Let's just jump right in – the notion that you need money to make money is outdated and untrue.

What you need, particularly in the early stages of your company, is to be resourceful. Whether you have funding or not, you need to figure out ways to do more with less. Easier said than done. That’s why we’ve put together a few tips to help jumpstart your sales and build the momentum at little to no cost.

Narrow your leads.

The first step to optimize your marketing and sales efforts is to identify and prioritize leads. We’ve all been victims of mass email and marketing campaigns. Don’t be guilty of this. Make sure you are focusing your time and resources on the people that are likely to buy your product.

Become a thought leader and share your knowledge.

Position yourself as a thought leader whose sole purpose is to help customers with their pain points. Revamp your social profiles to present yourself as such and be open to conversation. Engage in meaningful conversations anywhere your target audience spends time including, of course, in-person networking events.

You can also search questions related to the problem you are trying to solve on Q&A sites such as Quora, Reddit, Stack Exchange and Inbound. Participate in those conversations and talk about your product as a potential solution. Make sure you're not just self-promoting. instead be helpful and upfront about your role in your company.

Build your online presence.

Having a website is not enough. More than 90% of consumers read online reviews before making a purchase. Have customers give you online reviews on Google but also websites such as Capterra, Siftery, and G2Crowd. Incentivize people to write a review by offering longer trials, free pilots, etc.

Write blog posts on your website with relevant content that your core audience will find useful. The content should alternate between direct topics about your service and other related topics. For example, when we owned a digital gym we would write healthy recipes, nutritional posts, about mental health, healthy communities, etc. If you blog on other sites like LinkedIn or Medium, make sure your profile or bio has a good description of your company and link to your website within the content. You can also register to be a guest blogger on other reputable websites to leverage their audience and expand your reach.

Figure out who you are missing.

More than 98% of website visitors don’t fill out a form or reach out. Luckily, there are solutions out there for this. Hubspot allows you to plug into your Google Analytics and identify the company name and location of your visitors, which pages visitors view, how visitors find you, and how long they’re on your website.

Reaching out and tinkering the right message.

There are several tools out there to help you figure out someone’s phone number, like ZoomInfo. If you prefer cold emails, tools like Hunter and Rapportive can help you find email formats. Of course, you can also use LinkedIn’s InMail tool.

It will take some trial and error to see what resonates best with your audience. Just try and be as genuine and personal as possible. A popular rule of thumb to follow is the “10-80-10" rule. Start your email with a personalized greeting, then insert your company message, then end with something personalized.

Drip marketing campaigns.

Drip marketing campaigns allow you to automate your outreach through sequences and pre-written material so you don’t have to manually reach out to people and remember to follow up.

Master the conversation.

Selling is more about understanding your client’s needs versus communicating the value your product brings. Asking the right questions can help you prioritize your time on prospects that are actually ready to buy and better position yourself. Ask questions related to the company’s priorities, decision makers, and timeline of their purchase decision. Keep your company intro to two minutes or less and you can always dive deeper into your product as the conversation continues. Studies show that you can boost your win rate by 11% if you talk only about 40% of the time during a sale.

Always shoot for transparency. This allows you to build rapport with your prospect by being open about your own interests and human qualities. Remember, the buyer needs to connect with you. Try to find a way to relate to your customers and be viewed as a person who genuinely wants to help versus just sell. Also, don’t be so humble that you forget to mention other types of companies you’re working with. This helps to build credibility and creates a sense of urgency for your prospect because others are leveraging your product and they aren’t.

- the Crew