Dan Martell - Use This Script to Pre-Sell Your Product

00:00:00.000 Hey there.

00:00:00.500 I'm Dan Martell, serial entrepreneur, investor,

00:00:02.500 and creator of SaaS Academy.

00:00:04.200 In this episode, I'm going to share with you

00:00:05.840 how to pre-sell your software, the exact script flow,

00:00:10.040 and even a little bit of a filter

00:00:11.500 you need to add on who you talk to so that you can pre-sell

00:00:14.760 your next software product and use that money to actually

00:00:18.160 build it.

00:00:18.760 And be sure to stay to the end where I'm

00:00:20.000 going to share with you how to get access to my free mini

00:00:22.560 course called Idea to Exit.

00:00:23.960 It's literally not only how I go deeper

00:00:26.640 in building a clickable prototype and pre-selling,

00:00:29.240 et cetera, but even going into how to raise capital

00:00:32.840 and exit your business at some point, if you choose.

00:00:35.720 I'll share more about that at the end.

00:00:50.400 So here's the deal.

00:00:51.260 Selling your software before you build it

00:00:53.700 is a very attractive idea.

00:00:55.460 I mean, if you think about it, no money out of pocket.

00:00:57.980 I get people to pre-commit, I take that money,

00:01:00.220 I build the software, and then I launch,

00:01:02.600 and I kind of go from there.

00:01:04.520 I first heard of this concept back by Steve Blank.

00:01:08.220 So he wrote a book called The Four Steps of the Epiphany.

00:01:11.120 It used to be kind of like mandatory reading in the valley.

00:01:14.460 I feel like people have now moved on to The Lean Startup

00:01:16.860 and many other books.

00:01:18.620 But Four Steps of the Epiphany, it's a bit of a hard read.

00:01:21.960 Steve, literally, I think he sat down

00:01:23.460 and just dumped it out of his mind, no editing,

00:01:25.360 and then just published it, self-publish.

00:01:27.300 Get the book.

00:01:28.540 Everything I'm going to share with you today

00:01:30.640 is from that book and my experience.

00:01:34.180 So when we were selling Flowtown or trying

00:01:36.160 to pre-sell Flowtown, we stumbled.

00:01:38.820 We thought we were doing customer development.

00:01:41.100 We were actually just selling.

00:01:43.420 We were just really good salespeople.

00:01:45.140 We made a ton of mistakes.

00:01:46.680 And what I want to share with you

00:01:47.980 is the lessons learned from that, how

00:01:49.900 to think about the two parts of the conversation

00:01:52.760 so that you not only learn, but you also get a commitment

00:01:55.880 so that you don't end up in a scenario worse

00:01:58.520 where you can't get anybody to commit,

00:01:59.940 or I think even worse than that is you take money

00:02:02.540 from people that were never going

00:02:04.040 to be great customers for you and ask you

00:02:06.200 to change your priorities.

00:02:07.400 So let's get into it.

00:02:09.400 Number one, early adopters only.

00:02:11.540 So the way you need to think about this

00:02:13.120 is in a market, there are people that are early adopters.

00:02:15.900 I'm not going to get into the technology adoption curve

00:02:18.220 where this comes from, but there's a chasm.

00:02:19.940 Before that, there's kind of like your early majority

00:02:22.040 and your early adopters and your innovators.

00:02:24.940 The early adopters are people that are willing to wait.

00:02:28.040 These are people that are looking for innovation.

00:02:30.060 They're looking for an edge.

00:02:31.360 So if I'm trying to pre-sell my technology, my innovation,

00:02:34.880 my software, I can't be talking to people that

00:02:37.300 are not early adopters.

00:02:38.540 Or I'm going to end up making concessions

00:02:41.620 for my vision of the product to meet them, specifically

00:02:44.940 if they're late adopters, laggards,

00:02:47.520 then I'm going to get a false signal from the market.

00:02:50.880 So how do you filter for those people?

00:02:52.920 Think about what are the characteristics

00:02:54.540 of an early adopter.

00:02:55.920 What's true about the person's life, their environment,

00:02:58.500 other tools they might use?

00:02:59.820 They might give you any inclination

00:03:01.620 that they're an early adopter.

00:03:02.920 So one example I used a lot back in the day, now I use Snapchat,

00:03:07.040 is if they had Instagram account on their business profile.

00:03:10.160 That might tell you a little bit about their early adopters.

00:03:13.680 If they're a corporation and they have a corporate social

00:03:16.060 responsibility program in their organization, CSR,

00:03:19.220 that tells you that from a cultural point of view,

00:03:21.140 they're really trying to be progressive,

00:03:22.480 and they're trying to be involved in the community.

00:03:24.720 So you want to look for what's true about the business.

00:03:28.240 So here's where I see all the mistakes people make

00:03:30.220 is if I would sell restaurant innovation software,

00:03:32.440 and I live in a town of 100,000 people, which

00:03:34.480 is where I grew up, I'm pretty sure nobody in my town

00:03:38.260 at a restaurant level is winning awards

00:03:39.820 for being the most innovative, progressive restaurant

00:03:42.040 in all of Canada.

00:03:43.540 If that's the case, then trying to pre-sell my software

00:03:47.560 to those restaurants is going to be not only frustrating,

00:03:51.240 it's going to fail because they're not

00:03:53.040 going to be a true indication of what's possible in the market

00:03:55.500 because these are not early adopters.

00:03:57.000 So that's step one.

00:03:58.060 Add that filter.

00:03:58.860 It will save you so much time.

00:04:00.200 Number two, offer value.

00:04:02.340 So one of the things holding people back from reaching out

00:04:05.300 to potential companies is they're like, well,

00:04:07.180 why would this person get on a call with me?

00:04:08.860 Well, here's the way I've always framed it, again,

00:04:11.100 from 4 Steps to Epiphany, is if I was building a marketing

00:04:14.420 platform that helped people run better Facebook ads,

00:04:17.420 I would say to a potential target,

00:04:20.940 I would say, target's such a bad word.

00:04:22.780 Let's call them like opportunity or prospect or client.

00:04:27.620 Just feels better.

00:04:28.560 So if I was trying to reach out to a potential client,

00:04:30.600 I would say that I've been talking

00:04:33.120 to a dozen of other companies and people in your role

00:04:35.840 and other organizations just like you.

00:04:37.860 I've learned a lot about what's worked for them.

00:04:39.920 I would love your advice on how you're

00:04:41.820 dealing with this today and kind of how you

00:04:43.540 see this potential as a solution.

00:04:45.460 And as a gift, as a reward, I'm going

00:04:49.180 to share with you the top three lessons

00:04:50.640 I've learned from talking to other people in your industry.

00:04:52.800 All I need is about eight minutes.

00:04:54.700 How does next Tuesday at 2 PM sound?

00:04:56.840 That's the ask.

00:04:57.880 That's the email.

00:04:58.800 That's the conversation.

00:04:59.780 You can cold call.

00:05:00.600 You can send an email.

00:05:01.740 You can go to an event.

00:05:02.900 You can just.

00:05:03.700 But that, to me, is really saying, look,

00:05:06.560 I know that you probably have this problem.

00:05:08.320 So that, A, they have to be problem aware.

00:05:09.840 If they're not, you're doing a double sale.

00:05:11.140 You're selling them on the problem,

00:05:12.100 and you're selling them on even evaluating your call.

00:05:16.260 So you don't want to do double sales.

00:05:17.680 So are they problem aware?

00:05:19.700 Are they somebody that wants to learn from other people

00:05:23.720 in the industry?

00:05:24.260 That kind of filters them out as an early adopter,

00:05:26.060 because early adopters want to learn.

00:05:28.320 And that's the give.

00:05:29.200 So eight minutes on a call.

00:05:30.560 You ask them about their situation, their structure.

00:05:32.560 I'm going to walk you through that next.

00:05:34.060 But that, to me, is you've got to offer value

00:05:36.360 to actually get them to engage.

00:05:38.520 Number three, part one.

00:05:40.680 So there's two parts to the call.

00:05:43.920 So when I say a script, it's kind of like talk tracks.

00:05:47.160 It's not necessarily a script, because I want you

00:05:49.040 to use it for your specific product, your customer

00:05:51.800 segment, your language.

00:05:52.800 But here's the idea.

00:05:54.060 Part one is all about understanding their problem.

00:05:56.540 If you've ever done any sales, it's very similar to that,

00:05:58.640 where you want to ask them and say, well, what are you

00:06:01.920 currently, so you want to kind of like audit.

00:06:03.640 Like, what are you currently spending on Facebook ads?

00:06:06.360 How many leads are you generating per month?

00:06:08.220 What's your current conversion rate from those leads

00:06:10.220 to opportunities?

00:06:12.540 What's your return on ad spend?

00:06:13.620 You want to be sophisticated enough

00:06:14.840 to ask some questions that they should know the answer to,

00:06:16.760 so you can understand the context of where they're at.

00:06:19.640 Then you say, well, what are some of the challenges

00:06:21.620 that you're facing as you manage that?

00:06:23.840 So you want to understand the problem space.

00:06:25.720 What are they facing as they manage ad spend and lead gen,

00:06:29.640 et cetera?

00:06:30.140 You want to surface those challenges, and you want to learn.

00:06:32.880 So part one is all about learning.

00:06:34.280 It's customer development.

00:06:35.580 It's not about selling at all.

00:06:37.340 It's literally, I'm having a conversation

00:06:40.100 with a potential client to teach me even more

00:06:43.100 about the space I'm in.

00:06:44.180 Other questions I'll ask is, do you

00:06:45.980 know of any other products in the market that

00:06:47.600 solve the problems that you're facing?

00:06:49.660 I want to get some competitive understanding.

00:06:51.520 They might say, yeah, there's actually

00:06:52.740 these other products and we didn't decide to move forward

00:06:54.780 because they're very expensive.

00:06:56.280 Perfect.

00:06:56.780 Well, what would your budget be to solve those problems?

00:06:59.400 Again, you're trying to learn.

00:07:01.700 And then the last question through that series of customer

00:07:05.180 development questions is asking them to, I call it, well,

00:07:09.340 Steve Blank calls it the IPO question.

00:07:11.100 It's waving the magic wand.

00:07:12.260 If you can wave a magic wand and have this problem solved,

00:07:16.060 how would that look?

00:07:17.860 And hopefully, hopefully, and this

00:07:19.820 is why it's such an important call,

00:07:21.440 they describe the product that you want to build.

00:07:25.700 Because if they describe a totally different solution,

00:07:28.120 you might be in trouble.

00:07:29.060 But it's good to know.

00:07:29.980 I want to know.

00:07:30.480 I want to learn.

00:07:31.120 So you ask them if you can wave a magic wand,

00:07:33.940 this problem is solved, et cetera.

00:07:35.320 And the reason why it's called an IPO question

00:07:36.820 is because if you could actually deliver

00:07:38.780 that magical experience, you're going

00:07:40.900 to be on the right track to IPO if it's truly a big pain point

00:07:43.700 and enough companies have it.

00:07:45.440 That's part one of the call is you're

00:07:48.060 there just to learn by really going deep on where

00:07:50.960 they're at today, what problems they're

00:07:52.880 having around that thing, then asking them about the competitors

00:07:56.620 and also asking them the IPO question.

00:07:59.020 Part two, the sell.

00:08:01.240 Now, if you did part one and you learn everything

00:08:03.720 about their organization, the problem space, et cetera,

00:08:05.920 and you feel like they could be a potential customer

00:08:09.560 for your product, meaning that they're connected to the pain

00:08:11.680 and all this other stuff, then you just ask them.

00:08:14.400 It's like, hey, we've actually been working on a prototype

00:08:17.800 product that we're thinking of bringing to market.

00:08:19.620 Would you like to learn more?

00:08:21.340 And if you do your job right and they feel understood

00:08:23.580 and they feel like you really understand the problem,

00:08:25.420 they'll probably say yes.

00:08:26.520 That's the bridge to the next call, which is the sell.

00:08:31.220 So the sell is really about just doing the demo.

00:08:33.940 So when you're asking them about their challenges, well,

00:08:36.140 this frustrates me, this frustrates me,

00:08:38.360 When you present your product, you say, well,

00:08:40.540 we built it because of this, the origin story, real quick.

00:08:43.740 We had this problem.

00:08:44.420 We solved it.

00:08:45.480 The way it works is you mentioned this problem.

00:08:47.600 We also experienced that.

00:08:48.860 And here's the way our product's going to solve that.

00:08:50.340 You mentioned this problem.

00:08:51.160 Here's how our product's going to solve it.

00:08:52.540 You mentioned that problem.

00:08:53.040 Here's how our product's going to solve it.

00:08:54.540 And so what do you think about our approach

00:08:57.740 to solving that problem?

00:08:59.120 And then you're looking for feedback.

00:09:00.940 And they give you the feedback.

00:09:02.060 Here's the key, OK?

00:09:03.500 This is when you know you have a client that's

00:09:06.160 going to be involved, is when they start giving you advice.

00:09:08.200 When somebody starts giving you advice

00:09:09.860 on how to improve your product, your solution, your service,

00:09:12.700 then it tells you that they're committed to you

00:09:15.100 and your outcome.

00:09:15.760 If they don't care about you, if they don't think

00:09:17.520 that they could ever work with you,

00:09:18.880 they're not going to give you the advice.

00:09:20.140 Why?

00:09:20.640 Because there's no reason to.

00:09:21.780 There's no upside.

00:09:22.600 But if they do, it means that they want the product,

00:09:25.900 they're interested, and they like you,

00:09:27.280 and they want to support you.

00:09:28.960 So if they start giving you feedback

00:09:30.460 about, like, what do you think we could do better,

00:09:32.460 and they start giving you that advice,

00:09:34.160 that's when you go for the offer.

00:09:35.960 And the offer essentially is saying, hey,

00:09:38.660 here's what we're doing.

00:09:40.280 We're looking for a dozen early adopter clients.

00:09:43.020 So I call it the EAP program, the early adopter program.

00:09:46.000 And that program essentially gets you 50% off

00:09:50.480 the annual price in perpetuity.

00:09:53.220 So essentially, you get that half price.

00:09:55.180 The product's going to be launching on this date.

00:09:57.140 And what we're also looking for is companies

00:10:00.200 to be part of our CAB, our Customer Advisory Board,

00:10:02.920 to give us product feedback.

00:10:04.320 So not only are we going to be launching this

00:10:05.660 on this date, but we have a roadmap

00:10:07.560 that we're looking at.

00:10:08.660 And we want to make sure that we have clients like yourself

00:10:10.860 that can support that and get on calls

00:10:13.160 and give us some feedback and review some of our product

00:10:14.960 designs.

00:10:16.060 We would love to have you.

00:10:17.060 It sounds like you really understand the problem.

00:10:18.760 You understood the market and kind of where it's going.

00:10:21.020 And we're really committed to solving this.

00:10:22.920 Do you want to be part of that early adopter program?

00:10:25.980 And you go for the ask.

00:10:27.320 And then you stop talking, and you wait.

00:10:29.660 Now, they're going to have objections.

00:10:31.060 This is where salesmanship is into place,

00:10:32.660 where they're going to say, well, what

00:10:34.160 happens if I don't get it built?

00:10:35.400 or what's the investment, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:10:37.020 You're going to have to be able to deal with that.

00:10:38.520 So write them down, have really good answers

00:10:40.020 to those questions.

00:10:41.840 But that is how it works.

00:10:43.360 Part one is all about learning.

00:10:44.740 Part two is all about essentially enrolling.

00:10:46.780 OK, that's what I like to use is enrolling them

00:10:48.780 into your EAP, your early adopter program.

00:10:51.020 Number five, take the money.

00:10:53.420 I can't tell you how often.

00:10:55.200 I was just on a coaching call the other day

00:10:57.000 with my growth accelerator clients.

00:10:58.560 These are people that are kind of pre-revenue,

00:11:00.440 pre-product market fit.

00:11:01.740 And I have one client, John, say to me, he's like, yeah,

00:11:04.920 We did the customer development calls,

00:11:07.020 and it's validated.

00:11:07.940 People think it's a great idea.

00:11:10.040 And I was like, how many calls did you make?

00:11:12.520 He said, three.

00:11:14.460 A, that's not enough.

00:11:15.860 10 is the minimum.

00:11:17.460 And one of my clients, Max, pre-sold 37 clients

00:11:21.000 into his SEO product and was able to not only

00:11:23.680 fund the development, but have even more left over

00:11:25.720 for advertising.

00:11:27.260 So you want to at least have 10 conversations

00:11:30.240 to try to get three or four that's a part of your EAP program.

00:11:33.920 That being said, if somebody says they're interested,

00:11:37.680 you want to take the money.

00:11:38.780 If somebody does not invest, when I did Flowtown,

00:11:41.340 when I did Clarity, it was all about getting paid upfront.

00:11:43.880 If you truly believe there's value here,

00:11:45.740 I want to see your financial commitment.

00:11:47.680 So the way it works is they're going

00:11:48.980 to pay for the whole year upfront, but it's 50% off.

00:11:53.120 So if you're going to charge $100 a month, that's $1,200.

00:11:55.420 They get it for $600, but they're

00:11:57.260 going to give you the whole $600 to be part of that program.

00:12:01.920 So that is how it works.

00:12:03.680 If you're not taking the money, I'm

00:12:05.180 talking PayPal, wire transfers, I'll show up at your office.

00:12:07.800 You can write me a check.

00:12:08.920 Get paid, because as soon as somebody gives you money,

00:12:12.500 all of a sudden, the conversation changes.

00:12:14.300 All of a sudden, they're going to ask real questions.

00:12:16.300 They're going to ask questions about,

00:12:17.440 does this integrate with our security system?

00:12:19.060 Does this integrate with Salesforce?

00:12:20.280 Does this allow for multi-user accounts?

00:12:22.560 What's the reporting going to look like?

00:12:25.360 And those are really important questions

00:12:27.380 that they might have otherwise not asked or suggested

00:12:30.060 or even talked about when you were learning,

00:12:31.960 doing customer development, because the mental model

00:12:35.380 changes from dollar in to all of a sudden, OK, now,

00:12:38.200 I really need this thing to work.

00:12:39.620 So they're going to ask really good questions.

00:12:41.200 And that's when it all comes together.

00:12:42.460 So get paid.

00:12:44.100 Take the money.

00:12:45.480 So quick recap on the exact script

00:12:47.580 to use to pre-sell your B2B software.

00:12:49.800 First, you've got to filter out early adopters only.

00:12:53.340 Number two, you need to offer value

00:12:55.600 to get them on the call.

00:12:56.700 So you're essentially going to tell them

00:12:57.700 what you've been learning.

00:12:58.900 Number three, it's part one.

00:13:00.520 The whole conversation is about understanding

00:13:02.620 where they're at, what they've tried,

00:13:03.940 what they're frustrated with, what are competitors out there,

00:13:06.280 et cetera.

00:13:06.780 So we're learning.

00:13:07.280 Part two is the pre-sell.

00:13:09.280 That's where we really go into the demo of the prototype

00:13:12.800 we're building.

00:13:13.420 And this is where clickable prototypes come into play.

00:13:16.020 And then going for the offer.

00:13:18.300 And then number five is you've got to take the money

00:13:21.760 or it doesn't count.

00:13:23.500 As I mentioned at the beginning of this episode,

00:13:25.240 I want to share with you my idea to exit mini course.

00:13:28.100 I talked about clickable prototypes, and MVPs,

00:13:31.540 and pre-selling EADP programs.

00:13:33.560 I go even deeper in the whole setup

00:13:36.500 in that free mini course.

00:13:38.240 I even talk about how to scale your marketing,

00:13:40.660 how to get your customers to prepay,

00:13:42.600 and use that to hire key employees like your developers,

00:13:46.100 and also talk about the exit strategy

00:13:48.080 so that you understand that there's only 21 people

00:13:50.120 in the world that would have an incredible, meaningful impact

00:13:53.380 on your life.

00:13:53.940 You can click the link below to get access to that training.

00:13:56.620 And if you like this video, I would

00:13:58.060 I'd love for you to smash the like button,

00:13:59.780 subscribe to my channel, and let me know in the comments

00:14:02.200 below what insights you've taken away from this episode.

00:14:07.000 And if you are still watching, I want

00:14:09.640 to encourage you, as per usual, to live a bigger life

00:14:13.120 and a bigger business.

00:14:14.040 And I'll see you next Monday.

00:14:15.620 Oh my god, I got a stretch.

00:14:18.700 Oh, pudge pickle stuff.

Dan Martell - October 14, 2019

Use This Script to Pre-Sell Your Product

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