“This is totally a company you would create!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not exactly the best feeling in the world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

See you in the comments.

The post 5 Things That All GREAT Startups Have appeared first on @DanMartell.

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

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

Nothing added value to their customers lives.

It was all about them.

Unfriend.

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

It just seems backwards.

But how do you do that?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Create a great Lead Magnet to start the relationship.

So, what are you going to create?

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

Don’t be a full time promoter.

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

See you in the comments.

The post The 5-10 Principle for Creating High Converting SaaS Lead Magnets appeared first on @DanMartell.

I LOVE competition.

It fires me up.

A few years ago while I was building Clarity.fm, Google suddenly announced that they were launching a competing product. (read till the end to see what happened)

I can’t tell you how many friends messaged me with the link sharing their condolences…

… as if it was game over???

RIP Clarity.fm

Umm.. not so fast.

F-that!

Here’s the question I ask myself every time I discover competition in my space:

“Do they care more about solving my customers problems than I do?”

If the answer is no, then who cares.

No one at Google really, truly, DEEPLY gave a damn about helping entrepreneurs connect with other experts over the phone to solve their problems faster.

NO ONE.Still to this day, very few others share my level of enthusiasm

Why?

Because entrepreneurship literally saved my life.

That being said, other than “caring more” there are a few key strategic ways to compete against the big dogs.

In today’s video, I cover the The 5 deadliest “slingshots” you get to aim between the eyes of the Goliaths of your industry.

For me, competing comes down to making smart strategic moves… here are the 5 that I go deep into:

1) Pick a Niche

2) Great Story

3) Product Hook

4) Customer Service

5) Transcending Vehicles

Many founders forget how powerful stories are.

“Whoever tells the best story wins.” ~ John Quincy Jones

That’s why it’s the second strategy.

What I would love to hear is how you’ve fended off bigger, better-funded competition?

Did you work backwards from the customer?

Did you double down on a niche?

Did you steal their employees?

I’m just curious … leave a comment below with your top tips for the community and I’ll be sure to read / respond to everyone.

Have an incredible week!

The post Dealing With The Big Guys: 5 Strategies To Conquer Your Market appeared first on @DanMartell.

Scared of growing your business?

Totally cool with business as usual?

Don’t want to get “too rich?”…

… well let me tell you a couple of stories.

One day I was talking to my buddy Matt and he was like,

“Hey man, I love all the stuff you’re sharing, but is it okay if I just keep my business the same size? Do I really need to want to grow?”

My answer:

“If you’re not focused on growth, you’re slowly dying.”

It’s true.

What Matt was really saying to me was:

1. I don’t want to get outside my comfort zone.
2. I don’t want to rock the boat.
3. I don’t want to build anything too big and risk losing it all.
4. I’m scared.

Will he admit to that? Probably not..

But that doesn’t make it any less true.

It also doesn’t make it any less absurd.

For in consciously choosing to reject growth, you’re unconsciously choosing to invite failure.

Which is far riskier if you ask me

Many times I get the “I don’t want to grow too big / fast!” comment.

That one really made me laugh.

One time I was working out with my best friend, Marty, and he said “hey man, I want to hit the weights but I don’t want to get too big.”

Which made me fall to the ground laughing!

I kindly reminded him that IF he noticed he was getting “too big” (buff) that he could slow down on the weights at any point

Business is no different.

A growth mindset is part of the table stakes of being in the game.

And that’s why I’ve seen time and time again that it’s far easier to grow your company 10X than it is to simply double it.

10X means being all in on growth

2X means “let me hit the accelerator and the brakes at the same time and hope something good (but nothing too life-changingly good) happens.

So how do you develop a 10X mindset?

And more importantly, how do you activate it within your business?

In this week’s video, I cover the 5 key areas of your business that immediately shift the moment you go “all-in” on growth.

As a quick recap, here are the critical business functions that I learned from Dan Sullivan (incredible business coach) that instantly change once you adopt a bias towards growth:

• Thinking
• Innovation
• Decision Making
• Communication
• Action

Everything shifts once you decide to wake up and create something bigger than yourself.

It’s how you actively meet the world halfway and get it to realign to help you.

If you have a dream to build something big and special, post a comment here with your vision.

Never forget…

… there’s no magic in small dreams.

The post Grow Your Business Using The Growth Guide Principles appeared first on @DanMartell.

Yesterday I was talking with a founder who’s got a ~$6M a year business that has been flat for the past 4 years.

It’s funny because 5 years ago they jumped from $3M -> $5.5M, but since then they’ve gone sideways and have been struggling to figure out what to do next.

This is what I told him…

Your business should be growing in 3 cycles…

… and knowing where you’re at now, can cause you to hold back when you should be leaning in and pushing.

It’s probably what happened when he almost doubled in a single 12 month period.

My guess is that he focused on the first phase that year, then didn’t do the second, and that caused him to get gun shy.

More on that in a bit…

… but first, I shot this video to help you understand the 3 cycles and what specific steps you need to take to powerfully (and predictably) ascend from one to the next.

If you want to take action and jump in with two feet, here are the cycles:

1. Going after sales – focusing on top line revenue
2. Building cost controls – improving your gross profit
3. Improving market reach – getting your message into the market

You just keep cycling through each one and if you’re smart, you’ll be using quarterly themes so you can get the whole company behind it!

The friend I mentioned above decided he needed to push hard on sales, build a team and ensure they were well managed.

It’s funny how understanding the “big picture” and the context for where you’re at can light a fire under your butt to improve!

Clarity IS power.

Be sure to leave me a comment letting me know what phase you need to spend some time on. Maybe your cashflow is hurting, so cost-controls need to be implemented? Let me know.

Keep up the good fight!

The post The 3 Cycles of Business Growth: Top Line, Cost Control, Market Reach appeared first on @DanMartell.

When I was 26 I spent $150K to hire a business advisor/coach named Stew.

It was almost all the cash I had left in my business at the time, but I knew if I wanted to play a bigger game I needed to invest in myself and my business.

Here’s one of the many big ideas he taught me:

“Right time, right action.”

This is the way it works…

… you can have two different entrepreneurs execute the exact same list of growth strategies, yet a few years later, one could be flying around the world heli-skiing full-time, while the other is left liquidating his office’s entry level Keurig machine just to keep the lights on.

Why?

It all comes down to understanding what matters most today, versus tomorrow, versus next week, versus next year.

That’s the ultimate skill of a strategic leader.

So today I want to unpack the exact process Stew shared with me to leverage when evaluating my todo list.

The cool part is that you can teach this to your team.

To make it even easier to implement, I’ve added a simple scoring system.

Here’s how it works:

Start by listing your task, projects or strategies in a spreadsheet so we can easily score and sort them.

Here’s how to score them.

1. Makes Money: 3
2. Make Customers Happy: 2
3. Repeatable System: 1

If something doesn’t fit that filter, then it’s a 0.

So for every item on your list score it against those 3 criteria and for each use the weighted score.

Example:

• Implement paid marketing webinar: 3,2,1 = 6
• Follow up on aged receivables: 3,1 = 4
• Hour call with new connections: 0

Once you have each one scored, then re-sort them based on highest score and start your day there.

Simple? Yes.

Do you have the discipline to implement it?

If you’re down for trying this for a week, then leave a comment with your commitment.

Over the next few months I’m going to share more of the key strategies I learned from working with Stew for over a year.

He played a huge part in the growth and exit of that company.

More to come…

The post Focus Filters: How To Prioritize a Task List appeared first on @DanMartell.

“Never begin the day until it is finished on paper.” ~ Jim Rohn (click to tweet)

That quote cuts through the noise and sets the foundation for everything else in business.

If you want to grow your business, you need a goal, a strategy and a way to review and monitor your progress.

It’s a rhythm for success.

That’s what I want to teach you today.

Probably the easiest way to plan, schedule and manage your business growth… even if you’ve failed to follow through on every new productivity hack, system or planner you swore would be “the one”.

No crazy fancy spreadsheets… just a simple paper and a pen and a few calendar entries with a simple game plan.

Your business growth is waiting for you in this video.

At a high level, the strategy looks like this…

1. Have a vision
2. Set a high-level 3 year plan
3. Define a detailed 12 month schedule
4. Review quarterly
5. Meet weekly
6. Connect daily

In the video I dive deeper into each, and how to design and manage them for maximal “stickability” and momentum.

But here’s the high level process…

Start big picture then work your way down to higher fidelity of what’s planned for the near term.

Leave me a comment with some of your big plans / outcomes for this year?

What are you gunning for?

What gets you excited!?

Can’t wait to read your replies.

The post Strategic Planning: The 6 Key Elements To Business Growth appeared first on @DanMartell.

The other day my furnace stopped working.

The issue is that my wife was trying to change the air filter.

Why?

Don’t ask (she just likes to do those kinds of things, and yes – I realize I’m the man of the house and I should be doing it, but I digress…)

After Renee’s noble attempt at performing advanced furnace surgery…

… we got stuck with a half-opened furnace, and no idea how to piece that sucker back together.

So I called my brother who built my house (he’s kind of a baller, check out his story).

He laughed and asked why the heck I was changing the filter myself?

Why didn’t I have the furnace guy do it?

I didn’t know that was an option…

… so I called the guy up and he starts telling me about his “Maintenance Plan”.

After about 15 seconds I said “Sign me up.”

That’s how he locked me in on a recurring service model for his business.

Most businesses totally miss out on building this into their model.

Instead of figuring out how to add more value and create an ongoing service, they let competitors swoop in and steal the contract.

Honestly, I think my brother should of made a list of monthly / yearly services that I should’ve considered and got me to sign-up for them when we closed on the house.

Things like:

• Snow removal
• Air filters
• Fireplace cleaning
• Propane tank maintenance
• Gutter cleaning
• Lawn mowing
• Etc…

Even if all he did was sign me up, he could’ve been collecting sweet monthly residuals for the rest of his life without lifting a finger (or putting a furnace back together).

That strategy (and a few other keepers) is what I cover in this week’s video.

How do you increase the amount of repeat business from a customer to improve your long term value so you’re not always having to find new customers?

When I’m training a group of entrepreneurs at my events, I always walk them through these areas of focus:

1. Offer “Ongoing Service”
2. Start (Onboard)
3. Continuous Value
4. End Strong
5. Ask For Business
6. Case Study / Testimonials

Each one of these take very little effort to implement, but will have a HUGE impact on your business.

My favourite is asking for a case study or to get a testimonial.

When you do it right, it adds incredible credibility to your business (plus it’s super fun and fulfilling to learn what your customers appreciate most about you).

So what are you committed to taking action on? Or what have you done in your business to increase the amount of repeat business? Leave a comment with your feedback.

Can’t wait to read what you’ve got.

Have an incredible day!

The post The 6 Secrets Of Repeat Business: How To Make More Sales Without Finding New Customers appeared first on @DanMartell.

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

After two failed companies I decided to fix that.

My solution?

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

Some nights, I had Ziglar riding shotgun.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To do that requires great questions.

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

What do you ask to help move the sale forward?

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

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

See you in the comments!

The post 3 Basic Steps To Sell Anything appeared first on @DanMartell.

“This is totally a company you would create!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not exactly the best feeling in the world.

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

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

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

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

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

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

See you in the comments.

The post 5 Things That All GREAT Startups Have appeared first on @DanMartell.

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

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

Nothing added value to their customers lives.

It was all about them.

Unfriend.

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

It just seems backwards.

But how do you do that?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Create a great Lead Magnet to start the relationship.

So, what are you going to create?

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

Don’t be a full time promoter.

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

See you in the comments.

The post The 5-10 Principle for Creating High Converting SaaS Lead Magnets appeared first on @DanMartell.

A few months ago I had lunch with a bunch of highschool aged entrepreneurs to give them feedback on their idea.

They were planning on building an energy generating play park for kids.

Now, I don’t mean to come off as a direct poo-pooer of dreams…

… but after 15 minutes of listening to their pitch I decided to ask some questions that I knew were going to shatter their excitement.

1. Have you figured out the average time a kid plays on a play park?
2. If they did play with your version of a swing, how much energy would it generate?
3. Does that amount generate a sizable amount of energy?
4. What’s the added cost to build a swing your way vs. the existing way?
5. Does the assumed energy production cover the additional cost?

“But, if this works this could change the way communities power their houses.” one blurts out.

He was clearly high on his own supply.

And look, I don’t mind overly enthusiastic founders building something never before seen.

It’s what the world depends on for progress.

But what bugs me more is waste.

Waste of time, talent and energy focused on solving a problem that they haven’t de-risked.

When I work with founders building high-tech software, I teach them the “Riskiest Assumption” framework.

That’s what I want to teach you in this week’s video.

(Before you hit play, I want to apologize for my hair sticking out like that – it annoyed the crap out of me too. My bad. :).

At a high level, here’s how I work through the steps:

1. Assume I’m wrong
2. Make a list of all the assumptions
3. Break em’ up into categories: Customers (Who), Marketing (Where), Costs (How Much?), Technology (How)
4. Sort by riskiest assumption (Highs go first)
5. Use a validation step to get feedback: 1) Expert (fastest), 2) Experiment

Now, the reason most people don’t reach out to experts to validate their ideas is because they’re worried someone will steal it.

Don’t worry about that.

The fastest way to move is to reach out to those who would know the science, the best practices or the model that you need to validate ASAP to move forward.

I’m sure over the years you’ve tested some of your own assumptions…

… got any funny stories?

Be sure to leave a comment with your best ones.

I’ll add a few more of my own as well.

The post Why I had to crush a 15 year old’s dream (I’m not sorry) appeared first on @DanMartell.

One of my favourite stories of a bootstrapped founder is Clay Collins.

He’s the creator of LeadPages.net, and when I first met him he was doing $100K+ a month in recurring revenue.

As someone who came from the online education space, he knew his customers intimately and was an incredible marketer.

I still remember our first conversation and the questions I was asking.

I couldn’t believe the level of growth he achieved in only a few short months.

What I learned that day was the foundation for what I now call the Scaling Credo.

It’s a simple list of 5 things, that if you agree to, can dramatically impact your business.

They are counterintuitive, that’s why I wanted to cover them in this week’s video.

Now, this approach is particularly valuable for bootstrapping founders without outside investment.

Your resources are limited (time, team, capital), so you need to do less and focus on the right things.

The benefit of this credo is that it keeps you hyper focused on the critical elements of your business model.

Instead of trying to boil the ocean, it creates a focus filter for being hyper targeted in your efforts.

Here’s the list that I go over in detail in my video.

1. ONE Target Market
2. ONE Product
3. ONE Conversion Tool
4. ONE Channel
5. ONE Year

Be sure to watch the video for the specific options you have for each item.

Understanding these steps, the power of focus, and putting ALL your resources into one decision will dramatically increase both your probability and speed of scale.

Like all good things in life, they require commitment.

Watch the video then leave a comment with which one resonated most with you.

Which are you committed to?

Can’t wait to read your answers.

The post Why Bootstrapped Founders Should Use These 5 Agreements To Scale Their Startup appeared first on @DanMartell.

Facebook looks at daily active users.

Airbnb.com uses bookings.

At Clarity – my previous company – we obsessed over completed calls.

These are called North Star Metrics.

It’s a clear metric that your growth team focuses on to move the needle.

The key is that it captures the value created for your customers, and allows everyone on the team – and really the company – to drive this forward.

But how do you come up with the right ideas to move this number?

How do you prioritize the right metric to get your growth engine revving?

That’s what I teach you in this week’s video.

It comes down to a simple 4 part process that I was taught from one of my mentors Sean Ellis.

Once you’ve defined a solid North Star Metric (NSM), then you need to come up with actionable ideas and strategies that are going to move that number higher.

Here’s how.

1. Ideation around ideas that are either research, or optimizations
2. Prioritize using ICE: Impact, Confidence, Easy
3. Test using Dev Sprints
4. Report adding to a Knowledge Base

I go much DEEPER into this process in this week’s video…

… as well as some common challenges that my SaaS Academy clients constantly run into.

(confusing product with growth is a BIG one that absolutely destroys momentum)

If after watching you have any questions about how to define your North Star Metric or the best way to structure your teams to move them forward, leave a comment below the video and I’ll respond there.

Here’s to your growth!

The post High Tempo Testing: How To Manage Your Startup’s Growth Team appeared first on @DanMartell.

How do you build a $100M revenue business in 3 years?

That was the question my coaching client Larry asked me with a straight face.

Now, before you dismiss his question, you need to know that he just exited his previous startup a few months earlier.

So I knew he had the chops.

What a great question I thought …

… so I took some time to really reflect on all the things I’ve learned in scaling my own software companies… as well as the common traits and characteristics of other companies that had done it.

Discovered some pretty unexpected things along the way.

If you’ve ever been crazy enough to secretly (or not so secretly) ask how to grow to 9 figures in 3 short years…

You’ll want to take a few short minutes to give this a watch.

It essentially comes down to 5 elements that NEED to be in place for you to achieve rapid growth and scale at breakneck speed.

Now back to Larry.

While his goal was far from delusional…

His path to getting there was a little off.

One of the initial constraints was that he wanted to do it “without raising money”… but I quickly explained that that wouldn’t be possible, or would be nearly impossible.

We also talked about the product, the business model and the way it would need to be sold to ensure it could grow fast enough within its market.

We then talked about certain aspects of the team, and the way he’d need to build it to ensure he could free up his time at each turn to focus on the next level of challenges.

All in all, the major outcome he was trying to achieve was something that eventually could be sold, and even though I don’t subscribe to the build & flip mentality to startups, I did share how to structure the business so that it could work.

Now I know most people don’t have the aspirations, or need to build a big company like this, but I still think it’s worth understanding the mechanics.

So be sure to watch the video, and leave a comment with your biggest takeaway below… which aspect surprised you the most?

Let me know and I’ll see you next Monday!

The post 4 Characteristics of Building A 100M Dollar Startup In 3 Years appeared first on @DanMartell.

Have you ever struggled with your marketing website?

Sure, they have templates and super slick WYSIWYG editors.

But that doesn’t deal with the hard part:

The content.

WTF do I put on those pages?

How do I turn lorem ipsum into monthly recurring revenue?

How many pages should I have on my site?

What should those pages be?…

I need a blog, right?… right?…. right?

(read below to find out) :p

If you’ve ever wrestled with these questions… then I want to make things really simple for you.

In this week’s video, I share my Authority Architecture framework that will help you design the ultimate website for your startup.

The first thing you need to understand is your website is a 24/7 salesperson.

They don’t sleep, but they do repeat themselves – the exact same way – to everyone that they talk to.

(Did I lose you in that analogy?

Here’s a quick rundown of the 5 pages you NEED to have on your website…

… and more importantly, the critical questions they need to be able to answer for your visitor.

1. Home Page: The information on this page should answer “Do I need this?” for your potential customer. Is it clear? Does it have a product hook, and a clear promise?
2. Pricing Page: This is typically the second page customers will look at, and they want to know “Is this for me?” So be sure to align your pricing with your ideal customer profile. That means you can’t sell a $30/mth plan if you’re wanting to attract Fortune 2000 clients. It causes a disconnect.
3. Features Page: The information on this page, the complete list of benefits and features of your product should answer the “Does this solve my problem?” for your customers. If you integrate with specific solutions, list them. If you have key features that overcome specific problems, have those as well.  If they don’t see it listed, they might think your competitor – who does list it – has a better product.
4. About Page: I can’t tell you how many startups do not have an About page??? It blows my mind. How can anyone trust a company if I don’t know who’s behind it.  The question people need answered here is “Should I trust them?”. So yes, put a picture of you, your team. Be honest. If you’re small, own it.
5. Blog: Some startups still ask me, should I have a blog? Of course. Here’s why… when a customer invests in your product, they’re also taking a bet on you to continue to innovate and improve. Your blog will answer this question for them: “Are they experts?”. If they don’t see your thinking on the blog, they may be concerned that you won’t keep up with the times and that will hurt you vs. alternatives in the market.

If you tweak those 5 pages, add the missing content or tweak your messaging to be a bit clearer (and answer those questions) your site will rock!

Take a few mins to watch this video so that you can finally drag that pesky “website development” Trello card into the “completed column”…

… and sit back as your 24/7 salesperson brings in the revenue.

The post The 5 Pages You Need (And The Questions They Answer) For Your Software Website appeared first on @DanMartell.

Every startup wants to grow fast.

And while there’s value in modelling the tactics and strategies that have fueled the rapid success of companies they look up to…

There’s even MORE value in identifying the core, underlying principles that serve as the backbone for that success.

Over the years, I’ve identified 5 core elements behind the perfect software business.

I learned one of them directly from Jason Fried @ Basecamp.com when I visited Chicago to take his workshop over 10 years ago.

Another from guys like Mike McDerment @ Freshbooks.com, and Ben Chesnut @ MailChimp.com, both early mentors of mine who inspired a lot of the work I create at Flowtown.

In today’s world you see companies like Slack.com, and Intercom.com (disclosure: I’m an investor) shooting for the moon and you wonder:

“How did they do it?”

That’s what I want to break down for you in this week’s video.

Here are the 5 key elements that the world’s best startups all have in common:  

What I’ve learned is it really comes down to how the product is used by the companies, how they extract the value (i.e. get paid) and their position in the market…

… now, there are some nuances, and I go over them in the video, but I want to list them out real quick so that you can understand how impressive it is for a company to hit this level of growth:

1. Product Is Core to the Operation of the Business
2. Cost/Value Proposition is Straightforward
3. Finances Its Own Growth
4. Efficient Sales Model
5. Market Leadership

If you’ve got tough decisions to make on your product to better address these elements and need my feedback, be sure to leave a comment with your question and some context, I would love to help.

See you next Monday!

The post The 5 Growth Indicators Required To Build The Perfect Software Business appeared first on @DanMartell.

Your product or service tells a story.

It either tells one that’s clear and coherent, highlighting the challenges you’re most ready to solve for your ideal customer…

Or it confuses them.

The story you’re telling depends on whether you’re being thoughtful in the process, or building it blindly.  

And the difference between the two has a massive impact on your prospect’s ability to buy from you.

Years ago I was visiting some friends at Twitter and I had the privilege of learning this lesson first hand from one of the best growth guys out there: Josh Ellman (LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter).

His process was clear… ask yourself:

“What does this communicate to our customer about the problem it solves, the value they’ll get, and is it for them?”

At the time he was revamping Twitter’s sign-up process to help activate more customers after their first time using it.

That conversation sent me down a path of studying the best onboarding experience for SaaS products and creating the Product Story framework.

This is how you build powerful products.

In this week’s video I deconstruct each path.

You’ll learn the key elements that drive results, and how to line them up so you can connect with your customers quicker.

After reading a ton of books, speaking with some of the best product minds out there, and testing the strategies on my own companies, I now break it down into 3 core areas of the product:

1. The Homepage: This page requires a strong “Hook”… it’s the statement that answers the “What is this?” question, followed by the “Promise”, it answers the “How do you do that?” question.
2. Onboarding: These pages really act as the setup… they are the minimum required steps that you ask of your customer to ensure you have what it’ll take to WOW them. It also matters the order you put them in, and the information you ask for to help reinforce your product’s positioning (i.e. The Story) that they’re building in their mind.
3. Core Value: This is the specific result a customer will get that makes them think “crap, that’s awesome”. Every great product has it. You might have it, but it’s buried, and only a small % of your users have seen it. The key is to front-load this in the experience for all new users. Some call it the “Must Have” experience.

Watch the video to get a deeper sense of how the complete story is told, and how each piece plays a critical part.

After working with thousands of startups over the years, I’ve come to believe that some of the biggest growth comes from refining their product story.

The fun part is, it doesn’t take much work.

It could be as simple as changing the language on your homepage, or re-ordering your onboarding experience…

… but once it clicks, growth occurs.

Got specific questions about your product?

Post them below in the comments and I’ll answer them soon… I’d love to help you create a story that reinforces the innovation you’re building.

Remember, it’s an iterative process…

… so keep testing till you get there.

The post Using The Power of Story To Build Powerful Software Products appeared first on @DanMartell.

Has a customer ever punched you in the face?

No?

Has it ever felt like that?

Every time I’ve had a customer sign-up, stick around for a few months, and cancel (aka churn) it sure feels that way.

It doesn’t matter how long I’ve been building businesses, nothing frustrates me more than having a customer that I spent a ton of time, energy and money attracting, leave because we missed the mark.

What’s different about my approach is that I take 110% accountability for customers churning.

Meaning, I want to know EXACTLY why it happened… and see how I can fix it. Or at the very least, make sure it’s the first and only time someone ever leaves for that reason.

Too many founders just chalk it up as a numbers thing… pegging it as normal.

I don’t agree, and I’ve outlined the 5 steps I take to ensure I reduce my churn as fast as possible while scaling up my revenue.

That’s what I cover in this week’s video.

When it comes to reducing churn in your business, I’ve outlined a comprehensive 9 step checklist that my coaching clients use to get results fast, called the Churn Buster Checklist…

You can download it here.

… however, what I want to share with you in this video are the 5 areas that I think most founders completely ignore:

1. They don’t measure their metrics
2. They don’t learn from their cancellation process
3. The product is too easy to switch off of
4. They don’t automate dunning management
5. No one is paying attention to customers who show signs of cancelling

At the end of the day, the holy grail for any SaaS startup is net negative churn… a point where your expansion revenue grows faster than your churned MRR.

The fastest way to get there is to bust the churn you have, and grow your existing accounts by 20-30% per year.

Once you’ve hit this nirvana, the sky’s the limit.

Keep up the good fight!

The post 5 Simple But Powerful Ways to Lower SaaS Customer Churn appeared first on @DanMartell.

“Help me. Help you.”

Nope…

Not talking about that epic one liner from Jerry Maguire.

I’m talking about the inner dialogue your customers experience whenever they try to refer your product to their tribe.

One of the EASIEST ways to acquire a new B2B Saas customer is to have your current users refer you at scale.

Just ask Dropbox

Only problem is… most companies make that process painfully hard and complicated.

And since not having a simple and effective referral strategy is such a crazy missed opportunity to grow your user base while creating an army of evangelists…

I shot a new video showing you the 4 steps to creating a referral system that acts as a win-win-win…

…  for your current customers… your new customers… and your company.

On a high level, here’s what it takes to implement an effective B2B SaaS referral system:

1. Choose a win
2. Give to both
3. Make it easy
4. Seed it

Of the four, the first one is where most SaaS companies mess up.

Put it this way… if you were a restaurant owner, would people be more likely to refer you:

a) After they’ve booked a reservation
b) While waiting in line
c) When the waiter brings out the food
d) After they’ve eaten… and are waiting for the check.

Same goes for your SaaS.

Make the ask after a nice juicy win… and you’ll be well on your way to implementing a winning referral strategy that exponentially grows your user base without sucking air out of your acquisition margins.

Watch the full video to go deeper into the other steps.

The post How to Build a Referral Program into Your SaaS Product appeared first on @DanMartell.