Episode #60 How to be Good at Networking? YOU may be Asking the Wrong Question...ft. Melissa Moody

In today's episode of Revenue Reimagined, we're joined by Melissa Moody, CEO at Matcha by Commsor.

Melissa is co-founder and CEO at Matcha, a high-growth startup building solutions for professionals who invest in relationship-driven growth. A repeat entrepreneur, Melissa has also been CMO at email startup Gated, founder of advocacy tool Nut Tree, and is currently Founder at Wednesday Women.  Prior to her work in startups, Melissa had a 13+ year career at Google, where she implemented multi-channel digital marketing strategy and led mobile web partnerships for Google’s largest travel industry advertisers. She enjoys presenting publicly on the topics of digital excellence, go-to-network strategy, and women in leadership and is host of the podcast 2 Pizza Marketing.  Melissa lives in Anchorage, Alaska with her family and spends her free time being active outdoors, traveling the world, and reading.

During today's show, Melissa shares her secrets on:

- how marketing killed email (and everything else cool)

- the power of connecting over genuine interests

- why always looking to help others will bring you opportunities 

Any founder, entrepreneur, or business leader can steal the lessons Melissa shares in this episode and use them for their own success.

Follow Melissa - https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissammoody/
And on Matcha! - https://matcha.so/moody

PS - huge shout out to Sendoso for sponsoring our show.

We could not do this without you.

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🎁 Lastly, we have a gift for you!

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Transcript

Adam Jay (02:44.758)
Welcome back to another episode of the Revenue Reimagined Podcast. This is a special episode for so many reasons. Number one, I have Zachary with me, first appearance post -surgery, and I'm stoked that he's coming to sit and hang out. But more importantly, we have an incredible guest today with us who...

Melissa Moody (02:46.243)
Mm -hmm.

Adam Jay (03:13.118)
I met a long time ago back in the days of gated, which I want to talk about, which is one of the platforms that is still near and dear to my heart. And I miss it so much, but Melissa Moody, who is the CEO of matcha, which you may have heard of that is sort of part of com sore. We'll talk about that in a little bit. I wish I had a matcha latte here with me. I don't shame on you for not getting me a matcha latte. Melissa, welcome to the show.

Dale Zwizinski (03:34.244)
huh. I don't know.

Melissa Moody (03:38.467)
I'm psyched to be here. can't, we're going to dive into so many topics that if y 'all listeners weren't here, we would still be having this conversation. So I'm glad somebody pushed record and I'm extra glad to see Zachary here today. Yay.

Dale Zwizinski (03:51.553)
Yay!

Adam Jay (03:51.716)
You need to talk. He suddenly is getting shy. Dale knows this child. Is he ever shy? Yes? No, but he's shy today. He just wants to sit here and look pretty with the curls for girls. All right, let's dive in.

Dale Zwizinski (03:54.772)
Ha ha ha ha ha.

Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. Hey.

Awesome. Melissa, thanks for joining. You know, one of the biggest things, and it says it right on the front of your website, like, you know, your network is your net worth and enjoy, like, I think it's more important now than ever that we go through a process of finding your network to actually close more business. So what excited you about Matcha? What were you like when you were originally having conversations with Mac?

This is something I can like sink my teeth into and make sure that like it becomes a product that everyone wants to use.

Melissa Moody (04:41.999)
Well, you know, throwing back to what Adam mentioned about gated, I, I choose to work on products I choose to because you know, as a as a mom and with a lot going on, I really need to think about where I spend my time and I like to work on products that I really truly feel have an impact on the end human. So I love it if they have a bigger impact on the business or the world, but really like benefiting people in their day job, helping people do something better. And so that's conceptually

Part of how Mac talked me into coming to work on matcha. The second piece of that is to go back to that phrase. I truly believe that We we do a lot of networking activities. We're out there doing a lot spraying a lot in the world of digital We're doing more of all of it push a button. It goes to millions of people, right? There's this huge amount of scale But if you think of networking as we've always done it

there's a lot of noise and not a lot of real real action. There's a lot of I'm out here, I'm talking to lot of people, I'm yelling a lot of things, I'm sending a lot of messages. That I don't really think is a true network. That is what I would call an audience. We're doing a lot of audience building. And so when I when we really think at matcha about networking, great, go out and build your audience, go to big events, do all that loud, noisy stuff. But how do we turn that network? How does an individual turn that network?

Adam Jay (05:49.494)
Mmm.

Melissa Moody (06:04.46)
into something that they can really activate to their goals. How do we make it valuable? And we can talk about that from a sales perspective. You guys probably know that even more than I do. But also just talk about it from a fundamental, you have a lot of people. You've collected a lot of people. How do you connect with them in a way that aligns with your goals? So that problem really excites me. And that's why I said, yeah, I'm in for matcha. And that's what every day, I'm excited to build. got a really cool, smart.

fast moving team, it's a tricky problem and it's a loaded space. And apparently that's what I really like signing on for.

Dale Zwizinski (06:37.162)
Yeah. Yeah.

Adam Jay (06:43.221)
You like those hyper competitive, we have to really differentiate to win spaces. I love it. I love matcha. I love the idea of go to network. And I think that you just touched on something that's really important. The difference between an audience and a network, right? And a lot of people don't realize that. And like, I don't by any means consider myself like a content creator.

Melissa Moody (07:02.872)
Mm -hmm.

Adam Jay (07:11.966)
influencer or anything like that. There's other people who use that term when talking about me and it makes me very uncomfortable and like very ick, if you will. Because I don't have a desire to like create, I have a desire to help people and I have a desire to build a network that can help people and nothing makes me happier than like when Dale and I could help someone, you know, get a job or, you know, transition into roles or, you know, find a mentor or any number of those things. But so many people are using their

Network wrong. How 100 % so how do we start to change that and whether that be you know macha related which we can certainly talk about or not like where did this mindset get so ick of like my goal today is to go post and I gotta get 27 ,000 impressions like that's great, but

Melissa Moody (07:44.116)
blast. Yeah, like an audience.

Melissa Moody (08:01.1)
Well, I mean, I think you just hit it by saying my goal today is because I think as in all good things, it comes back to the why, right? So if your why is to sell more of your product, there's actually potentially two ways you could go with that. But one is probably to get a bigger audience. You want to be talking to as many people as you can to get your product out there, right? Like that is a good, legitimate why. I would say that's not going to lead to deep, meaningful collaborations and partnerships and relationships. But

Adam Jay (08:05.492)
Mmm.

Melissa Moody (08:30.154)
it can be valuable. having an audience is a super valuable thing. But I think the why determines when you start talking about, and I just think network is an overly awful loaded term, because you can think of networking kind of in that audience vein. But the way that I would like to build to that term of network is really to think about the network from the sense of my why is if I build foundationally strong relationships, those will have an impact on my business over time.

Now, maybe it will lead to sales, but maybe it will simply lead to referrals or maybe it will lead to other things. The story I will tell you is the person who is matcha, I like to call him the matcha pro, the person who thinks this way, may be a hard driving salesperson, but they will tell you right up front, I never wanna be salesy. I don't ever wanna come off as salesy. Even when I'm having kind of a sales conversation, it shouldn't feel that

Adam Jay (09:20.266)
Hmm.

Dale Zwizinski (09:27.18)
Hmm.

Melissa Moody (09:27.424)
That's like matcha thinking, which is I want to talk to the human. It's what you're saying. I don't want to blast people out news. I want to help people. It's just a different way of thinking. so I do think the why matters. It matters to my target IZP. Like, who am I building the product for? I'm building people with a why. That is, I actually want to help and understand and connect with people, not my first why is I got to sell more stuff. Now, they can be tied.

Adam Jay (09:28.096)
I like that.

Adam Jay (09:44.63)
Yeah.

Dale Zwizinski (09:54.646)
Hmm

Melissa Moody (09:56.682)
Every professional has goals, right? But you'll see this. Go ahead.

Adam Jay (09:58.508)
Sure, sure.

Dale Zwizinski (10:00.706)
How many people do you think really think like that? Like I'm totally aligned with you. we interview a lot of salespeople, we interview a lot of go -to -market people. look at them, like the first thing, don't send me your resume. I want to look at your LinkedIn profile. want to see, not only do you have connections, are you engaging in a meaningful way to people in networks? So like, what kind of posts are you putting together? it like company posts? Are you really trying to connect?

Melissa Moody (10:15.746)
Mm -hmm.

Melissa Moody (10:22.488)
Mm -hmm.

Dale Zwizinski (10:30.21)
sample size of like 100 or for example or a thousand like what percentage of people really do think that way

Melissa Moody (10:36.846)
I mean, if we had 100, just to give you a hard number, would probably guess 25 % to 30 % of people are thinking that way.

Dale Zwizinski (10:43.724)
Huh? That's higher than I would think.

Adam Jay (10:46.252)
I was gonna say, I was gonna think like 10 to 15. So that makes me happy.

Melissa Moody (10:49.454)
Here's the reason I'll say that is because it depends on the type of people too, right? And it depends on the phase of where they are in their career. Can they afford to have conversations that don't have an immediate impact? So there's a lot of narrowing. Yeah, maybe. OK, let's call it 15 to 20%. But where I think it gets interesting is, and to be very clear,

Dale Zwizinski (10:49.568)
Yeah. Yeah.

Melissa Moody (11:14.983)
I don't want to be in the position of convincing those people why they should think this way. That's a really hard thing to do.

Dale Zwizinski (11:18.69)
100%. That's super hard. And actually, it may even start above them. it may is probably more at the leadership level because you're going to only do like if they're like call, dial call, like don't make connections. Like you got to have leadership that supports this this mentality.

Melissa Moody (11:34.574)
Yeah. The other thing I think is important is if it's just for their particular role, it's probably a lot lower than that. 5 % of people are like, well, I'm in my day job. I don't have time to connect. But when you start talking to the whole human and you're talking to them as someone who is not just a GTM leader but also a dad, right, they start realizing, well, I don't just need to connect about driving revenue. I need to connect because I'm burning out and I need to rely on other people. Or

I have a side interest or maybe I host a podcast, there might be other reasons why they want to connect on a more less transactional level if you get outside of just the day job. So I think when we start talking to humans as humans versus humans as their title, the percentage probably goes up, right? There's probably a lot more people who are willing to just see where it leads. And if you have enough mutual connection,

I think something's gonna come out of this. I have, we like to call it serendipity, like tea. There are people, I say, are you someone who looks at your calendar and you have at least one meeting during the week that does not have an agenda. Now, some people will immediately go, God, why would I have a meeting with no agenda? And other people go, yeah, I've got five or 10 of those. And it's just such a clear dichotomy between

Dale Zwizinski (12:36.502)
Yeah.

Melissa Moody (13:01.622)
the people that everything needs to be driven to a specific goal and the people where it's like, I'm driving to goals, but I'm open to seeing where interesting things come from, creativity comes from, potential partnerships come from. It's very clear. People are either thinking that way or they're not.

Dale Zwizinski (13:18.145)
Interesting.

Adam Jay (13:19.532)
It's so it's funny we talk about agendas, right? Because I have a whole mindset of agenda versus not agenda, but I think it's a very different type of call, right? Like when we're talking about networking calls and helping people calls, it's very different. But what you said about people, you know, thinking about them versus, you know, company and like there's just these there's these different mindsets, right? And when you start posting or

Talking in general like I would say Dale What do you think less than 10 % of our posts or anything that have the word revenue reimagined in it? It's fundamentally just not how we we jive now does everything we post have to do with what we do Sure And do we get business out of it? Sure, but the goal at least my goal every time I post is how can I help another how could how could whatever story I'm sharing or whatever antidote I'm sharing provide someone

Dale Zwizinski (13:56.14)
Yeah.

Melissa Moody (13:56.332)
Hmm.

Adam Jay (14:18.424)
And I think when I look at those that I love to network with it's those that get on the phone and all they want to do is like how can I help you? How could I help your network? How could I help others? And it's something that I think has gotten lost in this era of content creation if you will Where everyone's goal is turned into how many followers can I get and how many you know interactions can I get? and as someone who was

blessed or cursed to have a post that did go quote unquote viral, I could tell you it's not all that it's cracked up to be and the amount of inauthentic networking connections that that caused me was hours of wasted time that I would much rather spend with the authentic people.

Melissa Moody (15:04.438)
And this idea of time. So the story is, I talk to people and I say, do you have goals? Yes, I have goals. Do you know who would help you achieve those goals within your network? Yeah, I probably do. I probably know. And then I say, are you actually meeting with those people? And they go, no, I'm not. Because we're spending all this time shouting. And it does have a role. I'm not downplaying it. It has a purpose. But we're

When you think about how it really aligns to your goals, there's so much more value in one well -placed, you know, we both have overlap here, let's see where it goes conversation than there is in 100 posts at the top most level. So, but it is a shift. I mean, it's, or a balance.

Dale Zwizinski (15:45.27)
Yeah. Yeah.

Adam Jay (15:51.201)
Yeah.

Dale Zwizinski (15:51.614)
So talk to talk to us a little bit about how matcha differentiates that from like all the noise that's out there. So people on LinkedIn just trying to like get likes views. What's different with the matcha way and how you guys execute the go to market.

Melissa Moody (16:11.298)
Well, the whole second piece of how we execute go to market is a whole nother barrel of monkeys that I may tap into. But I think, and just to be candid too, we're still very much in the startup zone. So we're feeling out where does the product that we build fit in with the brand promise? I will say to date, when I came on board in January, we inherited a product that was really focused on the one -to -one matching. So I mean, I'll flat out say we do a much more better job, more enjoyable job.

Adam Jay (16:14.72)
Yeah

Melissa Moody (16:41.258)
of the one -to -one matching programs that you may have seen elsewhere. And frankly, a lot of people got burned by companies that I won't name, you know, these lazy introductions with no real connection. And then you're supposed to go juggle calendar links and meet with each other because your company told you to. Nobody needs to do that. Nobody wants to do that. So from a one -to -one standpoint, I think the messaging is you're already in communities and teams and things that you're aligned with. Why not start getting value out of the individuals in those communities?

Like, you've already picked, I want to be in CMO coffee talk. I want to be aligned with Wednesday women. So of course, I'm already potentially going to be getting value from meeting with those people one to one. So all Matcha does is unlock the value that's already in your community. Pretty straightforward. As we've been building into the product, we are doubling down on the value of that connection for the individual. So not only should you be more empowered to connect with people in groups and communities you're a part of,

Dale Zwizinski (17:34.527)
Mm.

Melissa Moody (17:40.792)
But think about your network. How do you start bringing together small groups of your network? How do you start building better one -to -one with people you know you should be meeting? One thing I'm excited that's somewhere on the soon roadmap is building a little lightweight personal board management. I know these five people are gonna drive my business. Am I meeting with them? Nope, okay. Like let's make that happen in an easy, fun way. The only other thing I would add is that if you've ever been on a matcha chat, we lean into the

Dale Zwizinski (17:55.317)
Mm

Melissa Moody (18:10.03)
casual and authentic. I had someone tell me, going to an event and posting on LinkedIn feel like I'm talking to business cards. And when I come to Matcha, it feels like I'm talking to the real person. Now that is honestly, is it is, but it's really just a brand feeling. Like there's not too much that we do besides a little bit of really breaking down those barriers. So from a GTM perspective, I'm leaning hard into that. I'm talking about the joy of connecting.

Adam Jay (18:18.508)
Mmm.

Adam Jay (18:25.068)
That's powerful.

Melissa Moody (18:39.658)
I'm the profile pages you can build on matcha are showing your whole self. Like don't talk to me as a CEO. Talk to me about what I actually want to talk about. Here are the three things I want to talk about. And one of them is my new puppy, right?

Adam Jay (18:52.364)
You mean be a human being? I mean, I feel like we teach this not just in sales, but I feel like every AE, BDR, C whatever, whatever that Dale and I talk to, I feel like almost every conversation starts with you have to be a human first. Like you're not just the CEO of Matcha, like Dale's not just the CGTM of RR, like we're people, right?

Melissa Moody (18:56.014)
Q &B?

Melissa Moody (19:11.65)
Yes.

Melissa Moody (19:20.044)
But unfortunately, would you not agree though that we've also kind of broken the system in the sense that right now we are brackets into which the human element is inserted, right? Like we are.

Adam Jay (19:29.228)
100 % but that's that's the entire sorry fucking problem with the world like you and I like we were on this recording before we started and it was a very human to human connection and I and even before this recording you and I have spoken like I've known you for a while and it's always been a very human to human connection and when I look at networking and I look at the most successful people in any role

Melissa Moody (19:34.061)
Yes.

Adam Jay (19:56.468)
It's those who start with a human to human connection. There's nothing worse than, and I'm sure you get it a million times. Hey Melissa, my name's Adam. I'm so and so from whatever lead generation agency. And because you're the CEO of MACHA, you must struggle with ABC. You don't know, you don't know me.

Melissa Moody (20:10.446)
Absolutely.

But, and I'm not pitching the profiles because that's not even like our core product. But if you go to my profile, like if we got lived in a world where someone went to my matcha profile first, they would actually see, here are the specific things I want to talk about, I want to help other people with. Like, these are the things I can offer. Do you want to chat about unsticking your GTM strategy? Give me a call. Like, it's stuff that I'd actually want to start with. It's very, I like to call it high intent conversation.

Adam Jay (20:15.88)
No, please!

Adam Jay (20:40.544)
Mmm.

Melissa Moody (20:41.74)
which means we're not starting from you. There's like the power dynamic, right? Like I literally am giving you the power to engage with me. It's not just you saying, here I am. It's an interesting nuance shift, but I do think it's two part. We have to be more proactive with what we actually care about. Cause right now, like my LinkedIn page, I know if you're trying to prospect me, like you're not gonna come up with much. But then we also have to,

actually care to your point. We have to actually care.

Dale Zwizinski (21:12.746)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's gonna be genuine. Yeah, you got to have some genuineness. You got to like really understand like, good, you went to my college or great you like, you know, whatever, whatever that looks like. That doesn't want that doesn't make me want to have a conversation with you. And I get a lot of people reaching out to me just for like mentorship conversations. And like, I'll go through and, and, I like to do I like to go through the mentorship.

Adam Jay (21:14.208)
And you can't fake that shit. Sorry.

Adam Jay (21:39.38)
How much are you paying them to reach out to you to ask for you to mentor them? all right, now I understand. Dale and I have barely spoken today, so I haven't had a chance to give them as much shit as I do in a

Dale Zwizinski (21:42.472)
I get it.

Melissa Moody (21:43.296)
It was me, Adam. I asked. I was like, please, yeah.

Dale Zwizinski (21:53.152)
Well, it's because I got in at two in the morning. So you were sleeping when I was getting home. Melissa, where, how can people change their mindset? Because like when I'm, when I'm looking to hire people, like, where do they start with their mindset shifts? And maybe it's not even that they can do it because within their organization, they're not like given that time, like, cause this is a long tail strategy, right? This isn't something like you pick up and you just start doing, but

Melissa Moody (21:53.72)
You're welcome.

Adam Jay (21:55.958)
Susha.

Dale Zwizinski (22:22.794)
If you never start, you never get to where you wanna be. It's kinda like what I think about. So how can sellers, people that wanna do this, change that mindset instead of trying to get the quick win? Like no easy button.

Melissa Moody (22:37.55)
Yeah, I mean, you guys would know better. You know, I'm a 20 year marketer versus a seller. So I always show up with a marketer idea. And it's a very different world. So you guys would know best. But I would say one of the things to do would be to, even if you're not getting incentivized to do this for your company, even if you've just got your list and you got a hammer on it, find the time for yourself to start building those connections. Like even if you can't do it for work, do it for yourself. Because if you're not job searching now, what you will be doing at some point,

is looking for that network. So you need to start building your network now. So let's say one meeting a week. Actually, in September, we're going to do 30 days of tips to better connection. I guess number one is people should just, we're going to do a lot of tips. I would say find one half an hour a week. Like start small and think of someone you used to work with you haven't talked to in a while. Someone you follow online that you'd really love to, you have a point of conversation you want to dig in with them.

Adam Jay (23:19.382)
like it.

Dale Zwizinski (23:31.671)
Hmm.

Melissa Moody (23:38.182)
Ask a friend to recommend someone else you should meet and then just put on half an hour and go the Adam strategy, which is there's two questions. One, tell me what you're working on. Ask them what they're doing and then whatever you're good at, selling, marketing, give them a little value, give them an idea, give them a little bit of a peek of what you do. Because then when a job comes up,

And they go, you know what? Dale had some really great perspective on go -to -market sales strategy when I talked to him a month ago. You're on their mind. So I would say that you're never going to regret a solid half -hour conversation where you show your value to someone else because you're building a better relationship. You're strengthening your network for when you need it. Like, don't just do it when you're job searching. And then honestly,

you can bring those principles into the day job too, right? Like you're going to get better at asking and relational selling that then maybe you apply to your sales job. So that's my non -salesy idea for

Adam Jay (24:40.14)
I love.

But I love that. think when you look at, I don't wanna call it donating your time, but opening up time to have real authentic conversations. There's someone who immediately comes to mind who does this really well. And Melissa, you may or may not be shocked at the answer I'm gonna give, but Andy, our good friend, Andy Moat, is probably the best at

Melissa Moody (25:04.064)
she's the king.

Adam Jay (25:09.929)
going back to gated and now carda but like I met Andy through a conversation just like this it was literally like hey like we seem to have some light ideas like let's just shoot the shit for half an hour and just chat and I can tell you there's been numerous times he's reached out to me like we don't work together but he's reached out to me about things I've reached out to him about things and it's an authentic connection that if I need something in that realm of area of his expertise like I know that we're gonna have a great conversation

Melissa Moody (25:09.955)
Yes.

Melissa Moody (25:16.471)
Mm

Adam Jay (25:38.814)
Arguably and not to make this the Adam and Dale show because I very want this to much want this to continue about you and macho but like Dale look at how we met like very similar right we were introduced we were both competing for the same job like we had no business being on a zoom together and here we are where most people would have been like I'm not gonna talk to you like you're gonna take everything I'm gonna say and go use it to go get this job it was like hey let's let's stay in touch and see what happens so I love that mindset of

Dale Zwizinski (25:48.289)
Hmm.

Melissa Moody (25:55.127)
love that.

Adam Jay (26:08.086)
Just have the conversations, be authentic.

Melissa Moody (26:12.362)
And the giving of value is actually like such a great strategy. There's a wonderful book called The Introvert's Edge to Networking. I'm talking with the author about maybe writing a guest thing, but he talks about the power of the introvert is asking, what are you working on? How can I help you? And that doesn't thrive in a huge, loud conference center, right? But it is a superpower on a call when you're trying to build a solid, real network.

Adam Jay (26:28.492)
Hmm.

Melissa Moody (26:41.294)
not an audience, but like a network. so hopping on a call and letting people talk, I mean, if it's only 30 minutes, somebody will talk about themselves for 30 minutes every day, and then they feel great about it. But ask them what they're working on. Maybe ask one or two really thoughtful questions. Maybe showcase some ideas that you have from your perspective to help them. And bingo, there's already value there. You've got some connection, and that value will come back to you.

when you're looking for a partnership, looking for a job, looking to get feedback on a product, looking for potentially sell a product, it'll come back. mean, Andy's network, because he's just a helper, Andy's network has got gated off the ground and helps him help other people find jobs. He's the master of helping other people find jobs. Yes. Yeah. He's, he's.

Adam Jay (27:26.636)
The best, the best at it that I've ever seen.

Dale Zwizinski (27:31.458)
That's amazing. I have a kind of an interesting question. Since we're talking about go to market, we all kind of are in sales in one way or the other. What do you project the return on investment would be for someone doing this type of work? Like, is it that you can generate 25 % more sales? Like what's the, what's the

Adam Jay (27:52.814)
Mmm.

Melissa Moody (27:54.892)
Yeah, I mean, I will say there, it doesn't turn on tomorrow, right? So think there's a little bit of a lead time you have to, and like any good sales process, if you're doing it wrong, it probably hurts you, right? If I could go on all about that, I'm sure you could as well. I will before I, I mean, before I just throw in like a random revenue impact number, Matt could probably come up with something, because he thinks more about the sales implications of the personal relationship versus.

Dale Zwizinski (28:00.706)
Great. Long tail.

Melissa Moody (28:24.194)
I'm kind of thinking more about the individual. But I will say there's also just the op, like, actually, Mack has a great metaphor about like the Thelma and Louise driving to the cliff. I often say, I said this with Gated, email isn't broken, marketers broke email. And I might throw sales in that too. We have, yeah, we do, we break everything. We're like, that's great, let's do a lot of it until people hate it.

Adam Jay (28:42.388)
Mmm.

Dale Zwizinski (28:45.536)
Marketers break everything.

Melissa Moody (28:53.996)
I guess what I'm getting at is what is your other option? If you're doing a bad process and you're just hammering people and you're all outbound or you're all, you know, volume, volume, volume, sequences, sequences, your market is, even if it starts massive and you have maybe you got another few years of being able to email a whole lot of people, it is going, there's going to be a cliff where you literally can't do that anymore. Now the thing you can always do more of

Dale Zwizinski (29:20.588)
All right.

Melissa Moody (29:23.242)
is relationship driven selling, right? But you will, and in fact, you're probably getting more out of it, you invest more than they tell people, and this is a good company to work with and so on. So it's compounding. But I would, I was raised by an accountant. So like, what's the opportunity cost of other side? What are you know, if you're only doing the outbound, you're, you're going to be shrinking your market. So that's a little philosophical, I suppose. And I probably brought in too many metaphors in once. But yeah.

Dale Zwizinski (29:51.202)
No, because I always think when we talk to reps or we talk to people and go to market, like we can ask them to like, here's the best practice, but here's why you want to do the best practice. And I think, I think people don't start a lot one because of fear, maybe a little bit, but also because like, they don't truly understand the why and they have to understand the time horizon of the why, like the time horizon isn't like a month, the time horizon could be 12 months, could be 18 months.

know what that time horizon looks like. that uncertainty makes people stop.

Melissa Moody (30:22.61)
I think that's the killer. Yeah, I think the killer is the built -in processes that we're stuck in right now. I have a good friend who's an absolute gang buster seller because he understands relationship selling and how to do it. And he basically was pulled in to do something on contract with, and they were like, for six months, he was like, well, your sales cycle's four months minimum. And then they were like, well, three months. Everybody wants it faster, faster, faster.

As long as the system is built for that, it's hard to be an individual seller is trying to do it differently. Impossible, I would say.

Adam Jay (30:56.118)
So I have one other thing I wanna slightly dig into. We're gonna go a couple of minutes over before we go into rapid fire. Dale's gonna kill me. But I know something that you're super passionate about is helping what I'll call solid, extraordinary, amazing, incredible executive women leaders. There's not enough of them in revenue. Wednesday Women, talk to me a little bit about other than just being a female revenue leader.

Like, where did the passion come from that and how can we amplify that even more? Because one of the things that I think Dale and I try to do a really good job at is kind of this balanced hiring. When I look at those who have been really great on my team, man, like, and I'm gonna take shit for saying this because it's, I just am, but like the best revenue leaders I have had probably 95 % skew towards the female side.

And every single one that I've hired has told me in some way, or form, like, thank you for giving me this chance no one else would have. And like that pains my heart because that's a disgusting thing to even have to say that like you gave me this chance because you were qualified. Talk to me a little bit about that.

Melissa Moody (32:09.666)
Yeah. Yeah, I'll shorten the story of how it came about. a woman, wonderful woman, Leslie Greenwood had asked on social media, I need more CEO women in my feed. She collected a ton of names. She made an amazing spreadsheet. And then she would like when people said, I need a speaker, she would kind of send them something. I then at some point, probably a few months later said, I need more women founders in my feed. And really think about like, why is this not happening? We decided after

Adam Jay (32:20.33)
Yeah, Leslie's great.

Adam Jay (32:25.794)
you

Melissa Moody (32:38.004)
basically a matcha chat. was not on matcha, but it was still a matcha chat. That we were so interested in this, but we were too busy. So we would do one small thing. So once a week, we took one of these women and we would like an extraordinary executive, and we would just feature her. And the thinking behind this is women do not need more things to be asked to spend their time on. We don't need another community that we have to spend hours on. We don't have the time in our day.

These women are out there kicking ass, but they're so, so, so busy. What we really need is someone to be the megaphone to point out all these amazing women. Because you'll find, and we did a really interesting research report with Kickstand on this, the difference in how women think about going and sharing their success. So saying what I did on LinkedIn is not.

Dale Zwizinski (33:28.566)
Hmm.

Melissa Moody (33:33.482)
as natural for women as it is for men. I mean, we have all sorts of things about this. So the women that you do see on LinkedIn, I mean, I will tell you honestly, I hate it. I would be off LinkedIn if I could, because I don't like talking about myself or anything. I am there because I need other women to know that people like me exist. there's this, the visibility is really the problem. It's not that the women aren't doing great things. It's not that there aren't tons of them in revenue.

Adam Jay (33:46.975)
Interesting.

Adam Jay (33:52.447)
Hmm.

Melissa Moody (34:01.302)
It's that they're not talking about it and they're not as visible. And so what Wednesday Women was created to do is not to be a community you have to belong to, a thing you have to pay money to, a thing to help you be a better executive. No, there's plenty of that out there. We are purely created to help everybody see more examples of these women. I mean, there's nothing more frustrating to me when someone goes, I'm having an event in New York for sales and I don't know any women to speak on the panel.

Dale Zwizinski (34:19.158)
Hmm.

Melissa Moody (34:28.568)
I'm like, are you kidding me? There are so many women, but they just don't know them. Now I want people to be able to say that. I don't want people to be embarrassed that they don't and just, they don't know who to ask and they don't. So we're really trying to be almost honestly a resource for folks to be like, wow, look at all those amazing women. I could have them on my podcast. I could have them on my panels. could, it's, it's, there's something broken with the incentives for why and how women toot their own horn. Like talk about the great things we're doing.

And if we can be one small part to shout out for them, I think that's the thing that can actually help them. It's not a big help when someone looks at you and says, great, you're awesome. Now you should be posting on LinkedIn too. You're like, I'm busy. I'm building businesses. I'm raising a family, whatever you're up to. it's one more thing. Women don't need one more thing. They need a champion to be like, that person's awesome.

Melissa Moody (35:26.506)
There's one other, well, yeah, I won't go down that tangent. That's a whole nother.

Adam Jay (35:32.118)
That'll be episode two. I was gonna say, we'll bring you back for episode two on

Melissa Moody (35:37.358)
Yeah. I always say, I always say like, if you have one bad male boss, you don't judge him because you've had 10 other male bosses. But if you have one bad female boss, every woman boss has like a negative connotation to it. And that's, that's where we need to up the examples of awesomeness. Just the volume of wow, there's 100 CEOs I could put on my panel not well, I know that one woman CEO, like, no, they're out there. You just don't see them.

Adam Jay (35:38.795)
All right.

Adam Jay (35:57.504)
Hmm.

Adam Jay (36:08.652)
Valid point. All right, let's go into some rapid fire. Here are the rules. 10 words or less. Otherwise, Dale has a gong that comes out through the platform and will bop himself in the head. 10 words or less. Early bird or night owl?

Melissa Moody (36:12.94)
Yeah, hit me.

Melissa Moody (36:17.646)
That's hard.

Melissa Moody (36:21.218)
I think it's.

Melissa Moody (36:30.507)
Afternoon worm.

Adam Jay (36:32.086)
Ooh, all right, all right, I like it. I'll play along.

Dale Zwizinski (36:36.396)
Caffeine drink of choice.

Adam Jay (36:39.66)
Where the hell did that one come from, Dale?

Melissa Moody (36:40.162)
decaf decaf coffee. don't I don't do caffeine actually decaf matcha latte.

Dale Zwizinski (36:43.778)
We're talking about matcha, so matcha, serendipity.

Melissa Moody (36:49.92)
Mm hmm. You catch me with a cup of matcha, you will catch me cleaning the house. It matcha is so caffeinated. I'll go all day on a matcha. I'm decaf.

Adam Jay (36:55.98)
Hmm.

So you went from the behemoth of Google to startup world. What is one word to describe your startup journey?

Melissa Moody (37:11.758)
one word you said 10.

Adam Jay (37:13.388)
Okay, I'll give you 10. The question is supposed to be one word. In 10 words or less, describe your startup journey so far, and I'm particularly interested because you come from like the behemoth that is Google.

Melissa Moody (37:23.01)
Yeah. Soul -fillingly chaotic.

Adam Jay (37:26.718)
Mmm, I like it.

Melissa Moody (37:29.142)
And Google was very start -upy when I started there. So that's the justification. The reason I chose to leave was because it was a behemoth.

Adam Jay (37:33.984)
Hmm, you know.

Dale Zwizinski (37:37.024)
Behemoth. What's the first app you check when you wake up in the

Adam Jay (37:38.516)
I can't, I can't.

Melissa Moody (37:44.596)
Ugh. I probably slack. Ugh.

Adam Jay (37:49.28)
Hmm.

Melissa Moody (37:50.904)
Just to see like any issues with the product, honestly, that's my main.

Dale Zwizinski (37:54.572)
that it would have been macho.

Melissa Moody (37:56.832)
Well, we don't actually have an app right now. We will.

Dale Zwizinski (37:59.478)
Yeah.

Adam Jay (38:00.268)
She said right now. She didn't say we don't have an app. She said we don't have an app right now. Teaser, teaser. Melissa, what's your favorite guilty pleasure snack? Yeah, guilty pleasure. Yum. Yes, yes. Have you ever been to Turkey, the country? So we were in Istanbul a couple months ago and they have...

Dale Zwizinski (38:02.444)
Yeah.

Melissa Moody (38:09.87)
Snack? Ooh, Nutella, Nutella. On anything. Or just right out of the jar.

Dale Zwizinski (38:15.646)
you

Melissa Moody (38:21.259)
No.

Adam Jay (38:27.552)
what they call their version of Nutella, but it's like white and it is pure hazelnuts and it doesn't have any of the crap that Nutella has in it. And I'm a huge Nutella fan. It is absolutely incredible. I might have a fresh bottle in my pantry and if I do it is headed to Anchorage, Alaska.

Dale Zwizinski (38:44.982)
Yeah

Melissa Moody (38:45.207)
well, I can also mine the internet to see what I can get sent.

Dale Zwizinski (38:48.436)
Yeah.

Adam Jay (38:49.66)
No, it's much more fun when we send it.

Dale Zwizinski (38:53.875)
Let's wrap up dream vacation destination. Turkey.

Melissa Moody (38:59.415)
Mm. I got to pick somewhere I haven't been yet. think high on the list that I haven't been yet is Patagonia, like the Torres del Paine.

Adam Jay (39:08.948)
Mmm, like it Very cool Melissa, thank you so much for joining for geeking out on all things Network on all things women in revenue We have a whole lot more that we'll need to get into in a second episode But for now people can find you begrudgingly on LinkedIn, but where can they find you on matcha? How do they find you on matcha?

Dale Zwizinski (39:11.222)
Very cool, very cool.

Melissa Moody (39:33.378)
That one's easy. matcha .so, yes, don't get me started about domains, matcha .so, and I'm just backslash Moody. yeah, and that's a fun one too, because you can pair your custom domain with it. So I need to do that. I haven't done that yet. But I think I own melissammoody .com. I need to.

Adam Jay (39:42.156)
There you go.

Dale Zwizinski (39:49.749)
Ha

Adam Jay (39:53.536)
I like it. Awesome. Melissa, thank you so much.

Melissa Moody (39:56.194)
Yeah, thanks for having me guys.

Dale Zwizinski (39:56.748)
Thank you.