BI 333: Crafting a Strong and Smart GTM Strategy
September 29, 2020
On the show with me today is Peter Yared; founder and CEO of InCountry, a regulatory technology company that is providing data residency-as-a-service worldwide. Peter has founded six enterprise software companies that were acquired by Sun, Oracle, Citrix, VMware, Sprinklr and Prograph.
Given Peter's track record of founding and selling enterprise software companies, I was especially keen to get his thoughts on the go-to-market strategy we are planning for my SaaS business; Flowster.
In our conversation, you are going to hear Peter and I talking about how to identify the trend that we need to be a part of, how to insert ourselves into that trend, how to identify our target customer, how to find/contact them, how to identify the buyer and the champion, and so much more.
I took notes like crazy in this interview, and if you are a founder looking to define your go to market strategy, you are going to love this interview!
Thank you so much for listening! Please subscribe rate and review on your favorite podcast listening app. To get to the show notes for today's episode, go to https://brightideas.co/xxx...and if you have any questions for me, you can leave me a voicemail at brightideas.co/asktrent
Episode Highlights
[02:36] — Who is Peter Yared?
Peter is the founder and CEO of InCountry.
He founded six other software companies.
[05:55] — What is Flowster?
Flowster is a SaaS company that provides workflow management software.
It is a tool for businesses to document repetitive processes and subsequently delegate them to the team.
It currently has around 5,000 users, and about 10% of them are paying customers.
Most users are e-commerce entrepreneurs who previously purchased Trent’s product, WEBS.
[09:16] — Types of Amazon sellers
Most brands on Amazon either sell their products to Amazon or have third-party resellers.
Businesses who directly sell to consumers using an Amazon Seller Central account have more control.
Often, brands who want to shift to direct selling don’t have enough people and knowledge on procedures to do so.
Flowster aims to solve this problem by providing e-commerce entrepreneurs all the necessary procedures to operate an Amazon Seller Central account.
[11:08] — E-commerce, the latest trend
Take a step back and identify what’s the underlying trend.
Right now, e-commerce is a huge trend. However, there is also a resistance to it as it can be complicated.
[12:50] — Peter suggests a marketing strategy for Flowster
Peter equated Flowster to a checklist that’s easy to follow.
Let potential users know that the software eliminates the complications attached to e-commerce by following the checklist.
Flowster’s message should be aspirational. Share success stories of existing users and show their “before and after.”
Quantify the message. Specify the period it takes to set up a store on Amazon.
[14:04] — The growth of e-commerce
E-commerce has been steadily developing the past few years, with a sudden accelerated growth due to COVID-19.
There is a rush of new entrants in the market.
There are now more buyers, including older people who didn’t like to shop online before.
[17:31] — Direct sales outreach program
Peter suggests making a list of top 10,000 brands in North America and have a virtual assistant or intern go through it for Flowster.
Subsequently, narrow the list down to 2,000 companies that don’t sell on Amazon.
Personalize the messages for the top 100 and make aspirational ones for the other 1,900.
Reach out to the decision-maker of the company and talk about the “before and after” of using your product.
[22:42] — Flowster’s initial ad campaigns
Trent will be working with an ad agency. He expects that the first two months of ad campaigns will not be profitable.
However, it will allow them to collect data that they can use to refine messaging, tweak their landing page, run more experiments and split tests, and eventually drive toward profitable campaigns that will allow them to scale.
For Peter, an effective way to target the said 2,000 companies is via LinkedIn.
Experiment on what gets the brands to click and figure out the people who are converting.
[25:09] — The best data sources
Find trade organizations where your target market belongs.
For instance, Peter sells privacy and data hosting software, so he looks into the members of the Industry Association of Privacy Professionals.
[27:02] — Buyer vs. champion
The buyer would usually be the person in the company that signs the check for what you’re selling. Most of the time, the buyer is not the decision-maker.
Reach out to both the decision-maker and buyer.
Transitioning to direct selling on Amazon is a massive decision for any brand. Flowster becomes the facilitator of this change.
Everyone in the organization has to be convinced and aligned on the move. Present case studies and success stories of using Flowster.
A customer becomes a champion when they recommend the software to more people.
[34:15] — Reaching out to champions & buyers
There’s no checklist for reaching out to brands because every industry is different.
The hard part about breaching a market is figuring out what’s unique about it and learning what motivates them.
Talk to your existing customers. Ask them how decision-making happens in their organization or how they can be best reached. In exchange, promote them.
[35:34] — Keeping up with the competition
Most of the time, competitors have more cash.
It's helpful if you're not doing the same thing as them.
Specialize. Reach locations not tapped into by your competitors.
[37:58] — The nature of VC-backed companies
VC-backed companies operate on different metrics.
They blow through a lot of money to make a lot of money.
They experience a lot of internal problems with their people.
Peter does not fear VC-backed competitors because they usually have a high failure rate.
[40:13] — Raising capital
Present to potential investors the potential vertical and horizontal growth of your company.
Show what the company can do to get the numbers up.
Early in Peter’s career, friends and family funded his ventures. Eventually, his companies were self-funded or backed by venture capitalists.