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Today’s topic is on sales.

In the last 3 years, I’ve helped generate over $1.5m in sales across a portfolio of projects (including my two full time public roles at On Deck and Day One, along with consulting sessions and content projects).

Here is the summary of the key lessons I learned through personal experience:

• Try to present your sales pitch as an “offer”, not as an “ask”

  • An offer is your invitation to share your expertise / platform to help a customer reach a goal. This sounds confident and gives you leverage. An ask makes it feel like you are being desperate and have no leverage.

• Make the offer seem exclusive

  • Ex: “Limited to 5 customers only“, “the first 20 sales only”.

• Create a sense of urgency

  • Ex: “Offer open until 2 days only”

• Create a limited time “deal” for a specific customer or a small group of customers. Make them feel special.

  • 50% off for the first 10 customers with the coupon code XYZ

• Highlight relevant social proof

  • Get real quotes from previous customers and present them as testimonials. Or offer to make intros.

  • Ex: “John is my former client who was in your same shoes. Here is how I helped him. Happy to make an intro if you want to chat with him. “

• Be prepared to handle any typical objections or hesitations

  • Make a list of questions and answers so you are prepared

• Highlight value prop clearly & in simple terms

• Share what customers will miss out on if they don’t act now — show the stakes

• Make them look smart and as if they are getting a better deal always (than feeling like being at the short end of the stick)

• Show long term thinking, be willing to walk away and wish them good still

• Be humble but let it be clear you take your work seriously & respect yourself (value your time & theirs too)

• Always be prospecting & selling so the pipeline is never dry

• Sales is 90% listening & understanding, 10% pitching your offer

• Sales is transfer of enthusiasm between you and your customer

• Sales is learning about point A (where your customer is right now) and point B (where he or she wants to be in the future state) and showing how you can guide them there

• Always be collecting & documenting testimonials and social proof. You never know where it can come in handy in the future!

  • Ex: I have many Shoutout walls ready to be used based on the context, here’s one.

• Marketing is about creating awareness and trust about you, sales is about creating an urgency and a relevant offer to turn awareness into revenue.

• If you are selling a high-ticket item, make sure it feels exclusive and expensive. And it won’t be meant for everyone — that’s precisely the point.

• “Sales is just a transfer of conviction from you to the customer through a bridge of trust” — Alex Hormozi

  • I am halfway through Alex’s brilliant book $100m offers which is a must-read. Ignore the clickbaity title, you will be surprised at how helpful the chapters about creating “grand slam offers” are to founders/creators.

Shoutouts and Sponsors

#1. Bearly AI

• Trung Phan is building a prompt-based Mac and Windows app that has been super fascinating to me. The tagline is “Save hundreds of hours reading and writing with the world's best AI.” Watch the quick demo on the website, it’ll blow your mind. See here.

#2. Ansy

• Yesterday, I helped Ansy’s team with their launch on Product Hunt. They ended up in the #2 spot. What’s Ansy? It’s a Discord bot that uses GPT-3 to provide instant answers to questions asked in your Discord community. It trains itself from chat history, so doesn’t need any manual training. Just invite it to your Discord server & see it in action! Check it out.

#3. Trends.vc

• You probably already are on the Trends.vc newsletter created my friend Dru Riley. If not, it’s time we change that. In one sentence, it’s a crispier and punchier version of the Harvard Business Review. Join 55,248 founders discovering new markets and ideas. Save 2,000+ hours of market research with 5-minute reports. Sign up here.

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Image by Dall-e-2: a surrealist dream-like oil painting by Salvador Dalí of a cat counting dollar bills

And that’s a wrap for now!

Thank you for giving your attention and checking this edition out.

• Would really appreciate it if you can take 5 seconds and pay it forward to help someone else leverage these tips by sharing this article on Twitter/Linkedin and tag me (@thisiskp_). Feel free to DM me for cross-promotions or ad sponsorships.