Zeb Evans

9 Best Business Books for B2B Leaders. (You Can Finish These on Your Lunch Break): 1. The GTM Handbook for B2B SaaS Leaders ( cheekily including my own) - (4.5 Lunch Breaks) 2. The Innovator's Dilemma - (5 Lunch Breaks) 3. Made to Stick - (6 Lunch Breaks) 4. The Lean Startup - (7 Lunch Breaks) 5. The Motivation Myth (3.5 Lunch Breaks) 6. Small Giants (6 Lunch Breaks) 7. Data-Driven Marketing (6.5 Lunch Breaks) 8. Profit First (4.5 Lunch Breaks) 9. Blue Ocean Strategy (6.5 Lunch Breaks) What else would you add? Let me know in the comments below ↓ —— ♻️ Found this helpful? Repost it so your network can learn from it, too. And follow me (Chris Tottman) for more content like this. #BrainDumps 🧠 💩 // Brain Dump #33

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How to build a $50k per month VSL funnel. 1. Lead mag page Make a free product and give it away for emails 2. VSL offer page Make a 15 min video solving a problem that compliments the lead mag 3. Upsell page Upsell your DFY service that puts the VSL solution into play.

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SaaS founders that cracked $10M ARR have two things in common: 1/ Focus on Onboarding > Marketing  Churn is the obstacle for hitting 8-figures. Experimenting with pricing often and offering solid trials, educational materials, & customer support is key. 2/ Build a Great Team  You can get far with a tiny team, but there’s a threshold. To surpass $10M, you need to find top-tier talent and get out of their way.

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Don't you hate spammy outreach? Guess what, so do your agency's prospects. Here's how you can send non-spammy outreach: 1️⃣ Break your niche into subniches ↳ Say your niche is "tech startups". A subniche could be "Sillicon Valley based Series A tech startups who recently raised funding" 2️⃣ Build a list that matches your subniche ↳ Here's where you'll need to put in the time to identify your prospects or hire a service like ours to do it for you. 3️⃣ Research your prospects to identify potential areas of collaboration ↳ Jot down notes of potential areas where you can help them. If someone doesn't seem to need your help, eliminate them from the list. 4️⃣ Write a hyper-personalized sequence ↳ Mention something that shows you know (a) they're from Sillicon Valley, (b) they recently raised Series A, (c) potential areas they may need help in, (d) why you're reaching out and (e) ask them if they'd like to see a case study. 5️⃣ Book meetings ↳ For the positive responses, send the case study and ask them for a meeting to explore if you could do something similar for them. For the negatives, keep nurturing them with your content. Do this, and people will THANK YOU, for reaching out to them. 😃 If you need help implementing this, then reach out, we can eliminate all the manual, boring and hard work involved in the process from you. _______ To learn more about getting clients consistently for your agency from LinkedIn go to 🦖 Tudor D. then click the 🔔 icon. You’ll be notified every time I post and you’ll be sure never to miss important content! #agency #newclients #AscendancyProgram

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Don't stop marketing your app... The BIGGEST mistake that app owners make when trying to sell their app is "banking" on actually selling it. Continue growing your app while you... - List your app for sale - Have an LOI in place - During the due diligence Don't stop marketing it until the transfer is complete and the MONEY is in the bank. Charlie Ryan put together this list of the BIGGEST mistakes by app owners while trying to sell their app. Video clip in the first comment.

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🤫 Biggest SaaS secret: Sell -> Design -> Build. This cycle took only 3 weeks. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? With a 3-person team? It took us 5 months of fiddling to get our first dollar of revenue with Zaymo. This trajectory is sooo much more fun to build with. Now for a little ad: - DTC brands can email surveys / quizzes / forms to get 2x the response rate. - Starting with two answer types. Will have several more by the end of the month. *I'm still learning Figma. Critique my Figma demo below.

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The Ultimate Guide for Scaling, Sales & Raising Capital: Here are just a few reasons why this guide is a must-read: 1) Real-world expertise: Straight from the trenches of SaaS entrepreneurship, offering actionable advice that's been tested in the battlefields of startup growth. 2) Comprehensive coverage: From startup infancy to scaling heights, every phase of your journey is addressed, providing you with the knowledge to navigate the tricky waters of SaaS business. 3) Community wisdom: Leveraging the collective wisdom of the vibrant SaaStr community, the guide encapsulates diverse perspectives and solutions. PS. check out 🔔 for a winning pitch deck the template created by Silicon Valley legend, Peter Thiel https://lnkd.in/ejp-Bhnu

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I helped a VC company with over 400 portfolio companies & $1B raised in follow-on funding rank #2 with a link I built them… Here’s how: Two months ago I talked with the Marketing Manager of Forum Ventures an Early Stage B2B SasS fund. They needed a link-building partner to: - Reach out to relevant companies, media outlets, and bloggers - Setup off-page strategy that will increase brand awareness - Effectively establish meaningful partnerships - Facilitate industry-relevant backlinks They had a great brand, lots of authority, and were willing to invest in growing. Once we analyzed the industry and the website we immediately saw that one particular strategy would reap results quickly and effectively. Listicles. Yes..those "Best X" types of list articles. So using Ahrefs and Google search we: 1/ Extracted all relevant results. 2/ Setup a multi-layered outreach sequences 3/ Cross-matched them with the client's Ref. Domains 4/ Filtered out the best opportunities (based on Traffic/Relevance) ..and started reaching out. We began facilitating backlinks from such lists one by one and moving forward with adding more off-page strategies.. A week ago while on a call with the Marketing Manager at Forum Ventures, she casually mentioned that a few days before our meeting they invested in a SaaS company that found them through one of the listicles we built. (We facilitated an inclusion at #2 from a list of 92 companies) And it was all because we were able to understand: - Their Goals - Their Industry - Their Brand - Where they want to position themselves That said, if you are a SaaS/Tech company and you aren’t leveraging listicles, you could be missing out on a great way to: - Build brand awareness - Drive direct traffic - Earn industry-relevant backlinks - Scale your non-paid traffic We've helped over 10 companies in the last 12 months double first-page positions & non-paid traffic using industry-relevant off-page strategies while eliminating unnecessary micromanagement, allowing them to focus on their core product/service. I guarantee it could do the same for you. Want to learn how to implement it? Comment "Listicles" and I'll send you the framework we use for this strategy in detail.

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SaaS Growth Heads & CMOs: 2x your MRR in the next 4 months with proper link building. (3 easy tips):

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You can generate $150,000+ in pipeline every month with these 3 clay playbooks - you don't need a massive team or budget Full TAM Outbound Playbook → Build a Total Addressable Market (TAM) list of your ideal clients with tools like ExportApollo.io. → You can add triggers inside the table to make messaging more relevant → Enrich your data in Clay to create hyper-specific targeting. → Use Smartlead for automated, personalised email campaigns that feel like one-on-one conversations. Website Visitor Playbook → Capture website data using RB2B and push it into Clay for enrichment (think emails, LinkedIn profiles, and more). → Prioritise hot leads and automatically launch them into Smartlead campaigns. → Use Slack alerts to instantly notify your sales team when top prospects engage. → Then you have to choose to get the mobile number to dial or send them into an email campaign News-Based → Track relevant RSS feeds for industry events like funding announcements, mergers, or partnerships. → Push the data into Clay for enrichment and personalized outreach. → Launch campaigns Smartlead to strike while the iron is hot. → The is great because it shows real research was done The Tools You’ll Need: - Clay for scraping and personalisation. - Smartlead for sending. - Airtable for data tracking. - Slack for real-time alerts. - HubSpot/Close for CRM. Drop a comment if you want me to cover any of these in more detail

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As a founder, hiring your first sales rep is a pivotal moment. It's the bridge between your initial traction and scalable growth. But it's also fraught with risk. Here's how to nail this critical hire: 1. Look for a builder, not just a closer Your first sales rep needs to be comfortable with ambiguity. They're not just selling - they're building your sales process from the ground up. 2. Prioritize industry knowledge At this stage, deep understanding of your market is more valuable than a rolodex of contacts. They need to speak your customers' language fluently. 3. Assess their ability to wear multiple hats Can they handle everything from prospecting to closing to customer success? In the early days, your sales rep might be your entire go-to-market team. 4. Test their resilience Early-stage sales are tough. Rejection is constant. Look for someone who can stay motivated without a big team around them. 5. Align on metrics Be crystal clear on what success looks like. Is it revenue? New logos? Close rate? Make sure you're on the same page from day one. Remember: This hire can make or break your growth trajectory. Take your time, run a rigorous process, and don't settle. What other traits do you think are crucial for an early sales hire?

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Want to know if a dev agency is truly on your side? See if they push back. A lot of agencies just chase billable hours, agreeing to every tech need without question. But the best agencies focus on building something meaningful— products that people love and client partnerships they’re proud of. They don’t just say “yes” to every feature request. They ask tough questions, challenge assumptions, and keep the dialogue going. They want clients to win because successful clients become their best sales reps.

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The best test for a dev agency? Tell them your budget and see if their proposal uses it all. Parkinson's Law says work fills the time given. Bad Dev Agency Law says work fills the budget given. Your expectations might be high or your needs might be less than you think. A relationship-driven dev agency will use the budget as a guide rather than a goalpost.

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There are many SaaS ideas to choose from, many niche to build in but here's the reason why I choose to build Supergrow above everything.

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💥 What’s the cost of guessing? Imagine scaling your ad spend and seeing results like this: One client started with $5K in ad spend and used WhatConverts to track and measure every lead. By month four, they were confidently investing $35K a month—and generating $450K in sales. Total revenue? $755K over four months. Without WhatConverts, sticking to a $5K spend would’ve capped them at $140K. That’s $615K in missed sales! How much is your agency leaving on the table by not optimizing your data? Start using WhatConverts today to make every dollar count. I highly recommend it 😉

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Please... if you’re selling a business, don’t do this. A founder wanted to maximize the sale of his business. He came up with a plan: - Slash marketing & R&D team - Inflate recurring revenue by discounting their annual plan This is a bad plan. Buyers will see right through this with a little due diligence. Instead, do this: - Reduce churn rate - Document & automate operations - Make the business work without you - Clean up your books and records There are concrete steps to make your business worth more at sale. But *hacking* your valuation will hurt you later. #acquisitions #founders #saas

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Tons of new business owners are missing out. You can get up to $100,000 in AWS credit (as in, no-payback) to build a proof-of-concept if you have an idea and a website. AWS Activate is the program. If you're a founder and you're looking to build cost-effectively before you have paying clients, check it out.

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Most CRO agencies go straight to A/B testing. (We didn't - and it made an additional $800k MRR for our client) Here's exactly how we did it 👇 Dr. Squatch was already successful, but they wanted to scale from $5M to $100M+ in revenue in under 2 years. Most agencies would jump straight to A/B testing. We didn't. Instead, we started with deep customer research: - Implemented heatmaps - Monitored social feedback - Analyzed purchase patterns - Conducted customer surveys Customers were already buying multiple soap bars... but the product pages weren't optimized for this behavior. Here's what we did: 1. Added quantity selectors to product pages 2. Set default quantity to 2 bars 3. Redesigned the checkout flow 4. Enhanced product collections 5. Improved subscription offers The results? 📈 54% increase in revenue per soap purchaser 📈 $800k+ additional monthly revenue 📈 $9.6M+ annualized revenue impact But here's the real lesson: The biggest wins don't come from random A/B tests. They come from understanding customer behavior and optimizing for existing purchase patterns. --- 💬 Tag a founder who could benefit from this. 🔔 For more CRO and growth insights, follow along.

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What many startups actually don’t understand is that their clients value time over money. They think they do, in terms of efficiency gains /ROI. What they miss is the investment required to deploy their product. “Hey client our product costs $100k/year and will require that your team invest 200 hours to get up to speed.” A client can’t say that they have an extra 200 hours “sitting around”. Even if they do. They are “very busy”. If they buy, not knowing their time investment, they will either get sour on the product deployment OR it fails because they don’t invest the time.

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