I’ve been a fan of Really Good Emails since i first saw their cheery logo somewhere and went “OHMAHWERD HOW CUTEEEEEE” immediately subscribes

Their site, their vibe, their loooong list of emails has inspired me for every year since. (According to the lovely ticker i’ve been a fan since 2019-09-24)

And along with a truly darling and delightful email cadence, whimsical copy, and frequent weird unofficial polls (scroll to the very bottom for an example),

their annual UnSpam conference landing page has lived rent free in my mind for the last six years because it has, wait for it…

Boss Mode.

I saw this when they first launched and choked on my quickly cooling latte.

Boss mode???

uh huh.

Toggle it on their Unspam landing page and it will take you from this → to this.

There’s even a whole list of common boss-like objections and how to handle them.

IT EVEN HAS A TEMPLATED EMAIL AT THE BOTTOM TO SEND TO YOUR BOSS.

Sorry i’m yelling, it’s just SO FRICKING BRILLIANT.

And i’ve kept it in the back of my mind as i did messaging for SaaS co’s ever since.
Like. For 207+ of them.

Because once you go upmarket from where-your-end-user-is-also-your-buyer (B2C, prosumer) to the range of SMB’s and Enterprise, messaging gets…dicey.

As in, you really have to cut it up into chunks.

Because the person who needs the product, the person who can get it approved, the person who is actually gonna get it paid for, and the person paying for it…

Are 4. Different. People.

And those last 2 are more than likely they are NEVER gonna use your tool. Like, ever. (Sorry. 💍 IYKYK)

And the first one (the end user).
They have no power hereeeee.

Which means you need 3 different sets of messaging.
(4 if you’re being generous to that end user)

So you say the right thing to the right person at the right time (deep breath)
To get them to send it up the chain
to the next right person at the right time.

Are you tired yet?

(i’m getting another latte)

But if you don’t look at your messaging and build marketing materials with this in mind you will almost never close higher-ticket, multi-step deals.

You just wont.

So, in today’s issue, i’m going to walk you through a painless (i promise!) way to build Boss Mode into your marketing in a week.

So you can close bigger deals and see a Stripe notification for $500 (or $5K!) a month.
Instead of the normal $50 subscription price (wouldn’t that be nice?).

If you haven’t heard of my Messaging Matrix before, it’s a matrix to help you map out your customers’:

in a quick, easy-to-reference guide.
And it’s a crucial part of going from customer research → marketing that lives in the real world.

I wrote a whole issue on it, here: Jump in Loser, we’re going to the Matrix

Thing is, that matrix assumes the same person who’s using and buying are the same person.

When they’re not, you need to do this ⤵

You need to know what each step of your sales process actually is and who is in it in demographic and psychographic terms.

So start with looking over all of the sales calls you have with larger customers and see who they said they had to talk to before proceeding.

Better yet, throw the last 5-15 call transcripts into ChatGPT and ask it to reply back with the process, quoting lines verbatim and saying where they came from. (Works best if you upload the transcripts to a folder, not into the body of the chat!)

If you don’t have any sales calls to go off of, I’d start with some Reddit research.

Often people will post the saga of what it takes to get a new tool approved and you’ll have everything you need in one post.

Check the comments too, sometimes people reply with their own stories in equal long-form.

Look for 2-3 posts from the last 2-3 years to make sure you’re getting the complete picture.

Okay, now that you have the calls (or at the very least Reddit posts and comments), go through them all and see which are from user, manager, or decision-maker.

Tag quotes accordingly (colored highlights are great to be able to see this at a glance).

If there’s a group that you don’t have enough from to make more than an educated guess, then flag it for tomorrow.

You need 1-3 sales calls for each buyer.

if you already have your messaging table - double check your table and make sure you aren’t combining roles, then pull out each layer of the buying process

if you don’t have it, then start from the top - and make each header a different buyer

looks like this ⤵️

Look through your transcripts/comments and see what each person in the food chain specifically asked for or said they would need to convince the person above them (or below them).

If you can’t fill it out the proof section based on your sales call transcripts, then it’s time to do some sleuthing research on just what those kinds of buyers want.

Fire up your customer research approach with Reddit (here’s the link to how to do it!) and specifically look for what proof that kind of buyer needs to give the product a whirl.

Do they want a one-pager that covers x,y,z? then build it.

Do they need a landing page that explicitly in boss mode? write it and hit “publish” (we have a guide for you here, part 1, part 2!)

(Okay, look is a soft word, it is a lot)

Lots of what i send doesn’t take considerable time blockouts to do. This does.

But the reward is closing deals in the 4-, 5-, 6-, dare i say 7-figure range.

The biggest deal I ever closed was just shy of 6-figures.
And it was because I was able to use what each person in the room cared about and convince them we had it covered.

That cash completely changed our agency trajectory and let us have a team retreat in Nashville.

I couldn’t have done that if I hadn’t thought through what to say first.

And knew it by heart.

We’ll see you and your inbox next week!

Cheers!

Sophia 💜👩🏽‍💻 & Aelia ⚡🧕

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