We think, (and our 15,000+ users seem to agree!) that Proposify is a kickass tool for making the proposal process easier. But we recognize that proposals are just one step in the sales process, which is why we’ve integrated with various CRM, project management, and invoicing apps to streamline the process even further for our customers.

Integrations make every app more robust, more efficient, and more attractive to customers, which is why we value the partnerships we’ve built with some of the best business apps in the world, like Salesforce, Hubspot, Xero and Quickbooks, just to name a few.

Currently, we integrate with more than 14 apps, and while we plan to do more new integrations in the near future — and some really cool ones that go beyond CRM and invoicing — we can’t build an integration with EVERY app on the SaaS planet.

Sure, tools like Zapier make it easier, but sometimes you just need to make two products talk together on a deeper level.

Now you can with the Proposify API!

Whether you’re a SaaS company looking to power up your app, or you’re a developer with a custom-built application, you can use our API to integrate with Proposify. Maybe you work for a company with your own internal application, and you want to push and pull data between your system and Proposify. All is possible now!

Some of the things you can do by using our API to integrate with Proposify:

• Create and update proposals

• Update the status of proposals

• Approve or reject proposals

• Create and update contacts and clients

• Add or delete comments

• Pull the activity feed

• Invite and manage team members

The Proposify API was lovingly crafted by our Captain Integration and Chief Gif Officer, Alex Plumb. Here’s what he had to say about it:

To get started with the Proposify API, check out our API Docs here.

If you have any questions about our API, please email us api@proposify.biz and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

FACT: If you’re a small business that’s selling services on the low end of the market, it’s going to be almost impossible to scale your business.

You’re also likely to be pretty stressed out since you constantly need to scramble to get new clients, complete their projects at lightening speed to be profitable, and deal with the looming threat of being squeezed out by a competitor who offers an even lower price.

Most things naturally drop in price over time, and there’s not much you can do to control that. Disruptive technology, for example, is making things like web design, legal services, marketing, and electronics cheaper by the day.

If your only value proposition is a claim to offer the lowest price, that’s a crumbling cliff’s edge to build your business on. Someone will always be able to do it cheaper (or say they can).

So there are two ways you can go:

You can stay cheap, but to do that you’ll need to become a true volume-based business, meaning you have to find a way to reduce your costs and sell on a massive scale, like Wix, Walmart, or Squarespace.

But as Brent Weaver of uGurus recently pointed out in a Proposify Biz Chat interview, service businesses like agencies should never be volume based because then they’re not leveraging their greatest assets: personalized strategy and service. That’s your differentiator, and you can’t offer that at a volume level.

What you need to do is to employ value-based pricing to increase your fees and position yourself as a premium product or service, like Versace, Porsche, or MetaLab.

To get out of the lowest price race to the bottom, you must change the conversation from price to value (and make sure you live up to it!)

Here are six steps to use value-based pricing to grow your business, and get out of the rat race.

1. Raise your prices. Period.

At Proposify, we sell to SMB’s, not enterprise. We don’t sell $100,000-$1M/year subscriptions. Depending on who we talk to, some people find our prices high because XYZ proposal company offers their lowest tier plan for $5 cheaper, or because they see us as a commodity product.

We rarely-to-never price match with our competitors, and we’ve stopped using coupon codes, as those customers are less likely to stay with us long-term. Customers who begin their relationship with Proposify based on the idea of the lowest price don’t place a high value on the service we offer. We’re disposable when they find a cheaper deal.

We track metrics by plan group, so we know the churn, LTV (lifetime value) etc. by small, medium and large-sized plans. It provides massive insight.

As you can see from this chart, the more a customer pays for their plan, the less likely they are to churn. If a healthy churn rate for a SaaS business is in the neighbourhood of 3% or less, our $10 plans had net MRR churn that was 8x higher than healthy.

The LTV (lifetime value) of a customer on a large plan is disproportionately large. People who pay more turn out to be better customers in the long term and the amount of handholding/support they need decreases over time.

Every time we’ve raised our prices our revenue per customer increased, as did our overall MRR growth, and we experienced little to no negative feedback from customers. You’d be amazed that people are willing to pay what you ask.

Try this experiment in your own business:

For your next proposal, double, triple, or quadruple your price and see how your sales lead reacts. They may say no, but that’s ok. You need to get used to talking bigger numbers and being OK with being seen as ‘too expensive’.

Don’t be afraid to lose your lead - if you want your business to grow, the size of your leads needs to grow. And if everyone accepts your price without pushback, that’s a sure sign that you’re charging too little.

“If your mindset is that no one pays more than $10k for a website, then you’re not going to ask yourself where the people who buy million dollar websites hang out. The mindset needs to be that there’s enough opportunity out there for what your agency needs.” 

- Brent Weaver, uGurus.

2. Deliver 10x value in return

OK, so while I said you should raise your prices, you also need to raise your quality. It’s called value-based pricing for a reason. You need to provide value; real, results-based value.

You can’t just say you’re premium if you aren’t because those higher tier customers will notice. If you’re a web designer and you actually are high quality, you can start selling premium. If you can’t provide that level of service or deliverable, then hire a creative director who is talented and more experienced than you, and they will make you your money.

Take Andrew Wilkinson from MetaLab as an example. Andrew started as a freelancer and then grew into a premium agency selling to major brands like Apple, Disney, Walmart, Slack, and TED.

How do agencies like MetaLab do it?

• Delivering great work. Not just saying it, actually delivering it.
• Hiring top talent who can execute world class work.
• Having tight, refined processes to ensure they can deliver high-value work consistently and repeatedly.
• Investing in business development to close deals with high-end clients.

If you price by the hour you’re always going to be undercharging. Too often service businesses like agencies base their fees on the hours they estimate it will take they to do the project when they should be able to put a real dollar value on how much money they made/can make the client.

Value-based pricing helps you change the conversation from hourly rates to deliverable results. You can charge $100K because, based on case studies of work with previous clients, you can make them $1 million.

As a SaaS company, we use value-based pricing here at Proposify by structuring our prices based on our value metric — how people get more value from using our product. For us, that’s the amount of proposals you write.

If someone asks about our prices, we change the conversation to be about how long it takes them now to write proposals, and what their time is worth.

What if Proposify could help them create proposals faster, close deals sooner, and make a better impression on new leads?

What would increasing their close rate by 10-20% be worth based on what they charge clients? What’s that worth to them?

Often our customers realize that by using Proposify, we’re helping to deliver thousands of dollars of value for only tens to hundreds of dollars per month.

3. Nail your positioning

Whatever service you offer, you need to double down on a niche. No more generalizing. Look at what problem your company is really good at solving (and one that you also enjoy doing.)

How can you do something innovative that most of your competition doesn't talk about? They may be doing it, but if they don’t talk about it, if they don’t promote themselves doing it, then you still have the competitive edge.

Agencies are often wary about defining a unique position or niche because they’re afraid they’ll alienate leads. But you need to filter out people who aren’t your best clients and attract those who are. If you don’t define who you are and what you do, you’ll end up with customers who aren’t a good fit.

You can’t be premium AND capture the whole market. Versace isn’t going to attract low-income families. And if they tried, they’d fail.

At Proposify, we have competitors who offer similar features. But we have a focus: we work to provide the best user experience, and we’re the best proposal software for companies that care about good design and want their proposals to stand out.

It means inevitably we’re going lose people who don’t prioritize design and just want a tool that’s going to spit out a proposal quick and dirty. But that’s OK because that allows us to focus all of our time making the people who want to spend money on us, happy.

4. Brand always wins out

Brand is the deciding factor for most people, even if they don’t realize it. Brand can be the tipping point when all else seems equal.

Strong branding helps create an emotional connection with your target audience, so you need to start developing your brand right from the beginning of your business, and constantly monitor it. The right brand strategy can help you win the unwinnable price war.

You may not be a household name (yet), but for anyone who interacts with you, you should be making an impression of value and expertise, which will help you escape being pigeon-holed as a commodity.

It’s not enough to just buy Facebook ads; the design and the messaging is what will make an impression and convert customers.

You can’t charge premium fees if your branding looks like the Dollar Store. If you look high quality and have a strong positioning, this will start to build your brand as a premium service. Then you can charge premium prices.

5. Target (and retarget) your high-value customers

A strong business is one that can repeatedly attract their high-value customers at a relatively low cost.

There are two ways of doing that:

1. Be super specific about who you want to target.
2. Filter out the people who won’t make a good customer.

By pixeling people who sign up for your lead magnets or fill out an inquiry form on your site, you can create a custom audience in Facebook to later retarget them with specific offers based on their behaviour.

For example, here at Proposify, we retarget people who started free trials with Facebook ads promoting our free iPhone app. We do this because we found that people who download our mobile app are more likely to upgrade to a paid account at the end of their trial.

If you don't get a lot of traffic to retarget, you can also create lookalike audiences. Facebook can use the information they know about users in your funnel, website visitors, existing customers, etc., to identify and reach similar users at greater scale.

If you’re selling premium services, online ads or content that addresses an entire general market probably won’t deliver the specific kind of customer you want. You may need to create more personalized content that targets certain roles within certain types of companies.

By using account-based marketing techniques such as targeting specific roles at specific companies with customized content, your conversions rate will be higher, making your ad costs lower. This will allow you to charge more because you know exactly who is consuming your marketing and that they can afford your services.

LinkedIn Navigator lets you search to find the particular people you want to target within an organization, like the CMO, or the IT director.

I wrote a post a few months ago about how to use customized lead magnets to generate sales.

6. Have the guts to turn away bad leads

Don’t be afraid to say no to bad leads.

This is a mindset thing. People are afraid to turn away business, but it’s the mark of being good at sales and good at business to know who your customer is and who isn’t.

We had a $10 plan but got rid of it because the customers just weren’t good; they required too much support time, rarely upgraded, and didn’t stay.

It was easy for us to get rid of the plan because we saw it didn’t offer any value to them OR us. We recognized that we weren’t a good fit for each other. They would be better served and happier with another supplier, which meant we would be free to focus on keeping our high-value customers happy.

Conclusion

For most businesses, pricing is probably the trickiest aspect of the proposal. Price it too low and your business could lose money. Price it too high and you risk losing the whole project.

But by employing value-based pricing, you can get off the pricing teeter-totter. Define the value you’ll deliver to the client, don’t just leave it up to them to figure out. Explain how you can help them achieve their goals, solve their problem, or improve their business.

This will stop you from chasing the lowest price provider, and set you on your own track to success.

I’m sorry to be the one to break it to you. The folks at your agency are too nice to tell you the bad news themselves, so I’m here to take on that burden and lay it all on the table. It might be tough to hear, but in the long run, it’s for your benefit.

So before you get all outraged and pick up the phone to fire their asses, take a few minutes to read this post and consider their side of the client/agency relationship. I promise that in the end, it can only lead to a more productive, effective, and valuable partnership.

Now take a deep breath and read on.

So, you’ve hired an agency to help market your business, build your brand, and bring leads in the door. I’ve been on both sides of the fence; I owned a web design agency for five years before I sold it to focus on my online proposal software startup, Proposify. I’ve also hired agencies and freelancers to help with our design and marketing activities.

I can tell you from firsthand experience that both clients and agencies have common complaints about working together. And let me be clear that agencies are not always perfect angels either - they need to take responsibility for their actions.

But clients often bring their own baggage, misunderstandings, and lack of experience into the agency relationship and it ends up being counterproductive.

In short, clients, even those with good intentions, can sometimes get in the way of great work and valuable results.

How do you know if you’re a shitty client? Read on and see if any of these practices sound familiar to you:

Hiring an agency the wrong way

Your process for hiring a new agency may start your client/agency relationship off on the wrong foot before you even make the final decision. You’re like the creepy guy at the bar whose behaviour is so sketchy that it clears the room before you even get the chance to ask someone out. People are texting each other to warn their friends to stay away from you.

To make sure you don’t become the social pariah of the agency world, follow these few do’s and don'ts when choosing an agency to work with:

Don’t put out a public RFP and invite any and every agency to submit.

Most good agencies, the agencies you want to work with, won’t respond to random RFP’s. They know that the RFP process is usually being evaluated on price alone. They’re not going to waste all the time and effort that goes into responding to an RFP (and trust me, it’s A LOT of time and effort) when you’re only interested in a bargain basement price, and not the value that they can deliver your company.

Trust me on this: if the deal happens and you are the client paying the bargain basement price, you’re going to get bargain basement service and work.

Do research a handful of agencies, ask around for referrals, and then separately invite them to a private meeting or phone call to discuss your needs.

Good agencies, the kind you want to work with, know that a successful business relationship is based on a good fit right from the start. They want to make sure that they can provide the right solution to your challenge, deliver results, and provide good ROI. They also want to know that you’ll all get along in the process.

You should have the same criteria when choosing an agency, but you can’t determine any of those things by blindly emailing out a convoluted RFP document. You need to meet in person, or at the very least, have a phone call.

Depending on the size of the potential agency and the appeal of your brand, you might deal with a lower level associate to start with so just to tell them what services you’re looking for. Disclose your approximate monthly marketing spend or project budget, and let them know that you’re shopping around with a few other agencies.

Good agencies want good work, so they’ll get in touch for next steps and to set up a meeting with the right people.

Don’t hire the cheapest agency.

Yes, hire the agency you can afford, but don’t attempt a bidding war or try to get the best deal in town. Again, you’ll only end up filtering out the best agencies who don’t want to deal with that cheap-ass bullshit.

Don’t ask them to submit speculative work. EVER.

If you haven’t hired an agency, don’t ask them for mockups for campaigns, strategy documents, or early design comps. That’s what they get PAID to do. You wouldn’t ask ten carpenters to build you a deck before deciding which one you’re going to hire.

Good agencies won’t put tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of work into trying to win you over and appeal to your tastes, only to be turned down. It’s also not how good work is made.

If you want a sense of the quality of their work, ask for a portfolio, case studies, and references from other clients.

Do ask for a formal pitch and proposal process.

While RFP’s and speculative work are no-nos, it’s totally appropriate to ask for a proposal and pitch meeting. If the potential agency wants your business, they will happily prepare a proposal, and they’ll want to pitch it to you in person or via web conference.

Don’t just ask for the costs to be emailed to you; it doesn’t work like that. They want to wow you, so let them do that. It’s good for you to get a feel for the people you’ll be working with and be able to ask questions.

Do invite other team members to the pitch

Make sure that you invite key people on your team to the pitch; people who will either end up working with the agency once the project kicks off, or who will be affected by the results.

That way they can ask questions about the agency’s process and expertise, plus they’ll get a feel for what the working relationship might be like. Your co-workers may also be able to provide valuable information to the agency that will help with the project.

After the pitch, thank the agency and tell them when to expect a decision. Make sure you follow through with the date, or at least keep them posted on any delays.

If the agency is in high demand, they may tell YOU when they need to hear a yes or no. Don’t be offended by this; they want to be sure that they can schedule the time to do your work amongst the other client projects they have on the go. It may be they can do your project in the next 4-6 weeks, but they’re booked for three months after that.

Discuss the pitch and proposal with your team members to decide if the agency can deliver what you need and that there’s a cultural fit - you want to enjoy working together. Price is important but not the most important thing — just make sure they articulate your return on investment in a way that makes sense.

Ghosting your agency when they need you

If you expected that once you hired an agency, you could go off on vacation or lose yourself in another project and the work would magically get done without you, you’re sadly mistaken. You’re also going to frustrate the hell out of your agency.

Just like any relationship, both sides need to contribute. They need you, and you need them. You’re in this project together.

To complete the work successfully, your agency may need you to answer questions to shape the direction, give feedback at certain milestones, and provide information for deliverables like copy.

Make yourself available for meetings and phone calls. When your agency sends you work to review, approve it or request changes in a timely fashion.

When I ran an agency, 90% of the time projects were delayed because the clients were late providing feedback, approvals, or other resources, like copy or product information. I even wrote an entire post about it.

You don’t want the project delayed now, do you? Neither does your agency. And you certainly don’t want to be the one responsible for delaying the project.

If you’re too busy to talk to your agency every week or two, or get them what they need to complete the project, then appoint someone in your company to be the main point of contact and give them the autonomy to make decisions.

A word of warning: if you do choose a co-worker to take the lead as the agency point of contact, don’t come in at the end of the project and change everything. Make sure you’re staying up to date on the progress of the project. Otherwise, you’ll quickly end up on the Top Ten Clients to Hate list. You’ll also incur more expenses for changing the scope or delaying the project.

You’re either in, or you’re out.

Having unrealistic expectations

Clients are so renowned for having unrealistic expectations when working with an agency that there’s an entire department whose main job is to manage those expectations. It’s politely called “account management”.

Sure, account managers are also tasked with bringing in new business and being your point of contact if you have questions or want to discuss strategy, but really, and they won’t tell you this, one of their biggest challenges is managing your crazy, delusions-of-grandeur expectations.

What kinds of expectations are unrealistic, you ask?

You aren’t their only client

Most agencies, the good ones, have multiple client projects on the go at once. They’re not sitting idly by the phone waiting to hear from you. You also haven’t paid them enough to be the ONLY project they’re working on.

Clients often want work turned around in no time at all - expecting months of work to be launched in a week. But agencies have other deadlines to meet, other work to do. They should meet the deadlines they’ve committed to you, but you can’t expect them to drop everything to work on your project alone. Also, there’s a reality to how long it takes to complete certain deliverables, and if you want quality results, that takes time.

The sad thing is, a lot of agencies bend to unreasonable client demands, and force their team to work late nights and weekends to make the client happy and meet their unrealistic expectations.

The people working on your account aren’t robots, they’re people. They need sleep and a healthy work/life balance, as we all do. Everybody in the agency business knows at least a couple of people who got divorced and lost their families because they lived at the office. You don’t want to be part of that problem. And you don’t want to be on the receiving end of work that’s done by a sleep-deprived, stressed out, unhappy creative director.

Don’t make your agency a scapegoat

Clients are notorious for blaming their agency when bad things happen, things beyond the agency’s control.

Your website got hacked? Sales are down after a market crash? Software the agency recommended had a bug or experienced some downtime? It’s not their fault. That’s like if an asteroid landed at your corporate event and you blamed the person who booked the venue.

Shit happens, and sometimes that shit is outside of your agency’s control. Stay calm, ask them to do whatever is in their power to fix it, but don’t blame them.

Thinking you can do their work for them

Having an agency is like having a dance partner. If you want to get the best work from them, you need to let them lead. Don’t step on their toes.

Remember why you hired them - you needed help. You need outside expertise and resources. If you know better, why did you hire an agency to start with?

That doesn’t mean you don’t have valuable ideas or opinions to contribute to the project, but you need to respect their expertise enough to let them do what they’re good at. Let them do their job. You wouldn’t tell a trial lawyer how to defend you in a murder case. So don’t tell a designer how to design a website, or there will be a murder.

I’ve talked to companies who were about to hire an agency to design their product, and they thought they were supposed to already have all the answers with everything sketched out exactly as they want.

Guess what? The designer at the agency is going to take your sketches, laugh at them, crumple them up, set them on fire, light a cigarette with them, and then butt that cigarette out in the rubble.

Design is not just an end result. It’s a process that involves discussing problems, coming up with ideas for solutions, talking to end users and testing prototypes. That’s how they get to the beautiful result, your project.

There’s nothing creative people hate more than being handed a paint-by-numbers worksheet. They want to find the solution, not have it handed to them. And frankly, that’s what you’re paying them for!

Accept that you aren’t going to have all the answers at the beginning, and that’s OK. Don’t come to your agency with solutions — come with challenges. Your agency won’t think you’re dumb. That’s what they’re here for. That’s their business.

The only other time you get to sit around and complain about your problems is with a therapist, so just enjoy this.

Having crappy taste and offering subjective feedback

Part of hiring a marketing agency usually involves a creative deliverable, and guess what? You’re not always going to like what you see.

That doesn't mean they suck. It doesn’t mean you hired the wrong agency and need to find a new one. It means you don’t like it.

Great design doesn’t happen in one shot - it usually takes feedback, testing, and iteration to really knock it out of the park. So don’t flip out if you don’t like the first version.

Here’s a mental process you should follow to review and critique creative. Ask yourself:

Does this align with the strategy you’ve already approved?

If the strategy was to highlight a particular feature of your product or facet of your brand and the creative does just that, then it’s on strategy. Remember that creative brief you signed off on?  

So if the work is true to creative brief you approved, but you now realize you screwed up and approved the wrong strategy, then say so. Your agency will have to redo the work, which means it’s going to cost more and take longer. But that’s your fault not having your shit together, not theirs.

Is your personal taste interfering with good work?

The fact you don’t like the colour purple because you hated Marie on Breaking Bad doesn’t make the creative off strategy; it just means you don’t like purple. This isn’t a painting going on the wall in your living room; it’s a creative solution designed to get you business results. It’s targeted at your customers, not you.

Feel free to ask the designer why they made certain choices, but listen to their rationale as objectively as possible. If you don’t agree with their decisions on an objective level, tell them.

I once worked with a client who manufactured a medical product. I used the colour red. The CEO at the company was Chinese, and I didn’t know at the time that certain colours have massive significance in Chinese culture.

Red in certain contexts is considered offensive. The product was being sold in China, so the colour choice really mattered. In this case, the client knew best. But it wasn’t based on the CEO’s personal preference, it was based on what the market would accept. That’s good fucking feedback right there.

Does the work make you slightly uncomfortable?

If so, then it’s probably going in exactly the right direction. Do you know why the majority of ads suck and aren’t memorable? Because the agency gave the client what made them feel comfortable. Safe. Passive. Forgettable.

The market doesn’t care how you feel.

Work that stands out is raw, funny, authentic, transparent, and sometimes pushes the envelope. It takes a stand for something. It says something not everyone agrees with. It alienates some people.

So if you feel a tightness in your chest about the work, that’s you feeling something. And if YOU feel something, your target audience just might feel something too. When you can elicit a positive emotional response from your target audience, then it’s time to hand your agency a bottle of champagne because they did their fucking job.

I’m not saying this doesn’t backfire sometimes. When you make yourself stand out, you can offend certain people and this can cause a public relations issue. Use good judgement, but don’t let yourself become such a slave to pleasing everyone that in the end, you please no one, not even your own bottom line.

Being an unforgiving asshole

All of this makes me sound like I think agencies are infallible; they aren’t. Agencies are made up of humans and humans screw up.  

They miss deadlines. They make bad calls. Their work doesn’t evoke the right reaction with your target audience. It happens to the best of agencies.

If there is an occasion when your agency fucks up, call them out on it privately, either over the phone or in person. But remember that they’re people with feelings who likely had very good intentions. No one WANTS to be a fuck up. So treat them the way you’d treat a valued employee during these times, not like a faceless supplier.

If your agency isn’t living up to your expectations, look inward and make sure your expectations are realistic. If they are, then talk to your account manager and light a fire under them.

Before you go above your account person’s head to complain to the owners or decide to fire the agency altogether, give them time to correct the situation.

Agencies want to do good work, and you should expect good work. But you should also expect that shit happens sometimes. It’s not necessarily the end of the world, or the end of your project.

Not paying invoices on time

There’s almost nothing worse than a client who doesn’t pay their invoices on time.

Here’s what to do when your agency send you an invoice:

• Read it over to see what it’s for. If the number isn’t what you expected or you feel you were overcharged, call your account manager and get it straightened out right away. Don’t silently file it away until you’re nagged about it.
  
  

• If the number is what you expected, give it to your account payables department and ask them to pay it. If the invoice says net 15, that doesn’t mean look at the invoice in 15 days; it means have it paid. It means that you should issue the cheque this week or next week to account for the mail delivery time.

Agencies run businesses with narrow margins, long sales cycles, and a lot of clients who wait until as long as possible to pay. Yes, that’s the nature of the business, but contributing to the problem won’t help you either. In lots of agencies, clients who are consistently slow to pay their invoices are dropped way down the priority line when it comes to completing work.

Just pay your fucking bills on time.

Conclusion

I’m really not trying to paint all clients with the same asshole paint brush. But if you ask 1,000 agencies about their biggest frustrations with clients, I guarantee all of of these points will come up 99% of the time.

I don’t think you were born an asshole client. You just have no idea what you’re doing. And by not knowing what you’re doing, you’re ruining your chances of getting mind-blowingly awesome work that will deliver mind-blowingly awesome results.

That’s why I wrote this post. Think of me as the United Nations of the client/agency relationship.

Now, shed your shittiness and be a client that agencies, and your bottom line, will love.

No one wants to fire a client. They pay us money, they have interesting projects, and sometimes they become our friends. Then there’s the other kind of client; the one who is such a nightmare to work with that your business starts to lose money and morale.

I fired a client ONCE, and it was when I was a marketing/communications freelancer. While I’ve worked with lots of challenging people in my career, I quickly realized that this situation was different and there was no chance for a resolution.

Without getting into all the gory details, here’s the gist of what happened:

• Communication barrier

• No acknowledgement of my expertise in an area my client had zero experience

• Unconstructive and harsh criticism from the client

• I couldn't understand why she was upset, and she wasn’t able to articulate the issue in a way that I could do anything about.

• She had a very hostile attitude that suggested I had taken advantage of her.

Let me say that in my 17-year career in marketing, I have worked with a lot of smart, and incredibly talented people. But I’ve also had some doozy clients and nutjob colleagues. I sucked up a lot of bad behaviour over the years for various reasons:

1. That’s what grown up professionals do.

2. I didn’t have the authority to fire a client (or coworker) even if I wished for it on every fallen eyelash.

3. I needed the work.

But here I was, finally my own boss, and I could see that no amount of talking was going to solve the problem. I also knew that this client was likely a one-off. It wasn’t going to turn into big, fat juicy retainer, ever. Continuing to work with this client was probably going to drive me to drink and drain my energy for my other mostly awesome clients.

So during yet another difficult phone meeting, I suggested that maybe it wasn’t going to work out for us to continue working together as it was obvious that we were at a standstill.

Thankfully, the client agreed.

Here’s my advice based on years of not firing clients but wanting to, considering firing clients but changing my mind, and learning to recognize when the time is right.

The challenging project vs. the challenging client

Challenging projects worked on with a collaborative client can still have a successful outcome.

Challenging projects can be the kind that propel your agency forward in its maturity and reputation.

A challenging project can strengthen your team by coming together to solve a common problem, it can demonstrate your ability to find an innovative solution, and it can be that case study for the ages of “Just when we thought all was lost, we discovered the key to making dental floss hip.”

Challenging projects can be fun, inspiring, and rewarding, even if they are a brain-busting amount of work.

Challenging clients on the other hand, not so much.

While working on a challenging project with a good client can still return great results, working with a challenging client can turn even a simple project into a nails-on-the-chalkboard, time-sucking, morale-busting, money-losing nightmare.

Beyond being challenging, what we’re really talking about here is THE PROBLEM CLIENT.

I’m talking about the client who is never pleased with an idea that isn’t theirs, never delivers a clear brief, never sticks to deadlines, never wants to pay for their 27 rounds of revisions, and in general is unreasonably demanding.

The problem client is the one who turns your agency into chaos, affects the culture of the office, infringes on your ability to service other clients, and eats away at your profit margin.

So, how do you decide to fire a client?

Confirm this is actually a problem client.

OK, so I’m going to assume if you’re reading this that you are a functioning adult who has experience working with difficult people and difficult situations, and you understand that business and life, in general, is not a candy-coated Pollyanna ride through Smooth Sailing Town.

Just because a client is challenging does not necessarily mean they are a problem and need to be fired. Part of your job, and that of your team is to make clients happy.

If you’re considering firing a client you need to ask yourself the following:

Have you exhausted all solutions for making this situation better?

In my situation, I realized pretty quickly that there was such a chasm of misunderstanding between the client and me, that there was really no resolution. I had no concept of why she was so unhappy with the deliverable, and she seemed incapable of explaining her reasons to me.

If I had had a whiff of a new direction I could have gone in, I might have taken it, even if I didn’t think it was the right decision. That way we could at least finish the project and move on from each other on a better note.

Takeaway: Make sure you and your team put a sincere effort in to trying to save this marriage. Maybe you need a different account manager, clarity around your project process, a more detailed briefing document, or a better way to manage expectations. Or maybe you just need to sit down and talk face-to-face with the client to see if things can improve.

Have you checked your ego?

I admit that there have been times when I was annoyed with a client, and much of the reason I was annoyed was that my ego was bruised. Maybe they didn’t love my idea, or they wanted a bunch of revisions that were a pain in the butt to do, but they weren’t unreasonable.

In general, I try hard to not let my ego get in the way of delivering better work to clients (or to Proposify), and to distinguish between what the client wants and my view of myself as a total frickin’ genius.

Takeaway: Make sure you’re not letting your ego, or that of a team member, run the show. A client isn’t an asshole just because they didn’t love your concept. Maybe you’re the asshole for not listening carefully to what they said were looking for.

Is this client making you lose money?

I’ve worked in agencies where we had pain-in-the-ass clients, but because the account was worth so much money, we had no choice but to eat their exhaust. However, there are times when a client is so demanding and so difficult that you actually can’t make money off them anymore; they have time-sucked their way through your profit margin.

The client I fired hadn’t started to make me lose money yet, but I could see the loser train coming down the track really fast. I also couldn’t foresee any long term relationship that would make it worth struggling through things now, in exchange for the potential reward of interesting work and a juicy retainer later.

Takeaway: As always, you need to keep your eye on your billable hours. You might have a plump 200-hour a month retainer, but if that client requires 300 hours a month of handholding, you’re in trouble (barring any of your own internal inefficiencies, of course).

Is this client making you lose staff?

Miserable clients can make for a miserable team. If your team is being driven mad by one client, then they’re not going to be able to do good work for your other clients, and over time a dark cloud of unhappiness and resentment will settle over the whole agency. That can spell disaster.

Plus, if a member of your team feels like you’re not standing up for them against a rude or harassing client (within reason, of course, since we’re all wearing our big kid pants over thick skin), they’re going to feel undervalued and will likely move on to another agency.

I think we can all agree that Ken Cosgrove on MadMen was a true victim of both bad clients and an agency that didn’t stand up for its team.

Takeaway: Remember that the talent in your team is the mojo that attracts clients. If you don’t have a good team, you don’t have good clients. It’s your job to lead and protect your team, whether it’s by offering support, listening and acknowledging their concerns, facilitating solutions, and, in extreme circumstances, telling a client to go pound sand.

Take a Deep Breath

Hopefully, if you’re considering firing a client, you’ve put a lot of time and effort into trying to turn the situation around. I worked for someone who was always on the verge of firing a client (mostly due to ego), and it was often my job to come up with a resolution or to prepare the process for how we were going to end the relationship.

So I would go through all the options and present a plan internally first, but usually, by then, things had calmed down. My superior would change his mind and claim that the client was the most valuable one in our roster and we couldn’t live without them.

Takeaway: Never make a decision to fire a client in the heat of the moment. Sleep on it, talk it out with senior members of your team, go for a run, eat a cookie.

Write the email you WANT to send to the client and let out all your emotions about how you really feel, but DO NOT send it. You’ll discover the next day it was too harsh and unprofessional, but the simple act of getting it all out can make you feel better. The sober second thought is usually the wise one, and it could save you from making a costly business mistake.

So you wanna fire a client, now what?

Regardless of how terrible a client is, let’s agree that you always want to take the high road. Not only is it better to stay classy, but you don’t want to burn bridges that you might need to cross somewhere down the road. It’s a small world no matter how big a city you live in and you never know who’s talking to whom, and where that client may show up again in another context. Karma’s a bitch.

There are lots of places on the internet to find scripts for firing clients. I find some of them smell a bit like BS, but they might help give you some starting ideas. Every situation with a problem client is different, so you will need to custom tailor your exit.

Here are some suggestions for the approach:

Don’t lie You can stretch the truth by saying things like, “We’ve really enjoyed working with you but…” even though you threw darts at their photo, but don’t lie about the reason. It can come back to bite you later, as most lies do.

Don’t be a jerk When I say don’t lie, it doesn’t mean you have to tell them that everyone on your team hates their guts. Candy coat things a bit. You can say things like, “It feels like we haven’t been able to find a way to work together that is beneficial for both sides.”

Don’t just email You can send them an email but make sure you also meet with them in person or call them on the phone. It’s more professional, you’ll be sure to get the tone right (polite), and there's a better chance to minimize any hard feelings.

Don’t leave them in the lurch Finish up whatever deliverable you’re working on, package up their files and have them ready to hand over (as long as the client is all paid up, of course). Recommend another agency or consultant who might be a better fit for their needs.

Don’t get into he said/she said Stick to the high road and don’t get into the weeds of specific situations unless it is absolutely necessary. Don’t let this devolve into your high school breakup. Pull the Band-aid off quickly and efficiently.

Exception to the rules If your client has sexually harassed any of your team members, made racist, or otherwise inappropriate and offensive statements or actions, or hasn’t paid you as per your contract, feel free to ignore all of the above and dropkick them to the moon.

And by dropkick them to the moon, I mean contact your lawyer. There are some extreme circumstances that don’t warrant the high road, they call for the legal road.

Happy Endings

In my case, the client and I both agreed that there was an obstacle to completing this project that likely wasn’t going to budge. I also had been paid for half the project and, considering we weren’t going to continue, I was fine with forfeiting the remainder.

When I hung up, I felt a mixture of elation and fear. I was so relieved to be done with this stressful situation but I wondered at the same time if I was out of my mind. What was I doing letting work walk out the door? Thankfully, that fear passed pretty quickly.

Mostly I felt proud of myself for deciding what was right for me and acting on it. When I worked in agencies I never had the power to say enough is enough, and I had some bad situations, like clients hanging up on me when they didn’t like what I said, and some who made sexually inappropriate comments. I’ve also worked with some abusive co-workers. Rarely did my superiors stand up for me or my team in those trying situations.

I also didn’t let this situation erode my confidence in my ability to do good work and make clients happy. The very next project I worked on for a different client, they asked me to invoice them for MORE than the agreed upon amount since they felt I had delivered extra value.

In general, I subscribe to the Jon Buchan client philosophy that it is a privilege to work with clients. But it’s important not to let one bad apple spoil the barrel you’ve worked hard to build.

• Have you ever had to fire a client?

• What steps did you take to soften the blow?

• I’d love to hear your comments and hear about your experiences!

I have written, edited, or managed the creation of what feels like a gagillion business proposals in my career, and 90% of the time I had a feeling of dread throughout the whole process (this was obviously in the dark ages before Proposify existed). But nothing compared to the feeling of writing an executive summary.

There is so much dissent about the function of the executive summary — what it should say, what it should do, how long it should be, and whether it be written before or after the body of the proposal — that it can add to the already stressful task of getting a winning proposal written, designed, and out the door to the client on time.

It’s time to change all that. The executive summary is arguably the most valuable component of any proposal. Its purpose is clear, its potential is huge, and putting it together can be straightforward if you change your approach and follow a few simple steps.

I’ll share what I’ve learned about writing an effective executive summary for client proposals. Hopefully, it will make the proposal process less painful, and help you convince anyone on your team who might disagree to follow your lead. Resistance is futile.

The purpose of an executive summary

First of all, the executive summary needs a rebrand. To me, the name itself speaks of stuffy suits, boring, jargon-filled reports, and boardrooms filled with cigar smoke and people ready to say no. But that’s my hangup.

In all seriousness, the word “summary” can be misleading, and this is the first mistake people often make when it comes to writing their executive summary. They think that this is where you explain the entire proposal in 250 words. That you literally ‘summarize’ the proposal by rehashing everything from page one forward.

But in fact, the purpose of the executive summary is to sell your solution to the client’s problem. It should be persuasive, outlining why the client should choose your company. It should be specific and focus on results.

The executive summary needs to be persuasive and highlight the benefits of your company/product/service, rather than being descriptive and focusing on the features. You can save the features for the body of the proposal.

The executive summary needs to grab the reader’s attention and pique their interest. Even though you and your team spent painstaking hours writing this proposal, selecting just the right graphics, and coming up with the best solution for your client’s problem, they may only read this one page and then flip to your pricing table.

The executive summary helps the client decide quickly whether they're going to read the rest of the proposal, pass it on to other decision-makers, or if it's destined for the recycle bin.

So you better make it good.

When to write the executive summary

This issue of whether you write the executive summary before or after the rest of the proposal is as divided as the issue of what’s better about a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, the chocolate or the peanut butter.

Some people feel you should write the executive summary first because it can help you outline your concept and organize your thoughts for the entire proposal. That way it acts as a guide to members of your team who are tasked with preparing sections of the proposal, ensuring that everyone’s on the same page, that the big idea is consistent throughout, and that all necessary components are included.

Others feel strongly that you should write the executive summary after you’ve prepared the rest of the proposal because then you’ve had a chance to work through the objectives and the solutions, and you’ll have a better idea of what you want to say and how you want to say it. Plus things may have changed since you first started the proposal so you might need to adjust your approach.

My suggestion is chocolate AND peanut butter.

I like to write the executive summary first because it helps to filter all the ideas our team had during the brainstorming process about the best way to pitch this client.

With an executive summary written, or at least outlined, I’m more confident about delegating parts of the proposal creation process to different team members because they’ll understand the approach and what they need to do to contribute to a consistent, cohesive document.

Once the body of the proposal is finished, I then go back to tweak the executive summary as needed. Sometimes new ideas rose to the top as we worked through the proposal, or early ideas turned out to be impossible to execute due to the client budget or timeline.

I used to leave writing the executive summary to the end, and since inevitably we were always in a time crunch to deliver the proposal to the client, I would feel anxious and rushed to get it done. But once I started writing a draft of the executive summary at the beginning, it was one less thing to worry about. I could edit the executive summary as needed and I knew there would be no huge surprises in what other team members had prepared.

How to write an executive summary:

The Opener: Capture their attention

You need an opener that's compelling. You need to get your client’s attention right away, and you do that by talking about THEM, not about you. Focus on the issue and the result, but be direct, concise, and evocative.

This is the time to hook them in — get them excited about what they’re going to read next.

The Need: We get it

Before a client hires you, they want to know that you get them. You can’t solve a problem that you don’t understand. This section of the executive summary is where you demonstrate your grasp of the situation. You could include a bit of your own research or a brief reference to your agency's experience dealing with a similar situation. You should also talk about how the client will benefit from solving the problem - what will change, the positive outcomes, the results.

Again, the focus here is on the client and their challenge, not on you and your company.

The Solution: We’ve got it

Now you’re in the spotlight. This section is where you talk about the brilliant solution you’re proposing and why it will work. But remember, this is just an overview. They can read all the delicious details in the proposal so keep it high level but still provide enough detail to convince them you have something specific and well thought out for them.

This section should start to provide the client with a sense of relief and get them excited about the result.

The Evidence: We can do it

It's time to show your stuff. Talk about why your company, your team, or your product is not only willing to take this challenge on, but you're qualified to do so.

Maybe this is your niche market and you have lots of experience helping other companies with a similar issue. Maybe it’s a particular skill set your team possesses, your research, your algorithm, or your project management process. Or maybe you’ve won 27 Academy Awards for best picture, and you know you can make this a hit.

Talk about WHY you can make this a successful project and deliver results, but (broken record) keep it brief.

The Call to Action: Let’s do it

Keeping in mind that the purpose of the executive summary is to sell, it’s now time to close the deal.

Make the client feel like they have no other chance for happiness than to hire you because of X and Y that differentiate you from the competition and proves your solution is the one that will make their dreams come true.

Talk about why you want to work with them — a little flattery goes a long way — and about how, as partners, you will be successful.

The Do’s and Don’ts of the Executive Summary

Here are some other important points to keep in mind when writing your executive summary:

Don’t make it too long

Some people recommend a formula that the executive summary is 10% of your entire proposal. I usually try to keep it to one page, two tops if it’s a larger proposal. Be mindful that if you’re working on an RFP, they may already set out a particular length limit, so you’ll want to stick to that.

Don’t use jargon

This rule applies to everything but especially when writing proposals. Jargon can act as a smokescreen to mask the fact that someone doesn’t really know what they’re talking about, or it can confuse clients if they’re not familiar with the same terms. Like, what the hell is ‘next gen’, anyway? Ugh.

Don’t use overly technical language

Unless you are absolutely sure that the only person who will read the executive summary is an engineer or a developer or someone who will understand exactly what you’re talking about, don’t get too technical. Of course in some situations you may need to reference certain details but remember that this is a persuasive document - sell the benefits, not the features. Save the tech stuff for the proposal.

Don’t talk about your company history

The history of your company does not belong in the executive summary, and sometimes I’m not even sure it belongs in a proposal. But if it is appropriate and relevant, put it in the body of the proposal under “About Us” or something.

Do focus on your client

Think about what they want to know, not what you want to tell them. Like any piece of copy, you need to write for your audience so make sure you think about them; what turns them off and what turns them on.

Do mention your client’s company name

People like to hear their names and the same holds true for businesses. Make sure you reference your client’s full company name several times in the executive summary, so they feel like you’re focused on them.

Do use plain language

The regular rules for writing apply to executive summaries. Use simple, short sentences that are clear and can be understood by almost any reading level, especially if you might be writing for people whose first language is not English. Don’t be pretentious - you’ll come off like an ass. Be concise, and persuasive. I’ve found this site helpful for keeping me on track for plain language writing.

Do proofread and edit

This probably goes without saying but you really, really don’t want any typos in your executive summary. Get more than one set of eyes on your document before it goes out, and preferably someone who wasn’t involved in its creation.

Executive Summary Example

Here's an example of an executive summary I wrote using a customizable proposal template from Proposify's gallery. Of course every executive summary needs to be tailored to your specific project, your client's needs, and your brand voice. If you're looking for more inspiration, we have many other business proposal templates that you can customize yourself.

I hope this guide will help turn your ho-hum executive summaries into wicked pitches of excellence. Remember to be persuasive, not pedantic. And if anyone has a suggestion on a new name for executive summary, bring it on.

Let’s say you sold a $10,000/month retainer for 6-12 month contract. If your goal is to simply get to the end of the contract, deliver the promised results, and send the client packing so you can move on to the next thing, you’re thinking about your business the wrong way. You need a client retention strategy.

Obviously, your goal should be to keep your clients past their contract and have them renew year after year.

Maybe you don’t sell retainers but instead, do project-based work. You don’t want to build an app or website for a client once, and then never hear from them again; you want to upsell them on ongoing maintenance, new features, or cross-sell them on complementary services.

The biggest and best agencies in the world have incredibly high client retention rates year after year with many Fortune 100 brands, which in part explains how those agencies grew so big and so profitable.

For example, in 2001, 2002, and 2003 it was reported that global agency DDB retained 98% or 99% of clients. In 2014, it was reported Grey had a 95% retention rate. Pretty impressive numbers, especially since we all know the client/agency relationship can be a challenging one.

For smaller, more specialized agencies, it’s often quite a different story. It’s not uncommon for small shops to burn through their entire client list in one year, requiring them to constantly chase after more new business and more new clients.

If you fall into that second category, you need to think seriously about a client retention program.

When a client returns to do business with you, you don’t need to write a proposal, and you don’t need to worry about pitching or onboarding. You just start working with them on the new project, and everyone knows what to expect. To really build your agency, you need to get better at client retention.

How to develop a client retention strategy

Know your churn

Start by measuring client churn on a monthly, quarterly, or annual basis. How many clients don’t renew their contract, or actively tell you they are cancelling their retainer? The percentage of existing customers who cancel or leave your agency equates to your churn rate.

If you have 100 retainers already in place for the year and sell 50 new ones that year, but 50% of the existing ones cancel or don’t renew, you’ve got a major business problem, a leaky bucket.

1. Choose the right clients from the beginning

We’ve covered things clients do that piss off agencies and how to fire clients. If you don’t want to keep a particular problem client, you don’t need to put in the work to keep them.

But, it’s better to proactively let them go than to passive-aggressively deliver shitty work and lacklustre service as a way to get rid of them. That approach will only damage your reputation in the market.

Clients are your currency; they are the lifeblood that keeps you in business, so you need to work to keep most of them. If you’re choosing the right clients from the beginning and saying no to leads who aren’t a good fit, then you should be trying to keep ALL of your existing clients.

2. Think like a customer success department

Customer success is an emerging field and most SaaS companies have a customer success department.

Customer success differs from customer support in that where customer support reactively answers questions and helps customers work through bugs or issues, customer success is all about proactively reviewing accounts to ensure that customers are experiencing success using your product. The goal of the customer success department is to stop a client from churning long before they’re even thinking about it.

To accomplish this, customer success assigns a customer health score based on a variety of factors. Is a customer actively logging in and using the product? Which features are they using? Has the customer completed onboarding? Have they achieved the results they’re looking for, and the ones you promised them? Are they paying on time? What’s their NPS score?

All of these factors may not apply if you run a service based business like an agency, but many of them would be applicable. You can send clients an NPS survey to see how likely they are to recommend your agency to a friend or colleague. Or you can simply pick up the phone to call your clients every quarter to see if they’re experiencing success working with your agency and if there are any problems.

Regardless of the kind of industry you’re in, sit down and figure out how you can measure the health of your accounts. Make it the responsibility of your account department to measure and learn from customer success experiences.

That way, if a client is in the yellow or red zone, you can see the writing on the wall and work to keep the account before it’s past the point of no return. I guarantee most agencies are NOT doing this.

Train, empower, and hold your account management department responsible for client success. Account management is the ideal department in any agency to handle this. It’s the account manager’s job is to make sure clients are satisfied and seeing success with the agency, to look for upsell/cross-sell opportunities, and to foster new work with existing clients, directly in that order.

3. Set expectations and deliver

It should go without saying, but the #1 way to retain a client is to deliver more value than you charged.

But how do you quantify your value and communicate it?

It all happens before, during, and after the sales process. If you used value-based pricing, then your client should already be set with the proper expectations for what you’re going to deliver.

The hard part comes when your agency needs to fulfill on what you promised. If you sold the idea that within six months you’d increase the number of sales or leads by 50%, worth say, $1M to the client, then if you come up short, it’s going to be tough to convince the client to stick with you. You’ll end up looking like a cost centre to the client, one that’s easy to cut from their expense budget.

"The best way to lose a client is to overpromise and underdeliver."

That way if you come up short, you look like you did what you said. But if you absolutely crush it by delivering $500,000 more than you said you would, your client will be tripping over themselves to renew their contract at the end.

4. Demonstrate your value through monthly reporting

You can’t expect that clients will automatically attribute your work to the results they’re seeing. You need to prove over and over why you’re worth that monthly payment.

Reports can be a pain in the butt, and your client might not even read them in detail, but just receiving the report and knowing that you’re making progress and being accountable can make a client happy.

Clients enjoy seeing a report in their inbox at the first of every month letting them know what the agency accomplished with their account over the past weeks. The report should be delivered consistently, without the client needing to ask for you for it.

So, what does a good client report look like? It depends on the service you offer, but you should have a polished, branded reporting template that makes it easy for the strategist on your team to slide graphs and pie charts into.

If you’re an inbound marketing agency, the report might highlight the content you produced that month, the traffic and other view stats, and the number of leads all of this activity brought the client.

Blatant product placement announcement: you can use Proposify to create and send monthly reports to your client, see when they open it, and where they look. Using our Streams feature you can organize your client reports so they don’t get mixed in with your proposals and other sales documents.

5. Over communicate

Communication is the most important way to make clients happy, and that’s on the shoulders of the account manager.

Some account managers make the mistake of only communicating when there’s some progress or an update, but that’s a mistake. You should communicate all the time. Communicate when there’s nothing to say, over communicate.

"Over communicate with your clients Even when there’s nothing to say, stay in touch.”

Think of a relationship with a friend or spouse. Are you just going to talk to them when you have some big revelation or a crazy story? Most of your communication is probably, “Hey, how are you?” Or maybe, “I saw this article today and thought about you.”

Clients get nervous if they don’t see anything being done, and assume that nothing is. Call or email them at the beginning of the week to let them know what the team is working on and what they’re aiming to accomplish. At the end of the week, tell them what your team did, and whether they’re on schedule, ahead, behind, or if they’re waiting on the client to proceed.

Communicate with your client even when there’s bad news. Client retention doesn’t mean that you can’t ever say no, push back, or tell the client something they don’t want to hear. I’d rather be told bad news than be told nothing at all.

Communicate the way your client wants Some account managers prefer to put everything in email, but if your client is the type that never checks email because they’re buried with 1,000 emails per day, then that’s not an effective form of communication. Use Facebook Messenger, Slack, text, Skype, Basecamp or whatever is the best way to reach them (hopefully not fax!).

6. Use an authentic, personal touch

“People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.”
— Maya Angelou

When hiring account managers, you want to put a higher value on finding people who are likeable, witty, and empathetic rather than on people who are ultra type A, uber-organized and masters of marketing. You can hire other people on your team to fill in the roles of project manager and strategist. Account managers need to be people-people first and foremost.

Watch this scene from The Office where Michael Scott (Steve Carell) kicks off a business meeting with a client by talking about everything other than business, and how it warms the client up so much that he moves ahead with Dunder Mifflin as his paper provider. What at first seems like Michael is being his usual buffoon self, actually reveals him to be a seasoned salesman at work.

We’ve been seeing each other for a while now, and I love all the time we spend together. I feel like we really connect every time you log in, and I’d like to take our relationship to the next level. Will you, loyal Proposify customer, take my hand in...just kidding, we only do business proposals. But we are committed to giving you what you need, which is why we added five new business proposal templates to our gallery just for you!

Choose from 45 professionally written and designed proposal templates for an array of services, industries, and projects, so you never have to worry about battling writer’s block or getting your proposal out on time again.

Our latest templates include: solar energy, digital marketing, investment, insurance, and corporate training services.

Our business proposal templates provide suggestions for copy and design, but if it doesn’t quite fit what you need, change it up! All of our templates are 100% customizable, including text, layout, design, and images.

All of the proposals feature sample contracts and the ability to add legally binding online signatures, but if you want to make sure your butt is covered, get a lawyer to check things over (think of it like a proposal prenup).

Stop wasting your time and sanity wrestling with boring Word docs when you could be creating beautiful, client-pleasing proposals in record time.  Check out our full gallery of free proposal templates to get started.

Solar Proposal Template

Solar energy companies will find this free solar power proposal template valuable when preparing solar panel project proposals and solar panel installation quotes. Highlight your experience as a solar energy business, include an overview of the design and installation of your solar energy systems, and provide a proposed budget and timeline. Check out our free solar proposal template.

Digital Marketing Proposal Template

Digital marketing agencies and consultants can use this free digital marketing proposal template to pitch their strategy, campaigns, or digital marketing plans to businesses and potential partners. Explain how your content development, distribution, optimization, and lead generation will increase conversion rate while providing a clear timeline for your client. Check out our free digital marketing proposal template.

Investment Proposal Template

Investment and financial advisors preparing plans and presentations can use this free investment advisor template when pitching their services to potential clients. Explain your objectives, your strategy for learning their goals, and how you plan customized investments and financial strategies. Check out our free investment proposal template.

Training Proposal Template

Companies providing corporate training and development services will find this training proposal example comprehensive when preparing an estimate. Explain your analysis and assessment process, training and curriculum development, approval and implementation process, and highlight various levels of training available. Check out our free training proposal template.

Insurance Proposal Template

Insurance providers will find this free insurance proposal template effective for preparing commercial, life, property, and business insurance quotes. Include sections that feature the goals of the insurance you provide, as well as a description for each type, including personal insurance, insurance for assets, liability insurance, and plans and pricing options. Check out our free insurance proposal template.

Between my years in the agency world and then as a freelancer, I’ve been responsible for making sure a lot of projects stayed on the rails. Scope creep was an especially evil enemy, and the term usually evoked its own soundtrack in my head. You know that terrifying, urgent, knife-slashing violin music from Psycho?

I’m sure you’re more than familiar with the dreaded scope creep. It’s when features, deliverables, or expectations slowly get added to a project without the budget or timeline being adjusted accordingly.

Project scope creep is like a leaky toilet. Each drop is not a big deal on its own but compounded over days, weeks, and even months and you end up with, well, a sh*t show.

"Scope creep is like a leaky toilet. One drop isn’t a big deal but built up over time, you end up with a sh*t show."

Poorly managed, scope creep can transform profitable projects into losses, damage client relationships, destroy timelines, and can be very hard on the morale and motivation of your team members.

And speaking from personal experience, dealing with scope creep after the fact is one of the biggest nightmares of project management. It’s like being stuck smack dab in the middle of an angry, pitchfork wielding mob.

Your job as project manager is to make the client happy, keep your team focused, make sure the project stays on time and budget, and meet your own agency’s business goals. It’s an uneasy peace even the most experienced diplomat at the United Nations would find challenging to maintain.

That being said, controlling scope creep is probably the single most important responsibility of project management, whether that falls on you, or one of your team members.

So, how can you prevent scope creep and avoid the angry pitchfork mob chasing you out of town?

In short, by managing expectations, communicating clearly, and documenting everything like you were Harriet the freaking Spy.

Understand the client’s objectives

Before you start entering a single project milestone in Basecamp, you need to be very clear on what the client wants, needs, and expects to achieve out of this project.

A discovery session between the client and key members of your team is a good way to accomplish this - it’s like a fact-finding mission so you can gather all the intelligence you need about your client, their business, their challenges, and the results they’re looking for.

If you’re scoping a large project, it’s a good idea to begin by selling the client on a paid upfront discovery, so you aren’t trying to define scope within a proposal when you don’t know what’s involved in the details.

This way you can take the proper time to plan any features or functionality, design interfaces, and if needed, create a rough prototype. Once everyone agrees on what you’re developing, you’ll be able to provide a more accurate estimate, and manage expectations.

Deeply understanding these parameters will help you develop the right deliverables, budget, and timeline for this project, and, ultimately, avoid scope creep. 

A discovery session can ensure your project scope fits the client’s expectations like a finely tailored suit. If it fits properly from the get go, they’re not going to come back three weeks later and ask you to hem the pants, move a button, or worse, change the fabric.

Break big projects into smaller projects

Small, bite-size chunks are safer to swallow and there’s less chance of choking.

It’s easier to define scope for small, straightforward projects, but large ones can easily balloon because it’s impossible to know what might emerge months down the road, the deeper you get into the weeds

Look at ways to break the project down into sprints, and plan and budget each of those as separate and distinct projects. Once you finish the first phase, it may inform changes or additions to the next phase, and this gives you the latitude to adjust accordingly.

Involve your team in scoping the project

Once you know what it is you’re going to do, you need to be sure you understand how it’s going to get done, and, just as importantly, how long that’s going to take.

I tried to make a habit of consulting my project team members before finalizing deliverables, timeline, and budget. These are the people who are the experts in what they do, and they’re the ones who are going to do the work, so why wouldn’t I consult with them?

But it’s surprising how often project managers, salespeople, and other client-facing professionals make promises to clients and assumptions about projects without ever checking with the people who are actually going to execute the work.

“Oh sure, we can get that done in a week, and it should only take about 25 hours,” could be the epitaph on many a project manager’s tombstone.

Through experience it does it get easier to estimate the requirements of a project but I still always wanted to double check with the designer, developer, or copywriter on my team because inevitably, the thing I thought was pretty straightforward that might take 25 hours of work, ended up having some twist in it that required double that amount.

Or sometimes the project team had considerations or suggestions that wouldn’t have occurred to me. Things that could either complicate or simplify the project, but still things that needed to be addressed up front, not after the fact when scope creep has made it costly or messy to deal with.

Clearly define the project and responsibilities

Now that you understand what the client needs and what you’re going to deliver, you need to communicate all of that back to your client and your team. There can be no ambiguity about what’s going to happen when, who’s responsible for doing it, how long it’s going to take, and how much it will cost.

To prevent scope creep, you need to be explicit at this stage. It may seem like a pain in the butt or that you're overzealous, but later when you can refer to that one point that saves your weary butt when the client complains that they expected four versions of a logo design when the budget clearly says it only includes two, you’ll be glad you were a little OCD.

And clients will appreciate this, too. If they feel they understand exactly what’s going to happen, it will give them the confidence to trust your opinion, and they won’t try to micromanage you along the way.

There will be fewer annoying emails asking when something is going to be done, or angry phone calls wondering why something wasn’t done at all.

Another tip: go over all this information in person. Or at least by phone or Skype or something. Just don’t assume they read the document in detail and understand everything on their own. Go over it with them point by point so you know that they know. And they know you know they know.

Have a game plan for changes

Life is uncertain, imprecise, and fleeting. And so are clients.

The scope may change once you’ve already started on the project, so you need to be clear with the client what the plan of attack is for amendments before anything happens.

Define how change requests get made, who is responsible for them, how they get handled from a budget and timeline perspective, and what the implications are for the project overall.

Getting this all out in the open from the very beginning will help you manage your client's expectations and keep the project focused on its objectives. If a client fully understands the consequences of a change or addition to the timeline and budget, they’ll be less likely to make a cavalier request.

Get it signed

After you’ve gone over your very detailed project plan in person with your client and you’re certain they understand all the implications of how things are going to move forward, GET A SIGNATURE.

It’s standard to get a client to sign off when they accept a proposal, but it’s just as important to get their signature on the project plan or statement of work. Otherwise, you are leaving yourself open to potential scope creep carnage down the road.

I admit I wasn’t always vigilant on this. I naively assumed people were good on their word, and most of them are, but if they can find an escape route when they’re in a pinch, they’ll take it. Saying they didn’t understand something or weren’t aware of a particular condition so they can’t be held accountable is the perfect scope creep escape route.

But if you’ve gone over the project plan with your client in person and had them sign off that they understand and agree, then you’re covered for how any changes will be handled.

Basecamp it, Baby!

I have been a Basecamp power user since 2007. When it was first introduced to me, I felt like a flock of project management angels floated down to save me from certain madness.

When I was working in an agency, Basecamp helped me manage every single aspect of a project and allowed me to sleep at night.

Once a project plan was in place and signed off, I dumped it all into Basecamp - every task, milestone, timeline, and additional resource. Then I invited everyone on the project, both on the client and agency side, to participate.

This kept everything in one place - drafts, proofs, comments, sign-offs, change requests, final files - EVERYTHING.

Basecamp also helped me manage my own team, making it easier for them to know what was happening with the project and what their daily tasks and responsibilities were.

Whether you’re a Basecamp user (I swear they’re not paying me for this plug) or you prefer different project management software, the point is USE ONE.

There are lots of great tools out there to help you stay organized and communicate with your client and team. Tools like Trello, Zoho, or Podio. If there's a magic wand to prevent scope creep, it's project management software.

But again, even the best tool is useless if you’re not consistently using it. If anyone on my team ever sent me something about a project via email or asked me a question on chat, I would always refer them back to Basecamp. Everything, EVERYTHING, went through Basecamp.

At one agency I even had a sign on the door that said, “Basecamp it, bitches” and if someone wandered into my office asking me about a deadline for something or where a file was, I would just point at the sign.

And Basecamp, if you’re listening, I <3 you.

Watch your team

To be fair, you can’t place all the blame of scope creep on the client.

I've worked on a few projects where someone on the project team went rogue and totally over-delivered on something.

There was one art director I worked with in particular who was notorious for this. I almost had to stand over him at all times to make sure he was only doing what we were contracted to do.

He’d do things like, if a project was to redesign product packaging, he’d decide on his own that the client’s logo was ugly and then spend 20 hours designing new logos options. Without telling me.

Or, even though I had consulted with him in the proposal stage about how long a certain task would take, he’d end up spending three times as long on it, and not because of an unknown issue that arose, but just because he was enjoying what he was doing.

The thing is, if he had come to me BEFORE he went ahead and spent 20 extra hours on new logos options and explained why he felt it was necessary, I might have been able to go to the client and upsell them on a new aspect of the project.

But because it happened afterwards, there was little chance of recouping those costs, or the subsequent delay in the timeline.

We all want to deliver great service and quality to our clients, but there is a fine line where over-delivery is actually costly scope creep.

Be sure your team is clocking their time in Harvest or some other time-tracking software so you can keep close watch before things things go over budget.

Stay in regular communication with your team members so you know the status of what they’re working on and how they’re doing time-wise.

Sometimes there are legitimate reasons for a project change, but you want those to be opportunities for upselling, not scope creep, and the key to that is catching it BEFORE it happens.

Watch yourself

Not only do you need to keep an eye on your client and your team to prevent scope creep, but you also need to keep an eye on yourself.

You have to be vigilant about your own time; what you say yes or no to, whether it’s a request from the client or your team, and how you enable scope creep. Remember, you’re the gatekeeper.

There are times when you can easily accommodate small, reasonable changes. Not all project change requests cause scope creep. But when requests come in, you have to be very aware of which ones are going to have a minor impact on the budget or timeline, and which ones are going to lead to death and destruction.

You need to be clear to the client the difference between those so you don’t create false expectations that you can accommodate changes every single time without consequence.

Acceptance is the first step

Well, in this case, it’s the last, but the point is scope creep is always a looming threat, whether you like it or not.

There are a multitude of reasons why project change requests happen, and not all of them are necessarily bad. Or they don’t have to be bad as long as you have a plan in place for dealing with them.

Planning for how to handle scope creep should be a natural part of your both your proposal and project development process. In the end, it will protect your business, the client, the project, and ultimately, your sanity.

71% of sales professionals already doing it, and 78% of those people are outselling their colleagues who don’t use social selling. It simply isn’t a flash in the sales pan trend. And, chances are, you may already be doing it yourself, you just don’t realize it.

What is social selling?

Social selling is leveraging your social network to find the right prospects with whom to build trust, nurture relationships, and ultimately achieve your sales goals.

Beyond tweeting, “Hey! Check this out!”, social selling is about finding ways to authentically engage with people on social media who have a problem that you can solve, or a solution you can sell. The key is to allow people to engage with your brand on the platform of their choice.

Social selling is basically a backlash against the age-old cold call. With 90% of people ignoring cold outreach, it’s obvious that sales professionals needed to find a more authentic, personalized approach to selling.

"Beyond B2B or B2C, social selling is all about the H2H."

Here are some more specific examples of what social selling is (and isn’t!)

Social selling is:

• Endorsing a sales lead or customer on LinkedIn.

• Running LinkedIn searches for outbound targets

• Liking and commenting on a client’s Facebook post.

• Sharing your company’s latest blog post on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+.

• Studying prospects on LinkedIn and Twitter before a meeting.

• Following key accounts on Twitter and other platforms

• Retweeting a client with your own comments added.

Social selling is not:

• Delivering the hard sell on LinkedIn

• Closing deals on Twitter

• A replacement for talking to prospects

The traditional golden rules of selling still apply to social. You need to understand your sales lead and their business challenges, you need to have a solution that can solve their challenges, you need to be able to recognize a good lead from a bad one, and you need to be able to articulate why your company is the better choice.

Social selling isn’t a magic bullet to hitting quota; it’s an enhanced way to do what you’ve already been doing and get more effective results.

Why social selling is important

Follow the numbers

If you’re skeptical about social selling or think it only applies to B2C products aimed at Millennials, you might be missing the sale.

Check out these stats:

The cold call is dead

Or at least it’s dead as we know it, and dead in the way it’s been done the same way for decades and decades.

According to Marcus Murphy, director of sales at DigitalMarketer, we marketers have ruined email, and the sales call. Marcus wrote a great (and controversial) article about cold calling. In it he says:

Why do we hate cold calling so much? Because we don't pick up numbers we don't know! Because we don't talk to strangers on the subway, and we don't open the door for travelling evangelists. You don't have my permission, and I like my personal space. That's the attitude. However, that dissipates the moment you decide to invest more time in the humanity of selling and less time in immediate gratification.

Buyers are savvier than they used to be about the tricks of sales and marketing and technology. We need to embrace new ways to communicate, market, and sell.

The four pillars of social selling

Marcus Murphy also talked about the four pillars of social selling on a recent episode of Proposify Biz Chat.

1. Build trust

People only buy from people they trust. You need to prove to your sales leads that they can trust you. By building a strong professional brand across your target social platforms, you can reinforce your integrity and industry expertise. You want your sales lead to believe that you’re the go-to person in your niche. As true with all branding, you need to make sure your professional brand is authentic and is consistent on all platforms.

2.  Nurture thought leadership

Part of building your professional brand is about positioning yourself as an authority who has value to contribute to your industry. Actively participate in your industry. Seek out speaking engagements, guest blogging, attend industry events, learn new things, and document and share your knowledge and experience. When it comes to social selling, you should always lead with value. “Earn people’s time, don’t expect it,” says Marcus.  

3. Keep it human

Traditionally, sales and marketing professionals viewed B2B advertising and outreach as not needing to be so ‘human’. B2C could use humour or emotion in their advertising, but there seemed to be this assumption that once people were at work and transformed into B2B clients, they stopped being human. And somehow that justified cold, sterile content that just focused on the standard business messages of make money, be profitable, and vendors were vendors, instead of being seen as valuable partners.

People don’t stop being humans when they go to their jobs. You can still engage with them on an emotional level. Their specific interests and challenges might be different when they’re wearing their B2B hat as opposed to their B2C hat, but in the end the motivation is the same. They want to be helped, they want to have their problems solved, they want to live a happy, successful life.

Start conversations. Real, human conversations.

4. Use alternative channels

There’s been a massive shift regarding where people want to buy and where they want to start selling conversations. Don’t be that old dog who can’t learn a new trick because you’ll be left behind.

Research new social channels you haven’t used before to see if your prospects might already be hanging out there. Develop content and engagement specific to that platform.

Social selling by platform

We already talked about how the standard best practices of sales apply, and keeping the pillars above in mind, here are a few tips to put social selling into practice by platform.

LinkedIn

50% of B2B buyers use LinkedIn as a resource when making a purchasing decision, and according to “The LinkedIn Expert” Viveka Von Rosen, it is the most powerful and effective business networking site.

LinkedIn helps you build your brand, distribute valuable thought leadership content, and prospect new leads.

Viveka was a recent guest on our podcast, Proposify Biz Chat, and had these suggestions on how best to use LinkedIn for social selling:

Build your brand

Most people put up some of their resume on their LinkedIn profile and call it a day, but if that’s all you do, you’re really missing out on a huge opportunity to build your brand. Expand on the summary section right under your name - tell people who you are and what you do, include your unique selling proposition and testimonials. Add any and all kinds of media to your profile: interviews, podcasts, articles, videos, etc.

Prospects are researching you as much as you’re researching them - you need to make it easy for them to learn about you and want to engage.

If you’re rebranding or starting a new business, LinkedIn provides the opportunity to test your message. If you already have an active business, it allows you to promote your new book, event, product, service, etc.

LinkedIn Publisher to share content

Viveka admits that she understands why people don’t think LinkedIn Publisher really works, but she’s a big fan and recommends that you start sharing your content - lots of content - on Publisher. While the thought of creating new content might feel overwhelming, Viveka says it’s totally OK to repurpose your existing content. Blog posts, podcasts, newsletter stories, white papers, case studies, or interviews you’ve done with other people. Any content that you’ve created on your own platform.

In addition to making sure you have strong visuals to complement your content, Viveka recommends two things that your success on Publisher hinges on:

A. Include calls to action that drive people back to your website, landing page, lead magnet, or wherever you need them to go to get them in your funnel.

B. Include your contact info. If someone takes the time to read your article, and maybe even click through to your landing page, they have invested their time in you. Make it easy for them to then engage. She also suggests adding a link to a scheduling tool like Calendly so they can book a call or meeting.

Use Sales Navigator

If you’re in sales and marketing or are a business owner, you need to have a Sales Navigator account. It’s a powerful tool that allows you to identify the person who’s your ideal lead, and then provides many ways to engage with them. Sales Navigator helps you find exactly the right people and build relationships with them.

With Sales Navigator, you can start generating a private list of potential leads by searching company, industry, location, title, company size and more. This is why it’s extremely important to have clearly defined customer personas, and know who your ideal buyer is. As the saying goes, “If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable”.

Sales Navigator also provides valuable intel on what’s happening with the prospects in your list. Did they get a promotion, change jobs, release a new product, publish an article? Information that can help you find an authentic, value-driven way to start a conversation.

Once you have a list of some quality prospects and you’ve done your research on them, you can either ask someone you have in common to connect you, or reach out to them via LinkedIn InMail message.

Now, before you cringe at the thought of all those bad InMail messages you’ve received and ignored, remember the difference with your messages is that you’re going to do them RIGHT.

You’re not sending a cookie cutter spam-ish message. You’re sending a very targeted, human, value-laden message that will start a conversation, following all the good rules of social selling.

Facebook

Facebook is arguably the most social of the top social platforms out there. Facebook can lean heavily on the personal side while still delivering strong ROI for businesses. And with 2 billion active users, the power of Facebook for social selling (even B2B) cannot be ignored.

Since some people don’t want to mix their business interests with their personal lives, setting up a Facebook business page to engage with customers and prospects can feel less invasive and more professional.

Facebook Messenger

Facebook lets you create ads where when a user clicks on it, it immediately opens up a Facebook Messenger window and allows the user to start chatting with a company rep.

Once the user starts that conversation, Facebook has artificial intelligence respond and give options on creating a sequence to engage with the lead. They can target conversation with people based on information Facebook has been gathering for years down to your likes, hates, everything you’ve ever done.

You can also drop a link in an email or text that opens up a Simply link to m.me/yourfacebookpagename (eg: m.me/digitalmarketer) and it will jump straight into a Facebook Messenger.

Facebook groups

You may belong to some Facebook groups for your personal interests, like your local ultimate frisbee league, but niche Facebook groups can also be powerful tools for social selling.

They can help you build your brand, establish yourself as an expert in your industry, provide a vehicle for sharing content, promote new products or services, and drive leads.

The key about using Facebook groups, like all social selling, is to provide value to others. This isn’t the place for blatant self-promotion where you’re just talking about yourself and your company the whole time. You need to give before you can receive.

Customer Engagement

You can set up a Facebook group that provides additional value for your customers, like tips and tricks, sneak peek on upcoming new product releases or features, and access to special content.

It’s a great way to keep your customers engaged with your brand while providing you with intel on what they’re interested in, how they interact with your product or service, new ideas for features, and potentially source upsell opportunities.

Lead generation

A recent guest on Proposify Biz Chat, web strategy expert, Lindsey Anderson, AKA One-Click Lindsey, uses Facebook groups to generate leads for her business.

Using a foot-in-the-door (FITD) offer in a private Facebook membership group for just $50/month, Lindsey runs a traffic and leads support group, providing advice and resources. This group is where Lindsey nurtures her own leads and ends up harvesting clients.

As a result of the advice the members of the group receive from Lindsey and her team, they either succeed in their own business and grow their client base so much that they have to hire Lindsey to help manage it all for them, or they find it’s way too hard to do it themselves and they hire Lindsey and her team. The FITD nurtures leads and builds a community.

You don’t necessarily have to charge for your Facebook group but you need to find a way to provide value, generate quality leads, and then convert those leads into paying customers.

Engage with businesses

Engage with other businesses on Facebook like you would your friends. Like, comment, and share useful content. Maybe cut back on the cute cat video links, but share your content, share their content. Find ways to engage that can nurture a relationship, and potentially grow your network and your audience.

Engage with followers

Stay engaged with your followers. If they comment on a post or write something on your page, always, always respond, even if the comment is critical.

The key is to appear interested, active, and in touch with what’s happening. Going back to the four pillars of social selling, how you interact on Facebook (and any other platform), is key to building trust.

Twitter

Social listening is a big part of social selling. Like in all sales interactions, you need to listen to understand what the conversations are about, and then you can strategize about how best to be part of them.

Creating lists can help you monitor what’s happening with your various target audiences, like your existing customers, your sales leads, and even keep your eye on your competitors.

Existing customers

This list should help you stay engaged and in tune with what’s happening with your existing customer base.

Seeing what they’re talking about provides intel for opportunities where you can jump in to like or comment on their tweets, and provide extra value. It helps keep you top of mind, just don’t over do it. You’re selling, not stalking so be authentic and judicious about what and when you respond.

Sales leads

Hopefully, you already know who your target audience is, what they value, and what they’re looking for.

By creating a private list of sales leads and prospects (you don’t want your competitors to see who you’re following!), you can keep on top of the challenges they may be facing in their business or industry so you can tailor your solution.

To create a list on Twitter, go to your profile and click the “Create new list’ button in the sidebar.

Then create a new list, giving it a name, description and making it private.

Once your list is created you can find users and click on the menu next to their profile to add them to your list.

You don’t want to interact with these prospects with the same frequency or familiarity as you might with your existing customers, but you do want to watch for opportunities to provide value or assistance in the face of business challenges you can help solve.

The competition

Keeping an eye on the competition is as important as keeping an eye on your prospects. You can gain all sorts of insights about what the competition may be planning, new product or features, how they deal with support issues, and in general how they are positioning themselves on social media and in the market. A private list lets you monitor what they’re up to without having to follow them (dead give away!)

Warble

A great free tool to help you with Twitter monitoring is Warble. Warble lets you track keywords, hashtags, mentions and more on Twitter.

It’s very simple to use - you set up alerts based on particular keywords, and then Warble sends you an email every day with all the tweets that contained those keywords, hashtags, etc. in the last 24 hours.

This gives you an opportunity to listen, to learn, to respond, and to discover new leads, where and when it’s appropriate.

For example, if you’re Nike and you want to know what people are saying about your competition, you could set up a Warble for Adidas or Reebok and Warble will send you a list of all the tweets that mention them that day.

Or maybe you’ve just published an epic guide to the best shoes for running marathons. Setting up a Warble for some of the keywords words around running shoes, marathons, etc., will help you find the conversations your target audience is having, giving you an opportunity to add value by providing a helpful comment and link to your content.

Instagram

Instagram is more than just pretty pictures (although we do love the pics!) With Instagram DM (direct message), it has become a powerful social selling tool, delivering valuable networking and lead generation opportunities.

First, selling 101: you need to find the right accounts to target, as in your target audience.

With Instagram, you can search by keyword hashtags, users, or location.

With hashtags, search for terms that are common in your industry or niche, like #podcasts or #marathonrunners, or #digitalmarketing.

With users, you can search for specific influencers, partners, or potential customers you want to connect with.

And, if your market is local, or you want to build opportunities specific location, you can filter your searches by city. So maybe #marathonrunners in Toronto.

Don’t get caught up on the number of followers each account has. You want quality over quantity in terms of the kind of engagement this account receives. You don’t necessarily want someone with 75,000 followers if their content is low quality, they post infrequently, and there’s not a lot of interaction between the account owner and their followers. You want active, engaged, and engaging accounts.

Once you’ve found some accounts with real potential, reach out to via Instagram DM. But remember the rules of social selling: you need to provide VALUE and you need to be authentic and human in your approach.

Don’t go in with cold outreach guns ablazing to sell your product or service. This is about nurturing a relationship and the DM is just the very first step. Approached the right way, it could turn into a lucrative business opportunity.

Conclusion

There’s no reason to be intimidated by social selling and there are lots of reasons to be doing it.

It’s really no different from the sales best practices you follow now; you’re just applying them in different contexts with potentially more effective results.

Social selling allows you to connect with your leads when they want and need, rather than interrupting them with annoying cold calls and forgettable emails. It’s all about sparking a well-timed and placed conversation that can lead to a mutually beneficial relationship.

If you're like me, you probably receive at least one or two cold emails every day. At least. It either slithers into your inbox or maybe it's the even more dreaded LinkedIn cold email. The one we scan for less than a second before hitting the delete key.

According to some tests Yesware ran, they received a 30-50% response rate from cold email. On the other end of the spectrum, Shane Snow from Contently sent 1,000 test emails to executives and received a 1.7% response rate.

Suffice to say, results may vary. This got me wondering what makes for the best cold email — the one that evokes a response, and what goes into a terrible email — the ones we ignore every day.

First, I went through my LinkedIn emails to find one of the worst cold email examples of what not to do, and came across this gem:

Poor Julie makes a number of cold email blunders here:

1. Too vague and self-indulgent

• “I heard about your company through a digital agency”… Who? If I know them, it will add more credibility to this email.
• “Technology company in the payment space.” That could be pretty much any company.
• “One of the largest providers of software for payments to attorney firms in the US and K-12 schools.” Why do I care? What does that have to do with me and my business?
• “Create a significant revenue stream for you” Talk is cheap. Everyone says they’ll create revenue for you or grow your business; it means nothing in a cold email.

2. Assumes too much

Using the subject line “Business deal from Julie ___” implies that I’m already interested in doing business with Julie and we’re at the deal stage. This is like walking up to someone you just met and talking marriage with them. Let’s get to know each other first, OK?

3. Pushes for a call before telling me why

Julie failed to capture my attention or interest. She told me all about her company without giving me a reason to care. And then she has the gall to ask when it’s a good time to have a call?

I may sound cranky, but this is the inner dialogue that goes on almost subconsciously in my mind when when I'm reading an email like this.

The best example of a cold email

Compare that to the best cold email I ever received:

Subject: Magic Goggles

As soon as this email came into my inbox, the first thing I noticed was an animated image of my own website, the Proposify home page. That was like holding a bag of gummy worms over a toddler’s head and saying, “Want this?”

Next, notice what Trey writes in the body of his message:

“Kyle, I wanted to give you a quick shout to introduce you to FullStory, a new tool that helps companies understand customer experiences like never before.”

In just a few more characters than a Tweet, Trey shows that he knows what I care about. Proposify is a SaaS company. We care about delivering great experiences to our customers, and understanding those experiences is top-of-mind for me.

He didn’t promise “growth” or “revenue”, he promised something much more tangible. Understanding my customer experiences like never before. OK, I’m interested.

“The easiest way to get a feel for FullStory is to check out the 30-second demo of me interacting with your site:”

This next line shows that Trey has taken the time to research Proposify and show how the tool can be used on our own website. It’s all about ME, not him. And it will take 30 seconds of my time.

“Want the FullStory? You can take it for a two-week free trial or shoot me a message if you have any questions. Happy Watching!”

This call to action is fantastic because it demands very little of me. If I’m interested, try it out for free. If I have questions, ask. This tells my croc brain that Trey is confident in his product and isn’t trying to pressure to buy me over the phone.

Also, check out the difference between the length of Julie's cold email compared to Trey’s.

Julie’s email was 102 words and told me nothing about why I should care.

Trey’s email was 30 words and got me curious and excited to learn more.

The follow-up email

I clicked the link to look around at what FullStory could do, and I received an email a day later.

This was a great follow-up email and resulted in us having a back-and-forth email conversation, which is what you want from a cold email.

The goal of a cold email is to learn if a prospect is right for you, not close a deal.

Trey caught me clicking his link, so he knew I was at least somewhat interested in what FullStory could do. That warranted a follow-up email.

How to write a cold email for a service business

You may be thinking, “Sure, this might work if you're selling a SaaS product, but would this work when selling marketing or design services (or pool installation, or whatever service you offer)?” 

Short answer: I don’t know, I haven’t tried it. But according to one of our podcast guests, Alex Berman of Experiment 27, who closed $400K of business in 30 days using cold email, you sure can. 

Here’s how:

1. Pick a narrow target

What made Trey’s cold email stand out was that I felt like he knew me. This wasn’t a shotgun blast out to a purchased list. He found my website, knew Proposify was his ideal customer, and went after the CEO (me).

You should know your ideal, perfect customer; their position in the company (CEO, marketing director, finance, IT, whatever), the number of employees, their annual revenue, and their industry. Then build up a lead list to research and go after.

2. Find leads

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a great place to find your ideal client and which person at that company you should be emailing. 

You can also use a tool like Rapportive to get more information on a prospect right within Gmail. It allows you to test different email formats to find someone’s email, and if their email is connected to any social media, it will show up when you get it right.

A tool like Hubspot CRM pulls in details from across the web on who your contact is, their company size, industry, annual revenue, and so on. Also read this article on finding anyone’s email address.

Using this information, you should be able to pull together a narrow list of companies who would be a perfect client.

3. Create a lead magnet

We normally think of lead magnets as being e-books or cheat sheets we give away on a landing page to get someone’s email address.

But you can use personalized lead magnets, like Trey’s 30-second Proposify video, to make cold email leads an offer they can’t refuse (or refuse to click on, at least).

Let’s say your perfect client is the marketing manager of a 100-500 person clothing and apparel company that does at least $10M a year in revenue.

Depending on the service you offer (e.g., SEO, social media marketing), you can create a way to analyze their business at a very high level.

You can use a tool like Quicksprout’s traffic analyzer to get a full report on any website. Go to the website and enter a URL.

After a few seconds, it crawls the website and pulls together a full report on SEO, speed, backlinks, social sharing, and a ton of other information.

Take whatever data is relevant, and put it together into a beautiful, branded report with the client’s logo or home page on the cover.

You’re going to use this image in your cold email, so the first thing the client sees is their own brand, showing that this is about them and you took the time to learn about them.

Don’t put the actual report in your email, just include the screenshot and link the image to a place where they can download it so you can track their opens and clicks.

For example, using Proposify, you could design an awesome looking presentation or report that you can quickly swap out customized information depending on the client you’re pitching.

You can turn off the fee table and accept/decline buttons, so the only thing your client can do is open and download the PDF of your presentation.

You’ll get notified as soon as your client opens the email, clicks the link to view the proposal, and you’ll see an activity feed showing which sections they looked at in the document.

4. Keep your cold email short and simple

Remember Trey’s email; he didn’t use a lot of words. He made it about me and the one thing he wanted me to do: Click the link to view the lead magnet.

5. Be light-hearted or humorous

According to Yesware, emails with humour received a 46% open rate.

I interviewed Jon Buchan from Render Positive in London on the Agencies Drinking Beer podcast, and he used humour in a cold email to get the biggest client in his company’s history. Listen to the interview here.

Trey’s email wasn’t funny, but he kept the language clear and friendly, ending it with “Happy Watching!” Test your approach, and you’ll learn what works over time.

6. Track opens/clicks and have your follow-up email ready

Since you’re using a tool that lets you know when a prospect has clicked your link and opened your lead magnet, you’ll be able to follow up with a canned response like the one Trey sent.

Example:

Hey Betsy,
Couldn't help but notice that you had a chance to open the social media report I ran on [client_company] yesterday. There were some interesting trends and a bit of room for improvement.

Wanted to see if I could answer any questions for you? I'd be happy to give you a quick 20 minute demo on [our_company] to show how we can help.

If you’re busy, no problem, just check out this 20-minute webinar we recorded that shows how we helped another clothing/apparel company like yours improve their social leads by 76% in 3 months.What do you think?

Best,

Conclusion

Cold email doesn’t need to make you feel like a cold fish. If done strategically, measured and optimized over time, you can see amazing results, even for high-end services. 

Also, check out this post that includes 15 free cold email templates and the definitive guide to cold email.

Any ideas, questions or suggestions? Leave a comment below - love to hear what you think. 

I still remember the excitement of hearing the “ding” of my inbox and opening an email with the subject line, “Web design proposal.” I had delivered a strong proposal to a warm lead, and I needed this project to make payroll.

Quickly, my nervous excitement turned to disappointment as I read the canned response: “Thank you for submitting your proposal. Unfortunately, you were not the successful bidder. All the best to you and should you have any questions, please let me know.”

We’ve all faced the sting of rejection before and it sucks. It made me wonder if closing a deal is just a random luck of the draw, or if there’s anything I could do to improve our success rate.

Then I read a book called Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff that deepened my understanding of sales and changed how I think about pitching. I’ll outline a few principles from the book to help you improve how you make a sales pitch that closes the deal, whether you're pitching to a powerful type-A personality or a geeky analyst.

How long should your pitch be?

People have short attention spans. As much as we’d like to, we simply can’t hold a client’s attention for an hour. At most, you have 20 minutes to deliver a message in a way that’s going to intrigue the buyer, so take the time now to prepare a tight, well-rehearsed pitch that you can deliver succinctly. 

But what should your sales pitch actually be about? Most people simply review their proposal content, walk through the deliverables, and brag about their past experience. I’ve made this mistake before, and this is where Pitch Anything opened up my eyes.

Selling to the croc brain

Before you can craft an effective pitch, you need to understand how the brain is hardwired to process information.

There are three basic areas of your brain:

1. Neocortex - The top layer, which is responsible for complex tasks like decision making, logic, conscious thought, and language. It’s the most highly, and recently, evolved part of our brain.

2. Midbrain - This is where we process social interaction and relationship hierarchy.

3. Crocodile Brain - The lowest level in the brain, and the part that’s the oldest in our evolution. The croc brain thinks in simple, linear survival terms: Do I know this already? Is it dangerous? Can I eat it? Can I mate with it? You get the idea.

Oren Klaff provides a great example of how the brain processes information. Imagine this: You are walking down the street and hear someone shouting.

1. Your first reaction is fear. This is the croc brain wondering if there is danger.

2. You turn to see the person shouting to someone else and not you. This is the mid-brain processing the social component of the interaction.

3. Finally, your neocortex evaluates what the person is saying and concludes that it’s simply a friendly exchange between two friends.

So how does this relate to sales?

Most of us think that our sales pitch is about delivering information, so our pitch is simply us relaying information the same way it’s stored in our neocortex.

The problem is that, in reality, you aren’t pitching to your client’s neocortex, you are pitching to their croc brain first. And the croc brain can’t understand much beyond simple, binary logic.

The croc brain is concerned with two things; is it dangerous, and is it novel? Anything dangerous — which in a sales context might be pushy, needy, desperate, nervous — and the croc brain responds by pushing away. If it’s anything that’s not new or novel, it signals to the brain that it already knows this information and can thus safely ignore it.

Your client has no idea this process is happening, but triggering these reactions will spell doom for your pitch.

Avoiding jargon

If you’ve ever sat through a meeting or read through an email that was littered with jargon, and spent more time Googling acronyms than you did paying attention to the task at hand, you’ll understand why you should avoid jargon at all costs.

When you’re pitching a proposal, you want to command attention. You don't want the person you’re pitching to be thinking, “What does he mean by silo?”, and then trail away from you as they think about the time they saw a silo on a farm when they were seven.

It all comes back to the croc brain. If your sales pitch is so full of jargon a 9th grader can’t understand it, chances are your sales lead might not either.

Everyone's croc brain (including your lead) sees words and acronyms that are unfamiliar as risky, which leads them to pull away from you mid-pitch. 'Risky' is not how you want to be viewed as when you’re pitching a deal.

If you want to hold their attention longer, use less technical terms. Practice the pitch on a friend or a co-worker from another department to see if they can point out any areas that might be confusing. It will improve your chances of closing the deal in the long run.

Status and social hierarchy

To illustrate how most business transactions are framed in the mind, look at your average, run-of-the-mill request for proposal (RFP) document. It usually reads something like this — and I’m paraphrasing, but not by much:

“The steering committee will evaluate the successful bidders and if any part of the criteria is not met, the committee reserves the right to reject the proposal at the bidder's cost.”

Generally speaking, money is hailed as the ultimate prize to be won, so we end up treating the person who decides whether or not to pay us money as the highest ranking individual who needs to be supplicated. They are the king and we are the peasants petitioning them for the honour of receiving their business.

This alpha/beta social dynamic is at play when most companies pitch a client, saying something like, “Thank you for taking the time to meet with us today. It’s a wonderful privilege to have the opportunity to work for such a prestigious, world-renowned brand, such as yourself.”

This kind of language signals to their croc brain that you aren’t novel or interesting, and in fact, kind of needy and desperate, which then reinforces in the midbrain that you are the beta and the client is the alpha — likely resulting in your pitch being rejected.

To avoid sending this signal, begin the meeting by establishing what Oren Klaff calls local star power.

Local Star Power

Imagine you are in a high-end French restaurant. After a short wait for your table to be ready, the maître d' arrives to seat you and take your order.

A true professional, the maître d' takes command of your dining experience, outlining how each item on the menu is prepared, corrects you when you order a wine for the table that doesn’t pair well with the food you ordered, and entertains your dinner guests with witty banter.

Perhaps in normal, everyday life you are more popular, wealthy, or powerful than the maître d', but in this particular setting, he has local star power over you. This is his area of expertise, his milieu, his territory. He has control, and you end up working to impress him.

You need to achieve that kind of local star power in your pitch meeting.

"Gain control of your pitch meeting & establish alpha position by getting local star power."

When you first begin a pitch remember that no matter how wealthy or powerful your decision maker is, money is just a commodity. You need to have the mindset that if you don’t get it from them, you can get it from somewhere else, but that you’re the only firm that can make this client successful. You’re the prize to be won over. This is how you have to think. Flip the script on them and you’ll have them eating out of your hand.

So how do you achieve local star power?

Shifting the balance of power

It’s human nature to want what you can’t have. It’s why we pay more for something when it’s scarce to come by. People chase things that move away from them.

Clients expect you to chase after them which raises their alpha status. Instead, make them chase you by saying, “I’ve only got 45 minutes until I have to leave for another meeting. Tell me more about you and your company. I have a good feeling so far, but we have a lot of projects lined up, so we want to make sure that we only take on clients that align with our vision and culture.”

Wait, what?

This might sound very brazen, maybe even arrogant, but you’ll be amazed at how this approach really works. I’ve used it before when dealing with pompous, type-A decision makers. Klaff calls it “busting their power frame”.

It instantly turns the tables and puts them in the beta position, giving you local star power and allowing you to take control of the pitch.

Telling the story

The most important thing when making a sales pitch is to capture your client’s attention, and yet it can be the hardest thing to achieve.

As Klaff relates in his book, attention is made up of two main ingredients: a reward (what I want) and tension (will I get what I want). Showing the reward and then threatening to take it away creates a push/pull effect that holds people’s attention, a technique widely used in storytelling.

For thousands of years, humans have used storytelling to relay memorable information, and it’s no different today. We require a narrative in order to process information and make decisions. Information alone has no convincing power.

Remember that the croc brain is interested in things that are novel before passing it up to the neocortex. The minute you start reciting facts and figures, and bragging about your awesome track-record, you’ll sound like every other company your client heard that morning and they’ll mentally check out.

How to structure a narrative

Look at the best directors and screenwriters and you’ll find that there’s a common story structure that naturally captivates us.

The basic structure is:

1. Introduce your characters and give them a common prize they are striving for. In film it’s called the McGuffin. It’s the money-filled briefcase or the diamond cave everyone is searching for.

2. Some kind of conflict occurs as the characters try to attain the McGuffin whereby they are placed in a tense or dangerous situation.

3. Get the characters almost to safety, but then introduce a ticking time bomb to increase tension in the climax before resolving the story. For example, they reached the diamond cave but it’s going to collapse in 3 minutes.

If you study films of any genre you’ll begin to notice that practically every film follows this same pattern or structure. Check out the 10 commandments of screenwriting from the award-winning Billy Wilder, for more storytelling secrets.

You need to frame your pitch around a narrative and introduce tension to hold their attention. Don’t just reveal The Big Idea. Lead up to it. Talk about the problem, and the changing forces in the market that require a solution. What circumstances led you to coming up with the solution?

In his stellar Ted Talk, How Great Leaders Inspire Action, Simon Sinek repeated the mantra, people don’t care what you do, they care why you do it. Framing your pitch around a narrative holds their attention so they are primed when you introduce The Big Idea.

The meat of the pitch

Once you’ve introduced The Big Idea briefly and still have the client’s attention, you can get into the meat of the pitch.

The meat looks like this:

• Value Proposition- How the big idea will deliver return on investment to the client.

• Secret Sauce- Why you have an unfair advantage in executing the big idea, like proprietary technology, unique industry insight, valuable partnerships, etc.

• Competition- You can acknowledge who you’re up against without overtly trash talking them, but still make it clear why you’re better.

• Scope and Budget- What will you do and how much will it cost. Keep it very high level and avoid details that the neocortex needs to process. Sell to the croc brain.

“Cold” and “hot” cognition

Cold cognition is exactly that it sounds like. It’s why people say “Give me the cold, hard facts”.

But by the time we’ve processed the cold facts, we have already formed opinion subconsciously. Some call it your gut reaction. Later we use facts to back up how we already feel. This is called hot cognition.

You want to keep the client in hot cognition mode at all times, and you do this by keeping details very clear, simple, and high-level without going down the rabbit hole of nuanced, micro details that sound dangerous to their croc brain and require mental energy from their neocortex.

People with an analyst frame are typically technical people there to pick apart holes in your pitch, like the director of IT who interrupts you to delve into security questions while you’re telling the story.

When clients come at you with the analyst frame, you need to bust their frame by staying focused on the narrative and defer to the proposal which contains the details — they can read that after the pitch.

How to close the deal

Asking questions like “So what do you think?” or “When can we make this happen?” signals neediness and lowers you to the beta position. Remember, moving towards people repels them. They chase that which moves away.

Give them a time frame

Too often agencies are at the mercy of the buyer’s decision-making process and they end up with dozens of proposals out there in the ether waiting to close.

Pressure selling often causes buyer's remorse, which isn’t what you want either. But you do need to put a time frame in place that the client must adhere to, otherwise there’s no motivation for the client to ever make a decision.

Try something like this: “We’ve got a lot of new business coming in, so I want to be sure that I can get you in. If you think there’s a fit here, let me know by Friday of next week because that’s when we’ll have our project schedule complete for the next few months.”

This gives the client a reasonable amount of time to make a decision and reinforces your high alpha status. They need to play by your rules under a time frame that you set.

Conclusion

I’ll admit, the strategies in Pitch Anything are bold, unconventional, and audacious, but you don’t need to be aggressive or contentious to put these strategies into action. Have fun. Crack a joke here or there. Assert your status with a wink and a smile.

Most importantly, you need to believe deep down that you are the prize to be won, and be willing to walk away if the client disagrees.

Pitch Anything fundamentally changed everything I thought I knew about sales pitches and presentations, and flies in the face of virtually every classic sales technique we were taught. I highly recommend buying the book, reading it, and applying its principles.

Proposify is all about streamlining your sales process. We help you create proposals faster, we help you get client sign-off faster, and now, we help you get paid faster!

Thanks to our newest integration, when you connect your Stripe account to your Proposify account, you can request payment from your clients right in the proposal. Get paid, TODAY.

How it works

Once you connect your Stripe and Proposify accounts, you can set a payment default. This allows you to request payment for a specific percentage across all new proposals. So, if your payment policy is that clients need to pay 50% upfront, you can set the default payment to always request 50% of whatever the total project proposal is.

If you prefer to set different payment amounts for each individual proposal, you can do that, too. You can also edit existing proposal settings to enable payments, so even if a proposal has already been sent to your client, you can still add the Stripe payment to it.

Once your client has signed the proposal, they will be prompted to make the specified payment amount right then and there. Making a Stripe payment is quick and easy for clients - all they need to do is enter their credit card details.

If your client decides that they don’t want to pay right then, you can always send the proposal later as a friendly reminder.

If you have international clients, Stripe supports 135 currencies so you can collect payments from around the world. 

Let’s get this payment party started

If you already have a Stripe account, follow these instructions to connect it to your Proposify account. Please note that not all plans include Stripe. Check now to see if your plan includes Stripe or if you need to switch plans. 

If you’re not already a Stripe customer, you can create a new account with Stripe and then connect it to Proposify. Stripe is free to sign up.

Now, get out there and wheel some deals! It might be summer, but (iced) coffee is still for closers.

If you’re in a business that’s dependant on customer subscriptions, I’m sure you’re very familiar with churn. It’s that pesky little metric that’s a downer at marketing meetings and when you’re trying to forecast growth.

It’s a hole in your bucket when you’re trying to carry water; it’s a pinprick in the balloon you gave your kid. Left unabated, churn can drain you dry and leave you without air.

Customer churn is often viewed as the bane of a company's growth plan, and don’t get me wrong, it sure is. If you’re losing five customers for every five you gain, you’re quickly going nowhere. You need a solid customer retention strategy.

But instead of just saying, ‘Churn sucks!’, and throwing your hands in the air, read on. I’m going to show you the silver lining to customer churn and how it can provide valuable insights into product development, marketing, and customer service.

What is customer churn?

Churn is the percentage at which customers cancel their subscriptions compared to the total amount of new and existing subscriptions you retain. It can be measured by the number of customers you lose per month (customer churn), or by the amount of monthly recurring revenue they represent (MRR churn).

Keeping your eye on both metrics can give you insights into your company's health and make sure you’re retaining customers.

Breaking down customer churn

If your company offers different subscription bundles or plans, it’s useful to break churn down into separate buckets for each one. This way you can see which plans are experiencing the highest churn levels and make decisions based on that information.

Say for instance you had 1000 customers and three different subscription plans -  small, medium, and large. In one month maybe you had 100 customers churn, but most of them were all on the small plan. This would make your customer churn rate high, but your MRR churn would be low. On the flip side, if you had twenty large customers churn, your customer churn rate would be low, but your MRR rate would be high.

Fighting churn company-wide

Here at Proposify, we’ve noticed that our smaller plans churn at far higher rates than our larger plans. Although the smaller plans represent a bigger portion of our customer base, we decided to focus on increasing subscriptions to our larger plans.

A higher percentage of customers on larger plans would increase our lifetime value (LTV: projected revenue for the lifetime of each customer) as well as significantly lower our MRR churn. Growing our larger subscription base has been a combined effort between the product and marketing departments.

On the product side, we know that people on larger plans write more proposals, so we created features aimed at that market, making it easier for them to manage their accounts and workflows. We added the 'roles and permissions,' and 'teams' features.

The 'roles and permissions' feature allows our account holders to create roles for different types of users on their team, and then restrict their access to certain parts of the app. They have the power to control which proposals certain roles can view or edit, and whether they require approval from the account holder before sending a proposal to a client.

For companies with multiple or regional brands, our 'teams' feature allows each team to have their own branding, pipeline and content, while still being managed under one account.

We received great feedback on these features, and they resulted in two key benefits. Not only did new customers start converting at a higher rate into larger plans, but our existing customer base also expanded up into these plans.

On the marketing side, an effort was made to target small and medium business more through content and social marketing, as they have a greater demand for proposals and a solid sales process.

This interdepartmental effort helped us successfully increase the percentage of larger sized plans to exceed the lower tier plans. This has reduced our MRR churn considerably, making it more stable and less affected when smaller plans churn.

Ask your customer why

It’s important to know which plans are churning and at what rate, but wouldn’t it be more valuable if you knew why customers left? There’s an easy way to find out…ask them!

One of the things we do at Proposify that has been invaluable to understanding churn is to ask the customers why they’re cancelling their account when they deactivate. They have to select an option to be able to click on the ‘delete’ button. Once they select a ‘why are you cancelling?’ option, we go a step further and ask them to tell us more.

What’s been really interesting to see is the number of people who honestly answer the question and give us more information about their reasons for cancelling their account.

Before we started asking the follow-up question, we wondered if people just randomly selected an option just to get out the damn door quickly. But after analyzing the results, we could see that people actually told us why and gave more detail. Although some of the feedback is difficult to hear sometimes, it provides us with a deeper understanding of our customer churn.

Each month I get a CSV with all the results, and I pour over them to get a larger sense of why people are leaving. Based on this information, we make product decisions to improve the Proposify experience and ensure that our customers continue to get value from the product.

About a year ago one of the top reasons our customers gave for cancelling their account was that our product was “too buggy,” followed by a mention about the undo feature. We were already aware of the undo problem by listening to our customer support team, but seeing it listed so often in cancellations made us stop in our tracks and set out to fix it.

It did take considerable time for the undo feature to be fixed and shipped; since then we’ve seen a drop in that reason being selected for customer churn. It’s one thing to know why things are happening, but it is an entirely different thing to take charge and make changes.

Voluntary churn vs. involuntary churn

So far I have mostly talked about voluntary churn — people who take action to cancel their account — but there is another kind of churn that can often account for 30 - 40% of your total churn. This silent killer is named ‘involuntary churn.’

Involuntary churn happens when the recurring payment gets blocked by the bank, or the credit card is expired, or the customer simply doesn’t have enough room on their credit card to cover the subscription fee. While there are many reasons why a payment gets declined, the result is the same: a lost customer. Even though you may send failed payment emails to customers when their payment doesn’t go through, it doesn't mean they’re going to come back.

Digging deeper

Part of our weekly and monthly metrics review is looking at how many transactions are declined. Three months ago we noticed that the number of declines was spiking, so we decided to investigate why.

We poured over the metrics available to us and ended up no further ahead. We spoke with Recurly (our subscription management service) and Stripe (payment gateway) to see if anything had changed on the banking side of things.

We assumed that the banks were being more stringent on which payments were allowed, as we had issues in the past with cross-border payments. Unfortunately, we didn’t learn anything new to help us solve the problem.

After about a week I was pretty frustrated. I could see more and more declined payments and the rate of accounts suspensions going up. 37% of our churn was involuntary when this started, and with the increase we would be at 45% by the end of the month.

I reached out to Recurly again asking what I could do to help this negative trend and ended up on a phone call with their support. We reviewed our dunning process, which is the email campaign that gets sent to a customer if their credit card fails, asking them to change or update their card so they can reactivate their subscription.

We discovered that our dunning process was too short, lasting only seven days, and that the emails contained too much information. We came up with a plan to extend the dunning process to give customers more notice and to simplify the content of the emails.

Once this was in place, we had to sit and wait.

The new extended dunning process meant Recurly made more attempts on the credit cards, which resulted in an even higher failed transaction rate, but it also lowered our involuntary churn rate, which was the real metric we wanted to affect. 

Six weeks after the change our involuntary churn rate has dropped to 33%.

Takeaway: Although this story doesn't relate to any epiphany about our customer base, by keeping a watchful eye on our churn and related metrics, we saw a problem before it got out of hand and worked to find a solution.

Understand your customer life cycle, from beginning to end

Having a clearer picture of the breakdown of your churn rates by plan and by churn type can empower you to fix holes before they sink your ship. Although churn is a negative metric, there’s still some value that can come from it.

Since churn is at the end of a customer life cycle, knowing your customer personas and the reasons why they buy or don't buy is a critical aspect of your company’s profitability.

You can apply a lot of the techniques for understanding customer churn to other parts of your customer life cycle to uncover issues before they become problems. The key is to gather data, analyze it, make changes, and measure again.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software is big business — As of 2016, it was a $26.5 billion-dollar industry. It’s no surprise then that hundreds of products have emerged over the years, all with their own pros and cons, making it tricky to choose the CRM that’s best for your business. If you’re going through this now, hopefully this post will offer some guidelines on how to choose a CRM.

At Proposify, the CRM we’ve been using isn’t meeting our needs. We originally chose Hubspot because we aren’t a sales-heavy startup, meaning our product is fairly self-service and doesn’t require a human touch-point from lead to close. At the same time, we knew we needed a CRM for some sales tasks, primarily a way for my co-founder, Kevin and I to share contacts with each other.

When we first hired our two-person sales team in 2016 to handle demos and lead qualification for larger tier customers, a CRM became much more important.

We did our best to make good use of Hubspot CRM. Using Zapier, we integrated it with Intercom, Aircall and ChartMogul, but ultimately we found Hubspot to be clunky, from the user interface to integration with other products. (I wrote a post on how to get better SaaS reporting by using Zapier to connect Hubspot with ChartMogul).

And, quite honestly, Hubspot doesn’t seem like the kind company I want to feed leads and customer data to. If you've read about Dan Lyon’s experience at Hubspot in his book, Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble, and the subsequent scandal that resulted in the termination of their CMO and reprimand of their CEO, you might understand.

So I sat down with our sales team to get their feedback, and went on a hunt for a new CRM. Starting out, I wanted a CRM that not only made it easier to add leads, track deals, and produce better reports, but also one that I could use to keep tabs on people other than just customers, like podcast guests, influencers, journalists, and other professionals with whom I want to nurture relationships.

A few notes about selecting a CRM before we begin:

• I haven't tried every CRM on the market; there are a lot. I chose the ones that seemed like the best fit for a small but growing SaaS business, had a reasonably strong brand, and enjoyed some degree of popularity among the sales professionals and entrepreneurs I know.

• I left out SaaS products that include CRM functionality, but aren’t dedicated, standalone CRMs, like InfusionSoft, Podio, and Harvest. These may be awesome products, but with invoicing, e-commerce, and project management components, they’re more than what we were looking for.

• Not all of the criteria listed below had equal weight. Some factors were more valuable to us than others, and this factored into the final score.

• We’re still only in the trial stage of using the shortlisted CRMs mentioned in this post. No doubt we’ll learn more over the coming months as we use the product on a daily basis.

Here are the CRMs we evaluated, listed alphabetically: 

1. Agile

2. Capsule

3. Close.io

4. Highrise

5. Insightly

6. Nutshell

7. Pipedrive

8. Salesforce

9. Zoho

Criteria for choosing CRM software

These are the twelve criteria we used to evaluate the best CRM options for Proposify:

1. User experience

In the product itself, how polished is the UI? Does it feel/flow nicely, or is it old-school, clunky and ugly? Does the sales team enjoy logging into this CRM every day, or does it hurt the eyes? Are there bugs or workflow issues that cause pain, or does it feel seamless?

2. Adding/importing contacts

How easy is it to add contact details and notes? Can leads automatically be imported from spreadsheets, web forms, and other products we use, like Intercom and Aircall?

3. Deals/pipeline

The deal/opportunity feature is an important part of a CRM so you can clearly see what’s in your pipeline, what stage everything is at, and what a deal or opportunity is worth.

4. Tasks, follow-ups, calendar

We don’t want anything slipping through the cracks, so it’s important to be reminded of next steps and the best time to follow up with someone.

5. Tagging/search

Our sales team wanted to be sure they could tag contacts and easily find them later.

6. Reporting

Reporting is an important one for me. Recurring revenue is difficult to accurately report since a deal isn’t one size. It can include monthly and recurring revenue, and the LTV (customer lifetime value) varies, so it’s hard to tell what a deal is really worth. We want reports that clarify how much is in the pipeline, how much we’re closing, and how well each sales rep is performing.

7. Integrations

Our primary tools for communicating with customers at Proposify are Intercom and Aircall, so we want to make sure that when a salesperson is having a conversation with a lead in Intercom, it’s feeding pertinent information into the CRM. Similarly, when they’re talking via Aircall, the call should be logged in the CRM.

When a lead becomes a customer, the CRM should automatically push that to ChartMogul, where we track our recurring revenue, lifetime value, churn, and other SaaS metrics. We don’t want a salesperson to have to manually log it (Chances are, no matter which CRM we go for I’ll still need to use Zapier to automate this).

8. Mobile apps

I’ve stood in line at the grocery store wishing I could quickly respond to a lead or customer, so having a dedicated iOS app is important to me (or I suppose an Android app for ‘those’ people).

9. Email

Kind of a no-brainer, but you should be able to send emails to leads through your CRM and have them delivered reliably.

Are you able to you see if the recipient opened it? This isn’t the biggest feature priority for us since Proposify already does this with proposals that get emailed. It’s still nice to have if it doesn’t mean adding any tacky links to emails or needing to switch to a specific email client.

10. Phone calls/VOIP

Some CRM’s offer phone calls natively (you call leads through the app using headphones) but an Aircall integration would be ideal since this is what our entire support team uses for incoming and outgoing customer phone calls.

11. Text/Chat

Text/chat isn’t a huge deal for us, but still, many people are swamped with email, and it’s easy to ignore a salesperson’s message in your inbox. I’ve often had better conversations with leads via Facebook messenger, text messages, Intercom chat, and Slack than via email so any alternative way to communicate scores reasonably high in my book.

12. Price/value

Finally, what does the CRM cost, and how does that cost scale over time? I don’t mind paying good money for something that offers many times the value, but we don’t want to be paying enterprise prices at our current size.

CRM Candidates

Agile

Agile CRM has a well-designed marketing website and some nice shots of the product.

I’m always a bit skeptical when I see “All-in-one” as it usually means a large, clunky piece of software with tools that are only average, instead of a specialized product with all resources dedicated to making it the best.

I’m also curious about whether signing up to Agile means I’ll be inundated with up-sells to their marketing automation and helpdesk software.

User experience

Agile’s UI is fine, but with a lot of icons in the nav bar, on the left-hand side and above, it’s a bit hard to remember where everything is without hovering to read the labels.

There’s a lot of polish when it comes to slick animations, like on the timeline. However, there were some bugs around importing (see below) that hurt the experience. Other times, I would click on a button that would fail silently without any errors. Just one example: When adding a company to a contact, I hit TAB to go to the next field and it wiped out the entry.

Adding/importing contacts

Importing contacts from a CSV looked relatively easy, although it would be better if it auto-detected the fields when it comes time to match them.

After I clicked the import button a modal told me the contacts were importing and that Agile would email me when it was done. It seemed slow to import, considering I only had 72 contacts with about three fields, and I was still waiting after about 10 minutes with no contacts to be seen. After an hour there was still no progress, so it seemed something failed silently in the background. That definitely detracted from the experience.

Deals/pipeline

The deal pipeline looks great and has nice columns where you can drag deals between stages, along with a simple list view.

Unfortunately, you can only add a fixed amount for deals, no recurring revenue.

Tasks, follow-ups, calendar

Scheduling and calendar built right in makes this very nice, along with a Google Calendar integration.

Tagging/search

The tagging and search functions are simple but robust, allowing you to filter results and even search by voice.

Reporting

Agile offers a lot in the way of reports. There are so many ways of reporting data that it’s grouped by deals, calls, activities, and growth.

Integrations

Agile has a pretty large list of integrations, but it’s hard to find them all without digging, as they are spread all over the place.

In Agile they are called “widgets”; Agile integrates with a decent number of calling, support, invoicing and social apps. This way you can call through Twilio, sync messages from Zendesk, manage invoicing/billing through Freshbooks and Stripe, and pull in social data through LinkedIn and Freshbooks just to name a few. Sadly, it doesn’t integrate with the apps we use, Aircall, Intercom, and ChartMogul.

Another thing I like is their integration with document tools, so you can add docs from Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote, etc.

Mobile app

Agile offers Android and iOS apps.

Email

There’s an email tool built right in, and you can send from your own domain by adding your IMAP and SMTP to bring emails from an address directly within the CRM.

Phone

Agile does pretty well when it comes to calls, allowing you to add call scripts based on certain rules, and add voicemails directly through the app. To make calls directly you need to integrate with another provider like Skype or Twilio, but not with Aircall, as I mentioned earlier.

Text/chat

You may be able to text contacts using an integration but not natively.

Price/value

Their pricing is a bit odd, as the pricing tiers align with separate products. The CRM is mostly free; the next tier is a marketing tool, followed by a help desk. It seems like Agile wants you to move your entire business into their platform instead of just focusing on one core product like most other CRMs we looked at.

Final score: 40/60

Bottom line:

Agile’s timeline and deal views are very slick. The overall UI and animations look great. It’s also nice that a call scheduler like Calendly is built right in. However, the bugs in the UI made it frustrating at times, and the lack of recurring revenue reporting make it unlikely we would upgrade.

Capsule

The marketing site is clean and simple. It outlines its features clearly, and shows off just enough of the product UI to allow the user to get a sense of how it feels.

User experience

The UI is clean almost to the point of sterility, using Bootstrap so it feels very familiar.

However, there are some usability issues throughout, like entering tags in one place uses auto search, but in other places it doesn’t and requires comma separation.

Onboarding was unnecessarily clunky, forcing you to get email verified before signing up, making you enter your user/password next, and then dumping you into an empty UI with just a long list of things to do instead of walking you through the process.

Still, the Capsule interface is overall easy to use and understand.

Adding/importing contacts

Importing contacts was reasonably easy, but had a few annoying things like needing to select “ignore” on every field. It also doesn’t seem to auto pull any company data.

Deals/pipeline

The deals work pretty well and allow you to add recurring revenue, although it makes you specify an amount per month.

You can view the pipeline in a list or as a dashboard, but there is no columned set of stages you can drag deals to and from.

Tasks, follow-ups

When adding a task if you choose the wrong contact and then want to change it to another, you can’t do it without clicking cancel and then adding the task again.

There’s a calendar feed to add to an app like Google Cal, Apple Cal, etc. and there’s a calendar built into the UI.

Tracks are interesting, allowing you to create a sequence of tracks for opportunities so that you can easily standardize your process.

Tagging/search

You can add tags but can’t search by tag. The data tags are kind of confusing as opposed to just adding a field.

Reporting

Pipeline reporting is good, but there’s not much else.

Integrations

Pretty big list of integrations, although none that work directly with Intercom or ChartMogul. On the plus side it does use Zapier.

Mobile apps

iOS and Android mobile apps.

Email

There’s no ability to email directly from within Capsule, instead you need to use your own email client.

Capsule uses “Mail Drop Box” (not to be confused with Dropbox the company/app), so you can add a BCC address to automatically add emails to and from contacts. You can even add to-dos via email by changing the address to “todo@”.

Phone call logging

There’s no phone call logging or built in calling, but you can choose a provider like Skype so you can click to call phone numbers.

SMS/Text

No functionality.

Price/value

Capsule is very affordable. It starts out free and then begins at only $12/user/month.

Final score: 40/60

Bottom line:

Capsule has very useful and unique features, such as tracks, but it lacks when it comes to pipeline, reporting, and UX issues. It’s a good, but not great choice for us.

Close.io

I’m a big fan of the founder of Close.io, Steli Efti, who produces a lot of great content for startups, including The Startup Chat with Hiten Shah, so I wanted to be sure to include Close.io on this list.

Overview video: https://vimeo.com/54414551

Close.io’s marketing website is a lot like the product itself, nice enough to look at but very pragmatic.

User experience

The Close.io interface is clean, minimal, and intuitive. It’s not the flashiest or most exciting design, but it’s fast and practical.

Adding/importing contacts

Importing leads into Close.io from a spreadsheet was quick and painless. After hitting import, it showed me the progress of my import, and it only took a few seconds to add my 72 contacts.

Deals/pipeline

I really like the way Close.io displays opportunities. It works well for a SaaS company that deals in monthly and annual billing. Having a confidence gauge is also a nice touch as it helps to see what percentage of your pipeline is likely to close.

Tasks, follow-ups

The tasks and follow-up functions work well and integrate with Google Calendar.

Tagging/search

There are lead and opportunity statuses in Close.io but no tagging. However, their powerful search function makes it easy to search for your leads.

Reporting

I’m very impressed with the reporting in Close.io as it seems made for SaaS companies. You can track activities like calls made, emails sent, opportunities created, and status changed, plus you're able to filter it by sales agent.

Integrations

It appears that integrations are one of the weaker points of Close.io. Their integration list is small, mostly relying on Zapier and third-parties. I would have loved an integration with Intercom and Aircall.

Mobile apps

Close.io has no mobile apps at all. Bummer.

Email

Close.io offers a lot of email options, allowing you to send email from within, forward emails into the CRM, and two-way integration.

Phone calls

One of Close.io’s strongest selling points is the ability to make and log calls directly within the CRM. You have to use their desktop app to do so, and it doesn’t appear to integrate with Aircall.

SMS/Text

You have the ability to text people from within Close.io if you have their cell number, which worked well.

Price/value

Close.io is not a cheap CRM by any means. Their smallest package is $65/user/month, and their largest is $165/user/month, so for me, my co-founder, and two sales reps it would be in the $400/month range. Still, Close.io is a very solid CRM focused on inside sales teams at SaaS startups — exactly what we are.

Final score: 48/60

Bottom line:

While being one of the most expensive CRMs, Close.io is a good fit for SaaS companies, offering a simple and functional user-interface, and great phone, text, deal, and reporting capabilities. Feature improvements would be a mobile app, more integrations and tagging functionality.

Highrise

Originally created by the makers of Basecamp, Highrise has been run by CEO Nathan Kontny since 2014. I used to use Highrise when I ran my agency, Headspace.

Highrise markets itself as a simple CRM, and their marketing website reflects that. There are no embellishments at all, just a logo, headline, and sign-up form.

The watercolour illustrations create an airiness and calming feel, which is what you want if you’re marketing yourself as the simplest of products in a competitive category.

User interface

Highrise’s UI is fine, if not a bit dated. It hasn’t evolved much since I used it five years ago. They have these things called cases, which are ways of grouping related tasks, notes, deals, contacts together, but it just seems like you would either add it all under a contact or a deal - case seems unnecessary.

Adding/importing contacts

Highrise’s massive volume of possible fields to match was confusing, and it took a long time to sort through. There were fields that were so similar that I couldn’t tell which to use, like “work website,” or “company work website”.

The email field, arguably the most important unique field for contacts, was buried in a massive list of hundreds of others and difficult to find. For a “simple” CRM, it wasn’t very straightforward!

Deals/pipeline

Very simple, maybe too simple. No deal stages or organized column lists, and recurring revenue isn’t well accounted for. I also don’t like that Highrise forces you to enter an amount of months/years for recurring deals - it’s not well suited for subscription services like ours.

Tasks, follow-ups

Pretty straightforward and easy to use, plus there’s a calendar feed we can plug into Google Cal. Tasks are nicely done, and you can add a task feed to your Google Cal.

Tagging/search

Tagging and search in Highrise is very fast and efficient.

Reporting

Not much for reports other than forecasting sales based on deal close dates and amounts, and filtering by candidates.

Integrations

Highrise has an API and mostly integrates with Zapier, but they don’t have many native integrations, although a fair amount of other products integrate with Highrise (including Proposify). I would have loved an easier way to connect Aircall and Intercom.

Mobile apps

Highrise has mobile apps for iOS, Android, and a responsive mobile site.

Email

Highrise only connects with Gmail or Outlook, so can’t it won’t integrate with my email other than via the dynamic BCC address for adding emails into the CRM

Phone call logging

None.

SMS/Text

None.

Price/value

Highrise doesn’t charge per user, putting it on the lower pricing end so a small team can get a lot out of Highrise for only $24/month.

Final score: 34/60

Bottom line:

Highrise is perfect for small teams who don’t require a lot from their CRM and who value strong core functionality and low pricing over advanced features or visual pizazz.

It’s not an ideal fit for SaaS companies due to the lack of support for recurring revenue, reporting, phone or text, or integrations with tools we use. I do love Highrise as a company, and had a great chat with their CEO, Nathan Kontny.

Insightly

Insightly is certainly going for a polished and professional look with their website. From the copy on the page, it is clear that Insightly values more than just the sale.

They feature three categories: “Accelerate Sales”, “Build Relationships”, and “Deliver Projects”, touting that Insightly is a CRM that offers project management features beyond the sale.

User experience

The user interface is logically laid out, with a collapsible toolbar on the left-hand side that lists the main features of the CRM with clear icons. Insightly seems to be putting their utilitarian foot forward here, creating an interface that might not be described as beautiful, but it gives you everything you’re looking within one click.

Adding/importing contacts

Adding contacts to Insightly via a CSV was simple and straightforward. It auto detects fields like first and last name or allows you to pick a category or custom tag based on the data from the CSV.

Deals/pipeline

The Insightly opportunities pipeline prominently features the state (Open, Won, Lost, Suspended and Abandoned) and the stage (Prospecting, Qualification, Needs Analysis, Proposal, and Negotiation) of each opportunity.

The value of the opportunity and the close date are included in the pipeline but aren’t prominently featured. Each opportunity includes a “Probability of Winning” variable, although it’s not featured in the pipeline, and is only visible once you view each opportunity.

Tasks, follow-ups

Insightly includes fairly robust task features with almost any feature you might want. Tasks are assigned to a user, a category (email, follow-up, meeting, phone call, to-do), opportunities, and contacts. You can set reminders, show the progress and priority of the task, and choose to make it public or private.

Tagging/search

Through custom fields, tags, and categories, Insightly provides several ways to categorize, filter, and manage your data. Each has their own benefits and best-use cases, which Insightly outlines in this support article. With these customizable filters, you should be able to create a solution for filtering data regardless of the type of business you’re in.

Reporting

Insightly’s reporting feature allows significant customization, letting you pull reports on almost any data point in their system. Insightly has certainly invested in the reporting side of their platform to make it work for a wide range of businesses, updating the reporting features and name to “Advanced Reporting” back in 2016. Insightly does not specifically measure recurring revenue in the same way as a typical SaaS business, but you can enter the opportunity value by a fixed period, i.e. $X for X months.

Integrations

Insightly does not integrate with Intercom or Aircall, but they do have over 40 integrations listed on their site, including Zapier. They also have a public API, which Proposify uses to integrate with Insightly.

Mobile apps

When signing up for Insightly, their welcome email highlights their companion mobile apps for iOS and Android to view your data on the go. Unfortunately, their web app is not responsive.

Email delivery

Insightly allows you to connect your email via Gmail, Office 365, Outlook.com, or other email accounts through an SMTP server. Once setup, you can send email messages from within Insightly and receive replies directly in your email account inbox.

Phone call logging

Currently, Insightly doesn’t do call logging, although according to their Help Centre community, it has been on their roadmap since 2015. Insightly recommends logging calls as a note within the applicable contact, lead, organization, project, or opportunity. I was able to find several VOIP service providers that integrate with Insightly as another workaround.

SMS/Text

Similar to calls, there are no native SMS features built into Insightly, but I was able to identify a few integrations, including some via Zapier.

Price/value

Insightly bills per user, potentially making it price prohibitive for larger sales teams. For small to medium teams, the pricing is competitive given the features available with Insightly.

Final score: 42/60

Bottom line:

Insightly is a well thought-out CRM with great task managing abilities and reporting, although in their attempt to be everything to everyone, they may lack the specialization of other platforms. I would keep Insightly on the list for anyone considering a CRM, especially if you want your CRM to help with project delivery after you close the deal.

Nutshell

Nutshell is a well-designed CRM that offers a solid amount of features at a reasonable price.

User experience

Nutshell’s UI is pretty good overall, although it does tend to be a bit busy and cramped here and there.

Adding/importing contacts

Their import UI is nice and easy to understand. Updating duplicates is helpful, and the preview works well. I like that Nutshell automatically detects certain fields, like email addresses, and allows you to re-import the spreadsheet and update your contacts if the import went wrong or you missed certain fields.

It does a good job of scraping the information of people to show their social media accounts and approximate location.

Deals/pipeline

This feature is only available on midsize and larger tier plans, and is called “funnel” in the reporting section, but you can add it to your dashboard.

Nutshell has a good customizable dashboard.

Leads is basically opportunities or deals.

I really like the map view that shows where your leads are. It’s not overly useful for us here at Proposify, but I could see this being neat if you need to visit your leads.

Tasks, follow-ups, calendar

Exactly what you’d expect from to-dos and follow ups.

Tagging/search

Searching by people works pretty well, but I couldn’t seem to search by tag. When I added a tag to a contact and then searched for that tag, nothing showed up.

Sad face indeed.

Reporting

Nutshell seems to offer a lot reporting - almost too much, as looking through the help docs there were 11 different articles based on reporting. I almost didn’t know what I should be looking at.

Integrations

Unfortunately, they don’t have a lot of integrations and the ones they do have are for products we don’t use. I would love an Aircall or Intercom integration, but at least they have Zapier.

Mobile apps

Nutshell does have both an iOS and Android mobile app.

Email

You can add your SMTP information into Nutshell to send emails directly from your own email address, and they offer view tracking.

Phone call logging

Nutshell has built-in calling and recording on paid plans, or you can integrate it with another service like Skype, RingCentral and other VOIP services. Unfortunately, no Aircall integration :(

SMS/Text

No texting functionality.

Price/value

It’s not the cheapest nor the most expensive. Like the product overall, it’s right in between super simple, and feature rich.

Final score: 48/60

Bottom line:

Nutshell is a well-designed, feature-rich product that offers great value for the cost. Their search functionality could be improved, as could their integrations. I wish their reporting were better suited to SaaS/subscription companies, but overall, they are a top contender.

Pipedrive

Founded in 2010 by two seasoned sales managers, Pipedrive claims to be “The sales CRM built by salespeople for salespeople”.

Pipedrive’s front-end website is clean and simple, showing off a few product shots, key benefits, and testimonials. It is interesting to note that they redirect returning users a different version of their homepage, with calls-to-action for support, product updates, and 'getting started' videos. This is a nice touch and shows that Pipedrive really puts effort into their sales and marketing funnel.

User experience

Pipedrive’s UI is fast and clean. The black and white interface with bright red and green seemed a bit stark at first, but I think the colour choices are intentional to draw your eye to activities that are late or overdue, so things don’t slip through the cracks.

Adding/importing contacts

Importing contacts from a CSV was fast and painless. Pipedrive does allow custom fields for contacts, so it would be important to have those set up first, before importing your contacts.

Deals/pipeline

With the name “Pipedrive” you would hope that they would have a good pipeline, and they do. The agile kanban-esque layout of their pipeline is great. The process of dragging and dropping deals between different stages of your pipeline is extremely satisfying. The configuration of the pipeline, combined with the sorting and filtering options, makes Pipedrive one of the best CRM pipelines.

Tasks, follow-ups

Pipedrive’s activities default to “call”, “meeting”, “task”, “deadline”, “email”, and “lunch”, but admins have the option to create custom activities. Each activity is assigned to a user, and can be linked to a deal, contact, and organization. Pipedrive uses activities to prioritize deals for salespeople, sorting the most timely to the top of each stage.

Tagging/search

Pipedrive does not allow tagging the way many other platforms do. However, they do have custom fields which they recommend you use to filter in a similar way to tags. Logically I think this makes sense for larger teams, as multiple user-generated tags can get out of hand pretty quickly.

Searching requires a custom filter to be in place for whatever you’re looking for. The filters can be customized for almost anything, but this adds an extra step if you were only looking to search for a deal or contact name.

Reporting

Pipedrive offers a top-level metrics dashboard as well as a reporting interface to produce detailed reports with graphs and charts. The default reports combined with filters by salesperson, product, stage, etc., would be valuable for sales managers to dig into their team’s performance and areas of improvement. There doesn’t seem to be any SaaS-specific features for tracking and reporting on monthly/annual fees though, which is unfortunate for us.

Integrations

Pipedrive lists over 90 integrations on their site including AirCall, Zapier, and Proposify.

Mobile apps

Pipedrive offers an iOS and Android app that allows you view your deals, contacts, add meeting and call notes, and has call tracking abilities.

Email delivery

Pipedrive does offer integrated email, but only on their “Gold” plan and higher. On their “Silver” plan they offer what they call “smart email BCC”. If you include the provided email address (i.e. customnamehere@pipedrivemail.com) in the BCC section of any email you send out, that email will be added to Pipedrive and linked to the associated contact. Any replies from your customers will need to be forwarded to the same universal BCC address. This seems like a major hassle, making the “Gold” plan necessary.

Phone call logging

The Pipedrive mobile app allows you to start your calls from inside Pipedrive, so you can log conversations, add notes to the relevant deal, and schedule a follow-up activity. The Aircall integration also lets you call prospects from your Aircall numbers and logs calls you make in Pipedrive.

SMS/Text

There are no native SMS or text features built into Pipedrive, but there are several integrations available to allow texting to your Pipedrive contacts.

Price/value

To get full value out of Pipedrive, the email sync would be necessary, making the “Gold” plan the lowest option. Even at that level, Pipedrive offers great value for a small sales team.

Final score: 44/60

Bottom line:

Pipedrive has a great user interface, pipeline, and activity features. The biggest barrier for us would be the lack of SaaS/subscription deal pricing and reporting.

Salesforce

I am constantly amazed by how successful Salesforce is considering their lack of a single design bone in their collective body. The marketing website is atrocious - black text awkwardly laid on top of dark colours, overlaying windows on top of windows, lack of hierarchy, and complex navigation.

User experience

Unfortunately, Salesforce’s UI doesn’t get much better once you’re inside the product. You can customize a lot of what you see, but making the user do the work to create a palatable interface is not the best UX strategy, in my opinion.

Adding/importing contacts

Importing contacts was painful in Salesforce; the UI is confusing (it took me at least 10 seconds just to figure out where the import button was — hint: you need to click three times to get to it), and the obscure button labels (clicking “map” to tell Salesforce what field to use) was like pulling teeth. Finally, I couldn’t import the file because my sample data included just company names and no last name field.

Deals/pipeline

The pipeline and opportunity tracking features in SalesForce are comprehensive; you can create multiple stages and filter by your own opportunities. You also have the ability to create your own views, allowing you to filter by industry or campaign, for example.

Salesforce also has a dashboard feature that gives you a quick look at either your team’s sales numbers or your own. The customization is endless, and the reports are useful. But, I couldn’t seem to use the kanban-style columns in my account, perhaps because I was on a trial?

Tasks, follow-ups, calendar

Salesforce offers easy to use tasks, follow up, and calendar and you can add as much detail as you need. It’s nice to create a task and add it to the account vs. having to be in an account to create a task or add notes.

Tagging/search

You can add multiple tags in Salesforce, as well as tags that allow you to easily run any reports required.

Reporting

Reporting, unless integrated directly with your billing system, can only be as good as the salesperson that enters the value. Salesforce makes it easy to build your own custom reports and attach campaigns to it which is a nice feature. It will also calculate annual revenue when a monthly value is entered for accurate reporting

Integrations

Salesforce offers many integrations. It does integrate with Intercom (no API access required), Aircall, ChartMogul, and Proposify. There are many resources to help you through the integration setup process.

Mobile apps

Salesforce1 is the main app for the sales CRM. It’s simple to use and gives you access to accounts, reports, contacts, etc., and is available on both Android and Apple mobile devices.

Email

Salesforce email integrates with your email, lets you send mass emails, and tracks who opened it and when.

Phone/VoIP

Salesforce offers a Phone/VoIP option as an extra fee ranging from $5 to $25USD. The premium package offers pretty cool features like click-to-dial functionality, direct dial from native dialpad, note-taking during calls, automatic call logs to related records, call history view, pre-recorded voicemail messages, call-list creation from leads, and contact list views.

SMS/Text

It doesn’t appear that you can send SMS through Salesforce, but there are likely online services that integrate with Saleforce to allow this.

Price/value

Salesforce CRM is $75 USD per user, which ranks it in the higher pricing tier, but Salesforce is also the leader in the market. With Salesforce, you get the extra confidence knowing that as your company grows, Salesforce can grow with you, giving you good long-term ROI.

Final score: 44/60

Bottom line:

There’s no question Salesforce is the undisputed champ of the CRM world in terms of size, power and ubiquity. We even had a whole podcast episode on how Salesforce can be used to create a system for startups. But is it the best tool for a small SaaS company like us? It’s expensive, complicated, clunky, and just plain ugly. I’m going to pass on Salesforce.

Zoho CRM

Marketing website

Zoho is more than just a CRM, calling themselves “the operating system for your business”. And their homepage is full of the 35+ apps that are included under that umbrella. With all of these apps, it doesn’t give them much opportunity to communicate exactly what they can do for your business.

User interface

At first glance, Zoho’s interface is overwhelming. The top menu bar features nine different features with another sixteen hidden in the “...” selector. These tabs can be managed, with the most important features available within one click.

Zoho has a lot of features packed into their CRM, giving them the hard task of developing a streamlined interface. Over time I’m sure an experienced user would navigate through all of the screens no problem, but there certainly is a lot going on.

Adding/importing contacts

Zoho has a fairly standard bulk import contacts feature via CSV, allowing you to select which column matches which variable in their system. Duplicate records can either be updated or cloned. Once the import is complete, you are notified by email.

Deals/pipeline

The Zoho deals pipeline gives you a view of all of your deals by their stage, previewing the deal/contact name, the value of the deal, close date, and an icon for a task that may be associated with the deal.

You can drag and drop deals between the stages of your pipeline. One thing I didn’t like was how you had to horizontally scroll to see more than three or four stages of your pipeline at one time. I feel as though the UI could be improved to see more of your deals at once and get a better idea of your pipeline.

Tasks, follow-ups

The layout of tasks and activities in Zoho was one of my favourite parts of the CRM. Organizing tasks by contact types and providing a quick look of what the task is, and when it’s due makes it easy to organize daily priorities. Overdue tasks pop up on your screen, making sure you don’t miss an important call.

Tagging/search

Zoho doesn’t have a tagging feature for contacts. Similar to Pipedrive, they recommend that you set up custom fields in a similar way to traditional tagging. These custom fields have to be set up by an administrator ahead of time, likely to keep things organized and consistent.

Reporting

Like many of the other CRMs, Zoho doesn’t have an easy way to track and report recurring revenue for SaaS. The rest of their reporting platform appears to include most standard sales reports that you would want to pull.

Integrations

Zoho list 68 integrations on their webpage, plus additional third party integrations. Both Aircall and Zapier list Zoho integrations on their respective sites, although there is no native integration between Zoho and Intercom.

Mobile apps

Zoho CRM features both an iOS and Android app. The web app is not mobile responsive.

Email delivery

Zoho has a separate email inbox tool called SalesInbox that’s free to use with Zoho CRM on a “standard” subscription, or separately for $15/month to use with Salesforce. Since it is a Zoho product, all contact and deal information is synced between the two systems.

This is one of the more robust email offerings from a CRM, as it is a complete email client built with sales in mind. Native reminders, tasks, and deal stage sorting are great features that you don’t find with all email clients.

Phone call logging

Zoho’s PhoneBridge supports integrations with a number of different calling systems including AirCall. PhoneBridge allows you to manage calls from within Zoho, view contact information of the caller, track missed calls, and add a call description during calls.

SMS/Text

SMS features are available via third party extensions and add-ons.

Price/value

There are many additional features that differentiate Zoho CRMs various pricing plans. For us, the $20 Professional plan would be necessary, as it includes the email integration. Zoho’s larger plans also include some interesting features, such as their AI, and Blueprint automation, which could certainly be of value for a growing organization.

Final score: 44/60

Bottom line:

Zoho has a lot of great features, but most aren’t necessary for us at this time. Like many of the other CRMs mentioned above, the lack of clear measurement for recurring revenue/SaaS is a big issue that makes it hard to choose a CRM like Zoho.

And the winner is…Close.io

Close.io feels like it was just made for us — an inside sales team at a scaling SaaS company. It offers virtually everything we want or need. Yes, it would be great to have a mobile app for on-the-go selling, but I respect that they decided to focus on their primary use case, and you can still track emails sent on your mobile device.

The pricing is also on the higher end, but this should be proof that the cheapest tool doesn’t win out in the end. If the value is there, a product targeted at a specific audience can be the most expensive and still win.

Second place: Nutshell

Nutshell really impressed me with its interface, ease-of-use, and robust features. It scored equally with Close.io.

Honourable mentions:

Salesforce, despite falling off the ugly tree and hitting every branch on the way down, is a powerful CRM. Pipedrive and Zoho also have a lot to like.

Regardless of what kind of industry you’re in, you know you need to connect with your target audience. You need to discover the wants, the needs, the challenges, and the dreams of the people you want to sell to; the people whose problems you can solve. To do that, you have to drill down to understand who they are on an individual level, and not regard them like the Borg or some massive, faceless marketing monolith.

That’s where buyer personas come in.

Buyer personas (also known as customer profiles, customer personas, audience profiles, and marketing personas) are basically character sketches of your ideal customer. Creating a general depiction of your customer as if they are someone you know personally can help inform important decisions about marketing, advertising, content creation, product or service development, customer support, public relations, pricing, and sales.

Why you need buyer personas

Let’s say you have a product or a service that you believe caters to moms. Great, but here’s the thing: ‘moms’ are a pretty huge group.

There are married stay-at-home moms, married moms who work outside the home, single moms who stay at home, single moms who work outside the home, rich moms, lower income moms, middle class moms, moms who only have one child, moms who have many children, moms who are looking after both children and aging parents. There are moms who are recovering from giving birth and moms who have adopted.

There are moms who value convenience over sustainability (like disposable vs cloth diapers), moms who like brand names, moms who are price conscious.

There are moms who live in cities and moms who live in rural areas; moms who have nannies, moms who use daycare; moms who are young, and moms who are older.

There are moms with babies, toddlers, preschoolers, school kids, teenagers, or college students. Some moms might be new to your city or country, and some moms may not speak English as their first language. You get the picture.

So while there would be some traits that moms share generally, their individual wants, needs, challenges, and dreams are too specific to lump them all together.

For example, if you had a product designed for moms of newborns, you would be missing the mark, and wasting money, if you advertised to a mom who had a teenager. Yes, they’re both moms, but what they value and need from you right now is going to be very different. One might be worrying about how she and her baby can get more sleep, while the other is trying to drag her kids out of bed in the morning.

Having a detailed buyer persona for ‘Emily,’ the exhausted mom with a newborn who isn’t sleeping, will help you tailor your messaging and target your advertising directly to all the Emilys, as opposed to ‘Catherine,’ the frustrated mom of teenagers who won’t get out of bed in the morning in time to eat a healthy breakfast before school.

Product and service development

Buyer personas can also help shape the development of new products and services. By thinking about what Emily, the new mom might need and what her challenges are, you can make informed decisions about what you can do to meet those needs.

It can be easy to come up with a new idea to improve a product that seems really cool, like, “Oh, we’ll add this adorable little owl design to our product. Moms love adorable owls!” But are owls really useful to Emily in her quest to get her baby to sleep?

Instead, your buyer persona of Emily may reveal that one of her fears as a new mom is that she doesn’t know what she’s doing. It’s a common concern among new parents. Emily may be better equipped to handle the stress of her baby not sleeping if she was less worried that it was her fault, and that she, as a mother, was doing something wrong.

So what could you add to your core product that not only might help Emily’s baby sleep through the night, but also give Emily more confidence and support about being a new mother? Not owls, that’s for sure (although Emily probably agrees owls are adorable, as do I).

Taking a step back and referring to the characteristics of your buyer personas can be that sober second thought of whether this new feature is actually valuable to your target audience and worth pursuing.

Content creation

Content creation is challenging; I feel your pain. But a buyer persona can make it easier by giving you a set of guidelines for blog posts, lead magnets, videos, ad messaging, and more.

What might Catherine, frustrated mom of teenagers who won’t get out of bed in the morning in time to eat a healthy breakfast before school, be looking to read?

Recipes for quick, healthy, teenager-approved breakfast foods they can eat on their way to school. Or maybe research-based articles about why teenagers sleep so much and what to do about it. Or tips on how to stay calm and not lose your cool when your teenagers are driving you crazy.

Target your target

In this era of incessant advertising noise, you need to find a way to break through the clutter to lasso the attention of your customers. You need to be laser-focused if you want to reach your audience.

Fortunately, innovation in digital marketing has made it possible to micro target your buyers. Platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram all have advertising tools that let you drill down to the personal particulars of your target audience like age, location, job title, industry, interests, hobbies, education level, relationship status, language, and more.

Armed with a detailed buyer persona and one of these powerful targeting tools, your chances of hitting the bull’s eye of your customer’s attention improves exponentially.

How to create a buyer persona

You can collect the information you need to create your buyer personas from many different sources; research, personal interviews, and surveys of your target audience. You can use prospects, existing customers, or related stakeholders outside your company who have a specialized knowledge of your industry.

The number of buyer personas you need depends on your particular business. Do you have different products or services aimed at different kinds of customers, like the Emilys vs the Catherines? Are some of your buyers direct consumers and others wholesalers? Or maybe you have pricing tiers, so you want to create personas that match the ideal buyer for each level.

If you have customer groups with challenges and goals that are distinct from each other, you want to create a buyer persona to represent each of them.

Start with your customers

A great place to start is to look at the behaviour of your most valuable customers. Obviously, those are who you want more of, and they already have experience interacting with your product or service.

Pick a few customers and reach out to them to see if they would agree to be personally interviewed. In our experience, we’ve found most people are open to interviews as long as we make clear how long it will take (try to keep it under 30 minutes), that we’ll never disclose any sensitive business information, and that we aren’t trying to sell them anything.

You can also use a tool like Survey Monkey to get similar results.

It’s a good idea to throw in a little incentive to sweeten the deal, maybe an Amazon or Starbucks gift card or some company swag, like t-shirts.

It's important to remember that you’re not just trying to get information about how much people like your company. You’re trying to find out more about who they are as individuals, what their challenges are, what they value, and what deters them so you can pick up on general patterns of attitude and behaviour.

Questions to ask customers when developing buyer personas

What you ask really depends on your specific industry or business, so you need to customize your list of questions. It should cover both demographics like age, location income, and education level, and psychographic information like personal interests, buying motivations, and attitudes. Think of demographics as the who, and psychographics as the why.

Generally, this is a guideline of the kinds of things you want to ask to get the information you need:

• What’s your role at work and title?

• What are your main responsibilities?

• How is your performance evaluated?

• What do you do during the run of a day at work?

• What kind of skills or qualifications do you need for your job?

• Are there any specific tools or products you use to do your job?

• Who are you accountable to? Are there people accountable to you?

• What industry are you in?

• What are the major challenges your industry faces right now?

• What are the major challenges your company faces?

• What are the major challenges that you face in your specific job?

• How many employees does your company have?

• What’s your company’s revenue? (This may be a touchy one so try to ask this within a general range, so they don’t feel that they have to be too specific.)

• What would you like to achieve at your job?

• What would you like to achieve in your career?

• Which blogs or other publications do you read?

• Are there particular public personalities you follow related to your career and industry (like a Gary Vaynerchuk or Seth Godin, for example)?

• What professional associations do you belong to?

• Age, marital status, gender, children, languages? (Again this is an area you may need to be sensitive to giving people a range helps.)

• What’s your educational background?

• Where do you live?

• What do you like to do when you’re not at work? Hobbies, interests.

• What is the most important thing you’re looking for when it comes to purchasing (insert your product or service category here)?

• What’s the biggest challenge to purchasing (insert your product or service category here)?

• What would make you say no to purchasing (insert your product or service category here)?

• What do you think is the biggest thing missing from (insert your product category or service)?

Talk to sales, account services, and customer support

The people on your sales, account services, and customer support teams probably have the most direct and personal interactions with your leads and clients. Get their feedback on what things they hear and observe most often, including any objections or challenges.

It’s not helpful to only get the good stuff. It’s just as valuable to know the negative things; what’s holding someone back from buying your product or service, or what they’re looking for that you don’t offer.

Add fields to your forms

Use any web forms on your site to gather information about your leads and customers. Don’t overwhelm them by grilling them right off the bat, but adding a couple of questions about company size or business challenges can give you some immediate insight. Again, the specific questions you ask depends on your business and industry.

Bringing your buyer persona to life

The whole point of a buyer persona is to take all the dry facts, figures, and research about your target audience and use it to create a living, breathing human. Or at least a reasonable facsimile of one that exists on paper.

By looking at patterns that emerged through your research and interviews, you can now use those insights to plug into your persona. You can make them as detailed as you like for whatever information will be useful to your and your team. These are the general categories I use to create buyer personas:

Name:

Pick a name that represents the generation and gender of this persona.

Age: This can be a range.

Job title

Job Description

Goals

Challenges

Buying motivation

Values

Fears/objections

Favourite channels of communication

Short bio

Repeat this process for each of the buyer personas you need to develop.

You can then use a free online persona generator like Xtensio.com or Hubspot’s makemypersona.com and punch in all your details to get a nicely designed persona. Or have your in-house designer create your own.

Example of a buyer persona using makemypersona.com

Example of a buyer persona using Xtensio.com’s template.

Be BFF’s with your buyer personas

Once you’ve created your buyer persona team, share it with everyone on your team. As discussed earlier, buyer personas can be helpful to almost every aspect of your business, so it’s important everyone is familiar with your profiles and refers to them as they develop their own policies, campaigns, products, and messaging.

You should also be aware that just like real people, your personas are going to evolve and even change over time depending on how their industry changes, how their customers change, how your business grows, how your industry changes, and how your products and services develop.

So you need to keep your eye on your personas to make sure they’re still accurate, update them as needed, and maybe even add new personas as your customer base grows.

It’s been 24 years since the beginning of September meant back to school for me, but I still get the urge to buy a pencil case and a new notebook every time Labour Day rolls around.

Actually, September usually feels more like the new year to me than January 1st does. I often do more planning and strategic thinking about both my personal and professional lives in September than I do in January.

In the fall I feel an aura of excitement and optimism about the months ahead, as opposed to January when it feels like there are more negative reasons for needing to re-evaluate. (This may also have to do with the weather where I live in Atlantic Canada - September is glorious, while January is gorey)

If you live in the northern hemisphere, you’re coming off what can be the lazy, hazy days of summer. For most businesses, things moved at a slower pace. With both clients and your team members in and out of the office on various vacations and national holidays, deals probably didn’t close as fast, work didn’t get done as quickly, and major decisions were put off.

So now with a fresh, shiny September upon us, it’s time to kick-start a new season of business growth.

Here are a few suggestions on how you can head back to work from vacation and have a successful fall (but I still support keeping that flip flop spirit alive in your heart).

1. Focus on the positive

Whether you’re a business owner or a member of a team, from time to time you can start feeling stale about your job and what you’re doing, especially when you're returning to work from vacation.

Remind yourself why you started the business, or came to work there in the first place. What you wanted to accomplish, what you wanted to build, how you wanted to grow as a person or an entrepreneur.

Think of all the things you love about what you do - selling, interacting with clients, solving problems, innovating, being creative, working with your team - and then figure out how you can do more of that.

Let these positive feelings fuel your activities for the next quarter and use them to inspire positivity among your team.

2. Focus on the negative

I’m a very positive person but I think there’s real value in examining the ‘negative,’ or put a better way, thinking critically.

It bums us out if we receive a bad review of Proposify, but I think that information is invaluable to the development of the product. How else will we know how to make it better? How else will we slow our churn rate if we don’t know where the problem lies?

So in the same way you should examine all the things you love about your business, it’s important to think about what you don’t like. What isn’t working? What’s making you unhappy and maybe holding you, your business, or your team, back?

Is it a process that needs to be tweaked? Do you need to hire someone to take on something you don’t like so you can concentrate on what you’re best at? Do you need to fire that one bad apple on your team that’s bringing everyone and everything down?

Look at what’s NOT good about your situation and then figure out what needs to happen to change it.

3. Focus on your financials

Hopefully you’re already on top of what’s happening with your bottom line but it is September, and it is a fresh, new business season. When you get back to work, it never hurts to revisit your financial goals versus your current status.

September marks the first month of the final quarter of the year so it’s a good time to reevaluate your projections, examine your expenses, and make a plan for how to make this quarter count.

But don’t stop there.The fall is also the time to start planning your financial goals for the next year, looking at what you need to do to get where you want to be. Will you require outside investment? Where will that come from? You need to start preparing and pitching for that now.

4. Give your team a pep talk

Just like your principal started the school year with an assembly, you should hold one with your team. There’s likely not been a week this summer that everyone’s been in the office at the same time so this is a good opportunity to bring people back together and remind them of the game plan ahead.

I like when it happens right after Labour Day but choose the earliest date possible when your whole team will be present and able to meet.

Make sure the tone is positive and motivational. Remind everyone of the great things you’ve accomplished as a team, and get them focused and excited about the goals for the future, both immediate and long term.

Encourage participation - have each department to give an update on what they’ve been up to and what they’ll be working on in the coming months.

This can help those people dragging their heels off vacation feel reinvigorated, and it can be a subtle reminder that it’s time to get back to business and get shit done.

5. Meet with each department

Even you have a small company, each person on your team has different objectives, approaches, challenges, and expectations related to their job.

Chances are you haven’t really connected in the last couple of months so meeting with each department gives you an opportunity to catch up on a micro level and make plans to solve any issues before they get too big (and maybe even share a vacay story or two).

Are they feeling over or under resourced? Is there a skills gap? Maybe they have ideas on how to be more efficient, bring in new clients, or develop a new service.

Taking the time to talk either one-on-one with the department head, or to the whole group keeps you better informed on what’s happening in your business and motivates your team by demonstrating you are engaged and interested.

6. Invest in your business

If your business is going to grow, you need to make an investment. Discover where the needs lie in your company, research what the options are to address the situation, and evaluate the potential return on investment (not to mention what you can afford).

That may be new technology in the office, like a server upgrade. Maybe you invest in an employee by sending them for professional development to gain new skills, or you’re going to finally hire that extra sales rep to help grow new business.

Maybe the investment is in yourself, by getting a mentor or a business coach to help you grow.

There are likely lots of things in your business that could benefit from extra time and money but even if you pick just one to kick off the fall season, you’ll likely reap the results of that investment in the coming year.

7. Reach out and reconnect

I actually find the summer really busy and so do most people I know. My friends with kids are going in twelve directions between summer camps and family trips, every week someone different is out of the office on vacation, there are a multitude of visitors to entertain, and we’re all just trying to squeeze the most out of each fleeting sunny day.

I also have a side hustle renting baby equipment to people travelling to my city and the summer is basically my Christmas season, so juggling that with my full-time gig at Proposify makes this season even more hectic for me.

As much as I love summer, I look forward to going back to work after the holiday when a routine sets back in, everyone’s focused again, and I can reconnect with people.

When I had my freelance business, I would send out a personal email to each of my clients after Labour Day to touch base. I’d ask about their summer, check in to see how things were going, and I’d try to include a few project suggestions to spark a conversation.

Maybe it was something we had talked about doing a few months ago, or maybe it was something new altogether, but the point was to re-engage and remind them I was ready to rock.

Depending on the nature of our relationship and the work we had done together, some clients I would try to have coffee with for a face-to-face, others I would suggest a planning meeting to schedule out new projects for the coming months. And for others, the email was just a gentle, “Hey, remember me?” after a beer-soaked summer.

Reconnecting with your existing clients, any prospects that might have gone lukewarm over the summer, and your network in general after vacation is a great way to kick-start new business opportunities for the fall.

Everyone will be back in the saddle and ready to do business so the timing is just right to close some new deals.

8. Find your stress buster

Life is stressful. Work is stressful. Even if you love what you do, there can be some difficult days that take a toll on your spirit. And quadruple that stress level if you’re a business owner.

While you can’t always control what happens to you at work or even your personal life, having a plan for how you deal with stress can prevent the dreaded burnout that can leave you ineffective as a leader and a detriment to your business.

Now’s the time to sign up for that recreational basketball league, pottery class, or roller derby team.

Whatever it is, make sure it has nothing to do with work so you get a chance to clear your head and reset a couple of times a week.

9. Eat...better

Notice I used the word ‘better,’ because I feel like there are so many messages yelling at us about how we eat, bossy messages about what we should and shouldn’t eat. Gluten, sugar, fat, carbs, preservatives with 22-letter names. Ugh. Instead of an all-out war on different kinds of food, why don’t we aim for some incremental improvements? Eating a little better, not necessarily the best.

I’m not going to make any judgement about what you may have eaten over the summer but I will tell you I ate enough juicy BBQ hamburgers (with bacon and cheese, natch), hot dogs roasted over a campfire, and Miss Vickie’s potato chips (my weakness) to make a clogged artery sing.

So it’s time to get back on track a bit. And not because of weight, but because of how eating all that stuff makes me feel, especially that during the week when I’m trying to work. Sluggish, cranky, moody, blahhhhhhhhhhhh.

Food is your fuel, you put junk in your tank and it’s not going to perform as well. I know you’re busy - we’re all busy - but find a way to make a least one meal a day a little better, a little more nutritious.

10. Get a good sleep

My mother is such a strong believer in the power of good sleep that back in high school my brother and I would joke that we could hobble into the house with a gushing stab wound and Mum would say, “You need more sleep!”

She was hardcore on set bedtimes and making sure we got an adequate amount of sleep. It drove us crazy when we were teenagers but I totally get it now.

If I don’t get enough sleep, I feel like I’m hungover without the fun party stories to go with it. I can’t function properly, I’m cranky, and I end up eating crap.

I know there’s this whole hustle philosophy around “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” which to me is right up there in with the absurd competitive game of “I’m the busiest!” We need to sleep to function properly, period. You can cheat your way out of a lot of things but your body’s need for sleep is not one of them.

Aside from my mum, entrepreneurs are also getting behind the sleep revolution, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and The Huffington Post’s co-founder, Arianna Huffington, who wrote a book about it, even going so far to call sleep deprivation the new smoking.

Check out Arianna’s quick TED Talk called “How to succeed? Get more sleep.”

So if you do nothing else on this list as you get back to work after vacation, at the very least make sure you’re getting a good night’s sleep. It can go a long way in affecting your mental and physical health, two things essential to keep you on your toes, and on top of your business. Don’t make me call my mum on you.

Do we really need more entrepreneurs?

Small businesses really are the backbone of the economy. Almost half of the US’s private sector workforce (49.2%) is employed by small business, and for the last twenty years, small businesses have been responsible for creating two out of every three (64%) of net new jobs.

Some of the most important innovations in the last century have come about because of scrappy entrepreneurs (Remember, Steve Jobs started Apple in his basement).

Small businesses also lead the way in innovation. A study conducted by the Small Business Administration found that small businesses produced 16 times more patents per employee compared to larger patenting firms.

We’ll always need doctors, lawyers and accountants, but we sure as hell need entrepreneurs, too.

Which is why we need to think about how we can pay it forward and help inspire, mentor, and empower girls and boys to think like early entrepreneurs.

What inspired me to be an entrepreneur

When I was younger I never thought I wanted to own a business.

Some of my entrepreneurial friends had parents who owned businesses, but not me. My dad was a maintenance worker, my mother a nurse, and neither of them felt owning a business was a viable career move.

My parents knew that 8 out of 10 entrepreneurs who start businesses fail within the first 18 months, and that fail rate was enough to scare them into scaring me away from the thought of starting one.

But when I was 14 my friend was looking to pass off his newspaper route, the job that funded his much coveted video game and action figure collection.

I was too young to get a job at a fast food joint so wanting some financial independence for  video games of my own, I asked him if I could take it over.

For more than three years I would spend over an hour delivering newspapers after school every day of the week and early in the morning on weekends.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but my paper route job was preparing me for entrepreneurship:

• I had to be self-motivated to work; I didn’t have a boss calling me if I was late delivering. If I couldn’t do my route for some reason, like if I was sick or had a band practice after school, I had to hire one of my friends or my parents to cover it for me (and yes, my parents accepted the payment).
• It was up to me to collect payments from customers since the Mail Star would subtract their cut from my bank account automatically. I got to keep the profit. I needed to do some basic bookkeeping to make sure I wasn’t getting ripped off.
• I had to keep customers happy, deal with a bunch of different personality types, and sell subscriptions to new customers.
• I even cross-sold to customers, asking them if they needed their lawn cut during the summer months when they were away on vacation.

Newspaper routes are a great tool for teaching kids entrepreneurship. I cherish the experience, despite the click in my left shoulder I still have today from carrying the 100 pound bag uphill.

I may have ended up owning a business regardless, but this experience gave me a lot of the skills I needed later on.

The problem with school

Grade school highly discourages entrepreneurial thinking.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that some of the most successful entrepreneurs were B students who later dropped out of college. As mentioned before, non-college graduate entrepreneurs include Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Larry Ellison, just to name a handful.

The school system wants students to focus on the task assigned, not go off and dream up their own projects or become child entrepreneurs. Following direction is rewarded, and deviating from it or colouring outside the lines, so to speak, is met with punishment.

Guidance counsellors often encourage kids to pursue traditional careers, ones that require university education. There is very little talk of starting a business.

I am not saying education isn’t important, or that I’m representing every teacher in every school system in the world. Of course, math, English and science are important. Of course, plenty of teachers inspire kids to follow their dreams.

Instead, I believe the school system as a whole discourages entrepreneurial thinking on a fundamental level; they prepare students to become good employees.

Entrepreneurial traits, like risk predilection and rebelliousness (a trait also common to teenagers coincidentally enough) are generally considered negative, and are suppressed rather than nurtured.

Successful entrepreneur and angel investor, Dan Martel went to jail and rehab as a teenager before starting his first business at 18 and turning his life around.

Dan has said many times that computers literally saved his life. Could it be that his mentors were able to harness his reckless energy rather than condemn it? That they nurtured his rebelliousness as a quality that could be used for good instead of telling him to fall in line?

I’m not going to pretend for a minute that I know more than professional educators. All I know is what I’ve experienced first-hand, what other people have shared about what shaped them to be child entrepreneurs, and how they teach it to their own kids.

So how do we teach kids entrepreneurship?

In his awesome Ted Talk, Cameron Herald talks about the various businesses he made for himself as a kid, like selling coat hangers to dry cleaning businesses, and buying comic books from poor kids to sell at a profit to rich kids. It’s worth watching the entire video.

You may or not have children of your own, but even if you’re an uncle/aunt, or have friends with kids, you can play a role in their lives. You can inspire them to be an entrepreneur when they grow up.

Here are some key entrepreneurial traits Cameron mentions in his talk, and some ideas on how to nurture them in kids:

I also asked some friends of mine to share their stories with me, and tell me what shaped them to become entrepreneurs. I’ll share some of those stories here as well.

Problem solving

When you own a business, solving problems is a daily activity. Customers have problems. Employees have problems. Computers have problems. You can’t bury your head in the sand, you need to evaluate your options and choose a path to go down, even if it ends up being the wrong direction.

Kids are generally more impulsive than adults because they haven’t yet experienced the consequences of making bad choices.

Discipline expert Amy Morin recommends teaching children problem solving skills by:

• Identifying the problem and talking about it
• Coming up with ideas for possible solutions
• Listing the possible benefits or consequences of each approach
• Being decisive and taking action
• Allowing them to experience any fallout or negative consequences of their decision (as long as they are safe)

“What helped me most is that I was always making my own money somehow, pretty much since I was 10. The message I received as a kid was: if you want something, you have to get busy and figure out how to do it for yourself. I never expected my parents to provide more than the basics, really. Learning self-reliance, trusting in your creativity, and developing courage is a great gift.”

– Fiona Kirkpatrick Parsons, Marketing professional

The desire to make money

Once kids are old enough, teaching them to want money isn’t hard thanks to advertising. Kids learn how awesome money is at a pretty young age.

But there’s a big difference between wanting money and wanting to make money.

Making money involves work. Kids appreciate money they’ve worked for more than money they were handed. 

When grandma gives a kid $20 for her birthday the first thing she wants to do is spend it. When she had to shovel the neighbour's driveway or knock on doors selling chocolate bars, suddenly that hard earned cash becomes more valuable.

“I grew up in the US around entrepreneurs, my grandparents owned their own businesses. My parents never said 'you can't,' so I grew up believing I could do whatever I wanted. I remember working as a dishwasher at 15 years old making $3.35/hour, and then mowing lawns on the side at $20 per lawn, which would only take me 30 minutes. That's when the light bulb went off!”

– Kevin Springer, Serial entrepreneur and co-founder, Proposify  

How to sell

I love how Cameron Herald teaches his kids business and how to sell.

Instead of assigning them chores and giving them a set amount of allowance (which is teaching kids how to be employees), he encourages them to find jobs they think need doing, come to him and offer to do them, then negotiate a price.

Selling to your dad is one thing, but selling to strangers is another.

That’s why door to door sales, like selling newspaper subscriptions or chocolate bars is a valuable training ground for child entrepreneurs. It’s teaching them how to speak to grownups, to get over the fear of rejection, and to use persuasion instead of nagging to get what they want.

“I sold candy in grade 6. I learned about working with a team, making a profit, and that you need your business needs to be defensible! The cafeteria ladies found out we were selling candy, and dipping into their profits, and had us shut down.”

– David Howe, Serial entrepreneur

Customer service

Customer service goes hand in hand with sales. After all, once you’ve successfully convinced a prospect to do business with you, your job now becomes keeping that customer happy and fulfilling what you promised.

This is where jobs like cashier positions can teach customer service skills that can form entrepreneurial ideas for kids.

“I worked in a family run business from the time I was six until I moved out. I learned from pretty much day one that the money we used to buy food and to live on came from the drawer in the basement where we put it after we charged customers.”

– Findlay Hilchie, Co-founder of Hustle & Grind

Tenacity

I’ve written before about how glad I am that I didn’t give up on building Proposify in the early days, and my experience is far from unique.

Entrepreneurs are going to struggle at some point, maybe for a long time, and some of the most successful business people did not make it because they were necessarily smarter than everyone else, but because they kept pushing ahead despite setbacks.

It’s hard because as a parent you never want to see your child upset, struggling, or frustrated but it’s important to teach children that nothing worthwhile comes easy, and not to quit just because they failed or because something was difficult.

It’s better that kids learn to have grit at an early age instead of having everything handed to them, never needing to push through difficulties, and then discovering later as adults that the baby gloves are off.

“Going through two wars by adulthood, moving to Canada on my own at 19 with $1,500 in my pocket without really knowing anyone, and being homeless for the first week in Canada. All of it taught me to live day by day, and solve one problem at a time.”

– Milan Vrekic, Co-founder of Zora Inc.

Creativity

Creativity is often most closely associated with art. But entrepreneurs are some of the most creative people out there. They are perhaps the only people who create their own job.

Entrepreneurs need to be observant and notice what people need (demand), find a solution (supply), sell that solution at a price people will pay, make a profit, deal with competition... the list goes on.

How can you teach creativity as a skill?

Children should be given plenty of time for unstructured play, where they can use their imagination.

Cameron Herald has some nights where rather than reading his kids a story, he asks them to make up their own.

Some people think technology hampers creativity, but used correctly it can unleash it. Just look at games like Minecraft that encourage players to build whatever they want in a completely open, nearly infinite world. Smart phones and tablets let kids easily record their own videos.

Modern technology can be used along with more traditional activities, like learning an instrument or painting, to teach kids it’s OK to let your imagination run wild and pursue your ideas.

“In grade 12 I created a summer job with four other high school students. We applied for grants, mapped local recreation trails in our community, designed a booklet with environmental info, and paid ourselves. We learned a lot that summer!”

– Michelle Doucette, photographer

Leadership

There’s more to being the boss than just bossing people around. You need to be a leader; inspiring, teaching, and motivating your employees to be the best they can be.

There are ways to teach kids to be successful entrepreneurs and leaders, not by encouraging them to be a bossypants (technical term), but by setting the example for them and being a good leader yourself.

You can encourage them to participate in team activities and observe how they interact with other kids. Don’t jump in if they have trouble or if another kid is being unfair. Let them work it out themselves.

“Being a swim coach and camp counselor taught me how to manage people and position them for success.”

– Iaian Archibald, Co-founder of Swell Advantage

Networking

One of the most valuable things for me as an entrepreneur has been the network of friends, colleagues, and influencers I’ve acquired over the years.

Businesses are not created in a vacuum. Much like a child, it takes a village to raise a startup.

Having a wide group of people you know, locally and internationally, online and offline, provides a wide range of people to reach out to for advice, to pitch new ideas, to hire for positions, to make introductions.

Children can be encouraged from an early age to be interested in people. It starts with having them sit in on conversations between their parents and other adults, listen, and ask questions.

If you’re part of a community group or church, encourage your son or daughter to be sociable by approaching and talking to older people in addition to kids their own age.

They may be naturally shy, but with practice even the most timid of children can come out of their shell and learn the value of making new connections.

“When I was a little girl, my mom had a eclectic group of friends who were entrepreneurial, and being around them made me want to do my own thing. I think as an entrepreneur you have a huge influence on the kids in your life, probably more than you would think.”

– Krista Keough, Consultant, college entrepreneurship instructor

Conclusion

It may sound like a cliché but kids are our future, and if you’re an entrepreneur who either has children or influences someone else’s child, it’s important to think about how we can shape them into future leaders, job creators, and successful entrepreneurs.

In other words, please think of the children!

In no way do I think I have all the answers. These are ideas to get the discussion started.

I want to ask you: What experience when you were a child/teenager shaped you to become an entrepreneur later on in life, and what are some ways we can teach kids to be more entrepreneurial?

I used to work for someone who owned his business, and every morning when he arrived, he’d march right past his (mostly) bright eyed and bushy tailed employees without making eye contact, without saying ‘Good morning,’ without even a royal wave of acknowledgement.

Then he would disappear to his private office, likely never to be seen again unless you had a meeting with him.

It drove me bananas.

Not saying good morning might sound like a small, insignificant thing, but to me, it said everything about how this guy might be the owner of his company, but he certainly wasn’t leading that company.

You might be thinking, “Maybe he isn’t a morning person, maybe he needs coffee before he starts, maybe he’s super busy.”

Here’s what I say: Baloney.

A business leader sets the tone, a leader recognizes his team, and a leader acts like a grown-up, regardless of how caffeine-deprived he might be.

I know a lot of people who own businesses. I don’t know as many who are leaders in their business.

Knowing the difference between business leadership and ownership can help you motivate your employees, win the respect of your clients, and grow your business.

Owning your business vs leading your business

The business owner is just that: the person who owns the business. They likely started the company, they finance it, they hire people, they pay the bills, and they probably bring in clients or have some other function that contributes to the actual output of the company.

But just taking care of business — the daily to-do’s and don’ts — isn’t enough. If you really want to make an impact on your industry, on your bottom line, and with your clients, you need to be a leader in your business.

A simple analogy might be one of parenthood. Whether you have kids or not, we all know there’s more to being a good parent than putting food on the table and keeping a roof over their heads.

Those are important, basic duties that come with being a mom or dad but there are many other aspects to raising children that are critical. Like motivation, guidance, kindness, and challenging them to reach higher.

Let me be clear that I’m not talking about hand-holding your employees so they'll eat their peas. I’m talking about leading all aspects your business — not just the mechanics of it — to be better.

Here are some traits that transform business owners into business leaders:

Vision

A friend of mine was hired to do business development for an agency. When I asked her how things were going, she told me the biggest challenge was that the owners couldn’t agree on what they did, what their differentiation was, where their niche lay, or what they wanted to achieve other than just bringing in more clients. It made her job of selling their services exceedingly difficult and eventually her relationship with the agency ended.

I’ve worked in places where if you went around to all the employees and asked them about the vision of the company, you’d get a different answer from each person. Maybe the owner had a vision, but as a leader, it’s clear they should have communicated it better.

As a business leader, you need to have a clear vision that you can easily articulate to your team members so that they, in turn, can understand their role in achieving that vision.

Everyone needs to be singing from the same songbook, and the leader needs to pick the tune.

Motivation

Leaders don’t tell people what to do; they motivate them. Your employees need more than a task list; they need to be inspired and empowered to think independently and creatively in how they do their work. It’s your job to make sure they understand what you expect of them and what they can expect from you in return. It’s your job to make sure everyone stays engaged with the vision.

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it. - Dwight D. Eisenhower

So how do you motivate people and keep them engaged with the vision?

Passion

Be the champion of the company and the superhero who leaps complacency in a single bound.

When someone shares their enthusiasm for a topic or a cause, it can be contagious. It gets people excited; it triggers new ideas, it can make people feel like they are part of something important.

As a leader, you need to be the most passionate ambassador for what your company does, who you do it for, and how you’re doing it. You need to demonstrate to your team, your clients, and your industry that you believe in your vision, and in them. Because if you act lame, so will everyone else.

And a culture of lameness is more dangerous than kryptonite.

”As a leader, you're the champion of your business and the superhero who leaps complacency in a single bound”

Connect with your team

I once had a boss who was very personal (but not inappropriate) with his team. He took the time to get to know everyone, asked us about our lives, shared information about himself and nurtured a close, we’re-in-this-together kind of environment.

I had never experienced this before. Everywhere else I had worked there was a polite cold war wall between staff and owner. Where in past workplaces there was an us vs them attitude with behind-the-scenes animosity, in my new office there was a fierce loyalty, an air of camaraderie, a strong commitment to good work, and, dare I say, happiness.

Being best friends with your employees isn’t necessary, or necessarily recommended, but it is important that you take the time to get to know them. Business leaders find out what’s important to their team - their family situation, what motivates them, what they find challenging, and what they like to do, both on and off the clock.

Understanding members of your team as whole people will help you manage both your human and skills resources better, provide the key to their motivation, and make them feel valued.

For the same reasons you need to understand your target audience, you need to understand your people.

To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.

– Eleanor Roosevelt

Collaborate

Did you know that Richard Branson hires based on his own weaknesses?

A good leader knows they don't have all the answers, aren’t necessarily the smartest person in the room, and that it’s their team that makes the company stronger, smarter, and more successful.

You’re not just hiring people to do your bidding. You’re hiring people who bring different experiences, skills, perspectives, and solutions to the table. They help you improve your offering and grow the company.

So while confidence is an important characteristic, ego, on the other hand, can be a barrier to producing better work.

The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.

– Ronald Reagan

Challenge the status quo

That’s the way we’ve always done it.

– Said no leader, ever.

One of the things I like about working at Proposify is how hungry our co-founders, Kevin Springer and Kyle Racki, are to try new things, to learn from others, and figure stuff out. It’s not only refreshing; it motivates the whole team. When they challenge the status quo, it, in turn, challenges me to think differently, to question, and to find solutions.

Leaders welcome input, embrace change, and are open to new ideas other than their own. Leading is about moving forward, and you can’t move forward if you’re stuck in the past.

Sure, there are lots of things worth maintaining — no one wants to throw the productive baby out with the inefficient bathwater — but if your first reflex is no, or stop, your business is going to go nowhere.

And by challenging your team, you’re helping move the marker on their potential, expressing your confidence in their ability, and setting expectations for even better work. The result is a win for your team, your clients, and most importantly, your business.

Are you the right person for the job?

Not everyone is up for being a business leader, and that’s totally OK. If you feel like your forté is in running the details and keeping things between the ditches, there’s no shame in that.

But that means you need to appoint/hire someone else to fill the role. As the business owner, you can still be a part of the decision-making, but you need to find someone with a different skill set who is better suited to leading the company. And doing that makes you a leader.

Anxiety, excitement, nervousness, intrigue.

When I worked as a Sales Development Representative (SDR), those were the feelings that would usually bubble up inside me before making a first call to a potential customer.

I used to really struggle with getting customers to answer cold-calls and open up about their needs. It was frustrating at the time because it made it difficult to both qualify the lead or close a deal. How could I sell someone something when I didn’t even know what they needed or what their problems were? I’ve since learned that if I had changed my angle or the way I asked my sales qualifying questions, I would have had more success.

As it turns out, the secret to getting someone to open up about themselves is all in the wording. By asking a variety of open-ended sales questions, you’ll discover the nuts and bolts of who your customer is, why they need your help, and whether or not your solution will be a good fit.

What is an open-ended question in sales?

If you’re the queen or king of conversation, you likely already know a thing or two about open-ended questions and how to get people talking. But if you feel like most people respond with one-word answers that take you nowhere, it’s probably time to change your approach.

So what exactly is an open-ended sales question?

In sales, open-ended questions can be called a few different things; sales discovery questions, customer interview questions, qualifying questions, or even sales probing questions. They all mean the same thing, and refer to questions you ask a customer during a first conversation that allow you to understand the customer better.

Say I started a conversation with you, and asked, “Are you feeling better today?” Based on how I phrased the question, you’re probably going to respond with a one or two-word answer.

The question is close-ended because it doesn’t invite you to say anything more, to elaborate, to provide more detail; it pigeonholes you into a preset, yes/no answer. It also doesn’t give me, as the asker of the question, much room for follow-up.

Had I started the same conversation with, “How are you feeling today?” it invites you to tell me more. It gives you creative liberty to lead the conversation in a direction that perhaps I wasn’t expecting and provides more information.

Why do open-ended sales questions work?

The power of an open-ended sales question is based on how it’s phrased. Open-ended sales questions work because they encourage the respondent to think about their answer and provide more detail beyond just blurting out yes or no. They draw out more information to help you decide whether this is a warm lead or it’s time to move on. Sometimes the respondent provides enough detail that they end up answering questions you may have been planning to ask later on. See it as a way to make a more natural conversation, whether it be with friends, or a discovery sales call.

Best sales questions

Open-ended sales questions can be tweaked to fit your tone, your industry, or to show off your personality, but here are some of the most commonly used ones for sales:

• Can you tell me a bit about your business?

• How long have you been in business?

• What is your current focus?

• What are your business goals over the next six months?

• What led you to explore new options?

• How does your process work now?

• What do you love about your current process?

• What do you wish to change?

• What are some of your expectations for this product/service?

• Can you help me understand that a little better?

Obviously, the number of open-ended questions you can ask someone is endless, but these are some of the best examples because they allow the customer to explain who they are in their own words. They initiate a conversation, allow the customer to open up about their pain-points, goals, expectations, and current process.

Now that we’ve cleared up what open-ended questions for sales are and why they work, let’s get into how to structure your sales process with those questions.  

"Understanding your sales lead takes time, research, and asking the right open-ended sales questions."

Do your research first

Speaking from experience, research is an absolute must when you’re generating, prospecting, or qualifying leads.

LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other business websites can tell you a lot about a sales lead; what position they hold, major news about their company, even if they like the same hockey team as you. Creepy? Kind of. Useful? Absolutely.

Research gives you more ammo for when you’re selling. Knowing who you’ll be talking to will help you prepare the right questions in advance, break down barriers, and make your first conversation feel more natural and less stilted and salesy.

Once your sales discovery questions get the customer talking, they will bring up pain points or talk about how things are working for them currently. This gives you the opportunity to address a solution for them, and to start building their trust.

Don't fall victim to verbal diarrhea

Word vomit? Verbal diarrhea? Call it what you will, but whatever you do, don’t fall victim to it while you’re talking to a potential customer.

Sales has evolved a lot over the past few years. Who you connect with and the industry they’re in is usually specific and targeted. Rather than fumbling for words and trying to sound like an expert in an industry you don’t know much about, focus instead on asking a question and really listening to what they have to say. Too many salespeople do waaaaaaaay more talking than they do listening, and you can’t learn anything without listening.

You know the feeling you get when you’re at lunch with a friend, you’re telling them a story, and rather than listening, they’re scrolling through Instagram? It doesn’t feel great, does it? Your customers feel the same way when they’re trying to explain what they do, and rather than listening, you’re just trying to cram your sales pitch into the conversation. They just want to be heard and understood, so listen, make a connection with them, and let them know you can be trusted.

If you go down the slippery slope of verbal diarrhea and not listening, you’re only going to get yourself into a messy situation.

Ask every question with a purpose

As the saying goes, time is money. Whether you’re waiting in line to buy a coffee, or in an important business meeting, no one likes having their time wasted.

To avoid being a time-suck for both you and the customer you’re speaking with, ask each question with purpose.

When you ask a question, don’t just take the answer at face-value. Instead, think about what else the response can tell you about the potential customer. Did your question make them feel comfortable? Did it elicit frustration in their voice, which could be a pain point? Think about the deeper reasons behind the questions you’re asking, and the answers your prospect is giving, and it can lead to a more thorough conversation.

Just about everyone hears, “How is your day going?” at some point between waking up and crawling into bed, but even that question can mean something more.

Asking about someone’s day can build empathy and invite someone to genuinely speak to you about their life before getting down to business. It can also get a customer to speak more openly about their business challenges, which is the main point of asking open-ended sales questions.

It’s not “no,” it’s just “not right now”

Rejection is inevitable when you’re in sales. As much as you’d like every lead to convert into a customer, it’s just not the way the world works, and that’s OK!

Asking open-ended sales questions can tell you a lot about your customer – who they are, their company’s short-term or long-term goals, timelines for finding solutions to problems, and areas they would like to streamline or improve upon.

Sometimes, regardless of how much you know about a sales prospect, or how much trust you’ve built with them, they’re just not a fit for your product or service. If that’s the case, either they will reject you, or you will reject them. C’est la vie.

Just because a customer isn’t the right fit for what you’re selling right now, doesn’t mean they won’t be a fit in the future. Enter, the long-con of the open-ended sales question.

Rather than saying a hard, let’s-never-talk-again goodbye, keep the doors of communication open. With all those open-ended sales questions you asked, you should have an idea of when you could follow up, and have a foot in the door for another opportunity because that first conversation is out of the way.

People prefer to buy from people they know, like, and trust, so stay connected. “No” now, might lead to “I need you” in the future.

Changing the way you speak is a learning curve, let alone the way you speak with customers. If it’s something you’re trying to improve, be patient. Try framing your sales qualifying questions differently and start thinking about the deeper meaning behind what you ask.

Keeping customer interview questions open-ended can lead to more comfortable conversations now, and even better connections to have in your back pocket in the future.

Agencies are notorious cobbler’s children when it comes to so many aspects of their business. They develop innovative, strategic, and targeted marketing plans and tactics for their clients that deliver results. But when it comes to their own marketing, most agencies are doing a fraction, if at all, of what they recommend to their clients. Few have formal marketing plans or any lead generation process other than relying on personal referrals and getting on RFP lists.

(Are your toes feeling chilly?)

We all know that content marketing is a valuable and essential tactic for almost any business, yet it’s an area where the majority of agencies are lacking. Ironically, many agencies are selling content marketing services to their clients, for crying out loud!

One of the most obvious and simple vehicles for content marketing is blogging.

That being said, did you know that 30% of digital agencies have no blog?

And of the agencies that do have blogs, only 7% post once a week.

36% only post a few times a year.

These alarming digital agency blog stats come from Content Kite, an Australian company that helps digital agencies increase their leads through content marketing. Founder Simon Thompson kept hearing that traditionally agencies weren’t good at creating content for themselves, instead relying on referrals for 90% of their sales leads. Simon wanted to see what the data had to say, so he and his Content Kite team analyzed the websites of 1,000 digital agencies.

They categorized each agency website site as:

• No blog

• Had a blog and posted once a quarter (None)

• Had a blog and posted 1-3 times /quarter (Poor)

• Had a blog and posted 1-3 times/month/ (Mediocre)

• Had a blog and posted once a week or more. (Great)

Simon considers posting once a week as optimal digital agency blog activity. (If you’d like to hear more about Content Kite’s results, listen to our Proposify Biz Chat interview with Simon)

These results are staggering when you think about it, especially when good content marketing can help agencies bridge the ‘feast or famine’ gap that many suffer from, bringing in quality, sustainable leads. Leads that can keep their funnel, and their business afloat.

"30% of agencies have no blog, yet content marketing can bridge the feast or famine gap by bringing in quality leads"

Why your agency needs a blog

Do I really need to tell you, a marketing agency, these other eye-popping stats about the value of B2B blogging?

B2B marketers that use blogs get 67% more leads than those that do not.

SEO leads, many of which come from quality blog articles that have been optimized with keywords, have a 14.6% close rate, while outbound leads (such as direct mail or print advertising) have a 1.7% close rate.

Marketers who prioritize blogging are 13x more likely to achieve a positive ROI on their efforts.

An agency blog can help you establish your position as a leader in your industry. It can authenticate your expertise in whatever service or niche your agency specializes in. It allows people — potential clients—  to get a sense of who you are as a company and whether you might be a good fit for them.

Need I go on? Pretty sure you know all about why it’s smart to have a blog.

What to write about

Many people, including agencies, are scared off by the idea of a content strategy. It can feel overwhelming. The team at Content Kite approaches it with a simple framework called ‘hub and spoke’.

They suggest that their agency clients come up with a central idea or topic that helps a specific person solve a specific problem. For example, Content Kite’s specific person (AKA target audience) is a digital agency owner, and their specific problem is getting more leads. So all the blog content they create reflects that —  its purpose is to help a digital agency owner get more leads.

That’s one type of blog, the client resource blog.

Client Resource Blog

Client resource blogs are meant to attract new clients by providing them with free, timely, up-to-date information and resources that help them improve their website or marketing strategy. Typical examples of posts would be top 10 lists, how-to articles, ebooks, and infographics.

This is perhaps the most targeted way to drive new leads into your sales funnel. Often, people who run their own business or work client-side in a company search online for tips that will help them learn design, coding, or marketing.

If you appear in a search and they find your post helpful, they’ll likely come back to your blog for new posts. Eventually, they may decide it’s easier to hire you than to DIY it themselves, and by then they already have a positive association with your brand. It’s inbound marketing 101.

Keep in mind that there’s already a lot of content online to help novices and intermediates improve their websites/marketing efforts. The hard part is standing out. That’s where having a speciality and using the hub and spoke approach is helpful.

Thought Leader Blog

In every creative industry, you have the hacks at the bottom, a vast middle-ground of mediocre-to-great, and the rare cream of the crop at the top. The directors who inspire other directors; the comedians who inspire other comedians.

Thought leader blogs are meant to inspire and educate your peers, designers, writers, coders and marketers, keeping them up-to-date on the bleeding edge of your industry, sometimes even leading the changes themselves.

While it may seem counter-intuitive — why write blog posts for people who aren’t potential clients —if done well over time, this style of agency blog can help you stand out as the clear leader in a given industry or subspecialty.

Once you become the person or group who teaches other agencies how it’s done, you’ll start to get more opportunities in the form of guest posts, interviews, awards, and speaking engagements. And with that, of course, comes traffic, exposure, and larger sales opportunities.

However, becoming a thought leader is easier said than done. It won’t happen overnight, and you have to love what you do and be committed to it to succeed - living it, breathing it, constantly experimenting and staying on top of your craft.

This takes time, blood, sweat, and tears that not everyone has to offer. It’s also essential that your thoughts are original. If you’re going to be a thought leader you can’t hack on someone else’s theories.

News Blog

Agency news blogs are like your Facebook news feed — they report what’s happening within the agency, from strategic hires and new clients to recent awards. This type of blog is usually a good fit for mid-large agencies who often have a steady stream of newsworthy activities to share. They’re pretty easy to pull off as long as there are interesting events happening in your agency.

The problem with a lot of marketing, creative, and web agency news blogs is that they are blatantly self-obsessed and can come across as narcissistic because all you’re doing is talking about yourself. While self-promotion is necessary, this type of blogging approach doesn’t offer tangible value to potential clients, and they’re hard to keep regularly updated since you can’t exactly plan for a big event to happen.

The advantage is that gives readers a sense of the kind of work you do and the strength of your team.

Daily Antics Blog

Of the agencies that have blogs, many of them take the daily antics approach as it requires very little time or energy. If someone in the office is doing something goofy or having a birthday party (or doing something goofy at a birthday party) they snap a pic, publish it on their blog and post it on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. “Aren’t we zany? #agencylife #ourjobiscoolerthanyours”

There’s nothing wrong with daily antics as long as the posts are authentic and your people are truly having fun (“Smile, dammit!”). It shows a human side to your agency and can make clients feel emotionally connected to your team. It’s a good way to showcase the culture of your office and your brand and give potential clients an idea of what it might be like to work with your agency.

The challenge is that most people don’t care if one of your developers was dressed up like a carrot last Friday. If you don’t know him, it’s one of those 'had to be there’ jokes. It can also appear to clients that all your team does is play beer pong and Playstation all day instead of tending to their marketing needs. The next time they look at their invoice for 100 hours, they might think back to your post when you were having a birthday party for all the office dogs, complete with ‘pupcakes’, and wonder, “Is that what I’m paying for?”

Work Teaser Blog

Work teasers are the more professional version of the daily antics blogs. They feature sneak peeks into the process behind the agency work. Due to the visual nature of this type of blog, it lends itself better to design agency blogs versus marketing agency blogs.

Think of the work teaser blog kind of like Instagram, where brands offer their followers the feeling of being behind the scenes, the “time to make the doughnuts” moment. Dribbble works like this too. It's a social network for designers to show off their work and process, and it’s often inspirational for other designers.

But showing off rough work can backfire if your clients aren’t aware that unfinished comps are being shown to the world. It can infringe on the confidentiality they’re entrusting you with. Also, your design work has to be damn fine if you hope to pass off even early-stage concepts as eye candy.

Drive traffic to your agency blog

Your agency blog can’t deliver leads if no one sees it. Once your content writers have a few juicy, targeted blog posts ready to go, you need to have a good distribution strategy in place to drive traffic to it. If you’re not already familiar with some of these basic blog promotion practices, you need to be:

Organic search traffic - Follow search engine optimization (SEO) best practices to ensure your agency blog content has the chance to appear when your leads are actively looking for a solution to their problem. Perform keyword research on topics your target audience is actually looking for and make sure you have answers to their queries.

Email - Send out a weekly email to your subscribers promoting your agency blog, and develop email drip campaigns to add value and inform leads of the value you can provide.

Social media - Regularly share your agency blog posts using the social media platforms your target audience uses and engage with influencers to get them to share your content. Build relationships with like-minded content creators who may be willing to share your agency’s blog posts and increase your organic reach.

Paid media - Experiment with paid ads on Facebook, Twitter, and Google AdWords, which can have high ROI due to granular targeting. Paid social media ads have proven to be extremely effective for all types of business because you don’t need to spend a lot of money to share your content with a niche audience. Using the data these platforms have on their users in combination with retargeting visitors of your own site is a great way to drive traffic and convert leads.

Q&A sites - Sites like Quora and Reddit are great for promoting blog content because people post questions the community can answer. Answer the question in as much detail as you can, but post a link to your agency blog for people to learn more. The better your answer, the more votes you’ll get to push the answer higher on the page.

“Create blog topics around solving a specific problem for your target audience. If you put that in a schedule, then you’re doing more than 93% of other agency owners” - Simon Thompson, Content Kite