- Given everything that's happening in the world,
whether it's the coronavirus, a global pandemic,
or our recovery, chances are the marketing playbook
you started off with in 2020
will not work for the rest of 2020.
So in this video, I'm gonna be teaching you
my three principles on how to adapt
your SaaS lead generation techniques,
so that you can upgrade your marketing playbook
and still thrive in 2020.
Intro.
(drums banging)
(hand slaps) What's up, everybody.
Welcome to "Unstoppable."
I'm TK, author of the book,
"How to Punch the Sunday Jitters in the Face,"
entrepreneur and SaaS founder.
On this channel, I bring you an episode every Sunday
and every Wednesday to help start-up founders like you
become unstoppable in your life and your business
through belief and discipline.
I drop my episode every single Sunday and Wednesday,
so be sure to hit that Subscribe button
(bell rings)
and the bell icon so that you get notified
every single time I drop an episode.
I feel like I said "drop an episode" like five times.
But, anyway, I bring the (fingers snapping) TK energy.
Okay. (hand clapping)
So if you are a start-up founder or you're a SaaS marketer,
chances are your standard lead generation techniques
aren't working as well right now in this very moment in 2020
because everything has changed.
And I know that marketing leaders have always said
everything is change, but truly, everything has changed.
And so, in this episode,
based on everything that I've learned
around sales and marketing, around go-to-market motions,
in my ToutApp journey and in my Marketo journey,
I'm gonna be walking you through the three principles
that I'm advising every single one of my founders on
that are part of my Unstoppable SaaS start-up school.
So if you're excited to dig in
and walk through these three principles
on how you can continue to generate leads
even through these times,
how you can upgrade your playbook and adapt,
go to smash that Like button and let's get started.
Now, the first thing you gotta realize,
and you may know this already, is the standard ways,
your standard messaging, the playbook you started with
in the beginning of the year isn't gonna work anymore.
So what you nned to do is actually adapt your messaging.
This is particularly true
if a lot of your messaging was aspirational,
meaning that stuff just won't work anymore.
If you're thinking about a better future
and transforming everything, you're gonna have to push
a little bit harder and get a little bit more brass tacks.
So, shortcuts that I've been teaching people on,
on how to adapt your messaging is,
you gotta highlight things around cost savings now.
You gotta highlight things around safety and protection,
and you also, as a trick, if you're really aspirational,
you've got to highlight on how you can survive now
so you can thrive later.
There are different stages of companies
that are reacting to this in different ways.
And I'll get to this in step number three.
But the trick to this is understanding
that no one is gonna make extra spends right now.
Every spend that they're making, whether it's on software,
which you are selling, or anything else,
or if they're thinking about cutting,
they're going to be thinking about,
well, what's gonna save us money, what's gonna protect us,
what's gonna help us survive, and then, and then,
they're gonna think about, well, what can we do now
if we've got some extra dollars to invest in,
so that we survive now.
And not only survive now, we adapt now,
but we also not just adapt now but thrive
once we get past this.
And we will get past this.
So, the first principle is you gotta adapt your messaging.
Focusing on cost savings, safety and protection,
surviving now and thriving later.
Once you've done that, the second thing you need to do,
and you probably have seen other brands shift this already,
but I'm a big believer,
even if we weren't in the middle of a global pandemic,
is you gotta do people over your brand.
Everyone is looking more for leadership than ever before.
And so, you gotta stop tweeting out and messaging things out
just under your start-up's brand.
It could be awesome dot-io and it could be amazing
but it's not good enough anymore.
You, the start-up founder or the CEO, or the CMO, have to,
has to get out in front.
People are looking for leadership right now.
And therefore, people are more stronger and more powerful
to convey the message to attract attention than the brand.
Which is why you see so many CEOs getting up-front
and talking about how they're dealing with the crisis,
what they're doing.
People are creating leadership,
and you want to be able to lead.
And there are a couple things
you need to be doing as a leader,
you need to get in front of your clients,
you need to get in front of your customers,
you need to get in front of your employees,
and that needs to be part of your lead generation
and your marketing strategy.
You need to be able to put out messaging out there
where you're leading, where you're serving, in a bigger way.
And you're putting out your unique point of view
on how to navigate these times.
If you can do that truly in an authentic way,
and then tie that to your product,
(fingers snapping) you're gonna be unstoppable.
Before I go to the third one,
let me just pause here for a second.
If you are startin' to get this, if you're startin' to see,
you know what, we do need to shift,
we are in a different time, but there is a way,
and there's always a way,
if you're startin' to see this,
let me just get a yes in the comments below.
And while you're at it, I wanna hear from you,
how has your lead generation techniques changed?
Have you seen a change in pipeline?
Have you seen a change in demand?
Have you seen a change in churn?
Let me hear from you so we can all compare notes.
(hands clapping) Okay.
And by the way, if you are looking to actually build out
this thing where you are the brand and you are leading,
and you're going out with a unique point of view,
I have a very special training.
I have a 45 minute go-to-market training
that you can go check out.
Don't worry, I will link to it below on how to get to that
pre-go-to-market training where I'll teach you
how to actually establish yourself as the brand,
and go out there and lead.
And that could be a really differentiated way
to generate demand, to generate leads
for your SaaS business.
Okay, now let's go to the third thing, okay?
The third thing is you gotta also understand
specific behavior based on market segmentation.
So, these are some broad strokes,
and they're true for the entire population end-to-end.
However, however, Harvard Business Review
did an entire study around this,
and turns out market segmentation is super important here.
Now, I did an entire video on market segmentation.
It actually helps you accelerate your business
in more ways than you know.
You can check that out, video here.
I'll link to it below, you don't have to leave right now.
But I did a much bigger deep-dive into market segmentation,
which is an amazing growth principle.
But what's important right now is, as you're shifting
your lead generation messaging, as you're thinking about
how you recreate your playbook under the new world,
you gotta think about market segmentation
and specific behavior.
What does that mean?
Let me explain.
I'll link to this study below, but Harvard Business Review
did an entire study on how to sell during a recession
and what shifts to make, or during a downturn.
Now I'm not saying this is a recession,
I'm not saying this is a downturn,
it still has yet to be seen.
However, people's sentiments are different.
And what was interesting was they had two things.
One was the different consumer segments that they had.
So they had people that were slamming on the brakes,
they're like, oh, my God, we're running out of cash,
we gotta slam on the brakes.
They have people that are pained but patient,
meaning they have some money and they're like, okay,
this is a pain, we should be prudent.
They're people that are comfortably well-off,
it doesn't really impact them.
And there are people that are,
regardless of how much money they have,
they're gonna live for today.
Super interesting on these segments.
Now, one thing that's 100% true is
as soon as there's a downturn or a recession,
people tend to still green-light the essentials.
Okay?
However, when you think about expendables and postponables,
and treats, all of a sudden, for this segment,
the slam-on-their-brakes, this goes red, this goes red.
For pained but patient, expendables goes red.
You can start to see how it becomes harder to sell
if your marketing playbook is positioned or perceived,
makes them perceive it as an expendable, a postponable,
or a treat.
But if you can position yourself as an essential,
now this ties back to the first principle that I had,
which was you gotta think about cost savings,
safety and protection, surviving now and thriving later,
and start to see how, when you've started to shift
your messaging on those things,
and you start to pull back towards positioning yourself
as an essential.
When you do that, no matter what customer segment you're on,
you can still continue to generate business
and generate leads, because people are still okay with you.
And why do I bring this up?
The reason I bring this up
is that you may be serving a segment
where they are live for today.
Or you may be serving a segment that's comfortably well-off.
And in that case, you don't necessarily have to
force yourself into the essential category.
You can still get away with being a postponable or a treat.
You can still be a little bit more aspirational
and still win business because you're still being authentic.
You're not stretching it to being a complete essential.
So, all is not lost
if you can't completely position yourself
as one of these four things I mentioned,
then maybe you get into customer segmentation
and figure out if there's still a segment of the market.
It's like, you know what?
They're well-off and they're gonna continue
to spend money on this,
so let's just keep selling in that way.
So, to recap, when you are adapting
your SaaS lead generation for this market, 2020,
there are three things that you need to be doing.
Number one, you need to adapt your messaging.
Number two, you need to actually put yourself
greater than the brand.
You need to lead, you need to serve,
you need to have a unique point of view.
If you wanna do that, go to my 45 minute training
on how to do that exactly.
And number three, you can hyper-segment
and get very specific around the specific market segment
that you're doing.
And I'll link to that video down below as well.
So, if you got value from this video,
please smash that Like button.
Those are the three strategies that I have for you
to adapt your marketing playbook,
your lead generation strategies,
so that you can continue to survive and thrive in 2020.
Now if you wanna dig more into this, particularly around
how you can use my Unstoppable sales funnel
to continue to generate SaaS leads,
even in this environment, the core thesis around that
is you put people over the brand in order to do that.
Go ahead and follow the link below
or go to tkkader.com/saas-training.
And in there, I'll give you my free 45 minute training
on how to use an Unstoppable sales funnel
to actually thrive and generate leads
for your SaaS business.
And, lastly, I do bring you an episode
every Sunday and every Wednesday,
so be sure to hit that Subscribe button and that bell icon.
(bell rings)
If you have a friend that will get value from this,
they are stuck trying to figure out
how to generate leads as well,
share this video with them.
It would mean the world to us.
And, lastly, remember, everyone needs a strategy
for their life and their business.
But when you are with us, yours is gonna be unstoppable.
I'm TK, and I'll see you in the next video.
(cheerful orchestral music outro)