Business Development For Startups and Tech Companies

2. Welcome: - Hey, - Scott. - Britain here. - And thanks so much for making this investment yourself before we dive in. - I just want to say hey and welcome you to this course. - I am so excited to have you here because I've seen the power of the things you're gonna - learn in this course firsthand. - And they've changed my life. - I want from flailing, - trying to figure out how to grow my first start up to joining a team. - Or we use business development to get our product in the hands of tens of thousands of new - customers, - build out an immensely powerful partner network and ultimately sell the company for $100 - million. - In this course, - you're gonna learn everything we did behind the scenes to make this happen. - By the end, - you'll have more tools and tactics in your arsenal than 99% of people out there doing his - death. - If you commit to honing this skill set and practicing and implementing what I teach you, - you will take your company and career to new heights. - If at any time you have any questions in the course, - the best place to ask them is in the discussion section on the right hand side of the - course dashboard. - Lastly, - the course is broken out into six modules, - and I highly recommend that you view all of them to get the most out of this investment. - At the very end of the course, - will be giving away some details about where you can get access to all my favorite business - development tools and APS, - so make sure you stick around to the final section. - Of course, - for all the details already enough talking, - let's dive into this course. 3. Introduction to Business Development: - it was a background to understanding. - Biz death. - Let's talk about some of the other growth channels that start ups typically use number one - . - There's direct sales. - Direct sales is very straightforward. - It essentially means building out a sales team of people that directly are engaging with - customers or users. - This can be over the phone via cold calls. - It could be in person and one on one meetings. - The key here is direct engagement. - Marketing, - just like direct sales can take many forms. - At its core, - though, - it basically means driving leads or traffic to a website workplace, - where eventually aggregating people that you eventually want to convert into customer for - users. - So this often takes the shape of a sign up form on a website, - a place, - a page where there is a phone number to call. - Essentially, - you're driving people to a place we're eventually going to try to channel these people and - convert them into a customer or user. - And then there's biz death. - What does biz dad actually mean? - Because I know when I first started out and start ups, - a lot of people out there were saying, - I do business development, - but I really had no idea what that meant, - And even when I started doing it, - I wasn't necessarily sure how to describe it at a high level. - To my friends and family, - well, - here's a definition that I really like, - and I think it really gets to the core of it. - Business development is developing partnerships and relationships that allow your company - to reach new customers and markets. - It can also mean developing partnerships and relationships that provide value to existing - customers or even enable you to extract more value out of them for your business. - Why is this an attractive channel? - Well, - for one, - it's very scalable times. - Think about it. - You could hire 50 salespeople, - or you could create a relationship. - Were a company that already has 50 salespeople sell your product. - Which one takes more energy and resource is business isn't all just about selling things or - generating revenue directly. - It can also mean creating partnerships that allow you to essentially enhance existing - functionality or creating new functionalities that attract and benefit existing users. - Think about it. - If there's a feature that I know that my entire customer base audience user base would love - , - I could spend all the resource is building it, - or I might be able to integrate with the company that's already build it and provide that - feature at a much easier, - faster rate. - With a company that already doesn't well, - it's pretty scalable. - Another reason that Bt is attractive is your company can achieve, - enhance credibility and really, - really improve how your brand looks just by the association with established companies. - If there's a company in the market that all of my customers trust, - feel good about all my, - all my potential customers feel that way about associating my company with that company is - gonna make my existing customers feel better about our relationship. - Could optimize the conversion rate for potential customers because they trust that other - brand. - It's associative mind. - So let's talk about three common types of biz Dev relationships. - The test of his dead relationships that I see most frequently are ones that enhance the - product, - provide distribution or enhance the brand equity of a startup. - Let's go through these product visit deals again. - These are relationships that enhance an end product, - and by enhancing and product, - they provide value to existing users or potential ones. - Let's let's dig into an example here in order to show you a little bit more What that looks - like. - The one that comes to mind immediately for me is is single platform on Trip Advisor singing - platforms, - a company that I previously worked for So before single platform trip advisor on a lot of - their pages did not. - They had restaurant pages for the top places that you could go to find places to eat at - particular destinations. - And they had the name, - address and phone number of the address, - maybe even some follows. - But one thing that they didn't have ubiquitously and for many of these restaurants, - if any, - was the menu. - So it was impossible for me as a trip advisor, - user or somebody, - and maybe even arrived there in the first time to see what these restaurants actually sold - . - This data set was something that single platform acquired through providing a product that - allowed restaurants and other types of businesses to distribute this data and through an A - p I relationship with trip advisor. - We allow them to display this data that their existing and potential users wanted directly - within the framework of their site. - And you see the arrow there, - uh, - pointing to the menu button where that AP our relationship exists. - When somebody clicks menu, - they get a pop up I frame that shows them exactly all the dishes that this particular - restaurant serves, - and you'll even see theatric Yushin image of single platforms data on that menu. - This is an example of really a product biz depth deal that is essentially enhancing - connecting to companies to enhance the end experience of a product and for single platform - on the product side. - Having the data distributed in another place where restaurants potential customers are - searching for dining options makes our product better as well. - So it's a win win relationship for both parties. - Let's talk about distribution is depth deals, - distribution. - Business deals is basically what it sounds like. - It provides distribution for your product or service. - So by leveraging somebody else's audience customer base user base, - whatever is, - you're essentially getting distribution that you would have not received, - and this can also manifest itself in providing additional value for your users. - This this concept is a little bit easier to explain through specific examples, - so let's go ahead and do that right now. - One example that comes to mind is. - How about we and New York met? - If you're not familiar with, - How about we? - It's essentially a dating site where people can suggest different activities to dio and - connects people. - So how about we can before doing his Deb deals? - Maybe they were trying to drive people to their website via marketing the, - uh, - social media, - whatever it ISS. - But through the Biz DEV Channel, - they could have essentially received distribution on places where their target audience is - already hanging out and get customers that way. - So this particular deal was between. - How about we in New York magazine, - on the front page and on every page of New York magazine? - You'll see a little area here that says Dates Now I don't know if this I don't know if this - even existed before these this biz dev relationship, - but when you click that button now you're taken to this page, - which is a co branded. - How about we Page that essentially is driving New York magazine readers to sign up for How - about weight? - And essentially, - this is this is providing access to an audience that they might not have reached before - just to demonstrate the power of these type of biz Dev relationships. - How about we published a pretty cool statistic on the block over the past two years? - The 40 different partnerships, - whether it be with New York mag or other types of content destinations, - now account for over 25% of new user acquisition. - That's huge, - considering the lifetime value of a customer of a dating site could be hundreds of dollars - . - The fact that these relationships are now driving 25% of a user base, - which I'm sure is in the tens of thousands, - if not hundreds of thousands or even millions it is pretty amazing. - If you want to read more about that, - you can check out the article. - How about we block? - Let's talk about brand enhancement business deals, - deals that enhanced brand to exactly. - They sound like they connect to companies, - and both companies stand to benefit from the Positive Brand Association. - And again, - these help you reach new customers, - convert customers at a higher rate, - reached new markets, - a lot of positive things and commodities. - A great example is TechCrunch and you. - To me, - there's a site called Crunch You, - or portion of the site on TechCrunch called crunch you. - And if you're not familiar with TechCrunch, - it's one of the most popular tak content destinations that report stories and news. - And all this stuff about startups and you to me, - is an online course platform. - So it's if you want to learn about entrepreneurship. - If you want to learn about how to build products. - If you want to learn about coding, - it's essentially a place where anybody can publish courses on those different disciplines. - And what crunch you is is basically a portion of courses from you to me that have been co - branded on this TechCrunch site that are basically recommended by tech runs. - Now. - I never heard of you know me before, - but I was an avid TechCrunch reader, - and I came to this site all of a sudden I am gonna have a lot more trust for this unity - thing. - Given the fact that they're working with TechCrunch, - it must be good. - Otherwise, - TechCrunch's the brand that I love and have been reading for a long time. - Wouldn't wouldn't partner up with these guys, - and so you, - to me, - is getting a huge win here by not only potentially getting access to new customers. - But when they reach those new customers optimizing conversion just because of the trust - that's already been built, - given the piggybacking on top the TechCrunch brand now TechCrunch is constantly looking to - deliver excellent content to their users and generate additional income streams and by - associating themselves with a amazing source of educational content like you to meet their - driving a ton of value to their users. - And also you may be even monetizing this, - I'm not sure, - but this is just a total win win relationship for both sides. - That's making both of these brands look even better in the eyes of their existing customers - as well as perspective, - customers or users. - Another type of biz Dev deal that I want to highlight That kind of fits. - The framework of distribution is channel partnerships, - and this can also fit within the brand umbrella as well. - Channel partnerships are basically when two companies with similar customer or user - profiles former relationship, - where one company explicitly introduces the other product or service to their audience, - user base, - customer base, - whatever it ISS. - And these can often look like re marketing deals or reselling deals where there is a - revenue split at the end. - If there's transaction. - A great example of this is single platform and blue Net single platform Again. - What the company allows local businesses to do is distribute their most critical business - information everywhere that people are looking for their business online. - So name, - address, - phone number, - their menu products and services photos, - all the stuff that people are looking for. - Mine Blue Net is the largest wire service provider and digital partner for 8000 plus force - across the country, - and they brought a lot of amazing services for the businesses. - They work with one of the things that they would love to I would have loved to provide. - Before this relationship was the ability for all these businesses to easily get found - online. - What the single platform and Blue Net relationship looked like was basically Blue Net - introduced our product to their 8000 plus customers and resold it, - re marketed it and allowed us to reach an entirely new audience of people that would drive - a thana value from our product and Blue met as part of this deal. - For every single sale that we made, - got to take some of the revenue and this is just a great example of two companies realizing - that there's a chance to provide mutual value on both sides and striking up a channel - partnership where one company introduces the others product to their existing customers - provide value in a way that drives revenue for the company to these deals to occur, - something very important has to be in place, - and that's the mutual value of Shane's on both sides of the equation. - If one company is getting all of the value and the other isn't, - it's just not gonna be fruitful for the customers. - For the people doing the deal for the company's relationships and moving Ford, - you have to make sure that there's a mutual value exchange. - And honestly, - a lot of cases, - if there's not a deal, - will never, - ever get done. - If the people that are working on the deal are smart, - so get in this place. - In this case, - the value is clear. - Single platform was getting to reach a new audience that previously wouldn't have access to - , - and Blue Net was getting introduced, - a product that drove a ton of value to their existing users while monetizing relationship. - Both sides were let's talk a little bit about the difference between sales and business - because they often get co mingled, - and it's important to really understand how they're different. - First difference is that I personally think his death is a little bit more strategic and a - little bit more scalable again. - Sales is often you are selling a product directly to a consumer. - So here is this thing. - Here's what it costs, - and I want you to trade me money for this. - There's Devon. - The other hand is often manifested in somebody else in creating relationship. - Where somebody else is selling directly, - or something that happens to the product is gonna help result more sales. - And this is why I often say that goals of Biz Dev are often higher in the funnel. - So instead of me worrying about directly driving sales, - I'm going to create a relationship with another company that maybe enhances our product, - gives us distribution, - whatever it is that is gonna eventually going to result in more sales. - The last thing that I want to bring up this is a very important at the micro level, - like what you'd actually be doing as a business developer is sells a very product ized - offering. - So here's this thing I'm selling. - It's not really gonna change that much. - Do can I convince you to give me something for it? - We're like about business. - Development is you're often had to be extremely creative about the offering, - a relationship that you're positioning a potential company and these air things. - This is This is a process that requires understanding what somebody's particular needs are - . - How you might be able to service them with your available resource is it's often less - product ized. - And that's not to say that all sales are product sized or that there is Biz Dev - relationships that are not product sized. - A lot of business is actually about scaling a product ties relationship, - which is something that will discuss Maurin depth later in BT playbook. 4. Effective Business Development Mindsets: - welcome to the mindset section. - Now a lot of people will see this and say, - You know what? - This is important. - I want scripts and tactics, - But getting these things right and in line is going to be justice critical to your success - as all of the tactical information scripts strategies in the world. - So I really want you to pay attention closer to this section because the bottom line is - that you want to have the most success. - As a business professional, - you need to have the right mind set in place. - I think the best way to understand the appropriate mindsets you can have to really set - yourself up for success is understanding the challenges that is de professional, - typical face getting to the right person to make a deal happen to even get a meeting. - This requires a ton of overcoming rejection, - being comfortable with failure. - Putting yourself out there is not easy creating win win relationships, - prioritization so understanding that not old deals are equal. - They're not all going to move the needle the same extent for your company. - And really, - in a lot of cases, - when a company is doing well, - it's not the number of opportunities. - That is the biggest problem. - The problem is, - is focusing on the right opportunities, - not getting too distracted by shiny objects pushing deals through the finish line. - You have the meeting set up. - You have a good relationship with the person on the other end. - But at the end of the day, - it gets really tough to get these deals through the finish line. - And honestly, - a lot of these mindsets that you'll have to be the core of your being able to get things - done. - So let's talk about the first mindset. - People do things for people that they like. - This is so important. - To understand your ability to get things done is highly contingent upon basically making - people like you and not only having a great product but having the relationship that is - gonna make somebody put their neck out on the line for you. - Because as a start up as a young company, - as an unproven player, - in many instances people are taking a chance and they're and they don't know everyone at - your company. - They don't know the ins and outs of product that they do. - They know you, - which is why it's so important to get them to like you and to build that trust so that they - do something that's a little bit outside of their comfort zone with the potential for - upside that you promised. - Let's talk about how to call to make this month pretty straightforward. - You want to take an active interest in the people that your dealings with lives and this is - not just what's going on in the office. - This is What are you doing this weekend? - What is interesting? - You what your passions, - building relationships around the things outside of purely the deal is going toe largely - enhance your ability to make people like you and ultimately do things for you, - continuously being attentive to the relationship. - It's so important to be proactive. - And this means doing things like sending thoughtful e mails, - making sure that if somebody is in the city that you're working in, - giving them a place to say, - Hey, - you know what, - you can work out of our office today trying to get face time with these people. - This is really important, - and I think that a lot of times people think that if they just get on a call every three - weeks. - That's relevance relationship. - That's enough. - And to be quite frank, - that's not enough. - And that's often why people can't get the person on the other side because they haven't - built the relationship strong enough. - Do you ultimately do something that's a bit of a stretch? - I think it's important that you acknowledge the value of these actions because a lot of - times it can seem like, - you know, - this isn't necessarily moving the deal for directly. - This might be wasting my time spending two hours with this person talking, - going and doing an activity that has nothing to do. - The deal. - You need to acknowledge the value here because you don't see the value, - this, - this type of activity, - then you're probably not gonna do it, - which is why it's so important that you're just cognizant of it as you do it. - Practice, - Empathy, - involvement. - Tori A. - Love This one of the most powerful forces in developing relationships is being vulnerable - because it demonstrates that somebody else that you feel strongly enough about them, - that you're willing to open yourself up and expose yourself to criticism to judgment. - So if you practice vulnerability and empathy throughout the entire time, - odds are gonna be much closer that personally other side. - And this could be a simple as let's say that something didn't go your way or you forgot to - do something just being completely candidate being honestly, - sometimes I get really forgetful, - and it's one of my biggest flaws. - But I'm working on and unfortunately, - that was why we didn't get a chance to do this thing. - And I'm really sorry. - It's it's honestly a personal thing I'm really working on. - Obviously, - you want to manage your balance, - that with seeming like a reliable person but generally vulnerability and empathy, - you're extremely powerful. - Forces in relationship strive for FaceTime early and often. - You can have as many e mails many phone calls as you want, - but nothing is gonna be able to replace the connection that you're able to build when you - get in front of somebody. - So I always try to get in front of someone as soon as possible. - Once I understand that a deal is potentially going to be there and then just continuing to - see that person as much as I can, - assuming it's important so that we can really kind of get the face time in there to really - build and strengthen that bond Mind Set number two to be successful. - Business Death being metrics driven The beautiful thing about metrics is, - is they don't lie. - It's the best barometer for your decisions, - whether it's how much time you should be spending on a partnership, - whether you should be kin continuing to do the same type of partnerships or even expanding - a partnership metrics should be at the core of all of your external decision. - It should also be at the core of what you're reporting to partners. - In order for them to really feel like there's a valuable relationship. - They're the best thing you can do is provide hard evidence through metrics that you're - driving value for their company. - So being metrics treatment is extremely critical for your ability to be successful, - to prioritize and make sure you're spending your time and energy on the things that are - going to move the needle the most for your company. - Let's talk about how to become metric shipment, - and this is important because I'll be completely candid. - I wasn't always a metrics driven person, - and when I started to adopt this mindset and really build just a habit of being metrics - driven person, - I became infinitely more productive not only personally but also for the people that I - worked for. - First thing you can dio define the metrics before engaging in partner activities. - It is much easier for you to be metrics driven and to be evaluating your decisions using - Metro Apps. - If you just start out with a framework of how you're going to measure the success of - something, - so the best way to do that is to define the metrics before you even go go about. - Start working on the deals. - Once you have the metrics in place that you want to monitor and measure the effectiveness - of a particular relationship. - The next thing you need to do is set up proper monitoring systems and not only set them up - but schedule regular reviews because it's very easy to have all these systems in place, - set them up and then never look at them. - So I've found that the absolute best way to make sure that this doesn't happen that you - actually review the data is to schedule regular reviews and also conduct postmortems. - So once something goes live like a launch or a particular pilot, - whatever it might be that same day at that moment. - So you don't forget schedule a postmortem. - Maybe it's one week out, - one month out, - three months out. - Maybe it's all of them. - But actually schedule that so that you go back, - You look the metrics and you can determine whether this was actually a valuable use of your - company's energy time. - And I like to take it a step further and really forced myself to compile a written analysis - of the metrics with reports. - Because all that data, - it's great if you will get it. - If you don't make the effort to understand it and what could potentially be manipulated in - the relationship in order to drive most value, - it's really not worth a whole lot of good. - And if you have trouble keeping yourself honest about this schedule presentation, - get other people involved so that you know that you're gonna need to understand these - metrics and what they actually mean because other people are gonna be waiting for you to - give a presentation to that. - I've seen this a za really, - really excellent strategy to keep yourself accountable to being metric should being metrics - driven ties in nicely to Mindset three, - which is focus on prioritization. - I love this quote. - We can do anything, - but we can't do everything. - This is so true in startups, - especially as a business development person. - There's tons of potential opportunities to achieve growth by creating relationships with - different companies. - But ultimately you have to identify the ones that are going to drive the most value and - avoid the ones. - They're just gonna be black holes for your energy. - Time and resource is. - And this is why I personally believe that one of the greatest challenges that you're gonna - face not only as a startup but as a business developer in the early stages is to make sure - that your prioritizing and spending time on things that matter. - And this is why oftentimes getting getting and no is better than getting yes, - because a lot of people, - yes, - you to death and nothing will ever come out of those relationships. - So I personally think getting to resolution on a deal, - whether it's yes, - let's do it. - Let's go or no, - I'm not quite ready at this is a good fit for us, - yet is honestly, - sometimes a great thing. - Instead of just constantly getting yeses that never go anywhere. - Let's talk about ways to cultivate this mindset. - First thing you can do is establish your priorities literally. - Right out party number 12 and three If you have three off the business development function - in order of reporters, - so few examples of this could be to drive new user sign ups dr existing engagement or - extract more revenue per customer. - Whatever it is, - it's important to write these out and have them present and top of mind at all times that - you know that you're prioritizing your energy and your time appropriately before you - encounter any major decision. - You wanna have these priorities top of mind, - which is honestly, - why I keep them on my desk at all times. - Just so I know that hold on a second is this thing that I'm about to do our thinking about - doing in alignment with what I've established as the most important priorities before my - business and lastly use these metrics performed postmortems and test frequently in order to - understand what's really moving the needle most for your business, - and I call this the marketer mindset. - Ah, - lot of biz dead people out there. - Honestly, - they're great salespeople. - They're great relationship builders. - What did not great at is prioritizing their time and energies and really kind of taking a a - marketer's approach to testing diligently on all the things that they're spending their - energies on. - So taking a marketer mindset as a is dead person is generally, - I think, - an awesome practice mindset Number four e comfortable with rejection. - The bottom line is you're never gonna get something unless you ask for it. - In business development, - you're gonna have You're gonna find yourself asking for things, - Aton. - Whether it's hey, - can I have that contract back or can we get on the phone call next week? - Or can you ask your boss what his feedback was? - Because I haven't heard from them and I really need this to report back to my CEO. - There's just gonna be a lot of situations where there's a little bit of discomfort with - asking for things because you might get rejected. - So you have to become comfortable with this idea of rejection. - And I'll even say that for a lot of people, - their ability to ask is actually a strategic advantage because there's a lot of people out - there that aren't comfortable with projection that ultimately don't get things they want - for their business and for the deals that they're asking for. - So how do we get comfortable with rejection? - I think one of the best ways yet comfortable is just to reframe it in your mind instead of - instead of taking it as a personal offence, - reframe rejection as data collection. - So every time that you get rejected, - that just means a greater understanding. - Oh, - maybe they rejected me for this reason, - maybe it's because I didn't position this correctly. - Whatever it is, - if you look at rejection as a tool that allows you to learn Mawr calibrate appropriately - and Ford with the higher likelihood of success, - you're going to become more comfortable. - The rejection and this quote, - I think, - is amazing. - It says only through walking will I know the path, - and it's only through doing things and getting rejected. - Well, - you have a Mork crystal clear idea of the best way to approach things. - Another strategy that helps for becoming comfortable rejection is separating yourself worth - from the rejection. - So a lot of times when we ask for something and we get a note we think it's because of us, - and we feel bad about ourselves and get down on ourselves. - The truth is, - is that people that reject you in many cases they're not rejecting you as an individual. - The rejecting what you said the person that you cold call that doesn't want to get a - meeting with you. - They don't know you. - They don't know the type of person that you are and all the amazing things that you - accomplish in your life. - All they know is the 15 seconds that you talk to them on the phone. - Or maybe the four senses that you're quoting now. - This is why it's so important to separate yourself from rejection and realize that it's not - you rejecting. - It's just whatever you wrote or whatever you set in most cases. - And lastly, - any time you feel the onset of fear of rejection, - anxiety around something just general hesitation, - schedule that activity, - a lot of the activities that go hand in hand with rejection like cold calling cold, - emailing asking, - you're asking your partner for something they don't want to say yes to or hesitant around. - But these are activities which should be scheduled because when you schedule something, - you're establishing a pact with yourself and you have a natural desire to be congruent - consistent things that you say you're going to dio. - You're more likely to do those things. - So schedule things that you sense hesitation around, - possibly because of rejection. - Right now, - I actually want to go through a quick exercise you can do to become more comfortable with - rejection and overcoming fear. - I have to give credit to gain Maxwell in the guys, - the foundation for this, - because I actually got these questions from a video where they helped other people become - comfortable with rejection and overcome limiting beliefs. - And the idea is, - is when you're uncomfortable with doing a particular action and you realize that you have - some anxiety around it because you're afraid of getting rejected, - you can ask yourself this Siris of questions and hopefully reframe your mindset and rewire - it to becoming more comfortable with the potential for rejection that you ultimately do - that thing that you know you should be doing. - If you want to be successful at getting that meeting or getting getting on the phone and - calling a partner that you've been avoiding, - whatever it ISS So this is just a series of questions you can ask yourself, - hopefully rewire your mindset in order to do the things that you know you should be doing. - Okay, - first question. - What is the activity that you're not doing? - Let's just for this. - For example. - Purposes use asking a partner for a contract. - So why aren't you doing these this activity? - Well, - maybe you're not asking the partner for a contract because you're afraid that they're going - to say you know what? - No, - it's not ready. - You really need to stop emailing me every day. - It's getting really annoying. - How do you feel when you approaches activity? - So how did it feel when you approach asking somebody for a contract that you've been - waiting on for a while and, - you know, - you know, - they should be getting back to you, - But for whatever reason, - have been avoiding you. - Maybe you feel anxiety because you feel that if you ask them for the contract. - But you know, - you shouldn't you need Teoh. - They might say no. - They might never talk to you again. - They might just completely flake and you might lose the deal. - What would be the opposite feeling? - of that particular belief. - So what's the opposite feeling of you feeling anxious around? - Ask defense contractors. - You're afraid that deal is going to go still? - Maybe the opposite feeling would be that you feel so incredibly confident they're going to - get back to you with positive news that you just can't contain yourself. - That you that you just know that this deal is gonna come through and the only thing that - stands to treat you and getting this deal done is asking What would you do right now if you - possesses believe so, - if you possess this belief that there was no down remind this person was going to get back - to you with an ink contract because they were so excited to work with you and the only - reason they got didn't get back to you is because they forgot or there were on vacation or - something. - What would you dio? - Well, - hopefully at that point, - if you felt that way, - believe that hopefully that means what you do is send that email immediately, - asking for where that where the contract is or where the deal is, - or how come you heard back from them it would be absolute worst case scenario with this new - belief. - So let's go ahead and say that you do you ask for the contract and that they get back to - you and say, - You know what? - I'm not interested. - Or maybe they just don't get back to you. - Let's dissect what the actual results that are. - So if they say they're not interested simply because you asked for something, - you were gonna get that result anyways. - And all you did was expect the process and get it faster. - If they don't get back to you, - then that's no different than where you were before you asked. - In most instances, - the absolute worst case scenario off an action that people are hesitant to doing because of - fear of rejection, - really isn't that bad and honestly, - actually, - can even be a good thing. - Mindset number five master. - The art of making things here jerk is the easier. - You make things for other people, - whether it's something you ask for, - whether it's a favor, - whatever it is, - the higher likelihood that they're going to say yes and the reason is is just because - generally people at opt for the path of least resistance. - They don't like to do work. - So your job is if your goal is to make the likelihood of compliance for saying yes, - as high as possible. - You must make it easier when you ask for something. - So let's let's go ahead and see a few examples of that. - This was an email I received from a good friend who runs Biz Dev at a company called - Shutter Shop that recently in public, - he's got We're looking to hire Biz Dev Superstar to lead a P I A promotional partnerships - for shutter stock. - Is it pretty? - Any given with lots of latitude at a successful New York Tech company is a ton of a minute - . - Here's a job description. - If you take five minutes to consider who might be a good fit for this, - let me know who to reach out to it mean a lot to me. - You're the best PS linked in is great for this could cure to see which of your linked in - connections that business development in their title. - My friend had a couple things here A you linked to the actual job description. - Twice I've had other people send me an email like this about any links to the job - description and act, - which is basically asking me to go to their website, - go to the job section, - find it super difficult to do. - And that's just a lot of friction for me actually going about doing this. - Secondly, - he auto populated and linked to a search on LinkedIn where I could see my connections. - You have business development in their profile. - This is a an idea. - Probably have never thought of be making it as easy as possible for me to take that five - minutes to consider who might be a good fit for this role. - This is just an excellent example of somebody really taking the art of making things easy. - In terms of optimizing the compliant. - Torrie Hart is a great job. - Did you get another example? - I got this another example directly from my email inbox from one of my friends who has - company called Institute Institute, - she says. - How you could help us crush our goal, - make a contribution. - She's links directly to where I could do that. - Secondly, - she asked me to share on social media. - Now, - instead of saying hey, - be awesome, - if you could share it, - she literally takes the thinking out of it by giving me pre constructed tweets and Facebook - posts. - This is absolutely awesome. - And not only are they reconstructed, - she sends links using a service that all I have to do is click the link in order to tweet - the particular thing that you suggested. - I don't think you could get any easier than this. - And to be totally honest, - I did click one of these pre constructed tweets that you sent to me, - and I don't know. - I would have done that if she hadn't made it so easy. - So let's talk about how to cultivate a art of making things easy. - Mindset number one. - You wear it all times that most people generally opt for the path of least resistance. - When you understand this, - you'll start to naturally just developed a tendency to want to remove all friction from - people saying yes, - something you asked for. - Number two build the habit of doing postmortems that explicitly focus on bottleneck - identification. - So when you ask somebody for something and they don't do that thing, - it's important to look back and review and ask yourself, - Why didn't they comply here? - Why, - why didn't they say yes, - and just getting in a general habit of trying to understand not only would perform the - action of asking but understand why somebody did or did not do that thing that you and - asked him for is an amazing practice just to build this part of making things easy, - muscle and you Eventually you'll just start to see yourself having a room need of - understanding that allows you to preempt these compliance breakdowns. - At first, - this was definitely something that I had to practice diligently. - But now it just comes naturally to make things easy as possible, - because I had put in the post mortems and just the diligent practice of really building - this mindset so that I didn't have to really think about it eventually. 5. Is Business Development Right for My Startup?: - for a lot of the reasons that we described earlier is that could be a very attractive - option for start accelerated growth. - Scalable growth. - There's a lot of benefits to building biz devilish chips. - What is that isn't right for every company. - There's certain companies that it makes a ton of sense for. - And they're certain companies that at the point they're evaluating whether his deficit - viable grow channel. - It really shouldn't be focusing on. - So let's determine right now what questions you should ask if you're trying to figure out - whether his death is right for your start up so so important considerations. - His Deb Jules can take a long time, - especially in the game. - Some deals can take weeks, - even days, - but there are certain deals that can take years, - and a lot of this depends upon the type of relationship. - But more importantly, - the type of companies that you work with. - It was important to understand. - The the companies are we're gonna get in this a little bit more later. - But just know that is deaf relationships can take a long time. - Is that deals to be a huge distraction, - all of the energy and resources that you. - Do you divert towards getting a biz debt deal done, - or even exploring these devilish chips must be beautiful lens of an opportunity costs and - that you could be spending these resources time energy. - Well, - I'm sure, - in your customers. - So it's really, - really important to understand that although Dee Dee is an excellent growth tell, - it can also be something that prevents you from serving your customers, - which is, - you know, - honestly, - probably the most important thing at a start up, - especially in the early eighties. - When you engage in this, - get relationships often as a result, - just have less control of your schedule. - All of a sudden you're accountable through all these other parties. - And if there's technical relationships, - there could be instances where you actually can't release product functionality without the - consent of a partner without letting a partner know or might even put a partner too bad - spots. - You just want to do it. - This can be definitely a challenge that you have to mitigate, - and you have to understand your originally evaluating different types of his dead deals - because all of a sudden you're now affecting other people. - Beyond just directly were customers and the development teams and engineers at all, - many of this same once having West controlled struggle. - When you engage his dead relationships, - you're serving an additional stakeholder again. - Not only now, - are you worried about making sure that customers happy, - but you're now making sure that partners were happening well and not only is dead contact - with Product Team of CEO marketing team already, - people are involved in a relationship again. - The challenge years that it could just be a strain on resources and focus and need to make - sure that you decide to produce shoe biz Dev as a growth strategy that MAB resource is to - make all these parties happened so that the relationship on most successful as possible or - job work. - So with these considerations in mind, - what are some questions you can ask yourselves to determine whether our companies are ready - to have been step number one? - Do I have product market fit? - It's important to understand this dynamic because if you don't know exactly who your - customer is and how to serve them, - it's gonna be hard for you to find ideal partners. - Joe. - I think that personally holding off until you really understand who your customer is, - or multiple different customer avatars, - how you conserve them and what other companies cause. - That's a similar audience or way to enhance that experience for your audience. - It might be best to hold off on biz Dev related activities. - Do I have the internal resource is to support BD initiatives again. - All Although BD can be an incredibly attractive girl grow channel, - it needs to be viewed within the lens of an opportunity cost. - Every single developer that you take away from working on your product is a diversion. - Resource is, - too. - It is dead relationship and said directly serving your customers. - Although that relationship may eventually provide enhanced experience for potential - existing customers, - in that moment you are diverting resources. - So it's important. - Understand that you do just decided to pursue this channel, - that it requires resources and that these resource is are ones that are being taken away - from other things that can move your company forward. - Do I have any leverage in the market? - You're so your ability to not only get deals but get deals on terms that will be best for - your company depends on how much leverage you have in the market. - If the more you have more leverage, - you're gonna get better curves. - It's gonna be easier for you to get deals and to outmanned competitors. - Also important, - uh, - for party making sure you don't run into party mismatch party mismatches when a - relationship is an incredibly high priority for you and your company. - But it's not really that interesting for partner. - You don't have any liver leverage in that situation. - Basically, - you are at the mercy of that part. - But all of a sudden, - if that part, - if you have a ton of leverage and it's really important for that for me to work for you, - you can make sure that those instances don't happen so that you can be certain you're only - spending time on deals. - They're actually gonna be implemented. - Get down with Neil for your company. - How relying is my company on partners to be successful? - If your entire business model is contingent upon you being involved with other people, - that's kind of a scary place to be. - That's not to say that relationships with other companies can be incredibly important to - your success to your customers experience, - too, - ultimately making your product what ISS But If you're 100% of the line upon this partners, - that is very dangerous. - And you want to be able to self sustain yourself for the worst case scenario that something - doesn't work out of partners or there's a change in that changes the market dynamic, - whatever it may be. - But I think it's always a good place to be able to sell. - Sustain yourself at least to a certain extent before going out and engaging with partners - is my product or service far along enough to present to potential party. - So this is This is kind of a Harry face here because I think it's best to actually true. - Self is deaf relationships, - so do not even have built a future or product on it. - You're potentially interested in creating relationship around. - Yeah, - at the same time, - when you go to these different partners, - you want to be taken seriously and they're gonna be they're gonna ask to see things, - maybe even just a mock up. - But they're gonna ask for evidence that demonstrates that you're the type of person that - can actually actualize this relationship that you propose. - So if you are nowhere near that and that is just ah, - far off pipe dream that's gonna be really hard for you to do. - You might want it whole off of it on worried about growing from BT growth strategy and - focus on getting to a stage where you can present opportunities that would be attracted to - additional partners. - And I just have an example. - Your you are TV was a company that I first time did is that for and our products just - consulate broke. - It was never and so far technically from where it needed to be. - And I was out there talking all these partners, - inviting them to essentially see live demonstrations of the product because with the - product was was a live interactive video platform, - and these partners would come and see the products and it would just break immediately. - It would never work. - And that made it really challenging for me, - not only to get these relationships down, - but tohave continuity in our dialogue is the first experience that I showed them with. - Our product was so poor. - So in retrospect, - I I honestly would have probably been better served holding off a bit on going and pursuing - be channels aggressively as I did until our product was just a little bit tighter. - So let's talk about the ideal company steam to aggressively pursue a bit his debt growth - strategy. - And again, - these are gonna be answers to a lot of the questions that we just asked. - So number one, - you have product market fit again. - Here's where you know your customers or users you know how to serve in, - which allows you to basically go out and choose partners effectively so that if you're - going to expend all this time and energy and his dad relationship, - you're making sure that it has the highest chance off serving your audience effectively. - You have some leverage. - No. - When I say leverage, - I don't mean that you have more levers and every single partner out there. - Everyone has to work work with you. - You don't need to wait until you're at this point, - but you need to have a little bit of leverage in order to command. - Respect and attention is that things actually get done. - If you have no leverage, - you run the risk of priority mismatch. - It's gonna take much longer to get deals done, - and honestly, - a lot of cases people don't really have as much of incentive to work with you now. - The exception here is something we're going to go over later called friendly comfort - companies. - Starter strategy. - For the most part, - you wanna have some leverage before you go out and decide that you're really gonna pursue - business growth strategy? - I agree you have enough internal resource is to actualize potential deals and divert - fortunate ease through the Growth Channel versus Onley. - Working on the practice, - your customer if you go out and you think all these deals and you're ready to go, - But you don't have any developers or engineers, - designers or whatever the type of relationship that you proposed to actually make this - happen, - you're not only gonna disappoint your own team because you just spend a bunch of time on - something that isn't really gonna happen. - But you put a strain on the relationship with the partner that you just worked on going and - going and constructing this relationship with. - So you want to make sure that you actually have a resource is to go and make things happen - Before you spend a ton of time and energy proposing potential relationships for your - company, - your business can sustain itself without depending entirely on partners. - So it's It's a bad place to be if the only way that your company can be successful is - contingent upon these. - His death relationships existed because I've seen it. - Relationships can evaporate like that. - Somebody can come in, - and if you don't have the proper ring and set up, - you can lose your partners. - In instance, - when a bigger, - better player comes along, - it's important that you can be self sustaining to a certain extent before you go in. - Aggressively pursued be and it just affirms example here, - single platform. - So our company, - literally the biggest value out of our product, - was that somebody could enter in their information. - So their name, - address, - phone number, - menus, - photos, - and we would distribute that information across all of these publishers like Trip Advisor, - Yellow Pages Force for Yelp, - Google Places. - I mean, - the list goes on, - and for us I mean, - if we didn't have those relationships with the publisher partners to display the data where - our product would not be is valuable, - we would not be able to sell it to the degree that we were. - However, - even with me complete nonexistence of those relationships. - Our product did it a ton of things that warranted value show social media updates, - updating your information on your own website. - There was value there that we could build a business out of, - even if we didn't have business relationships that really made our products super powerful - . - But the truth of the matter is, - is that a lot of people, - the reason they sign up for us is because of that publisher network. - Okay, - so it's when your company possesses these characteristics. - But I think it's the ideal state to aggressively approach of his debt growth strategy. - Now you don't necessarily need to have all of these sick guarantee success, - but I think it does help when you have these things in place to make sure that your initial - Biz DEV efforts are as successful as possible. 6. Determining The Best Business Development Strategy For Your Company: - So let's talk about determining the right isn't development strategy for your company. - Doing this starts with defining the function of B D. - And doing that starts with defining the levers and metrics you're looking for business - development to grow. - So what are some example? - Potential BT Growth lovers. - You could be looking to drive active users. - Advertisers, - syndication partners, - revenue, - new vertical customers, - publishers. - The list goes on, - and ultimately it's depending upon what your company goals are. - But the first thing you need to do when you're looking to figure out what strategy works - best and how you should focus your business efforts is to define his lovers and not only - define them but prioritize them in terms in order of importance. - So I personally think a great thing to do is just list these out. - Number one. - Add grow user base, - whatever it is number to extract additional revenue from existing users. - Literally order this out and use this as the framework for your decision making. - Now there's a lot of different things that business developed. - Relationships can improve early on in stages of your company, - but it's important as a young startup where time is your most valuable asset to focus on - things that affect your bottom line. - Optimizing things like user experience is just not as important as focusing on things like - revenue, - direct savings, - growing user base. - These are the type of metrics that are really gonna make your company allow you to do - things that raise additional funding, - maybe even get acquired. - I've never heard somebody say that we acquired this company because they have such a good - user experience. - No companies get acquire, - raised money because you're able to show growth in their most valuable metrics. - Which is why you should really focus on prioritizing these qualities quantitative metrics - versus softer quality to things like you, - your experience director, - you to find your levers and metrics. - The next thing that I think you want to do is come up with just a few ideas and how the - different types of BT relationships you mentioned earlier was just to give you a refresher - . - Were product brand and distribution might be able to grow these lovers. - When you do this, - be honest yourself. - Is business development a realistic channel to grow these things, - and ultimately, - at this point, - you can only really make hypothesis the experience that you'll have actually trying things - , - testing things in the market, - talking to prospective partners, - even looking at similar companies that have tried deals like this will determine whether BT - is an effective channel for you. - Let's talk about what type of business growth strategy makes sense for you again. - It comes back to understanding. - What BT letters You're trying to drive by creating mutually advantageous relationships. - What you haven't understanding and these lovers and metrics return agro. - You're just gonna have a much better for him working of how you might be able to drive it, - whether that's a product, - relationships, - distribution partnerships, - bringing his memberships. - But in order to understand which one might be best, - you've got to start with foundation, - which is determining which not trick she wants. - Drive every done. - This is it's time to really take a good look at your customer and user basis and try to - really get in. - These people's hasn't understand where do they hang out? - And not only were they hang out, - where do they hang out with intent? - Because there are certain situations and instances where customers air primed to take the - action that you want, - whether that's signing up purchasing whatever your growth metric is, - and they're certain situations where they're hanging out and there have no intent at all, - son of your service and your ability to understand their intent at these different - potential partner locations, - whether it's on site in their application, - whatever it might be, - there's going to be very important for determining how effective these potential - partnerships, - my big. - So let's let's dive a little bit deeper into this and talk about understanding, - customer or user penetration. - The reason that I want to talk about this is because I see a lot of business fell in - relationships that air unsuccessful because people didn't get this part right. - Bottom line is a lot of services and a lot of different types of products. - The customer base, - our audience that a particular startup is trying to grow, - isn't looking for their service. - They're going about their regular life. - Whether that's running a business, - whether that's surfing online, - they're not looking for the new thing that you're offered. - Basically, - your job as a business Melber is to grow. - Its to get in front of these people were creating these relationships that grow whatever - your growth metric ISS. - Here's an example that hopefully shines a little bit more insight into what I'm talking - about. - So our company, - single platform, - the product that we built initially served restaurant owners, - and I'm not sure how well you know, - owner for a restaurant, - that these people are not on Google searching for marketing solutions day in and day out - there, - making sure that the foods return for that evening, - that the open sign is turned on the front door and that people are showing up to work on. - And this is ultimately why we went direct sales now in terms of business development. - It wasn't in our best efforts to go out and try to get on all these digital marketing - restaurants ice initially because again these people were growing their business. - So because we shows direct sales, - the best thing that we could do was used business development to empower our ability to - sell these people directly. - And that's why we went out and build a massive publisher network that not only made the - product extremely powerful and much easier to sell, - but also got in front of us, - got in front of all of these restaurants by power menus on the sites that they knew that - people were already finding a business on. - If you go into a restaurant today in a major city, - you'll see a trip advisor sticker Yelp, - sticker on Urban, - maybe even an urban swim sticker. - And that's why we decided to create relationships with these sites because we knew that - this was important restaurant and naturally were already hanging out. - So let's expand on this a little bit, - because again, - I see a lot of people make this mistake and ultimately spend a lot of time on Bizet deals - that are successful by taking a look at what an audience without intent looks like. - So Google Mass. - When people go on Google maps, - what are they trying to dio? - They're trying to find places in the physical world, - usually directions. - Maybe they're walking around the streets. - They want to figure out where this restaurant is, - or this gin, - whatever it is, - this place where they want to go. - A lot of people might look at this and let's say they're doing through a food ordering - business like seamless or something like that, - and they would say, - Oh, - my gosh is great people are searching for restaurants. - It makes total sense of to be able to allow them to order right there while they're - searching. - But when you think about it, - does that audience really have in 10 when somebody wants to order food on a Sunday? - Did they go? - Are they going to Google Maps, - Teoh, - Then maybe place in order? - Or are they going to Google Maps because they're gonna want to go walk there and go to the - restaurant? - And I happen to know that certain partnerships similar to this exact one that I describe - yielded little are alive for either company because there was no intent of the audience. - Yes, - viewing restaurants is an action that people frequently take on this app or website. - But that doesn't mean that there's the intent there for their true to be our ally in this - relationship. - You know, - let's talk about his death deal where there was an audience with intent Spotify, - one of my favorites terraces to find new music. - So what? - What is what is the audiences intend when they go to Spotify? - I'd argue that still listening there fever favorite music and discover new music. - Now the deep integration with Facebook, - and I'm not sure if you're familiar with Spotify. - But essentially, - when I go on Facebook, - I can see through a special immigration all of the songs that my friends were listening to - in real time. - This was a beauty deal. - So displaying Facebook friends in at Behavior is highly relevant for finding new music, - which is again. - Part of the audience is intent. - And this is why this is an example of an excellent BD BD deal that was highly successful - because there was synergy between the two, - what the two companies objectives were and what the audience is intent waas in both - services. - So after you understand your letters where your customer and usual days hang out where they - do it with intent, - this is a great place. - And then ask yourself the critical question. - What is the best rate of riches people? - Is it product? - Is it brand, - or is it a distribution focused relationship with another company? - And again, - Time is the best barometer of what will work best for you. - Ultimately, - experience will determine effectiveness, - but these questions should serve as a framework to develop a good hypothesis to get started - . - Okay, - once the function of business development and your strategy are defined, - or at least the hypothesis is fine. - The next step is defining your ideal part, - and the things that you want to specify are are ideal Partner Sold serves this very - specific customer or user. - They have this many users for customers that we might be able to tap into with relationship - . - They possess this type of company, - D n A. - Maybe that's their fast movers, - or they care ton about design or they're really, - really focused on providing a rich experience for their customers. - And this is really important for determining how well you're gonna work together, - which is all often a fundamental predictor of whether the relationship will be successful, - fruitful for both sides. - It's important to understand the benefit that they desire from relationship and the reason - that this is a not only so that you gonna pitch them effectively. - But in this stage of the game, - it's so that you can understand whether a relationship, - but then will be a priority again. - The last thing that you want is to get sucked in to using a lot of your time and energy on - relationship that there's a priority mismatch where they're not as focused as making a - partnership. - Successful as you are, - last thing you want to ask yourself, - Will this partner ever build this themselves? - Personally, - I don't want to spend time on partners that plan on building things that I'm like proposed - that now you don't know this until you engage in a conversation, - but it's just important to keep in the back of your mind that the ideal partner for you, - it let's say you're doing a product Integration never plans on doing this future themselves - . - And maybe that's even a question that you explicitly asked them in the beginning of the - conversation. - Let's talk about the partner market evaluation. - What this really means is is getting understanding how rich the market is with ideal - partners, - given your integration strategy. - And this is one of the things that skin determine which route is right for you. - Because ultimately, - if there's not enough meaningful partners for a distribution type of relationship that you - envisioned, - or maybe a product integration one, - then maybe it's time to read to start back at Square one and rethink about what strategy - might want to use for your go to market business growth strategy. - Once you've determined how rich the market is, - and this is literally just a research exercise, - you want to ask yourself, - Are these relationships in this rich partner market repeatable across partners? - Or is there conflict of interests? - And one of me by this is our relationship with one of these ideal partners? - Is that going to prevent me from doing it the same exact relationship with other partners? - Because ultimately, - what your your job is that it is a business developer is to create a meaningful women - relationship that drives growth for your company and then product ties, - and repeat that for every single partner that it makes sense for. - And that's scalable business film Now, - just to kind of give you an example of what a potential conflict of interest would be again - . - Single platform. - Our company On the publisher side, - we were a data provider where we provided initially men used to other sites that did not - have this information. - Now you can imagine that getting to menus for every single restaurant out there is a huge - task and something that honestly, - we couldn't do ourselves, - and there's other companies out there that had menu data. - So maybe that was menu pages or all manage dot com or whatever it is. - They're also collecting this data. - One might have said, - You know what? - Maybe we do a partnership with them, - and we use their many data as well in addition to ours. - So we have a more expansive data set that allows get other partners. - The thing is, - though, - is if we were used another third party sites that actually displayed the menus, - this is an important distinction we never had. - A destination site like single platform dot com was not in. - Many cite these other many providers, - like menu pages, - and all menus did. - So we started taking in their data and then went out to a site where a competitive site - where a restaurant provider for people searching for restaurants like Trip Advisor Urban - Spoon, - all men user many pages they might not have been so cool with us giving their data to - somewhere else. - That was their secret sauce that drew people of their site. - So we set a second essentially be cannibalizing our ability to do additional partnerships - that drove value to our customers. - If we were to pursue that scent of his dead relationship. - These are the important considerations that you want to ask yourself when you're trying to - figure out again what strategy is right for you and whether this market is rich and - conducive to creating repeatable, - scalable business relationships that you want. - Let's talk about a few other considerations that you should take into account when you - craft your beauty growth strategy. - Number one. - What route in your company realistically handled this point. - Do you have enough engineers to do product relationships? - Because it, - honestly, - things like a product really shouldn't might not be right for If you can't handle it, - maybe you should focus on things like email list. - Partnerships are a little bit easier lower hanging for when we're doing. - Where do you possess leveraging market again? - More leverage you have, - the more you're gonna be able to accomplish effective partnerships, - get them done quickly and be able to test what channels are effective for you. - And along those lines, - you would ask yourself, - What can you test quickly? - It's a certain type of business relationship that you think might be a good fit, - but you're not sure is gonna take no months years determine the our ally, - then maybe that's not the place that you start. - Maybe eventually get there and focus on something a little bit easier to test to determine - what channel might be best for you. - Why you're getting started again because as a startup, - time is your most valuable asset. - And when you're looking at your ideal partners, - this is also not a question. - Ask yourself. - Is this person somebody that we'd be able to get a test out with quickly? - Or they somebody that has history of being incredibly slow and really hard to work with? - Understand that best for a channel, - whether it's product brand distribution, - even even the nuances within each one of those second relationships again is an inter - process that you will begin to understand. - Once you start to have conversations, - test things put things in the market, - do pilots, - all of which will talk about very shortly. - Let's go ahead and give a concrete example here of single platform, - my last company's business development strategy. - Again, - the product waas, - a tool that allowed restaurants to enter in the most critical information and display - everywhere were consumers were making decisions. - It was That's what it ended up being and given our demographic of restaurants who were not - looking for online marketing solutions but instead are worrying about putting food on - plates and making sure the wind. - Last year Queen we had to sell them directed. - And that literally looks like a bunch of people making cold calls during direct phone sales - . - So the best use of our time because we knew that direct sales is the best way to reach our - ideal customers was stent. - Empower our sales team to sell more effectively by building out a publisher network that - really made our product a no prayer, - just kind of paint a picture of exactly what the product did again. - Custom would come into our platform and other menu or listen Project services and that - would information get pushed out to all the sites have been partnered with. - So some examples off the business relationships that we had in terms of Publisher network - were four square New York Times Yelp Trip Advisor, - Yellow Pages. - If somebody made it shape, - it changed to press a mistake on the remaining from $9 to $7.25. - That information instant maybe reflected through an a P I relationship that our biz. - That team developed with all of these companies pretty powerful stuff, - especially for businesses like restaurants that rely so heavily on having accurate - information and usually natural tracks, - people that are looking for the business. - So how did those biz Dev relationships grow? - Our bottom line Number one, - they vastly improve the product are building to allow customers to publish your information - everywhere. - Consumers are making decisions online, - really armed ourselves seemed to be successful and ultimately have an amazing practice. - L that just converted at a much, - much, - much higher rate when they were calling these businesses. - In addition, - we were able to provide more value to the original customers that signed up and for - subscription, - recurring revenue business like ours. - Lowering that Children rate is incredibly important to the health of business. - Other cool thing that these original business relationships did was really get us some - amazing exposure that resulted in a ton of warm leads for us to call so across all of the - sites where we're providing menu get on the bottom of the menus, - you would see an attribution image that said many Friday by single block from dot com. - Whether it was a consumer or business that click on this image, - they would be directed to Aly Generation Page that would people could since submit their - information and receive a call from our sales team. - And these leads, - after seeing to themselves that we were managing this data across the most important sites - online, - converted at an extremely high rate, - which was just almost a marketing channel created through the business relationships. - Which is great now, - after this initial type of business development relationships that we did with restaurants - and building a publisher network just focus on a few other things for his death number one - . - We wanted to grow beyond just restaurants because they're 600,000 restaurants in the U. - S. - But over 13 million different types of local businesses that people are searching for - online. - So what we needed to do was get relationships with non restaurant specific publishers like - Yelp like it'll page dot com Google places. - They allow us to provide the same value to businesses outside of the restaurant Burkle. - In addition, - we also needed to extend the data seven we're providing, - so we started off with menus because we started off in restaurants, - but after that, - and for us to provide that value, - we needed to get our publishers to take more data from us. - So name, - address, - phone number, - photos, - hours of operation. - All of these data points were not only incredibly valuable for the existing customers that - we had, - which were restaurants, - but also for all of those new customers that weren't necessarily as focused on the list of - products or services or the menu as we like to call it. - It's also really helped us sell enterprise clients you and many. - Kansas is just focused on getting their information listed and getting all of these - different franchises and stores just out there, - because that was a huge problem from them for them for a long time, - because very few places did this effectively when we started business. - Lastly, - we eventually moved into channel partnerships and just a refresher on channel partnerships - . - It's when somebody else with similar user base or customer base that hasn't tend introduces - your processors to their audience. - So we were basically doing reselling and re marketing partnerships. - Another example of this outside of room example that I should earlier is mind body Mind - Body is the largest software provider for spas, - salons, - wellness centers, - and what they do is they provide websites and mobile APS. - And essentially, - you were there, - listing management partner and in addition to all these amazing services that they already - were providing their customers. - We worked with them to to fill in that would space, - making sure they were listed across all the most important sites. - And they had that rich data, - like their menu of services there hours, - their photos that people really want to know beyond just the name dress for. - And here's an example on the mind Body website, - where their existing customers confined single platform and be directed to you sign up. 7. Honing Your First Deal Strategy: - So let's talk about leaning your first deal, - starting with mindset and then how to actually go about doing this. - Your first partner is incredibly important, - not only because it determines what type of leverage you're gonna have and who else you - might be able to attract in the future, - but also because it sets the tone internally. - If this deal goes incredibly well, - people are going to be more vested internally. - To give you the resource is energy and support for future deals moving forward. - So what is your ideal first partner? - Look like? - My personal opinion is that you should be aiming for somebody that's meaningful, - but not necessarily the biggest fish in a pond. - Hey, - if you can get an exclusive with a rule or Facebook, - great. - But odds are that's going to be really tough to dio. - However, - you do want to make sure this partner does have some clout. - So for all the subsequent people that you approach after that, - you can point to somebody that they respect and trust, - which is going to make them more likely to want to do a deal with you were the goals in the - first quarter person foremost of drive growth. - That's why we're doing business. - Film in the first place would grow our business in a scalable way number to obtain and - understanding about this girl child again. - We can hypothesize around what's gonna work, - what's not gonna work. - But ultimately it comes down to experience and iterating that will really determine what is - going to be the most effective use of our limited time and energy to grow in the B channel - . - Number three Chief Verifiable results. - One of the things that you're up against in business development is basically being on - return to someone that working with you is a good idea and the absolute best way to do this - . - It's have concrete evidence that you can point to that says, - Look what I've done for somebody else. - There is no question my mind that I could replicate these results for you and much along - the same lines here. - You you want to get social proof, - right? - So very viable results certainly help with buying, - but so does just the mere fact that you're working with somebody else. - If somebody else that people respect has bought in, - it's gonna be easier for them to say Yes, - there's just not as much risk there or perception of risk once somebody else has bought it - . - So why is it necessarily a good idea to your street for the biggest player in your market? - Well, - first impressions are Andruzzi. - When you enter these discussions, - it might be your only chance getting from this person. - So if you think that your first chance before you have any partnerships that you're gonna - be able to touch is effectively as when you might have things in the future like case - studies, - social turn, - all the things that people that make people more likely to comply, - then by all means, - go ahead and try to pitch the biggest partner. - But usually people don't have these things and they don't have any other partners. - Which is why I recommend that you don't start out with going with absolute, - biggest, - baddest person in your market. - Yeah, - once you get a few deals on your belt and you get the assets like the case studies this - social proof, - the results you can point to then you want to get to the big, - big players. - At this point, - you're just more likely to get by in because there is an inherent risk and work with the - startup, - and you just want to make sure that first impression is as positive as possible. - So what's everything should you be looking for in your first partner? - Number one, - You want to make sure that they are big enough to actually create impact. - You're going to spend a lot of time on doing some type of speculative initial deal. - He wanted to be big enough, - so they understand. - The second relationships are a good fit. - Do you want to make sure that there's a good culture fit there? - And part of the culture fit for a startup means being able to move quickly? - If your first deal is going to take a year to yield any understanding or even our ally, - it's probably not a good a good fit for you. - So one of the the ideal cultures for first partners for startups is that the companies that - you're working with are agile, - and they want to see things executed quickly. - What's along the same lines here? - You want these people toe realize that they're working in a startup, - they need to be flexible. - Somebody that's incredibly rigid is going to be challenging to work with it probably are - gonna provide metrics or to talk about the second. - And it's just gonna make it difficult for me to really get the understanding that you're - looking for in this initial deal. - You want somebody that's going to agree to give you the metrics gene to create case study - because once you have that deal and you have a case study that shows you can provide - verifiable results, - it's gonna be much easier for all their other dominoes to fall. - And for you just go out and pitch people effectively because again you have what everybody - wants results. - You would look for some type of indication that the relationship with your company is going - to be a priority. - The last thing that you want is to go work with somebody that doesn't necessarily care - about the success of this relationship, - because all future potential partners, - we're gonna look at this relationship as a proxy. - Whether you'll be able to drive value for that. - Let's quickly talk about what tend to be Cem ingredients for what I call Black Hole initial - partnership. - So you want you want to avoid these type of companies for that initial deal and honestly - for deals, - period. - So number one, - they have a history of being a big, - slow moving organization again. - It's about speed to understanding and working with somebody that's gonna take a long time - to drive value early on. - It's just not who you want to work with. - Number two. - They work with any and everybody. - If somebody works seven and anybody, - it's gonna be very hard to make not only getting the deal done a priority, - but making the deal successful a priority. - You want to work with somebody that really cares value and wants to make the success and - wants to champion this so that this relationship can be as fruitful as possible for both - sides. - Number three Again. - You don't want to work with somebody that doesn't realize what it's like to work with a - start up and start ups. - Things were sloppy. - They get slower, - it can take longer. - There's more surprises. - If somebody is from an incredibly corporate environment and they've never experienced this - type of thing, - it could be challenging string on. - The relationship might even fall apart, - so that first partner it's it's ideal if you can get someone that understands we're working - with the startup, - knows what these air like and is willing to be flexible and work with you. - Okay, - so the content that we just reviewed should give you some ideas, - thoughts and frameworks to really establish. - Wouldn't want that first partner to look like? - No. - Before you go out pitching like a madman, - it's important to understand the dynamic it place that you can do it effectively. - For starters, - urine unproven. - Start up. - Which means that for many people, - especially larger companies, - you're a risk. - And it's not only the company that's assuming the risk, - but that individual person, - whether it's biz, - dad, - product, - whoever maybe that's an individual risk in them working with you as well. - So you need to be very mindful of this and need toe honestly actively look for ways to de - risk the relationship, - however you can, - as well as figure out ways to maneuver around the fact that working with you might be a - risk for the company. - We'll get into that later, - but just just something to be mindful of. - As you start to think about that initial approach, - let's talk about incentives and these incentives are what you can lover to get somebody to - buying, - even when you're a risk, - because your startup number one cent for pretty much every company is to make money. - If you can satisfy that, - it said, - there's gonna be a strong inclination for somebody to want to do a deal with you. - Another set of that companies have is obtained something novel that enhances their position - in the market. - This might be a new piece of data that nobody else has. - Maybe a new feature that everyone has been asking for, - but nobody's been able to look at. - If you can give them something you need that nobody else has. - There is upside there that you can take advantage of to get that first partnership, - even when you're just a start up, - do a lot of the bigger companies. - A huge incentive for them is just a pure cutting edge. - They had a big status friend. - It's not necessarily attracting the younger audience they're looking for. - Maybe the tech adopters or whoever it is. - These people want to appear. - Cutting edge and doing a deal with the startup is one way to achieve that. - I mentioned that when you're dealing with these companies. - It's not Onley convincing a company. - It's good idea. - It's also convincing the individual. - And that's why I wanted distrust you, - that there is individual incentives that flat and everybody that you talk to wants to look - good in their office. - They want to please their boss. - They want to look good in front, - their colleagues. - So you need to convince this person conveyed in doing a deal with you is going to be a big - success, - and it's going to make them look great. - Journalist. - You also want to convince then that there's not a lot of risk. - Even though there might seem like risk, - the more you congee risk your relationship and prevent any perception that something bad - might happen, - the higher likelihood that somebody is going to want to work with you at the individual - level. - So we're looking at additional partner doesn't accomplish any of these things. - The answer isn't a resounding yes. - You need to figure out how you can position relationship so that it does, - and we're gonna go more into position later. - But you need to be able to at the on set at least be able to convey that relationship - between another company and yours is going to accomplish either the ability to make money, - the ability Teoh enhance their position in the market, - the chance to make something good in front of the boss, - maybe to make the company pure cutting edge. - It has to touch one of these things. - So it's really important that you can a least accomplished one of these things in your - position. - And again, - we'll talk more about position later. - Now there's two schools of thought when it comes to approaching getting that initial - partnership, - there's people who think the best way to go is going after a friendly company. - Maybe you have somebody who is a friend of yours who has a company that that might benefit - from doing a deal. - Or maybe you know somebody, - a particular company that makes total sense to do a deal. - And the reason that people gravitate towards going after friendly companies for that first - deal is it's easier to get initial buying when you have a friend or contact at the company - and again, - once you have that first deal, - you could just have a whole lot more momentum from things like case studies social crew - verifiable results. - So often people choose to go after a company or they have an existing relationship for that - first initial partnership. - Then there's people that think the best rounds goes actually to go after companies where - you don't have a relationship. - And the benefit of this here is that you get unbiased feedback about the type of - relationship that you're proposing. - No, - A lot of people just have to go this route by the folks. - They don't necessarily have a company where they have a friendly relationship. - Uh, - that meets their ideal partner criteria. - Here's my humble opinion on where the best place to start is. - You want to look for friendly companies who have a great brand in real business. - The reason I think that this is the ideal scenario is a because you have a relationship - with the company. - You can get to a resolution often faster than if you didn't and you get all the other - benefits that we talked about earlier. - You can use this initial partnership with this company to get more credibility. - Yet the case study get all the things you need to go out and generate more partnerships, - and because this person has a real business. - They're not going to make the decision just because your friend they have a real business - run. - So you you also can get that unbiased feedback necessary to ensure that this type of - relationship that you're proposing can be replicated across partners and that they're not - doing you a favor just because of relationship. - Now, - if your first partnership, - whether you have a few companies that you have existing relationships with, - that might make sense where you don't have any friendly companies, - here's a simple early partner evaluation framework that you can use to see whether somebody - might be a good fit to be that first partner. - First thing you could evaluate is the size of the opportunity, - and the waited to do this is to look at your pre defined key metric that you're trying to - drive and measure that against the correlated partner Metric. - So, - for example, - if I'm looking to do a channel part ship and I assume that maybe 1 to 5% of customers that - are introduced my to my product are going to convert, - then I can basically look at okay, - how many part how many customers does this partner have. - And if they convert at 1% or 5% does that opportunity see meaningful to my business? - Secondly, - you want to look at is whether their culture fit. - So what does this company care about? - Do they value the same things? - My company is this somebody who's going to be an ideal partner for the long run and that - really I can lean on to model out all of the future partnerships. - This is super important that you get this right, - because again this person sets the tone for all of the relationships moving forward. - Lastly, - what is the track record of this partner now? - They could be a great partner two years down the road. - But are they somebody that wanted to that first partnership with? - They're gonna be somebody that's easy to work with that's flexible enough to work with a - small start up, - or they somebody that slow moving in a giant pain. - And it's gonna take a long time for me to understand whether this type of relationship - yields a high, - are alive for my company. - Now there's certain ways that you can figure out all three of these things before actually - even talking to partners. - And I call this partner evaluation. - Recount reconnaissance. - Let's go ahead and take a look at this. - The first thing you can do is look at their website or articles about that company - revealing their metrics. - So again, - if you want to see if the size of opportunity is even worth pursuing trustees of any - articles out there that reveal how many users they have or how many customers they have a - lot of times people, - publishers and press releases Teoh, - you know, - brag about how well they're doing. - So you want to look it look for their scent particles to see if this actually represents a - meaningful opportunity. - And once you found those metrics, - you can actually go ahead and take it a step further and model out the opportunity just - together. - Uneven, - more definitive sense on what the our ally of the relationship like So I just put together - a little example here and excel where I was. - I look at if I was potentially doing an email swap where I was trying to convert somebody - else's user base to subscribers of my service. - Look at OK, - here's somebody active users they have. - If I assumed anywhere from 1/2 a percent of the conversion rate to 5% Treasury. - How Maney new users would I get if leads at this every single month? - How many new users with that represent a month? - If there was a sure ate, - what would that look like? - These are all things that you can really kind of try to predict and hypothesize around. - That gives you a better sense of whether this is an opportunity that is worth your time and - energy at this point for figuring out whether there are culture fit and their track record - . - You're gonna want to lean on people that have worked with them before, - so you can pin your own personal network, - and I like to go on late did and see who shares common connections to that company. - Or you can even go as far as looking on their existing partners or clients Page and see if - there's anybody that you already know. - Or maybe you have a friend that's connected to one of those people that you might be able - to just ask. - Hey, - what was it like to work with these guys? - Were they easy with a flexible did you get things done quickly? - Doing this due diligence up front can see you save you a ton of time and energy. - So it's definitely worth just doing a quick partner. - Re calm before and then, - lastly, - you can look at task deals and try to get a sense of whether they were successful and if - they were, - wasn't because date, - because you're And lastly, - you can look at past yields and try to get a sense before they were successful. - If they were successful was because they weren't easy to work with. - Maybe they didn't have a culture fit or they didn't necessarily care about making the - relationship succeed again. - There are people that you can reach out to you and ask these questions that you can figure - out before you spend a whole lot of time on the relationship, - whether this is somebody that you actually want to work with. - Okay, - so you talked a lot about this whole initial partner first deal and how important it is. - So let's just try to kind of put it all together here and just have three takeaways that - you should be thinking about as you define your go to market business strategy and who that - first partner might be. - Number one. - Figure out your most important important metric and the best way to drive it number to - narrow down your ideal user customer and their intent and see which potential partners have - a captive audience off those people and all those potential partners. - Which ones match your ideal fit in terms of size, - of opportunity, - culture, - fit, - track record ability to get things done. - This should be a good friend work for you. - Determine which business Roger you want to go after and who that first partner might be. - Let me tell you about single platform solution partner. - We ended up having a warm introduction to somebody at The New York Times that God is a - meeting which allowed us to figure out what they were looking for During that meeting. - We asked them of all the things they were interested in, - and it turned out that driving engagement on their dining section was actually something - that was high interest in at that time virtues, - different types of pieces of content that might be interesting. - They indicated that having menus was something that they really wanted. - Well, - she found this out. - We've Riegert came back to them and said we could get 100% coverage of all the menus that - they had on their dining site if they were really to work with us. - And they said that absolutely, - that this is something they wanted. - We then provided them a non binding letter of intent which said that if we went out and got - this content, - that they would put this content directly on their website, - formalizing our relationship and just a few months after the implementation went through - and went lot just gonna show you what that looks like today on the New York Times dining - guy. - You'll see this menu tap here. - And when you click the menu tab, - all of this information is provided by a single platform. - And before, - there was no menu tab at all, - and you couldn't even get this information. - So this is actually the first deal that single platform ever got and ultimately allow that - scraps of hundreds of other partners and replicate this relationship in order to provide an - incredibly value service to our customers. - Now, - how we actually got this deal in terms of the meeting to pitch all these things we're gonna - go to later. - So don't worry if that seemed a little big 8. Building Your Initial Pipeline: - okay. - In the last section, - we talked about your strategy for landing your initial partner. - Let's go ahead and get into the weeds a little bit and talk about how to actually do this - more tactically. - So remember, - depends from which strategy choose. - There's the friendly company strategy where you go after a company where you have an - existing relationship to lend an initial deal. - And there's the unfriendly company strategy. - And what you decided do from here depends upon which one you choose. - Let's start by talking about the friendly strategy. - So you've determined that you know what? - For this first deal, - I want to try to work with somebody that I already have a relationship with. - Your first step is to determine all the companies that you have warm relationships with - that might make sense to work with, - and you literally want a list these out. - Now, - before you go about creating a pitch that you proposed the exact solution and all the - things that you want, - you should just take the mindset. - The best thing you can do from the initial Deco is just to have a candid conversation to - really understand whether there's any chance of your company's working together, - given their hierarchy of priorities and needs after you've had that conversation, - then, - is when it makes sense to come back with a more defined pitch. - This special include things like a clear value proposition. - Frictionless, - set up to get started, - agreed upon process for the two companies, - yet started moving forward and then, - lastly, - the specific follow up to the next steps. - So this could be like getting a letter of intent sign or connecting our product team for a - calls they could talk about the integration again. - We're not always gonna have a wealth of companies that we have existing relationships with - that we can use to start with this friendly partner strategy. - So what do we dio? - Well, - this is what I call hitless building time, - And it's the first step to essentially building out of his depth pipeline for companies - that you don't necessarily have warm relationships with. - Probably with the term hitless. - It's basically and list of every perspective partner, - client customer, - whoever you're trying to reach, - and you're gonna use this not only to manage your outreach, - but I haven't used my initial hitless to manage the entire deal process Here's some - important components that you want to have on your hit list. - 1st 1st company names of who you're with, - the company that you're perspectively doing a deal with our partnership with the last time - you spoke to the person at this company. - That's your current contact. - What? - That activity waas on that last day of contact. - So was it an email? - Was it a meeting? - Was it an in person meeting or a phone call? - This type of information is really important to take note of. - And, - you know, - it will just make it easier to manage the entire deal process. - Who? - The specific steak order, - older or decision maker. - And this could be multiple people at that company is that you're talking with what their - contact information is, - and then, - lastly, - what I call the prioritization mechanisms, - this is, - uh, - that size of opportunity that we brought up earlier. - And the reason that this is so important is because they're certain fuels that are going to - drive 100 times more value for your company than others, - and you want to be sure that you're spending your time most effectively at all times. - So I like to I like to within my hitless literally have this right in front of my face. - So at all times, - it's just a nice little reminder to make sure that I'm spending my time wisely. - There's a few options that you can use for your hit list. - There's sales tracking software, - So salesforce, - high rise Sugar serum tom them out there. - There's another tool that my friend Andrew du Mont built called Stride, - and this is a little bit better for low volume, - high leverage opportunities. - So let's say you only have ah 100 deals in your pipeline. - This actually is a great tool for those type of situations, - and salesforce mean that those type of tools really scale. - You could have thousands of leads and opportunities in there, - and it can get really sophisticated if you want it to be. - Lastly, - you just use a spreadsheet or gruel. - Doctor Man is this. - And honestly, - I'm super old school. - I just used a Google doc, - and this is literally a picture of an example of what my hitless template looks like. - And it's very simple. - Just company name. - Last day of contacts. - What That activity waas some type of scale to measure the size of opportunity to make sure - that I'm spending my time wisely. - The contact, - the stakeholder, - contact name and again, - this give you multiple people what their email address, - waas and phone number. - If I want to include that, - ultimately, - really what it comes down to, - all this stuff is it's not about the tool. - It's about your diligence falling system. - If you can manage it on a simple Google doc, - that's great. - But if you want something more sophisticated, - go ahead and opt in for the sales sales force of the high rise and generally a big. - The reason that I don't like those tools is I find them rather clunky. - They're often built with the sales manager in mind for them to run reports on number of - meetings or teams holding who has the most calls. - And quite frankly, - I don't need that sophisticated metrics and analysis on top of my list. - I just need a place where I can have all my contacts. - The last time I reached out to them what that was, - what that context of that outreach waas what their information is. - That's really all I need and, - you know, - for the actual notes that are appended to those meetings. - I just again use a Google doc on, - and I called the working agenda, - and it's just a giant running document that every time I have a meeting or conversation - with a potential prospect or existing prospect, - I just put the name of the prospect, - the company and the date and then just bullet points of what that meeting was about. - And this is this is not super sophisticated. - This is very straightforward, - but it's just something that works for me. - And I follow the process diligently, - and that's why it works. - And right here is just an example of a screenshot that I took with actually my personal - meetings agenda. - So I have. - I have one of these for Biz Dev, - elated activities, - but also just keep one. - Just for all the personal meetings that I have for personal networking connecting people. - And it's just very much the same, - and we'll go over more specifically later on the exact notes you should be taking for this - . - Now I go about building my hit list. - I think the most effective way you can do it is using batch processing if you're not - familiar with ash crossing. - It basically means doing all the same tasks at once to avoid cast switching. - So what this looks like is is I'm gonna go ahead and find all the companies like a - potentially work with first and just focus on getting that company section of the hitless - filled out. - After that. - I'm gonna go ahead and find all the stakeholders at those companies. - So who is the person that likely is managing this particular initiative at that company? - And I'm gonna just focus on filling out that section for each company. - And then after that, - I'm going to go ahead and find all of these stakeholders email addresses and their phone - numbers if I need you. - And this is the reason that I do it this way is it's just the most efficient way to do it. - If I'm on lengthen, - I want to stay on lengthen. - If I'm using tools like reported and Male Chester that will go over later to find contact - information. - It's more efficient for me to just continue to use those tools and execute process than to - go from find a company, - find a stakeholder finding email address. - There's a lot of past switching their, - which can result in lost time. - So I personally think that using batch processing when building out this hit list is the - most efficient way to do it. - So let's talk about ways that you can do the first step, - which is identify companies. - I have the 1st 1 Are you here because it's pretty pretty? - Uh, - familiar? - Hopefully, - is Google so literally just Google the terms that would help identify particular companies - you might want to work with? - Let's say that your let's say that you're trying to find people that sells but Celta - forests and sell software so literally just googling the term florist management software. - Whatever it ISS super simple concept, - I'm not gonna go to too much step here because it should be pretty straightforward. - Next place I go to think about companies that I should work with is my personal network. - So there's a lot of people that might be in the same space. - They might have familiarity with the industry I'm working in. - I just send these people emails and ask, - How do you know anybody who might be a good fit to reach out you or any companies that - should be on my radar Adam to the hit list after I get feedback from people that I already - know Now this is a little less obvious, - but your competitors sites are an excellent place to mind for companies that you could - potentially do deals with specifically in their partners. - For clients section these are all people that you might be able to pick off. - And honestly, - there's a lot of times where there's late in seeing these sections were people that you're - competing with have partners or clients listening, - and they don't even work with anymore. - Don't let that deter you from trying to reach out to these companies, - because again, - you're you have to look out for number one. - And if you think that you have the superior product, - you shouldn't feel bad for a second about going after somebody else's existing part of your - clients. - You're doing product integrations like the example that I showed with single platform. - We're looking for size with dining information. - A great place to go is similar suits, - site search dot com and basically what this tool does is you can type in a specific site - and then find a bunch of different sites out there that you might not have been aware of - that have similar content. - So for us, - I mean, - I remember searching yelp dot com and finding just a ton of sites that I wasn't even aware - of that ended up driving a con of value to the business is we work with. - A great example of that is menu is, - um I had no idea that menu isn't existed, - but it's because of the CEO that the site has is one of the most popular places People go - to find restaurant menus We ended up doing a A P I deal with menu is, - um, - and again it drives a Thanh of value because of the traffic they receive. - I would have never found this site if it wasn't for me. - Finding menu isn't dot com obvious similar site search. - Another resource that you might want to check out is mansa dot com. - Manta dot com is a great tool because it allows you to apply filters to businesses that - often aren't available on other places that you might go like yelp or yellow pages. - If you're selling to place that physically have or trying new partnerships with place that - have physical storefronts. - Do you see here that I typed in? - I believe it was just a fitness center, - a CrossFit, - And what this allows me to do is take advantage of these advanced filters on Vienna that - just typically isn't attached on a lot of other business directors. - So things like company revenue, - number of employees you know who the owners are, - where the location is. - These are all just excellent pieces of data that you can really use. - You build a more sophisticated and targeted hitless score dot com. - If you're not familiar with core it, - it's not only an amazing place in mind visit have. - The opportunity is just a great place to find valuable information, - essentially a question answer site where anybody can ask any question, - attach it to a specific topic and have members of the community answer it for you. - Where you see here is a question that just shows how you can use this for business. - So the question is what APS companies are focused on the restaurant CMS market. - So the city background here is this person might be looking a partner with restaurant CMS - platforms because they have a complementary offering, - and they want to do a channel partnership now. - What they could do is go out and search Google or Pan. - Other resource is to find all of these particular potential partners or what they did here - is just asked a question and let the community essentially answer and provide these - companies that it might make sense for him to partner with. - This is an extremely efficient way to fill out that company section for your hit list, - and an incredibly great place that I didn't even include on that bullet section is length - in. - And if you're in business development or your new business development, - you're gonna find yourself just spending a whole lot of time on like then. - Here's a few ways that you can use LinkedIn to find potential companies to partner with one - existing prospects previous work histories. - So if you already have a few prospects, - maybe started out with the friendly strategy or where you just knew a few Pete few - companies that you wanted to have on here and decided to go ahead and fill out that initial - stakeholder, - you want to look at those stakeholders Previous work histories, - a lot of times people at super industry specific with their careers and end up working for - competitive companies, - you know, - throughout the life cycle of their career. - So they worked for a company that that you're going after now. - Maybe they work for a very related company that was in the same industry before. - So you want to take a look at the stakeholders? - Were previous work histories to maybe find some new companies you wouldn't be where another - place you want to go is Look at me. - Company followers on lengthen so each. - In addition to individuals, - companies can have pages, - and many do have pages on LinkedIn. - And a lot of times people follow their competitors to stay up to date. - So you can essentially use those followers as a source of implicit data for who might be - somebody that you might want to partner with. - And I mentioned that company Page one valuable on the right hand side bar. - One valuable resource that they have is a people also viewed, - and there's a lot you have to realize is on LinkedIn. - It's a lot of recruiters, - his Devon salespeople. - They're doing the same exact thing that you're doing They're trying to find companies and - individuals to partner with cell, - too, - whatever it ISS and they're all viewing similar companies. - So you want to take advantage of this. - People also viewed block here on the right hand side of a company page to find other - potential people that it might make sense to partner with. - Okay, - so you found companies and you filled out that initial company section on your hitless. - The next step step for you is to go ahead and find the person at that company who's - responsible, - or at least you think is responsible for the particular initiative relevant to a - partnership. - And at this point, - you're really just looking for the stakeholders name. - And the reason is is because you're going to be approaching by email first. - And once you have their name, - you can actually use that using a variety of ways, - which will cover soon to guess their email address. - And even if email doesn't work, - you just want to get the name have somebody to call into. - Now it's important to be aware that the stakeholder and the decision maker are often two - different people. - Sometimes they're the same, - but you don't really know who the decision maker is going to be until you start engaging - with the company and having conversations with them to really understand how decisions get - made, - the processes and who are all the key stakeholders that are responsible for pushing things - through. - So this is the progression that I used to basically fill out this hit list with - stakeholders before actually reaching out to them. - And again, - I'm just looking for names here, - and I'm gonna go through each one of these. - But there's definitely a rhyme and reason to the ordering of my progression and how I - basically go about this is first lengthen, - then the corporate website, - my personal network, - An informational cold call press releases Twitter Common section on relevant articles and - former employees. - Okay, - let's dig into each one of these, - Um, - and just real quick talk. - Why I go about it this way. - The progression ordering is just based on what I find to be most effective, - quick and non obtrusive. - And you just try to strike a balance between all all three things affected. - This is most important because if I don't get the right stakeholder, - then all of my outreach could be complete, - completely fruitless, - because a lot of times when you have the wrong person and you're came trying to communicate - with them, - especially when you go in cold, - they'll just see it as a relevant and not even for it along to the right person. - So effectiveness and getting the right information is most important after that. - You know, - I want to do this in an efficient manner. - I want to do it quickly, - and there's certain things that take longer than others. - For example, - doing an informational cold call in there in the appropriate way can get me the name of - whom trying to reach out to in 30 seconds. - Now it might take me 10 minutes to try to get that person's name by scanning press releases - online. - So you know there's there are ways that air just generally faster than others. - Now, - what you need to balance this with is trying to be in obtrusive as possible, - and there's certain things and cold calling is one of them that No. - 10 interrupt somebody's day. - Reaching out to somebody directly on Twitter can be a little obtrusive, - can be getting into their space that they're not used to communicating with. - So you want to try to balance these. - And I think all of the ways that I mentioned can be done effectively without being overly - obtrusive. - But it is just something to be Kong's enough as you go through the particular ways to find - these stakeholder names. - Okay, - so let's dig in. - It's the first place I go Islington, - and specifically I go to the linked in profile description. - The challenge is that on linked in, - a lot of people just don't have a real descriptive profile. - For example, - this one here, - a regional director, - Travelzoo. - I have no idea what specific focus this person has, - and as a result, - it's it's really hard for me to determine whether they're relevant to my what is often very - particular relationship focus. - A much better example is when you confined lengthen profiles of company employees that - specify exactly what somebody does. - So, - for example, - one of the guys that I used to work with this is what his LinkedIn profile description says - , - and it just gives me exactly what he is responsible for, - which is building and managing the entire customer experience. - So if I was trying to do a deal with single platform. - I was trying to sell software that optimized customer experience. - This gives me insight. - And this guy is literally the exact person that I need to talk to, - or at least the perception that he is definitely an influence or in this sphere and could - get me to the appropriate decision maker if it turns out that it's not him. - So right now, - I want to do a live demonstration on how you are actually able to go about using Lincoln to - find these stakeholders. - Okay, - so I'm just going to show you right now how I use LinkedIn. - Do you find stakeholders in this initial hitless building phase and then use the company - that my friends work at called news credit and pretend that I'm trying to find somebody in - marketing there to talk about a co marketing partnership? - So first thing to do is type in the company's name in the search box up here, - and everyone there isn't. - There is a news dread. - So once we get to the company page, - we're gonna want to go here to see all so see all the employees that are on lengthen and - then when we get here, - you can you have some search facets on the left hand side. - I'm just going to go ahead and click the advanced search facet and in key words, - I want to search marketing. - And this is gonna isolate everyone who has marketing as a key word in their profile that - works at news credit. - So the first people they're going to come up our people that I'm connected to my friends - Kyle and Andrea. - Then it's going to start soon. - Marketing people. - So marketing strategy. - Okay, - this person has online marketing in their past. - Director of Merchandising strategy, - Integrated marketing. - Ah, - here we go, - director of marketing at News Credit Alicia and And when I go down, - I look at her profile and I see in the job description it describes exactly what she does. - Amazing. - So it looks like, - given the fact that she manages all these elements of marketing, - that she would be a good initial stakeholder to reach out to and broach the topic of a co - marketing partnership. - One common thing that might happen here is there might be a number of candidates that might - seem like the right person, - and this is especially true when we're talking about bigger companies. - So there's a few things that you can do in order to disarm the situations and find that - right stakeholder. - And one of my favorite things to do is use this skill section and the implicit data there - to understand what somebody's focuses. - You're not familiar with the skills section. - When you scroll down, - somebody's linked in profile. - You can see different skills or expertise that people there now we have endorsed him for - now. - When you look at this particular example who was just listed as a marketing director, - by the way, - do you think this person is responsible for social media or managing the advertising budget - ? - Well, - considering 12 people have endorsed her for advertising and one person for social media, - my money's on the fact that she manages the ad budget for this company. - There is just a ton of ways you can use this implicit data when there's not available in - the profile description, - you really hone in on who might be the specific person. - Naturally, - before another place, - Ugo is just reviewing previous job descriptions. - So again, - people often have career focuses where if they were the sales director, - The last company, - they will be responsible for sales here. - So this is just the profile of against somebody that I used to work with, - and it looks like they were the vice president of sales, - and they managed the customer experience if I was trying to figure out what that person did - as a regional director at Travelzoo, - and I had no other options of who to reach out to. - My guess is that they're doing something with sales or merchant services, - because that's what they did before. - And often people are hired for rules that they have experiences. - No, - if I can't find anything on lengthen the next place I go to find a stakeholder is the - company website usually on the about us or the contact of the team section, - You confined specific people who you might be able to reach out to you. - Here's an example of a just on our team. - Photo off on intercom dot io, - a great little email company in New York. - And if I want to figure out who I should talk to you about product well, - it looks like Colin used to be the head of product at Challenge Post on Bond, - another company and John's. - Also engineering does engineering. - So I want to get in touch. - Somebody does product these air probably my guys. - And again, - I found this just by simply going on to you. - The company website. - Another excellent place to go is your personal network. - And let me show you how I lean on my personal network in an efficient way to figure out who - the appropriate stakeholder might be. - Again. - I go back to Lincoln Lengthen and I start off with the company search. - What I look for here is specifically whether somebody I know has a lot of connections to - that company. - Only then here's an example of what that looks like. - So I search the company Vista print. - And if you see in the top little thumbnail there under Dan John and firing my friend Chad - comes up. - No, - that signals to me that for whatever reason, - Siad has a relationship with Mr Print. - Maybe he worked there. - Maybe he's done a deal there. - Maybe he just is gaining somebody and ends up going to the happy hours and becoming friends - . - Everybody that works out. - Whatever it ISS, - bottom line is this is signal to me that maybe Chad might know the appropriate person to - talk to us. - Now. - When I identify the strategy, - the next step is the email, - that person. - And here's an email that I said to Chad when I was trying in touch. - Somebody at Mr Print him. - You go. - I'm trying to get connected with somebody at Vista. - Print was on the team that works on their website builder product to talk about integrating - single platform. - Do you have any insight into the right person or even department to talk to my thing? - It's a huge company in any direction. - Here would be awesome. - You know, - another news? - How summer been just a per personal anecdote? - Chad gets back to me a few minutes later. - Yes, - I worked on the product team and really good friends of the product manager and director of - online services group. - How you prefer in in droves. - It could be that simple, - and I just want to talk about some specific things and this email. - You wouldn't be mindful. - I was very specific. - Not only the fact that I wanted to get connected do this company, - but why I want to get connected this company, - because this person needs that. - You need to give this person that context for why reaching out so that they can potentially - direct you in the appropriate direction. - Notice how I didn't ask for an introduction right off the bat here. - I simply asked for who the right person or even department that I should be looking to - should be. - And the reason that I did this is there's It's just a lower friction asked, - and the lower friction asks. - Make somebody more likely to comply. - So it's just not just not as risky for Chad and tell me who the right department ISS or who - the right person is as it is for him to just go ahead and make an intro, - because I don't know the context. - At this point. - I don't know the context of charge relationship to that company, - so there's just a few things you want to keep in mind when you said this type of email and - you know this is how I tend to, - you know, - my personal network and identifying stakeholders for might list. - Now, - if you still can't find a stakeholder name, - a very simple thing you can do is just doing informational. - Cold call to your company is important to understand that this fees the goal of the call is - to simply find out who's in charge of the specific initiative that your relationship will - be focused on. - You're not trying. - Teoh. - Sell the person. - Pitch the person you're just trying to find out. - The name of that person is that you can, - ideally, - going through email and how to do this is just again usually linked in Make. - An educated guess who oversees the relevant initiative so that you have a name to call. - And then when you do that, - find the corporate number on the website, - have a script for an out and then call that try to get in touch. - That particular person and you think might be the decision maker is to verify whether they - are responsible for the particular thing you're interested in. - You're things again. - Do not do If you do an informational, - cold call strategy, - don't try to pitch the person on the spot because you're interrupting them and they're just - not prime to be receptive. - We'll go through how to broach. - If you do end up getting connected directly to Decision Maker very soon, - but you don't want to pitch them on. - You want to pitch him on the spot when you're just doing an informational cold call? - When did you get in touch with somebody at that company? - I realized that they probably get a lot of phone calls, - and most people approach phone call are cold calls as a monologue where they just do all - the talking. - You don't want to do this you want. - You want to try to engage them in dialogue as quickly as possible. - So that's why I think that you want to ask them a question very early on so that they stop - and realize that you're just looking for a little help. - You're not trying to sell them something. - And when you're when you take this kind of approach, - people are more receptive and more likely to give you the information that you're looking - for. - If you don't have anyone to call, - meaning you don't have this particular name to call, - and do I recommend just calling someone in sales? - These people are so happy that somebody is actually calling them versus them going outbound - that they'll just reveal any and everything. - I had plenty of success when I couldn't find any name to call, - didn't know necessarily the right department. - Just calling somebody in sales and just figuring out who I needed to talk to her, - even what department I need to focus on. - So let's go over a script here, - and I'm gonna basically just read this and full and then go through each section - individually and described the thinking here so high. - Scott Britain from X Company here was hoping maybe you could help me out. - Laws looking a connected person who manages the social media marketing at your company. - Any chance you know that being now at this point, - they're gonna try to either get off the phone and give you their information or respond to - you that they don't know who the right person is? - Let's let's just go ahead and say to give you the person's name. - Oh, - yeah, - that be Jim. - Great. - I just want to shoot them over some information about how he helped other companies like - yours do Whatever the great thing that you do is any chance you'd be able to provide me - their email address. - Thanks. - Well, - let's Let's go through this line by line and describe the method to my madness. - Okay, - first sentence. - That's Scott, - written from X Company here. - Notice how I don't say hi. - My name is generally Hi. - My name is is what Every single person who's cold calling says. - And what what happens is that creates a trigger for this person. - To I usually think of this is a This is a cold call and just turn off their brain. - I know when I get cold calls and I immediately recognize that I'm essentially in the - mindset of okay, - I'm not gonna think about this person saying anymore. - How can I just politely get off the phone as fast as possible so you can accomplish the - same exact thing where you're announcing yourself in giving the context of the company that - you're calling from just by saying your name and then the company that you're from now The - second sentence alludes to the point that I brought up earlier that you want to engage them - in a dialogue as fast as possible, - and you don't want it to be a monologue. - So the question I like to bring up is or imply rather is. - I was hoping maybe you could help me out, - and then I'll pause. - And the pause usually results in them. - A few seconds They were going. - Yeah, - sure. - Or Okay, - cool. - How can I help on now? - What you've done is you've created a dialogue because this person is now participating in - the conversation next part. - This is where you essentially want to just state exactly what you're looking for, - which is on understanding of who the state quarter is. - So a simple statement, - like looking to connect with the person who manages whatever the relevant initiative to - your partnership is any chance you know who, - that being that simple. - And at this point, - basically a few things might happen. - Um, - they might say, - Yeah, - sure, - that's whoever is. - And honestly, - that happens more frequently than you'd anticipate, - because people generally don't like to stay on the phone along with strangers. - So the easiest action strategy for them is to literally just give you the name. - Um, - And when they say that typically when they give you the yes, - Typically, - where I like to do is seeing myself a little bit of time in the future by asking them. - Just give me your email address right then and there. - And this way I'll know I'll have the correct one. - And I don't have to go through the process of finding this person's email address, - which we find out later so you can enhance the compliance rate of giving the email address - by offering up something valuable before you ask for it. - So one way to accomplish this is to say something like, - Great. - I just want to shoot them over some information on how we helped other companies like yours - grow their user base, - maximize engagement, - whatever, - whatever it is that your particular company does, - any chance you'd be able to crime in their email address if they can? - Great. - If they can't, - it doesn't matter because you've already got this person's name and you know the company. - You are L, - which will allow you to guess their email address later and just began. - Make sure that you give them incentives, - give the email address. - So shooting over information about how you helped similar people is valuable flat out. - Just asking for their email addresses on any context isn't necessarily going to result in - the same level of compliance. - What if they say no? - What if they say no? - I don't actually know who manages that. - What do you do that? - Well, - a simple thing you can do is just ask if there's someone who might know who the right - person would be. - Remember, - the gold this point is just getting the name. - And again, - I like to Sprinkle in the fact that I'm gonna be sending them information that's - potentially valuable. - Just the optimize, - the chance of them complying and giving me somebody who might know the right person. - Let's talk about another tactic that's worked really, - really well. - That's calling and asking for someone that used to be the stakeholder. - So how this typically unfolds is you find somebody on LinkedIn, - and it turns out that there it used to be the right person to talk to you, - but you can't find the person who replaced them. - So what I do in this situation, - it's basically asked for that person who I know used to be the right person. - Hey, - can I speak toe wherever that person's name is, - and you can expect them to say I'm sorry, - but they no longer work here, - and you fully know that that's probably what they're going to say. - Well, - I knew they used to manage the specific initiative that's relevant to you. - Any chance you know who their replacement? - This. - Let's talk about why this can be so effective because you're referencing somebody that used - to manage something, - and then you know that you're essentially signaling familiarity with the company. - Oh, - how did they know that this person used to manage this thing? - I guess they must have worked with us before. - This type of signal separates you from the people who are just carpet bombing and cold - calling blindly, - which means there's a higher likelihood that they'll give you the name of the right person - you need to talk to. - I actually sometimes even start out at very big companies. - Well, - you can just start out looking for the person who used to be the right person. - And you can do this on lengthen very simply by seeing all employees at the scene, - all employees of a company searching for your keyword and then highlighting the past - company facet, - which you'll see here and this isolates people that used to work at that particular company - that have that associative keyword in their profile, - and this is an excellent place again to find ex employees who might have been the right - person if the informational cold call doesn't work or you're not necessarily comfortable - doing that. - Another place that you can go to isolate and identify stakeholders is quotes from articles - and press releases. - Often when it articles published around certain initiative or the features the company key - stakeholders at the company will be quoted. - And how I like to identify these is just using Google and searching for things like the - likely stakeholders position, - plus the company name. - Press the press release an example that would be VP of business at single platform press - release. - You can also do simply the position and the company and the words said for identified - quotes, - or even just the initiative at the company, - because a lot of times will be reports that will feature that person's name. - And just so you make sure that you get relevant recent results, - what I like to do is phone use, - the Google search facet on the left hand side, - and the way didn't you populate the search? - Fashion is by first hitting news I'm making sure that you're searching using Google News - query and then within that you can isolate. - Okay, - I want within the past week Month. - Here are custom date range. - Whatever you want to be in this way, - you make sure that you're getting the VP of marketing or VP of is never whoever it is - that's currently working there, - not one that works there. - You know, - a year ago or two years ago, - whatever it may be much along the same lines. - It's not just with any articles itself that you can find the right people. - You need to talk too often. - If you go down and you look at the common section, - you can isolate and identify who the right person that you might need to talk to my being. - Because stakeholders, - if something is related within the article to their specific initiative, - they will often be charged with responding to that inquiry directly within the comments. - Feed just to kind of show you an example of that on core dot com, - uh, - which is again another which more or less thought of as a common section In some, - some ways, - somebody asks, - Is there 1/3 party library that provides access to read menus. - Well, - the top answer is one from myself. - And basically, - if somebody was trying to get in touch with with single platform and needed to figure out - who they should talk to you about getting menu data, - hopefully this answer would indicate to them that I would be somebody that could help them - . - So again, - Hora comments of articles, - both excellent places to identify who the right person might be. - No, - I don't like to do this, - but something you can do is use Twitter to find these people. - And I try to avoid this just because you're calling somebody out in a public forum and it - just is a little intrusive, - and it can makes it can turn people off. - And again, - the first impression is very important. - I have seen this work very well for small companies and startups, - especially those that really love social media. - In fact, - often this can be easier than email, - because for companies and Pacific people that I really just love social media more than the - now. - So a simple treat, - like whatever the company handle is, - Hey, - I'm trying to get in touch with the person who manages this. - I want to send them something on how to improve engagement, - how to Dr New User Sign ups, - how to grow in this particular channel. 9. Finding Anyone's Email Address: - Okay, - let's talk about how to find email addresses. - What you might be asking. - Why email first? - Well, - I always try to calibrate with my prospects. - Ideal communication media. - They're on email. - Then that's what they talked to their business contacts. - I had them up on email. - If they prefer the phone or aren't very computer savvy, - maybe I'll give him a call. - But the bottom line is you want it calibrate and interact with these people in the way that - they're used to interacting in this context. - And for the most part, - I find that business executives, - whether it's in the technology sphere or nutritional companies, - typically interact the email. - Another reason why I really like email is because it's just less obtrusive. - It's asynchronous, - which means they can get back to me on their own time and again it matches their preferred - method. - If I'm going in cold with somebody, - the last thing I want to do is, - during the first interaction, - interrupt their day while they're doing something important. - That's not to say that this can't be effective, - that there's times that called for this, - but if I could get them via email and in less intrusive way. - That is how I want to originally approach them to get a meeting. - The first tool that I used to guess email addresses is a Gmail plug in that can be found at - report of dot com. - It's, - it's called reported, - and basically what it does is it populates social profiles on the right hand side of Gmail - when you have the correct email address and, - essentially, - how you can leverage this in order to figure out people's email address is just guess. - Popular common emails in taxes. - So that could be their first initial last name. - Just the last name, - just their first name at the company to mean you get the picture. - But basically what you can do is plug in all of these different popular sin taxes. - And when you actually get a correct guess, - more often than not on the right hand side of your Gmail inbox, - you will start to see social profiles. - When you have the correct address, - let's go ahead and do a live demo demos. - You can see exactly what I'm talking about, - so here is a live view of reported in action again. - How you use this tool is is basically guessing popular email sin taxes within Gmail. - And if you have the correct one, - often a social profile will come up. - So let's just go ahead and try the my own email address at my company website, - which is lifelong learner dot com. - So if I was to gas, - let's just say Scott at life long learner dot com See this box up here on the right hand - side? - How has my twitter length in all this information? - This is an indication that this is the correct email address, - because basically what this does is it pulls from 1/3 party service called Rapley that - identifies what email addresses are associate ID with what social profiles online. - Now, - if I tried something like S. - Britain at lifelong wonder dot com see what happened? - Nothing here, - which is an indication that although that doesn't mean that this email address doesn't - exist, - it's we certainly can't feel very confident that it is the right one at this point. - So this is reported. - It's entirely free. - They're actually bought by lengthen, - and right now it is only available for Gmail users. - Now it's important to know that sometimes reported doesn't work even when you have the - correct email address. - Often there isn't publicly available data on the social profiles that are linked that email - address so you you need to. - Sometimes you rely on some other tools, - and the next stop that I usually go is male tester dot com. - Mel testers It just a free service that checks whether server has a particular email - address on it. - And again, - you can do the same thing where you guess popular sin taxes and see if they work just kind - of show you what this looks like. - ISS. - Basically, - you type into popular syntax. - You check the address. - And if it is the if that email address does exist on a server, - you will get eventually in all green box here. - That says email address is valid. - You have an incorrect guests, - and if there's no address on that server, - you're going to get this this red box of the bottom here. - What out says there's no email address that exists on the server. - Sometimes you're gonna get in a yellow box. - It basically says that there's something on the server which blocks you from determining - whether that email actually exists. - Another place Ugo is jigsaw dot com or data dot com. - They're both the same thing, - and our were purchased actually buy Salesforce not too long ago. - Essentially, - what jigsaw dot com is is just an open source contact database where anybody can contribute - the name and contact information of particular people at companies. - In exchange for contributing to the database, - they can get contact information for people that they're looking for. - You do get a few free credits for signing up, - and I will say that when you do get email addresses from this service, - always like to try to double check them with male tester reported. - Just to be sure, - because people because the data is self reported a 10 being accurate at times just to show - you what this looks like, - so you enter in the company you're looking for, - Then you can search by position, - department level. - And when you click on one of these contacts that you can purchase for points, - which you get by either literally paying money or adding new contacts, - the Davis you can get the phone number and email address for this person. - Pregnant little service. - That's definitely helped me in past another great free tool is e mails for corporations. - Essentially, - it's a Google site with some of the top, - I'd say top 500 corporations out there that just provides the email convention they used - for the mail address. - So you'll see right in the middle here that they have company the email convention, - email domain and just the main phone number. - So if you know you're going after, - like Fortune 100 Fortune 1000 companies, - these air ah, - 100% accurate and you could just go to this girl right here that you have on the screen, - which is also available in the resource is the length section. - Now. - Sometimes you have to go and get somebody's personal email address. - Or sometimes even it's impossible for you to get the corporate email address using all the - tools measure of up. - One creative way, - which I've used to find email addresses, - especially when I'm trying to find somebody's personally now is snap bird dot board, - and essentially, - what you can do is this tool searches somebody's Twitter history, - and very often people communicate on Twitter. - Whether email addresses in kind of a subtle way, - you know, - outright state their email address but will state the maybe the naming convention and then - the word at whatever company named dot com. - So just kind of show you an example. - My old handle. - Scott Brit. - We searched my timeline, - and the word that I searched for was Gmail. - You could imagine you can put the company name in there, - and basically what this does is it surfaces an instance in my Twitter history where I give - out my personal email. - So there's probably instances where your prospects either getting out their corporate email - . - Personal email. - If there are social socially savvy, - you can use contact them now. - I definitely don't recommend in the biz Dev. - Context at least hitting somebody on their personal email, - unless you absolutely have to always, - always, - always go corporate e now, - which again you can find on somebody's Twitter stream. - But there isn't since just for personal networking, - wherever where you might want somebody's personally melt. - And this is an excellent way to identify those that's often much harder to do than finding - the corporate email address. - Another great tool again, - free database is true for dot com to for is actually a service started by one of my buddies - . - Max, - who used to run Viet Attorney thing, - now has an awesome conference called the Sale Sacher Confidence, - and it's pretty much the same thing. - You search for a particular company or a person, - and it surfaces the correct email address that they're pulling from a variety of data - sources. - Pretty cool. - Few other tactics. - If none of these work, - you can call and ask again. - I've had a ton of success just doing informational cold call and asking for somebody what - their email addresses, - because I have to send them some important information for really small sites were. - Maybe it's a wonder three man operation, - and all you get on the site is just a contact form, - which he generally want to avoid. - By the way, - you can go to register dot com and actually do in reverse, - who is look up to see who purchased the domain. - So what you do is go to register dot com. - Then you're gonna click reverse who is? - Look up type in the actual domain, - and you can see if the Doreen is not protected. - The administrator's email address. - You purchase that site. - So, - for example, - bt playbook dot com the site, - which this course is hosted on, - or one of the places that toasted on you can see the administrative email is my personal - email right there pretty cool and, - you know, - interested enough. - I have gotten deals with very small operations who actually run powerful businesses by - using a reverse site who is look up to find out you know how to get in contact directly - with a person's email address. - They check not the contact form, - that they have a secretary or assistant check their tactics. - Uh, - you can search slight share. - Actually, - all of the text available on slide share is searchable, - and at the end of a slide show, - people often put their contact information. - So, - for example, - I just searched at lifelong learner dot com, - my my personal website and again, - you the reasons you search at life learning and not Commons because typically, - the at sign, - the only time they were going to see the at sign with the Domain is in an email address. - Syntax. - When I searched that one of my presentations that I gave on networking to the CTO school - showed up and when, - you know, - at the very end there is and email address to contact me pretty neat, - and you can get some really, - really high end contacts email addresses by leveraging this slide share trick, - and not a lot of people do it. - So definitely, - definitely gonna try. - Lastly, - Final Tactic is just grueling your best guess and hoping that there's a press release or - even just some generic docking it out there that has somebody's email address on it. - And you can you can use search modifiers emissions to the generic email convention you we - talked about earlier to try and accomplish this. - So if I wanted to go trying to find a PdF for a press release but somebody's email address - , - I could just search a popular email convention at the company name dot com with these - search modifier on their file type PF. - So it on Lee searches for PdF's documents that are hosted on websites which contain email - addresses. - Often, - some people say, - Well, - this seems like a paying to do all this. - Find an email address. - I found them on lengthen. - Can I just linked in This is, - um Well, - I actually very much try to avoid lengthen messages at all costs and I have actually - produced a video on Why do this? - Check it out if it's sky here, - coming to you from the kitchen. - Deeper tone. - So a lot of people when I teach skills, - are class and stuff? - Asked Scott. - How do you feel about linked in messages? - Here's how I feel. - 95% of people who reach out to me on lengthen are irrelevant. - They're recruiters, - random people from the Philippines or people trying to sell me stuff. - So when you reach out somebody on linked through a linked in message versus an email, - you essentially put yourself into those buckets off people right? - And that's literally the last place that I want to be. - So I personally, - never, - ever, - ever reach out to somebody on LinkedIn through linked Edinson email. - Unless I absolutely have to. - I mean, - I'll seriously hit somebody up on their pager before I go to linked at, - um, - and there's a 1,000,000 ways find people's email addresses. - I know somebody who wrote a post about it went quick, - So personally, - I don't think you should ever reach out to somebody through LinkedIn message unless you - absolutely have to. - And also like the communication mechanism, - like just is also a pain as well. - Like I have to log back in a LinkedIn, - communicate through there, - and then it goes through my email. - It's just confusing. - You want toe message people through the medium that they're most comfortable with and that - where they're valuable connections are already messaging them instead of putting yourself - in a bucket of people that ultimately is your own it. - So I thought, - say that Lincoln messages don't work. - I've certainly gotten partnerships through Lincoln Message as well as people reach out to - me that I responded to Lincoln Message. - The bottom line is, - is it is not the optimal communication channel. - It's much better to try to go through email or even phone, - um, - over linked. 10. The Initial Approach and Email Introductions: - Okay, - so let's talk about the initial approach and getting email introductions. - First, - let's establish where we're at. - At this point, - after getting the email addresses, - stakeholder names and companies that you want to potentially partner with, - you should have your hitless filled out and ready to go. - You should also know whether you're going to be taking the friendly company approach with - the unfriendly company approach out. - If we assume the ladder, - you have to bring some ordering to this big hitless that you just created. - I highly suggest that the best thing you could do is group or order 5 to 15 companies that - match that initial partner framework we talked about earlier. - Again, - the initial partner framework is about figuring out which company would make an ideal - partner or which 5 to 15 companies hitting the consideration. - The motion. - More important metric is this developments. - Trying to drive who your ideal customer or user is and what their intent is, - and then, - lastly, - whether this partner is a good fit culturally as well as from a priority standpoint in - terms of being a good first deal partner, - remember, - you don't want to start with the King Fish unless it happens, - being easy win. - And this is because first impressions are important and often times you only get one chance - . - So if you don't have the things like the case studies like social prove other partners, - it's just gonna be much hard. - It'll land and it's. - And if the meeting doesn't go well because you don't have these things, - it might be difficult to get further meetings in the future. - Let's take a look at how this looks in terms of selecting 5 to 15 companies on that big - hitless you just created that are going to be the initial ones that you reach out to. - What I honestly I like to do is just denote this because I'm old school and use a rule, - doc. - It's just to note this by color coding. - So right here these are the 1st 6 partners that I'm going to go after, - and the reason that I chose these is because being matched my initial partner framework the - best out of all the other ones, - and I think that the color works really well because it just keep it just brings a focus of - his hit list, - which can eventually be hundreds of potential partners on and a little overwhelming. - If you don't have something that's really kind of in your face top of mind about where - you're focusing is today. - So what's the best way to attack these initial targets? - In my experience, - it's getting an email introduction. - If you have a mutual connection with the stakeholder you're trying to reach, - always try to re lovers that relationship for an introduction or referral instead of going - cold. - And the reason is just because the personal context and being introduced from somebody you - know and trust just results in a higher response. - Ary people are more likely to want to meet with you more excited to meet with you when they - do, - and it generally just results in a much, - much higher response. - Saree in terms of getting meetings. - So how do you approach this? - How do you purchase getting email introductions? - For me, - the workflow looks like this. - First thing I do is that isolate the stakeholder on lengthen, - and then I see if there any warm second degree captions. - You don't know if they're warm from the get go. - But what you're really looking for initially is just the connections and whether they exist - . - So it looks like an example here is if I wanted to connect with Joe Dolan, - who I actually know. - But let's just say I did it looks like I have three friends here and 31 other people that - might be able to introduce me now Just because two people are connected on lengthen doesn't - necessarily mean there close. - There are tons of people that I'm capped with. - Lengthen that, - honestly, - I have no relationship with at all. - And for better or worse, - I just decided that to accept their connections. - So then the ideal situation you're looking for is the warmest mutual connection between - both of you. - So your next steps at this point are Do you isolate your connection that you have the - warmest relationship with and see if they have a warm relationship with the person that - you're trying to get in touch with? - And you can accomplish this by setting the following. - You know, - we're gonna read through this and this is called the request for introduction email, - and I'm gonna break it down and explain each sections. - You understand exactly why this is so important. - Let's just say about mutual connections. - Name is Peter and the stakeholders name is Joe. - From which bank? - Hey, - Peter. - I was looking to get introduced to Joe Dolan from Deutsche Bank and saw your connected him - . - I'm not sure how well you know it, - but if the relationship is strong, - I really appreciate insurer of a chat about ways my company can help him with generating - more revenue for science. - Please let me know if you feel comfortable making the introduction and I'll send over and - note with some work context you can simply afford to him to see if he's interested in - connecting. - Thanks. - Okay, - let's break this down. - The first sentence is pretty much just context. - Hey, - I was looking introduced this person from this company. - So that's why I'm reaching out to you. - And the reason that I'm asking you is because I saw that you were connected. - The next sections about gauging the strength of the relationship. - The last thing you want is for somebody who doesn't have a strong relationship making - introduction for you. - And people shouldn't do that anyways. - But the best, - most effective introductions are going to be from warm contacts. - So you want to make sure that this person has a warm relationship. - If they have warm relationship, - usually they're more likely to make the intro. - So to accomplish this understanding, - you can say something like this. - I'm not sure how well you know him, - but if the relationship is strong, - I really appreciate an introduction. - Now it's the next clauses about giving context that introduction, - because when people make an introduction, - essentially what they're doing is they're offering up the other person's time. - So you want to make sure that you're adding value because the connector will only want to - connect you if they perceive that there's going to be a mutual exchange value. - Otherwise, - they're just again offering up somebody else's time, - which, - you know isn't necessarily the best business practice if there's not gonna be Value - exchange. - So it's important to say something like you chat about ways my company can help with. - However, - you add value again. - You want to convey that this is gonna be a connection that's going to make the person who's - introducing you look good. - Okay, - last section, - please let me know if you'd feel comfortable making the introduction and they'll send over - a note with more context, - and you can simply ford him to see if he's interested in connecting. - This last section is about two things. - A making me ask and saying, - Please let me know if you feel comfortable making an introduction and being making is - easiest possible to see if the other side is interested in connecting. - Typically, - introduction should not be blind. - Both sides should indicate they want to connect before connection is made. - So what you want to do is just say, - I'm literally going to send you something that you can forward to that to see if they're - interested, - because somebody might look at this and say, - Oh, - great. - Now I have to conjure up a reason why this person would want to connect to this other - person that looks like work. - I am not gonna do it. - If you want to optimize the compliance of this person, - agreeing to see if the other person's it shouldn't connecting. - The best thing you can do is make. - It is easiest possible telling them that if the relationship is strong, - you haven't know that you can literally just send and taken forward so they don't have to - do any work. - So this is a proper way to ask for an email introduction, - and it's important that you do it this way because if you do it appropriately, - there's going to be, - ah, - higher likelihood that somebody is going to be willing to make the introduction for you. - In addition, - your business reputation is something that goes with you forever. - If you come office somebody that's not respectful, - people are going to be less likely to want to do business for you, - less likely to want to work with you in the future. - So it's always just important to use best practices when you ask people for things like - email introductions. - Let's look at a bad request for introduction, - and this is one that I got. - I guess it was March 4th. - Hey, - Scott, - I hope to see Male finds you well moving. - You could help me out. - Make a warm introduction to Blank. - I've been researching, - was hoping so and so might be able to guide me direct right direction. - Can you make me a warm introduction of Marcos that I could have a quick conversation? - So what's wrong with this? - Hey, - I hope this email finds you well. - It's just phrase you should never use an email. - This person emailed me on multiple email addresses so you could say it's to Scott to me. - So they hit me up across email addresses, - which is this kind of a little disrespectful on. - I'm hoping you can help me out and make a warm introduction. - So I don't know what difference between making an introduction and a warm introduction is. - I guess you want me to talk highly about them. - Generally, - I would just avoid asking is explicitly for a warm introduction. - They don't really tell me why That this why this is gonna be valuable to the party they're - looking to connect with all they said is they've been researching. - And I hope that I can guide them in the right direction and that if I'm asking again, - if I can make it so they can have a conversation, - I have no idea. - What you want to have a conversation about is that something is going to be additive to. - His business isn't something that he has no interest in. - Every single time you make an introduction on behalf of somebody else year putting your - business reputation on the line. - So this is why it's so critical to do things like provide context, - to ask in the right way. - Because, - quite frankly, - I have no idea whether this is gonna add value and make me look good to the this guy Marco - that he's looking to connect with. - So this is what you don't want to do when you're making a request for introduction. - And no, - I actually don't think I made this introduction, - Okay, - so let's get back to the good email introduction. - So if after the request for introduction, - if the person says, - Yeah, - you know, - I do have a strong relationship, - What happens next? - Well, - here's where you send a similar email to the person who's going to make the introduction, - but with a greater emphasis on why the stakeholders should want to connect to you. - It's essentially like a sales pitch, - right you wouldn't make it. - Is the opportunity to act with you seem as attractive as possible in order to give yourself - the best chance for this person. - Say yes. - So this is This is what that email looks like. - Hey, - person is making introduction. - I was hoping you might be able to introduce me to the stakeholder at the charter company. - I wanted to connect them because our analysts targets a similar demographic with limited - overlap. - Seeing is our products or non competitive. - I wanna touch basis. - See if there might be a way to ride mutual value to our respective audiences in a way that - helped each other go Arlys. - We did this with X Company in the past, - and both parties received a 15% lifting new subscribers. - Any help is much appreciated now. - The person who is receiving In Shirt and who is offered to make the introduction received - this email and simply Ford's it over to the person that you are trying to catch with and - which might say something like any interest here. - You chose a different street, - this email and the request for introduction. - You know, - it's this middle paragraph here which much more explicitly outlines why I want to connect - with this person and the value that they will get from connecting with me again. - It's almost like a sales pitch. - You wouldn't make it as attractive as possible. - And one thing that I did in this email to make it even more attractive to try to optimize - the compliance on the target side is reference. - Another partner. - Social Proof, - is a powerful force, - and nothing is more powerful, - powerful and attractive to perspective Parcher partners than verifiable results, - which you can replicate for them. - So after you send this email to your mutual connection, - this is what to expect will happen next one. - You'll either get introduction from the person who's catching you guys. - Do you receive an email from the connector that the other person can't connect? - Right now, - we're number three. - You won't hear anything back. - Let's go through each one of these situations and discuss the appropriate way to handle - them. - You end up getting an introduction. - It's really important that you're the 1st 1 to respond and that you do it promptly. - And the reason is that remember you with one that was asking for their time. - So you want to make sure that you seem appreciative for this favor and that you demonstrate - that connecting to them is important to you and again, - being prompt is an effective way to do this. - What happens if your mutual contact says that the other person can't well, - in this situation, - you want to make sure you understand why if the mutual contact doesn't explicitly state - this, - and when this person gets back to you and give you a why, - what you want to do, - is it possible try to disarm that? - Why? - So if they said you know what, - They're just not interested right now because they haven't seen a lot of return on their - social media. - That's a sitting. - You might reply to that with something like Able, - Do you know that our original partners thought that as well, - and then after work more unless they saw a 50% list in some 50% lift in subscribers after - putting a greater focus on social media? - So this is a good chance to try toe put a blue bottle in there to disarm the fact they - don't want to connect or if it's, - you know, - something that seems like there's just no chance off the connection you need anytime soon. - You want to move on, - so if you get this response, - why is it important to ask and or removal? - Well, - you want to ask because it allows you to get feedback, - and this feedback from your prospect might be indicative of how you could improve or - tighten up that four double intra request. - Remember, - that's like a sales pitch if it turns out that the reason that the person doesn't want to - want to connect is just because you haven't communicated and your value proposition effect - actively. - This is excellent feedback that can allow you to tailor this and improve it for future - partners. - Also, - the reason that you might want to move on is that your goal is just to spend time on - working on things that are likely to close or at least have a chance. - If something's a flat out now, - you're much better off just moving on, - looking for a partner that is excited about working with you or that you have a chance to - work with instead of wasting time on deals that aren't going anywhere. - What happens that you don't hear anything if you're contact you offered to make the - introduction, - never makes it or gets back to you, - it's important that you follow up with them to see what's going on. - Simple. - Hey, - I just want to see if Prospect ever got back to in this injury. - Thanks again for doing this is really, - really important because sometimes people forget and they actually wanted to make the - introduction. - Sometimes it turns out that the prospect give feedback. - They don't want to connect, - and they just forgot to get back to you again. - Just getting context here is going to get you to a resolution that's either going to a - hopefully get you that introduction, - or at least figure out why the introduction never had so again. - Always try to get an email introduction to open the door to a company if you can't and even - if you can't get introduced to the exact person you need to getting connected, - the someone at that company whose might even be in it it adjacent apartment is still a very - , - very excellent thing to do when trying to get your foot into the door. 11. Cold Emailing: - Hey, - everyone, - I hope you're enjoying the course up to this point right now. - Real quick. - Before we dive into the next module, - I want to go ahead and give you a quick heads up on something. - It's one thing that people always want to know is what particular tools are you using to be - more effective, - to get more deals done to be more efficient when practicing business development? - So I went ahead and created this Bt Insiders Kit that includes within their my tool kit of - tools that I use and just kind of show you what that looks like. - Just a ton of different things in here. - How I use them, - um, - and all types of things that are gonna make you more efficient and get more deals, - more meetings. - And so this is something that you want. - I updated regularly on my site, - which is lifelong learner. - So if you go ahead and go to a lifelong winner dot com backslash bt insiders, - you can get access to this kit that contains all my favorite tools and APS how I use them, - how I'm more productive with them. - Aziz. - Well, - a some other good free stuff so again, - that is lifelong learner dot com slash BD insiders, - and you can go ahead and get access to all that stuff. - Okay, - so let's talk cold emailing When do you use a cold email Onley. - When you can't get an introduction from a mutually warm connection, - do you want to use a court? - That's not to say that cold emails can't work frequently, - but it's just again always best to go in through warm introduction. - If you can do to the higher response Serie An additional context that that provides now, - before we go into very specific tactical ways to write effective cold emails, - I want to talk about what I think is the best mindset to take when writing these and I - really tried. - And I really think that the best thing you could do is try to emulate copyrighting. - And if you're not familiar with cooperating, - it's essentially people who focus on sequencing words in such a way that people take the - action that you want them to take. - So in this instance, - the action that what we want people to take is to reply to our email and hopefully agreed - to a meeting or follow up call or whatever it may be. - So the way that copywriters think when they're writing ad copy is that the goal of the - headline, - first and foremost, - should be to get somebody to read the next sentence. - Yes, - what the goal. - That next sentence is to read the sentence after that. - And I think the same framework should be applied when we're writing emails. - So the goal of the subject line is to get somebody's attention so that they open the email - up and read that first sentence. - And guess what? - After they read the first sentence, - The goal of that sense is getting to read the second sense and so on and so forth something - else that you should take any consideration when crafting your subject line is the - environment that you're competing it for. - A lot of these big time execs, - whether in the air in the marketing department, - that his death department, - whatever it may be, - these people are getting literally hundreds of emails a day, - and the people are getting emails from our probably from people that they already know. - So you're competing for their attention as somebody that they don't know. - With this growing body of colleagues that they already have. - Why this is important is that you cannot make it difficult for them to understand why - you're reaching out to them. - The harder it is for somebody to figure out why you're trying to get their attention, - the less likely they're going to respond. - And this is because generally people want to focus on what they know is important, - and generally they just opt for the path of least resistance. - So this is why I think it's a best practice to convey exactly why reaching out in the - subject line you don't want. - You don't want to make it seem like a lot of work for somebody to figure this out. - Okay, - so I know the goal off the subject line is to get somebody to open the email and read the - first sentence, - and I know that I should be incredibly direct, - so they know exactly why I'm reaching out. - But what specifically should you be focusing on? - Another excellent lesson that we can take from copyrighting is the focus on appealing to - individuals desire and this kind of treads the battle of future verse pain, - a huge mistake that I see a lot of people make is try to grab somebody's attention by - bringing up a future. - So a perfect example would be our new product automates syndication of your social media - properties. - Okay, - that's cool. - But why is that important to me? - It's important because it solves the pain of something taking a lot of time to dio or - potentially costing your company a lot of money because you have to have three people do - what one person could be doing with a tool that automates syndication, - sir. - Generally, - it's a best practice to always focus on the desire or the pain that it solves instead of - the future. - Another important principle that is borrowed from copyrighting is the notion of audience - awareness. - So how much is your audience that you're writing to know about your product and company? - If somebody knows everything about your product and it is basically deciding whether or not - they want to do a deal with your they want to buy buy from you, - you're going to communicate to them very differently than you communicate to somebody who's - not an early tech adopters or may never have heard of your product. - So you need to tailor your message to the perceived awareness of the audience you reaching - out to and a huge mistake. - Ice here is, - is just the lack of awareness about what vocabulary to use. - If I was talking to a small business and started using words like a P I, - they would have no idea what I was talking about. - Whoever to somebody like a product manager at Tech Company A p I is basically their native - language, - So it's important to make sure that your calibrating your message in vocabulary with the - education and awareness of the audience that you're writing job. - If you don't do this, - people are going to be less likely to respond. - So let's talk about some good subject line free marks, - one that I like in particular is just simply whatever value that you can drive with the - partnership for whatever part of the prospects business you're optimizing. - So this could be their website. - This could be their app. - This could be their customers experience. - This could be their revenue, - whatever it ISS. - So let's look at some examples dr additional comments on your site, - so the value add is your ability to help them drive additional engagement and we're going - to be doing that is on their site. - Another one could be generate more calls from your online listing, - so the value add is generating more calls and the places you're going to do that. - Is there online listings? - Now you'll see to bullet point titles, - subject line titles under here and what these are our what functionally this might look - like So menu concept for your site will. - Is the menu content the function literally? - The thing that I can add? - Or is it appealing to the desire or pain? - The desire of having additional content on the site is driving engagement, - getting additional users, - getting additional pages, - whatever. - But functionally, - the way to do that is menu content. - So personally. - Although both can work and I have seen both work, - I like to again appeal to the desire here. - So instead of saying menu content for your site, - I might say additional user actions on your dining pages or whatever it ISS. - The same goes for if the way that I was helping businesses generate more calls from their - online listings was displaying photos displaying photos is functionally how I would do this - But the actual desire that they want is from having the additional constant is more phone - calls, - their business or even more customers in the store. - If you want to get more specific, - another very similar framework that I liked and you could just read reposition it is just - the value that you add and your company need. - And this is this is good to use if somebody is somewhat familiar in the space. - So you could say if I was reaching out for From Discussed, - which is a comment platform, - and I saw a major block that was currently not using us. - Maybe they were just using WordPress comments. - I could just say Dr comments on your site discuss. - And again, - it's the value add than the company name that you're writing from and just to kind of show - you what functionally that might look like just to point out the difference. - Comment widget for your site. - Discuss I personally again. - I think if I'm looking at these two headlines right now, - I like the top one better because A it appeals to my desire and be It also is a little bit - more curious if I've decided in advance that I don't want a comment widget on my site that - I'm going to immediately discount this email. - However, - if somebody says Dr comments, - maybe that could be some type of picture optimization. - Maybe it could be a tool that I've never heard up, - so that might inspire somebody to open the email that might have otherwise never have done - that. - So let's look at some examples of what I consider to be bad subject lines that I've seen - frequently in the field. - Your help. - This does not appear to be driving value to the prospects life When they read this. - This is basically asking for something. - This this might even be insinuating that they need to do work, - which again people generally up for the path of least resistance. - So that doesn't make me want open that email at all. - Hey, - is non descriptive it. - I have no reason that I should open this. - Honestly, - it looks like it could be one of those spam emails that contains the virus. - Your company name. - This kind of goes back to audience awareness. - If somebody's maybe heard of your company and it's foaming at the mouth to work with you, - that could be interesting, - but just stating your company name doesn't really appeal to any desire. - Doesn't appeal that any pain you can help solve. - I have no idea why I should open this email. - It's all about you instead of about the prospect again A pending this too away. - What you can drive value might make sense. - But just by itself isn't really all that appealing opportunity. - This isn't descriptive enough. - I guess it might appeal to something. - But, - you know, - is this an opportunity for me to join it A pickup basketball league? - Or is this a way that you're going to help my business grow? - I don't know. - Quite frankly, - I have 50 other emails I have to get to, - so I'm just going to continue moving long When I see this getting together, - This basically is implying that somebody should give you their time before you've proven to - them that you're worth giving their time. - For I think that this is a common assumption that I that I see a lot is that people just - think that other people should give them their time before they proven their value and the - value that they could drive Ah, - and you never want to make this assumption. - It can actually really turn people off in acting again. - That's it's not really descriptive enough. - Um, - I don't know if this for personal networking. - I don't know if this is for something very specific that I'm looking for. - It just is very vague to me. - Which, - which means that I'm not gonna sign a high importance to it. - Touching base again. - Not descriptive enough. - I have no context here. - Why should I touch base with you? - This is some type of email that I often get from like, - recruiter. - So you're falling into a potential bucket there? - I not. - Not necessarily a strong subject line. - Do you have time this read? - This is a little more direct, - but again, - it's assuming that you've proven your value to somebody else. - And before anybody's gonna give me their time, - you need to convince them that you're gonna be able to drive value for the business. - So you don't want to assume that in the in the subject line like this, - this is just a little presumptive and can actually turn somebody off. - Okay, - so it's not to say that any of these subject lines can't work. - It's just that I think that you could do a whole lot better. - And this course is about giving you the best information, - not information that may or may not work. - What about questions? - Subject lines? - Does it ever make sense to ask a question in the subject line, - too? - Maybe inspired curiosity, - and you get somebody to open the email? - Well, - these can definitely work again because they inspire curiosity. - But if you do this, - you need to pay close attention to the words and what you're asking. - So a good example would be is driving more traffic of focus, - right? - This is a good example because it gets right to the point of wire reaching out. - If somebody is interested in driving more traffic to the website, - yes, - what? - They're going to read this email. - If somebody is not interested in that, - there probably aren't going to read the email. - But But if they're not interested in what you're having to offer, - then that's a good thing, - because you don't waste your time on somebody who isn't ever going to be a potential dealer - partnership. - Rio. - A bad subject line that uses your question Why don't you have this? - I bring this up because a subject line like this might get somebody to open the email, - but it just comes off. - As to Internet marketing and in the context of business development for start ups. - Internet marketing headlines just don't kind of give off the right vibe. - You're looking to establish a long term business relationship with somebody, - a relationship where both parties trust each other, - even a friendship in some instances, - and this kind of direct Internet marketing headline just kind of starts the relationship - off on the wrong foot. - So generally, - if you're going to use a question, - I think the best thing you can do is is be very specific so that people know exactly why - reaching out, - and if this is interesting to them, - there's a high likelihood of them responding. - Okay, - let's talk about the best way to address the prospects, - and this is the first thing that they're going to see after they open the email because you - just wrote an awesome subject line. - Generally, - I like to just say hi in their prospects First name, - or maybe even some cases. - Hey, - they seem really friendly in their picture on linked in or wherever I saw things that I - don't think our best practices Not having any former address or just going directly into a - sentence. - Hey, - have you seen this? - Hey, - I wanted to touch base. - This is not an email to an old time friend. - This isn't email somebody who has never met you. - So that's above casual air is not necessarily something that is appropriate at this point. - To whom this may concern or deer. - This is incredibly formal. - And people that use this type of language just don't come off is very familiar or fun or - like somebody that I'd want to, - particularly up on a phone call with. - So I generally just go pretty informal and just say Hey, - and the prospects first name, - the woman said, - Could I see all the time? - Is messing up the naming convention of the prospect? - A lot of times on linked in people state their proper full name instead of what their - friends and colleagues call them. - And again, - you want to come from a place of familiarity. - This is not attendance in first grade math class. - You want to convey in the address the name that the friends and colleagues called him. - So how can we make sure that we do this? - Well, - there's a ton of places online where you can find what somebody's proper naming convention - is. - Recommendations on a prospects linked in profile as well. - A social profiles that are publicly available, - like Twitter and Facebook and even their personal block, - which you can sometimes get by Googling somebody are all excellent places to figure out - which what's the name of their friends and colleagues? - Call them. - You can even use that tool reported, - uh, - reported dot com, - which was mentioned earlier and how to find email addresses. - Let me just show you what a linked in recommendation looks like. - Case you've never seen one is this is my friend. - Have a graph. - His formal name is probably on his birth certificate, - and nowhere else is Patrick. - But if I go down and look in the recommendation by a product designer at his previous - company, - OK, - Cupid, - you can see very evidently that people that know him well, - call him Pat. - So in this instance, - if I was writing pad a cold email and I saw this, - it would be much, - much better to say hi, - Pat instead of Hi, - Patrick, - Because again, - I want to come from a place of familiarity. - Let's go over some cold email rules of thumb. - Now that we've covered the subject line and the address, - this is going to be much more focused on the body content off the email number one. - Keep it short and sweet. - I say. - Cold emails are ideally three sentences for maximum. - If you write somebody a Bill Shakespeare novel, - it's just gonna look like a ton of work to read. - And why should somebody read an email that long, - or at least read it closely and attentively to somebody they don't know the shorter and - sweeter and impactful you could. - You could make it the higher likelihood that somebody is going to respond number to use - language and an approach that is conversational or as a matter of fact. - Well, - this advice might be a little unconventional, - so you you could be asking yourself right now. - Scott, - why should I use a conversational tone in an email that it's to somebody that I've never - even met before? - The first reason is the bucket theory. - Generally, - people put other people into buckets according to how they behave when it comes to cold - emails, - their most most people out there are sending emails that read Things like, - Hi, - my name is this and I do business at this and I'm looking to give you this. - And 99% of those emails, - at least in my experience, - don't provide any value to me. - So I don't want to write an email that comes off like that because I think that people will - immediately put me into a bucket of somebody that's not going to provide value to the life - again. - This is the same reason that I don't send linked in messages because primarily the length - in Mrs I get her from recruiters or people trying to sell me something better low value. - So you don't want to put yourself in the bucket of people that write bad emails. - Number two people do business with people they like. - If you sound like a fun and interesting guy in an email, - or or even just somebody that another person want to have a conversation with at a bar, - they're gonna be more likely to respond. - When I get an email from somebody who sounds extremely formal and strict and just really - boring. - That doesn't exactly incentivize me to want to hop on the phone. - Call this person. - And again, - it's another reason why conversational tone that a normal fun person would take is a good - strategy. - Number three. - You want to avoid signaling that you're running down hit list rigid, - impersonal emails that look like they're just straight out of a template. - Number three. - You want to avoid signaling that you're running down that list rigid, - impersonal emails that look like they're just straight out of a template. - Give off the impression that you are sitting there in front of a giant spread. - She just firing these off, - hoping people respond. - Compare this with a conversational personal email that just looks like you just happen to - find something that compelled you to send an email to another person. - It's a totally different feel, - and that conversational appeal is going to result in a higher likelihood of response than - somebody who just is firing off emails on a hit list, - spraying and praying, - hoping that one hits Let's sick looking, - an example of what I mean by conversational language. - Here's a good example. - John I noticed that whatever happened and I wanted to send you an email just to say Hey, - almost like to just think about like, - bar talk When I was if I was approaching a stranger at a bar and said, - Hi, - my name is so and so and I had did all of these cool things and I've raised money from this - company. - I went to this college and people like me. - I would be like, - Wow, - this person is a tool. - Why? - I don't want them to talk to me. - But if somebody came out to me and say, - Hey, - I just wanted to say I really like your shoes and I'm Scott. - I'd be a little bit more open to talking to that person who's just having a casual - conversation. - So this is that This is the type of feel that I like to go for in emails, - and I've had a tone of success with No, - a bad uh, - example off language is we've recently launched a transformative narrative platform. - I'm reaching out to present an opportunity that this is not casual conversation. - I do not want to hop on a phone call with the person who speaks this originally, - and quite frankly, - it's just really not that personal related to this briefly earlier, - but just a highlighted again. - You want to make sure that you and avoid Internet marketer speak throughout your emails. - It's just not appropriate in the BT context or you're trying to develop long term bonds of - people, - so things like one time limited offers exclusive, - time sensitive Windows free access. - Even if these things are true, - you want to avoid writing these things an initial cold emailed just because it comes off as - like somebody hawking something not necessarily like somebody I want to build a long term - relationship with. - Okay, - let's let's move on to the third cold email rule of thumb. - And it's pretty simple. - Spare the prospect. - The declaration. - So what I mean by this is Hi, - my name is Scott Britain, - and I do business development for single platform re raised $4 million from top venture - capitalists. - This is just a waste of a sentence because it's not relevant to the prospect and the value - that you're going to drive to them. - Anybody who has half a brain can see what company work for by the email address that you - email them from as well as your signature and what your position is. - So again, - the size of the email is critical because it can. - A pure like something is a lot of work to read versus a little work. - And if you spend 2 to 3 sentences declaring and announcing yourself, - it's just gonna make your email look longer and decrease the chance of somebody you - actually Regan. - So you know, - don't be a town crier and say you old My name is this and this is my job and we've done - these cool things. - This is such a common habit amongst cold emailing that I see, - and it just isn't not a good use of time. - We're gonna go over exactly what you should say and said very shortly. - But just think about this. - Is this as interesting somebody as talking immediately about the value that you could drive - my company? - No, - I don't really think so. - You want to find a unique way display that you've done your homework and that this isn't a - can email again coming from a hitless of 500 prospects? - One of my favorite ways to do this is to take advantage of hyperlinks. - So let's talk a little bit more about the hyperlink. - Hyperlinks allow you to do a couple things. - One. - It makes it easy for you to display that they have a problem you can solve. - So one of the things that I really like to do is say something like, - Hey, - I noticed that you guys currently aren't doing this and then hyperlink to that particular - instance on one of the properties, - whether it's a Web page of social media profile, - whatever it is that I can optimize, - make it easy for them to click and verify that they, - in fact, - do you have a problem. - The second thing that a hyperlink does is it signals that they're not just one of 500 can - emails, - even if they are the fact that you went out of your way to link to something and highlight - it shows that you're not just copying, - pasting and that this is an email that is, - you need to them if it's still seeing a little vague about how you should use hyperlinks. - I'm gonna be displaying my favorite way to do this in just a few minutes. - So just sit tight. - Okay. - Cool Derail Rule Thumb number five You mindful spacing? - Spacing your sentences out in an email just makes it easier read and appear less daunting. - When I see an email that has no spacing whatsoever and is six or seven sentences along, - it just feels like a pain to read. - Let's just compare to emails just to see what I'm talking about. - So here's an example of an email with nice spacing. - Its three cents is long and has a space between the sense. - This is the same exact email as the one before which one is harder to read, - Which one feels like it would just be more of a strain on you to read in full. - My bet is the 2nd 1 the one that we're looking at right now. - So for this reason, - you just want to remove all friction. - Do somebody actually reading the email and just, - you know, - a few proper line spaces is one way to accomplish this. - A little caveat here that hopefully most people are already practicing. - But if they're not, - I want to bring up Is that when you're sending business emails out, - you always want to use your company email address and include a signature. - It's just the professional thing to Dio. - No components of a signature can vary according to what you think is important your - business. - But generally I like to include your my name, - my title, - the company, - the phone number that I can be reached at both in the office and Mobile E. - And if you have any positive press, - that's always a good thing to include as well, - because somebody may have never heard of your company before. - And all of a sudden, - if they scroll down the city, - you're mentioned in places like Forbes, - Business Week, - the next Web TechCrunch. - Whatever it is, - it brings some legitimacy to the cold email. - So I've gotten this question about exclamation points and smiley faces and in person - workshops. - I've done so. - I thought I'd bring it to everyone's attention here. - Generally, - the use of exclamation and smiley faces should be calibrated with the context of email. - If you're cold, - email is coming on the heels of article and TechCrunch or some other publication that - shines an incredible light in the company. - It might make sense to use an exclamation point if you're just reaching out blindly just to - talk. - Try to get a meeting, - and there's no particular compelling event or something that happened. - And most emails conduce without exclamation points and smiling faces. - And if I do include one of these elements, - which I again usually don't I try to limit it to one per email. - And that's in the context of both cold emails. - Any emails where I already have reporter somebody smiley faces just a shine even more lead - in those because they can be a little bit more dangerous unless you have reports somebody - you generally want to avoid these. - And even when you do have report, - you should calibrate these with the demeanor and relationship of the person on the other - side. - You have a great friendly, - fun relationship with the person that you're emailing Smiley face away. - However, - if this person is really serious, - they might take the smiley face the wrong way, - so generally avoid and calibrate when it comes to smiley faces. - Okay, - so right now what I want to do is condense all of these cold email rule thumbs into my - favorite cold email formula, - and I call it the Bandage email, - and I've used this for literally hundreds, - if not thousands of emails and had just an incredible response rate. - So the formula goes as follows. - What you want to do at a high level is irritate the wound early and then provide the - bandage. - Let me express. - So the first sentence, - what's your trying to accomplish is basically to glaringly identify the thing which can be - optimized early on so that you get their attention after you've done this. - You want to follow this statement by introducing your solution or ability to resolve the - shortcoming. - Let's look at a very specific email just to kind of shed some more insight into what - exactly? - I mean. - Okay, - let's let's give this a read. - And I guess as just a, - uh, - some context here. - I'll give a specific example and use cookie retargeting software as the thing that I'm - trying to pitch. - But where I have solution in the brackets can be whatever your whatever your benefit is - that you're going for. - Okay. - Hi, - Prospect. - I noticed your site currently isn't running co getting retargeting software, - which typically increases conversions by 20%. - Implementing a retargeting solution is actually something that we help companies like yours - with all the time. - In fact, - it's something that we do for companies like X Y and Z competitors. - There's a day next week when you have 10 minutes. - I'd love to connect so that we can talk about getting this taken care for you. - Okay, - let's go ahead and dig into this. - So the first sentence is about irritating the wound again. - You want to get there attention and the goal of the first senses to get them to read the - second sentence. - So I noticed that your site currently isn't whatever thing that you can optimize. - You want to point it out and make it very easy for them to verify this by using a hyperlink - . - And then you want to give them a reason why it's important that that their site has to have - that thing. - So here, - I said, - which typically increases conversions by 20%. - It doesn't have to be, - although it's more powerful when the there is some type of quantitative measure in here, - like increasing divergence by 20% you could say something like which typically drives - engagement or which simply results in enhanced the user experience. - Whatever it ISS, - you want to give them a reason there. - Okay, - percent. - So that's the wound. - You've irritated it. - You've got their attention. - Now it's time to introduce the solution. - The second block of text does two things. - First, - it lets them know that you can provide the bandage to this wound that you just brought up. - So saying implementing this is actually something that we help with companies like yours - all the time is essentially that. - Next thing you want to do if you if you can, - is basically point to some social proof. - So, - in fact, - it's what we do for companies like X, - Y and Z, - all of a sudden might raise an eyebrow and say, - Oh, - wow, - these other people are doing this. - I guess this really is the best practice that I should take into consideration. - Now, - after you've done this, - your chain, - the wound offered up the solution and the fact that you can help them with it. - Now it's time to basically ask for some time. - And I like to do this and originally in a very casual way, - there's a day next week when you have 10 minutes. - I love to connect so we can talk about getting this taken care of for you. - I love using the freeze, - getting this taking care of because it's totally congruent with the rest of this email, - right? - It makes it appear like this is an obvious thing that other people are doing, - and you need to get this taken care of because the best practice this is a very subtle - nuance but very, - very powerful thing to communicate, - because when somebody feels like they're just not implementing an obvious best practice, - there's a sense of urgency there that often is harder to communicate when you're just flat - all asking for somebody's time. - So let's go ahead and look at a an example of when I do this and the positive results, - because I believe in being open and transparent at all levels of business, - especially when it helps other people learn. - So I said this email to a big time perspective partner that I wanted to do an A p I - integration with so that they would take our menu content. - First part. - Let's let's go ahead and see how your change the one Hi Andrew. - I want to touch base. - They noticed there's no menu content for your restaurant listings. - Without this content, - you're missing out on it. - Additional pages engagement in S E o benefits. - You're also missing out on itemize search, - which I thought you might be interested in. - It is something we power in the Wiping Mobile app and Soon Avatar, - which are both competitors. - Some example. - Implementations with our free P. - I could be seen here by clicking the menu, - New York Times four Square City Seeker Love to connect with your the person appropriate - person. - When you have a few minutes, - Andrew gets back to me. - Definitely interesting having a discussion. - Let me introduce you to Evan, - who is the member of my team, - focused on whatever their initiative is driving on site engagement and, - ah, - the connection is made. - So let's just break this down quick. - Um, - the 1st 2 paragraphs and I kind of didn't take my own medicine here and that it is a little - bit long, - but it worked. - And the reason I think it worked is because very first thing I started with was irritating - the wound. - So I noticed there's no menu content without this content. - You're missing this. - These other people who you're competing with have it. - Then after that, - I introduced the solution. - This is something that we actually power for these people. - And you can actually see exactly what this looks like here, - here, - in here. - If you have time, - no pressure, - because again, - I'm after a long term. - Isn't development relationship ID love the connector, - the you or the appropriate person when you have a few minutes after this email? - I got connected with Evan and the rest of the right people at this company and eventually - re ended up doing an awesome deal with them. - But it all started out with just writing one simple, - effective email, - which just kind of shows you the power that understanding how to cold email effectively can - have. - There's a lot of people out there that say that the best practice for finishing an email is - a direct called action, - and you'll notice it and the bandage email formula. - I actually didn't do this. - I finished email by saying, - If there's a day next week, - when you have 10 minutes, - I loved it, - connects. - You can talk about getting this taken care for you If you compare this to a direct call. - The action maybe something like, - Do you have 10 minutes next week to discuss? - It's a little different. - Interestingly enough, - I just wanted to highlight that I've actually tested with both of these and didn't notice a - statistically significant difference in either direction in terms of response rate. - So if you feel strongly about the direct call to action while means go for it, - I just wanted to highlight in my personal experience, - I found that by the time that people have already gotten to the last sentence of your email - , - they've made a decision whether they're going to respond to you or not. - Which is why I think the 1st 2nd 3rd subject line of the most important things. - Uh, - so that's my personal opinion. - But if you insist on doing a direct called action, - by all means, - you go ahead. - I don't think there's any harm that can be done there. - What a real quick talk about another cold email formula. - I've seen work, - and I actually I got this from a guy by the name of Brian Cruz Berger, - who has a site called Breakthrough email. - Basically, - what he does is try to leverage the internal pressure to respond by emailing multiple - people. - So essentially the structure of this email is that you can pick 3 to 4 people who are - likely related to a particular decision or initiative that you're trying to push through - and essentially email them all these same email just switching out the names indicating - that you're interested in connecting with them about a particular initiative. - This way, - the email doesn't get put by the wayside, - and one of them internally feels necessary to respond to the email. - So an example would be, - Hey, - John, - I'm reading it. - Connect the person who manages whatever the initiative you're supposed to you're looking to - connect with in this percent pursuit. - I've also written to Steve another contact and contact three. - Here you go into why you want to connect them. - I want to connect about how my company blank can help improve whatever value drive with our - solution. - This is something something we're currently accomplishing with social proof, - one social proof to and social Booth three. - Do you have some time early? - Next reaches, - guys. - No, - you take this email and all you do is switch the name. - So here you see, - I've switched Steve and John and send this exact email to 3 to 4 people. - And the hope is that collectively, - these people realize that you're trying to connect them about a certain thing, - and somebody feels the pressure internally to respond. - Now one thing that this email does which I think is great, - is it acknowledges the fact that you're emailing multiple people and it says, - But it's does that by saying in this pursuit I've also written to this person, - this person in this person because honestly, - one of the last things you want to do is cold email and carpet bomb a bunch of people - without indicating that that's something you're doing. - It just looks bad. - It looks like you're mis informed. - And honestly, - it looks pani. - So if you're going to email multiple people at a company, - make sure to acknowledge that and save just B, - C, - C or C seeing multiple people, - or even just just doing a bunch of separate two emails, - you're gonna email multiple people of the same company at the same time. - You want to let them know because they're all going to talk to each other and it just comes - off like you're spraying and brain. - Okay, - let's talk about another strategy that can work amazingly well for getting responses for - cold emails. - And what I would call this is just creating an internal referral for yourself. - The idea here is to basically call above someone. - So call someone's boss and then get that person's boss to indicate that you should talk to - the person that you're trying to reach. - And that person's again the initial stakeholder on your hit list. - And the reason that you want to do this is because when somebody's boss says that they - should talk to you, - that all of a sudden provides a sense of urgency around the cold email that you wouldn't - have gotten before, - which optimizes the likelihood that somebody is going to respond to you. - So let's talk about how to actually accomplish this. - Step one go on, - linked in and figure out who the initial stakeholders bosses. - So, - for example, - if you're trying to reach the director of marketing, - their boss would likely be the VP of marketing and a great place to find this information. - Is that section on the right hand side when you're viewing your stakeholders profile called - Peop 12. Converting Emails to Meetings: - Okay, - so we just talked about sending out the initial cold emails and how to do that effectively - . - Let's talk about converting those e mails and the subsequent dialogue to meetings. - Once you send out a cold email, - there's a few things that might have number one the respond positively, - asking for a meeting. - Number two will respond, - asking you to send more information. - Three. - They won't respond, - and four will just flat out say they're not interested. - Let's talk about some effective ways to handle each one of these scenarios. - If they respond immediately positively, - your job is to basically convert that to a meeting as fast as possible. - Let's say they indicate a day and time that works for them. - The next thing that you do is ask them the best number reaching that and indicate that - you'll be sending a calendar invite. - Once you have this, - here's a simple response to 90 million could use great. - What's the best number to reach you at during that time? - Once I have this, - I'll send you a calendar invite. - Looking forward Now, - this is the simplest, - most ideal scenario After Sameer Cold email, - let's look at a few more what happens if they don't propose a time and they don't propose - the time it's on you to throw a couple times out there. - I generally like to try two days and three times, - and the reason that this is that you want to give them options, - but you don't want it to be incredibly ambiguous because that's just thinking and work that - they don't want to dio. - Additionally, - you can also indicate your openness to another, - more convenient time. - If the two days and three times that you threw out didn't work, - here's an example. - Email response that Miers What I just described Great how this Tuesday from true to 4 p.m. - U S Eastern standard time work were Wednesday at 44 30 PM Work for you. - There's another time more convenient for you, - Let me know. - Also, - let me know the best number to reach you at so I can include it in the counter, - looking for pretty straightforward there. - What happens if they respond? - Asked me to send more information. - This is very important to pay attention closely. - When they say this, - you never should send them an information packet or deck. - If somebody really matters. - And the reason is is because when you do this, - you're letting your ability to pitch your relationship in the hands of just a static pdf - doc, - which is never going to be a good as you on the phone or in person who can dynamically - handover bottle. - You could build a relationship. - You do all the things that make pinch successful, - so typically there were email response from them. - Will look something like you mind sending over some more information before call so they're - trying to get more out of you before committing their time. - I think the aspirin bottle finesses something along the lines of this email right here. - Hi a target. - Our product does X, - y and Z and his best demonstrated live. - More importantly, - for us to really see if there's a fit here, - I'd like to understand your current situation better. - Oh, - things shouldn't take much shine. - Do you have 10 minutes to hop on a call over the next few days? - Let's just briefly go through this email real quick, - so the first ends is just about providing a little bit more context. - So our product does these things. - This is why I should be interested, - and it's best demonstrated life. - So I'm here again. - I'm pushing an imp rhyming for that phone call instead of an email dialogue that eventually - said that eventually sent a pdf. - More importantly, - for us to really see if there's a fit here, - I'd like to understand your current situation better. - Who thinks shouldn't take much. - So again, - this is This is trying to indicate to them that this is an important call that you care - about them. - But you want to make sure that this is all about them and adding value. - And it's not about you just pitching or hawking the relationship that you're trying to - implement. - Um, - and again, - I always try to stress how this isn't gonna take time. - Both things shouldn't take much time. - Do you have 10 minutes top on a call in the next few days? - So here you're asking again in 10 minutes is a magic number because everybody has 10 - minutes there, - it might recall truthfully call might take 20 minutes in my take 30 minutes, - or it might take 10 minutes, - but 10 minutes just seems far less daunting than a 30 minute call or a call even longer - than that was just less friction with 10 minutes. - Other key element of this email I wanted to call to your attention is the fact that I gave - them limited information. - If you recall, - I simply said, - our product does X, - Y and Z whatever the functionality is and is best demonstrated by, - I didn't bring up people that were already work with. - I didn't bring up how much it costs. - I didn't bring up ease of implementation. - All of these things of the years just to give, - as least in amount of information is possible. - That still entices them to want to do more. - Because again, - your best chance of getting them to want to do a partnership with you getting them excited - whatever it is is done through a phone call or an in person meeting, - where you can really calibrate with what's important to them. - So just when you send these type of emails, - it is important to give them a reason to want to have a meeting with you. - But you don't want to get way too much information that forces them to make a decision, - for you have a chance to pitch them Okay, - let's get back to number three. - What do you do if somebody doesn't respond to your email? - Quite simply, - follow up. - It's important to understand that them not responding doesn't mean that they're not - interested. - Let's go over some reasons why people don't respond to eliminate this belief. - One they meant to respond, - and they just forgot. - Two. - It might have gotten lost in their in box. - Maybe they just had too many emails. - And forever reason didn't seem urgent. - They didn't read your proposition thoroughly the first time, - thus didn't realize the value. - These are all examples of reasons why people just don't respond to things that they could - be very much interested in, - which is why it's so important for you to make sure to follow up. - Let's talk about the best way to follow up where what you follow up, - it's all about removing all friction for them to reply to you. - And the easiest way to do this is replying to the original email so they don't have to go - back digging for context. - So what I do is find the first even let you send just click reply, - which should address it to the prospect again and say something simple like this. - I just want to follow up on my email below regarding helping you increase whatever your - values value at IHS, - Is this something you ever considered? - The reason that we do this instead of sending an entirely new email is because you don't - want them to have to go digging through their in box to get the additional context for wire - reaching out. - Why did you get on the phone with you? - When I reply with just a few sentences, - I can point to the contacts. - They have it right then and there, - and it's also increased the odds that they will read it just because it's two sentences - again. - Remember, - people don't want to do a ton of work when they perceive some things. - A lot of work well, - just skim over it. - They won't They won't even read it. - So I know that they will read two sentences. - Hopefully, - or at least there's a higher likelihood that they will. - And if I can get them interested by saying the value add directly in that first sentence, - my hope is that they'll read the email below that on this. - This this is work really, - really great for me. - So let's go ahead and do a live demo of how to do this properly. - Just so you know exactly what I'm talking about. - Okay, - so here we are. - And we're gonna go through a live example of the proper way to follow up. - So this is just a cold email that I constructed for myself. - And it just says, - Awesome. - Plug in for bt playbook dot com. - And I'm just gonna fire this away. - Teoh, - my lifelong learner email address. - So it's in that. - Lawson, - let's say if you let's just say a few days have passed. - I haven't heard anything back from Scott. - How? - What does he probably follow up? - You're gonna find any melon. - You're sent in box. - You're going to reply to that original email and just say something like, - Hi, - Scott, - I just wanted to see if you got my email. - I just want to see if you if there was any interest in my email below regarding the - membership sigh point in that guarantees only the people that have invested in BT playbook - dot com see the premium motor? - Do you have five? - 10 has got 10 minutes this week. - Discuss this. - That's right, - Scott. - Well said. - Then let's let's look how easy and seamless is this. - This is for the prospects, - which is myself on the other side. - Okay, - so here we are. - So here's the email that I just sent and you can see how it is pretty easy to read. - I mean, - it's two sentences and this person wants any more context. - All they have to do is simply click above, - which gives them a little bit more information about why they want to potentially connected - me. - This is a whole lot easier than asking somebody to go back to their inbox gig for the other - email. - Read that. - Go back. - Read this again. - This this is all in one place, - which is again as much more frictionless than sending two separate emails. - Okay, - so you might have be looking at that process and be thinking to yourself, - or that seems like a pain to go back into my sent inbox and identify that email a couple of - days