Lloyd Yip is a sales and marketing advisor to SaaS companies. He specializes in helping early stage bootstrap companies with product market fit and building systematic and predictable growth engines which allows them to scale cost-effectively and quickly.
He has appeared previously in Episode 16 of the podcast where he talked about getting your first sales with cold outreach.
In this episode we talk about scaling past $5k MRR with cold outreach and other organic (read NOT SEO) strategies.
Show Notes
[1.21] – If I already have a few customers and am ready to scale my SaaS. What should I do?
If you are selling a super high ticket item, it allows you to do things that are inherently expensive upfront because you know you are going to make it up on the backend, but if you are selling something super low ticket, there are a couple of channels you can’t really consider because it’s not going to be efficient due to high client acquisition cost.
For high ticket items you can make use of manual based organic outreach such as sending personalized emails, Linkedin and sending direct messages on Instagram while it takes some time, if you get someone to agree on a call, the payoff is usually significant.
If you are selling something relatively inexpensive you can get some cashflow by offering like $50 or $100 lifetime deals to get your initial clients.
You can also email people that are selling to a similar audience base and getting them to promote your offer in their email list and vice-versa.
[4.25] – Lloyd addresses the drawbacks of SEO in the beginning of your SaaS business.
SEO is really tricky because to make it work you need to have lots of content setup and it takes a lot of time.
He dislikes the idea of founders spending months before getting consistent clientele. If you are doing partnerships and your partner send out an email blast to their list, talking about your offering, that will immediately get you some wins.
Or if you are connecting with AppSumo or other affiliate or lifetime deal sites that is going to get you clients immediately.
[7.28] – The direction Facebook algorithm has taken towards Facebook Pages and Groups
Even if you have thousands of people who have liked your Facebook page, it doesn’t matter because Facebook algorithm doesn’t care about Facebook pages anymore. The algorithm is pushing most people to Facebook groups because it is a more natural way of communication.
He says he still uses his facebook page for paid acquisition because you can’t do paid acquisition through a facebook group.
[8.37] – How do we get past $10k MRR and move towards $20k, $30k or $40k MRR?
To hit the next threshold you need to make sure that you are converting well at the bottom of the funnel because if you are generating a crazy amount of leads every week but none of them are closing, then you have a massive gap there.
Do you understand the sales call process?
Do you have a discovery call pitch that you are consistently doing?
Can you articulate your value over a sales call?
Do you have an effective demo?
Do you know how to sell?
Can you handle negotiations and objections?
Do you know how to tailor your demo so that it is relevant to who you are speaking with?
In the beginning you might not have a dedicated sales person so you will need to learn these skills yourself.
[10.42] – How can we make sure our demos are done effectively?
You need to take time to really understand what their problems are before pitching anything. Let them feel heard, make sure that you understand if you are a good fit. Understand their dreams, goals and desires, these will allow you to have a much more tailored demo.
A good demo has a conversational feel to it meaning if you are talking, you are hardly going to talk for more than three or four minutes straight.
There will always be input from your clients.
You also need to share the feature set that is relevant to your clients and that is why the discovery is important. You figure out the things that really matters to them and then you just demo the features that are relevant and you can leave out the other features that are not relevant to their situation.
It is also important to focus on the benefits, most tech focused founders love to get into the nitty gritty of what they have built, the integrations, APIs and other techie stuff. Most people are not interested in that, they just want to know if your offering will get them from Point A to Point B.
[16.21] – Lloyd shares some extra tips
Take things step by step because it is easy to get overwhelmed when you are scaling. When you begin a new company, talk to prospects or customers to make sure that you are solving a real problem.
Once you know what you are solving, build something that can solve. Give what you have built to people to see if it is actually solving the problem.
When you know it’s actually solving people’s problem try and generate some more business organically.
Pick one or two things that will help you find clients and focus your energy on them because it will make things simpler for you.
And then once you have a certain amount of leads coming in, just focus on making sure that those leads are converting and that is all you need to worry about.
[19.48] – Lloyd shares his favorite resources
His favorite sales book is “The Challenger Sale” and it is about selling via education. As a consultant he makes sure that before he brings anyone on, he educates them as much as possible because it creates credibility.
When people see that you are really trying to add value, they believe you way more and they are more open to evaluating what your offering is.
Resources
The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation
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