SaaStr

FEBRUARY 9, 2024

Founder CEOs are better, all things being equal. You’ll figure out how to sell your product in the early days — after all, you know it better than anyone else. You’ll figure out how to manage a small team of engineers. You’ll figure out how to do initial content marketing. They go the distance.

Engineering 105

Engineering Up-sell Sell Product 105

SaaStr

MAY 8, 2024

As a SaaS veteran who built and sold a software company for nine figures, invested in startups since 2013, 10x-ing his fund, and continues to build a powerhouse community of SaaStr fans, he offers some hot takes on the communities’ burning questions. You have to figure out the absolute best you can do with your budget.

Quota 84

Quota GTM Price Finance 84

SaaStr

MAY 16, 2024

It takes us all a long time to figure this out. Most startups I’ve worked with, one of the cofounders doesn’t work out. And often walks out the door with way too much stock. And the one cofounder that checked out a while ago owning another 20%. The usual reason is he or she isn’t just committed as the others.

Customers 65

Customers 65

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 25, 2024

The main reason I’m interested in selling is it combines 3 things that make up who I am and what I really like. I love trying to improve things, change things for the better, expand things, fix things. Teaching people new things, new approaches, new processes, etc. is extremely gratifying.

Sell 118

Sell Up-sell Consult Drivers/motivators 118

Martech

JANUARY 26, 2024

For the most part in marketing, there’s starting to be some case studies about efficiency gains from writing teams or impact on SEO, things like that. There are a lot of companies in heavily regulated industries where they’re not even allowed to really be using these things. We figure things out.

Technology 98

Technology Technology Trust Start-ups 98

Partners in Excellence

FEBRUARY 29, 2024

But let’s imagine he responds and the challenges he suggests are things you can’t do anything about?” ” Stephen hung in, I do admire his stubbornness, “How do I figure it out?” ’ or ‘We are seeing this as an emerging issue, are you seeing the same thing?’

Pitch 127

Pitch Prospecting Start-ups Conversion 127

Martech

FEBRUARY 7, 2024

I don’t like one thing, I like all of it. That first company wound up going out of business. We did a lot of website builds in the enterprise space and things like that, but we also saw the rise of social media as a marketing tool, programmatic advertising and personalization. For those times, we did some interesting things.

UX 113

UX Technology Technology Up-sell 113

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 12, 2024

One of the things Kelly highlights is the thrill of competing and achieving, “why I love the profession – it provides a way for me to feed my competitive nature. I want to look at the top of the leaderboard and figure out a way to get there. However, in my role as salesperson, I had access to all of those things.

Sell 110

Sell Engineering Growth Trust 110

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 3, 2024

We constantly seek shortcuts, things that enable us to avoid doing the work critical to creating and sustaining performance. We constantly experiment with different shortcuts, trying to figure out how to make them work for us (apparently they worked for others). We start thinking, “How can we be different?”

Objection handling 117

Objection handling Construction Technique Drivers/motivators 117

Partners in Excellence

MAY 1, 2024

” Neither of us feel we are out of touch with modern selling, the challenges both buyers and sellers face. ” And we are totally bewildered by things we see happening in sales. It just feels good and we get to hang out with the cool kids. We ask ourselves, “What are we missing?”

Technology 115

Technology Technology CRM Pipeline 115

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 5, 2023

While we were working on a specific project and talking about a major transformation initiative, all of a sudden it struck me that we face the same thing in selling and understanding the customer decisionmaking process. Things change, the key issues inevitably change as the customer learns more; people involved in the project may change.

B2B 102

B2B Clients Pitch Consult 102

Partners in Excellence

AUGUST 17, 2023

.” We see, almost daily, things aren’t working–or at least as well as they should be. If we recognize the need to change, we change the wrong things. We may change the people, asking them to do the same things their predecessors have done. Once we confront the truth, smart people can figure ways to fix it.

Technique 98

Technique Technology Technology Sell 98

Search Engine Land

FEBRUARY 29, 2024

Commenting on the new ad format and lack of information provided from Google, Higman told Search Engine Land: “What bothers me about most things that Google has rolled out recently is the lack of transparency.”

X-functional 125

X-functional Engineering Launch Clients 125

Partners in Excellence

MAY 2, 2023

Having anything to do with sales was the furthest thing from my mind when I was thinking about a job following college. It turned out to be a job selling computers for IBM. In the interview, one of the people said, “We checked you out. The people in LA don’t think you are cut out to sell.

Sell 105

Sell Retail Consult Strategic planning 105

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 3, 2023

One of the things he discusses in the concept of “Selling Possibility.” They’ve done all the heavy lifting of trying to figure out what questions they should be asking, who should be involved, the risks, the necessity of changing. But we miss a huge opportunity by waiting for our customers to figure things out.

Sell 127

Sell Up-sell Start-ups Customers 127

Search Engine Land

APRIL 1, 2024

In an interview, Altman said he has no interest in being another Google, but does want to figure out how to integrate ChatGPT with Search : “That would be an example of a cool thing. And there have been rumors about ChatGPT developing a web search product. I don’t think anyone has cracked the code on yet.

Product 109

Product 109

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 18, 2024

First, figure out if it’s just anxiety. But if they are truly checked out — if they are going to leave. This may be the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do, to let a co-founder who is truly great at things, even a co-founder you simply can’t do it without … go. This is one of the toughest situations to be in.

Start-ups 96

Start-ups Growth 96

SaaStr

MARCH 19, 2024

His day-to-day role as a first-time founder involves a lot of work around creating and building the MVP product and filtering out all of the noise in this SaaS ecosystem. You want to be scrappy and figure out how to do as much as possible without deploying the capital you’ve raised and preserving that money to build a product.

Networking 83

Networking Finance Pipeline Engineering 83

Search Engine Land

OCTOBER 10, 2023

That setup pushes out Image, Display, and Video ads across all the different networks (except for Shopping). It doesn’t take a linguist to figure out that Demand Gen is Google’s attempt to help advertisers generate demand, since Google Ads has typically been seen as a channel to capture demand as people are looking for something.

Campaign 122

Campaign Clients Territory Conversion 122

SaaStr

APRIL 1, 2024

Dear SaaStr: Funding Aside, What Are The Top 3 Things That Stop SaaS Companies From Growing From ~$25k MRR to ~$250k MRR? Map out how long it will take you to get to Initial Traction ($1.5m Figure out whatever it’s going to take from a founders’ sacrifice, hiring, capital perspective … and plan on it. Let’s step back.

Promote 101

Promote Meeting Customers Product 101

Partners in Excellence

MAY 5, 2023

Or we may have a portfolio of solutions that address a range of things that are helpful to the customer. Too often, in our outreach to customers, we inflict all the things we can do for them. Then we leave it to the customer to figure out where they need the help. They were preparing a capabilities presentation.

Presentation 104

Presentation Start-ups Customers Service 104

Search Engine Land

JANUARY 25, 2024

Google Ads has rolled out an updated UI to a small number of accounts. The new design is part of the same UI update that began rolling out in June. While the affected accounts will experience a different layout, structure and design, it’s important to note that there have been no changes in functionality to any tools or features.

X-functional 121

X-functional Campaign Engineering Process 121

Martech

MAY 15, 2024

A: Oh boy, I started out in direct marketing. I was really drawn to new things, so the whole idea of websites, and online ecommerce was really starting to brew. And in that space, I realized I have an ability to “speak technology” — I can translate very technical things to people who aren’t technical.

Healthcare 84

Healthcare Technology Technology Sports 84

SaaStr

JANUARY 26, 2024

So Vendr has their latest SaaS Buyer Report out here. Just one thing, to keep everyone honest: consider deals stale around Day 45 unless there is a true, documented set of steps toward an actual close. At some point, you gotta close out opportunities. It doesn’t help the company figure out how they’ll do.

Closing 108

Closing Pipeline B2B Process 108

Search Engine Land

FEBRUARY 13, 2024

It's not a thing that's going to factor into other factors. The catch is they don’t, because there isn’t any such thing as an E-E-A-T score. Why doesn’t Google use these things? They could probably figure it out, but then there’s the whole SEO problem. Let’s get that out of the way.

Engineering 128

Engineering Contact Start-ups Launch 128

SaaStr

MARCH 20, 2024

The new CEO is coming in (x) first, to do “better” or at least new things and (y) to do it their way. Most of the existing management team is likely used to doing things the old way, and their way. So, the new CEO is going to change them out, and often very quickly. Often almost immediately. It has to be this way.

Growth 81

Growth 81

Partners in Excellence

NOVEMBER 2, 2023

As you might expect, the calendars are packed with meeting after meeting–on all sorts of things. Endless discussion on “the numbers” and the challenges of achieving them. ” While all of this is helpful, it doesn’t enable the person to think about why these things are happening. We owe our people this.

Pipeline 111

Pipeline Meeting Technology Technology 111

SalesLoft

APRIL 25, 2024

In this last interview of the 7-figure deal series, Salesloft’s Director of Product Marketing Albert Rhee asked Corey Goldstein the tactics he uses to maintain value after a big deal is done. Once the ink is dry and the contract is signed, what goes through your mind when you actually close a 7-figure deal? The customer is on board.

Commission 52

Commission Contract Legal Strategize 52

Search Engine Land

MAY 16, 2024

” Pichai said the same thing during Alphabet’s Q1 2024 earnings call. I just know it’s true. During Google I/O, Alphabet/Google CEO Sundar Pichai told us AI Overviews have resulted in an “increase in Search usage.” What’s the situation down on the planet?”)

Gambling 65

Gambling Launch Follow-up Engineering 65

Partners in Excellence

APRIL 16, 2024

We spend 100’s of millions on SKO speakers, books, and training–all focused on doing the things that drive business, sales and marketing performance. Gyms, just like most of the pundits and experts would go out of business if people could just meet their commitments. I contribute my fair share to the clutter.)

Cross-sell 113

Cross-sell Pipeline Meeting Presentation 113

Partners in Excellence

MARCH 12, 2024

One thing that struck me in Don’s contribution is the joy in “doing the work.” ” Another thing struck me: “And I love what professional selling is not. You are on the front line, making things happen. Preface : Don Mulhern is a great friend and colleague.

Sell 122

Sell Assembly Line Territory Sports 122

Partners in Excellence

FEBRUARY 8, 2024

It’s popular to take a simple data point as a fundamental constant or “truth” in the way things are. ” And others, “outbound is dead… ” The “woe are we” mindsets about the way things are and how difficult it is to sell continues to escalate. .” How do we change this?

Consult 124

Consult Clients Follow-up Up-sell 124

Partners in Excellence

OCTOBER 5, 2023

We’ve seen the ability of AI to live up to it’s name–creating things that are truly artificial, whether it is content, images, voices, or other things. The challenge comes in figuring out which is which. A lot was very accurate about him, it cited some of his work, his writing, and other things.

Trust 125

Trust Construction Represent Technology 125

Heinz Marketing

FEBRUARY 14, 2023

By Tom Swanson , Engagement Manager at Heinz Marketing Going on SaaS websites lately, it feels like marketers actively get in the way of figuring things out. One way to figure that out is to dig into the reasons why our linear journey models are obsolete, and understand some of the mechanics. Sound familiar?

Customers 95

Customers Non-Profits Prospecting Education 95

Partners in Excellence

JANUARY 25, 2024

This post is one of the things he had me thinking about this morning. They are figuring out what questions they should be asking, what data they need to understand, the consequences of not addressing the problem and the risks involved in the change initiative. All we have to do is execute those things consistently.

Customers 117

Customers Objectives and Key Results Growth Objection handling 117

Partners in Excellence

FEBRUARY 14, 2024

Eventually, I figured it out. ” Turns out I couldn’t upgrade the operating system on that phone—a new phone will be delivered tomorrow. With that as an analogy, I see the same thing with sellers (and too many leaders). The way they work is from an out of date version of selling. Our version 3.7

Technology 98

Technology Technology Up-sell Meeting 98

SaaStr

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

This person has built out a partnership marketing team within the product marketing team. It’s a defensible strategy to create differentiation when you and that partner build out specific integrations. Then, you have to figure out who the 100 people are at AWS that matter and map them out on a daily basis.

Cross-sell 84

Cross-sell Strategize Campaign Education 84