The Ruby Freelancers Show 038 – Optimizing Pipelines
Show Notes
Panel
Eric Davis (twitter github blog) Evan Light (twitter github blog) Jim Gay (twitter github blog) Charles Max Wood (twitter github Teach Me To Code Intro to CoffeeScript)
Discussion
01:11 - Optimizing your sales and marketing pipeline
01:11 - Optimizing your sales and marketing pipeline
Lead generation (marketing) Lead conversion Project delivery
08:54 - Follow ups
11:24 - Lead categories
Want to work right now Trying to decide Decide against you
12:26 - Closing a client (sales)
Not just going for wallets Leads who take advantage/getting something for nothing “Velvet Roping” Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port
15:57 - Client fit
Qualifying
17:36 - Marketing
Mailing lists Open-source contribution Being active in communities
19:31 - Referrals
Where do they come from?
22:05 - Recruiters
Responding to recruiters Dealing with recruiters
28:01 - Website traffic analyzation
Google Analytics
31:41 - Newsletters
Listening vs reading Getting newsletter subscribers MailChimp AWeber Autoresponders
47:09 - What should I do?
Where do you want people to wind up? Make it easy for people to contact you/get them where you want them to go Landing pages Comments on blogs
53:31 - Your personal ideal pipeline
Picks
Picks
BrowserStack (Eric) PipelineDeals (Eric) Sad Trombone (Jim) GetClicky (Chuck) AWeber (Chuck) Omnifocus (Chuck) POP App (Jim)
Transcript
EVAN: If someone takes a poker and makes it really hot and shoves it in your behind, that would be a branding problem.
EVAN: If someone takes a poker and makes it really hot and shoves it in your behind, that would be a branding problem.
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CHUCK: Hey everybody and welcome to episode 38 of the Ruby Freelancer Show! This week on our panel, we have Eric Davis.
ERIC: That's me.
CHUCK: Evan Light.
EVAN: I wasn’t ready!
CHUCK: Jim Gay.
JIM: Hello from a standing desk.
CHUCK: And I'm Charles Max Wood from devchat.tv. This week, we are going to be talking about Optimizing Your Sales and Marketing Pipeline. Sounds like a mouthful. So do we want to start with a definition? What is the--
JIM: Is this Ruby Rogues? Did we dial in the wrong place?
CHUCK: [laughs] Yeah I kind of felt like--
[laughter]
ERIC: Yeah, I would like a definition.
CHUCK: Well, my understanding (and you guys can and probably will correct me) that the sales pipeline or marketing pipeline is effectively the process that you put your prospects through basically from the moment that they encounter your website or market message all the way up until you convert them to a sale or to a client. Is that oversimplified or did I miss something?
EVAN: I would say “leads” not “prospects”.
CHUCK: Leads?
EVAN: Yeah.
ERIC: Yeah. It basically starts at leads. Like you know, this person might have come to your site like an anonymous visitor or maybe they heard of you or something that was like, “Oh, who’s Chuck?” and that's kind of where they start that. And then it goes to… what is it… suspects? No, actually suspect is fair. Suspects are people that might be a good candidate for your business. Then its leads when they actually kind of contact you… there's also prospects. It’s hard.
The Ruby Freelancers Show 038 – Optimizing Pipelines
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