As a startup sales guy by trade, I will always take a direct conversation with a prospect over any other means of communication. My experience in life and business has created a great gut feeling, and I love the talk to people and can usually instantly have a first impression on the opportunity that exists. But that just doesn't scale, especially in a startup, a small business or as a hustler trying to get a side gig up and running. How can you create efficient "sales hours" beyond your awake time, and possible working hours? You need a clone, right?
Until clones and AI are mainstream and can help you out, we are stuck with the hand we are dealt. So today, what can you leverage to help in this area? The answer is video, and there is no comparison. Creating a handful of videos that are professional, well done and tell your story can be priceless for aspiring businesses, and I would argue all individuals. In every position I have held within small high growth businesses, one of the first things I do is create a video of my sales pitch, end to end, and upload it to my YouTube channel. Why? I now have an asset I can share on my LinkedIn profile, as I send prospecting emails or In-mails, when customers or prospects request more info, or I want to do a quick pitch in an elevator ;). In fact, I usually have a handful of videos:
The Short Pitch - a quick 1 minute pitch to use for prospecting.
The Full Pitch - End-to-end demo including a few slides and the product demo.
Technology Demo - Just the demo of the product.
Specialty focuses or hot topics - maybe its a new feature being released. How security works. Maybe a vertical specific pitch. The Topic du jour!!
These become indispensable tools in your day to day, and if done right, over time can get you leads and inquiries too. In simplistic terms: If a video helps you get 100+/1000+ extra touches per month with no extra work, do you think its worth it?
Disclaimer and side note: Always attempt to work with marketing when they are amenable. Most startup marketing departments in my experience are great people that are overtasked, and jump at any chance for content creation help. If you experience the marketer that is a “controller” personality, and scoffs at the sales guy/gal that takes the initiative, proceed at your own peril. I recommend creating non-public videos that you can share with links. I’ve been called into the CEO’s office to explain why I am creating rogue content. A quick show of 1,000 views that month on my primary video changed the conversation, as did my results ;). And resulted in a formalized effort to create sales shareable content. It works!
I commonly hear excuses on this topic:
I don’t have time to do that
I don't know how to create a video.
We don't like to show our product in videos for competitive reasons (Stealth marketing technique...lol)
I just don't think that will work for my product.
To answer these, first off, if you can do a Zoom meeting, you can record a session and instantly have your video. The free version of Zoom lets you record locally, and it takes 2 minutes to sign up. There are also a number of recording tools out there at a reasonable price point (Camtasia, SnagIt), that are simple to use and create great quality videos. And if recording yourself speaking for 2 minutes is hard for you and will drain time from your schedule, you are better suited for another career path.
Secondly, the stealth marketing attitude. This one drives me nuts, and I've dealt with many a product marketer that was vehemently opposed to sharing any type of product demo. This is absurd. The benefits you glean from creating these assets far outweigh the downsides.
Every product has to be sold. If a video can't do that, you should reevaluate your business. Be creative, and just pretend you are presenting in person to a room full of prospects...no brainer.
Thoughts? Anything I missed here?