[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Desperately need "sales for nerds" advice
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Ask HN: Desperately need "sales for nerds" advice
My background is software development but I spent my COVID year
creating a brand of skincare products for climbers. In terms of
product dev we did great: we have at least one product that could
revolutionize climbing & climbers really like our whole line-up.
Our IG, brand & message is well-received. BUT: I feel like I can't
SELL if my life depended on it. Talking to people, let alone
selling, turns out to be extremely hard for me. I am DESPERATELY
looking for advice on transitioning from development to traditional
sales. I LOVE what we built but my lack of sales acumen is slowly
killing the brand. Any advice from the HN community? The brand is
http://www.chalkrebels.com
Author : c1sc0
Score : 134 points
Date : 2021-05-18 10:04 UTC (12 hours ago)
| Oras wrote:
| I am a software developer and left my job 4 months ago to start a
| startup. I had the same fear as you in the beginning and to add
| to it, English is not my first language!
|
| You will hear this advise again and again, people buy from
| people. Nobody cares how good you're in talking, they will focus
| on why they should buy from you. What is your story? and how
| credible you're. So I agree with @nickfromseattle comment. Go and
| build your personal brand first.
|
| Keep in mind, you're the best person who knows the product as it
| is yours. You can answer any question about it easily.
|
| Just go and start talking to potential customers, it will not be
| easy in the beginning but you'll enjoy the learning process.
| roel_v wrote:
| I don't think what you're looking for is sales, but rather
| marketing. But if I'm wrong and you really are looking for sales,
| I learned a lot at what was basically a "hard selling" course. It
| was 3 days, the audience was basically people selling IT
| projects, but the background of the teacher and the roleplay we
| did was much more mundane - think selling cars, phones, that sort
| of 'sleazy' hard selling. I'm not saying you should actually
| employ those tactics in the end, but I did learn a lot - about
| cold openings, parrying objections, script-based interactions,
| ... You may just learn you're not cut out for it, but it'll help
| you a lot understanding sales guys if you decide to hire any
| later on. Mine was pricey - I didn't pay for it myself but I
| think it was e2500 per person and that was 10-ish years ago. On
| the other hand, how could I have trusted a teacher who couldn't
| sell himself to a purchasing department?
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Do you have a funnel built? Who are you selling to? Do you want
| to be in gyms or do you want to sell to climbers directly? Sales
| is a numbers game. You do X amount of outreach which results in Y
| amount of sales. Or you add marketing which effectively does some
| of the outreach for you. You can be bad at selling something but
| if you have a good funnel and process it wont matter. Let the
| tools sell for you.
| BjoernKW wrote:
| There literally is a podcast with that title:
| https://www.salesfornerds.io/
|
| It covers many useful ideas, best practices, and suggestions from
| industry experts.
|
| The key aspect to remember about sales is that it is not actually
| about selling but about trying to understand and solve a
| potential customer's problem, which is a mindset that's probably
| much more familiar to engineers than how traditional sales is
| commonly perceived ("pushy", "sleazy", "deceptive").
|
| If you're able to understand a potential customer's problem,
| sales should happen almost automatically.
| sharker8 wrote:
| That's assuming you have product market fit. If you understand
| a problem but don't have a product, you are a consultant.
| carapace wrote:
| Selling is a skill and you can learn it. Read these two books:
|
| "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion" by Robert B. Cialdini
|
| "Persuasion Engineering" by Richard Bandler & John La Valle
| rapsey wrote:
| Read the book: The mom test
| adyer07 wrote:
| Looking at your website - I don't climb, but I used to use chalk
| for powerlifting - I desperately want to see photos of HANDS! My
| immediate question was "what is chalk cream", and that makes me
| want to see the product in use. Does it turn your hands white? Is
| it powdery? How could a wet cream do the same thing as dry chalk
| powder? This seems like a really tactile product, so I want
| photos that help me understand it on a tactile level. The
| mountain photos are beautiful but don't sell the product. The
| photos of tubes could be renders for all I know.
|
| You could also try signing up for HARO (Help a Reporter Out) and
| scanning for outdoors or climbing-related pitch opportunities. A
| lot of the posts on there are trash but there's the occasional
| good one.
| flybrand wrote:
| I agree - lifting could be a tangential market that is actually
| bigger.
| c1sc0 wrote:
| Yes. That's on our radar. Gyms are closed at the moment
| because of COVID so that's on the back-burner. We want to
| niche down on climbers first.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Gyms are open in some places now and will be open in _many
| more places_ six and sixteen weeks from now.
|
| It's fine (and smart) to be thoughtful about focusing on a
| niche, but don't do it because gyms are closed.
| JohnicBoom wrote:
| Don't forget that a lot of us have weights or other
| exercise setups at home now. I would definitely try
| something as an alternative to powdered chalk to keep my
| palms from getting slippery on my equipment. Especially now
| that summer is coming and I mostly train outside when I
| can.
|
| Also, at least in Chicago, gyms have been open for months.
| They have reduced maximum capacity (I think it's 60% right
| now), but they were only closed for a short time. You may
| be severely artificially limiting your sales possibilities.
| armonraphiel wrote:
| This is worth consideration. Many lifters who use chalk
| have spent money on building a home gym or attend gyms are
| open despite COVID restrictions.
| gadders wrote:
| Agreed. I use chalk in the gym as well, and I'd like to see a
| picture of it to see how it's different from what people use
| currently.
|
| As an aside, I was caught without chalk the other day and
| bought some liquid chalk from a climbing shop. I quite liked it
| as thicker than usual - more like a moisturiser than a pourable
| liquid.
| c1sc0 wrote:
| Yeah. We worked on making the chalk "thicker" than the cheap
| brands because smell + texture influences quality perception
| the most. For the crystal chalk the different formula allows
| us to get rid of the "alcohol" smell. We even tried adding
| fragrance but that was a failed experiment, may revisit that
| later.
| a13n wrote:
| Agreed! I found myself looking for a video demoing your product
| or showing the difference between typical chalk.
| andor wrote:
| Did you reach out to Patagonia if they are interested in
| featuring your products? They have sold third-party products
| before, like the Guppyfriend microfiber washing bag. I think your
| product vision very much aligns with theirs.
| c1sc0 wrote:
| We did. Negative. Kind of. I'm pretty sure we simply talked to
| the wrong people though? You got an intro?
| nowherebeen wrote:
| You can go to the nearest climbing store and give them some
| samples to sell for free. Tell them if they sell and they want to
| order more, call you back. This is a risk free way for the
| climbing store to earn 100% profit. In return, you get to test
| out the market to see if there is a need for your product.
|
| The only risk is that they have to trust you and you have to
| prove that your products does not have any chemicals that harms
| consumers. Perhaps have your products verified in a lab.
| watwut wrote:
| Are you sure hacker news is the place to get feedback about
| climbing product? Like, yes, some people here do climb too. It is
| fairly common hobby in tech. However, this is not climbing
| community. Even people who climb are likely to be causal in it.
| tape_measure wrote:
| Why does the Chalk Cream have sodium hydroxide in the
| ingredients?
| c1sc0 wrote:
| Good question! Because we produce in the EU we need to list all
| ingredients. The sodium hydroxide is a Ph stabilizer commonly
| used in low doses in cosmetics. It was actually the FIRST thing
| I asked our lab when they gave me the final INCI.
| tape_measure wrote:
| Yes, I suppose having a concentration of hydroxide is good to
| keep the carbonate from reacting and bursting the packaging.
| nickfromseattle wrote:
| Sales is 1:1, marketing is 1:many.
|
| Your products dont generate enough revenue / profit to dp sales,
| the cost of sale is too high. You want to do marketing.
|
| 0. Find all the climbing groups on Facebook and join them (also
| make a list in Sheets / Airtable)
|
| 1. Start adding value to the community. Do NOT talk about your
| product.
|
| 2. Optimize your personal Facebook page to drive people who view
| your page to your website or landing page
|
| 3. Be active, create a brand around _you_ , not your product
|
| 4. Add value --> people click your profile --> they see your
| banner image --> they click through to your website. You might be
| successful linking to the homepage, product page, 'our story'
| page, but you may need to create "thought leadership" on
| climbing. The goal of this thought leadership is to indoctrinate
| your audience into how you think about climbing, build authority,
| and drive people to your email newsletter, Facebook Group and
| product pages.
|
| 5. Send website visitors to your own Facebook Group about
| climbing (also give them a reason to subscribe to your climbing
| newsletter)
|
| 6. Start hosting AMAs in your group with famous rock climbers
| that have their own audiences. Being seen with these folks will
| turn _you_ into an authority.
|
| Because I have 'an audience', I can now reach out to the leaders
| in my field and build relationships with them by offering them a
| platform --> to my audience.
|
| Without this audience, they probably wouldn't reply to my emails
| / DMs.
|
| I've used this strategy to grow my SaaS from $0 to $135k ARR in
| about 4-5 months.
|
| I don't talk about my product _at all_ .
|
| I give value, pre-usage and post-usage,my product is just a tiny
| piece of the puzzle.
|
| If you want an example of how to optimize your Facebook profile,
| see mine: https://facebook.com/nickfromseattle
|
| I'm converting website visitors site wide at 20%+.
|
| My SaaS landing page has a 44% conversion from visitor to free
| trial and we have almost 2,000 users.
|
| My email list is 3.5k and my Facebook Group is 2.1k.
| nikanj wrote:
| I'm an avid climber, and I hate the idea of OP joining all the
| possible FB climbing groups.
|
| The value of the group for a marketeer might be immense, but
| every new marketing dweeb in the group decreases the value of
| the group for the people who actually climb. I don't want to be
| a part of a growth hacking strategy.
| scarecrowbob wrote:
| Yup. I'm on MP and a bunch of FB groups for climbing.
|
| If you're there cause you like the community, fair enough. If
| you're shilling a product, folks will know it. Just don't.
|
| At the end of the day, you'll look like the parent poster for
| this and even if you are well-intentioned in your
| contributions to the community people will suspect that
| you're using them.
| surajs wrote:
| i can relate. this is the reason i ditched fb in 09', you are
| the product.
| TimPC wrote:
| I think he mitigates that by NOT talking about his product.
| Just because he has a product doesn't mean he's a marketing
| dweeb. He probably made such a product as a climber
| scratching his own itch. If he isn't a climber he shouldn't
| do this as his posts won't add quality to the groups he joins
| and people won't pay attention to posters of low-quality
| advice so it won't work for him anyways.
| nickfromseattle wrote:
| Yes, that is correct. Thanks for highlighting step #1:
|
| > 1. Start adding value to the community. Do NOT talk about
| your product.
|
| And you are correct, if he is not a climber and can't add
| value to the community, this strategy won't work.
|
| Communities will ban marketers trying to market to their
| community.
|
| So the answer is, don't market to them - be helpful and add
| value.
|
| If you are helpful and add enough value, your target
| audience will seek you out to learn more about you.
| blueblisters wrote:
| Do folks who go climbing generally hang around on FB groups?
| themanmaran wrote:
| Yup! FB groups are still pretty alive.
|
| For a lot of people, it's easier to stick with fb groups than
| keep up the latest trends.
|
| Easy to add people, chat, schedule events, etc.
| c1sc0 wrote:
| I think the right channel is IG not FB for climbers.
| IanDrake wrote:
| This is sooooo meta. Well done.
| flybrand wrote:
| I agree w others saying focus online retailing.
|
| For local / consumer input - What do your local climbing clubs,
| outdoor stores and indoor climbing gyms say when you approach
| them?
|
| Outdoor Retail has big trade shows - ISPO in Europe.
| c1sc0 wrote:
| Approaching gyms is tough right now: lots of gyms are suffering
| a lot because of COVID, so they're not exactly stocking up on
| goods. Consumer input is good. Climbers who tried it liked it.
| We have some repeat customers but scale is way way way below
| where we need to be.
| woeirua wrote:
| One of the most important parts of being a founder is recognizing
| when you are out of your element, and then finding someone else
| to help you round out that problematic area. For you this might
| be sales/marketing. You definitely should find someone to help
| you here.
|
| On a side note, as a fellow climber, I think you're probably
| going to fail. Chalk is cheap relative to your product and your
| product doesn't offer any clear advantage aside from leaving less
| residue (which lets be honest most climbing areas already have a
| ton of chalk on them). Maybe a small minority of climbers care
| that much to use something that leaves less residue, but those
| people already probably brush the holds on the way down anyways.
| everythingswan wrote:
| As a climber and marketer, this is how I feel. You may need
| some help on sales copy but this is a marketing problem--who is
| this for and through what channels can i reach them?
|
| There are definitely places where chalk is frowned upon. Try
| calling the gyms near those crags and sending them some free
| bottles to give out to their employees and gym climbers.
| Without any real differentiation for a large segment of
| climbers, the best you can do is use this small group of people
| who need to care about chalk residue and the even smaller group
| of people who do care, but don't need to.
|
| I do think you could define the problem more clearly and try
| low-cost test channels like Google Ads & Facebook Ads (show ads
| in the geo's where chalk on rock is frowned upon).
|
| After I read about the feelings about chalk from non-climbers,
| I can certainly understand why people care about it. The issue
| is real. It's just not a problem that most people know enough
| about to care yet. The challenge there is that it's hard and
| expensive to try and sell people on a new problem they don't
| know they have. It's much easier to replace an existing pain
| point they feel right now.
| thehappypm wrote:
| As someone new to climbing I find regular chalk disgusting. I
| HATE the feel of it under my nails. An alternative is welcome.
| c1sc0 wrote:
| That's a new one! Interesting.
| a13n wrote:
| I'm not so sure I'd write off this startup as a failure.
|
| I feel like many people who can afford $80/mo climbing gym
| memberships might look at $5 chalk and $12 environmentally
| friendly chalk with nice packaging/branding and buy the latter.
|
| If OP manages to get listed in half the ~500 climbing gyms in
| the USA, and makes on average 2-3 sales per day in each, they
| could pull in single-digit millions per year in top line. Not
| sure what OP's goals are, but that's plenty successful for
| most.
|
| If you need a VC-caliber story, you can always expand to other
| products (plenty of other climbing gear to sell now that you
| have the gym relationships), other sellers (eg. REI, MEC), or
| go international.
| c1sc0 wrote:
| Our thinking is to focus on the new generation of climbers
| who tend to be more urban, more affluent & yes, more
| environmentally conscious.
| woeirua wrote:
| It's completely antithetical to the environmentally
| conscious mission to build a product that is going to
| produce significantly more waste than chalk balls. Chalk
| residue is a short-term eyesore, but plastic waste lives
| for hundreds of years in landfills.
|
| If you're going to target environmentally conscious
| customers then your packaging has to be eco-friendly too.
| c1sc0 wrote:
| For environmentally friendly packaging (recycled alu
| tubes) to be viable at our small scale we need to produce
| a LOT more. In the meantime we try to improve our
| packaging and offset some of the damage we do by planting
| one tree per product sold, which is roughly a 20-30% hit
| on our margins. Personally I think it's impossible to be
| sustainable. Working towards reaching sustainability IS
| possible. So that's what we do.
| nikanj wrote:
| How about wood / bamboo?
| TimPC wrote:
| I'm not so sure it's a VC-scale business. Maybe if it's
| useful for weightlifting and other vertical markets. That
| being said I wouldn't be quick to write it off as a failure.
| Most of the climbers in the thread are chiming in as excited
| about the product.
|
| It needs better positioning as I think it's more about being
| better for your hands than chalk (and a more pleasant
| experience to use) than it is about the environment.
|
| But OP might be on to something here. Particularly if they
| want a lifestyle business.
| c1sc0 wrote:
| It's most definitely NOT a VC scale business. I'd feel bad
| if it were.
| woeirua wrote:
| I'm sorry, but what's better for the environment here? Not
| seeing chalk on holds, or producing tons of trash in the form
| of plastic bottles with aluminum foil inside of them along
| with the packaging. Chalk balls on the other hand are
| biodegradable, and the chalk within is a naturally occurring
| element. If people stopped climbing these spots the chalk
| would go away in years.
| c1sc0 wrote:
| We're working on getting our products in recycled aluminium
| tubes. Chalk balls have been proven not to work in terms of
| reducing dust in gyms, link to the research is on our blog.
| dumbfoundded wrote:
| I have a similar background going from a software engineer to
| starting an e-commerce brand. My advice is to just get good at
| it. You may never become the best but you can become good. I
| really believe anyone can be good at anything, it'll just take
| you more time and effort than it may take other people. Once
| you're good at it, you can hire the best person with the
| confidence you actually understand what they're doing.
|
| As for getting good at sales & marketing, there are tons of tools
| and advice out there by people who are very good at their jobs.
| From paid ads to influencers to seo to retail distribution, you
| have a lot of options. To me, it sounds like you need more
| emotional advice than practical advice. My advice is to just get
| over it. You're going to feel like you're bad at it. You're going
| to feel out of your element. It's going to be frustrating. That's
| okay. Learning means admitting that you don't know anything or
| else you'd just be executing. You just need to go for it and get
| over feeling uncomfortable with being bad at something. Put in
| the time, use the vast resources online.
| prtkgpt wrote:
| Content!!!
| fredgrott wrote:
| its somewhat simple take the reasons you design it talk about
| climbing.
|
| you are WAY-OVER THINKING IT! we do those things when we have
| such things as an anxiety disorder or ADHD, etc.
|
| From that person who took the name Carnegie to sell a book:
|
| "talk about the subject you know and love"
| louisswiss wrote:
| Sounds like you'd get a lot out of the Sales for Founders
| podcast: https://pod.salesforfounders.com/
|
| I was in a similar situation to you ~10 years ago and had to
| learn sales the hard way.
|
| The podcast is my attempt to make it easier for others to avoid
| all the mistakes I made when learning sales.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| I would have never even begin this project because A.) I wouldn't
| think there are enough climbers in the world to sell to and B.)
| Normal skincare products still work on climbers.
|
| So kudos to you if you make this successful.
| nieksand wrote:
| You might find "Three Steps to Yes" by Gene Bedell helpful.
|
| Much of the content is obvious in isolation, but put together it
| helps orient your outlook.
| xophishox wrote:
| Might sound weird, There are a few small twitch streamers who are
| climbers. Maybe sponsor one of them with a few small products and
| see if it helps marketing. twitch.tv/mathil1 comes to mind.
| bigtasty wrote:
| One bit of unsolicited advice: consider moving your copy to be
| above the fold. At least on my screen (1920 x 1080, 125% font),
| all I see when I first load the page is the nav bar and a picture
| of people rock climbing -- no text or any indication as to what
| the product is. I had to scroll down to learn what the website
| was about, which creates more friction for me as someone curious
| about your website. Also, consider adding some customer success
| stories or other forms of validation to your landing page. I am a
| novice climber, but I'm initially skeptical of using a new chalk,
| so seeing some form of validation would help me get over that
| hump. Maybe copy part of your friend's review [1] to the landing
| page, as he seems to have great things to say about the chalk.
|
| [1] https://chalkrebels.com/blogs/news/crystal-chalk-in-action
| xupybd wrote:
| Many here are suggesting heavy marketing. That's possible if you
| have deep pockets or a lot of skill in that area.
|
| In the space I work marketing doesn't lead to sales very quickly.
| What does is retail relationships. That is getting stores to sell
| our product. This can be done because our product is good quality
| for the price and we have an ordering channel that makes life
| easy for big retail.
|
| The only way to get these relationships is to do sales. To be out
| there talking to the right people in retail chains. Start small
| with local retailers, build a name for your brand. But sell sell
| sell. You have to be out there calling and meeting store owners,
| or hire people to do so.
| raintrees wrote:
| The point of products and services is to help others and along
| the way, establish mutually beneficial transactions. So think of
| the representative person you are helping (maybe one model for
| each major type of person) then consider how you can best help
| them with your product.
|
| If your product really helps, you can consider approaching it
| from a mindset of "it would be a disservice to that person NOT
| helping them with your product" - That tends to help with the
| motivation (obligation, almost?) to carry out the sales
| initiatives...
|
| FWIW
| c1sc0 wrote:
| Thanks for the mindset insight. I'm definitely the kind of "all
| marketing is evil & just wants you to convince to buy shit you
| don't need" nerd. It's very hard for me not to smirk when
| thinking through justification like "helping people discover
| products that will improve their life". I guess I need an
| attitude adjustment?
| bwb wrote:
| Have you thought about partnering with 3 to 4 amazing climbers
| who are world famous and get them to vouch for it? Maybe
| equity...
|
| Or, start local, give it to the local climbing gyms people to try
| etc. That might be a more up/down approach.
| a13n wrote:
| At your price point ($10-50 per sale, $10-500 lifetime value), it
| simply is not worthwhile to have anyone doing 1:1 sales. You
| should be acquiring customers via marketing.
|
| There's a pretty famous book called Traction that introduces
| founders to marketing. It goes over 19 marketing channels, and
| after reading, you should have a good hunch about which 3-5
| channels might work well for you.
|
| Off the top of my head:
|
| - Partner with climbing gyms. They all have a store that sells
| chalk and shoes and whatnot. Either sell them 50x of your product
| (this does require actual sales) or see if they have a model
| where they get a cut for every sale made.
|
| - Influencer marketing. Reach out to people like Alex Honnold and
| ask if they'd be willing to try your product out for free and
| give you feedback. If they like it, ask if they'd be willing to
| help out by talking about it on social. Could eventually explore
| some kind of affiliate model where they get a 20-30% cut per sale
| they drive your way.
|
| - Paid search ads. If anyone on the internet is searching for
| "climbing chalk" then they should end up on your site via paid
| ads.
|
| - Retargeting ads. If anyone visits your website or puts
| something in their cart and doesn't buy, make sure you use Google
| Display and/or FB/Twitter retargeting ads. These will be the most
| profitable ads you ever pay for.
|
| - SEO. This one is pretty hard because your site is relatively
| small/new, but if you write articles talking about why your chalk
| is better for the environment, you might get some traffic this
| way.
|
| Some of this work does involve "sales", in that you're selling to
| gyms or recreational stores or influencers 1:1. BUT, just try to
| think about it from their perspective. You aren't "selling them
| on your product", you're "helping them make more money by
| promoting a cool environmentally friendly chalk brand".
| bserge wrote:
| Add to that affiliate networks. CJ Affiliate, Rakuten,
| Shareasale and many smaller ones still exist and still have an
| army of people waiting to sell your product for a commission.
|
| Depending on how much you need to pay the network, you might
| want to negotiate or raise prices, but it could be worth it.
|
| I used to do affiliate marketing (a long time ago tbf) and sin
| care products were always top performers.
| x0x0 wrote:
| Partner with regular gyms too. Lots of places don't let people
| use chalk because there's always some asshole who's a clapper.
|
| Liquid chalk products seem to slide under the no chalk rules.
| jwhitlark wrote:
| Can you please give an author's name for your reference on the
| book Traction? There seems to be several possibilities.
| rozenmd wrote:
| They're referring to: Gabriel Weinberg - Traction: How Any
| Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth
| x0x0 wrote:
| I suspect Weinberg (duck duck go founder).
|
| Not sure how similar selling a physical product is to a
| consumer saas business, but it's always worth reading widely.
| ryanmarsh wrote:
| This, although to clarify you're still going to have to sell
| into some of your marketing channels (such as when partnering
| with a climbing gym as suggested above).
|
| I'm a programmer turned business man and I have autism spectrum
| disorder so learning to sell was difficult, but doable. Now I'm
| a natural. I had this conversation with another founder last
| week. She'd sold nothing so far.
|
| Here's the crux. Selling is a deeply personal experience.
| You're getting someone else to open their wallet and give you
| their money. Even if that's not exactly what the transaction is
| it's how it feels. Trust makes a massive difference here. Some
| people engender trust because of their natural trustworthy
| disposition. The rest of us are not naturally so likable and do
| not have a likely future as a con artist. Take time to
| understand your customers. If you don't know how to sell a
| relationship with a channel partner then you need to not be
| talking you need to be asking questions, getting to know them.
| How does their business operate, what do they need and want,
| then its your job to find synergy.
|
| Selling is most effective when you're finding someone a
| solution to their problem, not when you're persuading them to
| change their behavior for your benefit (that's the slimy shit
| we all hate).
|
| Let's take the climbing gym example. Let's imagine they have a
| problem with churn, or competition from other climbing gyms.
| You have a product climbers will like. Can the climbing gym
| give your product as a gift to members who sign up for a plan?
| See how you are both aligned there? It's just one example and
| perhaps not the right one but you get the idea.
|
| Also, if you want to play the social game I find lots of
| products that drive most of their revenue from social content
| marketing (Insta, TikTok, etc...). If you want to play that
| game it can work. I don't know that area well so I can't give
| you tips. I just see lots of slick content from small brands
| and occasionally I buy a product from them.
|
| Selling is completely transformed when you *know* your product
| is good for them they just don't know it yet. As opposed to
| that awful feeling of begging for approval.
|
| Lastly, ALWAYS ASK FOR THE SALE. You want to ask, and get the
| rejection or the sale. The rejection will teach you how to
| improve your offering, the sale will of course give you money.
| def_true_false wrote:
| Interesting product.
|
| I can't help but wonder about the aluminium packaging bit --
| another company I buy (an unrelated product) from has recently
| switched to using it, and I wouldn't say it was an improvement.
| Is it even better for the environment? From what I understand
| it's extremely energy intensive to smelt aluminium, and even if
| done in places with lots of renewable energy (Iceland), it still
| has to be transported afterwards (and it's probably going to take
| up more shipping volume).
|
| The only other thing I can think of is that Apple's marketing may
| have made people think aluminium is 'better', but I don't know
| whether or how much this carries over to stuff like packaging.
|
| For a similar theme, one might want to look into the recent
| efforts in some European countries to introduce a deposit for
| plastic bottles -- even though both the economic and the
| environmental emission calculations show that it doesn't make
| sense (last mile transportation of empty bottles is a disaster
| from environmental perspective, not to mention their nonexistent
| reusability).
| c1sc0 wrote:
| The alu bit is definitely up for debate. Packaging from
| recycled alu is better for sure for the environment. That being
| said, it's a goal we work towards. Short of doing a
| crowdfunding to finance the startup cost switching to alu is
| hard for our current order sizes.
| shard wrote:
| Aluminum could be better than plastics in the sense of less
| phyto-estrogens and endocrine disruptors being introduced into
| the environment and the users' bodies. I wouldn't be surpluses
| if a case can be made for most packaging materials used
| nowadays being environmentally friendly in some way.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| You don't need to "sell" like a salesman hitting targets for
| this. You simply need to ask some climbing gyms and stores to
| stock the product for a while to test sales. Talk to someone who
| has done this before for advice on how to attract people to your
| display in the store or gym).
|
| Once you have good data you can go to more stores or the HQ of
| those stores.
| wittyreference wrote:
| As an aside, for future potential markets: powerlifters have the
| same sort of needs/problems around chalking for grip.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| If you can distill what you need to a set of questions,
| /r/smallbusiness can be of great help in terms of offering
| focused and actionable suggestions (if you get them on a good day
| :-). Possibly also some of the other subreddits in their sidebar
| like /r/marketing.
| OliverJones wrote:
| Read Geoffrey Moore's classic "Crossing the chasm." (The title is
| no metaphor for your prospective customers.) It will give you a
| framework for thinking about introducing a new product -- early
| adopters, and all that stuff.
|
| Ask yourself: What's my "beachhead?" Where can my product find a
| loyal early following?
|
| Maybe instructors? Maybe climbing gyms? Maybe among people with
| the "leave it cleaner than you found it" outdoor ethic? If you
| can find some strong spokespeople in your target beachhead who
| loves your product, that helps a lot.
| nautilus12 wrote:
| I can relate to this idea. I've never actually used chalk. My
| hands are the right level of tackiness with a little bit of
| sweating that chalk takes it to the point of slippery. All my
| clibming friends are like "You dont use chalk??"
| c1sc0 wrote:
| That's a whole debate in itself. We did a LOT of research
| around this & the answer to the question "Do I need chalk?" is:
| "It depends". The two major factors impacting friction are: Do
| I sweat a lot? Do I have greasy skin? Then the four categories
| of climbers are:
|
| 1) high sweat, oily skin (use liquid chalk as a base layer &
| top up with chalk powder) 2) high sweat, dry skin (magnesium
| carbonate / silica will help you) 3) low sweat, oily skin (the
| alcohol in liquid chalk will help you) 4) low sweat, dry skin
| (you lucky SOB!)
|
| My impression is that most climbers can switch to liquid chalk
| except for category 1.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| You have a good product.
|
| I have a weird feeling your target market will be females.
|
| So many women are into climbing.
|
| I don't have much advice except offer a percentage of sales to an
| enthusiastic hire.
|
| I have a sister who owns a shoe company. She started with not
| much, but good taste, and is a very good salesperson. She is now
| a multi millionaire. Don't skimp on packaging. (You didn't). You
| are also selling your brand along with the product.
|
| My sister started selling Doc Martins before they were a fashion
| trend. She knew American women would buy them up. Within a year
| of her working for the old stoggy company, she was selling more
| shoes than all salespersons combined. Her success was she is a
| salesperson whom believed in the product. She ended up making so
| much on commissions, the middle managers were scared. When Doc
| Martin lowered her commission, she started her own company. Find
| a salesperson like my sister.
| robjan wrote:
| One thing I learned from an executive at IKEA (not sure if it was
| a lecture or conference) is that "eco friendly" (use less, reduce
| waste, reduce impact) is not marketable. You want to demonstrate
| that your product is good in its own right and that it just
| happens to be environmentally friendly. Otherwise the risk is
| that you are chasing the intersection of two niches.
| VadimPR wrote:
| When was this? Sustainability is all the hype in 2021. Big
| brands are now rushing to be sustainable or they're seen as
| falling behind.
| robjan wrote:
| A lot of the sustainability hype this year is about how
| continuing doing what you are already doing is now less
| impactful to the environment. i.e "continue to drink Coca-
| Cola since we now use 50% recycled plastic bottle" vs. "drink
| our new Cola brand which only uses organic ingredients". The
| former appeals to the existing mass market whereas the latter
| appeals to the niche "willing to pay a bit more to feel like
| I am protecting the environment" sector.
| shard wrote:
| > A lot of the sustainability hype this year is about how
| continuing doing what you are already doing is now less
| impactful to the environment
|
| I completely agree. A blatant example is the smartphone
| market. Sure, not including chargers and headphones will
| reduce waste, and going 100% sustainable energy is good,
| but if they were serious about sustainability, they would
| make their products have more longevity, be more user-
| repairable, and stop marketing them like fashion
| items/Veblen goods so people don't feel the need to upgrade
| every year.
| c1sc0 wrote:
| We're in the "please use less of our product because it is
| better" sector. Long-term our goal is actually to REDUCE
| the use of magnesium carbonate powder in the climbing
| community.
| c1sc0 wrote:
| Respectfully disagree. We have a small but growing fanbase of
| extremely happy users BECAUSE of our "green" products.
| Particularly being part of 1%FTP & planting one tree per
| product sold creates massive loyalty.
| omginternets wrote:
| I'm a founder/engineer and never found sales to be easy, which is
| the full extent of my qualifications.
|
| After many years of struggling, I finally came to the realization
| that sales is simply not a systematic, "system-building" activity
| in the same way as engineering, and that sales gurus try to make
| their jobs look more like ours because ... well... they're good
| at selling! They've figured out that we associate a certain
| vocabulary (e.g. "process", "data" ...) with rigor and
| reliability.
|
| Once you stop seeing sales as a system whose laws you study and
| turn to your advantage, you come to the underwhelming realization
| that sales is field work. It's operational. There is no big
| trick, only small ones.
|
| With that in mind:
|
| - have you tried going to climbing gyms and showing people your
| product?
|
| - are there big events or conferences for climbers? (Yes, I know
| COVID is a factor, here.)
|
| - have you tried calling a bunch of rock climbing gyms and asking
| what it would take to sell your product at the front desk?
|
| The short story is that sales is costly in time, and you kind of
| have to live with that until you build a distribution network.
| Pick up the phone, or better yet, go in person. The good news is
| that you don't have to be selling _per se_. Just go places and
| ask for help.
|
| P.S. - a few additional thoughts come to mind.
|
| 1. I think social media can actually work for niche consumer
| products like this. Go to your gym, have people try your product,
| and ask them how they like it. Video tape it and stick it on
| YouTube. Take pictures of people doing cool stuff, slap your logo
| on it and put it on Instagram. This is how you start branding.
| Baby steps.
|
| 2. Give out samples at a competition and include "technical"
| documentation about how and when to use your product. This will
| pique everyone's curiosity. Everybody wants to be knowledgeable
| about their equipment and nobody wants to look clueless. People
| will read it and remember the brand if only to justify why they
| use something else. How do you think I know about Rust?
|
| Again: it's operational work. You spend a lot of time doing. It's
| not like programming where you solve problems once and they're
| gone forever. No sales library, I'm afraid :)
| andor wrote:
| If you can talk about the benefits of your chalk authentically
| (as a climber), what's the problem? Why do you think you're not
| good at it?
| sjg007 wrote:
| You've got a niche product so maybe find an influencer? One of
| the top rock climbing folks? I would also send a bunch of free
| trial stuff to the local rock climbing gyms maybe with an ad
| campaign.
|
| Searching Amazon also seems to show that gymnastics and weigh
| lifting are a market as well.
|
| You really want a strong brand. Shark tank might be an option
| too.
| vanilla-almond wrote:
| " _...find an influencer?_ "
|
| I was thinking along a similar line. There are popular rock
| climbing channels on YouTube. Some of these channels already
| include promotional or sponsored content. One option is to pay
| to include your product in a video (" _sponsored by Chalk
| Rebels, get 20% off your first order with this exclusive
| discount code_ ").
|
| Or send them your products and ask if they would be willing to
| try and review your product, no strings attached. There may be
| a risk they may not like your product (hopefully not). Also,
| best to keep in mind that some proportion of subscribers to a
| climbing channel will not necessarily be climbers.
|
| _Most Subscribed Rock Climbing YouTube Channels (2017~2020):_
|
| The list of channels is in the description below the video:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZiPIulY6v8
| c1sc0 wrote:
| I uploaded a short video to show the difference between "Crystal
| Chalk" and "Chalk Cream" a.k.a. traditional white "Liquid Chalk".
|
| https://chalkrebels.com/blogs/news/hello-hn
| rmah wrote:
| Sales of such health and wellness products such as skincare
| creams/ointments/whatnot is mostly about marketing and
| distribution channels than traditional "sales" (i.e. talking to
| people). You will, of course, need to talk to people to craft
| distribution deals, but that's more about convincing
| merchandizing folks that consumers will purchase your product.
|
| That said, given the product, I'd suggest a two prong approach
| that combines push and pull.
|
| The pull means working on creating demand. This will probably
| seem more familiar to you. Try to engage with the target audience
| (climbers, outdoorsy people, etc) in forums they frequent. Online
| social media, etc. If you can afford it, try to get testimonials,
| product placements, endorsements, etc. by people who are known to
| the community. Even give-away freebee samples at events. There's
| lots of tactics around this. I would suggest reading "Guerilla
| Marketing" by Jay Contrad or similar books for inspiration.
|
| The push is about sales distribution channels. It's great that
| you've already set up a web store. Perhaps try to get listed
| Amazon and other online marketplaces (tmall, etsy, etc.) But more
| importantly try to get retailers, both online and offline, that
| cater specifically to your target market to carry your product.
|
| What I'm describing is a fairly traditional approach for
| lifestyle-oriented goods of this sort. It'll be a tough slog as
| there is always a lot of competition, but hundreds of companies
| succeed at this every year. Best of luck!
| cassianoleal wrote:
| Fellow climber here.
|
| First, congrats on launching your products, and also congrats on
| chasing innovation in this area.
|
| After reading through parts of your website and product
| descriptions, I have a few comments and questions.
|
| "use less chalk" <- this is good. It certainly gets my attention.
| One of my reasons to pay the premium of Friction Labs chalk is
| exactly that, and the extra friction I get from it compared with
| other chalks.
|
| As for your revolutionary crystal chalk, I am less convinced.
|
| First, it looks like it replaces magnesium with silica. I'm
| inferring this from comparing the ingredients lists on your 2
| chalk creams. Not ideal.
|
| Second, you say it doesn't leave residue on the holds. How is
| that so? Is there zero dust/powder?
|
| Third, have you performed tests to know the real impact your
| product will have on skin, lungs (we breath it, after all), and
| holds, especially on the many different kinds of rocks, but also
| on plastic indoor holds? Will it react with the rock or plastic,
| perhaps altering its qualities, or eroding it? Perhaps it will
| make it more polished, which could render entire routes
| unclimbable - remember pof? How does it compare with normal
| chalk?
|
| Fourth, does your regular white chalk cream also hold the
| promises of using less, preserving holds, better friction, etc?
|
| Finally, is the clear cream really chalk [0]? If not (it doesn't
| seem to have any actual chalk in the formulation), then I feel
| lied to and that erodes my confidence in your company and
| product.
|
| Please don't take any of this as blunt criticism. I hope it gives
| you insight into how to communicate better and wish you success!
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chalk
| c1sc0 wrote:
| Thanks for the criticism! We approached using silica from a
| different angle: we took a product sold over-the-counter in
| pharmacies & adapted it to climbing. This means we're all good
| in terms of human product safety. The trick essentially is to
| use an aggregate of silica that has been tested before.
|
| We think the trick to using less chalk is 1) switching to
| liquid chalk 2) using less chalk powder ... generally speaking
| liquid chalk uses far less chalk and last longer. Our crystal
| chalk is an improvement on traditional liquid chalk for those
| who want to use even less.
|
| UPDATE: check the video I posted on our blog to see the diff
| between crystal and white chalk. Link in comment replying to
| OP.
| Gustomaximus wrote:
| 1) First, do you need sales or marketing. Often people mix these
| 2 things so best to check in on that. Marketing is looking after
| the brand and the more broad areas of selling a product like
| pricing, websites, ads, sponsorship, social. Sales is more
| promotional events and going to trade shows to get product into
| shops. Hope this isn't pedantic (and you may well know this
| already) but if asking for advice from industry people sales vs
| marketing advice request will get potentially different
| approaches and answers.
|
| 2) I think you need to work on your messaging and tightening.
| There seem to be 4 messages being presented when I look at the
| site: less chalk, good grip, repair skin, environmentally
| friendly. It seems quite spread out and you could tighten the
| focus to 2: less chalk and good grip, the others are addon ons
| after the fact. But what it really seems to miss for me is what
| we call 'RTB' (reason to believe).
|
| A solid messaging format for selling is:
|
| - Make a claim - Give reason(s) to believe that claim - CTA (Call
| to action) - e.g. buy it here.
|
| I feel you're missing the the RTB. The claim is there but why
| should I use less chalk? Maybe a climber knows this but do they
| really care? Maybe this is my ignorance of a common issue but
| this information seems missing. And 'good friction' what does
| this mean? I want better friction and tell me why it is. What
| makes this skin repair better than any other cream?
|
| I would look to add RTB + add it in nice easy to digest text
| snippets + videos for the people that want more. Find some test
| like showing 2 wooden blocks stay together better as too tilt
| them with cream vs chalk type thing... sure you can do better.
|
| Also Id drop the environmental stuff to the lower/footer. Its
| important but fundamentally its a checkbox for most people and
| they want to focus more on the immediate benefit to them, and you
| want to concentrate, not dilute that key message.
|
| And I suspect better grip is going to be the strongest message if
| true and you had to boil it down to one.
|
| 3) I saw 3 distributors listed - I would work on that as a key
| focus. Years of marketing has taught me Id prefer great
| distribution with and average product than average distribution
| of a great product. This goes against common sense, especially
| for technical people but its a reality of product.
|
| 4) One of the first things I did was look at Fb for reviews and
| comments but didn't see anything. Definitely need to get
| community engagement for feedback on the product, to build trust
| and organic traffic
|
| 5) Are you A/B testing? That's the best way to learn if you have
| traffic to play with on much of above.
|
| Anyway, looks like you have solid foundations in place, good luck
| getting it to take off!
| ahofmann wrote:
| A lot of good things have been said in this thread. I don't
| climb, but I think that your selling point "use less chalk" is
| not particularly convincing. Maybe "your hands will thank you"
| would be more appealing. People talk about making the world a
| better place, but in the end they are mainly interested in
| themselves. If chalk cream is even a little better for the skin
| than regular chalk, I would communicate that very clearly. I
| would try an adwords/facebook campaign and landing page with this
| topic and see how the reactions and sales are.
| JSeymourATL wrote:
| > Talking to people, let alone selling, turns out to be extremely
| hard for me.
|
| Recognizing weaknesses is a terrific leadership trait.
|
| So, this is a WHO problem.
|
| Essentially, Who can take on the public facing role of
| evangelizing, marketing, and selling your product?
|
| At this stage, assuming you're bootstrapping --- Look for
| individuals you can trust, (people you might afford) with non-
| traditional backgrounds.
| cwilkes wrote:
| +1 to this.
|
| The poster can think of it this way: what if you there was a
| marketing person that was really good at it and then decided to
| start coding to make a product. Sure that might work for a
| prototype, but for anything more than some simple wireframes
| you would tell them to find a real programmer.
|
| Now imagine the reverse where you are the coder that just needs
| to learn (overnight!) how to sell. Just as the original
| marketer devalues programming you are doing the same with
| selling.
| hluska wrote:
| Hey friend, two things.
|
| First, this is a really exceptional product. I'm excited enough
| to try it that my local outdoors shop opens at 9:30 - I'll be
| there bitching and moaning at 9:31. :)
|
| Second, if you've got a stranger so damned excited about this
| that he's going to make a spectacle of himself just to try it,
| you've got something really really special.
|
| All that said, I need you to stop what you're doing and give
| yourself a big pat on the back. Sales is damned tough even if you
| feel comfortable doing it. Everyone struggles especially with new
| products. Frankly, if you're caring and loving enough to come up
| with something so great, you've got this.
|
| Sorry I don't have any specific advice. Maybe I'll have more
| after I complain my way to a local supplier. :)
| aristofun wrote:
| If you can't sell, find/hire someone who can.
|
| You can't possibly reach level of someone who spent all life in
| sales in short period, why bother?
|
| Do everything yourself is not scalable
| hluska wrote:
| This is really dangerous advice. Mind if I give you a
| counterpoint?? We can accomplish anything and everything we
| choose. It's painful most of the time, but we can. If OP wants
| to sell, they'll be amazing at it. Good heavens, buyers are
| just as human as sellers.
|
| Edit - Sorry, I forgot to add that the dangerous part of giving
| up is that it's just as hard for non-sales people to hire sales
| leaders as it is for non-technical people to hire technical
| leaders. OP has to have enough confidence to keep learning,
| even if it's just enough learning to make a great hire.
| aristofun wrote:
| It's not about giving up its just common sense, people.
|
| Imagine Steve Jobs writing code or Wozniak doing sales, as an
| extreme example of my obvious point.
| hluska wrote:
| Your point is neither obvious nor valid - Steve Jobs and
| Steve Wozniak started the company together. This individual
| seems to be a sole founder. You have completely missed the
| point of all of this....
| TimPC wrote:
| This is very dangerous advice. In particular at the price point
| the OP is selling they need marketing not sales and need to
| know the difference before hiring. They need to do at least
| enough of this themselves to be able to hire well when and if
| they decide that's the right course of action.
| mkaufman wrote:
| Got to agree with @arsitofun. Time is your most valuable asset
| - if you're not energized by "selling" or "learning how to
| sell", then hire someone who is.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| Can you show the difference with a competitor live?
|
| Then have both options near you and demonstrate the difference.
| If it's good, watch feedback from people and iterate on your
| sales talk.
|
| Talking about it is step 1.
| dyeje wrote:
| As a former climber, I think you need a different tag line. "Use
| LESS Chalk" comes across as patronizing to my eyes. I feel like
| many climbers take pride in how they use an excessive amount of
| chalk.
| Etheryte wrote:
| Interestingly enough, I had the exact opposite reaction: this
| is a great pitch. I land on the page, read three words and
| instantly know what the product is about and who it's for.
| alnajima wrote:
| Also sounds pretty similar to Useless chalk
| andor wrote:
| I agree. The focus should be on something that makes sense on
| its own, like "preserve the climbing environment".
| awillen wrote:
| Suggestion from someone who hates selling, comes from software
| (though PM, not dev) and who left tech to start a dog treat
| company.
|
| Try DTC via Facebook ads. To me, one of the nice things about
| selling a consumer product compared to my previous career
| (primarily enterprise software) is you don't have to go
| personally sell stuff. I have one Facebook ad that's working
| really well, and I'm doing 20k/month in sales on that alone (and
| that number is artificially low due to production constraints...
| I'm about to sign a production agreement with a manufacturer, at
| which point I'm gonna see how far I can push the FB ads
| profitably).
|
| You've got what appears to be a fairly high-end product that
| lends itself to great visuals. I'd seriously get some good video
| (honestly half of it could just be stock video of climbers with
| your product spliced in... you can get those done for a
| reasonable amount on Upwork and the like) and just test a lot of
| FB ads.
|
| Happy to chat about this if you'd like. In general, though, one
| of the nice things about starting a business is you can orient it
| to your strengths, especially in the beginning. If you hate
| selling to people, going DTC with ads rather than walking into
| gyms to try to get it on shelves is gonna be way more pleasant.
|
| Happy to chat if you'd like, and congrats on creating something
| new during COVID.
| craftinator wrote:
| My two cents here, as someone who deplores modern sales tactics.
| Free samples.
|
| Go to climbing gyms, ask if they would be interested in trying
| out your product, and if they like it, can they hand some out to
| their climbers to get product feedback. They'll likely agree to
| do it; almost every gym I've been to loves giving out freebies to
| their members.
|
| This is probably a great time to do this. It's not summer
| climbing season yet, still rainy in a lot of places, and gyms
| over here on the west coast are opening up. People want to get in
| shape for the summer climbs.
|
| If your product is good, when the summer climbing season hits,
| these climbers will go all over the place and chat with other
| climbers about your product. It's a really good chance to build
| up both credibility and interest! I wouldn't worry so much about
| online marketing, if they like your product, they'll paste it all
| over climbing groups for you.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| You really need to emphasize how this makes your hands crack
| less, etc. Your site needs to be rewritten to put info like that
| front and center.
|
| "Good for the environment" etc should be framed as _an added
| bonus_.
|
| When I see someone selling a product like this and their most
| aggressive value position is "good for the environment," that
| reads to me like you are trying to guilt me into buying something
| I wouldn't otherwise buy. When I then see you very prominently
| also announcing "one tree planted for every widget sold!" I
| conclude "This is a fool who knows nothing about business and
| should just be running a charity but for some damn reason can't
| commit to that or something?"
|
| It smacks of "I want to do good works, but I'm a pathetic loser
| who desperately needs money, so I'm going to try to make this a
| business, only not because I'm all confused."
|
| (That "Look, look, we do good works!" positioning works for big
| companies who are raking in the dough and trying to convince
| people "We aren't an evil corporation. We are decent people doing
| good things while making a buck. Honest!")
|
| Planting trees should be maybe a page linked in the footer. It
| should not be prominently and loudly promoted.
|
| Because people will see that and conclude the product is
| overpriced so you can afford your hobby of planting trees.
|
| You could also have a whole separate page on chalk lung, a whole
| separate page -- with pics -- about chalk defacing the climbing
| environment. Etc.
|
| Your value position needs to be something like "Protect your
| hands! Bonus: Protects the environment too!"
|
| Sales and marketing are about communication. It's about getting
| info from your mind to my mind without benefit of a Vulcan mind
| meld.
|
| You need to get random strangers to see what you see, feel what
| you feel, understand what you understand, envision what you
| experience.
|
| You want to walk them through how glorious it is to climb more
| efficiently because they chalk up less often, to climb more
| comfortably because their hands aren't cracked and bleeding, to
| enjoy their sport more because they aren't going to work with
| injured hands still healing for several days after a climb, to
| take pleasure in the view of the landscape unmarred by chalk
| residue, to know they are really getting healthier and stronger
| from their sport and not being left with hidden health issues
| like chalk lung because of it.
|
| I would rename it. Maybe call it "liquid chalk" or something like
| that.
|
| Edit:
|
| Rather than "rebelling" against current practices, you need to
| position it as "the future of climbing." Rebelling gives the
| power to existing practices. "The future of climbing" says "Hey,
| this is a done deal. You can brag about being an early adopter or
| be some loser who joins late, but resistance is futile."
| wonder_er wrote:
| Ahoy! I'm a climber! And I love to talk about "sales for nerds",
| so this HN thread is delightful to me.
|
| Would you mind if I free-associated through your page, from the
| perspective of a climber, while speaking a bit to the sales side
| of things? (I've done B2B Enterprise sales in a past life, and
| for the consulting stuff I'm working on, I'm now doing
| more/different sales.)
|
| Phew. Here we go:
|
| 1. Your primary value prop is "Use Less Chalk"
|
| As a climber, I don't care about using LESS chalk (it's extremely
| cheap, afterall) I care about _sending_. So maybe instead of "Use
| less chalk" it's "Do more moves before you have to chalk up".
|
| I.E. "You know that long crux sequence on your project? You have
| to slap like 8 compression moves in a row? With regular chalk,
| you're desperately wishing you could chalk up before doing the
| last move, but with ChalkRebel chalk, _you don't_ and you can
| fire the move without chalking"
|
| (Er, I was at the Red River Gorge, Kentucky for the last month,
| and almost sent a climb the 5th go, but it was slopey crimps with
| difficult rests, and humid, and as after I fell on my last
| attempt, I saw damp fingerprints on the last hold. Terrible.)
|
| So - you're not "selling chalk", you're trying to help people
| accomplish their goals!
|
| Climbers spend so much money on shoes, a lighter rope, travel to
| the climbing area, etc.
|
| We spend weeks/months/years hanging off tiny little edges,
| hanging weight off our bodies, to try to squeeze another few
| percentage points of strength into our muscles.
|
| I dedicate an incredible amount of time and effort to climbing.
| HELP ME BE SUCCESSFUL! Sell me your chalk!
|
| Start getting testimonials. ASK FOR TESTIMONIALS!
|
| I'm doing this work for some other (software related) products
| I'm building, and the selling goes SURPRISINGLY WELL when I force
| myself to... sell.
|
| I have very limited time right now, but I'd love to talk more
| about all this! I'd love to hop on a call to talk through it!
| There are some super successful sales folks leaving comments, I'm
| not "super successful" (yet) but I'm in a similar spot as you,
| I've just happened to done a bunch of sales in the past. So... we
| should deff talk. We'll both enjoy it! Send me an email, or visit
| my website (HN profile) or set up a coffee call:
| https://josh.works/coffee
|
| Good luck! I'll buy some of your chalk soon!
| mikewarot wrote:
| Amen
|
| The marketing looks solid, but with the wrong message... change
| that message and your sales should soar.
| bbasketball wrote:
| So maybe it's not "Use less chalk" but "Use chalk less"?
| patentatt wrote:
| This right here. I've never worried about the quantity of chalk
| I'm using, like wonder_er says it's super cheap and plentiful.
| BUT I do hate having sweaty slippy fingers, that's what
| climbers care about.
|
| Also, you may want to offer US pricing and shipping if
| possible. It's a small thing, but as an American the prices in
| Euros slightly throw me off and present an impediment to
| purchasing. It's not logical per se, but it helps to see
| pricing in the local currency if you want to sell to me.
| psalminen wrote:
| After quickly trying to checkout, it looks like they only
| offer shipping to the EU.
| c1sc0 wrote:
| Yes. EU only for now.
| gazelle21 wrote:
| Wow I know nothing about sales or climbing but this is great
| work! I signed up for your newsletter
| jl2718 wrote:
| I would like to see a promo video that is nothing but climbers
| doing weird climber things using completely unintelligible
| climber lingo, and then just a blank screen with the url.
|
| (not expert, should probably ignore)
| twobitshifter wrote:
| You could try hiring a consultant or specialist, or bringing
| another person onboard with these skills. What are your growth
| plans for the company and how many employees do you have
| now/want?
|
| You'll want to be on the shelfs or on sites where climbers shop.
| I tried searching on Amazon and your product is not there. If you
| are not great in marketing Amazon is a much easier way to get in
| front of eyes. The alternative will be a lot of spending on
| online ads targeting climbers.
| dangerface wrote:
| You can higher a sales guy on commission give them 20%.
|
| If you want to learn to sell get a job in a car show room. If you
| can get one with the sleaziest car salesman you can find, people
| don't like dealing with them because they are a caricature of a
| person but thats what you need to do, sales is a performance.
| tedmcory77 wrote:
| I've done millions in ecommerce sales for products I've created.
| My wife is an avid rock climber who hangs out with other rock
| climbers.
|
| I started out putting computers together from parts in the 90's
| and sales wasn't an easy thing for me to do, would love to help.
|
| Take 77 off my username and add gmail and you can reach me there.
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