The Mint Recap: Closing Design Partners with Jordan Wan
Our most recent talk at The Mint by Better Tomorrow Ventures was on how to Close Design Partners, from Jordan Wan, CFA 🇨🇦.
Jordan gave incredibly tactical advice + guidance on how to find, work with, and close design partners as a b2b focused company.
Here are some of the insights + learnings:
1. Your time is precious - be thoughtful when it comes to design partners!
You need to determine if a prospect is worth spending your precious time on. If you say yes to any and all design partners, you’ll find yourself in a world of hurt down the road.
Questions to ask in discovery:
- Why did you take this call?
- How did you find out about us?
- What are you hoping we can do for you?
- Have you bought software like this in the past?
- How big of a priority is this?
2. Control the sales process.
Jordan said that getting ghosted, which happens quite often, is a sign you didn’t control the sales process. Don’t allow the prospect to dictate the journey - establish clear timelines + expectations + next steps.
You can even ask at the end of the 1st call, if you’re gonna ghost me, why? You want to understand if it’s because the status quo / incumbents are safer or if it’s not a high enough priority. It will help you understand if your solution is a vitamin and not a painkiller.
3. Don’t demo the product on the 1st call.
Spend as much time as you can on discovery - learn more, qualify the lead, + assess pain. Gather enough info to answer: is this a prospect I want to spend time on? Plus, this way, you can set up another call to demo the product!
4. After the first call, build a business case + propose a ROI framework.
In complex sales, you have to drive ROI to the customer. You should build a business case from the prospect’s POV + come in with an idea of how big the problem you can solve is + how much you will charge.
5. Don’t give things away for free to design partners.
This doesn’t validate PMF. Even if you don’t charge right from the get go, you must establish that your product will eventually cost [$X]. Make it clear that they are getting value out of being an early adopter.
6. Build your inbound MVP stack.
At the very least, you should have a website, pillar content, and a newsletter now. It helps a lot if customers have heard of you when you reach out! Nurture your relationships + educate! ALWAYS collect emails + contact info!
7. Don’t hire SDRs pre-maturely.
Founders can test SDR efficacy w/out hiring. Outbound is about testing, iterating, looking at #s, + continuing to improve. Your outbound stack should include a way to build a lead list, enrich with lead intelligence, + outreach automation.
There are many great tools out there, all of which have become more affordable in recent years.