EIA2017Portugal - Shannon Wu - Win Customers, Get Press & Close Investors with These Expert Sales Messaging Tactics
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Shannon Wu - Win Customers, Get Press & Close Investors with These Expert Sales Messaging Tactics
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EIA2017Portugal - Shannon Wu - Win Customers, Get Press & Close Investors with These Expert Sales Messaging Tactics
- 1. SALES MESSAGING Win Customers, Get Press & Close Investors
- 2. THINK BACK.
- 3. Mr. Progress Founder.org Company Building Framework A new model for building and funding important world changing companies
- 5. Mr.Progress partners with founders and executives of fast growing companies on modern marketing frameworks. Mr. Progress Mr. Progress
- 10. What is Sales Messaging? Your sales message is your pitch, where you make your case to stakeholders to convince them of use your product. Mr. Progress
- 11. Why It’s Important Acquire Customers Get Press Close Investors Mr. Progress
- 12. How to Build a Powerful Sales Message Mr. Progress
- 13. Understand the Problem Mr. Progress Without us, [customer segment] will continue to struggle with [unmet need].
- 14. Without us... users will continue to struggle to find information online. travelers will continue to struggle to book affordable flights through travel agents. . people will continue to struggle to store their files when their hard drive is out of space. . humans will continue to struggle to connect with friends, family, and colleagues. Mr. Progress
- 15. Mr. Progress Two-Part Exercise With us [customer segment] will be able to [unmet need] and benefit by [unexpected benefits] because [our product or service] can [attribute A and attribute B]. UNMET NEEDS UNEXPECTED BENEFITS 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1.
- 16. Pitch Mr. Progress Without us, [customer segment] will continue to struggle with [unmet need]. . . . With us [customer segment] will be able to [unmet need] and benefit by [unexpected benefits] because [our product or service] can [attribute A and attribute B].
- 17. Examples of Startup Messaging & Their Takeaways Mr. Progress
- 18. Mr. Progress
- 20. Mr. Progress
- 21. Why do you matter? Mr. Progress
- 26. Know Your Value Props Mr. Progress
- 27. Know Your value Props Mr. Progress
- 30. Don’t know where to start? Do a breakdown of each customer segment that touches your product or service. Label each customer segment + Write out what problems your company is solving for each of these segments. For example: Maybe your company services job applicants and companies, but partners with universities and governments. Mr. Progress
- 32. Messaging for Investors What’s the Company Vision? Express the long term vision of the company. Where will the company be in 10 years? Why you? In the earliest days, you’re selling the team. Why is your team the right group to get the job done? Why Now? Show investors why the time to invest is now. Be it market forces, upcoming opportunities or leveraging FOMO, your goal is to drive action. Mr. Progress
- 33. *Taken From EARLY LINKEDIN INVESTOR PITCH DECK Mr. Progress
- 34. Messaging for Press Provide Substance Lead with data. Give journalists access to fresh data and new context on your company. Demonstrate Your Relevance Understand how you fit into the bigger picture: trends, movements, news, etc. Show Them Your Story What is interesting about your company and your team? Why is your story worth covering? Prepare several pitches for various angles. Mr. Progress
- 36. Messaging for Employees Sell Your Shared Vision Why does this company exist? Why is the company meaningful? Start the Conversation Recruitment is a two- way street. Provide a Glimpse into Your Culture Align on company values Mr. Progress
- 38. Messaging for Websites Be Intentional Take advantage of limited space and ask yourself, “What is the purpose of this copy?” Include Clear CTAs Increase conversions for your website (Ex: sign up, learn more, get started today) Be Informative and Clear Educate your visitors on what you do. Mr. Progress
- 46. Get access to messaging framework Email me at shannon@mrprogress.com
Editor's Notes
- Hey guys, thanks for having me here. Super excited to give this talk. I’ve seen 100’s of startups grow (and fail) and there’s no question that your sales messaging is a fundamental piece to whether or not your startup makes it. I’ll be talking for about 40 minutes, and we’ll save some time for Q/A. I’ll also be available to talk 1:1 this week. Alright… Let’s get started.
- Think back over this past week at EIA. Was every opening pitch you heard amazing? I would guess… probably not. In fact, I would guess most of them were not amazing. Turns out, this is always the case. the reality. people aren't always great at presenting their sales messaging for their startups. And this makes it challenging to get customers, press, users and yes, even investment. People make decsions about whether or not they like your idea in the first two to three sentences. Today this talk we are going to walk through the fundamentals on how to nail your sales messaging.
- To give you a bit of context: after graduating Stanford I spent some time in VC, one of them was with a VC called founder.org. Founder.org was an early stage fund that invested in ONLY, literally ONLY student founders and recent grads. We invested in ~100 companies. The Managing Partner of the fund, Michael Baum, sold 7 companies and IPO’d his last one for $8 Billion, so he’s considered a bit of an expert on the early stages. The one thing he made EVERY SINGLE company that pitched us and every company we invested in get right was their sales messaging, or your “alternate future” as he called it. It was the most critical component of starting up, and if you didn't nail your sales messaging, we wouldn’t invest… Now, it’s not just for investmnet, sales messaging is fundamental to your startup, and you’ll see why. Last thing on the intro before we jump in, since VC, I’ve been working with startups
- Like these ones. These days, through my company, I serve as a consultant. And sometimes as an external CMO, for a number of startups. Almost all of my clients are based in Silicon Valley, and the vast majority have raised between $1m and $100m in funding. And I can honestly say that one of the big differences between the winners and the losers, is their sales messaging. Some of my clients are rather well known, Jawbone, Coach, Visa, and others have recently launched. But the thing that ties them together is the successful ones almost always have a clear vision and introduction
- Marketing is always evolving. But more importantly, your company is always evolving. Your sales messaging isnt just at the early stages, At Mr.Progress, my firm, we work very closely with founders and CEOs on this sort of stuff. In fact, I spent last week in the office working with the CEO of a company that has raised $100M –and we were working on this exact thing. My job working with these startups is literally 10x easier when a company has their sales messaging right. If they don’t have it, this is the first thing we work on together and its one thing we frequently come back to. So without further ado, let’s jump in.
- Alright guys lets take a very simple example of sales messaging. Everyone’s Private Driver. Do you guys know what slogan this is? Shout out it you’ve heard it before
- Yes you’re right it’s Uber. Let’s take a look at why this message is effective and why it’s so powerful
- Every good sales message identifies the target audience. You must be able to identify who you’re selling to or who uses your product in 2-3 words. For uber is obviously a very well known one, and they declare everyone