BUILDING
LANDING PAGES
ACQUIRING
FIRST USERS&BUILDING
LANDING PAGES
ACQUIRING
FIRST USERS&

USER ACQUISITION
Finding potential customers somewhere, somehow and
triggering them to visit your landing page with a
resonating message.

USER ACQUISITION
Finding potential customers somewhere, somehow and
triggering them to visit your landing page with a
resonating message.
LANDING PAGES
Enticing potential customers with your value
proposition in a way that triggers them to express
interest (e.g. leaving their email address).

LANDING PAGES
No matter your product
and audience, you’ll all
follow the same structure
and principles to build
great landing pages.
USER ACQUISITION
Depending on your
product and audience,
you’ll all use different
channels and strategies
to acquire customers.

LANDING PAGES
A step-by-step process
that helps you deﬁne
structure, copy, imagery
and design for your
landing page.
USER ACQUISITION
A collection of channels and
strategies with fast feedback
loops + a framework for
helping you decide which
ones (not) to try.

1. Do the right things (thinking)
2. Do the right things well (doing)

THIS DECK IS BUILT AS A RESOURCE FOR YOU TO USE
• I’ll focus the keynote on how to think and make good decisions on what
to do because that applies to all of you.
• For the doing part, I’ll limit myself to high-level context because not all
slides will be as relevant to all of you (mostly the case for acquisition).
• The idea is that, once you know what you want to do, you can check back
for examples and instructions on how to do it well.

Find this and all other amazing EIA slide decks over at:
https://www.slideshare.net/InnovationAcademy/presentations

What should you work on first?
… landing pages or user acquisition

WHAT DO YOU WORK ON FIRST?
You only get one shot at a ﬁrst impression
… the better that impression, the more visitors will leave their email address

WHAT DO YOU WORK ON FIRST?
1. Build an irresistible landing page
2. Get your target audience to visit it

THE GOOD NEWS
I’ve ruined enough first impressions
to help you make a stellar one

Not wasting your first impression
→ follow the proven template

How to structure
What to write
What imagery to use
How to think about design
Asking for feedback
Resources & inspiration
LANDINGPAGES

Landing page conversion is an equation
Conversion = Desire — Labor — Confusion

+ Increase Desire
Entice with value. Create intrigue. Go out of your way to make
it as easy as possible for visitors to imagine their improved
lives with your value prop in it.
— Decrease Labor
Minimize the work visitors have to do to get your value props.
The more words and imagery to process, the harder it becomes.
Aim for every word, visual and element to add meaning.
— Decrease Confusion
Make it crystal clear how your product improves visitor’s
lives. Be speciﬁc and consistent at every step and turn.

Messaging > design
1. Hone your message. Identify the selling points that
are most enticing about your value proposition.
2. Put together copy and imagery to convey those
selling points as clearly and concisely as possible.
3. Design your page to enhance the clarity and
impact of your messaging.

Get your story straight
FIRST THINGS FIRST

SIMPLE.
It’s easy to understand by prospective customers.
COMPELLING.
It describes something that is interesting or desirable to them.
SPECIFIC.
It captures what your product does, not an overly abstract statement of it.
DIFFERENTIATED.
It highlights what makes your product unique.

GETTING YOUR STORY STRAIGHT
Value proposition generation
A product quality matched to a customer beneﬁt
“Here’s what our
product can do.”
“Here’s what you can
do with our product.”
vs.

Imagine your product is fast
Benefit: Quicker output → Value prop: Get work done faster.
Benefit: Greater output → Value prop: Get more work done.
Benefit: Greater efficiency → Value prop: Save yourself time
VALUE PROPOSITION GENERATION

Imagine your product is secure
Beneﬁt: Protection → Value prop: If you lose or misplace your
card, freeze it from the app.
Beneﬁt: Control → Value prop: Turn off contactless, online
payments and ATM withdrawals from the app.

Imagine your product is secure
Beneﬁt: Privacy → Value prop: Only friends can see your
messages.
Beneﬁt: Protection → Value prop: If your phone is stolen,
your data stays safe.

How to write effective value propositions
Column 1
List all bad (non-desirable) alternative solutions people resort to when they don't have
your product. Point out what makes each one bad.
Column 2
For each bad alternative, write one value prop that highlights that badness and point out
how your product makes life better in comparison.
Column 3
List top personas and identify the two things they most care about. Ignore lower priority
audiences.
Match column 2 with column 3
Reduce your list of value props in column 2 to those that most appealing to top personas.

BAD ALTERNATIVES VALUE PROPS TOP PERSONAS
Low quality sales calls
Wasted sales resources
Visitors bounce
Lost sales opportunities
Long, boring FAQ’s
No one reads them
Support emails
Most don't bother
Process more leads using
fewer senior sales reps by
asynchronously handling
customer objections via
templated live chat.
Hear visitors' objections
proactively so you can address
and close more deals before
they bounce.
Head of marketing
Conversion rates
Traffic volume
Chief revenue officer
Reduce churn
Increase ARPU/LTV
Head of sales
Increase qualified leads
Qualify leads accurately
Example: Livechat software

BAD ALTERNATIVES VALUE PROPS TOP PERSONAS
Transaction fees
Moving money costs money
Transaction delays
Wastes productivity.
Hinders opportunity.
Limited control
Difficult to budget. You lose money.
Cumbersome to open an account
Takes a lot of time.
Not available for everyone.
Spend, withdraw and send money
anywhere in the world. No additional
fees.
Send and get money in real-time, to and
from anywhere in the world.
We’ll send real-time spending
notifications and show you exactly
where your money is going every month
so you have full control over your
personal finances.
Open an account in seconds without
street address or credit checks.
Traditional account holders
Travel & move money without extra fees
Better overall service
Increased budget control
International freelancers
Maximum control and flexibility
Get paid instantly from anywhere in the
world
Expats
No street address needed
No credit checks
Easy, quick account setup
Example: Digital banking product

INFORMATION DENSITY
Use copy and visuals to maximize information density: the art of saying
a lot with a little. A high ratio of ideas to elements (words + visuals).
DECREASING LABOR & CONFUSION
VALUE PROPOSITIONS
Use copy and visuals to tell a compelling story of a world with
your product, setting it off against a world without your product.
INCREASING DESIRE

GET TO THE BEST COPY VARIATION
Don’t settle for the first phrasing that comes to mind.
Write variations until you find the most enticing and
concise version. Ask others for feedback.
REMOVE UNNECESSARY WORDS
Every word on your page must be necessary. If you
can remove a word without reducing how enticing,
clear or critically informational a sentence is, do it.
DON’T PITCH EVERY VALUE PROP IN FULL
Stick with the ones that entice your ideal customers
most. Take a 80/20 approach. The more visitors must
read, the less they’ll read in total.
AVOID MEANINGLESS SALES FLUFF
Steer clear of empty cliché words like
‘revolutionary’, ‘incredibly’, ‘powerful’, ‘best-
ever’ and alike. They don’t tell visitors anything
and you’ll seem a copycat. Instead, specifically
describe exactly how you're unique.
MINIMIZE SCROLLING
Provide the main value props at the first
impression. Visitors shouldn’t have to scroll to
understand fundamental value propositions.
Nailing information density

The winning formula
1. NAVBAR — Top of the page: company logo and site links.
2. HERO — Big section with header text, subheader text and most enticing imagery.
3. SOCIAL PROOF — Logos and/or testimonials of best-known clients.
4. CALL-TO-ACTION — Signup button or similar with a concise incentive to go for it.
5. FEATURES & OBJECTIONS — Key value propositions. Why people would choose you.
6. CALL-TO-ACTION REPEAT — Repetition cooks an idea into people’s heads.
7. FOOTER — Miscellaneous links.

Navbar
LOGO —————————-——————————————-——————————— LINKS —— CTA
• Logo
• Links to key sections on your page
• CTA - button (e.g. Buy now, Notify me, Request access,…)
The fewer links, the better. Maximize focus on the CTA.

Hero
—————————-—————————————— (IMAGERY) ————————————-———————————
HEADER
SUBHEADER
—————————-—————————————— (IMAGERY) ————————————-———————————
If the visitor reads nothing else on your page,
they should still get your product and why they should use it.

Hero — Imagery
The purpose of the hero imagery is to visualize the value propositions
conveyed by the header and subheader.
It should complement and reinforce the copy. Not distract from it.
Most often, this comes down to just showing off your product.
Software → screenshot
Physical products → picture
Services → illustration

“In advertising, the greatest thing
to be achieved is believability.
Nothing is more believable than
the product itself.”

Make them want to scroll. But don’t require them to scroll.
Descriptive, while concise.
Hook them. Or lose them forever.
Be speciﬁc. Don’t be vague. “Improve your workflow!”
If a visitor reads only this on the page, would they know exactly what you sell?
Hero — Header

How to write great headers
01
Identify a compelling feature that captures your product’s purpose
02
If needed, point out the purpose explicitly
Hero — Header

What makes a compelling feature?
Something that makes a target persona say to themselves:
“I want that!”
“Finally, a reason to sign up for one of these products!”
Hero — Header

1. Compelling features — Example: Video Chat App
Chat with anyone quickly.
Chat on your phone, tablet, or desktop.
Auto-translate real-time conversations regardless of language.
Get transcripts for every conversation — emailed to you.
Have auto-translated chats with foreigners.
Find someone to video chat with in less than 30 seconds.
Hero — Header

Hero — Header
Chat with anyone quickly.
Chat on your phone, tablet, or desktop.
Auto-translate real-time conversations regardless of language.
Get transcripts for every conversation — emailed to you.
Have auto-translated chats with foreigners.
Find someone to video chat with in less than 30 seconds.
1. Compelling features — Example: Video Chat App

Does the visitor get why the value proposition matters?
If not, point it out explicitly.
Riley texts your real estate leads for you — to automatically qualify them.
Have auto-translated chats with foreigners — to have fun learning any language.
2. High-level purpose
Hero — Header

Visually design and develop sites from scratch. No coding.
Groceries delivered in 1 hour. Skip trafﬁc, parking, and long lines.
Invest in crypto even if you’ve never invested in crypto.
Create engaging animations for any app or website.
Rent real people's homes. So you can experience a city like a true local.
Hero — Header
Good examples

BAD Forest: Stay focused, be present.
BETTER An app that prevents phone addiction. So you can focus on what’s more important.
BAD Extend your software development team.
BETTER Add experienced remote devs to your team. Higher quality for lesser cost.
BAD Keep your money safe.
BETTER We create secure virtual cards for you so you can pay without revealing your real card details.
BAD The smarter way to send business payments internationally.
BETTER Send money to anywhere in minutes at the real-time exchange rate. No hidden fees.
Hero — Header
Bad examples, rewritten

Hero — Header
“When I write an advertisement, I don't want you to tell me that you ﬁnd
it 'creative.' I want you to ﬁnd it so interesting that you buy the product.”
DAVID OGILVY

Hero — Subheader
When you depict an amazing life, here’s what visitors typically think:
“Ok great. But how?”
“That sounds too good to be true.”
“There’s probably a catch.”
Now that people understand what your product does,
use your subheader to describe how it is able to do that.

Riley texts your real estate leads for you — to automatically qualify them.
A network of vetted concierges monitor your lead chats to respond whenever you're busy.
Have auto-translated chats with foreigners — to have fun learning any language.
In real time, we transcribe and translate your words into 100 languages.
Hero — Subheader
Examples

Hero — Subheader
Examples
CRYPTO PAYMENT SOLUTION
Our app accepts cryptocurrency payments, converts it into your currency at a locked-in
exchange rate, then transfers it to your account.
INTERACTIVE VIDEO SOLUTION
Mindstamp helps you engage and educate your viewers by adding notes, pop-up
questions, and CTAs to any video in seconds.

Social proof
As soon as visitors look/scroll down from the amazing value props in the hero, they should
be seeing other people/companies that are not you vouching for those value props.
LOGO —————————-— LOGO —————————-— LOGO —————————-— LOGO
TESTIMONIAL ——————TESTIMONIAL ————-— TESTIMONIONIAL ————-— TESTIMONIAL

Aim to make the visitor feel as if everyone (people/companies
they identify with) is already using your product.
Except for them. Create irresistible FOMO.
What if nobody is using your product because, well, you’re an early-stage startup?
Give people your product (or mockup) for free, then ask them for a testimonial.
Let’s say the idea of “fake it till you make it” applies here.
Social proof

Call-to-action
—————————-——————————-— HEADER —————————-——————————-—
—————————-——————————-— (FORM) —————————-——————————-—
—————————-——————————-— BUTTON —————————-——————————-—

The visitor is excited now.
The goal of your header is to get them to act on that excitement.
Call-to-action — Header
Aim to make the CTA header speciﬁc about how close they are to your amazing value prop.
Make it tangible how the awesomeness is only 1 step away.
“You just have to do this and you can get all of this!”
“Get a new logo in 24 hours.”
“Just set your price and go.”
“Open an account right from your laptop.”

Have the button speciﬁcally describe what happens after
clicking, what speciﬁc action the visitor is taking.
Notify me, Request early access, Join the waiting list
Call-to-action — Button + Form
To collect email addresses, you’ll need a form.
Consider including the form directly in the CTA section.
(Cut out as many steps you don’t necessarily need.)
• Name
• Email address
• “How did you hear about us?” (+ dropdown)

Features & Objections
FEATURE #1 —————————-——————————————————————-———————————
—————————-——————————————————————-——————————— FEATURE #2
FEATURE #3 —————————-——————————————————————-———————————
This is where you put all of your chips on the table for visitors that
don’t convert from the hero + social proof (spoiler: many won’t).
In other words: time for the full sales pitch.

This is where you go all out with value props. While you’re at it,
seize the opportunity to proactively address possible objections
visitors may have concerning them.
• Header that states the value proposition (~ framework Hero section)
• Paragraph to elaborate on the value prop and address potential objections
• Image/illustration to visualize / reinforce the value prop
Elements per feature

Features & Objections — Header
3-7 WORDS DESCRIBING FEATURE OR VALUE
Avoid vague language → “The bank of the future”
Be descriptive so visitors can decide whether it’s relevant to them as they scan the page.
If they don’t care, they can skip → You reduce labor and increase focus.

Features & Objections — Paragraph
Blunt brevity
Concisely describe the feature.
~ Value proposition generation
+ Address possible objections.
Point out how the status-quo is no good and
describe how you make it better.
Keep it short and simple.
Speciﬁc. No sales fluff.
Bullet points.

Features & Objections — Examples
Header
A simpler workflow for docs & tasks
Paragraph
Tired of linking Google Docs and Trello? Notion seamlessly
blends the two. Full-powered project trackers with docs inside.
Save your team from context switching.
Header
Invest for free
Paragraph
We’ve cut the fat that makes other brokerages costly, like manual
account management and hundreds of storefront locations, so we
can offer zero commission trading.
Header
Truly Private Messaging
Paragraph
Status uses the peer-to-peer protocol Whisper and end-to-end
encryption to protect your communication from third party
interference. Only you can view your messages.
Header
With LOOP, parents are more connected with each other.
Bullet points
• Create a chat room to organize school carpools.
• Find a trusted babysitter on the fly.
• Arrange playdates and (kid-free) social gatherings.

The more expensive, innovative, unintuitive your product is, the more
objections you should address.
If you’re having a hard time deciding which objections to highlight, study
your competitors’ messaging to learn how to differentiate yourself from
what people expect you to say.

The Ladder Of Product Awareness
They’re motivated to solve the problem and are convinced your product is the best solution
They’re motivated to solve the problem, but aren’t sure which solution is best
They’re aware solutions exist, but aren’t sufficiently motivated to solve the problem.
They’re experiencing the problem, but are unaware solutions exist.
They’re not experiencing the problem.
To what extent is your target audience (not) aware of your solution and the problem it solves?

The lower on the ladder, the more you’ll need to go out of your way to educate them.

This applies to landing pages, ads, content,… anything that qualiﬁes as marketing material.

Features & Objections — Imagery
Product screenshot (or mockup).
Image that demonstrates the feature in action.
Illustration that captures the purpose.
Pretty much the same essence as for the hero.
Make sure it adds value to your story.
Avoid meaningless eye candy.
Thumbs up for animated GIFs.

Features & Objections — Examples

A ﬁnal CTA, then some links
1. NAVBAR — Top of the page: company logo and site links.
6. CALL-TO-ACTION REPEAT — Repetition cooks an idea into people’s heads.
7. FOOTER — Miscellaneous links.

Mix up as you see ﬁt
The essentials

The design part
A visually appealing design does help conversion.
By showing you’re not an amateur.
Don’t overdo it, but make sure:
1. It's enjoyable to visually skim.
2. It looks thoughtfully put together.
3. Each section is clearly structured.
4. It reflects what you stand for (brand).

Landing page builders
landerapp.com
instapage.com
leadpages.net
unbounce.com
wix.com
webflow.com
These tools typically include:
• Drag-drop building blocks for various elements (including forms)
• A built-in mechanism for collecting your leads
• Easy integration with services like Google Analytics, Mailchimp, Hotjar, Facebook Pixel etc.

Getting feedback on your page
People outside of your target audience
Learn how enticing and comprehensible your copy is people who aren't
familiar with your market or product. A mistake many make is to over-
assume the baseline knowledge of an audience.
People from your target audience
Learn if your messaging is sufﬁciently unique and descriptive to convince
people from your target audience to choose you over competitive solutions.

• Are you willing to hand over your credit card and sign up right now? If not, what would it take?
• Rate how the page sustained your interest on a scale of 1-10.
• What do you suggest be rewritten or redesigned to help it better sustain your interest?
• What unanswered questions are you left with?
• Something awesome you wanted even more details on?
• If you had to delete half the page's imagery and copy, which would it be?
• What triggered your “bulls*t” reflex?
Getting feedback on your page

Inspiration
https://persistiq.com
https://streak.com
https://copper.com
https://frontapp.com/
https://airtable.com
https://figma.com/
https://tryshift.com/
https://cindergrill.com/
https://notion.so
https://webflow.com/
https://grammarly.com/
https://duolingo.com/
https://cover.com/
https://frame.io/
https://withjoy.com/
https://slite.com/
https://flat.io/
https://shape.space/
https://paste.bywetransfer.com/
https://wake.com/
https://usepastel.com
https://goodweb.design https://pageflows.com/pages

Catching customers in your web

Marketing at a startup starts from the inside
out. As you build the product, you start talking
about it to as many potential customers as
possible. This will help build an understanding
of (1) who buys your product, (2) why they buy
it and (3) how they talk about it.

STARTUP MARKETING 101
Get as many potential
users as possible to learn
and talk about your startup

DES TRAYNOR, CO-FOUNDER INTERCOM
The most important tasks for any early stage startup
are to write code and talk to users. About 50% of my
time was spent communicating with potential users,
whether that was asking them to try Intercom over
email, meeting them at conferences, write blog posts,
responding to users in blog comments or talking to
them on Hacker News.
Livechat software, founded in 2011, valued today at ± 1.85bn

Does that mean you have to start writing
blog posts the moment you leave this hall?

You can’t reach users in ways they’re not reachable.
As much as you can’t phone people who don’t have a phone,
you can ‘content market’ to people who don’t read.
(Or at least don’t read the stuff you’d write about.)

• If you’re selling a cool new piece of technology to
developers, like Twilio, community-focused activities such
as meetups are going to work better than paid ads.
• If you’re selling clinic management software to dentists,
then speaking at/sponsoring a dentistry conference will
probably outperform social media.
• If you’re selling dating apps to millennials, then clever PR
or on-campus, offline campaigns will likely beat event
sponsorship.
• If you’re building an iPhone game for teenagers, Snapchat
Ads are more likely to work than opinionated articles on
the educational duties of the gaming industry.

01
Start by understanding the behaviors and
mindset of the people you’re trying to reach.
02
Choose a particular marketing tactic based on
those exhibited behaviors.

How to think about acquisition
1. Nail your messaging
2. Understand your customer
3. Ideate on ways to reach your customer
4. Score and rank each idea
5. Test your best ideas

Clearly define how your product makes
the lives of your target customers
better than it is right now.
By now, you know to do this from
building your landing page.
See slides 15-25

Example
Our AI-powered shovel helps onion farmers dig
holes faster, so they can plant more and sell more
with less back pain than traditional shovels.
What is the product?
An artificially intelligent shovel.
Who is the customer?
Onion farmers.
What value is generated for them?
Time saved through faster planting.
How is it better than the old way?
Less back pain than traditional shovels.

The better you’re able to grasp the mindset
and behavior of your target customers, the
better you’ll be at reaching them with the right
message, in the right place, at the right time.

The more specific you are about your customer, the easier
it is to understand how to reach them and what message
should be used to do so.
For the AI shovel example, onion farmers are a smaller
audience with different behaviors than do-it-yourself
homeowners. That means their needs and habits are more
specific, which in turn makes it easier to understand them.

• How do your target customers buy products like yours today?
• Where do your customers hang out online?
• What kind of content do your customers seek and consume?
• Which apps do your customers use?
• What questions are my customers asking?
• Where do your target customers connect with people like them?
• Where do your target customers get their information personally?
• Where do your target customers get their information professionally?
• Who do your target customers look up to?
• Who do your target customers trust?

Dream up all the ways you could reach your
audience and write each idea on a giant list. Don’t
worry about thinking big and crazy at this point.

• Buy sponsor slots on the annual OnionCon conference.
• Get a speaker slot on the annual OnionCon conference.
• Get an interview on the OnionPod podcast.
• Start a YouTube channel for onion farmers.
• Facebook advertising based on interest in onions and shovels.
• Google Ads targeteted to keywords like ‘shovel’ and ‘onion farming’.
• Content creation on onion farming & shoveling.
• Sending sample shovels to all the speakers at OnionCon.
• Referral program to incentivize word-of-mouth among onion farmers.
• Make distribution deal with retailers where onion farmers shop for gear.

More resources for ideating on acquisition tactics
• 19 traction channels
• Bullseye brainstorming exercise for the 19 traction channels
• Cheap traction tests you can run to validate channels

CAN IT SCALE?
SCALABILITY
EASE & COST
AVAILABILITY
PRODUCT/CHANNEL FIT
RELEVANCE
GUT FEELING
BLINK
1-5 1-5 1-5 1-5
65 pt

SCALABILITYAVAILABILITYRELEVANCEBLINK
What do you think
about the idea before
you even realize you’re
thinking?
Based on Malcolm
Gladwell’s stellar book.
Don’t try to sell hearing
aids on Snapchat. Or
find B2B customers on
Pinterest.
How easy is it to set up?
How long will it take?
How much will it cost?
YouTube videos may
work very well, but are
expensive to make.
How easy is this channel
to scale up?
Answering Quora
questions may be
effective, but you have to
write them one by one.

AVAILABILITYRELEVANCEBLINK
What do you think
about the idea before
you even realize you’re
thinking?
Based on Malcolm
Gladwell’s stellar book.
Don’t try to sell hearing
aids on Snapchat. Or
find B2B customers on
Pinterest.
How easy is it to set up?
How long will it take?
How much will it cost?
YouTube videos may
work very well, but are
expensive to make.
SCALABILITY
Don’t worry about
scalability at this point.
It’s more important that
you get a sense of your
customer’s behaviour
and validate your
messaging.

CAN IT SCALE?
SCALABILITY
EASE & COST
AVAILABILITY
PRODUCT/CHANNEL FIT
RELEVANCE
GUT FEELING
BLINK
1-5 1-5 1-5 1-5
= BRAS Score
X X

5. Test your best ideas
• Take your best 2-4 ideas and start executing.
• Adopt an experimental mindset while doing so.
• If something works, put more of your chips on it.
• At all times, aim to understand why ideas (don’t) work.
• Then use those insights to generate new, better ideas.

B2C vs. B2B
You’ll use acquisition tactics is to get relevant people to express interest
in your product.
So you’ll be able to tell investors at the pitch this many people are ready to
buy my product.
This is customer validation: it tells the investors something about how
likely it is that your product will do well on the market if they decide to
invest in it.

B2C vs. B2B
If you have a B2C product, you’ll do this through signups: you reach your target
audience somewhere online, convince them to go your landing page and get them to
indicate their interest by leaving their email address.
(1) You reach them somewhere on the internet (2) with some kind of message that
gets their attention and convinces them to click to (3) your landing page where they
learn more about your product in a way that gets them to (4) act on your CTA and (5)
express interest by leaving you their email address.

B2C vs. B2B
If you have a B2B product, the goal is to get a business customer to express
formal intent that they want to buy once your product comes on the market.
They won’t give you this from just your landing page. You’ll need to get into a
conversation with them - via email, direct messaging and over the phone.
You can do this by following with up people that leave their email address on
your landing page or by reaching out yourself.

B2C vs. B2B
We’ll first cover strategies for how to find your target audience online and get
them to come to your landing page.
This is mostly relevant for B2C, but can also work for B2B. Business people are
still people so they can also be reached in different channels and convinced to
come to your landing page. There, they would then leave their email address so
you can follow up with them.
Near the end, we’ll get into how to find prospects for B2B and get you in a
conversation with them so you can convince them to express intent.

B2C vs. B2B
Getting intent is not really easy. Business people have priorities and not a lot of
time. They aren't exactly sitting around waiting around for your call.
You’ll have some convincing to do.
In some cases, getting B2C signups can help make your B2B case stronger. B2B
decision makers are mainly interested in how much more money they’ll make or
save with your product - and this is often related to the interest of B2C customers.

B2C vs. B2B
For example, if you’re making an app that helps festival goers ﬁnd their friends in
crowds, getting a lot of signups from people that go to festivals will help you
convince festivals that their attendees want this.
So, ask yourself whether you should mainly go for getting B2C signups, for getting
in touch with B2B decision makers - or for a strategy that combines the two. This
will determine what channels and strategies are for you, and even how you should
position your landing page: to businesses or consumers.
Ask your marketing mentor for help with this.

Zero-budget user acquisition tactics with fast feedback loops
This list is non-exhaustive (that would take an entire AIA program of keynotes)
Focus on the concepts.
It’s always about what your target customers are asking, searching for, what content they
consume, what influencers they follow, what other apps they use etc.

WHAT ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS ASKING?
Quora
Quora means to give the world the best possible answer to any question
humans could possibly have.
Users can ask questions, write answers and upvote/downvote answers.
Answers with the most upvotes (and least downvotes) end up on top.
People from your target audience have likely posted questions you can
answer. You just have to show up and gently point them to the
solution: your product.

Quora — What you can get out of it
Highly-qualified traffic
Because of the 1-1 relationship
between what the user is looking for
and your value, on-site conversion for
Quora traffic is typically higher than for
many other channels (10% -15%).
Thought leadership
As you help out your target audience in
what they care about by answering
questions relevant to them, you’ll
become an influential voice and they’ll
start valuing your opinions.

Quora — Researching questions
• Study what people are asking and what language they use to do so.
• Study the most upvoted answers for relevant questions and try to understand why
people like those answers more than others.
• Study the numbers of followers, answers and views of questions to get a sense of how
many people seem to care about it.
• Questions with signiﬁcant traction also hold more potential for you to acquire users by
writing good answers to it.
• Don’t be discouraged by low metrics for questions. Your target audience may just not
on Quora as much or voice the questions they have altogether. Metrics say something,
but don’t tell the whole story.

If you mean to target users from
non-English speaking countries,
check out Quora in other
languages.
Quora — Researching questions

High-value questions typically have
more followers than answers. The
higher this ratio, the better. This
means a lot of people are
interested while not a lot of people
have provided answers.
Quora — What makes a question worth answering?

Use the search module — Quora has a
search functionality that lets you ﬁnd
questions, answers, topics, users and
spaces from search keywords.
Quora — Finding questions to answer

Related questions — On every question page,
Quora will show related questions on the
right-hand side of the page.

Topics & influencers — Quora also organises
similar questions around topics. For each
topic, you can identify influential writers by
checking out Most Viewed Writers. These
influencers will most probably also have
answered other relevant questions.

Don’t be spammy and mindlessly pitch. Instead, focus on providing real help.
From the start, align your answer to the question and gradually build a convincing
narrative towards your value proposition.
Then try giving them a good reason to check it out (call-to-action).
To ensure relevance, combine the best ideas from already present answers and
bring them together in your own way.
Be mindful of who you’re writing to and make the value obvious and relevant.
It’s not that different from building great landing pages (;
Quora — How to write good answers

Quora — How to write good answers

• Ask team mates to upvote your answers.
• And downvote the other answers on the same question.
• Pro level: create a group chat with all teams that are active on Quora so you
can support each other.
• Quora may penalize upvotes - and downvotes for coming from the same IP
address (since we’re all on the same network here). Try to up - downvote
from your mobile phone instead.
• Pro level: use a VPN to change your IP + location (Hola VPN is a free
browser extension)
• I recommend to use one Quora account per team to write answers from.
Quora — How to get your answers to the top
Facebook Group to get upvotes

Whether your audience is asking questions on Quora gives you a sense of where they are on the LOPA

WHERE DO YOUR CUSTOMERS CONNECT WITH LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE?
Product Hunt
Product Hunt is Product Geek Heaven.
It’s where early adopters come together to connect over
their passion for new products and technologies.
Match made in heaven for AIA projects.

The Daily Hunt
Every day again, new products for users to check out.
Products compete to be on top by the end of the day.
Upvotes
You rise in the ranking by getting upvotes from
community members. But that’s not the only thing that
counts (there’s a secret algorithm).
Hunters & Makers
Only community members with Hunter permissions
can post new products. Members that created the
product are called Makers.
Product Hunt

Product Hunt — What you’ll get out of it
You’ll get on the radar of early adopters
These are the type of people who’ll try your
product when it’s still a baby. They’re okay with
it still having growing pains.
You’ll get invaluable product feedback
While the traction is awesome, early stage this
is still mostly about getting as many people as
possible to talk about your product.
You’ll get trafﬁc and signups
People come flocking to your landing page to
check out your product and get early access.

Product Hunt — How to launch
Since only Hunters can post products, you’ll ﬁrst need to get ahold of one.
This may take a couple of hours or even days, so start early.
If you want to launch, talk to me and I’ll get you a Hunter.
(WhatsApp +32478638070)
Since you can’t really give users access to the product just yet, position your
submission and landing page as a Pre-launch with a call-to-action along the lines of
Request early access, Notify me or Join the waiting list.
You can put as much effort in a Product Hunt launch as you like. You can prepare it
meticulously and aim for the top spot or you can just have it posted with some
minimal prep and see what happens.

I wrote one of the most used guides to launch on Product Hunt
following a launch I did with a startup.
The Ultimate Playbook to blowing your Product Hunt Launch out of the water
If you want an additional perspective, I also recommend this resource:
10 Steps to Launching a #1 Product on Product Hunt

In case multiple teams would want to go for this, you can
leverage the power of AIA in a similar way as previously
recommend for Quora upvotes.
Create an upvote group chat (WhatsApp, Messenger, Telegram) to coordinate.

WHO DO YOUR TARGET CUSTOMERS TRUST?
92% of consumers trust recommendations
from friends and family over advertising

Leverage the networks of early enthusiasts by incentivizing
them to share with their friends and family
Rhyme your marketing campaign with a waiting list system
that lets leads move up the leaderboard by sharing your
campaign with their friends and family.

Referral Programs — The Startup Prelaunch

You can implement this quickly and without
coding with Viral Loops.
Register for a free 14-day trial at https://
viral-loops.com and get started with the
Startup Prelaunch template.
If you need help, talk to the guys from Viral Loops via the
live chat on their site. Tell them you’re running an EIA
project and that I referred you (I gave them a heads up).
Referral Programs — The Startup Prelaunch

Referral Programs — Other formats
Other relevant Viral Loop formats to run for making
the most out of a launch would mostly be:
• Milestone referral
• Leaderboard giveaway
However, for these (and others), the format kind of
demands you to have rewards to give users that
share most. While for the Startup Prelaunch it’s
ﬁne if you just promise them early product access.

Facebook Groups
This is about aligning your story to the audience you’re targeting it too.
That becomes easier as an audience is more homogeneous (i.e. the people that make up the
audience increasingly similar to one another)
This is what makes Facebook Groups so powerful.
You can group a bunch of people that correspond to your ideal customer, that share that one
pivotal interest. Then you connect with them, learn from them, and market to them.
Except it won’t feel like marketing. It will feel like you’re helping them.
And that’s about the best marketing can get.

Facebook Groups
Facebook Group for writers created by an entrepreneur who’s
looking to create software to help writers write better, faster.
The takeaway: don’t spam, help and care.

Facebook Groups — Join existing groups
Resist the temptation of blatantly posting your landing page asking for signups. There’s few things
people hate more than spam. Instead, try to start a conversation. Create the narrative of you trying to
solve a speciﬁc problem for them and wanting to work with them to get it done.

Can’t ﬁnd Facebook Groups on your topic?
This tells you something about the (un)awareness of your target audience.
Find Facebook Groups on your topic but no good ones? Great.
That’s a sign of an underserved niche. And you can ﬁll that need by creating a
killer community of which you’ll be the king.
This can be extremely powerful. But takes careful recruiting, lots of content
creation and community building. And thus time.
Facebook Groups — Create your own

Other communities
designernews.com
For designers.
stackoverflow.com
For programmers.
getcrafty.com
For DIY artists (by Etsy).
sephora.com
For makeup affecionados.
LinkedIn Groups
Like Facebook Groups.
slofile.com
Directory with Slack Groups for
developers, marketers, entrepreneurs,
designers, scientists, crypto, sports,
music, travel, health,…
shethinx
For girl power.

Other communities
Every Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitch, Tik Tok,
Snapchat… account with substantial following is essentially a community.
All of those people share at least one interest, and that interest brings them
together - in a Facebook Group, on a Reddit forum, subscribed to a YouTube creator,
following an Instagram influencer, a Twitch gamer etc.
The question is always the same
Where is your audience hanging out?
That’s how you should think to consistently ﬁnd them, reach and learn about them.

WHAT CONTENT DO YOUR CUSTOMERS SEEK AND CONSUME?
Acquisition on Instagram
You can reach target audiences on Instagram via other other accounts that post content related/similar
to your value proposition.
For example, if want to reach people that love bread — target the users that follow and engage with
accounts about wine, cheese, gastronomy etc.
Follow them, like and comment on their posts. This will make your account pop up in their notifications.
If they are triggered by your profile picture + name, they’ll click through to land on your profile page.
Then it’s up to you to convert them with relevant content an appealing CTA in your bio.

1. Make a list of accounts your target audience follows and engages with.
2. Make sure to have a nicely ﬁlled feed with relevant, quality content. For
inspiration on what to post, study target accounts: identify the posts with
the most likes/comments and have that inspire the content you create +
post. Or steal it. Up to you.
3. Engagement like following, liking and commenting to get on the radar of
your target audience.
4. Include a convincing offer / call-to-action on your account page so you
can send users that land on your proﬁle page to your landing page.
5. (You can automate this process - but Instagram doesn’t like this so much
and it’s become increasingly risky.)
Acquisition on Instagram

Instagram, Twitter, Quora, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Pinterest… You can apply the same
kind of thinking across different social media platforms. On all of them, audiences can be
found and reached through content, topics and influencers that interests them.
All you have to do is ﬁnd out what they are following, liking, commenting on and then use
the platform’s mechanisms to get on their radar.
Other platforms

Reddit — Where viral stories are born
Reddit is the world’s 17th website for trafﬁc (5th in the US).
Because users are anonymous, you should probably not consider this a
sustainable customer acquisition channel.
Because of its huge user base, high levels of engagement and wide
variety of subreddits however — it’s also a great place to create buzz
and momentum around your startup.
Reddit is where stories go viral before they reach social media and
mainstream media. But it’s usually hit or miss.

Reddit — What you need to know ﬁrst
Reddit likes laws and law enforcement.
There’s lots of posting rules you’ll need to comply with, often speciﬁc ones per
subreddit.
Moderators are ruthless and will take every opportunity to take your post down.
For every subreddit you try to post in, read the rules, study the posts that stay up
and get traction, plus make sure you post with a high-karma account.

Reddit — What you need to know ﬁrst
Reddit doesn’t like outsiders.
As a Reddit user you can accumulate karma through the amount of upvotes and
comments your posts get. A user’s karma indicates the seniority of a Reddit user and
determines how severely moderators judge their actions.
In short: don’t create a new Reddit account and immediately post a story about
yourself.
Instead, accumulate karma ﬁrst in easy subreddits or get your hands on an account that
already has a good amount of karma (let me know if you want to use my account).

Reddit — Maximizing your chances of big time buzz
To go viral on Reddit, content needs tell a story that makes an audiences feel something.
This can be happiness, motivation, inspiration, sadness etc. in a way that makes them want to share it with
other people.
Rather than the startup itself, focus on the story, even if that story doesn’t directly involve your product.
To get people to read the story in the ﬁrst place, you’ll need to write a hook (subject) that stands out in the
list of posts in the subreddit.
Think of the type of headlines that you would click. At the same time, avoid clickbait where the story
doesn’t deliver on the promise of the hook. Users will feel cheated and vote your post down.
Mind that it doesn’t need to have a text post: images and (especially) videos can work too, if done well.

Reddit — Example
I once made a startup from Rwanda that makes shoes out of tyres and banana leaves go viral on
Reddit. It was afterwards posted to BBC World and other sites.
I think it’s a good example of how to approach writing the subject line for a post you mean to get traction.
+ Another great example.
How to get your startup on the front page of Reddit
Reddit hates blatant marketing: here’s how you can still get thousands of visitors
List of subreddits

Reddit — The quick win
In the speciﬁc subreddit for startups they actually want you to spam your startup.
In my experience, this is unlikely to get you signiﬁcant traction. But it takes about 2 minutes.
https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/

Betalist — A hybrid of Product Hunt and r/startups
https://betalist.com

Betalist also wants you to spam your startup.
To help enthusiasts discover new startups and provide startups with early user feedback.
Similar to r/startups, this is a quick win that is unlikely to get you real traction.
But why not? You never know.
Betalist — A hybrid of Product Hunt and r/startups

“This video was made possible by Brilliant. Learn everything you want, including how I make videos
like these. The first 200 to sign up via the link in the description will get 20% of a yearly plan.”
Make friends with your customers’ favourite creators

1. Figure out which YouTube videos your customers watches, which podcasts they
listen to, what blogs they read. Anyone who already has the interest of your
audience is worth trying to get ahold of.
2. Build a relationship with the creator and provide a special deal for their audience.
3. Creators with a big audience will ask for a fee, but smaller ones may be happy to
try out your product and be able to give their audience something special.
4. A variation of this would be to ship products to relevant creators and ask them to
review it.

You can also turn this around by creating content (blog, video) around
influencers/creators relevant to your audience.
For example, I and 21 others were sent 4 questions about LinkedIn
marketing — super quick to ﬁll out.
The content creator then aggregated all of the answers into one giant
blog post that got lots of traction.

• For the influencers it’s a quick and easy. Minimum effort for signiﬁcant exposure.
• Getting such a request makes the influencer feel important, especially if the content
project also includes other influencers.
• All of those influencers will be happy to share the content piece with their
respective audiences once it’s ready.
• For the content creator, this is a quick and effective way of creating highly relevant
content while gaining exposure with multiple relevant target audiences at once.
Why this works

DES TRAYNOR, CO-FOUNDER INTERCOM
“In the early days, I used to literally email people and ask
them to use Intercom. If you look at the first 200 emails I
sent from my Intercom email, almost all of them were along
the lines of, “Would you like to try Intercom?” For a customer
we really wanted, I’d mock up a screenshot showing how
we’d nail a reasonable use case for their product. That
helped people understand both what we could do for them
and what it would look like in their product.”
Livechat software, founded in 2011, valued today at ± 1.85bn
BE A HUMAN BEING AND TALK TO YOUR CUSTOMERS
Use email and direct messages
to start conversations and build relations

B2B SALES
Can you get your ideal customer to talk to you?
User acquisition at this point becomes about getting into conversations
with potential customers — be it in-person, over the phone or via email
and similar (direct messages).

For the investor pitch, try to get target B2B customers on a sales call to learn
more about their speciﬁc needs and get them to say they’re interested in
your value proposition as soon as you launch in on the market.
This shows validation.
B2B Sales — Lead generation

B2B Sales — Finding prospects
1. Your already existing network — Comb through your address book and social connections. Anyone in
there worth talking to or who might be able to get you an intro somewhere? Make a post on Facebook/
LinkedIn or send an email to your address book so you don’t have to ask people one by one.
2. Warm intros — Ask your mentors, coworkers, friends, and family for intros to anyone who may be in
the market for your product.
3. Conferences — A big gathering of your target customers you get to talk to in-person, which will always
be more effective than any type of medium you have to use to do so. Try to get your hands on the
guest list beforehand to determine whether the event is worthwhile. This also allows you to reach out
to people you want to meet beforehand. You can even reach out to them without going to the event
4. The internet — Your target customer is somewhere among the 4 billion on the internet. We’ll cover
how to quickly ﬁnd them in a way that you can reach out to them in later slides.

B2B Sales — What to write in emails and DMs
Know who you’re talking to
Always align your pitch and tone to the speciﬁc persona you’re
reaching out to. If you’re an online design testing platform, don’t pitch
a designer the same value proposition as you’d pitch a marketer.

Be contextual, give them a reason to care
You’ll have to convince leads you’re worth paying attention to just about
the ﬁrst 1-2 lines of your messages.
If you can’t trigger them right then and there, they’ll most probably ignore
you. They’ll be busy and have loads of other people trying to get their
attention. Why should they give you theirs?

The hook: Give them a reason to care, set the tone, be contextual.
• Remind them where you know each other from (event, school, LinkedIn, intro)
• Describe a relevant bad situation and show or offer help
• Invite them as early users - make them feel ‘special’
• Invite them to an exclusive event you’re organising (or as speaker)
• Invite them an online community like a Facebook Group
Cold Email Playbook by Mailshake

Make your pitch (2-4 lines)
• After the intro, get to the point. What do you have to offer and why should they care?
• Think back to the idea of header + subhead on your landing page.
• Your users hate video ads. We can solve it, without losing you money.
• Keep it short and simple. You want prospects to read your message before they even
realize they’re reading it. This is impossible with big, chunky paragraphs of text.
• If you feel you can’t make the pitch in such few words, attach a 3-4 slide deck. That way
you leave it up to the prospect to decide whether they need more or not.

Make it easy for them to take action
• End your message by asking a specific, easy-to-answer question or propose an action that
is easy to take.
• For example, don’t ask whether they’d be interested in hopping on a call next week. This
means they’ll have to go check their calendar, find a good time, propose that time to you
etc.
• Instead, propose a specific day+time right then and there.
• Even better: provide a calendar booking link so the prospect can pick a time that works for
them in two clicks.

Mixmax
Calendly

B2B Sales — Outreach example

Hi {{prospect firstname}},
I noticed you guys at {{prospect company}} help brands to generate qualified leads by building tools their
audience can use for free. It’s a great new space, but I know it’s hard for agencies to scale their offering
because development takes up a lot of time.
Because these apps tend to have the same building blocks, we’ve built {{your startup name}} software
that gives you those building blocks so you can develop and deliver much faster. Agencies like {{similar
company to prospect company}} tried our first version and were impressed.
Here’s what their {{decision-maker}} said: {{testimonial}}. I’m confident {{prospect company}} would have
similar results.
Do you have time next week for a chat? You can book a slot with me here.
{{your firstname}} ,
Co-Founder {{your startup name}} {{landing page URL}}

No matter how great your email, it won’t get read if you don’t manage to make its
subject line stand out in the prospect’s packed inbox.
Remember you’re a stranger whose name they’ve never seen before.
Aim to entice, create intrigue, spark curiosity. Try triggering a question in their heads so
they’ll need to open the email to answer that question.
At the same time, avoid looking spammy.
For inspiration, check out the resource below.
The 87 Best Email Subject Lines by Sumo

After sending your ﬁrst message, have two follow-ups scheduled.
Data proves your chances of success improve if you follow up at least two times.
You don’t want to be a pest, but the bottom line is persistence wins. And the
marginal cost of each email you send is low.
B2B Sales — Follow up

But you need to do it right.
Few will respond to your ﬁrst email. Each follow-up is an opportunity to build
credibility to ﬁnally get to a "Fine, I'll respond.”
So don’t waste follow-ups on a limp “bumping this” or “checking in." That’s a
useless nudge. And therefore annoying.
Instead, follow-ups should build atop your original message. For example, provide
video demos visualizing what you originally pitched. Meanwhile, remember the
objective: relate about their world.
B2B Sales — Follow up

To get to the best possible copy and, even more importantly, subject line,
it’s a good idea track a couple of basic metrics of emails you’re sending out.
• open rate — emails sent / emails opened
• response rate — replies / emails opened
• clickthrough rate — links clicked / emails opened
You can use a tool like Streak to do this. (free to use)
B2B Sales — Metrics

You can ﬁnd just about anyone’s professional email from:
• First name
• Last name
• Company domain
Just use one of these these tools (all have free options to use):
B2B Sales — Finding email addresses

LinkedIn is the world’s biggest B2B database.
You can find prospects by:
• Industry
• Job role
• Geographical location
• Company size
• Specific companies
• Groups around specific topics
• … and more
All you have to do is use Search.
The free version doesn’t have all filters, but enough for you to find relevant decision-makers.
B2B Sales — Finding prospects on LinkedIn

Next, you can get in touch in the following ways.
1. Connection request with personal message — Be relevant. Don’t pitch your product
right away. Aim to start a conversation instead. Intro messages are limited to 300
characters so you’ll have no choice but to keep it short and sweet.
2. Find email addresses from ﬁrst and last name — Plug their names and company
domains in an email ﬁnder and reach out to them via a cold email.
B2B Sales — Finding prospects on LinkedIn

Phantombuster is an automation service that can extract (contact) data from
various platforms and sites based on criteria you deﬁne. Free to use for 14 days.
B2B Sales — Finding prospects the internet at large

B2B Sales — Phantombuster: where are your customers

What to do with the data?
Whatever you can do get them to talk to you.
• If you get an email address, you can send them an… email
• If you get Facebook profiles, you can send a friendship request and start a chat, or
add them to a Facebook group.
• If you get LinkedIn profiles, you can send connection requests + intro message or
find their emails using a tool from name + company
• If you get Product Hunt upvoters, you can contact them on Product Hunt or send
them tweets (PH accounts are linked to Twitter accounts)
• If you get Instagram accounts, you can follow them and send direct messages.

… Or you can you analyse the data to get better ideas.
Which influencers are they following on IG? Which Facebook Groups
are they in? What events do they attend? What other products on
Product Hunt do they upvote? What Medium articles do they read?
Remember:
1. Understand their behaviour and mindset.
2. Use that understanding to ideate on tactics to reach them.

Your way to getting B2B decision makers to express intent goes
over two stages:
1. Try to get them to admit that they have the problem you solve and
that they think solving the problem is worth paying for.
2. Ask them how they currently address the problem and if they they
think it's a good solution. If they currently don't have any way of
addressing the problem, ﬁnd out why.
B2B Sales — Calling leads

Especially for the ﬁrst conversations, focus as much as you can on
learning about how your audience thinks and feels about the
problem and their priorities for a solution.
This means asking a lot of questions and listening. Find openings for
making suggestions on how you would solve the problem and subtly
slide them in the conversation.

Keep an open mind and take notes.
You’ll see patterns across multiple calls. Use these to put together a
messaging strategy that helps you make your case more effectively.
Keep track of what prospects mention as important and objections
they make against wanting to solve the problem or your solution in
particular.
You’ll get better at aligning your solution to the needs of prospects
with every call you make.

For each objection, try to formulate a resolution.
Here are a few common objections and ways to address them:
• "It's too expensive” or any money-related argument — To address this,
demonstrate how the money saved or earned from using your product
exceeds its cost.

• “This isn’t a priority right now" — This is their way of saying they don't see
enough value in your product.
First, ensure they understand its value: Kindly ask how much they know
about your X and Y features and how they'd help improve their product or
company.

• “We'll probably look at this soon, but the timing is not right" — Ask what
steps they'd need to take to be convinced they should purchase. Then ﬁgure
out how you can (realistically) make yourself useful in any of those steps.
For example, can you source data or case studies that will help them make a
decision? Or can you re-pitch the product in a way that better appeals to the
other employees's roles in their company?

• “We already have this solution" — Provide examples and list points where
your solution beats the other solution. Highlight the beneﬁt of being a
smaller, more nimble company that can more easily address their needs and
grow the product with them.

• All objections you don’t really have a good answer to — Write them down
and tell them you'll get back to them ASAP.

Your goal is to get them to declare they have the problem and interest for a
(better) solution.
A letter of intent is not something you’ll get from the very ﬁrst call. For every
call, try to get something out of it that moves you closer to your goal.
Ask them if you can call them again with an update, ask them to refer you to
someone in the company that is more relevant, ask for intros at other
companies, ask them if you can show them a pitch deck or demo etc.

Essentially, know who you're talking to before picking up the phone.
• Visit LinkedIn — Review the LinkedIn profiles of everyone you're talking to.
Understand their responsibilities at the company. Then confirm these responsibilities
at the top of the call. Clarify which of your product's value props are most relevant to
them.
• Visit their site — Look at the entirety of their site to see how they position themselves.
Then see how the marketplace talks about them: Google for recent press. If you can
find negative criticism, consider proactively pitching how your product can resolve that
criticism.

Don't find customers for your product. Find products
for your customers.
SETH GODIN

Before you pick up the phone, psych yourself into sales mode.
As a salesperson, you're an actor. Whether you want to be or not.
It doesn't matter if you're having the worst day of your life — your job is to bring it.
On a call, your voice and choice of words are all other people have to assess you by. So smile
when talking. People can hear it through your voice.

Now you have context to call. But what precisely do you say on the call?

Hey, good afternoon!
As a recap, [our product] is for [problem you solve]. How about you guys tell me how you
currently solve [the problem] so I can avoid repeating things you already know. Can you tell
me a bit about your process?
[They respond.]
Great, and where does solving this problem fit into your business priorities?
Consider the template conversation below. Pay attention to the bolded sections as they
indicate the key points you should hit:

[If you’re selling a software product]
Use software like Zoom (Skype works too) to demo your product via a screen share.
I'm going to cover [the following benefits] via screenshare. That's what you guys would like
to cover, is that right? (If not, revise your demo on the spot.)
Here's the big picture of how being a user of our product makes your life a lot easier: [big
picture walkthrough].
Let's narrow into a few of the most valuable benefits of the product: [screenshare the
relevant benefits].

[If you’re selling a software product]
Use software like Zoom (Skype works too) to demo your product via a screen share.
What else would you guys like me to show you? And what concerns do you have about
whether we'd be a good fit for you?

After your demo, if they have neither objections nor feedback, it's usually not because you
did a great job. Rather, they likely weren't invested in your presentation.
Interested leads almost always ask questions.
To break the silence and engage them, ask which of the tasks your product helps with
they're already addressing through other solutions. Then ask if they're currently suffering
from inefficiencies, complexities, or obstacles with those other solutions.
If yes, ask for an example then explain how your product better tackles the problem.

Or just do what your competitors are doing

WHAT ARE SUCCESSFUL COMPETITORS DOING?
Similarweb
Similarweb is a free-to-use Chrome extension that
reveals marketing analytics for websites you’re visiting.

WHAT ARE SUCCESSFUL COMPETITORS DOING?
Similarweb

Doing > (over)thinking
Don’t break your head over how to communicate in Facebook Groups before you’ve validated there’s
actually relevant Facebook Groups to communicate in.
Don’t break your head over whether you should start answering Quora questions before you’ve validated
there’s Quora questions to answer.
Don’t break your head over how to acquire users from Instagram accounts before you’ve validated that
that is indeed the best place to start (Facebook Groups? YouTube channels? Snapchat? Is your audience
B2B?)

Doing > (over)thinking
You’ll get a lot better ideas by starting to browse around, writing some messages and
talking to some potential customers than you’ll get from studying this deck start to end.
Or hypothesising with your team for hours about what would and what wouldn’t work.
The only way to know if something works, is to try and see.
If it does, go all-in. If it doesn’t, understand why and turn the why into a new tactic.

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