be made.

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You need all these 1-on-1 experiences with prospects, different sales channels and customer acquisition methods with the following goals you should accomplish before transitioning into the next stage of sales hiring:

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• Try and test cold email templates

• Use an effective sales lead management system

• Be experienced at negotiating deals and handling objections

• Use follow up email sequences to convert more leads better, faster

• Have the ability to see early levels of predictability in your sales process
  

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Stage #3: Junior Sales Leader (3–15 Sales Reps)

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At this point, your sales process has matured: results are a lot more predictable and you're ready to scale your sales hiring. You're seeing effective, consistent acquisition and growth.

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It’s not about exploration anymore — it’s time you start focusing on sales execution.

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Let's bring in some experienced sales leadership: a sales manager or sales director.

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What should this sales manager accomplish for your company?

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• Fine-tune the sales approaches you’ve developed

• Expand on the things you’ve learned and intel you collected

• Grow and manage your sales team (and establish a sales hiring process)

• Set up quotas, train and coach your reps

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You want to look for someone who has experience overseeing the growth of a tiny sales team of three people to 10, 20, or 30 people because that’s the next transition you’re going to make — and it’s one you don’t want to be in charge of as a founder yourself.

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These people should have started out as junior sales reps in a previous company and then grew into a managerial or leadership role there. They should’ve already managed a team that's a bit larger than yours, at a company that already is where you want to be.

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Good sales managers will improve existing structures and optimize processes.

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They usually do not excel at building something from scratch and fguring things out…

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But they’ll move your business forward if they can build on something that’s already there.

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Stage #4: Senior Sales Leader (15+ Sales Reps)

Once you’re beyond that barrier of around 15 salespeople and you want to go really big with your sales hiring efforts, the next breakthrough will happen at 25+ sales reps.

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You'll need a senior sales leader — a VP of Sales.

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Someone who can manage a few sales managers/directors with a proven track-record of scaling things big, who is a VP of Sales at a company that already is where you want to be in 3 years from now.

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The VP of Sales will:

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• Build an organizational sales team structure

• Develop sales hiring, training and ramping plans

• Reorganize your sales commission structures and bonuses

• Groom sales talent to higher sales lead and management positions

• Add new channels to your sales team

• Close larger deals
  

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Choosing The Right Tools

In the very early days when you’re beginning to build your first sales process, and team,

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a spreadsheet or Trello board is often all you need to manage your entire sales operations.

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The right time to progress to a more sophisticated tool kit is when the simple way of doing things stops working. When the spreadsheet or Trello board starts to look overwhelming that sales leads begin falling through the cracks, that’s when you look for upgrades.

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Now there are literally thousands of sales tools out there.

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Determining which one is right for you is a complex process.

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However, here are some high-level things you should take into consideration.

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The less tools you use, the easier it will be to manage your sales process.

And yet, 44% of startups report that their sales reps use fve to nine different tools during their average work day to sell; 37% of sales professionals report that the CRM is the most valuable tool to help them get the job done, followed by phone and email.

‍

Here’s a useful prioritization framework to choose sales tools:

‍

What are the sales activities that...

‍

• Generate the most value for your company, and

‍

• Your reps spend the most time on during an average work week?
  

‍

Sales Compensation Structures

Getting your initial sales compensation structure right is a never-ending process.

‍

You will fnd that you’ll continuously have to iterate and adapt the way you pay and compensate your reps. This lesson is not meant to get it perfect. It’s meant to help you get it done well enough very quickly so that you can move fast.

‍

How much a sales rep earns depends very much on where they work, the level of maturity of the company and the level of seniority. There’s a large number of junior, entry-level jobs available in startup sales — but on the plus side, there’s a large opportunity for extraordinarily fast career growth.

‍

If you're faced with the challenge of crafting a sales compensation and commission structure for your frst sales team, there are a few ways you can go about it:

‍

The Collaborative Way

You're looking for a sales rep with whom you can collaboratively create a sales compensation and commission structure. This should be your proposition:

‍

"I don't know the right way to do this, but I want to find out together with you. I will pay you a base salary for the frst few months while we build the commission plan. If you want maximum money, go to a more established company. If you want maximum learning and growth, join us as you'll work directly with me the founder). We'll have to create this sales commission plan not just for you, but for every future sales rep as well. So this won't be an easy job."

‍

The “Fake It Till You Make It” Way

‍

Pretend to know what you're doing.

‍

Present your first sales reps with a sales compensation and commission structure that's based on the results you want: wishful thinking. Work with your sales team on adjusting your commission structure. Be aware that this is a challenging task!

‍

They trusted you that what you asked from them is realistic. This is their livelihood and admitting that you were fundamentally wrong about their compensation and expectations can make them lose faith and kill team morale.

‍

The Commission-Only Way

Building sales teams consisting of commission-based sales people is extremely powerful but also extremely challenging due to the front-end churn. Think of an entire army of “independent affiliate sales agents” running around the internet generating eyeballs and leads, booking appointments and closing deals.

‍

The commission-only compensation structure and model allows you to have little to no monetary risk and the sales reps to have unlimited earning potential. It works best with a high-ticket offer (+$5,000) and great customer lifetime value.

‍

• Pay Per Appointment vs. Pay Per Show — If you consider a pay per performance model, be aware that incentivization is a challenge. Sales reps get paid for example $75 per booked appointment, or $200 per shown appointment, but this model incentivizes reps to also push unqualified leads into the sales process.

‍

• % Of Closed Deal Size — To keep your sales reps motivated you need a very strong commission rate of the deal ticket size (that’s why this works best, and only, with high-ticket offers). Usually, 10% is a good outbound setter commission rate.

‍

Which Sales Compensation Structure Should You Choose?

That depends on your personality and the kind of company you want to run.

‍

All models are viable, work, and more importantly: all will get you going immediately.

‍

One of the biggest mistakes I've seen founders and sales leaders make is to wait way too long to figure out "the perfect sales compensation structure" before hiring salespeople.

‍

There is no such thing as getting the sales compensation structure right the frst time around. Success will be achieved by moving and learning fast and course correcting rather than thinking your way to perfect solutions and getting it right with the frst execution.

‍

Crunching The Numbers

Once you’ve decided which way to go, you'll need to think about the numbers.

• How do you best incentivize sales reps?

• How do you align their interests with your business' interests?

‍

There's a delicate balance to it: you want them to be aggressive enough to pursue deals with determination, but you don't want them to hunt and close bad deals.

‍

Coming up with the right sales compensation structure is a difficult and complex task.

‍

Factor in that sales reps need to put in work every single workday to generate results months in advance: 45% report that their average sales cycle is 1-3 months; 21% report an average sales cycle length of 4-6 months; 19% a sales cycle shorter than 1 month; 9% 7-12 months; and 4% are working leads for over a year before they close a deal. Be aware that the length of your average sales cycle should influence your sales compensation model.

‍

Cold Emailing

We all dislike the spammy cold emails we find every day in our already overflowing inbox.

‍

So why should we join the ranks of companies that drum up business by sending out unrequested emails to prospects that might have never heard of us? Because...

‍

• It works, and

• There’s a better way of doing it.

‍

A way where people will actually be glad to receive, read, and reply to your emails.

‍

In this chapter we’re just going to cover some of the basics of sending emails that sell.

‍

Getting Your Emails Opened

The most important part of your email is the subject line.

‍

Even though it’s just a couple of words, you should dedicate as much time and care to your subject line as you do to your copy. If your subject line doesn’t propel the recipient to open the email, then the body copy of the email doesn’t matter.

‍

When it comes to subject lines, follow these guidelines:

‍

• Use their first name in the subject line when it makes sense

‍

• Make it as specific as possible — the more personal, the higher the open rate

‍

• If you think it sounds too much like a “marketing email”, then it does (change it)

‍

• Experiment with questions
  

‍

Staying Away From Gimmicks

‍

There are some things you can write in your subject line that might get great open rates.

‍

For example, I once saw an email in my inbox that had the following subject line:

‍

“I’m disappointed, Kurosch”

‍

This subject line was very effective at getting my attention and making me open the email. I wondered if I had let someone down. Instead, the content of the email said…

‍

“I’m disappointed that we haven’t been able to set up a call yet”.

‍

I had never interacted with this person before, nor did I know who he was. I just deleted the email and reminded myself to never do business with that person.

‍

Deliver in your email what you promise in your subject line.

‍

If the disconnect is too big, you're going to get good open rates but bad responses. There are ways to improve your open rates by using certain subject line hacks. One that is fairly old-school and overused by spammers by now (but worked great before) was to just use “Re:” as a subject line, making it appear as if this was a response to a previous email.

‍

Subject lines like “Bad news” or “Strange question” also often get great open rates.

‍

However, these kinds of tactics can backfire. If the first impression you make on a prospect is that you “tricked” them into opening an email, ask yourself if that’s the right way to build trust in a relationship. This is a choice you have to make for yourself.

‍

Getting A Response

Once your email is opened, there’s only one thing that your email needs to accomplish:

‍

Getting a response: Using the right words in your cold emails is an artform in itself.

‍

Again, this ties back into creating a pitch-perfect customer profile and understanding how to speak to them – and it’s beyond the scope of this guide to break this down. Here’s what it all boils down to:

‍

Maximum relevance with minimum words.

‍

You need to show the prospect that what you have to offer is relevant for them. It’s something they care about, a solution to an important problem they’re struggling with, or a way to accomplish a goal they’re pursuing. It requires you to put yourself in the shoes of your prospect and understand what they care about at the time they read your email.

‍

Low Friction Call-To-Actions

‍

“Can you chat for 10 minutes?"

‍

Asking for someone's time can create a lot of friction without a big payoff…

‍

Great, I get to speak to yet another salesperson.

‍

Here are 10 low-friction CTAs you can use instead of asking for someone's time:

‍

• Would you like to learn more?

• Would you be open to learning more?

• Want to learn more?

• Does this sound interesting?

• If you're even the slightest bit curious about the idea, let me know and I'll spill the beans to help your team get double-digit reply rates.

• Happy to share a few ideas of quality you can steal to increase your cold outreach response rates (so you should take advantage of this).

• Not sure this is a problem you're bumping into, but if so, let me know and I'll forward the video along.

• Would it make sense to send you a video explaining how this works so you can determine if a broader conversation is needed?

• Feel free to say no if you don't see a ft but would you be open to learning more?

• Would a brief email exchange make sense so you can determine if a broader conversation makes sense?

‍

Making It (Look) Personal

Even though you’re just using templates, your emails should look personal. Your email should appear to be a real email — written and sent by a real person. It should not look like a beautifully designed professional marketing email. Anything that has the look and feel of “one-to-many” communication will lower your response rates.

‍

• Personalized First Lines — The first line in a cold email is important for a lot of reasons. For example, the first sentence or two can help you generate intrigue and establish your tone without being too salesy right off the bat. It helps to hook the prospect in and have them read the rest of the email content.
  

‍

Cold Calling

Now if you have negative feelings about cold emails, let’s take things up a notch.

‍

How about ringing someone up in the middle of their workday so you can sell to them?

‍

It takes dogged determination to make this channel work. 55% of startups report that it takes up to 5 calls to even reach a prospect on the phone; 32% report it takes 6-10 calls, 7% report it takes 11-20, and 6% that it takes them +20 dials.

‍

The more high-volume your outreach, the worse your reach rates get — which is one of the reasons why large, high-performing sales teams often use sales dialers to spend less time dialing, and more time actually talking with prospects on the phone.

‍

Writing Your Script

‍

If you’re doing inside sales, you know that a phone call can be an incredibly effective tool to reach out to potential customers and close deals.

‍

Here’s the cold call opening I used on calls:

‍

“Hi, my name is Kurosch. I’m calling some local RE agencies in the area to find out if they are a good ft for our beta program. What we do in a sentence is provide local RE agencies with a commission-only lead-generation team. Does this sound interesting to you?”

‍

Why did this work? Let’s break down the opening lines:

‍

“Hi, my name is Kurosch.”

‍

We established context right away.

‍

It seems like a no-brainer to start with your name…

‍

But you’d be surprised how many people ignore this step.

‍

Forget your pitch for a second.

‍

You need to let prospects process who you are.

‍

Otherwise, there’s zero chance they’ll pay attention to anything else you’re saying.

‍

Some sales trainers recommend small talk after the intro…

‍

“How’s your day going? Is it raining there, too?” — but that’s BS.

‍

Maybe small talk sets a friendly tone, but who has time for that?

‍

You’re interrupting prospects on a busy day.

‍

Prove that you value their time.

‍

“I’m calling some RE agencies in the area to find out if they are a good ft for our beta…”

‍

We chose these words carefully. In one sentence, we’re able to let our prospects know…

‍

• Who we help (“Real Estate agencies”)

‍

• Where we’re located (“in the area”)

‍

• What we’re looking for (“a good ft”)

‍

• What we’re offering (“a beta program”)
  

‍

We chose “good ft” over “customer” for a reason — these were exploratory calls.

‍

“We provide local RE agencies with a commission-only lead-generation team”

‍

This was our elevator pitch. No bullshit. No fluff.

‍

The key to a great elevator pitch is clarity and brevity.

‍

Try to keep this to one sentence.

‍

If it takes thirty seconds to explain what you do, that’s a problem.

‍

Prospects don’t have patience, especially during cold calls.

‍

“Does this sound interesting to you?”

‍

We cared how they responded to this, but it never really mattered.

‍

• If they said yes, I’d say, “Awesome! Tell me about your current marketing.”

‍

• If they said maybe, I’d say, “Interesting. Tell me about your current marketing.”

‍

• If they said no, I’d say, “Ok, do you have a second to tell me about your marketing.”

‍

The truth is that neither of us had enough information to decide whether the call was a waste of time — we still had a few qualifying questions to decide if they were a good ft for our beta, and they still had time to decide whether to continue or hang up the phone.

‍

Here’s the other reason why this question was important:

‍

It gave prospects an opportunity to say no.

‍

If the pitch didn’t sound interesting and they weren’t able to verbalize a quick objection…

‍

They’d be thinking, “How do I get off this call?” for the rest of the conversation.

‍

I’d never get any information out of them.

‍

The early “no” actually allowed me to keep the conversation going…

‍

Even if it was only for a few more seconds.

‍

Now that we’ve covered the opening lines, let’s dig into the overall cold call structure:

‍

• Raise curiosity (Who is this? Why should I care?)

‍

• Give context (specific elevator pitch)

‍

• Ask for permission to continue.

‍

• Ask situation questions.

‍

• Probe and test close.

‍

• Take next steps.

‍

Opening — Steps 1–3:

‍

“Hi, my name is Kurosch. I’m calling some local RE agencies in the area to fnd out if they are a good ft for our beta program. What we do in a sentence is provide local RE agencies with a commission-only lead-generation team. Does this sound interesting to you?”

‍

Fact Finding — Step 4:

‍

“What is your current XYZ process?”

‍

“How do you currently solve XYZ?”

‍

Test Closing — Step 5:

‍

“We would want to start in X days/weeks.”

‍

“The beta program is heavily discounted at $X per month instead of $Y per month.” “Does this work for you? What is the decision-making process in your company?”

‍

Scheduling — Step 6:

‍

“Great. Sounds like this could be a good ft for you. Let me send you our offer via email and schedule a convenient time for us next week to discuss all your questions”

‍

If you think scripts turn salespeople into robots, you’re not using sales scripts correctly.

‍

When you mindlessly read your lines, you’re going to sound like a robot.

‍

But scripts aren’t meant to lock you into a conversation.

‍

They’re meant to help you:

‍

• Structure your message

‍

• Polish your sales process

‍

• Develop a scalable sales process

‍

• Raise your sales IQ and intelligence

‍

• Make changes and improvements quickly

‍

• Decrease the number of low performance days

‍

• Listen more effectively to your prospects
  

‍

Facing Rejection

‍

As a salesperson, you’re going to face rejection. My advice? — Learn to love the “no”.

‍

When you understand what kind of “no” they’re giving you, that’s half the battle.

‍

Be sure to create an objection management document, so that you’re ready to address any objections they send your way — you’ll hear these two pretty frequently:

‍

• “I don’t have time right now.”

‍

• “Send me an email.”

‍

To work around the time objection, provide value early, often. If you use this cold call script, you’re already doing so in your opening. When you’re asked to send an email, say:

‍

“I certainly will, but so I know exactly what to include in that email, can you tell me...”

‍

Remember, creating a winning cold call script is a never-ending process.

‍

Qualifying Prospects

‍

One of the biggest misconceptions about salespeople is that all they care about is the commission. Sure, there are plenty of sales people like that, but the best sales people, the ones you want to be part of your team, frst care selfessly about the prospect, before they then selfshly care about closing the deal.

‍

Qualifying is all about gathering insights necessary to fgure out:

‍

• Should you sell to a given prospect?

‍

• What is the best course of action to close a deal?

‍

• Is this prospect a good ft for your offer?

‍

• Is it a viable sales opportunity?

‍

Only after you've qualified someone can you really know whether it's worth investing your time and effort into trying to sell to this prospect — however, many salespeople pitch too quickly, without having first gained a proper understanding of their prospect.

‍

What happens when you don't qualify leads?

‍

You're essentially throwing darts in the dark.

‍

It will hurt your performance on several levels.

‍

You'll waste your time and energy chasing the wrong leads, barking up the wrong tree. You become a crocodile salesman — big mouth, no ears. The ones who are always talking and pitching. They don’t take time to realize what you're true, deep motivations are.

‍

They’re too busy telling you what they THINK you want to hear.

‍

Wasting time

‍

If you're not qualifying your leads properly, you'll waste a lot of time following up and attempting to sell to prospects that aren't a good ft for your company. Spend this time on qualifed prospects, and you'll close substantially more valuable deals.

‍

Missing opportunities

‍

Some of your best prospects might only become a customer if you invest a certain amount of effort into getting them on board. If you don't know who those high-value prospects are, you'll miss out on the chance to sell them.

‍

Closing bad deals

‍

Sometimes you might successfully sell to people who shouldn't buy your product. This isn't just bad for the customer whom you persuaded into a bad buying decision, but selling to the wrong customers is also bad for you and your company.

‍

Not knowing how to sell

‍

What are their pain points? What's the context in which they evaluate your solution? What kind of person are you dealing with? What type of organization? If you don't know the answers to these questions, then you can't customize the pitch for your prospects.

‍

Not knowing how to close deals

‍

What's their buying process? Who are key infuencers? What's the deal value? Not knowing these things can lead to bad "surprises". Most surprises you'll get in sales aren't actually surprises, they're just a result of a sales rep not properly qualifying a prospect.

‍

How To Qualify

‍

It's all about asking questions and eliciting the right information from the prospect.

‍

There are four areas you want to focus on with your questions.

‍

#1 Customer Profile

‍

When qualifying prospects for our premium growth consulting and coaching programs, we ask people who they serve, what their level of skill set is, and how many case studies they have, etc. And if it's less than 1 case study for example, they’re not qualifed. Simple.

‍

#2 Needs

‍

What are the customer's needs? Is it about reaching certain goals in revenue?

‍

What are the needs of the individual, the team, and the company?

‍

Remember, you're selling to people frst, not companies.

‍

You have to know what and how to fulfll their wants and needs.

‍

#3 Decision-Making

‍

How do they make decisions? How many people are involved?

‍

Which departments are involved? What's their typical buying process like?

‍

How much time does it take them to buy a product or service ?

‍

For example, some organizations have 12 month buying processes.

‍

If you need to close deals in three months, that's no good for you.

‍

When do they plan to buy?

‍

Maybe they're not ready to buy now, but will be in the future.

‍

#4 Competition

‍

Who are you competing against? Which other vendors have they worked with?

‍

Are they evaluating your solution vs. a competitor's solution?

‍

What are the criteria they base their decision on?

‍

If you know all these things, you'll have a really great idea if someone is a qualifed prospect or not. Create a simple, one-page document that lists all the crucial questions you want to ask or the information you want to elicit.

‍

How NOT To Qualify

‍

While the most common problem is without a doubt that sales reps don't qualify their prospects well enough, there are also some people who take qualifying too far…

‍

And simply do it badly.

‍

You can't just rapidly fre questions at your prospects and interrogate them.

‍

Be smooth about it.

‍

Weave the qualifying into the natural fabric of an engaging conversation.

‍

Approach them with an open sense of curiosity.

‍

Identifying Red Flags

‍

During the qualifying stage there are several red fags you want to watch out for.

‍

Spot incongruencies

‍

Sometimes the answers you get from prospects don't paint a coherent picture.

‍

Some of the things they say don't ft together with other things they say, and you can't make sense of it. Oftentimes they're giving you BS answers, and sometimes a prospect won't be completely forthright with you.

‍

You need to know if and when they're not being honest with you.

‍

A bit of a disconnect to put so much emphasis on scaling to thousands of customers, and not having any right now — maybe they are clueless and inexperienced; maybe there's something they are trying to hide.

‍

Whatever it is, watch out for conflicting responses.

‍

Does the story they tell you make sense?

‍

If it doesn't, then bring it up in a polite and honest way like:

‍

"John, and correct me if I’m wrong here but I struggle with this point you’ve made. Why is scaling so important to you if you are still small and in the discovery phase as a startup?"

‍

Just asking them to clarify will often be enough to bring up the real information.

‍

Pay attention to context, not just content

‍

Don't just listen to what prospects say, but also to how they say it.

‍

If they tell you they're super excited about implementing your solution, but their voice is fat and muted… maybe they're really not super excited — the point is to stimulate a real, honest and somewhat vulnerable conversation and to not just comfortably cruise along the surface level.

‍

When you notice this, give them opportunities to clarify things — don't grill them:

‍

"Oh, you say you're super excited, but you sound totally bored. You're lying!"

‍

Simply say something like:

‍

"John, a lot of times implementing a new solution is really hard but also scary. What are some possible issues you might encounter especially in the early stages that we can collaboratively prevent from happening?"

‍

The Reluctant Prospect

‍

Sometimes prospects will exhibit an unwillingness to provide you with substantial data.

‍

They'll repeatedly respond to your questions with "I don't know".

‍

Their answers will be so general and unspecific that they contain no valuable information.

‍

If you're encountering a prospect like this, you're either talking to the wrong person and they're clueless, or they don't trust you — call them out on it and kindly tell them:

‍

"John, we only deal with customers who become real long-term partners. To do that successfully we both need to be open. I really need to understand what you’re currently doing and need in order to even judge if our solution is a good ft for you or if I should point you in a different direction to help you and make you successful. Does that sound fair?"

‍

What If Many Leads Don’t Qualify?

‍

Sometimes the vast majority of people you talk to simply aren't a good match for your product/service. If that's the case, you're probably casting your net too wide and should consider a more focused and targeted marketing and lead generation strategy:

‍

• Change your messaging (cold emails, headlines, sales copy, etc.)

‍

• Adjust your positioning (you attract who you are)
  

‍

Handling Objections

‍

Most salespeople are coming up with answers to objections on the fly.

‍

That’s a huge mistake.

‍

What you need is to develop an objection management document.

‍

I’ll share with you how to do that in a few simple steps — but frst let’s look at the reasons why ”computing” an answer to an objection in real time is a bad idea.

‍

It’s going to take focus and attention away from the customer while you’re trying to formulate your response. Your answer will probably be way longer than it should be because you’re communicating in a stream of consciousness style.

‍

You’re not going to seem confident.

‍

The quality of your answer will heavily depend on your state at the present moment.

‍

So how do you create a great objection management doc?

‍

Here are the 5 simple steps:

‍

• Write down the top 25 objections you’re facing.

• Write down the best answers to each objection.

• Limit the answers to a max of 3 to 5 sentences.

‍

Now, before we can officially roll out the objection management doc to the sales team, have at least 10 people review the answers with you and give feedback. All that’s left then is to train your team and yourself to know these objection answers by heart.

‍

Asking For The Close

‍

Most salespeople ask for the close way too late.

‍

They’re waiting for the perfect moment.

‍

That moment when they have a guaranteed “Yes” to avoid rejection or resistance.

‍

Step Up Your Closing Game

‍

A lot of people don’t ask for the close because they’re afraid of getting a “No”.

‍

Instead, they keep providing their prospects with more information and reasons to buy, assuming that they’re eventually going to close themselves — Wrong!

‍

The first no is your friend.

‍

You talk to a customer, qualify them, and make sure they should buy your product.

‍

Once you know that they’re a good ft and you’ve given them the pitch — ask for the close.

‍

Don’t wait for objections. Just go for the close:

‍

“You are a great fit John, I’ve shown you how we’re going to solve your problems effectively and how we’ve priced it in a way that guarantees a return on investment. What do you say? Have you seen enough to make a decision?”

‍

At this point you know 99% of the time that they’re going to say no.

‍

Be okay with it.

‍

Stare Rejection In The Face

‍

People that are afraid of rejection are the ones that get it often.

‍

Those are the people that are the most affected by it.

‍

The people that are trying to avoid it and work their way around rejection.

‍

They take it personally — they can feel it.

‍

You can see it all over their faces.

‍

You know who doesn’t care?

‍

People that are winning and closing deals.

‍

Don’t work your way around rejection.

‍

Learn to love it.

‍

Make “no” a part of the process.

‍

People are so afraid of the no that they provide their prospects with more features and literally arming them with as much BS as they can to save themselves from rejection.

‍

What they do instead is overwhelm their prospects…

‍

To the point where they can no longer make a decision.

‍

Wrong!

‍

Ask For The Close Early

‍

This should be one of the first questions you ask:

‍

“What will it take for you to become a customer John?”

‍

You're doing two things with this question:

‍

1. Exploring the prospect's buying process, and

‍

2. Encouraging them to imagine a scenario in which they buy.

‍

We'll talk about even more benefits later in this chapter.

‍

Here’s what a typical conversation might look like using the virtual close:

‍

You: “What will it take for you to become a customer?”

‍

Prospect: “We’ll probably have to take this information back to the team.”

‍

Don't be satisfied with this response — keep asking follow-up questions.

‍

It's your job to eliminate last-minute surprises during the sales process.

‍

What else do I need to know?

‍

You: “Once your team reviews this information, what typically happens next?”

‍

Prospect: “We’ll schedule another call. I’m sure they’ll have more follow up questions.”

‍

You: “Okay, let's say I answer those questions to their satisfaction. What happens next?”

‍

Prospect: “We’ll probably want to get a proposal from you.”

‍

Even after you find out the necessary information, you're still not done.

‍

You: “Once we send over the proposal, what typically happens next?”

‍

Prospect: “Well, then I will think about it with Peter, my business partner.”

‍

At this point, most salespeople might stop asking questions.

‍

They've learned a lot about the prospect's buying process, and identified some important next steps — but stopping is a mistake. They still haven't arrived at the virtual close.

‍

You need to keep pushing:

‍

You: “After Peter gives the greenlight, are we ready to move forward?”

‍

Prospect: “Yes, we’d only need to run this through legal.”.

‍

You: “Sounds appropriate. Can you tell me about this particular part of the process?”

‍

Prospect: “Well, they usually take a couple weeks to review agreements, and if everything looks good, they'll pass it back to us for the final sign-off."

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You: “Great. And then we're in business?”

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Prospect: “Yes!”

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Now you have the whole roadmap for success.

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You understand exactly what it's going to take to close this customer.

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No surprises.

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What are the benefits of the virtual close?

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• You understand all the necessary steps to close a deal.

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• You guide the prospect through these same steps to avoid confusion.

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• You explore opportunities to shorten the time it takes to close the deal.

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• You help the prospect visualize a future where they become a customer.

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• You discover red fags that could slow down or prevent the deal from closing.

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This last reason is why you need to ask for the virtual close as soon as possible.

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If they say, "We have a 24-step approval process and our budget is $750 per month" is it actually worth your time? They might also say, "Our budget is allocated until 2022, so we can't buy your product any time soon, but we're still interested in a trial."

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Pretty good to know, right?

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Following Up

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Life is all about the follow up.

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Especially when it comes to the startup stages.

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It's easy to focus on the initial cold email, cold call or cold message.

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You reach out to someone and then feel good about yourself.

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You've done your job — reach out, pitch and ask for a meeting/call/etc.

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Now all you have to do is sit around and wait for the other side to respond.

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And that's the problem — you need more "follow up game".

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“But Kurosch, I don't want to be a pain in the ass...“

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We all want to avoid being annoying at the risk of getting rejected.

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That's why most people will contact someone once, and then wait for a response.

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Wrong!

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I have a simple follow up philosophy:

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You follow up as many times as necessary until you get a response.

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Don't care what the response is as long as you get one.

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If someone tells me they need another 14 days to get back to me, I will put that in my calendar and ping them again in 14 days; if they tell me they are busy and they don't have time right now, I will respond and ask for a convenient time to follow up.

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Only if someone tells me they are not interested — I leave them alone.

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The key here is to actually keep following up.

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Most people will assume that silence equates to no interest and will stop following up.

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Don't!

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Simply assume that the person is busy and needs to be followed up with until they have a moment in time to respond — and if you keep reaching out, your chances of getting to that perfect moment are massively higher.

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That's how you get things done that others don't.

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That's how you get meetings that others don't.

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You follow up.

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How to follow up like a pro

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Following up is more art than science — the more you do it, the better you get at it.

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Nothing can replace building strong follow-up habits.

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Let’s get started…

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How Often Should You Follow Up?

If you reach out completely cold and never had any interaction with the other person, follow up a maximum of 6 times. You don’t have the type of relationship that gives you permission to do much more than that.

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If you already had some kind of interaction and that interaction was not a clear, defnite “NO”, then follow up as long as it takes to get a response.

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The Right Follow Up Frequency

Here’s a general schema for timing your follow-ups:

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• 1st follow-up (+02)

• 2nd follow-up (+04)

• 3rd follow-up (+07)

• 4th follow-up (+14)

• 5th follow-up (+30)

• 6th follow-up (+30)

... from there once a month.

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Follow up also depends on the context, situation, relationship and interactions you had with the other person. For example, if you follow up with an incredibly busy and important CEO of a large enterprise, don’t send another email tomorrow and two days later again.

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Give them more time, maybe 4–7 days until your first follow-up.

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If you know this person gets 5,000 emails a day, be respectful of that fact.

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Which Medium Is Best For Follow Up?

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This depends on what you’re after — do you want to optimize for…

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1. Quick response or

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2. Positive outcome?

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If you optimize for a quick response (because an issue is time-sensitive) then a phone call is the best medium. However, it’s also a lot easier to come across as annoying, so the risk of turning a "maybe" into a "no" is much higher. If you optimize for a positive outcome, then email is the best medium for follow-ups but it might take multiple attempts.

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Following Up By Phone

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When you call, there’s a higher risk that your follow-up will annoy the other person.

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If you tried to call 3 times and the other person didn’t pick up the phone, call again and leave a voicemail. That’s it. More than three missed calls and one voicemail can be perceived as too invasive, annoying, and even desperate.

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Following Up On Social Media

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Tapping into social media as another way to stay on the other person’s radar is very effective such as retweeting a tweet, sending a LinkedIn invite, commenting on their updates or posts. The main piece of advice I can give you here is to not over-do this and don’t come across as a creepy borderline-stalker.

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Getting Referrals

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Want more higher quality customers with a lot less effort than it takes to do prospecting?

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Use this simple referral sales system to grow your business starting today.

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Every week, I talk to founders who want to get more leads and are considering starting or expanding existing outbound sales efforts:

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• “How can we get more leads?”

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• “How can we scale outbound sales?”

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• “How can we improve our cold emails?”

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Have you ever thought about your existing customers as a great source for new leads?

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Yes, I'm talking about referrals from happy customers.

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It sounds so simple, yet nobody cares to actually do it right.

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Referral sales can be your #1 source of new hot leads and turn into a massive growth engine for your company or startup if you do it right. The funny thing is most don't do referral sales — and those that try, do a half-assed job at it.

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What Does Referral Sales Really Mean?

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Referral sales means closing your new and current customers on the concept of introducing you to other companies that are likely to need the solution you've built.

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Why Are Referral Leads Better?

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No outbound lead you could ever generate will have the same quality as referral leads.

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There are two levels of quality:

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1. Your best customers will most likely know others who run very similar businesses which means they are highly qualifed leads for your company.

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2. You are being introduced to them via a friend and have the beneft of trust right at the start of the relationship.

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Are Referral Leads Considered Outbound Leads?

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Yes, they are.

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They were introduced to you, which is the warmest form of outbound you could ever do.

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However, it's still reaching out to someone who didn't come to you in the frst place.

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So if you're going outbound, you might as well start at the warmest point.

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Why Are So Many Doing Referral Sales Wrong?

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Because they’re afraid — it’s scary to ask for more once you close a deal.

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“I might jeopardize a deal or make a positive conversation awkward.”

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Go where others are afraid to go and you'll fnd big opportunities.

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When Is The Best Time To Ask For A Referral?

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Right after somebody made a purchase.

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I know that people like to wait until customers have been around for months.

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That's fine, but it's also a waste of time.

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Once someone opts to buy, they are likely to be convinced enough to tell others about it.

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You should take advantage of this moment to grow your sales pipeline.

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The Right Way To Do Referral Sales

1. Ask for a referral and anticipate the “no” (or “I’ll think about it.”).

2. Ask one more time right then and there and make sure to give them an email template and make it easy and frictionless to actually make the introduction.

3. After you've closed a referral, make sure that your new customer thanks the person who introduced you, so you're closing the feedback loop in a positive way (which inspires more referrals from the original referrer).

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Some will tell you “no” in a slightly annoyed way.

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That's ok, just tell them:

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“Okay, I respect that, I will follow up in an email, I really appreciate your help.”

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Some will give you one or more names just because you pushed one more time (my experience has been that 40% of people will give you referrals after the second ask).

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Write those names down and tell them:

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“Great, thank you. I want to make it as easy as possible for you to make that introduction. So you’ll get an intro email from me. Just copy and paste it, and send it to Joe and Steve. Feel free to make edits or write something yourself, if you like. Does that work for you?”

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Referral Intro Email Template

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Hey [frst name],

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I wanted to connect you with Kurosch, their company helps XYZ.

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I think this can be really interesting for you, and a contact would be mutually benefcial.

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I’ll let you guys take it from here,

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{{signature}}

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After You Close A Referral

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When you sign someone up who was referred to you, ask them:

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“Who is responsible for you getting all these benefts by becoming a customer of ours?”

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Often, you will get a response like: “Uhm ... who? You mean ... you?”

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And then you say: “No, the person who introduced us in the frst place!”

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Customer: “Oh, yes, Joe!”

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You: “Perfect, do you mind doing me a quick favor and sending Joe a quick thank you email that he made a fruitful connection between us, so he knows that you appreciate it?”

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The moment they send Joe the thank you email, you're closing the feedback loop.

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That will likely inspire Joe to make more referrals.

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The frst thing Joe thinks when he gets that email is:

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“Hmm, who else do I know that I could introduce this to?”

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Every person wants to make successful connections

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Every person wants to help others discover something they are grateful for.

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If you treat referral sales as a separate product that gets the same, if not more, attention from your sales team, you'll see an ever growing amount of new hot outbound leads.

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Make Referrals Part Of Every Deal

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Once you've seen success with referral sales, you should make it part of the experience of buying your product/service upfront. After you had the initial meetings and everything looks like the prospect is going to buy, try saying this:

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“Before we go any further exploring a potential deal, I want to bring up that we're fully focused on building world class technology and on servicing and supporting our customers to massive success. What that means is that we're not investing in marketing and sales as heavily because our happy customers are referring us to others who could beneft from our solution. Does that sound like a fair arrangement to you as well?”

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Prospect: “Yes, that sounds fair.”

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(I've never heard someone say "No, I want you to spend less time on product and service and do more marketing and sales so I don't have to refer you to anyone.")

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Referral Sales: The Hot Outbound Growth Engine

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I've taught this system to hundreds of companies and startup founders and many have implemented it to great success — but I have to warn you — it takes conviction to keep asking for referrals even if people say no at frst. It takes massive courage to ask again.

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Just like anything in sales, you need the emotional stability to go on as you face failure in the early days. If you can do that, you'll start a growth engine for your company that's going to support scaling sales for many years to come.

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What About Referral Incentives?

I've found that in B2B, unlike in B2C, people are not driven by financial upsides of making a referral, they are more likely to make a referral when they feel like they are providing value to their network without any selfish incentives.

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Once in a while, someone will ask for it and it is up to you to decide if you want to give people a discount, % of the deal value or something else for helping you close a new business. That’s reasonable.

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What’s Next?

I’ve aimed to keep this playbook short and actionable, while still covering everything you need to build a successful outbound sales process and team. The most important piece of advice is to start implementing right now.

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As you put the strategies and ideas in this playbook into action, you’ll fnd that there are plenty of missing pieces. Building a winning outbound sales process and sales team is a long haul — and quick fxes will mostly lead you astray.

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Do the work, and grind through those hard days when you hate every minute of it.

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In the early stages of developing an outbound sales process (and team), it usually takes a lot of aggressively-patient experimentation and iteration until you build a sales model that works — but the more mature your process and team becomes, the more predictable and replicable the results (the results will be hard to believe).

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Thanks for taking the time to read this playbook.

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I look forward to hearing from you soon!

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To your success,