What I Learned and Created In Sales In Just One Month
For one whole month I worked on the sales module. Here is everything I learned and created this month.
Here is a video version as well
This is everything I learned and created in the Sales module:
The difference between a positive and negative sales experience
Buyer's journey
Building a sales funnel
Sales sequence
Week one:
This week we focused on
Sales experience
Positive vs. negative sales experience
Expectations vs. reality
Buyer’s journey
Sales experience
When sales is done right it helps the customer or the potential customer get closer to what they want. It also gives them a clear picture on the problem they are facing and helps them find a solution that perfectly fits.
For this we thought of sales experience that we had experienced in our own life.
Here is the link for the full blog post.
Then we worked on expectation vs. reality when it comes to a product
Everyone has had that product that they bought that either met or exceeded their expectations for their problem or never was even close to those expectations.
That's what we had to do for this exercise.
Here is the link to the full blog post
Lastly, we had to think about our own buyer’s journey. For example, we had to think about a time when we bought a purchase and answer questions about how we felt after and before making the purchase.
Here is the link to the full blog post
Week two:
This week we focused on
Problems, solutions, and personas
Building a sales funnel-Prospecting and lead building
Problems, solutions, and personas
Everyone has their own problems, but not all solutions help fix their problems. Many people have different problems which require different solutions.
But at the same time some people have different problems looking for the same solution to help fix it.
That is why when sales are done well it helps the customer identify the perfect solution for their customer leaving the customer feeling satisfied.
Our first exercise of week two was working with problems and personas.
For this exercise we had to pick a solution like a product or service and find five to ten people who would likely be buyers.
These could be real or fictional people.
For each person we thought of or created we had to think of the following questions:
Who are these people?
What characteristics stand out?
Are there common themes?
How might you find and reach these people?
How much is the problem likely worth to them?
Why is solving this problem important to them?
How well does the solution you’ve chosen address their problem?
This exercise helped to think about the different personas and how everyone is different, but they all could benefit from this one solution. It also helps to think about what personas work best for each solution.
Building a sales funnel-Prospecting and list building
For this exercise, I had to build a prospecting list of potential customers for a business.
Ideally we had to choose a company that sells a product or a service to another business rather than a consumer product.
The company I chose was Gymdesk.
GymDesk is a gym management software mainly built for gyms and martial art studios. This software helps you organize the cash flow coming in and out, attendance, memberships, and more.
Now I chose a specific area for my search and that was Austin, Texas. I did some research and saw that there were a lot of martial arts and gym schools in that area so I thought it would be the perfect fit.
I decided to use Yelp as my tool to find local businesses within that area. Now the list has begun!
For my search I grabbed all the info on the potential customer/potential businesses that could benefit from this software.
The info I found that would be the most useful was the company name, email address, phone number, description of what the business does, website, and location.
After I had gathered all my info this is what the final list looked like
Time to move on to week three!
Week three:
This week focused on:
Outbound sales vs. inbound sales
Building a sales sequence
Outbound sales vs. inbound sales
The main difference between the two are that outbound sales is that the business is actively putting the effort to get the customers to come to them. For example, like cold calling or cold emailing. In outbound sales, the business is doing a lot of the sales work. Inbound sales is when the customer finds your business organically and reaches out to learn more about your business. In inbound sales, the customer is doing the sales work.
Now that we knew the difference it was time to build a 21-day sales outreach sequence
21-day sales outreach sequence
For this exercise, We used outbound sales to create an email campaign that I could use to potentially email the business list that was created in week two.
When creating my 21-day sales outreach sequence I wanted to have multiple different contact types like email, phone call, social media connection, and video conferencing. While I think email is effective, I believe that face to face interaction or phone call could also be beneficial as well.
This is what the final of my 21-day sales outreach sequence came out like before the custom emails I made:
Here is what it looked like after with the custom emails:
If you would like the individual blog post I created click here
Lastly, let's move on to the final week. Recap week!
Week 4:
Overall, I think there was a lot of new information that I have learned in the last month. I believe that I also now have some tools that I could take with me into my next journey whether that is in a sales team or a different field. This was a great month of creating all kinds of different projects and learning.
Making an Idea into Reality
For the month of November I had to choose my next module. I chose “launching a business.” I have been interested in entrepreneurship for quite some time and I have had a lot of ideas but never really followed through with them until now.
For this month’s project I had a lot of different options of where I could go with it.
For example:
Online services
Podcast editing
Website development
Graphic design
Content creating
In-person products
Restored Furniture
Baked Goods
Handcrafted items
Online products
Online courses
Print-on-demand
Template downloads
None of these seemed to interest me so I decided to take it a different route. I decided I wanted to create my own product and I knew exactly what. The idea came to me in the summer of 2023. I thought of it while looking at my dog's slow feeder dog bowl. A slow feeder dog bowl is a dog bowl that is designed to slow down dogs that eat very fast so they can have better digestion of their food. I realized that almost all of the bowls are made out of plastic which can leach harmful chemicals into their food. And the ones that aren’t made of plastic do not really have a complex design so it does not slow down the dogs eating.
That is how I found a problem for which I had a solution. When creating a product it is important to think about why you are creating it in the first place and that is because you have a problem and you come up with a solution. That's why products are created because they notice a problem and they come up with a solution to fix their problem and others who have the same problem.
After I figured out what the problem was and how my product would fix it, it was time to build out the business.
All of my tasks during each week
First week finding customers :
Reach out to a list of three potential customers
Research what I would have to do to create the product
Start thinking of logo
Sketch out what I want my product to look like on a piece of paper
For the first week I focused on getting opinions on my product and really finalizing my idea in my head and getting it on paper. I had the idea of what I wanted the bowl to look like. I just needed to get it onto paper and draw out different versions of it.
Here was my drawn out design of my product:
Part of my idea was to have rubber base also designed that it would not slide on the ground when being used.
Next is week 2 where I get a CAD design of my product.
Second week creating the product:
Create a 3D CAD file mockup of product
Start looking at different manufacturers
Create the logo
This week I got a 3D computer-aided design (CAD) file of my product done. I have not had previous experience using any of those tools to create a CAD file. So I used a helpful tool called Fiverr. Fiverr is a tool where you people with experience build your idea for you. I explained my idea, gave them my drawings, and measurements. I was also able to make adjustments as needed to make sure my idea was exactly how I wanted it.
My final CAD design looked like this:
Stainless steel slow feeder dog bowl
Rubber base of the bowl
I also worked on my logo this week. I had somewhat of an idea of what I wanted the logo of my business to be. I wanted a dog to be integrated into the logo. I got some help with this as well from someone in my family.
This is what the final logo looked like:
Next is week 3!
Third week emailing manufacturers:
Research manufacturers
Emailing manufacturers
Register the business
This week I focused on researching manufacturers and even emailing some as well.
I used a tool called Thomasnet which is a website that has a list of thousands of different manufacturers. I was looking for manufactures that work a lot with stainless steel creating the type of product I was looking to create. Once I had a list of different manufacturers I started emailing someone about my product.
Fourth week getting it done:
Email more manufacturers
Contacting the 3 potential customers again to see how they like my idea of my product
Write blog post
This week I emailed more manufacturers and contacted the other 3 potential customers. I got some replies and some were not suited for my product as well. I am currently still emailing other manufacturers and am still waiting for a reply from another one as well.
I wanted to also contact the 3 potential customers again to see how they like the design so far and if they would be interested in potentially ordering the product in the near future when it launches. I have not messaged all of them yet but I have talked to others about it and they have enjoyed the idea and how the product looks so far!
Somethings I would do differently:
While I feel happy about everything I created and worked on this month I do feel like I could have accomplished more within this month.
I also think I could have come up with a better plan for myself. For example, having a list of the days during the week where I work on certain things.
Wrapping it up
I found this month to be a very fun project to work on and I will continue to work on this project of mine because this is one of my goals is to have this business launched toward the beginning of the new year. I am very excited for this business and what is to come.
21-Day Sales Outreach Sequence
Below is a sample of a 21 day outreach sequence:
Day 1: Personalized manual email/introduction email
Day 2: Automated email reply to the first email with offer to try it out for free
Day 4: 2nd personalized email asking if the customer has any questions and letting them know you’ll follow up with a phone call as well
Day 5: Phone call or voicemail if the customer doesn’t answer. Introduce yourself and why you know that your product can benefit the customer and letting them know that you’d really like to connect over the phone because personal interaction is important to you
Day 7: Send an email including current client testimonials of the product that relate to the customers who had previous experiences with the product in the past
Day 9: Phone call to ask if they have any follow up questions and letting them know you’ll be sending a Linkedin request and that your affiliates will also be sending Linkedin requests
Day 11: Send Linkedin requests to connect and have affiliates do the same.
Day 13: Follow up with a phone call and/or voicemail including key points about them/their business specifically and how your product/service can help them
Day 15: Send an email offering to have a Zoom call to demonstrate the service or product
Day 17: Send an email highlighting key points that the customer mentioned on previous calls and how you can provide a solution to their needs
Day 19: Send an email with a video of the product, client testimonial videos, and request a Zoom call with them and an affiliate client if there is one available
Day 21: Send an Email to see if they are still interested and hearing from you
