3 Proven Strategies to Create More Deals

Welcome to a wintery Revenews! It’s been chilly in the UK, around -4 ºC, or roughly -17,356 ºF.

Have you noticed a difference here lately?

Just like you should always notice when your girlfriend has had her hair done, you should’ve noticed that Revenews has had a brand spruce up!

It was done all in beehiiv, by Arvind, if you want a newsletter designer, he is your guy (LinkedIn)

Unpaid shoutouts aside, let’s dive in! 🚀

1. 3 Sales hacks that conjure deals out of thin air

2. Recommended Agency

3. Great Playbooks

4. Fresh Prince of Sales

3 Hacks to Start Sales Conversations

Generally, I hate the premise of ‘hacks’. Yes, we should always be on the lookout for novel methods that improve efficiency. But the idea that one Hail Mary HACK will be a game-changer, altering the trajectory of our life, with little to no effort in implementation, is a con. In my opinion at least.

We’re much better off sticking consistently to imperfect but effective strategies, whilst keeping an open mind to optimisations.

BUT.

These these 3 methods that I’ve developed over the last few years, do warrant the use of the word hack. They won’t overhaul your business, but implemented in their specific circumstances they’ve all proved extremely effective at starting sales conversations.

🔄 Uno Reverse

I’ll start with my personal favourite. This has a 100% conversion rate for me, after using it 4 times. Meaning that every time I’ve deployed it it’s initiated a deal (they haven’t all closed). Here goes:

You know when you get some cold outreach, you’re not necessarily interested, but you think, “hmmm…. that’s an interesting product, it’d be a great sponsor in the newsletter”.

The obvious thing to do is either (A) reply and try and sell the seller, or (B) pretend to be interested and then try and get a referral during your ‘buying’ process.

Whilst these can work, they’re either ineffective, dishonest, or both.

I was in a weird mood when this happened once, so I replied like this:

Which got a reply like this:

Since then, I’ve used this approach on three other separate occasions, starting 3 separate conversations.

What can we learn from this?

• You should always be thinking commercially. Especially if you’re a founder/salesperson. Opportunities are everywhere (necessary cheesiness).

• Don’t take yourself too seriously. Unless you’re talking to accountants, bankers, or other super-old-school corporate types, be yourself, crack a joke. You can be funny within the confines of showcasing expertise and relevance.

• If someone is trying to sell something to you, that means they want/need new customers. Which means they might want to advertise with you. Sounds obvious, but important.

🔒 Your Tech Stack

The average company uses 371 software applications, read an interesting article on this here. These are a great place to look for potential advertisers.

Of course, your audience is unlikely to be relevant to every tool in your belt, but if you have a scroll down your monthly expenses, you’ll probably be pleasantly surprised!

Even if you ‘only’ use 20, that’s probably 10-15 prospects. There are two ways you can approach the outreach:

👋 1 - Happy Customer Cold Outreach

Reach out to someone in marketing who you don’t know. Here’s what this could look like…

Add in some follow-ups for good measure. As always.

🤝 2 - Make Account Managers Count

If you have an account manager for a specific software, use that open channel of communication to try and get an intro to marketing .

Do bear in mind, that this will likely fall on deaf ears and automatically be bottom of their priority list. So make it easy for them, type out a specific message for them to copy and paste to a specific marketing contact.

Be frank. Don’t be a tease, telling them that you’re interested in upgrading your tier, then trying to uno reverse in a call will leave a bitter taste in their mouth.

🫣 Use SalesPeople

Salespeople have been trained to always be on the lookout for commercial opportunities. A superpower, built up over years of high ambition, crippling anxiety, and trying to fill the void in their soul with numbers on a screen.

Jokes aside, this receptiveness to opportunities can be used to start a conversation. Find a Senior Account Executive or Manager on LinkedIn, and ask them an ambiguous but relevant qualifying question. For example:

“(Name) - hey! Does (Company) also serve (insert specific buyer/ICP relevant to their product AND your audience)?”

If they reply, be straight and address the fact that you’re selling to them. You could try:

“Awesome, I was asking because we have an engaged community of (Buyer persona/ICP), we’ve run campaigns for (relevant case studies).

From one salesperson to another, I think we can drive some awesome value for (company’s) marketing team, would you be OK with doing an intro to (marketing person)?

I’d owe you a favour for any intros in the future!”

The worst they can say is no.

🏆 Partner

Getting your first few hundred or thousand subscribers is a grind (hi to those subscribers here that I Twitter DM’ed!).

Organic growth is great and all, but it will only get you so far.

The inconvenient truth is that every newsletter 20k subs heavily relies on paid growth.

If you take your newsletter seriously, it’s essential. But, it’s also f*cking hard, especially if, like me, you’re not a marketer. 

To master paid acquisition, you need:

• Cutting-edge strategies for Meta, TikTok, and X.

• Eye-catching ads – static and video – that magnetize subscribers.

• Scalable techniques that maintain low CAC with high engagement.

Instead of spending heaps of time learning or doing all these things yourself, you should just pay Alota to do it for you.

Alota are veterans in running profitable ads for 8-figure e-commerce brands. Now, they’re bringing their expertise to the newsletter space.

I personally know the CEO Leevi, they know their stuff. Alota are offering an awesome deal:

• Handle all ad creative costs, including professional UGC videos.

• Deploy battle-tested media buying strategies on Meta, TikTok, and more.

• A bold promise: 100% money-back guarantee if you're unsatisfied (excluding Ad Spend).

• No strings attached – no contracts, leave anytime.

Let's Talk Paid Acquisition for Newsletters.

Worst case scenario? You walk away with invaluable media buying insights, absolutely free.

📰 Newsletter News

📣 Matt McGarry launched a newsletter growth cohort, which will be offensively valuable for anyone looking to grow subscribers.

📈 This type of newsletter is a great niche to be in!

🤖 5 common newsletter UX mistakes, apparently I’m guilty!

📊 How this chap went from $0-500k writing online.

👏 How this guy built a 7-figure media company.

👋 The HeyCreator virtual summit is next week, I’ll be there!

🤣 Inbox Banter