Reddit mentions of Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You

Since you're doing business somewhat locally, you might want to just visit targeted businesses in person. It's less efficient per call, but people trust a face in person much more than a phone call. Look professional, know why you specifically can help their business, and make sure you're ready to tell them. As /u/SeriouslyImKidding mentioned, ask open ended questions. Be open, friendly, enthusiastic and honest. If they're not interested, ask them to let you know if they think of anyone who might be. (And leave some business cards.)

Also, since you mentioned that you've had trouble scaling, you've got to read this book. It will change your outlook: Built to Sell

Lastly, I greatly prefer referral marketing (that is getting referrals from good clients) to cold calling or other methods of outside marketing. Read The Referral Engine for more details.

/u/mradam26 pay close attention to this. Get yourself a copy of "Built to Sell". You do NOT want to wake up one, three, or five years from now still in this same position. This book will help you start leveraging what you're doing today for your future.

What industries have your (best/most profitable) clients been in? What services did they need most? Would it be reasonable to try specializing in that, and ONLY targeting 100 companies in that industry?

This specialization will help you hone your pitch, be prepared for the most common objections, and scale your business in the future.

You can do content marketing? Why not a whitepaper or webinar targeted for that industry, and send it out as part of your outreach? Again, this will help you scale your pitch.

Cold calling works, but it has a low rate of return and unless you're doing it full time (anywhere from 30-100 calls a day, minimum) you're not going to get your expected value from it. There's a reason why cold calling is being outsourced to minimum wage workers -- it's no longer where the attention is and the arbitrage doesn't have a high roi.

Cold emailing might be a better option for you. Check Bryan Kreuzberger's Cold Email Template. Like with cold calling, you need volume. This means having a list of 100 of companies that you want to target, focusing on 20 at a time, and just putting them through the sales funnel until they drop out or work with you.

However, the issue here is again, that you'll need to specialize and pick one service, and one industry or type of company to focus on.

That seems to be the fundamental challenge you're having. By generalizing and doing EVERYTHING, you're spread too thin and dependent on what clients present to you. It's the character of the business you've built thus far.

By restructuring as a specialist, you'll have more leverage, be able to use ad buying and landing pages, as well as later down the road being able to spend time on content marketing and PR to build brand equity and have your business be an asset.

tl;dr

You can't sell everything, and you can't sell to everyone. Pick one service, picture one customer, and focus exclusively on that so you can scale and grow the business beyond yourself.

Check out Built to sell by John Warrillow . He explains well how to build systems and take yourself out of the daily operations of the business to make it attractive to buyers.

Couple of points ..

#1 Check out the book "Built to sell" ... How a service based business scaled by focusing on one service.

#2 Gerber is great, but the other side of the coin could be Seth Godin. (or maybe somewhere in between). Checkout Linchpin & The Icarus Deception for some balance

#3 For every 1 person who is good at marketing in your niche, you'll find 999 others who are talented, but suck at marketing. This always presents an opportunity.

If you haven't already, checkout Built to Sell (https://www.amazon.ca/Built-Sell-Creating-Business-Without-ebook/dp/B004IYISQW)

This book echo's what we've seen in the market (4 - 5 times pretax profit). A strategic buyer is of course more likely to pay towards the higher end, especially if your day to day runs smoothly and new business can be generated without you putting in 12+ hour days.

Also - a strategic buyer may be more inclined to normalize your draw and add that back to the pretax profit for valuation purposes.

No matter where you are in your business the book is worth a read. It's pretty engaging to read as it's done in a story style narrative that borrows from the authors own experiences.

In the hour or two it takes to read, you are sure to get some inspiration on how you can improve the productization of your service offering and let yourself focus on what's going to maximize the value of your business in the long run.

Cheers!

I really liked the Built to Sell and All In Startup. They're both set up as narratives, so they're very easy to read. I actually like the E-Myth as well--at least the first half of it. The Compound Effect had an impact on me and my thinking, but YMMV there.

I've been fortunate to read a lot of books that have helped me and guided my thinking when I was at an impasse. Reading books is like having a mentor, someone who has gone before you and who has taken the time to outline his/her real thoughts and strategies on what worked and didn't work in his/her experience

Contrary to the (somewhat surprising) sentiment of some in this thread, books can be VERY helpful in creating shortcuts and building a plan of your own.

Oh, I might also check out Crush It if I were you. I think Vaynerchuk is a kind of polarizing character, but I do think he's genuine, and for a book that's five years old, it has a lot of resonance and validity in our present climate.

Just read this book https://www.amazon.com/Built-Sell-Creating-Business-Without-ebook/dp/B004IYISQW as fast as you can. AFAIK selling something and keep working in it is bad, so many things can go wrong.