It's a question I was asked this week.

"As a startup we have low ARR and little funding, how do we get growth?"

It's always an issue with any business, VC backed or boot strapped, how do you get enough cash to invest in the future for growth as well as making sure the business is funded and as a leader you are paying yourself as well.

The way it has worked today has been 

1. Spend more money on marketing than your competition

2. Spend more money on sales and have more sales people than the competition

3. Disrupt

The problem with 1. is that marketing as we knew it does not work anymore. People don't look at adverts or paid media, we don't take cold calls, or the response rates (salesforce say 98% failure rate) are so low it's hard to measure it or we are sending emails and we know that the response rates are so low (hubspot say a 98% failure rate) that again it just does not register.  And let's not forget, you have to spend more than your competition to get more growth.

The problem with 2. is you need to have not only more salespeople than the competition but have a more efficient sales organization.  Yes you can spend more on apps and enablement but there is a fundamental problem.  Your sales team are analogue and your buyers are digital.

Or you can disrupt .....

Want to know more about social selling, check out my new book

"social selling techniques to influence buyers and changemakers - 2nd edition".

In this brand new edition, I have updated all the text, I have also got 15 practitioners, so people who are doing this already to explain how they are get (practical) business benefit. From the CEO that has been running a digital business for over 18 months to sales leaders who use social selling every day.  

Articles on how these business have and are implementing digital, from Mercer, Telstra Purple, Ring Central, Cyberhawk, Namos, Ericsson, Crux Consulting, DLA Ignite and more.

What does Mark Schaefer, Marketing guru think of the book "social selling - techniques to influence buyers and changemakers - 2nd edition"? watch the video here

It's available on Amazon worldwide.  Link to Amazon.com here and Amazon.co.uk here.