Max Altschuler, CEO of Sales Hacker – a rapidly growing media company focused on the future of B2B sales. Max wrote the book Hacking Sales: The Playbook for Building a High Velocity Sales Machine which was recently published by Wiley. Aside from sales hack and angel investors, Max advises startups all around the globe.
Famous Five:
- Favorite Book? – The 48 Laws of Power
- What CEO do you follow? – N/A
- Favorite online tool? — Boomerang
- Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
- If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – Max wished he could have studied Psychology a bit more
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 01:40 – Nathan introduces Max to the show
- 02:07 – Sales Hacker is a media company ushering the future of sales
-
- 02:35 – Sales Hacker does crowdsourcing of content on their blog and holds conferences throughout the year
- 03:12 – The conferences are Sales Hacker’s main revenue stream
- 03:20 – Sales Hacker’s last conference was in June 2016
-
- 04:09 – The sponsored revenue for the last conference was $1.2 M
- 04:14 – Ticket sales was $300-400K
- 04:22 – Average ticket price was $400-500
- 04:28 – Total attendees
- 04:41 – The cost per conference is less than $1M
- 04:53 – Max shares how they manage the cost of the conference
- 05:51 – You need to find venue sponsorship
- 05:57 – Max helps clients with bigger conferences like Pulse
- 07:00 – Sales Hacker finds out which businesses are interested in the conference
- 07:33 – Have prospective sponsors sign up and pay early
- 09:15 – Sales Hacker’s average revenue per event depends on the event
- 10:54 – Sales Hacker takes a percentage from the total profit of SaaSters
- 11:30 – 2015 total revenue is $2.5M
- 11:45 – Team size
- 12:04 – Max shares why he didn’t build a SaaS business
- 12:59 – Sales Hacker’s list size
- 13:55 – Max’s goal for a VC round
- 14:07 – Max is from Udemy
- 14:35 – Max had 2 companies before Udemy
- 15:20 – Max’s second business was Last Call
- 15:45 – Max’s 3 favorite investments at the moment
- 16:50 – The average amount Max is investing in a business
- 18:00 – Max sets expectations of what he will and will not do for a company
- 18:36 – Max is trying to invest in B2B companies
- 19:21 – Connect with Max through LinkedIn, Twitter and his website
- 21:30 – The Famous Five
3 Key Points:
- Closing a business does NOT mean it was a failure – you gain experience and learn valuable lessons from that process.
- Take the time to research and know where to invest.
- Even if you’re working with SaaS businesses, that doesn’t mean you should or can build one as well.
Resources Mentioned:
- Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
- Drip – Nathan uses Drip’s email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
- Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal
- Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
- Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
- The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens and follow-up with email sequences
- @MaxAlts – Max’s Twitter handle
- LinkedIn – Max’s LinkedIn account
- Sales Hacker – Max’s business website
- Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives