I sat down with Nick Francis, the Co-Founder and CEO of Help Scout. A few years ago I worked directly with Nick and his team to tighten up their positioning and brought him on to share their story. Together we discuss:
• What the positioning of Help Scout looked like during the early days
• How their positioning evolved over time
• Why they utilized outside help
• How he took the sales narrative he worked on with me and turned it into a pitch
• How their strategy has changed as they’ve moved upmarket
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In This Episode, I Cover:
(00:00) About my guest, Nick Francis
(02:05) The origin story of Help Scout
(04:50) How Techstars informed their messaging early on
(06:00) How they differentiated themselves from other help desk companies
(08:28) Where early inbound customers came from
(09:58) Copycat competitors, and how Help Scout thinks about competition
(11:57) Identifying key differentiators
(13:20) Why they decided to bring in outside help (me) and what they learned
(15:29) The evolution of their sales pitch
(18:42) Why you should always test your sales pitch first
(20:27) Who was responsible for building the sales pitch
(21:24) Signals it was time to revisit the pitch
(24:58) The future of Help Scout
(26:27) How the product itself reinforces their positioning
(28:42) How their strategy has changed as they’ve moved upmarket
(30:17) Why positioning is so important
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Where To Find April Dunford:
Podcast Website: https://www.positioning.show/
Personal Website: https://www.aprildunford.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aprildunford/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aprildunford/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/aprildunford
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Where To Find Nick Francis:
Website: http://nickfranc.is/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickfrancis1/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/nickfrancis?lang=en
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Referenced:
• Help Scout: https://www.helpscout.com/
• Techstars: https://www.techstars.com/
• David Cohen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgcohen/
• Zendesk: https://www.zendesk.com/
• Intercom: https://www.intercom.com/
• Front: https://front.com/
Production and marketing by https://penname.co/
