Episode 498 | Selling During a Pandemic with Steli Efti

Startups For the Rest of Us

Rob Walling

Entrepreneurship, Management, Business, Marketing

4.9 • 819 Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2020

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week Rob talks with Steli Efti about selling during a pandemic. They also talk about how to set yourself up for success as a founder during a possible recession and how to adjust your sales process. You don't want to shy away from sales, but you also don't want to be tone-deaf to the current state of the world. Steli is one of the world's experts in startup sales and B2B sales. He runs a successful app called Close.com. He has written a number of ebooks on the topic of sales, and he has been a recognized expert for over a decade. The finer points of the episode: 4:15 - Two big sales trends that Steli has noticed during the COVID-19 crisis 9:09 - The main thing you can do for your business right now 13:55 - How to approach a sales conversation while being sensitive to the current circumstances 16:33 - How Close.com managed to increase their revenue and grow through 2020 25:00 - How Steli sees his sales process looking after COVID-19 30:25 - Best practices for sending cold emails during the pandemic Items mentioned in this episode: BaseCamp Close.com The Startup Chat Email Steli for the crisis toolkit Follow Steli on Twitter

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to this week's episode of Startups with the Rest of Us. I'm your host, Rob Walling. This is episode
0:04.1	498. We're rapidly approaching episode 500, and I'm trying to cook up something a little special for you.
0:10.7	This week, I talk with Steli FD of Closed.com. This is his third appearance on Startups for the Rest of
0:15.4	us, and we dive deep into his knowledge and his advice on selling during a pandemic and what that looks like.
0:21.8	And frankly, we don't just talk about selling during a pandemic. We talk about how to set yourself
0:26.8	up for success as a founder as we potentially enter a worldwide recession. And he talks about
0:32.7	how you should adjust your sales approach and cold emailing during this time.
0:40.5	You know, whether it's a pandemic or a recession or whatever, you know, whatever you want to define it.
0:41.3	It's just how to think about sales and how not to shy away from it, but how also not to be
0:46.3	tone deaf during this time.
0:48.0	But before we dive in, I want to once again thank Basecamp for their partnership with
0:52.1	microcomf and startups for the rest of us.
0:54.5	And we're pleased to have them as a headline sponsor for MicroConf in 2020.
1:00.1	And here's a 60-second message from Basecamp.
1:03.1	We asked founders and entrepreneurs why they switched to Basecamp when their company started to grow.
1:08.6	Christina had just hired some more people.
1:10.7	When it came to internal communication,
1:12.6	everything was all over the place.
1:14.6	There was more work and more people than before
1:16.6	and no way to keep track of it all.
1:18.6	Sometimes information was in an email,
1:20.6	sometimes in the chat room,
	...

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