Growth

Also in Operations

You don’t need to be told how important business development is. Here are a few collected resources to help you improve your sales and marketing processes and teams.

Sales

General Tips & Strategy

Close’s List of Free Sales Resources, with dozens of tools and templates for every need you might have.
The 39 Best Pieces of Sales Advice You’ll Hear This Year, by First Round Review.
Growth at All Costs is Perilous — This is How to Scale Sales Sustainably, by First Round Review.
Three SaaS Sales Models, by Chaotic Flow.
Objection handling, writing sales emails (w/templates), and sales forecasting (w/templates), by Close.
Start-ups should read this checklist before they go whale-hunting for big partners, by Founders Collective.

Building a Sales Team (Structure)

Hire a Head of Sales (and strong interview questions), by Andreesen Horowitz.
The Zero B.S. Method To Recruiting A Killer Sales Force, by Andreesen Horowitz.
Startup Sales — Why Hiring Seasoned Sales Reps May Not Work, by Mark Suster.
Building an Enterprise Sales Team, by Sequoia Capital.
(As you grow) How To Structure Your Sales Organization For Maximum Efficiency, by SalesHacker.
The Scientific Approach To Setting Sales Goals For Your SDR Team {Template Included}, by SalesHacker.
Step Up Your Sales Coaching Game — Dig Into The Numbers to Help Your Reps Level Up, by First Round Review.
Sales Operations Demystified: What It Is, Why It Matters, and How To Do It Right, by SalesHacker.

Building a Sales Team (Compensation)

6 Rules for Startup Sales Comp, by TechStars.
SaaS Sales Compensation: How to Design the Right Plan, by David Skok (Matrix Partners).
How to Build Effective Sales Compensation Plans for Any Customer Facing Role [Templates], by SalesHacker.

Marketing

General Tips & Strategy

Customer acquisition, maximizing (and unblocking your funnel, by David Skok (Matrix Partners).
The essential 8 top reports that every marketer needs, by Marketo.
First Round Capital’s repository of marketing articles, and in particular growth evolution at every stage.
Useful reporting guides for Hubspot, Google Analytics, Marketo, and Insightly.
Metrics matter, so invest time in defining the right ones. Check out Startup Pirate Metrics (AARRR) framework to optimizing a funnel, with David McClure’s original presentation and video.
How to hire growth marketers, by Reforge.
Case Studies in Growth hacking, by Growth Hackers.
Blogs to follow for the latest trends include Reforge, Conversion Optimization and Marketing, and Growth Hackers.

Ads

Google ad copywriting, by Unbounce.
How to run Facebook ads, by Hubspot.
Review competitor ads with Facebook’s ad library, by Facebook.
Media Truths library has narrative/visual best practices and examples by social media platform (Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest), by BBDO.
Creative recommendations and evaluation checklist specific to YouTube, but really true for any video. For Facebook, remove the importance of audio and follow these same guidelines.
Case study: how AirBnB grew its host community with online ads.

Content Marketing

Content is eating the world — Contently’s CEO on winning at marketing’s new hotness, by First Round Review.
Pillar content: The fundamentals, Dos & don’ts, and How to write it, by Impact BND.
A good example of pillap content: the ultimate guide to brand messaging strategy, by Impact BND.
Copywriting tips by CopyBlogger and Kopywriting Kourse.
A quick guide to influence marketing and pricing, by MediaKix.
Case study: How Morning Brew’s referral program built an audience of 1.5 million subscribers, by Morning Brew.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Definitive 2020 SEO guide, E-Commerce SEO, and SEO copywriting, by Backlinko.
We analyzed 11.8 million Google search results. Here’s what we learned about SEO, by Backlinko.
Comprehensive Quicksprout SEO playbook, by Quicksprout.
Free SEO analyzer, by Neil Patel.

Marketing Training Programs

Software / Tools

CRM / Sales

Software	Description
	Hubspot is an all-in-one CRM integrating inbound marketing, sales, and customer service.
	Airtable is a spreadsheet-database hybrid, with built-in CRM templates.
	Pipedrive is a user-friendly sales CRM.
	Streak is a Gmail-integrated CRM.
	Salesforce Essentials is Salesforce's CRM for small businesses and start-ups.
	Affinity is a relationship intelligence platform using AI and natural language processing to auto-populate your CRM pipeline and unlock introductions.
	Insightly is a CRM integrating sales, marketing, and project management.
	Copper is a Gmail-integrated CRM.

Marketing Automation

Software	Description
	Mailchimp is an all-in one marketing and campaign management platform for small businesses.
	Marketo is marketing automation software for account-based marketing, powered by Adobe.
	Salesforce Pardot is Salesforce's B2B marketing automation platform.

Conversational Marketing

Software	Description
	Intercom is a platform connecting customer messaging apps for sales, marketing, and support.
	Drift is a conversational messaging chatbot for marketing and sales.

Outbound Messaging

Software	Description
	Mixmax is an email app that extends Gmails functionality and productivity for customer-facing teams.
	SalesLoft is a sales engagement product integrating sales workflows, email, opportunity management, calendaring, and analytics, and call dialing and recording.
	Apollo (formerly ZenProspect) helps use data and intelligence to increase qualified sales opportunities and conversions.