How to Grow your Startup Sales from 0 to 1 Million | Selling with Sean Higgins

8/28/2020

In a world where there seems to be unlimited resources, it can often be easy to get lost in a sea of information. What tactics should you use? Are there tools you should be taking advantage of? In a genuine pursuit to boost sales and the highest degree, Sean Higgins has all of the answers. In this episode, Sean combines the importance of sales basics with cutting edge AI and more. Here are the best takeaways from Sean's experience approach to selling in the startup world.

What You'll Learn:

The basics of sales technique
What to include in your sales stack
Sean's secret to mutual success

🧠 Back to Basics
To reach the next level of success in any pursuit, it’s important to remember a critical 6 letter word, “Basics”. Setting up a foundation allows you to extract more value from what you build on top of the foundation! Think tools, tactics, and more. Sean adheres to the basic principles of sales everyday, and recommends you do the same.
First and foremost, Sean recommends some critical thinking. “Before you even begin outreach, you need to have an idea of what your value is and the need it surrounds for your end user”, Sean says. Once your value is clear, make sure it’s clear to others and pitch to those who already believe in the industry or similar products.
Oh, and speaking of pitching, it’s okay to not give an immediate answer when an offer or proposition comes your way. This allows you to maintain leverage in any situation!

🛠 Build Your Stack
Once you have the basics down, it’s time to utilize some tools - Or what Sean likes to call “a Sales Stack”. Here are some recommendations for every stage of the selling process:

Gathering data?
UpWork

Use UpWork to hire data scrapers when you’re building a client list. It’s an easy and affordable way to gather email addresses, phone numbers, and even Linkedin information

Organizing prospects?
HubSpot and Salesforce

Both are great tools for organizing contacts, their data, and what stage they’re in during your sales process. Use tags, set up funnels, and get tech-y.

Trying to close a deal?

Reply.io

Eliminate hesitation and email annoyance with an automated follow-up tool. Sean says persistent follow-up is one of the number one tactics in closing sales!

Honorable mention…

Seamless.io

Seamless is a powerhouse of a prospecting tool! Listen to the episode for more

🔑 Sean’s Secret
Now it’s time for the icing on the cake. It’s what Sean refers to as “Link and Trade”. In essence, any time you provide value to a client, prospect, or otherwise, link it to something that provides value back to you. For example: if a client wants a discount, tell them you will give it to them if they hit a certain amount of referrals by the end of their billing cycle. This will always allow you to maintain an even playing field!

📃 To Conclude
Want to smash your sales goals? Follow Sean’s tips and you’ll be there in no time. Follow the basics and use the tools! If you think you’re being taken advantage of, Sean's secret wouldn't hurt either.

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📽️ Watch the Full Video on Youtube

Quotes

“We did something, we started talking to customers… The customers told us that the things that they valued actually wasn’t the [thing we thought they cared about] backend storage, but much more on the recording”
Sean Higgins

“If you don't have a scheduled reason for why the customer is delaying, if there’s not something thats happening, if you're just hearing this long pause, usually it means they’re talking to someone else”
Sean Higgins

“In a market where you don’t think you have any competition or you think you beat the competition in every single way, that is a market that you don’t understand as well as you think you do”
Sean Higgins

About the Guest

Sean Higgins
Cofounder of ilos videos, CEO of Better You

Sean is a serial tech entrepreneur specializing in the sales and distribution of SaaS products. As former 2018 Techstars resident, Sean exercises his passion for Minneapolis startups through community involvement. Sean has also been published in several articles and has won numerous awards for pitches and more.

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