Dan Martell - How To Close SaaS Customers Using Online Chat

00:00:00.120 I don't want you to just be like,

00:00:01.440 here's the link, have an amazing day.

00:00:03.240 That's how the amateurs do it.

00:00:17.200 Hi there, Dan Martell here,

00:00:18.280 serial entrepreneur, investor, creator of SaaS Academy.

00:00:20.440 In this episode, I'm gonna share with you

00:00:22.600 how to use chat to build domain for your software company.

00:00:27.600 I'm literally gonna teach you how to chat to close deals.

00:00:32.020 Sounds crazy.

00:00:33.200 Trust me, it is a powerful strategy.

00:00:35.860 If you've ever been like,

00:00:37.220 how do I take a LinkedIn thread and move it to a sale?

00:00:41.300 How do I take a chat that started

00:00:43.120 on our support ticketing software?

00:00:44.460 How do I take an email and move it to a close?

00:00:47.180 That's what I'm going to teach you how to do today.

00:00:50.340 So you don't have to be fearful.

00:00:51.460 You don't have to be scared.

00:00:52.560 You don't have to come off as seeming desperate.

00:00:54.880 That is the power of using sell by chat

00:00:57.600 to grow your software company.

00:00:58.980 One of my favorite chat selling stories

00:01:02.960 is how I got Mark Cuban to invest $250,000

00:01:06.600 into my company, Clarity, 100% on email, okay?

00:01:11.400 Literally, if we ever meet in person, ask me,

00:01:13.880 I will show you the email.

00:01:15.520 But essentially, it started with an inbound request

00:01:19.860 from a guy that looked like Mark Cuban,

00:01:22.660 which obviously we could verify using our product Clarity

00:01:25.520 because it required a Facebook connect.

00:01:26.840 And we were like, holy crap, that's Mark Cuban.

00:01:28.660 He literally just signed up for our software.

00:01:30.840 So I started the conversation

00:01:32.580 and it literally went 14 emails

00:01:35.800 that happened in probably a two hour span

00:01:38.180 to finally him saying, I'm in,

00:01:40.900 here's what I wanna write a check for, well, 250K,

00:01:43.840 and I've CC my lawyer to move the process forward.

00:01:47.880 So people hear that and they go, yeah, but, yeah, but.

00:01:50.600 No, that's you judging the potential

00:01:53.220 of using sell by chat to actually grow your business.

00:01:56.040 Today, I add millions of dollars in revenue potential

00:02:00.980 and opportunities to my pipeline using chat.

00:02:03.940 A lot of software companies have SDRs, sales development reps,

00:02:07.620 MDRs, market development reps, BDRs, business development reps

00:02:11.120 that for the most part use an outbound,

00:02:13.260 use a chat, use a process.

00:02:15.400 But if you don't know how to do it,

00:02:17.280 you're literally taking all this activity and wasting it

00:02:20.360 because there's no clear way to go from initial chat,

00:02:24.120 email, online, social media, to customer.

00:02:27.680 Trial, demo, proof of concept sold.

00:02:30.440 That is what we're gonna dive into today.

00:02:32.780 Number one, always be opening.

00:02:35.120 Just like the always be closing,

00:02:36.960 you literally need to have a strategy

00:02:38.880 to start chats with the market.

00:02:41.440 How you doing that?

00:02:42.280 Are you doing it on Facebook?

00:02:43.800 Are you doing it on LinkedIn?

00:02:45.120 Are you doing it on Instagram?

00:02:46.740 Are you doing it on TikTok?

00:02:48.040 Yeah, I said TikTok, why?

00:02:49.420 because if you're not following me on TikTok,

00:02:50.660 you're missing out.

00:02:51.620 I have a half a million followers on TikTok.

00:02:53.860 I am famous amongst 11 year old boys

00:02:56.800 and I'm not doing, you know, dance routines,

00:02:59.780 wearing a crop top, all right?

00:03:01.820 So check out TikTok.

00:03:02.880 But I don't care where the chats start.

00:03:05.400 There's opportunities all around us.

00:03:07.500 And for you and your market, it may be Instagram,

00:03:09.520 maybe it's LinkedIn, maybe it's just via email,

00:03:12.300 maybe it's outbound strategy.

00:03:14.240 But the key is, is that if it's outbound or inbound

00:03:17.500 or on social, you need to be opening chats always.

00:03:21.000 Always be opening, always be starting.

00:03:24.480 So you can literally just have one of your salespeople

00:03:27.020 or yourself say, okay, today I'm gonna do 25 opens.

00:03:29.760 I'm literally gonna go on my followers.

00:03:31.940 I'm gonna go in this group.

00:03:33.180 I'm gonna go here and I'm gonna start some chats

00:03:35.200 and just start, practice, get good at it, okay?

00:03:38.400 Skills and drills.

00:03:39.460 Some people say to me, well, Dan, I'm not good at sales.

00:03:42.160 And I go, how many sales books have you read?

00:03:44.580 And they go, zero.

00:03:47.600 Well, I think it's a little unreasonable

00:03:49.700 that you think you should be good at chat or selling

00:03:52.500 if you've never invested any time or energy into it.

00:03:55.100 So if you don't think you're good at selling,

00:03:56.740 you think sell by chat is kind of this weird,

00:03:58.800 like skillset that like other people have

00:04:01.080 that you can't develop, that's your challenge.

00:04:03.080 So start today by opening 25 chats.

00:04:06.800 Number two, map the flow.

00:04:09.060 So there's a good chance that you have had success

00:04:13.420 over email, getting somebody to sign up for a trial,

00:04:16.960 to buy your, to schedule a demo or buy your POC, okay?

00:04:20.540 Over chat, there's probably a good chance you have that.

00:04:23.120 Go look at the sequence, map it out, see what you did.

00:04:27.680 Because this is what's funny is a lot of people

00:04:29.920 actually know what they need to do

00:04:32.180 and they've maybe done it in the past,

00:04:33.720 they just haven't codified it,

00:04:35.160 they haven't systematized it,

00:04:36.500 they haven't documented in a way that's repeatable,

00:04:39.200 scalable for somebody else to learn.

00:04:41.020 So my whole thing is map the flow.

00:04:44.160 Document, how do you open?

00:04:46.220 How do you qualify?

00:04:47.940 How do you create interest?

00:04:49.900 How do you escalate it to some kind of action

00:04:53.320 that generates desire?

00:04:54.660 What are you going to say?

00:04:56.320 What is generic amongst all your customer base

00:04:58.540 that you can teach anybody

00:04:59.900 to just have that chat conversation, okay?

00:05:02.860 If you want, and I'm gonna show you how to,

00:05:05.480 I'm gonna give you like a crazy, amazing way

00:05:08.260 for you to learn how to do this at the end.

00:05:09.920 so be sure to stay for the whole episode.

00:05:11.520 But you need to map out your flow

00:05:13.940 so that you can see what success looks like.

00:05:16.420 And maybe you've experienced it with other people,

00:05:17.980 just reverse engineer what they've done with you.

00:05:20.040 Wink, wink, I'm gonna show you how to do that with me.

00:05:22.040 So be sure to map your flow.

00:05:24.280 Number three, greaser question.

00:05:26.340 So I got this idea from my buddy, Ryan Levesque.

00:05:28.820 He wrote an incredible book called Ask,

00:05:30.720 and he's got this software called Bucket.io.

00:05:32.900 It's a quiz software.

00:05:34.380 And he's the one that says the first question

00:05:36.540 you ask somebody should be a greaser question.

00:05:38.760 It should be on topic to your industry.

00:05:41.760 Like you wouldn't ask like, do you like blue or red?

00:05:43.840 But it's an easy question.

00:05:46.300 You know, in a survey or a quiz funnel,

00:05:48.040 maybe it's male or female, if it's relevant.

00:05:49.960 If you're a health coach, we have health software,

00:05:51.820 male or female probably matters, right? 0.85

00:05:53.420 But founder or executive or, you know,

00:05:58.800 do you sell trial or, you know, demo process?

00:06:04.620 What's your sales motion?

00:06:05.460 So like asking a question upfront, you know,

00:06:08.800 that is not too much.

00:06:10.660 You're not asking like, what's your marital status

00:06:12.780 or how much money do you have your bank account?

00:06:14.400 Like these are the things that people like sometimes

00:06:17.020 totally mess up in a chat.

00:06:18.580 You just want to grease your question,

00:06:20.500 gets the chat going, starts the process,

00:06:24.160 let somebody relax, feel comfortable, do it over email.

00:06:27.400 So chat and email to me, I think are the same thing.

00:06:31.120 Like what I do in an email,

00:06:32.900 you don't want to send a blurb of texts.

00:06:34.780 Same thing with a chat.

00:06:35.620 You wanna do a little bit of chat, send.

00:06:37.280 A little bit of chat, send.

00:06:38.140 Just look at how freaking teenagers are chatting today.

00:06:40.420 They're not sending full paragraphs. 0.65

00:06:41.980 Some of you guys, it looks like you're copy and pasting

00:06:44.940 because you are copy and pasting

00:06:46.480 because you have five paragraphs of text.

00:06:48.740 Nobody would sit there and write that in a chat.

00:06:52.040 Yet you do it.

00:06:52.880 Don't do that.

00:06:53.720 Break it up, send it, break it.

00:06:55.280 Ask a question, send it, ask a question,

00:06:57.180 send it, send it, send it, ask a question.

00:06:59.360 But map your chat flow and ask those greaser questions.

00:07:02.420 Number four, manage the handoff.

00:07:04.840 So if you have a process where you wanna start the chat,

00:07:08.120 open the chat, you map the process,

00:07:09.880 greaser questions is going,

00:07:11.460 next step is to get them to schedule something

00:07:13.560 with you or somebody on your team.

00:07:15.760 I want you to manage the handoff.

00:07:18.160 I don't want you to just be like, here's the link,

00:07:20.260 have an amazing day.

00:07:21.480 That's not good.

00:07:22.760 That is like, that's how the amateurs do it.

00:07:25.740 What I want you to do is just kind of like,

00:07:27.440 if you've ever gone to a retail store

00:07:29.080 or to a grocery store and you've asked one of the workers,

00:07:31.160 like, hey, what aisle is the peanut butter?

00:07:33.640 They could say, oh, aisle five, right?

00:07:36.660 Or they could say, come with me and I'll show you.

00:07:39.660 That is managing the handoff.

00:07:41.300 You go to an Apple store, same thing.

00:07:43.400 I've pretty much, I don't know if this is a rule,

00:07:45.120 but when I go to an Apple store

00:07:46.300 and I start working with Apple Genius, they're my person.

00:07:50.320 The same concept applies, is have the chat open,

00:07:53.440 give them the link, have them go off to schedule

00:07:56.320 and say, I will wait for you

00:07:57.680 in case you have any questions.

00:07:58.800 Let me know when you're done.

00:08:00.460 That's a beautiful handoff.

00:08:02.040 That's telling me like, oh, they wanna know what time.

00:08:04.640 Or you can even do stuff like what I teach my team is,

00:08:07.400 like, once you book it, let me know,

00:08:09.200 I've got a surprise for you.

00:08:10.560 That is money, think about it.

00:08:13.260 Cause then they're like, okay, well, I'm gonna go do it.

00:08:15.040 I did it, now what is it?

00:08:16.600 All right, well, since you booked,

00:08:18.100 I wanna share this really cool template

00:08:20.100 that we give all to our new customers

00:08:22.220 that I think you really add value today

00:08:24.140 and you can bring, you can fill it out

00:08:25.280 and bring it to your call with our product specialist

00:08:27.800 and he'll be able to evaluate with you.

00:08:29.360 I think that's the kind of stuff I'm talking about

00:08:30.980 is manage the handoff

00:08:32.620 so that people aren't just being left in the ether

00:08:35.000 with no clear guidance.

00:08:36.200 And I mean, your conversion rates

00:08:38.300 from qualifying to opportunity to handoff,

00:08:40.900 if you don't do that, can literally be four times less.

00:08:43.920 Like it's a four X multiplier by managing that properly.

00:08:47.480 Number five, take shortcuts, okay?

00:08:50.740 I'm not a fan of shortcuts.

00:08:51.800 I believe in doing the hard work and putting in the energy.

00:08:54.440 But when it comes to chatting with somebody,

00:08:56.940 If you do have certain like, you know,

00:09:00.140 scripts or templates or whatever,

00:09:02.460 put it in canned response if it's an email structure.

00:09:05.960 Text expander on computers,

00:09:07.820 like there's all these tools

00:09:09.280 where you can literally shortcut big blur.

00:09:11.820 Like I have my address,

00:09:12.920 I have a bunch of different offers and structures, et cetera.

00:09:16.340 They're all in pre-written templates.

00:09:19.000 So that way when I'm doing it,

00:09:20.800 I can literally crank through a hundred chats.

00:09:23.180 Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

00:09:24.400 You want like go check out text expander

00:09:26.040 if you're on a Mac,

00:09:26.880 I don't know if they have a Windows machine,

00:09:28.300 but there are different solutions.

00:09:30.080 On your iPhone, you can literally go create shortcuts

00:09:32.220 in your iPhone, and I'm sure the same is true for Android.

00:09:35.580 But taking shortcuts when it comes to chats

00:09:38.020 can allow you to be effective, be responsive,

00:09:40.360 and get deals moving fast into your sales team

00:09:43.700 or into your trial process, so be sure to take shortcuts.

00:09:46.320 So five strategies to attract SaaS customers online

00:09:49.920 using chat, or what I call sell by chat.

00:09:52.900 Number one, always be opening.

00:09:54.300 Number two, map your chat flow.

00:09:55.740 Number three, greaser questions.

00:09:58.060 Make them easy and simple.

00:09:58.980 Number four, manage the handoff.

00:10:01.440 And number five, take shortcuts.

00:10:04.320 As I mentioned at the beginning of the episode,

00:10:06.180 I wanna share with you how you're gonna learn

00:10:08.540 to see what excellence looks like.

00:10:10.120 Here's how you're gonna do it.

00:10:11.100 You're gonna go through the process with me.

00:10:12.580 Only if you're a SaaS founder.

00:10:13.780 If you are a SaaS founder and software as a service,

00:10:16.920 that's what SaaS stands for, software as a service,

00:10:19.220 and you wanna see how the chat works,

00:10:21.420 start a chat with me, Instagram, Facebook page,

00:10:24.780 email me at d, d at danmartell2lsmartell.com

00:10:29.040 and just start the process.

00:10:30.680 Hey, I'm interested in what you got to go.

00:10:33.540 Boom, and you'll see it.

00:10:35.360 Save the chat log script.

00:10:38.100 Use it for your own business.

00:10:39.420 I wanna give it to you.

00:10:40.840 I wanna see you succeed.

00:10:42.280 So send me an email at d at danmartell.com

00:10:44.580 or you can start a chat on Instagram,

00:10:46.640 Facebook, LinkedIn, et cetera.

00:10:48.240 And you will see the process in motion.

00:10:51.000 I'm excited you're here.

00:10:51.880 If you found value,

00:10:52.640 please smash that subscribe button, like this video,

00:10:55.600 and be sure to share it with other software founders

00:10:57.680 that you think it could serve.

00:10:58.840 And as per usual, I wanna challenge you

00:11:00.840 to live a bigger life and a bigger business,

00:11:02.640 and I'll see you next Monday.

Dan Martell - May 03, 2021

How To Close SaaS Customers Using Online Chat

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript