Our B2B Sales Accelerator Experience

I will introduce this by saying, you probably know me. My name is Andrew Warner. I am a co-founder of Bootstrap Giants, where we take what Jesse is learning at the GatewayX collection of companies, and we're finding ways to open source it. We started out with a newsletter that Jesse has loved to write until I basically made him write it every Sunday. It used to be like his quiet time to think about the week and reflect. And then once we got an audience, I would pound him with text messages going, Jesse, you should write about this. You should write about that. And he goes, Chill, keep it fun. Make sure that I'm getting to express what's going on in, in my world. He is still enjoying it despite that. But we're trying to take it to the next level. And one of the things that we did was I hired Nathan May, who some of you know, and I said, Nathan, talk to everyone inside of Jesse's companies, interview them about how they do their sales, copy all of their sales materials, and then help me make it more accessible to our audience. And we experimented with selling it to the audience at what, $47?

Yeah.

And it was eye-opener. I think that once we got some sales from that, everyone internally at GatewayX took this bootstrap giants thing seriously. And even Adrian from Growth Assistant, who I think of the most intimidating person at GatewayX because she is so like serious and I'm so hang out, let's hug it out, let's talk. And she's like, I'm looking at my numbers over here and I don't like the way it's going. Anyway, even when she saw that, I think that she started to take Bootstrap Giants more seriously as something other than Jesse's fun newsletter where he shares what he's going through. And then the follow-up to that was I talked to 43 people who had bought that to say, what would you like in addition to it? I think, Greg, weren't you one of those people? He's about to take a sip. He was.

Yeah. Yeah. You and I talked pretty early on about what, what it would be. To, to go from the, the little info product to something a little bit bigger. Yeah, for sure.

What did it feel like to you when I was getting on a call with you going, I don't know what we're selling. What do you need? Help me figure it out.

It was kind of fun because it was like, uh, one of those things where you could be like, this is a, like, I, I was just telling you guys, like, this is what I really need. And you were like, okay, we could do that. So it wasn't like I was being sold. I was trying to sell. It was weird. I was trying to sell you like, please build this for me instead of like, here's what we built for you. So it was an interesting perspective and an interesting little twist.

Yeah, that's exactly the way that we did it. It was just tell me what, and then people would sometimes, Greg, come up with these crazy things that they would like and I would have to say no. And other times I would take it back on Slack and go, people are asking for this crazy thing. One person said, I want to just work with Jesse all the time. I don't like that I don't have access to him. So Jesse threw out a number. He goes, tell him I'm willing to do that if he can do it for $30,000.

I go, what the fuck?

What do you?

And so I go, all right, let's try it. Jesse's constantly trying to like test things. So I get on with the guy and I go, would you pay $30,000 to do this? And he goes, yeah, I think I would. I don't know if, and we just kept talking about it and in the end it didn't really make sense for him to do this since this was a new company. But I really liked the opportunity to experiment with people and to say, What would work for you and see if we can make it work. Anyway, we did end up with this thing, which we ended up calling the Accelerator. Hardeep, you were also one of the people who I talked with, right?

100%.

Yes, we talked before the program started.

And how would you describe what the Accelerator was?

an amazing opportunity having gone through it now. And I even remember, I think the discussion that we had, I was a little bit skeptical of if you guys would actually allow me to join the program because I just didn't know if I qualified for what you guys were offering. But I'm so grateful and thankful that you guys actually allowed me to join the program and be a part of it and just be there through the whole experience.

You know, actually, let me bring Greg back. Greg, because one of the things that you had told me was when we were just talking on Zoom and I clipped it out with your permission and I made it into a testimonial video, but you said it was important to you to know the people who were in. What did you think about the people who were in the accelerator?

Yeah, so let me kind of back up for a second. So I joined other like cohort things where I'm like, okay, I need to learn something for, I don't know, whatever. Let's say it's Facebook ads, whatever it is. I'm going to pay $500. I'm going to join this little cohort to learn Facebook ads for 6 weeks. And then like you kind of jump in and you realize like, yeah, sure, the material's awesome because like they're teaching me how to do Facebook ads, but like I don't have the biggest business in the world by any stretch. But like it always was like every time I joined one of these cohorts that I would, I was always like, much further along than everybody else. And then, so when you join boot— and like, that's kind of a function of the price of like $200 to $500 or whatever for like the cohort. But when you join Bootstrap Giants, because you're paying a significant amount more money, like the people that you're working with, they're all like, like now I'm this, like I was a small fish and that felt really kind of cool because I could go and talk to people who are A, either experiencing the same issues that I am, or B, have experienced the same issues that I'm currently experiencing because they're a little bit, they're a step or two ahead of me. I've actually had a call with a guy from our cohort. I think it was Wednesday. And then I don't know if Nathan's on here, but I have a call with Nathan. later today at 4 o'clock or 4:30. So I constantly keep in touch with the members of the cohort because we're all in the same boat where nobody's just starting out. Nobody's doing this as a side hustle. This is mostly, I mean, I'm sure there were a couple in there, but for the most part, this was everybody's livelihood and we're all like kind of trying to make a go of it. So. That was kind of, uh, that, so, so the people that you're in here with is like, the material is good, don't get me wrong, but I think the people that you're in here with, um, and that you're going through this with is really what makes this, uh, this accelerator different than almost any other thing that you're going to join.

I got a note here, uh, from Rachel saying, make sure to ask people what their— just talk about what their business is. You run Content Copy, what is it? And I'm going to come to you, Jennifer, in a moment.

Yes, so we do, um, we do SEO for SaaS companies.

Okay.

All right. I would like to also, I'll keep coming back to you and keep bringing people in. I'm gonna ask Sandy to come on here with me because here's the deal. For those of you who don't know what the accelerator is, it is a 6-week program where Jesse gets really deep with companies like Greg's and Hardeep's and others who you'll see here today and Jennifer and helps them implement a sales process. A lot of the people who've joined the accelerator have sold on their own. They just haven't had a sales process. And as a result, sales come in when they come in, they don't when they don't, and it's hard to predict how business is gonna be. And what they're looking for is something that will give them predictability and also a process that they could hire against and to know, who do I hire first? Do I hire a salesperson first or do I hire an assistant first? And what do I, what does the assistant do? How does a salesperson? So it's all about that, an implemented system that is clear that you can adjust obviously to yourself, use during the accelerator to close sales, and then also have a process that you can bring other people into. And that's the whole thing. And I'm really proud that the people who have been in there have worked well together. We were talking about content and Jennifer, you are one of the people whose advice and direction on content I just find to be the most valuable. Can you just start out by telling people what you do and then what your content, and then we'll talk about the issues that you had with the content and what you thought was good, 'cause I want us to be open.

Yeah, sure.

Thanks.

Thanks, Andrew. Hi everybody. I'm Jennifer Cabala. I'm a former television news anchor and reporter, startup executive and venture capitalist, and I combine all of those areas of expertise and the insight I got from that experience to now advise and coach founders and executives on what I call their crucial communications. And that includes pitches, presentations, their core messaging about the things that they talk about, their founder story, and getting ready for important interviews in case you're lucky enough to be interviewed by someone like Andrew. And that's the sort of stuff I work on. But one of my roles was working at Techstars, which is a pretty well-known startup accelerator. I helped them scale around the world, was one of their very early employees. And so I had a lot of thoughts, I think, for Andrew about how do you run a successful cohort? How do you run a successful program? But then also my experience in being a reporter, thinking about production values and that sort of thing. So I had feedback. I liked being a sounding board for Andrew as well.

And your feedback was about Jesse's slides and Sandy. What, by the way, our goal here is to bring you all into the conversation. I'm gonna bring Sandy on next. I don't wanna surprise you, Sandy, cuz I don't know what you're doing over there, but I want you to have an opportunity to ask questions and to get what you're looking for outta the session. But be open. What's the feedback that you gave Jesse about where we—

So the feedback that I gave Jesse, and it's, and it's something I think that's helpful for a lot of people, is this having too many things on your slides. So Jesse comes from the, the McKinsey tradition where you put everything on a slide and there's lots of things to read, which works really well if it's something that you're handing out ahead of time. But in a class, you're really trying to hear something from what Jesse had to say. And my point to Jesse is that you can listen and/or read, but you can't do them at the same time. So your slides should really augment what you're saying so that you can really hear what the person has to say. So I gave the feedback to Jesse of, this is how I would rearrange these slides. These are the things I would focus on, simplify it a little bit. And to Jesse and Andrew's credit, they took that feedback and really improved the, the work that they did with the slides to just make it much more understandable. And I wanna say that, you know, it wasn't, this wasn't bad work, right? And the quality of the classes, the quality of the course is extremely high, and I've taken many, many courses. But I think what I really appreciated about both Andrew and Jesse is they wanted to make this work and be great. Like, this is something that I think when meeting Andrew and meeting Jesse, and one of the reasons I signed up for the class is you can just, I think I just recognize high performance. I mean, I've worked with a lot of investors, I've worked with a lot of CEOs, and you see it, you see that attention to detail, that attention to outcomes, trying to really push people. And it was really a two-way street. It wasn't just, here guys, this is what we think you should work on. They're like, we wanna get better, we wanna serve you, we wanna make this the best class and cohort possible. And so I think that that was something that I really appreciated about both Andrew and Jesse and everybody who worked on the, the Bootstrap Giants team is this wasn't like, here's what you get. Take it or leave it. It's like, nope, we're gonna do great. We wanna see you succeed. Let's help you. And that's what they did.

Yeah, thank you. Um, and you were right about the slides. I think what happened, I know what happened before. I've created slides forever for presentations. I show Jesse the slides, he goes, no, no. I go, well, what? Before I know it, and this is what Jesse'll do, he'll suddenly just slam me into a text message chain with him and someone else who I don't know who the person is. All I see is the number and he is like, Peter created slides for us. I go, what do you mean Peter? Who is Peter? What did Peter do? I eventually get on a call with Peter. Peter is a McKinsey guy. Rachel's laughing 'cause she worked with Peter a lot, a McKinsey person whose job was to McKinsey up the slides. And Jesse's like, let's level this up to the level that I would be happy with if someone had paid us hundreds of thousands of dollars to come and present to their company. I said, okay, that makes sense. But let's also take Jennifer's feedback in. Sandy, I wanted to bring you in also. You and I talked earlier today. And Nico, I see you there. I'm glad that you're there. I'll come back to you in a second. We talked actually, you know, earlier this week and you said, I'd like to sign up for the accelerator, but I wanna see what is, what's going on on Friday and talk to some of the graduates. Can you tell people what you do and then what are you looking for from today's session? I wanna make sure that it serves you and everyone else keep letting me know in the chat.

Yeah, so thank you, Andrew, for the chance to share my my story with the rest of the audience. As Andrew mentioned, my name is Andy. I am based in Caracas and I lead a consulting firm that is trying to, you know, define their niche. And I am the person who is leading the internationalization of the company as we want to deconcentrate our portfolio of clients from Venezuelan companies because it Natural, right? We are in Venezuela, we serve Venezuelan clients. We, I love Jennifer's story because I feel related as in Venezuela we have been working with the tech-based entrepreneurial ecosystem from a few years ago, like 5 years, and we are the part, the local partners of the Founder Institute for the Caracas chapter. But this morning, Andrew, I didn't mention this yesterday because this morning happened. They are launching a new corporate service with innovation partners, and my company is going to be the innovation partner for LATAM. That is a great opportunity for internationalization, although we want to internationalize our own services, but we will need very, very specific and effective skills in sales that we don't have. So that's the reason why every January I search for sales experts on Google, and this January, it was Bootstrap Giants.

She didn't even know us. She just found us by Googling. And so you don't have this long history with me that Jennifer does or the history with Jesse.

To be honest. And I attended a class with you, Andrew, and then I discovered that I already follow Jesse through X. So it was great to see Andrew was related to Jesse and, you know, like understanding the real the real people behind all the process is very, is very valuable for me because this might be a significant investment for the company, but we want to make the most. I am a consultant, so I understand part of it.

So what's, what's the one thing that you'd like to get out of today's session, or what should I, I'm going to bring Nico on next and then, um, I think Fallon, I see you're in here. So what's, what would you like to hear from them? What's a question that you want to make sure that we bring up?

Yeah, so specific examples on how they did, how they got the most of the accelerator during this time, because 6 weeks is really fast. So, right, what, you know, the most of these 6 weeks with Jesse.

All right, let me bring Nico on right now. I have my thoughts on what would do that, and I have some suggestions for it. But Nico, what, uh, first of all, um, glad you're here. Thank you for doing this. I know you've got a lot going on. What is your business? Because Rachel said that I need to make sure that I explain it to everyone. And then let's talk about what you think would help people get the most out of it.

Yeah, definitely. So our business is Stratos Consulting and we are a data and analytics consultancy that focuses on strategy, implementation, and managed services for primarily pharmaceutical companies in the US. And so you think of more of enterprise-focused clients. And to give you a little context too, we've been in business for about 7 years and I failed about 4 times to get our sales process right. And that's from hiring SDRs Director of sales, spreading it out across the leadership team, working with outsourced sales and marketing people. So I've spent a lot of money getting it wrong. And then the second thing is I've spent a lot of money on sales courses ranging from, you know, a few hundred dollars to $30,000, if you can believe it, and still not getting the value that I was looking for. And out of all of those, this by far, the Sales Accelerator, has brought the most value to us as an organization. And I think the biggest reason for that is the structure of it, the accountability, and then also the process. So now I feel like I have a good process on how to execute my sales motion. So if you think about what I actually got out of those 6 weeks, 6 weeks was actually a perfect time for me in that it was way more than any of the other courses I'd ever been at, had been part of, and that I actually got to know people in the course. I got to know Andrew, Jesse, some of the other team members who were there. And they really took the time to genuinely get to learn your business and provide tangible feedback because they've been there. That was one of the biggest things. I've worked with so many people who, they've been there in these enterprise sales roles, but that doesn't apply to a boutique consultancy like us. And so learning from the best, these guys who have done it a number of times has been huge. And so to walk you through some of the examples that I got out of that, some of the biggest things were, hey, how do we refine our offerings? That's an ongoing battle of how you position yourself in the market and say, this is what we're good at, this is what we're known for, and really doubling down on your expertise so people know that. And then from there, thinking about, well, how do I actually get in front of the people? Who is my ideal customer profile? So thinking about defining what is that ICP and who is my target audience. And once we start getting through some of those details, then it's, well, how do we actually get in front of those people? And that's where this mutual outreach playbook comes into play. And, and to be honest, I was traveling 5 weeks of the accelerator, so I actually didn't get to do it along the way. So that was my bad on me. But now I've started this in the new year, and now I just have a game plan every day for here's how I do my outreach, here's how I do my follow-ups, here's the meetings I have to prepare for, here's what I have to do to do follow-ups on those ones who people have responded. And I have way more traction on those types of outreaches than I ever had in our, in our 7 years of history. So I know that's a lot, but it's— I wouldn't be here if I didn't truly believe in this process. So it's been incredibly valuable for us.

I appreciate that. I mean, you're really giving up your time to help me get the right members into the next batch of the accelerator. So thank you. And to everyone who's here, Jennifer, Hardeep, everyone, the offer is a big one, Niko. So a lot of people who I talked with before they joined the accelerator, and I think I talked to every single person before they joined the accelerator except Fallon and a couple of others. They were thinking, I might be in the wrong business actually. This might not be the right company for me to have launched, or I'm the only one who doesn't have the offer right. And so I'm the one who's failing. How do we help you articulate what your offer was and how does that change the way that customers interact with you and how your business is doing?

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is if you think of any situation, looking at what you're doing now and then what you have in your head and looking at what the gap is between those. Because even for myself, for my business, I'm always sometimes so head in the clouds, like we need to do all of these things, X, Y, and Z, when really you need to take a step back and look at, well, what am I good at? What do my clients value in me? What does my network have? What is my team really good at? And then starting to form around that and use that as the one that you really want to double down on. Because if you can do that, people are really going to start seeing the value. I've made the mistake where I said, okay, Let's branch outside of pharmaceuticals. Let's get into retail manufacturing. You start getting into conversations with people. I don't know the nomenclature. I don't know the terminology. Whereas in life sciences calls, I can talk all day long about life sciences data as a subject matter expert. And that comes off in those conversations, which then has helped us inform our offers. Well, how do we bring data to those companies and help them get the most value out of it? And that way you're not spreading your team so thin across so many areas, and then you're wondering why nothing's working and you get really frustrated because I've done that for so many years. So now really dialing it back to what are we good at, building out that plan, getting feedback from this team. That was the other thing that was really helpful. If you know, you, if you're open to it, which I think everyone should be, if you're gonna invest the money in this, being put on the hot seat by Andrew or Jesse, and then you give 'em your offer or your intro, whatever it is you're working on that week, and they'll give you feedback. You know, you know, they do it in a nice way, professional way, but they're telling you what's up. Like, this is what you need to work on and here's what's not resonating and here's what is. So it really helped me think more about what am I focused on depending on the audience that I'm talking to at that point in time.

Greg is saying, yes, get on that hot seat. Greg, in fact, the hot seat actually, uh, here, let me bring him up too. Greg, did you turn your camera off?

No, it says, uh, okay, start my video. Yeah, it told me that you stopped my video.

I think I accidentally, instead of removing you from the spotlight, I removed your video. Uh, Greg, you were saying yes to get on the hot seat.

What do you mean?

by that? What was so good about that?

So one is, first of all, you got, I got really specific advice on the thing that was troubling me. I forgot what was exactly troubling me at the time, but like the thing that was like where my bottleneck was, like I got really specific advice on how to get unstuck. The other thing that happened was the amount of people who reached out to me just that like were like, yo, let's connect on LinkedIn. Like I got like 10 LinkedIn connections or 12 LinkedIn Connections just from being on the hot seat. Like, that was awesome. So it was like, and as you guys kind of go through this course, you're going to understand why that's important. But yeah, so both those things really were really important. One was because I had a really big problem that I really needed help with. And then the other was I got to meet a lot of people. I got to meet 10 or 12 people just from talking to you guys for like 10 minutes.

So yeah, that's awesome.

That's fantastic.

I didn't realize that because it's true that when you get on the hot seat and everyone gets to see your business and what you're going through, I see that they relate and they tell me this is a similar thing. What I didn't see was that they would also follow up and ask you.

Because like the Slack channel, like, like it's great, but it could be noisy from time to time. Or, and like, you don't always have time to meet everybody in here. So like putting yourself out there to the audience is kind of cool because again, now people can see you, like, whereas they might not have seen you before. So it's just another avenue to where you get to, again, just meet. I can't express how, how full it is and how important it is to meet as many people in the, in, in your cohort as you possibly can. Like, if I had to do it again, the thing that I would have done differently from the beginning was every week, every week I would have tried to meet with 2 to 3 people from the cohort every single week.

We're going to work on that for this time. We're going to help you do that.

Like, yeah, that, that's the biggest thing I would have done. Uh, I, I started doing that towards the end, but back probably by, by about week 4-ish, maybe week 5. And I wish I'd started that like week 1 was just meeting as many people as I possibly can in the cohort.

And that was again, another feedback from Jennifer, and I wouldn't have implemented it if not for Jennifer saying, hey, you asking us all to get together and help each other with our, um, with our, uh, uh, presentations, with our offer, with our, uh, sales, but we really just want to get to know each other. And that's what we're doing in there. I'll ask both of you to come back, I think, in a moment, but I've got 2 things that I wanna, I wanna bring other people in, but I have to say one big piece of feedback that I got was I was not inviting enough people to get on calls with me. If you saw that I got on calls with everyone who joined and you're saying, how do I get on a call? I'm gonna put it in the chat. When I did the workshop with Jesse on Friday, I did a lot of saying, no, don't call me if you're not the right fit. If, and I think I turned off a lot of people and I made them think that they shouldn't get on a call with me. I'm putting in the chat now an offer for you to just get on a call with me right now and, uh, actually to book a call with me right now. I would like to fill up my calendar, and one of the reasons I'd like to fill up my calendar is because 2 other people have said, Andrew, if you fill up your calendar, I will talk to potential members and I'll make sure that it's the right— if they're the right fit, that we can help them. Um, but if you book right now with me, we'll get on a call just like Sandy and I. Sandy and I had 2 calls this week, and frankly, just knowing her, she might have yet another call. Jake, who's in the chat here, had had a call with me already and we got to know each other. I want to talk to you about your sales. I want to talk to you about how we can help you, and I want to see if there's a way for you to be in the accelerator, how to get you in. And if it's not, it's totally fine. I'm going to add Ben. Hey, Ben, how are you?

I'm good. I'm a— what was it, a climate refugee in Miami at the moment because of the LA fires?

Oh, are you impacted? How are you impacted by that?

Yeah, no. So, I mean, the short version of it is So I live in Venice and the fires in the Palisades like got up into Santa Monica. And then, I mean, it's like 180,000 people have been displaced. Like it was, it's been crazy. So I left for a few days. The biggest issue is the air. The air quality is pretty toxic. And there's concerns that it's actually worse than like if you were like 9/11 in the site because of all of the asbestos and stuff that was burnt. It's not all the smoke, it's about actually like the things you can't see, unfortunately. So, and I'm relatively cavalier about this stuff. And so, but I think especially living in New York for the last 20 years and going through COVID, I was a bit like, okay, I just moved to LA to go through like a softer version of life. So anyways, I'm in Miami for the moment.

So, um, a lot of people who are joining the accelerator are in service businesses. They're very similar to Jesse's company Ampush, which he sold. They're similar to Growth Assistant, which he's running now, Aux, you know, right? Ben, can you tell people what your business, what's the name of the company and what type of business you are? 'Cause you're different.

Yeah, so, um, my company's called Rodeo and for context, my background's as a, uh, developer and designer and I've been building B2B SaaS companies for about 20 years and I'd say, I'm on my 5th company and I'm sure most folks can relate to this, especially when you're building software, but this is true for any businesses. Distribution is one of the single most important things besides obviously getting your offer right and building a great product. Like that's table stakes. But I would say that for the businesses I've built that have done really well is because we figured out distribution. And I think As an engineer and as someone who like, I'm pers— I think I'm fairly personable and I do enjoy talking to people, but like, I'm not a growth marketer. I'm not a salesperson in the conventional sense. And certainly with Rodeo, one of the biggest challenges, and I would say this has been like a historical challenge, is learning how to do sales myself and learning how to have a system. And I think I, as I said, like I've been building companies for 20 years. I have done probably every bootcamp. I've done like Noah Kagan's like Wantrepreneur thing back when he first launched it, right? Like, 9 years ago or 10 years ago. I've done Ramit Sethi's thing around like how to like build a side business, like back when he originally did that. Like I've gone through Dan Martell's B2B SaaS Academy. So like I have been from like a content perspective, been like aware of all of this. I think the biggest challenge though for me has been actually, and what I got out of the Bootstrap Giants program was the feedback loop. The problem certainly for me is, it's not the, certainly from a software perspective, it's not the, yes, I know I should do outreach. I know I should do it. Like the problem is like, okay, now do I say, what do I say now if they didn't reply to me?

Right?

Like what is a simple process where I don't get stuck in overthinking every single step, especially in something where I don't have frankly that much of a gut of whether or not I'm doing it right or not. And certainly when you're in a small organization, And you don't know why things aren't working. One of the challenges I found around sales is like, if someone doesn't reply, you don't know why, right? Like some people will tell you, oh, you just need to keep following up until they say like, screw off. Other people will tell you that, you know, maybe you're just getting the offer wrong. Either way though, like not getting feedback is not helpful. And so one of like the most important pieces for me with the accelerator and part of the reason why we enrolled in it was like, the opportunity to be able to like basically open kimono, like share, here's what I'm saying to people, here's what their response is. I remember there was one specific instance where I was like, I was like, this person was excited, but now they're not replying to my emails. And I think it was Jesse or Nat or someone who was like, just reply with this. And I'm not joking, I got a response within 2 minutes.

I—

So, and in terms of Again, I'd say as someone who, you know, the sales process and overthinking this is still something I struggle with. I'm not, this did not turn me into Superman, but we have more than doubled our MRR in the first week of January. One, and I guess I didn't even say what our business is, but we build software to help e-commerce brands on Shopify make more money. And so you could think of us sort of like a conversion rate optimization tool. The, I think the bootstrap, the accelerator was in maybe October and November, which anyone in e-commerce knows, like literally that's the hardest time to do sales because Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the holidays, like there's code freezes. And so during the accelerator, we did close a couple deals, but it was, I could, but I could see from someone who's been selling this product, it's like, oh, I'm getting a very different reaction from people. Unfortunately, we weren't getting as many people onboarded, but like the actual like rhythm And the feedback we were getting from folks was a lot more promising. And then, as I mentioned, like in the last, I guess we're in like the second week of January, closed 6 deals just last Thursday. And I am still now trying to frankly like re-remember and go through the entire process from the beginning of all the, like all the Bootstrap for Knights content. But like from a, this is like the first time in my life after having done this for 20 years that like I feel a lot more prepared and that I have like a playbook. Now the feedback, I missed the feedback loop piece, but yeah, I'm happy to speak to any more specifics.

Keep reaching out to us.

Let me ask you one other thing and then I'm going to bring Fallon on. Did you have any hesitation about the price? I mean, we're charging $5,000 to be a part of it.

No, I've spent more on other programs, I think. And yeah, and I knew, I've known Jesse socially. And I think for anyone who's followed, I also knew that he like possibly one of the single best people at like this specific stage of our business, which is, you know, getting to the first, we'll call it like the first $10K. 'Cause he's done that not just once, not twice or 3 times, but he's, and then when you look at the portfolio, it's like, all right, this guy has an approach. Not to say that there's a single, like a single way to build a business, but as someone who, again, there's so much information out there of what's the right way to like get distribution. What I wanted was something where I could have an initial framework, apply it to my situation, and then get feedback from the, frankly, the person who's an expert at it to refine it to work for me and to work for our situation. But no, the price being, obviously it's not cheap, but what's more expensive is the opportunity cost, frankly. And we were also at a point in the business where I was like, if we can't figure out distribution, this business isn't, it's not that it's not the business isn't a good idea, but I've had enough successes where I'm like, I know what it looks like when it's working. And like, so it became a bit of do or die.

Well, I'm glad you did it. I'm glad it worked. Thanks for constantly supporting us back too. I appreciate it. Fallon, I'm going to bring you on here. And by the way, let me just say something about Ben before I remove you from the spotlight. Ben, one of the things that I appreciate about working with you is that you do keep asking for what you need. And I know Fallon does too. It's not enough to say, I signed up, they're going to give me what I need. It's helpful for you to say, I need to ask Jesse this thing. You would even text Jesse. Jesse freaking loves that stuff. You would just get on a call with him and you'd say, I need this. And that's what it takes to do well here. These are not recorded videos. You're not looking at some kind of session where it's all pre-scripted. We've got plenty, we've got lessons that Jesse teaches internally at GatewayX companies. In fact, GatewayX employees are part of this program. They're learning too. But we want you to ask questions. Fallon, it's good to see you. I haven't seen you in a few weeks.

I know.

How are you?

Great. Um, Rachel's constantly telling me, make sure to have everyone say what they do. So can you just introduce yourself?

Yes, I'm Fallon Scott. I actually joined the program because, um, I was with a company who helps companies actually claim their R&D tax credits, um, using our software, um, in a much more streamlined manner, much more efficiently. And they, um, did not have a sales process for this new side of the house that they were building on, on the partnership side. And I had begun to already do a lot of the mutual intros and like trying to use that to get in instead of cold calling and all of that. And that was working for me. And then I saw Jesse's post about, come join this workshop. We're doing these intros. This is a way to help. And I said, this is what I'm doing. But if he has an actual systematic approach, let me, you know, get in. And so that's why I joined. And I want to let you know, Andrew, I have a couple of like teases. I like alliteration so I could like gather my thoughts and present this clearly. But before I even do that, I also want to say one of my teases is how transferable this program is. So even though I joined for that, I also have another company. We built a photography studio we thought was going to be a photography studio. It is now morphed into a wedding venue and all of this. And because of a lot of what I've learned from you guys, just in the last like 3 weeks, we've pivoted and we have in the first 2 weeks of January made 25% of our entire 2024 revenue in 2 weeks. And so while I joined for this one thing, that approach and that B2B and how to just using networking, um, as a way to, you know, to continue to grow is amazing. So, um, Really the transferability of what you're working here, the team. I'm looking at Jen's face. I can't tell you how many conversations and one-offs I had with folks that, like we said, we just got one-on-one and it was like, hey, I'm struggling through this. Can you help me with this? Hey, I went to your website. Like, this is not clear. You can like do this better or whatever the case may be. Because often when you are either, you know, a founder or whatever your role may be, you just so in it. So to have the fresh eyes, to be on the hot seat, to put yourself on the hot seat. even on one-on-ones, um, with other folks proved valuable. And I'm not sure who said this, but I did wanna mention it. Um, I think it may have been Greg that was talking about how many LinkedIn connections he got after being in the hot seat. I have had so many meetings open up just from being connected to certain people in the, in, in the accelerator. I see Jen's nodding her head. I can only see a couple people's faces, but that has proven beyond critical to me. Um, I actually, I want to mention something. I don't know if he's on here and I forgot who shared it. I can see his face. Do you remember the guy who told us about Bordi in the, like the AI Bordi platform? There was a guy. You know what?

There, there are a few people who had, including Jesse, who introduced me to the founder. I wonder if Jesse's an investor and that's how he's been telling me. But anyway, what about that?

Someone mentioned Bordi in the group, and I know the Slack channel can be noisy, but I would really try to go through the Slack because there were so many just little gems that were dropped. And guys, Because of this cohort, because of Bordi, I called Bordi and basically it's an AI platform. You call it and tell it a little bit about yourself and it introduces you to people who to the views, right? Introduced me to this guy and frankly, I was like, to this private equity investor who has a firm. And normally these introductions happen via email. The guy introduced me on LinkedIn. The lady just found the message last week. We met this week. She wants all 25 of her portfolio companies to come and utilize us for R&D, you know, tax credit services. I would have, I'm not gonna say I would have never heard about Bordy, but maybe it would have been on my timeline somewhere in LinkedIn. Those are the other things outside of what you're going to hear from everyone else, which is absolutely true. You've got these systems and you've got templates that they're sharing and you've got processes. It's just the connections and it's just what people are doing.

Mm-hmm.

to open up, you know, those types of doors. And yes, I was going to say that I have been so swamped that I have not been able to get into the regular meetings. I still see my Fireflies note-taker that so many folks in our cohort still meet every week. And this team, the transferability, the tactical approach, the templates, even not just the templates on sales. I remember some guy saying, Oh my gosh, I've got to have some type of meeting this week. And Jesse was like, here you go. Here's my templates. Again, I don't want you to have to think and have this decision fatigue around what to do with the slides. So I just kind of wanted to maybe offer a little different perspective too, of maybe some of the things that other folks were going to say of other ways that this has become super valuable for me, for me, um, and tangible results. And I will say one of the intros that, um, was made for me with Jesse, still working on it, but The company was interested. They just went public. They are interested in potentially switching to us as a service provider in June. And if that happens, it will be the largest sale in the history of our entire company. It would be like a year's quota met from just one. And I, there's no way that I would have gotten, you know, even looked at, right, by this company. But because of this mutual intro, um, that's still in the works and I'm excited about it. So. Definitely have had a great experience, um, and highly, highly recommend the cohort.

Yeah, I do appreciate that Jesse is really generous with his introductions. He spends all day long, if you ever, if you know Jesse, he's texting all the fricking time and in the text he's supporting people, he's helping people, he's reaching out, he's getting to know people. And what we get as just being associated with him is the benefit of him being able to make introductions to all these people for us because all he does is build relationships and we can still, To this day, you can send him a message, say, Jesse, I'm trying to get ahold of this person. I see you're connected. And if you send the format the way that he likes it without having to ghostwrite for him and overdo, he'll forward it over and open the door for you. The interesting thing, Fallon, about you and Nathan, I see you there, I'm gonna get you, get to you next. But Fallon, the interesting thing about you is you don't own SPRX Tax, right? What's your role there?

So director of channel, um, partnerships. And so, We, like I said, business development side of helping them, you know, build out and bring on these partners and introduce folks to it. So yeah, not a founder. I remember asking, I don't know if it was you or Jesse or whatever after the workshop, like, hey, I have had my own agency and done this thing, but right now this is my role. But because of the sales process, because of what this would be very helpful, um, to me. Yeah, I do think like a founder, uh, but yeah, this was just with life and transition. I was like, oh, this is a great fit for me now. So yeah, didn't own it. But again, if you are needing to generate sales, And you wanna build relationships and you don't wanna overthink this message, my messaging and all of this, this is a great place to get that, that feedback.

And I, the reason I wanna bring that up is because yes, we do want a founder-led sales mindset, but that's one part of it. And if you're someone who has the kind of hustle that Fallon has, we will give you the structure and support. You are so good. You kept sending me messages about how many people you were reaching out to. Do you remember how many people you were reaching out to? And maybe give us a sense of how many closed during the, the 6-week accelerator.

So none closed during the accelerator. Um, I got a first $250K engagement because of the accelerator and, you know, all of those types of things. I, I don't want to like, I don't know my numbers because I was doing your model, but remember you guys had me on too because I was also doing that approach where I was having some folks help me kind of do that mass outreach on LinkedIn, which is not a part of the program, but it was kind of for something separate. So I know even with that, that, that was a couple, I think just in that one piece, I think it might've been like 500 or 600 folks just on that one side. So I do know those numbers. Um, and those, like I said, have turned into so many more meetings and relationships that are actually now all coming to fruition. I think this week alone, I think I booked 15 meetings from a lot of the outreach that I did in your accelerator because now that it's tax season, people are ready to, to take advantage.

I am the kind of person Jesse has to keep bringing me in. Uh, by the way, Nathan, if you want to, oh, you do want to, I'll bring you on next. Um, I'm the kind of person who's constantly in like crisis mode, like Fallon didn't get a customer this week. I have failed. I am a failure. How can I continue? And one of the things that I appreciate about working with people like Jesse and Rachel and Nak, who I think is on here, is they're a lot less hard on themselves and definitely a lot less hard on me. And they're like, it's okay, Fallon's putting the work. It's going to happen. It's going to come through. Give it time. And you've got to know your industry.

You've got to know your sale and cycle time and all of that with who I was working with. During the accelerator, it was tax extension season. So 9/15, 10/15, all that CPAs and folks I was working with were, were swamped, you know? So all those conversations and seeds, now they're ready, they're closing, you know? So it's, it still gave me, like I said, the roadmap to do what needed to be done. And now the seeds are coming up.

Yeah. And, and I've seen this now for a few other people. I'm actually gonna ask in, in a moment to bring everybody who's been in the accelerator on. I'll ask some questions of everyone. We can all just reconnect. But if you're like Joseph or like Jake or like anyone else and you've got questions, Keep bringing them in. I know some of you are just sending them only over to me. Feel free to send them to me in private if you like. Feel free to send them to the person you're asking or do it to the community. But I do want to take your questions in a moment and then I'll bring everybody on. Nathan, where are you today?

Hey man, what's going on? Can you hear me all right?

I can, yeah.

Can you hear me?

Yeah, it's a little bit of a background noise because you are on a PC and you don't have the Mac difference where they get rid of the background noise, but you're sounding clear. Where are you? You look all dressed up too.

I find I, I, I, people keep telling me to switch to a Mac, but I just, uh, I need Excel. I need Excel. Um, I'm good. I'm at a coworking spot, a buddy I'm thinking about. Uh, it's like some of these short-term things I'm thinking about coming here, so I'm just gonna check it out for the day.

Okay.

I think you're being picked up on by the mic that's in your computer, so when you turn your head, we miss it. Um, but with, uh, with that in mind, Tell people what the, what business you're in.

Yeah, so, and just, you know, interrupt me if you can't hear me or anything, but we run a marketing agency and we basically work with a lot of newsletters and media brands. So I would say maybe we have like 2 ICPs. So one would be like personal brands that have newsletters, like Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has a big fitness newsletter. We work with Tyler Dank, who runs a company called Beehiiv. And then their ICP is probably like newsletter native media companies, like big B2B tech newsletters, the big AI newsletters. We're working with a lot of those folks and we do paypads and then we help convert readers into customers. So think like email nurture funnels, this kind of thing.

All right, and so when you went through the accelerator, you actually, we've used you in our copy and you've been contacted by people. What is it that they want to know about what the accelerator is like? Let's demystify it.

Yeah, I would say it's probably 2 or 3 things when people reach out. So one is just, you know, hey, like, what is the customer acquisition, you know, after doing the accelerator, you know, look like, you know, and a lot of people ask me about like, you know, how many people we close during the accelerator. And then I think the other thing is people want to know a lot about accountability, which I'm a huge fan of. There's like 3 takeaways I have from the accelerator that I can show you in a second, but one of those is like, kind of like manufactured discipline or like manufactured obsession. Yeah, but there's actually a lot of things that we talked about that, so I can talk about those things in the recap.

You are actually breaking up. Let me ask you one, one other question. You closed the sale. How did you get it? And then I want to talk about accountability. I'm going to share my screen in a moment and do that, but you talked about a sale. How did you get it?

So, um, we got a couple different sales. So I, I think we probably closed probably around, uh, $20K in MRR, like during the program. Most of that happening toward the last, like the 5th or 6th week, I would say. Um, and it came from 2 places. So One is I had a much larger, uh, like second and third degree, like surface area on LinkedIn with people in my ICP than I, than I thought. And I don't think I would have discovered that had I not done the accelerator with, with the, uh, I think the other thing is that, um, sort of like, uh, there's so many people in the accelerator who are also doing really cool things. So, uh, several of our book calls have turned into customers. Actually, our biggest deal was with a company called, uh, Red Ventures. Which came not from Jesse, not from somebody that I knew in my LinkedIn network. It actually came from a guy, Chris Snyder, who runs a company called banks.com. Amazing domain. And happened to be in the coworker editor. What are you going on?

Oh, I'm just in shock that that's how you got it. I know Chris Snyder from banks.com. Okay, keep going.

Chris is the man. I love Chris. I think that I was, one of the things I was surprised about. It's sort of like the, it's like that old statistic where it's like, if you get like 25 people in the same room, and like the chance of them actually sharing a birthday is something like 80 or 90%. It's just very high probability. And it's a very similar thing in terms of like, who else is in the cohort? And do they overlap with your ICP? I walked away from that extremely surprised. I would say probably 10 people from the first cohort. So, so 20% of the cohort knew people who were very senior directly in our ICP, qualified folks that you would want to work with. So I found that to be extremely valuable.

All right.

I'm going to let you go just because of that, the background noise. And thanks for coming on here. And you're right, we were really being very selective about who we invite in because I don't want to just take someone's money and have them come in the program and feel like, all right, we've increased the number of people who are in the program. I want to do what I can to get the right people in. One thing that Nathan did for me earlier this week was he analyzed the workshop that I did last Friday. He put it into an AI system, compared it to other people, and he goes, Andrew, you didn't tell people enough about the accelerator, and if anything, you undersold it. And so what I wanna do is take a few minutes here and tell you all about the accelerator. And instead of saying all the reasons why you shouldn't join, I'm gonna encourage you to get on a call with me and then we can, we can talk about it. And I think it's gonna be a good fit for many people who are here, cuz I'm watching who's in the chat and I think based on what I know about you, it'll be a good fit. And then I'll come back and I'll bring everybody on who's been in the accelerator to ask a few questions and to make sure that we're helping you out with everything you wanna know about it. But as I said, and as you've seen, the accelerator happened because I did phone calls with people who had already been interested in growing their sales. People like Leo over here from Uh, uh, from our accelerator where I just said, what is it that you need to know? How can we help you grow your sales? And what members had said was, they said, I have sales, but no process. Now, Sandy, you've got sales and you're looking for a process, so this relates to you, right? They said, I do my own sales, which is phenomenal. They're good at it, but they can't delegate it because it's their own system. It's their own way of doing things, and they don't have a way Of bringing other people into this system. They hold other people accountable. They're the ones who not just at work make sure that people get things done and they check up on them. Some of them will do it even at home and in their personal lives. Some of them are doing, uh, holding their brothers and sisters accountable and their kids accountable, but there's no one holding them accountable. And what they wanted was, let me see that someone cares and is looking out for how I'm doing with my numbers. They said, I grew my company and they were very proud to do it. But now it's plateaued and they wanna find a way to break through that. They said, I guide everyone else, but when I'm in trouble, there's no one that guides me. And those of you who've been in the accelerator, you know, one of the first things I do is I give you my cell phone number. I let you know that we are accessible so that when you do get in trouble, if there's, or if you just need to talk, it's either me or I can connect you with one of the other people in the program. So then the next thing I asked these people who I got on a call with was, what's your 10 outta 10? And if we talk, you'll, chances are you'll see me asking you this too. What is your ideal? If you can create the perfect environment where we get you the perfect results, what is the perfect 10 outta 10? And people said they want 6 weeks of working with Jesse. And I think it was Nico earlier who said this was the exact right amount of time. It's the exact amount of time because this is what people like Nico and probably even Nico had asked for. They said, I've got a business to run. I wanna focus on this, but I don't wanna get so lost in this that I can't work on the rest of my business. 6 weeks of intense work. They wanted to focus on sales. So all the other stuff that could come up in your business can wait a little bit while you really get good at growing your sales. They wanted to learn by, by doing, not by just, uh, learning, which means when Ben was doing a sales call, as he said earlier, and there was a question or he was sending out outreach and he didn't get a response, there's nothing like having that be the basis of education. So Jesse, you can come back and give him advice and he could implement it and learn it and use it and see if it works versus sitting and saying for 6 weeks, I'm gonna learn this. And then at some point afterwards, I'll use it. They They wanna learn by doing. They want Jesse to teach every step of his process via Zoom. Actually, they didn't really care whether it was Zoom or some other platform, but they wanted him to come into their world and teach it, and they wanted the same access that his CEOs have. So if I'm reaching out to him, if Adrian, if Casey, if others, or if Alex, uh, Carolyn are reaching out, they want that kind of access and they don't just wanna be watching a YouTube video. And Jesse's really big on, on responding. And so am I, and so are the other members in the group. Try it. Message Knack. I don't know how Knack does it. They wanted clear sales assignments. What do we do week to week? Show me what to do. They wanted someone who was going to hold them accountable and check up on them. And I think I could show you in a moment how we do that. In between calls, they wanted to be in the company Slack. And at the end, they wanted a playbook. This was really important. They wanted a process that they could use to close sales so that they could bring other people in and use that playbook with them to close sales. And that's what we have in the Sales Accelerator. And I keep saying, notice a few things that are Really important. We are helping you to actually sell. You are doing the sales, uh, in the accelerator. So my goal is to get every single person who goes through it a sale. My heart breaks, and this should not be something I take so personally when Fallon doesn't close a sale within 6 weeks. I wanna fight and get that for her. But if you don't close within 6 weeks, I do want you to lay the foundation that will get you a close afterwards. We hold you accountable, and this is the way that we do it. I have this spreadsheet. For the 6 weeks that we went through this, if you did a screen share with me and I opened up a new tab, chances are you saw this up on my screen because I was keeping track of who's doing the work, how are they doing it, where are they stuck? And what you'll see on this is I get to keep track of how many outreach messages do you send? What's the response that you're getting from that outreach? And if for some reason you're sending out 30 messages asking for intros and you're getting one response back, then I might introduce you to Andrew Winter, who'd done sales for Jesse in the past. And Andrew Winter will go over the, what you're sending out and he can help you tweak it And make it better and more effective. That's really important to us. And it's really important that we have those resources, those people to not just hold you accountable and go and say you didn't do it, but more importantly, cuz I'm not here to shame you, I'm here to support you. More importantly, if you're not getting the results you want, for me to see it and help you get them. And then finally, there's a playbook. And the playbook is a process that Jesse has used forever, which means that you can always reach out to the companies that he's worked with and say, hey, how do I do this? How did you do this? In fact, the more you ask, the more you'll get from this program. I just introduced Chirag. One of our past members, uh, to Adrian. Actually, I asked Jesse to do it on Monday when he's back so that they could, so he could see how she's using the exact same process that he's using in his business. He's one of our members who just graduated. She's someone who runs a company in Jesse's sphere using the same process. He should see how she's doing it. Um, what they didn't know they needed was access to us. And Ben is one of the few people who specifically asked for it and he got it and he got on a Zoom even with Jesse. We are here. The first thing, Jake, you signed up before you even signed up, you got my text and you know that one of the things that we wanna do is be available to you to, to not say this is what's there and you need to sign up, but to say this is what's there. What else do you need? Let's close sales together. All right. I'm gonna put the link in the chat. If you are interested, I would love to get on a call with you and do this. And you know what, Rachel, considering the people who are here and I see it, if you can put a link in here for just accelerator.bootstrapgiants.com, if anyone's saying, listen, I just wanna sign up right now, let's get you signed up. and we can talk afterwards. Rachel told me there are a few people who are saying, I don't have time to sign up. I'm running a multi— a business. Actually, she didn't say multimillion. She said a million plus, and they don't have time to, to get on a call with me. They just want to get started. If that's what you want, Rachel will put it in the chat. Um, here is, uh, what you'll see. You're going to come to a webpage where you see a video of Jesse at the top. Nathan May is the person who said, hey guys, you need a video at the very top of the page. And then as you scroll through, you'll see what's in the program on the very bottom. You'll see exactly what's there. It is a $5,000 product. And that means that what we're looking for is someone who can close 1 to 3 sales within the accelerator and more than pay for the cost of being involved in it. And what we're screening for is whether that can be true. That's it. Can you actually do that? If you're in, the first step you're gonna get is this one. This is from Vincent. I introduced Vincent to Jesse. The 2 of them immediately got to work on the problem that they're— that Vincent wanted to talk about. What is it that he's going through? What kind of help does he need? It is not for you if you are someone who— this is what Nathan says, hey Andrew, you're pushing people away too much. But I want to be clear, if you're selling to consumers versus businesses, it's probably not going to be a good fit for you. If you charge less than $1,000 per sale, it's probably not a good fit for you. Ben, I think, has some flexibility because of the way that his software is priced. I understand it. So these are not hard and fast rules, but I want to make sure that, you know, we're looking for people who sell to businesses at a high enough price point that we can get you the results that you're looking for from this program. It's not for you if you're only using webpages to sell. We want you to actually get into meetings with people. If you don't feel comfortable talking to your customers and you'd rather have a sales page do the work and you're looking for the perfect email that's going to do the spam thing for you, it's not going to be the right one. It is not for you if you just want to learn.

If it's—

who was it? Rachel just sent me a message. It's not for you if you don't want Jesse— if you're not comfortable with Jesse telling you to raise your price all the time. He does keep saying raise your price all the time. I've got this great story I should tell you one time about how Jesse got Adrienne of Aux to raise her price. I'll save it for another time. If you don't have a business yet, it's not for you. We really want you to be working together to grow the business. It is perfect for you though if you sell to businesses. If you are also selling services like Ampush or Growth Assistant or Content Guppy, which Greg has, or you're doing financial services like Fallon does, it's going to be a great fit for you. If you are selling at a high price point, it's going to be a great Uh, process for you because at a high price point, people want to get on a call and talk with you. It's perfect for you if you're coachable. It's perfect for you if you've pre— if you're prepared to have sales conversations. It's perfect for you if you're running a business that's doing what, $15,000 to $250,000 per month. That is our sweet spot. You've seen some people who've done more. Greg has told you about them, some people who've done less, but that's the sweet spot. And if you're offer— if you're open to hiring a sales team in the future, we really want to systemize it so that you can do this. If you join right now, Jesse will personally make 3 intros for you and I'll actually tell you this if you join at any time. I'll be honest with you, this is supposed to be like my high-pressure sales. Jesse will do this at any time, even if you're done, even if you don't join right now. I do want people who think that this is a good fit for them to get in the program. I've seen what it can do. I know how, how effective this is, and I know the team and how much they are going to love bomb you as you go through this. And by that I mean Nak will reach out to you and I do appreciate him. Nak is from GatewayX. GatewayX It's the venture studio that Bootstrap Giants is launched from. And he's like acting like our full-time employee and then some because he wants us to do well and he wants our members to do well. And same thing with Adam, who does, who's a CTO for GatewayX, who's jumped in with people and has had them ask him questions and he's helped them out. Our goal is to get you sales. Our goal is to work together during the program, after the program, and have you in here as someone who is in our world. I'm gonna bring Jennifer on. And close sales together. And my hope is that you'll do what Ben has done, what Jennifer is doing here today, what Hardeep has done, what others, which is come in and answer questions for other people. Greg, let me bring you on here. Nico, I think you're there too.

You know what?

Since we keep giving each other feedback, give me feedback on the way that I just talked about this. How do you all feel about Oh, Fallon, I think had to run out, right? Um, did I miss anyone? Nathan also was accidentally invited to this and he did it. Rachel, let me know if I've missed anyone who I should be bringing in. Give me feedback. Let's do score, uh, of my, of the way that I just sold the accelerator. Feel free to put your, your, your number up on the screen. Let's do like a retro on that, on that little sales operation that I just did. Oh, Mary's saying 10 outta 10.

Thank you.

Jake is saying 11 outta 10. Thank you in the chat. What do you all think who are on camera with me? Ben, be open with you. You're like my New York buddy, even though you're not from New York. Jennifer, you know presentation better than anyone else I know. Oh, Nico saying okay eight out of ten. Fahid is saying seven. All right, what would make it more than that, Fahid? Fahid. I just need to raise prices. Jake is saying all right. Ben is saying ten out of ten. Um, when I want to bring Jazz on in a moment or hear from him. Jazz, let us know in the chat, what is it that you'd like from, uh, to know about this? We've known each other also. I think it's the same Jazz. I can't really tell because you're in a tiny little screen.

Jazz.

Yeah, you're the Jazz that I talked to 10 years ago. What would you like to know from this group?

There's opportunities that, uh, you can get what you can get or they can be much bigger. So the raising price is really a key thing. So I've got a couple things on my plate right now that I— the circle is much bigger than the one I was originally starting with. And so I think that rapid growth is the main thing for me. I've been around enough B2B.

What do you need in order to get more rapid growth? Jazz is someone, by the way, that I, I've done interviews on Mixergy for over a decade. He's one of the first people that I— one of the early people that I interviewed, uh, about how he was building his business, and we reconnected through this. What, what do you need in order to grow your sales?

Well, everyone's trying just to figure out their path forward, and that's the finding a way that you're selling them the same thing. So I've got a lot of experience in B2B. It's not difficult with that experience to get conversations and, you know, get opportunities, but picking the right one and really getting a sales team around it and the implementation side, because sales are nice, but revenue is even more important and retaining it. I think that's the main thing. Oh, Andrew, you went quiet there.

You're, you're, so you're saying you need more help with sales?

Absolutely.

But what specifically?

Um, I think I've got a deal right now. I mean, they're a 9-figure company. They've launched a 7-figure piece of software. They want to make it 8 figures by 12 months. And, uh, you know, I've got the deal, took 60 minutes, but the fun side was, is there's actually way more money there if you actually go solve the implementation side as well. So I think it's structuring what you do and what part of it you can do to get the maximum impact. So that's the main thing for me. I'm open to looking at things differently.

Figuring out what to do to get the most impact from the sale.

Absolutely.

Okay. And so actually, what does that mean? You want to know like how to get the right price, how to do what?

I helped organizations build and scale large B2B software and I helped other organizations learn to purchase and implement and roll out large pieces of software. So like digital transformation actually. And then the other side, so this group, I'm kind of being sucked towards SaaS that want to learn how to scale. Like how do we position ourselves to be understood by people that don't know how to buy software? But then on the other side, how do we actually get it implemented? And there's a ton of money in it because you can basically charge whatever you want as long as you can help the sales happen. and remain for them. So with this opportunity, the consulting side is there, but they wouldn't have an issue if I wanted to say, hey, I wanna take over your implementation business and I'll give you everything I've learned about buying and selling software on both sides. So it's just packaging that together in a way and making sure it's geared towards the side it should be.

All right.

You know what, he was talking implementation. Nico, I gotta ask you about this.

Please.

I've been asking Jesse to write about implementation and organization for the longest time. One of the big issues that I'm hearing from people is I'm running a service-based business. I can't even handle the customers that I have right now. I'm in over my head. In fact, I'm gonna talk to someone later today who's in a situation like that. How did you deal with that?

Let me tell you how I didn't deal with it properly first.

Okay.

So on the implementation side, because we'd focus on big enterprise contracts, anywhere from $200K to $1 million, those tend to be a few months to 9 months to a year. I hired team members too early, full-time employees, and then you're just about to get that contract signed and then some catastrophe happens at the company and then they end up not being able to move forward and they lose the budget. Well, now we had full-time employees on our staff that we then needed to find other work for. So the way I'm balancing it now is that we build up enough pipeline until I feel confident enough to be able to start hiring full-time, but to bridge that gap using subcontractors who have expertise in that space for what we're looking for to then blend them in with our team. It has to be done in a thoughtful way. You can't just throw somebody at the problem, but at least then you can manage your staff more accordingly because I've hired too early, lost contracts, and then paid for it dearly. So Andrew, if that's what you were getting at, at least.

You know what? That is actually an answer that I got. It's part of the answer that I got from Jesse when I brought this up. And if anyone else has a response to this, just unmute yourself and I'll bring you in next. But the answer that I'm hearing from you One of the reasons why, uh, servicing customers is so difficult is because there isn't consistency in the sales. And so you don't know how many people do I bring on? What do they do? How do I prep them for, uh, for this growth? And so you limit yourself to the number of people that you think you need right now instead of hiring for the number of people you know you're gonna get in the future. And that's one of the issues.

Yeah, I mean, it, it is an ongoing challenge, but the way we're trying to change our business a little bit is to be less tied to a billable hour, which is, You're always then competing on price towards the bottom, especially with different operating models these days, whereas our entire team is in the US, so we're always going to have higher prices. So what we tend to do is use the technology to then be able to scale how our team operates so we can deliver more work instead of everyone custom coding everything and be tied to a billable hour. And then what we do is sell fixed price, either retainer if it's ongoing support for our clients, or if it's more strategy work, fixed price to the deliverables that they're actually getting. And this actually works really well because then we can use our team more strategically in their time and create more leverage. And to Jesse's point that he said to me, the first meeting we had, he's like, Nico, double your prices. And so I don't know if exactly I doubled them, but I took it up to the level where I was like, okay, this is more than we ever charged. And nobody seemed to have a problem with it, especially at these enterprise client levels. So it's little, it's like little tips like that that just make such a huge difference for sure.

Greg, you're unmuting yourself and Hardeep, I want to bring you in in a moment because you've got an interesting story too. What were you going to say about it, Greg?

Yeah, so I think the short answer is to like productize yourself a little bit more. So one of the things that, I mean, well, what I had a failed agency years ago and we did everything for everybody, landing pages, copywriting, it doesn't matter whoever came in. And then now we focus on a very specific group of people, which is basically product-led SaaS growth companies who need SEO to survive. And that's pretty much all we do. Like we don't do, we've really scoped out, we've really narrowed the scope of work we do to the end and narrow the scope of people that we work with. So we say no to a lot of opportunities. Like a lot of people will come in and be like, hey, can you guys do our landing pages? Can you guys build this? Could you guys just redesign our website? And we always say no to that stuff because that's just extra headache for us and we just can't hire and we don't, that's not our area of expertise at the moment. Maybe at some point in time we will as we get bigger. But yeah, so we very much say no to a lot of things and that's because like we know where we work. We work very well with this very specific group of people and we service them in a very specific way and we get the results that they need in a specific amount of time. And so that's kind of— so if you— so if you're not— Efrat, who was just jazzed, I think you were just talking. It sounds like you have so much going on and you have so many opportunities and so many things. And I would implore you to raise the prices on this few, on maybe one or two things and kind of get rid the, uh, kind of get rid of like a bunch of the ancillary things that are just going to be a big headache. That, that's, that's what it sounds like to me.

But, um, yeah, so I, you know what, I totally understand it. And as a founder, it's really hard to say no. Like, you can say this a million times to me and it's still so hard to say no because I keep thinking, what if we die? What if the business goes away? What happens if I'm being like these people who I used to see on my run into work in San Francisco?

It's so damn hard. And until you get to a certain number, a revenue number, And I don't know what that number is, but like it gets easier after you get past a number. But until you get there, it is so hard to say no. But the problem is, is that I think I saw somebody in the chat say they need to do sales, but they're so busy doing creative stuff. The problem is, is that if you keep saying yes to all these things, you're going to keep doing the creative stuff. And that's just going to eat into the time that you should be doing sales. And like, This is something that you should be dedicating an hour to 3 hours a day, depending on where you are and how fast you want to grow. But it's something where you're going to be spending 2 to 3 hours a day. So if you're constantly doing creative stuff and if you're constantly creating RFPs for and constantly solving problems that you aren't getting paid for because you're doing some sort of consulting thing or whatever, teaching thing to make the sale, Then you're not going to have enough time to go and do more prospecting. And so yeah, just, you got to keep saying no.

If anyone has a question, just hit the raise hand button and then I'll bring you in. I'd love to have you also get on camera with a question. Mary, it's good to see you here. Hardeep, you ended up in an interesting situation with one of our other members. Talk about what happened there.

Yes.

So I'll just give a brief background actually of of myself and my own business. So I, and just my overall background, I'm actually a corporate guy. Like I'm an IT guy. I went and studied computer science. I worked for IBM, a bunch of other companies, and then came into the business world and just about 3 years ago started my own business in web design. And so So, you know, I'm very early on in my journey and this program actually really made me think on, you know, what I wanted to do with my business, where I wanted to take it, you know, really going through the ICP process. And even, Jas, at whatever level you are with your business and whatever you're doing, I feel like even the offer part of the course really would help you. And it really helped me even at like, I'm just starting out, but it really helped me think what I actually want to offer the customer, what value do I want to provide them? And, you know, what I can actually do the best, you know, in terms of providing that value to the customer. And in that journey, to answer your question, Andrew, After talking to a lot of the various members in the group and listening to their stories, I actually reached out to one of them after the program and ended up joining his company part-time. And because I wanted to shift my business into more doing Shopify development and Shopify websites for other people and other businesses, he was a perfect fit and he needed help. And my skill sets matched what he needed. And obviously I want to learn from him too. And so it's been an amazing opportunity and it was all thanks to this program, Andrew, Jesse, and the team that brought us together where I ended up in this situation this year.

I'm excited about that. He told me about that. He was excited to get to work with you and I felt really proud that the two of you had connected. Mike is, we're talking about Mike Laz. Mike Laz is phenomenal when it comes to Shopify stores. Jennifer, you're, you're doing this more as like an independent sole proprietor. You don't have people who are like, if someone hires you, they are not getting a team of people who are coming in and giving different opinions on how to present. You are the person who's got it. So, talk about how this program has helped, if at all. And Ben, I'll let you get off camera. Well, I think that the—

so, I've been— I went independent not quite a year ago, last April. And so, I was relatively new in my business. and had not done a lot of sales myself. And I think I was really looking for system and learning on how to do this more effectively. And I think the things that I got out of most, um, is I think 2 big things. One is the, um, thinking bigger. You know, I think the great thing about Jesse in particular is he really pushes you like, you know, is this, is this big enough? Is this— and it's— but he also has this, uh, um, balance of like not pushing you into something you actually don't want. Where it's like, if you don't actually want to be that, that's totally fine, but don't sell yourself short in what you're doing. And so I think it was, how could you make this bigger? How could you think about it in a bigger way? And I think that was a really helpful mindset to have. The other one was really the focus of the program. And I think that's something that I'm hearing from other people as well, is he helped think of like, okay, get rid of that, get rid of that, focus on this one thing. And for me, the part that I think that I got out of it the most is the connections that I made and the accountability. I mean, this is I'm used to working in bigger organizations or networks of people where you hold each other accountable or you have support through it. And when you go out on your own, you don't really have that. And I made a lot of close relationships through a cohort. I still connect with people all the time. I got clients out of the cohort. So even as a sole proprietor, like, I, you know, it, like, it was not an insignificant amount of money for someone who's just getting started, but it paid for it.

It was structured in your Even Fueng.

Actually, somebody asking a question?

Sorry, Andrew, coming off. There's someone whose mic just went, uh, who's, who unmuted their mic as you were saying that. I didn't realize that you'd gotten, uh, customers from the cohort. One of the best things that I, I learned from you was, yes, you gave us advice on how to present better, but, uh, which adjusted the way that we were doing things and you saw that. You kept saying from before we got started, will there be opportunities to meet other members of the cohort? And I said, yes. And even my yes was not enough. I realized from you, we need to help the members get to know each other throughout by introducing them to each other. There are gonna be some people who are shyer than you, Jennifer, who need more of a, this is a requirement, or this is a request from us to get to know other people here. Because the more we did that, the more I got praised for doing it. And I didn't, I didn't appreciate that to the level that we needed to. Yeah.

Yeah, no, and it's so great that you took that on. I mean, I did outreach probably, I connected personally with at least, I would say probably a third of the cohort in one-on-one meetings throughout the class. And if you decide to join, which I think is a great idea, I highly recommend you spend that time getting to know people because the people, the caliber of people in the program is really, really high. And I learned a lot from the people that I connected with and found those relationships to be really valuable and continue to connect with those people. So I think it's, it, that part was extremely positive, um, positive for me. So even though I am a sole proprietor, it, it, it's helping me think down the line, okay, if I, if I did this, if I added this, how could I incorporate it? But even within, with the work that I do, I learned a lot in sales. Like there's a couple things. Um, one of the tips was just like, never let a meeting end without setting up another meeting. Maybe everyone in the, in the group knows this, and I was like the last to get that memo. But I implemented that and it was like a game changer for my sales, like in just terms of just actually keeping momentum and making sure that everything closed on time because a lot of the work that I do is strategic and sometimes strategic work is like, I'd love to do that, but at some later date, right? And this really helped people like move forward and keep that momentum. So that was a tip, a freebie that I'll share with the group if you guys didn't all know that. But that was You know, that in and of itself was a huge, huge deal for me.

I feel a lot like I knew that, but having other people around emphasize that and have it be the accepted and expected part of the conversation made me okay saying it even when it felt awkward. Like the other day I was talking to, uh, 2 people from Austin and I, we talked and it seemed like it was a good fit and they wanted to think about it and I said, let's schedule a call for Monday. Let's schedule a call for Monday. Actually, they were up for it and then I couldn't do it 'cause of, uh, um, actually one of them couldn't do it. I picked another date and as awkward as it was, I said, no, this is what's expected. This is the way that we do things. And they were happy once we nailed a date that worked for both of them. All right, I'm going to just take you all off of spotlight so I can make it, um, allow anyone else who wants to ask a question to come on. We're gonna close this out in a moment. If you're listening, and I think we're gonna make this into an audio-only version, I I was just texting Rachel going, freaking A, this is phenomenal. I'm, as someone who just is constantly saying, this is not enough, you're not doing enough, this is not working. To hear people like Jennifer, like Greg, like Nico, like, I, I don't mean to, like, to hear all of you say all this makes me feel good. Um, and I appreciate you doing that. And I do want everyone who's interested to get to know what's possible here. If you are interested at all in joining, I'd love for you to join. You can join by going to accelerator.bootstrapgiants.com. Or if you're interested in having a conversation with me and talking about this and seeing a little bit more of the inside, go to join.bootstrapgiants.com/b2b. And I'm actually gonna read this 'cause I want us to even put this as an audio podcast, um, because I do know that this is one of the things that people are curious about. So if you're, if you've got a question, unmute yourself, no pressure, but I'm actually taking myself off so that we all feel like we're on equal footing. Mary, I haven't heard from you. Kindra, I've seen you. I hope I'm pronouncing your name right. Hey, I am. Uh, I don't know how to pronounce your name even though we've talked. I, I know it's Jake, but is it Zelko? Zelko? Zelko?

Zelko?

Zelko?

Yes.

Um, you and I, we, we got on a call, right? And we talked, and I made sure you had my cell phone so that we could, uh, once you're in the accelerator, which you are, you can keep working with me.

Um, I mean, I appreciate you, Andre. And Andrew, like you and Jesse are so kind of like your message really resonates. A lot of us, like I saw from from others who presented, essentially we just need a little push. Like we are there, but like a little push. I had like a whole last year trying different marketing things and whatnot, and nothing really worked great. And honestly, this is my business. I want things to work great. I do great work. Worked for our clients. So I just want to, you know, everything should— people should be excited about my offer and I didn't get that. So that's why I joined the program and it was, you know, it was easy like Ben was saying, like it's an easy decision because obviously the kind of how much we charge for our services, it's fairly like straightforward. If you are solving this problem for me, it will be way more valuable. If you don't, then what can we do? But I think I have a fairly high confidence that this will be very successful and that you will use me as a reference in the future.

I would love that.

I got to read a part of your email. You had asked me a few questions before you signed out.

I was really cranky. No, no, no. I'm still fighting with Google. Google dropped my kid's phone. Essentially, they kicked it off the service and I cannot find a single person This is Google. I cannot find a single person to solve the problem. And as I was cranky with that, I wrote some email kind of feedback because I know that everybody needs feedback. And if he doesn't hear feedback, he will not know kind of why people, what kind of doubts we have. Anyway, go ahead.

I do love it. I didn't think that you were cranky at all. To me, this kind of openness is where I live. And maybe like I said, it's because I grew up in New York. But you said there are a lot of ways to— anyway, you said, I specifically don't have Wow, where is that?

Oh, here we go.

You are the ones, Andrew and Jesse, who are selling the program, so I want to work with you guys. Will you ship me off to someone who follows a script that you wrote? And then you continue, and I guess maybe you did get a little bit cranky. You go, I could buy a damn book or hire someone to read your book and work with me.

Okay, I get it.

To me, it didn't feel cranky, and I did reach out to you to let you know.

There are other programs that are like that. Like, you like the person, right? I like you. I mean, it doesn't mean that I have to work with you or Jesse all the time, but like, I see, I saw you, you guys sold me the program and I want you to be present kind of solving my issues, you know, that was the—

I'll be open with you about how I could be open. Jesse is not going to get on a call with you as often as I will. He'll get on if it's a crisis, he doesn't love it. I, on the other hand, would freaking love to get on a call with you and work through an issue with you. I don't want to do endless text messages. But we are, we have a collection of people here who have different approaches who can, who can be there with you. Kinder, am I pronouncing your name right? I get to talk to you.

Yeah, Andrew, how you doing, man?

I appreciate how much you were chatting as we were going through.

Well, I've been through many communities like this before in the past years, but I went into a different direction over the last couple of years into blockchain world and all this stuff. I've been away from this kind of community. I love the small communities, very focused and tight. The reason why I joined here is sales, definitely because of the sales. And as you said, and you had really good emails out there, sales are really important stuff and a lot of people ignoring and I'm ignoring that honestly. I'm more kind of creative guy that like to find out some new stuff and new way out there. So yeah, trying to learn to see, you know, what I need to change in my life and my business actually to make it successful because I came to the point where either we're gonna make it or break it with the project that I'm working on a couple of years and basically I've been into a situation where I could sell the business for pretty good, you know, $1 million plus offer and so on. And then I came to the situation where, again, we're gonna make it or break it. So I need to do the basics and I know the stuff, you know, it's not about just knowing, but it's actually about doing it. And we have a lot of knowledge everywhere, but, and I think this community type is kind of helping people, at least like me, to, to push themselves to change out there. Okay, let's do what is important right now.

You didn't, uh, you didn't book a call though. Why, why aren't we, you and me getting on a call to talk about this?

I'm lost, man. That's why I have so many things to care, to take care right now. And somehow I always feel something is more important to do over there.

So you mean like personal issues in addition to work issues?

I mean, it's mostly work issues. It's mostly because my life is mostly about the work and And I try hard, but I try into diff— hard into different directions. So that's, that's my problem.

What are you doing in 4 hours? That's 3:30 Central, 4 hours from now.

In 4 hours? I mean, that's a beautiful offer. Like when you say it like this, like how can I—

This is good.

Let's go.

All right.

So I'm gonna, I'm gonna—

Can I say something when you're done as well?

Yeah, I'm booking a call. Kinder, just send me your, your email address so I can send you the calendar invitation. And even if you just want to talk non-work, just whatever is going on in your head, it feels like you're going through something. We'll talk about that.

Thank you, man. Here's the email in the chat.

Kinder, 2 weeks into the program or a week into the program, I forget how long, I literally messaged Andrew and was like, dude, I just need to talk. And I talked to him for 30 minutes and I was kind of like you. I'm like, I'm lost. I don't know what to do. I'm banging my head against the wall. And I just like vented about— I can't, I don't remember exactly what I said, but whatever I said, it was super cathartic. And Andrew didn't really even like, I don't even know if he said stuff to comfort me and be like, yo, it's going to be okay. Don't worry about it. But it wasn't like there was nothing profound. I just needed to like talk to somebody and vent to somebody who's like, Who's been there, right? Like, Andrew's built businesses before. He's done this. He's been there and done that. And like, I just needed like to rant and Andrew let me literally rant and complain for 30 minutes without saying anything. And it was like cathartic. So when he's like, yo, just gimme a call, like, he'll, it'll be, you'll feel better afterwards whether you join the accelerator or not. Is besides the point. Just feel better about yourself. You just feel better about things.

I believe, I believe definitely.

I knew Andrew for years actually following him. I think maybe probably 7 or 8 years you were running some newsletter. I cannot call your old program, but I know, and I always liked your personality and the way how you, um, you know, teach people, educate. So that's why I'm here. I just wanna see what it's about, you know, meet the people, and when it's the right time to me to join the accelerator, definitely. I mean, it's a— No pressure.

If it's not the right fit, you can't make someone do something that's not the right fit. If it's not the right fit, we're at least getting to know each other. And so I booked the call with you for later today. Sid, you wanted to chat. What's going on? And Greg, thanks for that.

Hi everybody.

Andrew, thank you for that amazing presentation. So I've been in the tech industry for about 18+ years and I'm pretty confident of what I do, starting from this website all the way to cloud architecture and then cloud applications. However, I've done this all as an individual or a team, working as a consultant for a consulting firm. Finally, after all hard work, got the green card and started my own firm, but I realized I've never sold. So 2 questions. Number one, is this Sales Accelerator program for someone like me? And then second, like, you know, how to just get started? That's it, thank you. You know, truthfully, I don't know, it may not be because if you haven't done sales, it's a lot to get you to, especially if you, how clear are you on what the product is? It's a service packaged up as a product, but not, I'll be honest, it's not polished yet, right? So you're still in the figure it out mode. Is this the right thing? What am I doing? Truthfully, I would love to say that this is perfect for everyone. Shoot me an email. Let me get you something that I think will help you get started. I don't think an accelerator is the right fit for you.

I see.

Okay.

Thank you.

But I do wanna help you out. I do want you to be someone like Kinder who goes, 10 years ago, I listened to you on this podcast and now I trust you 10 years later, right? So we're, we're, we're not about today. We're about us and whatever, whatever you need. So I got something I think that could help you out. And then also I could be a sounding board for you as you're getting started. I appreciate that. Do you have my email address? Andrew@bootstrapgiants.com. Andrew@bootstrapgiants.com. And if you include your, your cell phone number, maybe we can text if there's something that's a little more pressing.

bootstrapgiants.com.

Yeah, andrew@bootstrapgiants.com.

Thank you very much.

Thanks, I appreciate that. Right, well everyone, sadly we've come to the end of this, and the reason I say sadly is because at the end of this, what I'm gonna take you, it's not the end of our relationship, we're still together. I really appreciate you all doing this, really. Jennifer, I know you've got a lot on your plate. It's later on in the day for you in Europe, and I appreciate you coming on here. Really big supporter over the years. I appreciate, Greg, you interrupting so that you can add on and tag on and let Kinder know. Hardeep, thanks for being open about your story. I mean, really, all of you have been here and I appreciate you for doing this. For people who are listening to the recorded version of this, I hope you get as much out of this as we got out of this, as much as Sandy got out of this. And if you do wanna follow up with us, you now have our email address. And since Nathan will put my whole transcript into ChatGPT, or what does he like? He likes Claude for this stuff. He's gonna put the whole thing into Claude and then he's gonna say, Andrew, you did not talk about the accelerator enough. I will say, if you are interested in joining the accelerator, go to join.bootstrapgiants.com/b2b. And the reason it's /b2b is because accelerator is a word we all misspell. So it's join.bootstrapgiants.com/b2b.

Thank you everyone.

Bye.

Bye.