One conversation is just that: another conversation.
Land a second, and now youāre being āevaluatedā.
Donāt try to jam through everything in the first convo.
Do just enough to pique their interest and land that second meeting.
10 sales tactics that work:
One conversation is just that: another conversation.
Land a second, and now youāre being āevaluatedā.
Donāt try to jam through everything in the first convo.
Do just enough to pique their interest and land that second meeting.
If youāre pitching a customer, use their product,
Read about the company and the person youāre talking to.
Ultimately, this proves that you will do the work to make their lives easier.
Itās so powerful yet so easily overlooked.
Who is required to make a decision like this?
What would you need to see from me to be able to buy?
How long will it take to make a decision?
These questions give you the roadmap on how to close the deal.
Sometimes itās habit to jump straight into a demo.
If someone wants to talk first, do that.
This could consume a whole first conversation.
Which gives you a great excuse for that second meeting: going thru the demo.
If youāre going X direction in a conversation and the customer wants to go Y direction, embrace it.
If youāre using a deck, donāt be afraid to jump around.
This is a good thing; it means the conversation is unfolding organically.
Keep it fluid.
āHey customer,
There are a number of reasons why timing matters, including ability to lock in best possible prices and integration resources.
Is there a reasonable timeframe in which we can mutually agree to come to a decision?ā
Pricing can be scary.
The best strategy Iāve found: complete transparency.
If the customer pushes back on pricing,
Explain why your company needs to price the way it does.
If someone wants something outside of the normal bounds,
Ie better pricing, new feature commitments, etc.
Ask for something in return!
Ie Ask the customer to pre-commit to serve as a reference or case study should things go well.
Persistence pays.
Especially in the early days, Iād often email a customer 5-10 times before receiving replies.
No customer would ever be marked as Lost.
Only āPaused, Try Again Laterā
More from Ryan Breslow šŗ
Over the last 7 years Iāve built 2 multi-billion dollar companies.
Itās been grueling. We donāt share these lessons enough.
So I decided to do that over the last month.
The feedback has been awesome - 25k new followers in 1 month.
Hereās a roundup of all of the threads š
Why Bolt is the first tech unicorn to shift to a 4 day work
Iāve built both a $4B company and a $1B company over the last 7 years.
Here are the 12 mindset rules that got me
We 10Xād our company in the last 10 months.
Here are the 10 tactics to making every day
Weāve closed more deals in the last 90 days than in all of Bolt history.
Here are 10 tips on how to negotiate your best
Itās been grueling. We donāt share these lessons enough.
So I decided to do that over the last month.
The feedback has been awesome - 25k new followers in 1 month.
Hereās a roundup of all of the threads š
Why Bolt is the first tech unicorn to shift to a 4 day work
The biggest lesson I\u2019ve learned in building a $4B company:
— Ryan Breslow \U0001f57a (@ryantakesoff) September 23, 2021
It\u2019s all about the people.
I\u2019m thrilled to announce today that Bolt is the first tech unicorn to officially shift to a 4 day work week.
Here\u2019s why we did it and how we came to the decision \U0001f447\U0001f447\U0001f447
Iāve built both a $4B company and a $1B company over the last 7 years.
Here are the 12 mindset rules that got me
Over the last 5 years, I built a $4B company.
— Ryan Breslow \U0001f57a (@ryantakesoff) September 20, 2021
Sounds awesome right?
Not until recently.
I made every mistake imaginable.
The toughest part was getting my head right.
Here are the 12 mindset rules that I\u2019ve developed.
We 10Xād our company in the last 10 months.
Here are the 10 tactics to making every day
At Bolt we grew from $400M to $4B in the last 10 months.
— Ryan Breslow \U0001f57a (@ryantakesoff) September 28, 2021
That's a 10x in 10 months.
This wasn\u2019t an accident, but it also wasn\u2019t a given.
The shift? We started making EVERY day count.
What exactly does that mean?
Let's break it down \U0001f447\U0001f447\U0001f447
Weāve closed more deals in the last 90 days than in all of Bolt history.
Here are 10 tips on how to negotiate your best
In the last 90 days, we\u2019ve closed more deals than ever before in Bolt\u2019s history.
— Ryan Breslow \U0001f57a (@ryantakesoff) September 25, 2021
These deals alone have added billions to our valuation
This wasn't an accident.
We completely changed how we negotiate deals.
Here are 10 tactics we use today to negotiate Bolt\u2019s best deals:
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The first area to focus on is diversity. This has become a dogma in the tech world, and despite the fact that tech is one of the most meritocratic industries in the world, there are constant efforts to promote diversity at the expense of fairness, merit and competency. Examples:
USC's Interactive Media & Games Division cancels all-star panel that included top-tier game developers who were invited to share their experiences with students. Why? Because there were no women on the
ElectronConf is a conf which chooses presenters based on blind auditions; the identity, gender, and race of the speaker is not known to the selection team. The results of that merit-based approach was an all-male panel. So they cancelled the conference.
Apple's head of diversity (a black woman) got in trouble for promoting a vision of diversity that is at odds with contemporary progressive dogma. (She left the company shortly after this
Also in the name of diversity, there is unabashed discrimination against men (especially white men) in tech, in both hiring policies and in other arenas. One such example is this, a developer workshop that specifically excluded men: https://t.co/N0SkH4hR35
USC's Interactive Media & Games Division cancels all-star panel that included top-tier game developers who were invited to share their experiences with students. Why? Because there were no women on the
ElectronConf is a conf which chooses presenters based on blind auditions; the identity, gender, and race of the speaker is not known to the selection team. The results of that merit-based approach was an all-male panel. So they cancelled the conference.
Apple's head of diversity (a black woman) got in trouble for promoting a vision of diversity that is at odds with contemporary progressive dogma. (She left the company shortly after this
Also in the name of diversity, there is unabashed discrimination against men (especially white men) in tech, in both hiring policies and in other arenas. One such example is this, a developer workshop that specifically excluded men: https://t.co/N0SkH4hR35
1/ Some initial thoughts on personal moats:
Like company moats, your personal moat should be a competitive advantage that is not only durableāit should also compound over time.
Characteristics of a personal moat below:
2/ Like a company moat, you want to build career capital while you sleep.
As Andrew Chen noted:
3/ You donāt want to build a competitive advantage that is fleeting or that will get commoditized
Things that might get commoditized over time (some longer than
4/ Before the arrival of recorded music, what used to be scarce was the actual music itself ā required an in-person artist.
After recorded music, the music itself became abundant and what became scarce was curation, distribution, and self space.
5/ Similarly, in careers, what used to be (more) scarce were things like ideas, money, and exclusive relationships.
In the internet economy, what has become scarce are things like specific knowledge, rare & valuable skills, and great reputations.
Like company moats, your personal moat should be a competitive advantage that is not only durableāit should also compound over time.
Characteristics of a personal moat below:
I'm increasingly interested in the idea of "personal moats" in the context of careers.
— Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg) November 22, 2018
Moats should be:
- Hard to learn and hard to do (but perhaps easier for you)
- Skills that are rare and valuable
- Legible
- Compounding over time
- Unique to your own talents & interests https://t.co/bB3k1YcH5b
2/ Like a company moat, you want to build career capital while you sleep.
As Andrew Chen noted:
People talk about \u201cpassive income\u201d a lot but not about \u201cpassive social capital\u201d or \u201cpassive networking\u201d or \u201cpassive knowledge gaining\u201d but that\u2019s what you can architect if you have a thing and it grows over time without intensive constant effort to sustain it
— Andrew Chen (@andrewchen) November 22, 2018
3/ You donāt want to build a competitive advantage that is fleeting or that will get commoditized
Things that might get commoditized over time (some longer than
Things that look like moats but likely aren\u2019t or may fade:
— Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg) November 22, 2018
- Proprietary networks
- Being something other than one of the best at any tournament style-game
- Many "awards"
- Twitter followers or general reach without "respect"
- Anything that depends on information asymmetry https://t.co/abjxesVIh9
4/ Before the arrival of recorded music, what used to be scarce was the actual music itself ā required an in-person artist.
After recorded music, the music itself became abundant and what became scarce was curation, distribution, and self space.
5/ Similarly, in careers, what used to be (more) scarce were things like ideas, money, and exclusive relationships.
In the internet economy, what has become scarce are things like specific knowledge, rare & valuable skills, and great reputations.
