Today we’d like to introduce you to Reuben Swartz.
Hi Reuben, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Studying computer science in the northeast, I intended to move to California after graduation, but a company in Austin offered to fly me down for a weekend in December and I figured I’d never set foot in Texas if I didn’t take them up on it, so I came to visit and decided Austin would be a great place to spend a couple of years. (It’s now been 25 years.)
I worked on sales software for giant companies, and to this day, billions of dollars in commerce flows through my code, which is at once amazing and somewhat disconcerting. I was one of those software developers who wore shorts and rolled into the office mid-morning and had an explicit aversion to dress pants and formal shoes. But I realized the interesting challenges were not in the code but in the way software could help or hinder people trying to do complicated jobs. (Flying out to meet one customer who required more traditional attire, I had to buy a suit, dress shirts, ties, and a proper suitcase.)
Meeting with clients long after the sales process, I got frustrated that the project leaders often didn’t fully understand the capabilities and limitations of the software. Everyone was working harder and longer for less benefit than if we could have considered the strategy, business processes, and technology together. So I started consulting with these big companies to look the puzzle pieces holistically.
Ironically, while I could help my clients sell better and built a small team that also got great results for clients, I was terrible at sales and marketing for my own firm. I struggled with this for years, trying to be someone else instead of being myself.
Over time, I realized this wasn’t a problem that was unique to me– a lot of people who love serving clients get uncomfortable with sales and marketing.
So much of the technology, training, and conventional wisdom targets big corporate budgets, not people working for themselves. I figured there had to be a better way, something that could make getting clients fun instead of a necessary evil.
But originally, I just wanted to know if people had read my proposals. I realized that if I had them online, I could stop leaving those ridiculous voicemails, “just making sure you got my proposal and wanted to see if you had any questions…” I hacked something together for my next proposal, and I remember getting that notification email that the prospect was reading the proposal. I called him, he answered and said, “I’m so glad you called, I was just reading your proposal. It looks good, I want to move forward, I just want to clarify a couple of things.” We discussed some changes and he said, “great, send me a new version when you get the chance.”
I responded, “if you go back and look at that section, I’ve made those changes.”
He said, “wow, that’s really cool.” I didn’t even have e-signature then, just a big green button that said “Accept”. He clicked it, and we went into the project. The nice thing was that we spent 5 minutes to do 5 minutes of work instead of a month of back and forth. I started telling people about this, and some of them asked if they could do their proposals with this tool, too, so I turned my utility into an app.
Then some people said that the proposal process was now so smooth that they needed to focus on the front of the sales funnel. What did I recommend? I did some research and realized that there were lots of tools for big sales teams and e-commerce companies, but if you were a solo consultant who didn’t have a ton of leads, but each lead could be valuable if you could have a conversation, there wasn’t a good solution. So I built that.
Then people said they loved finally getting leads from their websites, and they loved being able to streamline the proposal process, but they hated the CRM they used in between…
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The journey has been anything but smooth. At every turn, I’ve tried to do things that have seemed foreign and uncomfortable, from learning about computers in college, to the workings of many of the world’s leading companies, to starting my own firm to creating my own software. I remember the first time I had to write a sales proposal, desperately searching the internet for a good template to use.
(I didn’t find one, but I didn’t realize that at the time, so I ended up using a bad one. Don’t worry, I eventually got much better at this, and you can find my “Fill-in-the-Blank” template on my site.)
Sales and marketing was a stress-inducing nightmare, a necessary evil to get to the work I wanted to do (and that the clients wanted). That was because I was thinking of it all wrong, trying to act like my Fortune 500 clients instead of myself.
The nice thing to come out of all this was realizing that I wasn’t alone in this struggle– there are good reasons that people who love serving clients often hate the sales and marketing aspect of their business, but it doesn’t have to be that way, and it’s my mission to help others be great at sales and marketing without stress while being true to themselves.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Mimiran is the simple CRM (Customer Relationship Management) application for independent consultants who love serving clients but hate “selling”. It offers features you don’t see in traditional CRMs built for big sales teams, like a positioning generator, advanced lead capture capabilities that not only convert visitors to leads but leads to conversations, referral tracking, relationship nurturing, integrated proposal management and electronic signatures. But it also has less of the bloat you don’t need as an independent consultant, so you can get more clients with less stress without feeling icky. Mimiran helps people “teach” instead of “market”, “connect” instead of “network”, and “help” instead of “sell”. That’s why I think of it as an “anti-CRM”, compared to corporate tools that encourage reps to “always be closing”.
It’s not for everyone. If you have a traditional sales team, you’ll want a traditional CRM. But if you do a great job helping clients, need to have one or more conversations with prospects, and would like to feel just as comfortable with business development as you do with client work, Mimiran could be just what you need.
Who else deserves credit in your story?
My clients have shaped everything I’ve done. Before I started calling Mimiran a proper “CRM”, people asked me to build out CRM features. They told me they loved the power and simplicity of Mimiran for lead generation and proposal management but hated the traditional CRM systems in the middle. “Why can’t you just make Mimiran do that, too?” they asked. I remember saying, “the last thing the world needs is another CRM, and I’d be the last person to build it.” Fast forward to my escalating frustrations trying to do basic things like figure out who to call next or who my top referral partners were…
I wouldn’t be here today with the help, input, and “wouldn’t it be great if” questions from awesome Austin people like Caroline Valentine of Valentine HR, speaker Scott Carley, financial wizard Brian Lang, and coach Mark Stacey.
Pricing:
- $49/month Starter Plan
- $99/month Pro Plan
- $249/month Growth Plan
- Free trial and annual discounts
Contact Info:
- Email: hello@mimiran.com
- Website: https://wwww.mimiran.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mimiran
- Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/mimiran
- Youtube: https://studio.youtube.com/channel/UCP2v7LnEx1QPRsDGKD63VLg
- Other: https://www.salesfornerds.io
