And there’s a reason for that!

Products born out of agencies follow the two cardinal rules of building any business!

1. Understanding the problem really, really, really well, and
2. Building and iterating on your solution (aka, feedback loop).

Almost every product an agency builds is born out of their frustration – the “problem” of not having a solution designed for their needs.

At Springzo, we recently started working on a simple lead attribution app walking the same route.

It’s a super-simple, no-frills app for marketing teams to know what channel delivers them the most profitable leads. That’s it.

Will share the details soon.

Copywriting for Founders
Sales for Founders
Interviewing Better for Founders

These can be simple micro-courses.

Everyone’s learning to loop in “trending buzzwords” in their elevator pitches.

Someone just pitched me a “decentralized platform for marketing talent…”

I checked it out.

“Nope! It’s a marketplace to hire marketing talent…”

Think of why high discount sales are successful. Because they hit our psyche that we’ll be getting much more than what we’ll be paying for. To add to this, we also associate this slash in price with the higher price we were earlier required to pay. Or for that matter, why those late night infomercials are able to convince people to buy stuff that otherwise (before hearing their pitch) they would have definitely denied to buy. That’s the power of communication.

I think a startup along with communicating the features and benefits of the product, should also clearly communicate that the value/satisfaction that the product offers is much more than the price the customer will pay for it. Make this communication more evident. For instance, if a startup communicates that their product makes consumers productive, that’s good. Next time, try and tell potential users that with their product, users can save more than 10 hours per month and at an average rate of $10 per hour, users will save at least $100 a month. And the company is asking to pay just $5 for this product. Now, that’s a strong pitch because the mind then quickly starts to calculate – $5 spent versus benefit of $100.

Do an A/B test with this pitch once and see if your conversion rates increase.

“How Google’s Ranking Algorithm works?”

or

“How Google Ranks webpages?”

Last year, Search Engine Land published a piece about it, Now we know: Here are Google’s top 3 search ranking factors. In my opinion, they hold true for 2017 too. But just add mobile friendliness (from usability to readability) as a critical and very important factor (again, critical and very important ) to this mix. Thanks to mobile-first index.

In this Friday’s newsletter, one thing that quite caught my attention was this:

“I refuse to spend $0.99 on an app on my phone, but I don’t think twice about adding guac to my burrito for $1.50.”

Why do you think is that the case?

P.S. If you haven’t signed up for The Hustle’s daily newsletter, leave whatever you are doing and signup now. Serious!

Every week Zapier saves me at least a couple of hours. I’m big on automating repetitive tasks and Zapier exactly helps me with that.

For the unknown, Zapier is a simple workflow automation tool whereby you specify triggers and then the actions that should be taken basis that (Zapier calls each of these workflows as Zaps). for example, when a new customer signs up via the website, enter her details in our CRM Pipedrive.

When I think about it, Zapier is most helpful when triggers happen on their own in the future time – in other words, you do not know when the trigger / incident will actually happen. For instance, when a customer unsubscribes from my mailing list, send him a preset mail that basically asks for feedback on why did  she unsubscribe. Pretty neat! And the possibilities can be endless.

A couple of days back, Zapier launched something called Push by Zapier and I have found myself using it several times a day. Push by Zapier is nothing but a trigger you initiate – it can be used by way of a Chrome extension. For instance, here’s how I use Push by Zapier the most:

• I use a customized GTD setup to stay organized and sane. One of my lists in my To-Do setup is “Follow-ups” – this is where I enter all the follow-up tasks along with due-dates. Now, when I send an email to a colleague or a client and want myself to follow-up with them after a couple of days, I just click te Push by Zapier button (Google extension) and enter the follow-up task right there and then… less than 2 clicks. It saves me time and hassles of switching tabs, opening my To-Do list, switching to Follow-ups list, etc.
• Similarly, I use Push by Zapier to push the tasks to my “Incoming” bucket. Incoming is what you call Inbox in GTD.

When I think about it, I have been starting to like Push by Zapier a lot. It’s equivalent of those Widgets we have on our phones. It’s where you initiate the trigger and all the actions in your Zap’s workflow will follow.

Either hold a rock concert, or a ballet; but don’t hold a rock concert and advertise it as a ballet…

– Warren Buffet

A year from now, everything you’re stressing about won’t mean shit

Whenever I fear something or get scared of an outcome, I repeat these lines to myself…

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.