HN Books @HNBooksMonth

Check out Predictable Revenue - I was spinning my wheels as a technical guy for many years, and that book really clicked for me:

https://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practice...

Also, stay away from comment boards online that denigrate sales and other normal, necessary activities for your business. If you can find a community of folks doing the same thing, that is also very helpful to keep your head in the game.

For others who are reading who may not be in SaaS yet, or who are in more services-oriented businesses, check out Built to Sell:

https://www.amazon.com/Built-Sell-Creating-Business-Without/...

Sales is a skill, like programming, running, or playing an instrument. Anything learn to do it, and if you can tie decent sales ability to good technical chops to build and create, you'll be unstoppable.

Check out Predictable Revenue.

https://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practice...

Wow, thanks, I am glad that you found this useful. I wanted to edit some stuff and make it a bit more readable but the update form is a little crummy.

If there are any points I can clarify further let me know, thi s is a really off-the-cuff sketch and I had fun doing it and wouldn't mind digging a little deeper on some ares.

I am currently a developer in charge of growth at photoeditorsdk.com and about to crank on our inbound marketing. Although a very different market from your's we've had success with cold-emailing as detailed in [Predictable Revenue](https://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practice...). The biggest boost came from preparing industry specific sales pitches & demos.

Cheers

Don't advertise, do lead-generation & sales.

Read this: http://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices...

⬐ jgalt212

yes, that's probably the way to go for enterprise SaaS businesses. I should have been more specific, though.

For brand advertising for Enterprise Saas, not lead generation, what are some good strategies?

⬐ jamiequint

Advertising is a part of lead generation. Content marketing with paid distribution is a valid strategy that is in use by a ton of SaaS companies today operating on the Predictable Revenue model.

These are great books for starting off with the why and how of sales:

Daniel Pink - To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others http://www.amazon.com/Sell-Human-Surprising-Moving-Others/dp...

Dale Carnegie - How to Win Friends & Influence People http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/06...

As you understand the macro details of sales, the more micro things (tactics, strategies, best practices) are probably best served by specific industry or specific aspects of sales. For example:

http://www.amazon.com/Behind-Cloud-Salesforce-com-Billion-Do...

http://www.amazon.com/Sales-Acceleration-Formula-Technology-...

http://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices...

I also really like Jason Lemkin and his SaaStr blog: http://www.saastr.com/ Loads of SaaS sales practices on there.

The modern cold call is a cold email. Although I've done straight cold calls and had a small team in the Philippines, a lot of businesses do not like calls (esp. Restaurants and service businesses). There is a great book on cold emails called Predictable Revenue[0]. link: http://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices...

Edited now that I am on computer to add more detail:

Some of the key points in the book are: -Split sales team into two parts, one group that only sends out opening emails, one set that closes the leads/sets up meetings. Once a meeting is set, the opener passes the prospect onto the closer. -the first email should be three sentences introducing who you are, what you do (can put clients you work with) and what you are looking for (appointment or referral)

I get pitched by a lot of companies, and one company had used this exact pitch on me and out of hundreds they were one of the few to get me to take an appointment call. Months later when I read this book, I recognized their tactic and went back and read the email and it was 100% based on what came out of this book.

[0] edit: misspelled title

⬐ spitfire

Do you mean predictable revenue, the book about salesforce? I can't find predictive revenue on Amazon.

⬐ DerekH

Did you mean Predictable Revenue? Just checking.

Cold calling via phone is a not an effective use of a smaller team's time in my experience-- you will rarely reach the right person within an organization, there are lots of 'gatekeepers' for high level executives, and voicemails just don't generate responses. You can only make so many dials per day, and it is exhausting getting rejected all day. Where I've seen it become more effective is for larger inside lead gen teams for products like credit card terminals, or energy efficiency services where a quick pitch can be made to almost any business person who picks up the phone.

Email however, when done correctly (and legally!! don't spam!!) can be very effective. Instead of focusing on making a sale via an email, try instead to focus on getting a referral. Consider it a "win" when you get a referral to someone in the organization with whom you can have a "warm" conversation.

If you are honestly looking for feedback on your product/service, the sales will come. Your cold email will get forwarded to the right person and you can get some conversations started. For us, these campaigns have been extremely low cost and have yielded some great partnerships and repeat business in our niche industry.

A couple rules we laid down:

1. No attachments, no pricing, no selling

2. Make no more than two attempts over 30 day campaign

3. No more than 5-6 sentences with 1 embedded link and a clear request for a referral

Some recommended tools and resources include:

http://www.amazon.com/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices...

http://www1.toutapp.com/

http://www.data.com/

⬐ crixlet

Really appreciated this info and will check out that book -- looks great.

As a biz dev guy for a web development company, the thing i'm struggling with is how to bank on cold-emailing as a sales approach when there is so much variability/unpredictability. Sure, someone might pass on your contact to a referral, etcetera, but i'm having a hard time justifying devoting so much time on an outbound marketing campaign a la cold emails when the results are scattershot. How does this low cost marketing campaign you speak of fit within the composition of the rest of your sales efforts?

⬐ larrys

Agree with all you are saying above.

"Cold calling via phone is a not an effective use of a smaller team's time in my experience-- you will rarely reach the right person within an organization, there are lots of 'gatekeepers' for high level executives, and voicemails just don't generate responses."

Along these lines I'm amazed at the amount of times don't use postal mail to break the ice.

I don't mean a canned direct mail piece. I mean a personal letter, signed in ink, that makes the point.

With that their is no (direct) rejection and it's possible to send many at a very low cost (even if they don't end up in the right place).