Month: December 2024

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My 2024 wrapped up

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My 2024 wrapped up

In today’s newsletter, I’ll share my retrospective on 2024, what worked, and what didn’t. This will be more personal than other newsletters, but I promise I’ll get back to more sales-oriented newsletter after this one.

Let’s dive in:

Q1: Business as usual

Q1 2024 was quite similar to most Q1s since I started working for myself. I launched The Prospecting Engine. With 65 customers and around $20,000 in sales, I was pretty happy about the results.

I also ran a few sponsored posts, and trained a few sales teams with the content of The Prospecting Engine. In terms of revenues, the first quarter was pretty similar to most other first quarters.

Q2: Darkness

At the beginning of Q2, we went back to France after spending 3 months in Mexico. My wife was pregnant of 6 months, and everything was all right. That was until we went for the third trimester echography, right before our flight back to France.

We discovered that our daughter had a life-threatening malformation, which made it impossible for her to live.

We lost our baby.

This was the worst time of my life. From April to June, my wife and I fell into a dark hole, and our lives were completely turned upside down. We kept working to numb the pain, but it was impossible to function normally in these few weeks after loosing our baby.

If you’re ever in this situation (or was), and you need to talk to someone, please reach out, you’re not alone.

Q3: Doubt

As a result of these tough 3 months, I wasn’t able to create quality content like I used to. Couple that with the summer, an algorithm change, and my LinkedIn performance tanked. I went from having 50+ reactions on my posts to 2, 3 reactions.

It was hard.

But I started recording videos for LinkedIn, worked on my copywriting, and my post engagement came back to a normal level. I also noticed that my engagement fell, but I was still able to turn conversations into revenues (coaching, online courses, sponsoring, etc.).

I also worked really hard on a course called Close Your First Side Gig. I set up a segmentation survey on my website, I ran interviews with salespeople who wanted to work for themselves, and I created a waitlist.

This launch was a flop. I made less than $600.

Q4: Rebuilding

Q4 was much better than the rest of the year. My wife became pregnant again (we’re having a boy in May 2025), and we moved to Mexico. We decided to leave France because our life there wasn’t nearly as fun an interesting as what we’re building in Mexico. We’ve been there for 3 months and we’ve experienced more than in two years in France.

I have also launched a 1:1 coaching subscription where my customers and I work together for 1 hour per week, while having unlimited WhatsApp access to me.

Another great success of 2024 has been the revenue I was able to generate for affiliate partners. In total I generated over $96,000 of revenues for my partners in less than a year. If you want to discuss how we can do this together, go check my sponsor page. I’m looking for long term sponsors for my newsletter and a new show I’m launching next year.

In conclusion, 2024 was the worst year of my life. My wife and I have been through hell, and our professional lives have suffered immensely. 2024 has also been the worst year in terms of revenues since I started my business in 2018. But in all that darkness, it was a year of learnings, transition, and resilience.

I have learned that nothing is constant, and you need to keep reinventing yourself if you want to keep paying your bills. I’m now more grateful for what I have, and I cherish every moment I get to spend with people I love, while building my business.

Happy New Year to you and your family!

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:

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Categories
Tactical Selling

I’m now an Intro expert

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I’m now an Intro expert

Today’s newsletter is a bit different. It’s almost the end of the year and I thought I’d share a quick update I’m really excited about. A few weeks ago, I stumbled on a post from Justin Welsh, where he shared his Intro link.

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If you don’t know about Intro, it’s a marketplace where you can book a 1:1 video consultation with top experts from all types of industries. When I saw Justin’s profile, I thought this concept was a great idea and I immediately tried to create a profile.

But there was an issue.

You have to apply to become an expert on Intro. So I submitted my application, without much hope.

And after 2 weeks, I received this email:

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I was over the moon. When I joined the call with Austin, I learned that there was 18.000+ people on the waitlist to become an expert, so I’m super flattered I got invited.

But you may wonder why I’m so happy, when I already give 1:1 video consultations. I’m actually focusing on something a bit different than sales coaching with Intro.

For 6 years now, I’ve been working for myself and building a life a lot of people are dreaming to build. I work when I want, where I want, and I don’t have a boss telling me what to do. I was able to build my work around my life, and not the way around.

These Intro consultations are priced way higher than my sales consultations because I want to work with people who are serious about building a life in their own terms. I understand that not everyone is ready to do so, and that’s absolutely fine. If you’re not serious about escaping the hamster wheel, please don’t book a session.

But if you feel ready to bet on yourself, I’d love to give you some guidance on what you can do, right now, in a 1:1 consultation.

Hope to see you in there.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:

Subscribe to the Newsletter

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Categories
Tactical Selling

3 steps to close a deal today

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3 steps to close a deal today

In today’s newsletter, I’ll share 3 concrete steps you can follow to close a deal today. Salespeople (especially Enterprise salespeople) love to explain how their sales processes are different, how it’s impossible to close a deal without involving all the stakeholders, etc, etc.

No matter what you sell, if you follow the 3 steps I’m about to share with you, you’ll close deals a lot faster. In fact, I closed one myself (I’ll admit, it was a small deal) in one day. Here’s the WhatsApp conversation I had:

Let’s dive in:

Step 1: Ask when they can make a decision

This question is the simplest to ask, yet most salespeople are afraid to ask it. Whenever you’re working on a deal (at any stage of the sales process), ask your prospects this exact question:

“When can you make a decision?”

This will uncover so many hidden blockers of a deal, and it’s the ultimate question to ask to understand if you’re speaking to someone with enough authority to put their signature on the contract.

If they can’t make a decision, you’re not talking to someone who can help you close a deal today. When that happens, you need to find out who’s the real boss, otherwise your deal is at risk of not closing.

Step 2: Propose to close the deal today

If the prospect can make a decision, ask them what it would take to close the deal today. Don’t ask to close it tomorrow, next week, or in two weeks. Ask what it would take to close it TODAY.

This is another good test to understand if you’re speaking to a real decision-maker. If they are serious about working with you, they won’t let a good deal go away and they’ll close it today. If they aren’t serious, they’ll take their time.

When you ask someone with authority what it takes to close a deal today, you’re the closest you can be to reading their minds.

Step 3: Assess and negotiate

If you followed steps 1 and 2, you’ll get a list of conditions to get the deal closed today. If the deal is good for you, you can accept it right away and lock in the signature (or the bank transfer). If the deal isn’t good, then you need to enter in negotiation mode.

Come back with a counter offer and see if the prospect is willing to play (it becomes a game at that point). Repeat until you find an agreement with the prospect.

One key point in this whole process is to never forget that it’s better to get $1.000 today than a potential $1.200 tomorrow. So many things can go wrong in 24 hours, which is why the saying “Time kills all deals” is a reality you need to keep in your mind when working in sales.

And these are 3 steps you can follow to close a deal today. Remember to always ask when they can make a decision, ask what it would take to close a deal today, and assess and negotiate until you come to an agreement.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.900+ salespeople to book more meetings and work when, where, and how they want.

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Categories
Tactical Selling

How to avoid burning out as a remote salesperson

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How to avoid burning out as a remote salesperson

In today’s newsletter, I’ll share a simple tool to help reduce the risk of burning out when working as a remote salesperson. 2024 hasn’t been easy, especially for remote salespeople. Around 2/3 of salespeople are expected to miss their sales targets this year, adding a lot of pressure to their lives.

We’ve all been there. You wake up one day, and you instantly start getting anxious. You know you have a ton of things to do, but you have no clue how you’re going to do them when there are so few hours in the day. Even worse, you know that your to-do list is growing bigger every day.

You start your day with this dark cloud over your head. You can’t stop thinking of what have to do, which makes you less present and more anxious. I know about it because I experienced it when we moved to Mexico in September.

This is where a Mind Sweep will help. A Mind Sweep is a simple exercise I discovered when I purchased Notion Mastery, a few years ago.

Here’s how it’s done, step-by-step:

Step 1: Capture your thoughts

Start by writing down all of your thoughts. You don’t need to get them structured, or prioritized. Just list everything you have on your mind. It can be professional or personal. It doesn’t matter, as long as you’re capturing it.

I don’t know about you, but I often get stressed or anxious because I know I need to do something, but I’m afraid I’ll forget to do it. Something simple like paying the electric bill, or following up with a customer. I know I need to do it, but if I don’t write it down, or act on it, I start worrying.

As the day goes by, I feel anxious, but I forget why I’m anxious. I spend more time thinking of why I’m anxious, and I can’t remember why. Then I become angry, stressed, and soon enough, I’m unbearable.

By capturing your thoughts, you go from worrying about what you have to do, to knowing that your thoughts are captured, and you just need to go back to your mind sweep to see what you have to do.

Here’s an example from my Mind Sweep for Sales:

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Step 2: List projects and tasks

When you’re done capturing your thoughts, you can start breaking them down into projects and tasks. Projects include multiple tasks and they are bigger initiatives. It’s always important to use action verbs and being really specific with your tasks.

Something like “reach my quota” isn’t specific. “Build a 30-day plan to close Q4 at 110%” is specific.

Here’s an example of what I captured above turned into projects and tasks.

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As you can see, some of the tasks and projects weren’t even captured initially. That’s the power of turning ideas into projects. It helps you go deeper and create a complete to-do list.

Step 3: Prioritize projects and tasks

Now that you have clear projects and tasks, you can start prioritizing them. I like to use two types of prioritization frameworks. One for for projects and another one for tasks.

For projects, I’ll use Top Prio, Mid Prio, Low Prio. This gives you a clear indication of where you’ll need to focus in the next 30 to 90 days. When you’re done prioritizing projects, you can use the Now, Next, last framework for tasks.

Here’s an example to help you understand:

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This is how I turn an immense to-do list into a concrete plan. A Mind Sweep is an exercise I recommend doing as soon as you’re feeling anxious or stressed because of your workload. You can use this Mind Sweep for Sales I have created, or use my link to grab Notion Mastery if you want to do a complete overhaul of the way you manage your life.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Thibaut Souyris

P.S. When you’re ready, here are 3 ways I can help you:

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.900+ salespeople to book more meetings and work when, where, and how they want.

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Get my free, 4 min weekly newsletter. Used by 5.900+ salespeople to book more meetings and work when, where, and how they want.