the startups.com platform about startups.comCheck out the new Startups.com - A Comprehensive Startup University

Categories

Browse Search

Loading...

Clarity

Steven Wagner

Greenville, South Carolina

I am a founder at heart. I have started 3 Software as a Service companies: dealerignition.com, adealy.com, unloadyourcar.com and 1 Amazon/Private Label brand - luxskinoils.com. In 4 weeks we earned the #1 New Product on Amazon in 2015.

I am a mentor for Tech Star's Ironyard and Clemson entrepreneurship program.

$2.00/min

18

18 Calls

14

14 Reviews

41 minutes
Avg. call

Business Development Marketing Digital Marketing Email Marketing Marketing Strategy Online Advertising New Business Development Lead Generation B2B Marketing Sponsorship

Call me to talk about

Building an Inside SaaS Sales Team

I have built and advised 10 companies on developing inside sales teams.

Whether you're doing a systematic Predictable Revenue or another methodology, I can you with:
* recruitment
* compensation
* metrics
* on-boarding
* job descriptions
* productivity
* lead generation
* scaling

Sales List Building

Looking for advice on how or where to build a list for your sales efforts?
Need to find out what tools or sources will jump start your database?
Costs?
Quality?
Options?

Outbound Lead Generation

Looking to create an outbound lead generation team?
Outsourcing vs. On site team?
Tools?
Metrics?

Inside Sales SaaS Metrics

Looking to get a better handle on your SaaS selling metrics:
* Lifetime Time Value
* Calculating Customer Acquisition Costs
* Required Emails per Day
* Required calls per day
* Required Pipeline in Dollars
* Days to Full Productive
* Upsells

Amazon FBA/Private Label

Providing actionable marketing tactics and strategies for building an Amazon FBA/Private Label Business.

Answers 6
Reviews 14

Answers

Steven Wagner answered

I have a digital product (pdf + multimedia) that college applicants and parents will buy. How do I find the person, or system, to market it for me?

You should reconsider your needs. If you're making this product, no one besides yourself can market it and sell it better than you. After you get 10 paying customers can you recruit or vet the right sales person.

Schedule a call • Share • Flag

Publishing

Marketing

Sales

Steven Wagner answered

What are the best strategies or resources for selling B2B to independent stores in the consumer products space?

For SMB, I would look at Radiant. It has a very deep database that you can filter for the type of stores you are looking for. Then you should reach out to the owner or buyer.

Schedule a call • Share • Flag

Retail

Sales Process

B2B

Steven Wagner answered

Is cold mailing/calling dead?

There are a great number of templates to engage the right person. There are 2 things that really impact performance:
1. The right list - whom you're contacting
2. Consistency - use some BASIC email automation tool to do consistent calling/emailing/mailing

Linkedin is a very effective tool to build a list.
Too few people consistently contact the right people enough to get results.

Schedule a call • Share • Flag

Sales Process

Cold Calling

Sales and marketing

Steven Wagner answered

How do I value my startup for acquisition?

I have dealt with this before. I recommend finding out how much the acquirer pays to acquire customers, users or accounts today. CPCA- cost per customer acquired

Also ascertain how much a client, user or account is worth to them. LTV - long term value

From these metrics you can put some value to what you have. Then trend that out over 3-5 yr period.

The key is to make the buyer part of the valuation. Don't go off and do this and come back with a value. They need to be a part of it for your valuation to be accepted. There are no absolutes in this.

From my back of a napkin calculations that is what Facebook did to buy Instagram.

Schedule a call • Share • Flag

Start-ups

Acquisitions

Business Valuation

Steven Wagner answered

What is the industry average conversion rate for cold emailing?

Cold emailing can be productive. It works in a number of ways for sales, marketing, joint ventures, pr and more. Just don't expect it to close any deals immediately from it.

The critical points to improve your emails:
1. Who you are targeting - your ideal client (title, firm, revenue size, location, etc.) the more time you spend getting this right the better performance.
2. The volume - how many people are in your sweet spot.
3. The cadence - how often you keep contacting them. Don't expect 1 email to do much. 3-4 follow up emails is ideal.
4. The messaging - If it is all about you than you should look at writing emails about them and their needs first.

I have seen cold emails average 10% response rate - people saying yes, no or go to hell. Up to 40% for great messaging, spot on contacts and the right cadence.

As for "conversion" there are many factors that will impact you. If your product is brand new with no social proof than your responses will be much lower than an established firm.

Best of luck.

Schedule a call • Share • Flag

Email Marketing

Email Strategy

Steven Wagner answered

How to hire an outsourcer (Upwork, Freelancer, etc.) for lead generation for a design and branding firm?

I've done this for 10 years so I speak from experience.
1. Hire a firm not an individual (overseas) - firms have controls and tools that you ensure your work is done. Workers can "disappear" unexpectedly.
2. Use a screen recorder to narrate and screen share your process.
3. Document in Google that you share with them
4. Establish daily deliverables.
5. Start basic - like find emails before getting into more advanced skills.
6. If you've never done it - don't expect an outsourcer to immediately know or outperform you.
7. Have a daily task sheet for them.
8. Always ask them to check in after doing a % of the project - so it doesn't go off task.
9. Buy great tools for them to use to accomplish the tasks. Don't give them cheap tools and expect them to be an all star.
10. Test any assignment with 2 different outsourcers to establish quality and timing comparisons.

If you want to do this long term, hire a firm not a single outsourcer. It is rule #1 for a reason.

Schedule a call • Share • Flag

Lead Generation

Virtual Assistance

Graphic Design

Reviews

Steven was thorough and extremely knowledgeable in all areas of e-commerce and Amazon FBA. His quick assessments and feedback were incredibly valuable and saved my company from losing time and money. I highly recommend Steven to anyone looking for insights into online sales and sourcing.

Zachary Eikenberry Source: Clarity

Great call! Steven gave me a lot of great ideas and strategies on how we can be more effective in our biz dev outreach 🙂

Dave Idell Source: Clarity

Very useful glad I was able to connect

Russell Stevenson Source: Clarity

The call with Steven was so helpful we went over time! I really got a lot out of his ideas, especially on how to gather information about direct dials (exactly what we were looking for). Will be happy to come back for another call!

Lance Johnson Source: Clarity

Steven provided excellent info that will surely shorten my learning curve. Highly recommend.

eric tomson Source: Clarity

I had a very good conversation with Steven. He carefully assessed the questions I posed to him and offered relevant feedback and advice based on his experience. He got me thinking about things I hadn't previously considered.

Jason Flanagan Source: Clarity

Steven provided insights we had not remotely considered. His breadth and depth of experience along with his encouragement have caused us to reevaluate and shift course. We thought we were going in to our meeting with Steven asking specific questions and getting pointed answers. We found out we weren't even asking the right questions. When it comes to SaaS and pricing, launch strategies, and market evaluation, Steven should be your go-to resource.

Scott Margolius Source: Clarity

Steven obviously has a ton of experience with Amazon strategy and tactics. I wanted some advice on my next steps should be to promote my product and it's really helpful from someone who's been there.

Chris Johnson Source: Clarity

Steven helped me come up with a strategy to deal with an FBA issue that has held up my account. His experience first hand, having dealt with FBA problems, was really helpful in understanding how the system works. He also made me aware of new proposed legislation that might affect me that I didn't even know about. Thanks Steven!

CJ Lemky Source: Clarity

Steven is the consummate professional who is extremely unique in his in-depth understanding of leadership, management, technology development and SaaS sales. He is metrics driven, holds people accountable and is very fair. There are no situations I can think of where Steven would not be successful. He is good at what he does, understands how to achieve results and goes after those results. He is also really likable and people just want to work with him. A born leader.

Sherwin Krug 舍文 Source: LinkedIn

I got to known Steven over the past couple of years, and what impressed me about him was his willingness to go the extra-mile when it came to serving his customers, but it did not end there, he is always looking at ways to help others in the business community even if it did not profit him any, now that is a class act! Great person!

Abe Varughese Source: LinkedIn

Member since May 2012