001: Sujan Patel on Building Business Relationships, SEO, and 100 Days of Growth

The SaaS (Software as a Service) Business Podcast

Sujan Patel shares excellent marketing and growth tips for SaaS business owners based on his ten years of Internet marketing experience.

Introduction

Sujan Patel started his first business selling cars parts while in high school. While the business was not a great success due to a lack of business acumen, he learned SEO in the process. His SEO skills would serve him well in years to come.

Sujan dropped out of college to found Single Grain, a digital marketing agency. Single grain eventually became one of San Francisco's leading agencies boasting such high-profile clients as Intuit, SalesForce, Random House, Sony Pictures, and Yahoo. In 2014, Sujan sold his holdings in Single Grain and took a job as VP of marketing at the SaaS company When I Work—as a vacation (he does not like to be bored).

Together with Colin Matthews, Sujan has founded ContentMarketer.io, a SaaS product to help marketers automate content promotion efforts.

During the Christmas holidays of 2015, he and Rob Wormley "accidentally" wrote the ebook 100 Days of Growth while brainstorming growth strategies. (He would later write: "It's been one of the most productive Christmas's ever!")

Sujan is also a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Business Insider, and INC. Magazine. He has written on such varied topics as accelerators, mentorships, productivity hacks, online resources, success habits marketing skills, team building, content marketing, and growth strategies.

Key Segments

• [00:45] Please sign up for the SaaS newsletter to get notified when each podcast is released.

• [01:25] Ron talks about today's guest, Sujan Patel.

• [02:50] Sujan talks about the first business he started while in high school.

• [04:05] What has remained the same with SEO over the years?

• [04:40] Sujan dropped out of college to start his company, Single Grain.

• [05:00] Single Grain was started three times.

• [06:15] Sujan brought on a partner to help with the business side of Single Grain.

• [10:10] What problem does the SaaS product When I Work solve?

• [12:10] Changing someone's habits is the hardest sell.

• [13:00] Why did Sujan start ContentMarketer.io?

• [15:20] How does ContentMarketer.io work?

• [18:40] How did Sujan and Rob Wormley write the ebook 100 Days of Growth "by accident"?

• [24:05] Sujan contacted everyone mentioned in 100 Days of Growth and generated a lot of buzz.

• [24:30] What's in the book? How is it structured?

• [26:30] Email is so easy to use and it's free!

• [30:15] What SEO tools does Sujan recommend?

• [31:30] What are the best resources to learn copywriting?

• [32:40] How can you use content as a marketing tool?

• [34:40] Sujan's favorite marketing hack is T-shirts customers can wear.

• [35:50] Think about how your marketing products/emails will look on mobile.

• [37:00] Cold outreach is a lost art. Sujan does one call a day with somebody new.

• [38:20] Build relationships before asking for help.

• [39:10] Sujan recommends a few resources.

Resources Mentioned

• SaaS Business Podcast

• Single Grain

• When I Work

• ContentMarketer.io

• Lukewarm emailer

• Attach

• 100 Days of Growth by Sujan Patel and Rob Wormley

• Startup Foundation Slack group

• Instapage

• MailChimp

• AWeber

• SujanPatel.com

• 35 Best Digital Marketing Slide Decks

• SumoMe

• Hello Bar

• SEMrush

• Buzzsumo

• Copyblogger

• Copy Hackers

• Facebook Page Plugin

• Inbound

• Content Marketing Institute

• Launch by Jeff Walker

• The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz

• Daily Rituals: How Artists Work by Mason Currey