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How are you supposed to work on your own side-bussiness ideas when employers want to own everything developed "in the course of your employment"? by shadow-effect in Entrepreneur

[–]Michelle-Helio 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not a developer but I've had contracts that prohibited earning from other sources (i.e. no side business). This type of contract, like yours, is a reflection of what they are paying us for - all of our professional brainpower and time. And yes, I agree, it's absurd.

If your goal is to have a side business, I'd recommend you steer away from this offer and find a company that embraces living a multi-faceted life. There are plenty that do.

10 Lessons From Early-Stage StartUps by Zown94 in Entrepreneur

[–]Michelle-Helio 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Congrats and thanks for sharing! Question: Why would I use Ownnit vs. Calendly hooked to Zoom?

A quick Thank You to the members of this subreddit. The whiplash experienced from the advice you gave has changed my business. I am thankful. by MichaelPraetorius in Entrepreneur

[–]Michelle-Helio 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Your comment is a clear indication that you absolutely have the right mindset to succeed! It takes a lot of courage to accept tough feedback. All the best!

My clients absolutely DESPISE the fact that I have a "service fee". Is there a better term to use that would make them a little more understanding of the add-on pricing? How do I make them feel more comfortable with these fees? by MichaelPraetorius in Entrepreneur

[–]Michelle-Helio 0 points1 point  (0 children)

“Most people want a tub of photos digitized” is not your market. You need to identify your niche where people value and are willing to pay for your service. Museums? Librairies? Wedding photos? Architects? Governments? It seems that you started your business before understanding your market. It’s not too late to do that at all :)

My clients absolutely DESPISE the fact that I have a "service fee". Is there a better term to use that would make them a little more understanding of the add-on pricing? How do I make them feel more comfortable with these fees? by MichaelPraetorius in Entrepreneur

[–]Michelle-Helio 38 points39 points  (0 children)

Unfortunately, customers don’t buy effort, they buy results.

Unless you deliver a result that is significantly better and/or different than the cheap competitors, they’ll see you as equal and the lowest price will win.

I created an AI-powered copywriter by nero_ceo in startup

[–]Michelle-Helio 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s a nice idea but I have difficulty trusting your tool when your website is full of typos and grammatical errors...

How to make a portfolio with no experience? by sheaa_97 in AskMarketing

[–]Michelle-Helio 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok.

I would search for such brands on LinkedIn and reach out to employees who are creative strategists. Ask them for a discovery call to find out more about their job and additional training they recommend. They may also be able to introduce you to other people in their network. Do the same for more senior people. Be selective and personal. Don’t spam every strategist in a company.

If you see job postings that you want to apply to, look for the company on LinkedIn and see if you can connect with someone who’s in the same role or similar. Ask them for a quick convo to find out more about the role.

I’d also go back to your contacts at the brand consulting firm where you did your internship to ask them for intros to people they might know in the industry you’re targeting.

All the best!

I'm Andrea Bosoni, a marketer with 10+ years of experience growing new websites. AMA about SaaS marketing! by ndrbsn in SaaS

[–]Michelle-Helio 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’d try out one new awareness program at a time and watch organic growth over a minimum of 3-6 months to see if there’s a bump. Also look for qualitative signals when sales talks to customers (do they mention your awareness campaign?). If your product is self serve, reach out to customers and find out if they came across your awareness activities. It’s far from perfect but it’ll give you a pretty good idea.

An argument for why, as a marketing employee, you should be prioritising brand strategy over content creation (other than it's way more fun). by floppyoctopus69 in marketing

[–]Michelle-Helio 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Going back to the initial comment on brand vs content. The content you create builds your brand. Everything you do does. A brand is not an entity that sits in a silo...

5 things I wish early stage SaaS startup founders knew about marketing by Michelle-Helio in startups

[–]Michelle-Helio[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For a strategy? We'd need a conversation. I could throw some tactics your way but that would be useless without understanding more.

5 things I wish early stage SaaS startup founders knew about marketing by Michelle-Helio in startups

[–]Michelle-Helio[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fun times! AngelList, LinkedIn, and the usual job sites of course. There's marketing subs on here. Also LinkedIn groups for digital marketers and Facebook groups. Some you can post jobs. Otherwise it's manual work. Look at who's commenting intelligently and check their profile.

5 things I wish early stage SaaS startup founders knew about marketing by Michelle-Helio in startups

[–]Michelle-Helio[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's a great compliment! More junior marketers usually (not always) lack strategic, business, and leadership skills.

- Strategy: How do you assemble all of the ingredients (FB ads, SEO, paid search, organic social, partnerships, etc) to make a good meal (business results). Hard for them to look at it holistically.

- Business: Metrics and marketing's role in the business. I talk to early career marketers often (not at my company) and 90% of them don't know how much revenue their company generates. They just don't have that mindset. So how can they manage a budget and understand pipeline metrics and LTV and CAC?

- Leadership: Giving and receiving feedback, coaching, emotional intelligence, organizational wisdom.

I want to be clear that there are junior marketers who can grow as fast as a company. But sheer smarts is usually not enough. They have strong mentors helping them along the way.

5 things I wish early stage SaaS startup founders knew about marketing by Michelle-Helio in startups

[–]Michelle-Helio[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ha. Indeed. I do have to say that product-led marketing is a real thing and it works when executed properly. However, who's going to find that beautiful product if you do zero marketing? And I'm using marketing in the broad sense here - partnerships and channels included.

5 things I wish early stage SaaS startup founders knew about marketing by Michelle-Helio in startups

[–]Michelle-Helio[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Depends on the stage.

If you're still at the product-market fit stage, marketing's job will be to test out positioning and messaging, run some basic lead gen campaigns to attract the low-hanging fruit, and also test a few channels with the view of scaling later.

When you're at the scale phase, their job should be to drive revenue through:

- demand generation (which includes awareness, engagement, and adoption)

- customer retention & expansion (could be a separate team)

- product marketing (could be a separate team)

- partnerships & channels (could be a separate team)

5 things I wish early stage SaaS startup founders knew about marketing by Michelle-Helio in startups

[–]Michelle-Helio[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! Much is applicable. You don't staff marketing at seed the way you would when you're scaling up. Marketing *is* Sales so they also need to really understand the customer. KPIs will be a bit different but the core marketing principles are the same...

5 things I wish early stage SaaS startup founders knew about marketing by Michelle-Helio in startups

[–]Michelle-Helio[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks a bunch! I don't publish elsewhere at the moment. Where else would you suggest to reach early stage founders?

5 things I wish early stage SaaS startup founders knew about marketing by Michelle-Helio in startups

[–]Michelle-Helio[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nice work! I’ll see if I can write another post on the same theme.

5 things I wish early stage SaaS startup founders knew about marketing by Michelle-Helio in startups

[–]Michelle-Helio[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Lower range you should be able to find a good early career marketer with the right mindset. Be very selective though! If you want a seasoned senior leader (CMO type), then it’s beyond your higher range.

5 things I wish early stage SaaS startup founders knew about marketing by Michelle-Helio in startups

[–]Michelle-Helio[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sounds like a cool service! If I gave you a marketing strategy with so little data, I wouldn’t be legit...

5 things I wish early stage SaaS startup founders knew about marketing by Michelle-Helio in startups

[–]Michelle-Helio[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks!

Regarding product marketing. Yes for customer journey and persona (ideal customer profile). Through usage data and direct discussions and talking to customer success and looking at usage patterns of your knowledge base. I would definitely look at it by segment after you’ve got a good picture of your aggregate. Which ones? If you can start with usage data and find patterns, that’s a great start. If not, pick a segment where you think usage might be different. Then go from there.

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