A bootstrapped $20M ARR founder (who hit that in under 3 years!) shared these thought-provoking points on LinkedIn today about selling. Worth a read, so Iām amplifying.
He said:
ā99% of salespeople are wrong about what a real $1M+/year seller looks like.
The next generation of 7-figure sellers are YouTubers.
Hereās why:
1) Weāre moving into a sales world where the best āinfluencersā will have incredible power.
AI will increase the amount of content created by a factor of 100x over the next several years.
Fewer voices will break through, but those who do will break through so spectacularly because we will crave authenticity and perspective that great thought leaders bring.
The POV that the leader brings is what makes great content.
AI doesnāt have perspective.
2) Nobody on social understands how powerful video is.
(Except Julia McCoy. Okay, my words. Not his. )
The talking head itself is completely hypnotic.
Anybody who says anything even semi-intelligent and can get people watching them talk every day and will have a power over their audience that text simply cannot create.
Itās a weakness that we have as humans.
3) āInfluencer Sellingā is infinitely more capital efficient than sales teams.
Whether it be with founder brand or a non-founder becoming an influencer, you can create and capture WAY more demand with WAY less time and energy than a traditional marketing and sales motion.
Thatās in addition to the insane top-of-funnel awareness you create for you and your company.
4) Building community and brand through video is an incredibly powerful skill.
This is MOST VALUABLE thing any company can be doing over the next decade: community and brand.
These are the only two moats that exist in a world where competitors can ask ChatGPT to copy your entire website and product and spit it out in 5 minutes.
5) Sales teams will have 5% of the headcount, 50x the overall follower count.
Assembling and managing a sales team will be more like putting together a team of elite athletes.
But, unlike sports, there isnāt a fixed amount of players that can be on the field. I think weāre going to see some crazy new playbooks built during the next VC bubble.
TAKEAWAY:
The next generation of $1M W2 sellers wont follow the SDR to AE path.
Theyāll be YouTubers who decide they want to make REAL money.
When this happens, sales teams are going to get smaller.
But much, much more powerful.
Want to be a āsuper-repā paid millions?
Start sharpening your video skills.ā
This came from Adam Robinson, CEO of Retention dot com.
Basically - influencing through video and content creating IS the new selling.
It has way lower cost, way higher ROI, than almost any other tactic.
I started using video to sell 5 years ago. I was mindblown when I saw that I could record a really great video sharing my heart and soul, send that off in a sales page with my product, and earn allll dayyy.
Today, I see this being more valuable than ever. Education builds. Influence sells.
Thatās why 99% of my work in 2024 for the companies Iām building with my partner will include me simply cranking out content like a machine.
We just launched a new podcast - Future Tense: An AI Show. Getting processed to go on iTunes, Spotify, and all the platforms now.
Today, I got my team all set on a strategy to also turn EACH and every episode into an SEO blog for our site with our own amazing AI writer, Content at Scale.
Thatās on top of 5 blogs going out per DAY already to build up our sites getting 5-700,000 monthly uniques organically.
You might as well call my role Content Creator, not President.
Itās going to be a key focus for me.
Because more than ever..
Real, authentic, valuable, GOODā¦
Content. To. The. Masses.
Pays.
Off.
Via Julia McCoy
A bootstrapped $20M ARR founder (who hit that in under 3 years!) shared these thought-provoking points on LinkedIn today about selling. Worth a read, so Iām amplifying.
š He said:
ā99% of salespeople are wrong about what a real $1M+/year seller looks like.
The next generation of 7-figure sellers are YouTubers.
Hereās why:
1) Weāre moving into a sales world where the best āinfluencersā will have incredible power.
AI will increase the amount of content created by a factor of 100x over the next several years.
Fewer voices will break through, but those who do will break through so spectacularly because we will crave authenticity and perspective that great thought leaders bring.
The POV that the leader brings is what makes great content.
AI doesnāt have perspective.
2) Nobody on social understands how powerful video is.
(Except Julia McCoy. š Okay, my words. Not his. š)
The talking head itself is completely hypnotic.
Anybody who says anything even semi-intelligent and can get people watching them talk every day and will have a power over their audience that text simply cannot create.
Itās a weakness that we have as humans.
3) āInfluencer Sellingā is infinitely more capital efficient than sales teams.
Whether it be with founder brand or a non-founder becoming an influencer, you can create and capture WAY more demand with WAY less time and energy than a traditional marketing and sales motion.
Thatās in addition to the insane top-of-funnel awareness you create for you and your company.
4) Building community and brand through video is an incredibly powerful skill.
This is MOST VALUABLE thing any company can be doing over the next decade: community and brand.
These are the only two moats that exist in a world where competitors can ask ChatGPT to copy your entire website and product and spit it out in 5 minutes.
5) Sales teams will have 5% of the headcount, 50x the overall follower count.
Assembling and managing a sales team will be more like putting together a team of elite athletes.
But, unlike sports, there isnāt a fixed amount of players that can be on the field. I think weāre going to see some crazy new playbooks built during the next VC bubble.
TAKEAWAY:
The next generation of $1M W2 sellers won't follow the SDR to AE path.
Theyāll be YouTubers who decide they want to make REAL money.
When this happens, sales teams are going to get smaller.
But much, much more powerful.
Want to be a āsuper-repā paid millions?
Start sharpening your video skills.ā
This came from Adam Robinson, CEO of Retention dot com.
š„š„š„š„
Basically - influencing through video and content creating IS the new selling.
It has way lower cost, way higher ROI, than almost any other tactic.
I started using video to sell 5 years ago. I was mindblown when I saw that I could record a really great video sharing my heart and soul, send that off in a sales page with my product, and earn allll dayyy.
Today, I see this being more valuable than ever. Education builds. Influence sells.
Thatās why 99% of my work in 2024 for the companies Iām building with my partner will include me simply cranking out content like a machine.
We just launched a new podcast - Future Tense: An AI Show. Getting processed to go on iTunes, Spotify, and all the platforms now.
Today, I got my team all set on a strategy to also turn EACH and every episode into an SEO blog for our site with our own amazing AI writer, Content at Scale.
Thatās on top of 5 blogs going out per DAY already to build up our sites getting 5-700,000 monthly uniques organically.
You might as well call my role Content Creator, not President. š
Itās going to be a key focus for me.
Because more than ever..
Real, authentic, valuable, GOODā¦
Content. To. The. Masses.
Pays.
Off.
š
Via Julia McCoy
