Clear communication is mandatory if you want to sell

Simplicity is the ultimate stage of sophistication

Welcome to the second edition of my sales and marketing series.

The Systematic Venture is, before anything else, a journal dedicated to struggling, bootstrap entrepreneurs. In the previous sections and articles, I have been discussing business fundamentals and principles extensively. However, great principles won’t take you far if you can’t sell. Cash is your business's lifeblood, the key to your first and foremost objective: survival.

As mentioned before, I won’t focus on strategies that require $30,000 upfront on marketing and advertising¹. Most entrepreneurs have exactly $0 to spend on anything other than rice, lentils, and a few candles to make their nights with their partners a bit more romantic. Does that sound tragically exaggerated? It’s not. Small businesses operate with no cash on hand, and start-ups are small businesses².

Before selling, you’d better make sure you are talking with somebody really interested in your offer. There are no one-size-fits-all rules. Some products become viral; others will never sell no matter how cheap they are. Some great software dies, while some digital trash³ takes off because they address the right problem and know the right people. That being said, I think the challenge of selling and actually making money is twofold: you must ensure there is a segment of potential customers, and you must also ensure you are actually reaching this segment. I am convinced some great startups fail even though they had a fantastic solution, simply because they were unable to convince the people who would genuinely benefit from it⁴.

How to start then?

I won’t repeat what I said in the previous articles. If you are in a position to sell something, you must at least have that something—either a service or a minimum viable product. Now you want to actually get some cash and start invoicing, and you don’t know where to start. Here is the method I used when I took the lead on a company with a $0 budget and zero network.

Task 1 - Transform your differentiator into something tangible

I won’t repeat why you should have a differentiator. Be different for the sake of it. In business, emulating other people’s behaviors and solutions is a straight highway to death. Be different, and make sure everyone understands it.

Being easy to understand is a gift. Not using silly jargon when you talk is a must, and having a clear message goes a long way. Too many entrepreneurs think they will impress potential customers by using technical terms—the more complicated, the better. Too many people turn simple concepts into "hard-to-grasp" ideas, claiming … only they can simplify the bullshit they themselves invented. MBAs, for example. Communication is no magic when one says the truth. That’s that simple. Make yourself clear.

Sales and marketing also greatly improve from simplicity. Your product, your brand, and your company must be easy to differentiate, and the benefits of those differentiators must be easy to understand. In my opinion, there are two things people have no trouble understanding: emotions and simple numbers. A great offer makes customers faster, victorious, richer, or compliant. Another type of great offer removes anxiety, gives them time, makes them happier, or boosts their ego. Fundamentally, I believe a great differentiator can be reduced to one simple metric or one simple emotion.

To illustrate how simplicity in sales and marketing can be effective, let’s look at what my company was offering at that time. We focused on two main solutions that addressed clear, straightforward needs for our clients.

• Software: Accounting software with automation tools for bookkeeping, report generation, and balance sheet management.

• Service: Full accounting service for SMBs, where our internal team uses my software.

Differentiators:

1. For the accounting software: automation tools, which mean you spend less time entering invoices and reconciling banking. This allows you to process 1000 invoices while your competitors process 100. You can charge the same as before by working less, or work equally and make more money, making your accounting firm more profitable.

   1. Main difference : Automations and time gained compared to other software.

   2. Metric : Speed fivefold bookkeeping and boost your profit margins.

   3. One-liner : Make your accounting firm more profitable using our automations.

   For the accounting service: Our accountants spend less time on bookkeeping and reconciliations, allowing more time to answer questions. Your data is registered faster, eliminating long waits for financial statements. Your accountant provides closure and tax calculations before deadlines, for less cost. With our mobile app, you have all the data you need at your fingertips. You handle less but accomplish more, spending less time and money on accounting while reducing hassle. Algorithms handle redundant tasks, leaving humans to address important matters, at a fraction of the cost. Also, tax and accounting are a very stressful issue for most entrepreneurs.

   1. Main difference : Finance and accounting, all in one place, without the need to hire accountants and bookkeepers.

   2. Emotion: Relief, knowing things are taken care of.

   3. One-liner: Automated bookkeeping in the background, dedicated accounting support when you need it, and financial data at your fingertips⁵.

At this stage, most of you will add many differences and features that your product have. This is generally useless in the first interactions, and not very good at attracting potential consumer sin the first place. Leads will come because they received a clear message, and a attractive promise, not because they had the sixty features table of your software versus your competitors. This may come later in the negociation when they throw cheaper or more reliable alternatives in your face : Yes but their software don’t have dark-mode.

Now that I had some basic arguments, I could then ask the following question: who is most likely to benefit from this fairly simple offer? We are not talking revolution; remember, it’s the early days of a start-up, and the product is not the market leader. Marketing is more efficient when you target the right profiles. Selling is easier when marketing brings you interested potential leads. At one point in my accounting software and service companies, we had a hemorrhage of clients. I had no budget for marketing. To find potential customers to talk to, I asked myself the following question, with the following answers:

Task 2 - Ask who are the actors with the best incentives to use my solution?

• SaaS :

  • Independent accountant reluctant to hire partners, but unable to cope with current workload.

  • Accounting firms with shrinking margins, and unwilling to hire more bookkeepers.

  • Businesses with internal accounting teams, and large invoicing volume but low margins . They need operating power but don’t have much money. Small retailers are good candidates.

• Service :

  • Businesses without an internal accounting team. Any small business is a good candidate, so it’s not a sufficient filter. They must also be unable to do basic accounting tasks.

  • Thus, we like companies focused on other processes, unsavvy in accounting. That can include manufacturers, small retailers, human services, and hospitality.

Among those companies, those with serious issues usually manage inventory : this thing is a mess at a compliance level. That being said, any compliance headache is my allie. Let’s look for people that have specific tax requirements, but unable to hire full-time accounting services⁶.

• Exportation, for example coffee, textile, and food.

• Companies managing inventory

• Businesses requiring specific attention, like agricultural and food processing.

And then... that might sound absolutely foolish in hindsight, but it’s not. Let me explain why. At the very beginning of my startup journey, I had no one to assist with cold calling. Armed with those criteria, I knew at least where to look for potential clients. Since then, things have changed, and I refined, improved, and iterated on one-liners and arguments. At that time, I had nothing but a few broken pieces of code.

Your first lead-generation algorithm

1. Identify the key differentiator:

   1. Know what sets your product or service apart from competitors. Focus on tangible benefits like automation, efficiency gains, cost savings, or unique features. If it’s not clear, you are fucked, go work on it.

2. Translate differentiator into tangible benefits:

   1. Consider the second-order and third-order consequences of your differentiation. How does it improve operations, save time, reduce costs, or enhance outcomes?

   2. Translate these into measurable metrics or emotional benefits.

3. Build some non-MBA-sounding one-liner

   1. Create a concise and impactful statement that encapsulates the primary benefit or promise of your offering.

   2. This should resonate emotionally or highlight a specific metric. Boost their ego if that’s what they need. More likely make them gain time and money.

4. Identify beneficiaries

   1. List the types of businesses or individuals who would benefit most from these specific advantages. Consider industries, roles, or specific pain points that your solution addresses effectively.

   2. Avoid big companies. They full of silly bureaucrats and processes.

Using these straightforward steps, I simply asked my network if they knew anyone fitting those profiles, and, for god's sake, it worked! It actually generated leads that converted into signed deals.

This method costs zero to implement. It doesn't require a team making cold calls from Argentina to Colombia using US numbers to ask⁷, "Who do I have the pleasure of speaking with today?" Seriously, if you're calling me, you should at least know who the fuck I am. It doesn't involve fancy audio and video effects to make your app look better than it actually is. It doesn't require a trip to NYC to take a photo in front of NASDAQ with your company name on the big screen. Why do they have their name up there anyway? I want my name up there too. It doesn't need VC money, which means no VC, which means no "we'll watch from the sidelines" bullshit when you raise funds⁸. You just need a SIM card and a phone. And I'm not even sure about the SIM card, but don't be cheap; you need it for dating anyway and to look for your next elite partner on Bumble.

Next time, we'll explore where to find these profiles - not the dating ones - and how to get to your first sales meeting. That's the worst part—when no one cares about you and stands you up.

Keep the faith except if you hold a MBA.

Voss

1. "We have great traction and clear path to profitability” meaning “We have no fucking idea how to sell without spending millions but we’ll lay-off a bunch of dudes when we have 3 months of runmay”

2. Yeah, SMB with fancy LinkedIn.

3. Nequi I see you. Your API is bad and will get cooked by angry hackers with Eastern Europe accents. That’s the worst API in the history of the fintech APIs. That is said.

4. WeWork could have become profitable had they sold their solutions to … no, no one actually.

5. By the way, if your Colombian SMBs need afforable all-in-one services : here I am

6. Drug dealers

7. Snitching on a “competitor” (they brand themselves as accounting automationm they just do invoice reminders) of mine. Their VC should know how they spend the money. They already raised another round a few months after the first … what the hell.

8. I’m raising funds by the way, but not from the sidelines.