The Freelancers' Show

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

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

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.

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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.