8 ms·

The brutal truth about marketing your software product

135 points by admp 14y ago

mindcrime 14y ago
That was some good stuff. I wish we had more of this kind of content on HN. :-) That said, I've gotten a lot of mileage out of studying materials from Chet Holmes (RIP), the author of The Ultimate Sales Machine. I got hold of a set of videos he did in conjunction with Anthony Robbins, where he talks about marketing and sales at great length. We[1] are currently working to implement his "Dream 100 / Best Buyer" strategy[2] now. How well it will work remains to be seen, of course, but the idea strikes me as pretty solid. This marketing stuff turns out to be pretty fascinating. I've also learned a ton about market research in the past year or so, and am thinking about doing a talk on "Market Research for Startups" sometime soon, here in the RTP area. [1]: http://www.fogbeam.com http://www.fogbeam.com [2]: http://www.resourcenation.com/article/marketing-tiny-shoestring-budget-0/ http://www.resourcenation.com/article/marketing-tiny-shoestr...
- orangethirty 14y ago
  To be honest, the reason such content is rare, is because nobody wants to share it. I make more money from using my skills for myself, than from consulting or writing books. I was publishing stuff little by little, but time constraints made me stop. Another point is that everybody wants to learn what works, but few people ever put it to practice. The only person I have ever helped that has actually paid attention is Dan Shipper. And it was mostly helping him with the Firefly landing page.
  - charleshaanel 14y ago
    I think it has little to do with "nobody wants to share it". The issue is that there seems to be some silent sentiment in this community that sales is...I don't know....less intellectual, a little "dirty" mayhap? And perhaps if you have to resort to (gasp) selling your product then it isn't good enough to sell itself. People hold on to the "build a wonderful product and they will come" mythology.....
    - orangethirty 14y ago
      Well, people who discover ways to make money don't really want to share it. Its a natural reaction and instinct to not do so. I do agree that sales, marketing, and or any type of business development subject is not very welcomed in this community. Reasons are various, but your guess is spot on. Business is seen as less intellectual, when it is actually way harder than writing code. But it requires one thing that few people here want to do: Communicate with others. And yes, you are right. A great product does not sell itself.
pedalpete 14y ago
Except there are many people who can market and sell, but can't build. Sometimes these people need to be partners, sometimes just introducing them to the product results in them doing the marketing and the product becomes the sales channel. Also, when you are re-selling somebody else's product, where is your passion? what ability do you have to differentiate?
- stephengillie 14y ago
  How many others are reselling the product? Which product are you reselling? Would you be more passionate about reselling Raspberry Pis than reselling iPhone accessories?
goldfeld 14y ago
The increased line-height bothers me quite a bit, it seems to detract from readability.
mladenkovacevic 14y ago
I'm a marketer by day and reading this makes me wish I had the time to do some freelancing. An experienced marketer could've laid out a strategy and put it into action, saving him a lot of time and frustration. In the end though, I am not 100% convinced that even the best marketer/sales person would've been able/willing to say: "This isn't going to work out for you. Here's why". Maybe a better lesson to take out of this is not to put all your eggs in one basket. Establish several possible sources of income and be ready to push the pedal to the metal when one them starts getting more traction than the other ones.
joonix 14y ago
Tech guys need to stop scoffing at non-tech "business" guys looking for co-founder arrangements. Yes, there are a lot of "startup groupies" out there who don't add any value, but someone with solid marketing abilities and/or "hustle" could help out a lot in OP's situation.
- RougeFemme 14y ago
  This was one of my reactions, too. I've seen several friends' businesses fail, even though they had a great product, because they couldn't/wouldn't market/sell and saw no value in people who could and would, in a tech space. No matter how great the product, most products/services really don't sell themselves - at least without a nudge. I thought the suggestion about working on product demos and helping customers was great. I assume you would at least improve your customer communication skills, if not your sales skills. And, for introverts, this would be a great way to ease closer to that often huge line between development and sales - or just having a relationship with the customer.
thenomad 14y ago
This is excellent advice, and I wish I'd read it 3 years ago. Jason Fried said something very similar a while ago, recommending learning to sell something, anything, before starting on your dream project. Even buying and reselling iPhones on eBay can teach you a lot of the basics - and you want those basics in place when you're starting to actually set up something ambitious.
foxylad 14y ago
I learnt lots from working closely with sales people (I didn’t like them very much, but that’s a different matter) That right there tells me you'll fail running your own business. I'm not a sales person, but I respect them (well, the good ones) enormously. Not liking sales people means not understanding how important they are to your business, and probably means you subconsciously believe that people will flock to your door if you build the perfect mousetrap. The perfect mousetrap myth is very seductive to introverts, and it's probably the cause of most startup failures. Without a good salesperson pushing your product, you could be peddling a cure for cancer and still fail miserably. I'd recommend anyone who hates salespeople actually does their job for a month. You'll quickly come to realise they have this thick skin that you don't; that when they get someone swear at them for cold calling, they just pick up the phone and do it again. You meanwhile, will feel awful for the rest of the day, and do everything possible to avoid the phone for the rest the day. By the end of the month you'll realise that just as your introversion makes you a great developer, whatever they have that lets them do this is incredibly valuable - you'll respect them. And like them. And your business now stands a chance.
- mekoka 14y ago
  You seem to be making some assumptions based solely on the fact that the author didn't like the sales people he was working with. He never elaborated on the reasons. But I can foresee many. For instance, it is possible that the culture in the company encourages certain types of sales people, while it turns off others. Take the previous paragraph and replace "sales people" with "programmers". You can see that the same applies. It has nothing to do with introversion/extroversion. On that matter, the usual stereotype of the ultra extroverted salesman that is incredibly successful is pure bollocks. Being extroverted doesn't build you a thick skin to be manhandled over the phone, experience and repetition does. As well, being introverted doesn't mean that if you have a bad conversation, you'll crawl back under the sheets for the rest of the day. You're either misunderstanding extroversion/introversion or you're misunderstanding sales, or maybe both. I'm currently a programmer and entrepreneur and in the past I've worked as a salesman without formal training. I've had phone sales jobs (phone plans), street sales jobs (random knick-knacks) and store sales jobs (men clothes). Only recently, after coming to the same realizations than OP, I've decided to formally understand Sales as a profession, to help me promote my services and software. I've been studying it for a few months and am convinced that most people misunderstand what selling is. We often like to imagine slick, silver-tongued, extroverted people, with poor ethics. This is only a partial truth. After all, sales is one of the few professions where money is directly tied to performance. It shouldn't come as a surprise that poor ethics be prevalent, it's the easy way out. But it does in no way constitute a requirement to be a good salesman. Most successful salesmen I've observed are unequivocal about ethics, they discourage dabbling in shady practices. I've also noted that a good number could in fact pass for introverts. My understanding so far is that even extroverts need to tap into their inner introvert at some point, if they ever want to become good sales people. Being extroverted might help in approaching people in random social contexts, but introversion helps to align oneself with the needs of potential clients, because it helps in observing and listening to what your prospect is trying to tell you. Whether introvert or extrovert, anyone can learn to act accordingly when the situation demands it. All this to say that selling is a skill and can get very methodical and technical. Like any skill, anyone can learn it.
halcyondaze 14y ago
I think this is a great article, but I would almost say that the most important part about marketing your software product as a one person founder is building up your influence in at least ONE channel that your target market hangs out. You get a few benefits from this: 1. You get to iterate on what they say they like/hate in your beta much better/faster...which allows you to make a product that has a really, really solid market fit. 2. You gain credibility and trust in your chosen community and can launch your product with enough initial sales to be profitable more or less right off the bat (talking smaller SaaS stuff here) I like the suggestions in the post, but I would almost say that you should strip it down to one channel of traffic to your market, build your credibility, use that channel to develop a badass product that people will shell out cash for, and then worry about the remarketing, cross selling, etc after you're off and rolling.
cageface 14y ago
This is probably good advice in general but I have seen a few highly successful solo devs that didn't do much marketing beyond building good relationships in a very focused channel like a single forum. I think for this to work you have to pick the right software niche and then build absolutely kickass products though.
saltzman 14y ago
great read! got me through a boring lecture. definitely some good insights for aspiring founders and bus dev people. thanks for posting!
aymeric 14y ago
I left a comment on the blog but I thought I might get some reactions here: Excellent post. I have two advices: 1. Don’t quit your job. Why do so many people fall for the glamourous “all in” scenario? I work three days a week as a freelancer, and the rest I spend on working on my products (http://weekplan.net http://weekplan.net and http://taskarmy.com http://taskarmy.com). Things might not move as quickly as if I was full time, but I don’t risk to jeopardize my family’s wellbeing and I can keep doing that forever. 2. Outsource. Why try to do it all? Work on your business not in your business. I currently have an accountant, a bookkeeper, a web developer, a virtual assistant, a writer and an adwords expert working with me. They are not all working full time, I only pay them when I need them. I strongly suggest you train your outsourcing skills today to learn what can be outsourced, how to express what you need, and where to find the right talent. Get a virtual assistant today starting at $6/hour: http://taskarmy.com/virtual-assistance-outsourcing http://taskarmy.com/virtual-assistance-outsourcing
jwwest 14y ago
Is there a decent resource for learning how to sell a product? Most of us can code and implement the technical parts of a business, but what we need is a Codeacademy for marketing. Something that's not run by slimy "internet marketers" or contains vague advice full of handwaving "use Google's Adwords tool lalala~"
- mladenkovacevic 14y ago
  I think what you might actually be looking for is a course on storytelling. Ability to sell largely depends on your ability to convey a compelling, relate-able narrative. Everything else is more or less about finding ways to fit digestible pieces of that narrative into various formats (ads, blog posts, sales calls, landing pages.. whatever)
- lesterbuck 14y ago
  There are a bunch of resources on marketing a product. Rob Walling's book Start Small, Stay Small, is mostly about marketing and picking a market. The Micropreneur Academy (micropreneur.com) is a collection of material that greatly expands on the book, plus a private forum. They host Microconf yearly (already sold out this year). Dane Maxwell teaches similar skills in TheFoundation.io. Mixergy interviews are filled with case studies, and Mixergy Premium has dozens of courses on marketing and selling for tech startups.
  - jwwest 14y ago
    Rob's book and the Micropreneur Academy is exactly what I was thinking of when I mentioned "hand waving" I've read the book twice, and subscribed for several months. I found that their advice consisted of two things: 1) Find a niche using Google Adwords. 2) Rank #1 with SEO. And that's about it. It's incredibly vague and frustrating, especially when most niches are oversaturated these days. I reached out to Rob about this, and he replied "yeah, it's hard to find an untapped niche". The entire premise of building a product in his materials is based around finding a nice that's underserved and that you can rank easily in Google for. Anytime someone tells me to solve marketing issues with "just use SEO", they're immediately discredited in my mind. That being said, the rest of the book was solid. The problem I have is that there is very little actionable information on selling a product outside of Magic SEO-land, which everyone knows is a myth.
majani 14y ago
Another brutal marketing truth: you're probably going to have to SPAM prospects at some point.
timedoctor 14y ago
Re "Create at least one lead generation channel as an affiliate for another product" Selling another software app as an affiliate is completely different to selling your own application and I would argue much harder to actually make any decent money from. Any effort you expend is building the brand of the other company. You can't split test their landing page. You lose a lot of traffic to people that directly type in the url. If you can rebrand some awesome software where you own the domain, brand etc and you sell and get 100%, this is not a terrible business model, but the problem is that any half decent software wouldn't want to do this as they would prefer to sell it themselves. I guess they are saying to be an affiliate as practice. I don't really agree however. I think you can practice on your real business.
- TDL 14y ago
  "I guess they are saying to be an affiliate as practice." That was my interpretation as well. It's not entirely bad advice since it is an existing product and you don't have to build one on your own in order to learn how to build a marketing machine. "I think you can practice on your real business." I'm inclined to agree with you however. This statement is doubly true if you take on client work while you build up a product company.
- charleshaanel 14y ago
  "you can't split test their landing page" - Sure you can split test. Simply drive the traffic to your own list first and create your own landing page (the affiliate link on the lander is your own). "You lose a lot of traffic to people that directly type in the url." This is why you buy your own domain and only pay for traffic that goes to your domain. If needed (ex. the merchant starts giving you drama, the offer doesn't convert) - you replace it with a redirect. You use other people's offers to test traffic sources, email sequences, landers. Then once you get it right you build your own products. People have been doing it for years.
woodchuck64 14y ago
"5. Don’t try to become a sales person. You don’t have to be a sales man/woman to sell. Some of the best sales people I’ve worked with are those that just go out of their way to HELP the customer. They understand their niche inside out and have the gift, not to sell, but to HELP. People that are looking to buy something want help." That's nicely said.
jdileo 14y ago
I've been an entrepreneur on the sales/ops side for nearly 15 yrs. Founded & bootstrapped last co. to 7-figure yr/net. Sales at the highest level is a skill set complete with core fundamentals & best practice---just like writing clean code or learning the swan dive. HN is a community of very bright people, I wonder then how many of you know what the "sales process" is? It would next be awesome to know how many of you have a MVP that, if sold to exhaustion for next 60 days, could earn a cash flow that allows you to nix the seed investment you've been seeking because you can grow business & product internally until your ready for the your desired next step. Below is the sales process. Much like the Pythagorean theorem and the square root of 64, the sales process is an absolute thing: 1. Build Rapport-Research your prospect, be genuine, leverage a warm intro or unique/personalized approach method if possible. 2. Qualify-3 to 5 conversational questions designed to gain clarity for prospect. What are they doing now, what parts are broken, how does the solution tangibly make his/her life better. Be advised: The sale is made in the qualify, long before you present your product. Prospect must clearly see benefits & "lean in". Remember, a confused mind always says "No". 3. Present-Your product is solution. 4. Close-If steps 1-3 are executed properly the close is a natural ending to the conversation. You should have 2-3 closing sequences/dialogues ready as hesitation is a part of human nature. 5. Secure referrals-Be specific: "Who are 2 to 3 people...." If you've provided value and rapport is genuine prospect will want to help you/your cause. Just as becoming a talented developer doesn't happen overnight, the sales skill set takes time & practice. The 5 steps above could be discussed in a live workshop for days---developing dialogues, role playing, handling objections, etc. But I promise the above is enough to find success as you get more proficient. The hard part is doing it. Finding the motivation to arrest your fears, identify your target list & pick up the phone. If you believe in your product & want success you'll work it 12 hours a day & thrive. I'm new to bay area & a big believer in giving to startup community. If you need help ping me @jdileo.

135 points by admp 14y ago

That was some good stuff. I wish we had more of this kind of content on HN. :-) That said, I've gotten a lot of mileage out of studying materials from Chet Holmes (RIP), the author of The Ultimate Sales Machine. I got hold of a set of videos he did in conjunction with Anthony Robbins, where he talks about marketing and sales at great length. We[1] are currently working to implement his "Dream 100 / Best Buyer" strategy[2] now. How well it will work remains to be seen, of course, but the idea strikes me as pretty solid. This marketing stuff turns out to be pretty fascinating. I've also learned a ton about market research in the past year or so, and am thinking about doing a talk on "Market Research for Startups" sometime soon, here in the RTP area. [1]: http://www.fogbeam.com http://www.fogbeam.com [2]: http://www.resourcenation.com/article/marketing-tiny-shoestring-budget-0/ http://www.resourcenation.com/article/marketing-tiny-shoestr...

orangethirty 14y ago
To be honest, the reason such content is rare, is because nobody wants to share it. I make more money from using my skills for myself, than from consulting or writing books. I was publishing stuff little by little, but time constraints made me stop. Another point is that everybody wants to learn what works, but few people ever put it to practice. The only person I have ever helped that has actually paid attention is Dan Shipper. And it was mostly helping him with the Firefly landing page.
- charleshaanel 14y ago
  I think it has little to do with "nobody wants to share it". The issue is that there seems to be some silent sentiment in this community that sales is...I don't know....less intellectual, a little "dirty" mayhap? And perhaps if you have to resort to (gasp) selling your product then it isn't good enough to sell itself. People hold on to the "build a wonderful product and they will come" mythology.....
  - orangethirty 14y ago
    Well, people who discover ways to make money don't really want to share it. Its a natural reaction and instinct to not do so. I do agree that sales, marketing, and or any type of business development subject is not very welcomed in this community. Reasons are various, but your guess is spot on. Business is seen as less intellectual, when it is actually way harder than writing code. But it requires one thing that few people here want to do: Communicate with others. And yes, you are right. A great product does not sell itself.

pedalpete 14y ago

Except there are many people who can market and sell, but can't build. Sometimes these people need to be partners, sometimes just introducing them to the product results in them doing the marketing and the product becomes the sales channel. Also, when you are re-selling somebody else's product, where is your passion? what ability do you have to differentiate?

stephengillie 14y ago
How many others are reselling the product? Which product are you reselling? Would you be more passionate about reselling Raspberry Pis than reselling iPhone accessories?

goldfeld 14y ago

The increased line-height bothers me quite a bit, it seems to detract from readability.

mladenkovacevic 14y ago

I'm a marketer by day and reading this makes me wish I had the time to do some freelancing. An experienced marketer could've laid out a strategy and put it into action, saving him a lot of time and frustration. In the end though, I am not 100% convinced that even the best marketer/sales person would've been able/willing to say: "This isn't going to work out for you. Here's why". Maybe a better lesson to take out of this is not to put all your eggs in one basket. Establish several possible sources of income and be ready to push the pedal to the metal when one them starts getting more traction than the other ones.

joonix 14y ago

Tech guys need to stop scoffing at non-tech "business" guys looking for co-founder arrangements. Yes, there are a lot of "startup groupies" out there who don't add any value, but someone with solid marketing abilities and/or "hustle" could help out a lot in OP's situation.

RougeFemme 14y ago
This was one of my reactions, too. I've seen several friends' businesses fail, even though they had a great product, because they couldn't/wouldn't market/sell and saw no value in people who could and would, in a tech space. No matter how great the product, most products/services really don't sell themselves - at least without a nudge. I thought the suggestion about working on product demos and helping customers was great. I assume you would at least improve your customer communication skills, if not your sales skills. And, for introverts, this would be a great way to ease closer to that often huge line between development and sales - or just having a relationship with the customer.

thenomad 14y ago

This is excellent advice, and I wish I'd read it 3 years ago. Jason Fried said something very similar a while ago, recommending learning to sell something, anything, before starting on your dream project. Even buying and reselling iPhones on eBay can teach you a lot of the basics - and you want those basics in place when you're starting to actually set up something ambitious.

foxylad 14y ago

I learnt lots from working closely with sales people (I didn’t like them very much, but that’s a different matter) That right there tells me you'll fail running your own business. I'm not a sales person, but I respect them (well, the good ones) enormously. Not liking sales people means not understanding how important they are to your business, and probably means you subconsciously believe that people will flock to your door if you build the perfect mousetrap. The perfect mousetrap myth is very seductive to introverts, and it's probably the cause of most startup failures. Without a good salesperson pushing your product, you could be peddling a cure for cancer and still fail miserably. I'd recommend anyone who hates salespeople actually does their job for a month. You'll quickly come to realise they have this thick skin that you don't; that when they get someone swear at them for cold calling, they just pick up the phone and do it again. You meanwhile, will feel awful for the rest of the day, and do everything possible to avoid the phone for the rest the day. By the end of the month you'll realise that just as your introversion makes you a great developer, whatever they have that lets them do this is incredibly valuable - you'll respect them. And like them. And your business now stands a chance.

mekoka 14y ago
You seem to be making some assumptions based solely on the fact that the author didn't like the sales people he was working with. He never elaborated on the reasons. But I can foresee many. For instance, it is possible that the culture in the company encourages certain types of sales people, while it turns off others. Take the previous paragraph and replace "sales people" with "programmers". You can see that the same applies. It has nothing to do with introversion/extroversion. On that matter, the usual stereotype of the ultra extroverted salesman that is incredibly successful is pure bollocks. Being extroverted doesn't build you a thick skin to be manhandled over the phone, experience and repetition does. As well, being introverted doesn't mean that if you have a bad conversation, you'll crawl back under the sheets for the rest of the day. You're either misunderstanding extroversion/introversion or you're misunderstanding sales, or maybe both. I'm currently a programmer and entrepreneur and in the past I've worked as a salesman without formal training. I've had phone sales jobs (phone plans), street sales jobs (random knick-knacks) and store sales jobs (men clothes). Only recently, after coming to the same realizations than OP, I've decided to formally understand Sales as a profession, to help me promote my services and software. I've been studying it for a few months and am convinced that most people misunderstand what selling is. We often like to imagine slick, silver-tongued, extroverted people, with poor ethics. This is only a partial truth. After all, sales is one of the few professions where money is directly tied to performance. It shouldn't come as a surprise that poor ethics be prevalent, it's the easy way out. But it does in no way constitute a requirement to be a good salesman. Most successful salesmen I've observed are unequivocal about ethics, they discourage dabbling in shady practices. I've also noted that a good number could in fact pass for introverts. My understanding so far is that even extroverts need to tap into their inner introvert at some point, if they ever want to become good sales people. Being extroverted might help in approaching people in random social contexts, but introversion helps to align oneself with the needs of potential clients, because it helps in observing and listening to what your prospect is trying to tell you. Whether introvert or extrovert, anyone can learn to act accordingly when the situation demands it. All this to say that selling is a skill and can get very methodical and technical. Like any skill, anyone can learn it.

halcyondaze 14y ago

I think this is a great article, but I would almost say that the most important part about marketing your software product as a one person founder is building up your influence in at least ONE channel that your target market hangs out. You get a few benefits from this: 1. You get to iterate on what they say they like/hate in your beta much better/faster...which allows you to make a product that has a really, really solid market fit. 2. You gain credibility and trust in your chosen community and can launch your product with enough initial sales to be profitable more or less right off the bat (talking smaller SaaS stuff here) I like the suggestions in the post, but I would almost say that you should strip it down to one channel of traffic to your market, build your credibility, use that channel to develop a badass product that people will shell out cash for, and then worry about the remarketing, cross selling, etc after you're off and rolling.

cageface 14y ago

This is probably good advice in general but I have seen a few highly successful solo devs that didn't do much marketing beyond building good relationships in a very focused channel like a single forum. I think for this to work you have to pick the right software niche and then build absolutely kickass products though.

saltzman 14y ago

great read! got me through a boring lecture. definitely some good insights for aspiring founders and bus dev people. thanks for posting!

aymeric 14y ago

I left a comment on the blog but I thought I might get some reactions here: Excellent post. I have two advices: 1. Don’t quit your job. Why do so many people fall for the glamourous “all in” scenario? I work three days a week as a freelancer, and the rest I spend on working on my products (http://weekplan.net http://weekplan.net and http://taskarmy.com http://taskarmy.com). Things might not move as quickly as if I was full time, but I don’t risk to jeopardize my family’s wellbeing and I can keep doing that forever. 2. Outsource. Why try to do it all? Work on your business not in your business. I currently have an accountant, a bookkeeper, a web developer, a virtual assistant, a writer and an adwords expert working with me. They are not all working full time, I only pay them when I need them. I strongly suggest you train your outsourcing skills today to learn what can be outsourced, how to express what you need, and where to find the right talent. Get a virtual assistant today starting at $6/hour: http://taskarmy.com/virtual-assistance-outsourcing http://taskarmy.com/virtual-assistance-outsourcing

jwwest 14y ago

Is there a decent resource for learning how to sell a product? Most of us can code and implement the technical parts of a business, but what we need is a Codeacademy for marketing. Something that's not run by slimy "internet marketers" or contains vague advice full of handwaving "use Google's Adwords tool lalala~"

mladenkovacevic 14y ago
I think what you might actually be looking for is a course on storytelling. Ability to sell largely depends on your ability to convey a compelling, relate-able narrative. Everything else is more or less about finding ways to fit digestible pieces of that narrative into various formats (ads, blog posts, sales calls, landing pages.. whatever)
lesterbuck 14y ago
There are a bunch of resources on marketing a product. Rob Walling's book Start Small, Stay Small, is mostly about marketing and picking a market. The Micropreneur Academy (micropreneur.com) is a collection of material that greatly expands on the book, plus a private forum. They host Microconf yearly (already sold out this year). Dane Maxwell teaches similar skills in TheFoundation.io. Mixergy interviews are filled with case studies, and Mixergy Premium has dozens of courses on marketing and selling for tech startups.
- jwwest 14y ago
  Rob's book and the Micropreneur Academy is exactly what I was thinking of when I mentioned "hand waving" I've read the book twice, and subscribed for several months. I found that their advice consisted of two things: 1) Find a niche using Google Adwords. 2) Rank #1 with SEO. And that's about it. It's incredibly vague and frustrating, especially when most niches are oversaturated these days. I reached out to Rob about this, and he replied "yeah, it's hard to find an untapped niche". The entire premise of building a product in his materials is based around finding a nice that's underserved and that you can rank easily in Google for. Anytime someone tells me to solve marketing issues with "just use SEO", they're immediately discredited in my mind. That being said, the rest of the book was solid. The problem I have is that there is very little actionable information on selling a product outside of Magic SEO-land, which everyone knows is a myth.

majani 14y ago

Another brutal marketing truth: you're probably going to have to SPAM prospects at some point.

timedoctor 14y ago

Re "Create at least one lead generation channel as an affiliate for another product" Selling another software app as an affiliate is completely different to selling your own application and I would argue much harder to actually make any decent money from. Any effort you expend is building the brand of the other company. You can't split test their landing page. You lose a lot of traffic to people that directly type in the url. If you can rebrand some awesome software where you own the domain, brand etc and you sell and get 100%, this is not a terrible business model, but the problem is that any half decent software wouldn't want to do this as they would prefer to sell it themselves. I guess they are saying to be an affiliate as practice. I don't really agree however. I think you can practice on your real business.

TDL 14y ago
"I guess they are saying to be an affiliate as practice." That was my interpretation as well. It's not entirely bad advice since it is an existing product and you don't have to build one on your own in order to learn how to build a marketing machine. "I think you can practice on your real business." I'm inclined to agree with you however. This statement is doubly true if you take on client work while you build up a product company.
charleshaanel 14y ago
"you can't split test their landing page" - Sure you can split test. Simply drive the traffic to your own list first and create your own landing page (the affiliate link on the lander is your own). "You lose a lot of traffic to people that directly type in the url." This is why you buy your own domain and only pay for traffic that goes to your domain. If needed (ex. the merchant starts giving you drama, the offer doesn't convert) - you replace it with a redirect. You use other people's offers to test traffic sources, email sequences, landers. Then once you get it right you build your own products. People have been doing it for years.

woodchuck64 14y ago

"5. Don’t try to become a sales person. You don’t have to be a sales man/woman to sell. Some of the best sales people I’ve worked with are those that just go out of their way to HELP the customer. They understand their niche inside out and have the gift, not to sell, but to HELP. People that are looking to buy something want help." That's nicely said.

jdileo 14y ago

I've been an entrepreneur on the sales/ops side for nearly 15 yrs. Founded & bootstrapped last co. to 7-figure yr/net. Sales at the highest level is a skill set complete with core fundamentals & best practice---just like writing clean code or learning the swan dive. HN is a community of very bright people, I wonder then how many of you know what the "sales process" is? It would next be awesome to know how many of you have a MVP that, if sold to exhaustion for next 60 days, could earn a cash flow that allows you to nix the seed investment you've been seeking because you can grow business & product internally until your ready for the your desired next step. Below is the sales process. Much like the Pythagorean theorem and the square root of 64, the sales process is an absolute thing: 1. Build Rapport-Research your prospect, be genuine, leverage a warm intro or unique/personalized approach method if possible. 2. Qualify-3 to 5 conversational questions designed to gain clarity for prospect. What are they doing now, what parts are broken, how does the solution tangibly make his/her life better. Be advised: The sale is made in the qualify, long before you present your product. Prospect must clearly see benefits & "lean in". Remember, a confused mind always says "No". 3. Present-Your product is solution. 4. Close-If steps 1-3 are executed properly the close is a natural ending to the conversation. You should have 2-3 closing sequences/dialogues ready as hesitation is a part of human nature. 5. Secure referrals-Be specific: "Who are 2 to 3 people...." If you've provided value and rapport is genuine prospect will want to help you/your cause. Just as becoming a talented developer doesn't happen overnight, the sales skill set takes time & practice. The 5 steps above could be discussed in a live workshop for days---developing dialogues, role playing, handling objections, etc. But I promise the above is enough to find success as you get more proficient. The hard part is doing it. Finding the motivation to arrest your fears, identify your target list & pick up the phone. If you believe in your product & want success you'll work it 12 hours a day & thrive. I'm new to bay area & a big believer in giving to startup community. If you need help ping me @jdileo.