Episode #69 Your Emails ARE Being Ignored. Here's How You Fix Your Sales Outreach ft. Mark Kosoglow, CEO

In this episode of the Revenue Reimagined podcast, Mark Kosoglow, CEO of Operator AI, discusses the current sales landscape, he refers to as The Great Ignore. Mark highlights the negative impact of excessive automation and irrelevant messaging that results in potential customers blocking outreach efforts.

The Great Ignore
Burden of Automation: Today’s sales efforts often rely on generic automated messages, leading to a significant disconnect between sales teams and prospects. Mark argues that the excessive focus on numbers over relevant engagement has eroded trust.

Cultural Shift: As a response to poor sales practices, laws like GDPR and CCPA have emerged, indicating societal pushback against and regulation of spamming behaviors.

The Balancing Act of Sales
Goldilocks Zone: Mark refers to the "Goldilocks zone" for sales activity:
-Too hot (excessive automation): leads to spamming and fatigue.
-Too cold (minimal outreach): results in missed opportunities.
-The ideal scenario emphasizes strategically targeted engagement rather than sheer volume.

Quality Over Quantity: A succinct outreach approach, focused on informing and engaging based on researched insights, can lead to higher conversion rates.

Importance of Personalization
Deep Knowledge of Prospects: Effective sales representatives often possess a deep understanding of their target companies and prospects, allowing them to craft messages that resonate.

Personalized Messaging: Mark shares that prioritizing personalization by understanding not just the job title, but the unique challenges and needs of each target, translates to better engagement.

The Role of Ideal Customer Profiles (ICP)
Refining ICP: A clear and accurate ICP is crucial for dedicating efforts towards prospects likely to convert. Mark emphasizes the importance of refining ICP definitions to avoid scattering resources.

Focused Engagement Strategy: By zeroing in on a manageable number of prospects through tailored outreach, sales teams can maximize their effectiveness rather than drowning in irrelevant metrics.

Mark's insights resonate deeply in a world grappling with automation fatigue. He advocates for a return to thoughtful sales strategies, prioritizing personalization and relevance in outreach. By focusing on quality interactions and refining their approach to understanding customers, sales teams can navigate the changing landscape effectively and meaningfully connect with their audience.

As companies adapt, the prospect of revitalizing sales outreach becomes not just a possibility, but a necessity for sustainable growth.

Follow Mark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mkosoglow/

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Transcript

00:00 that's the thing that people don't
00:02 consider there is a goldilock zone of
00:05 sales activity if you automate stuff to
00:08 the level of toxic Automation and you go
00:11 past and now the porridge is too hot
00:14 guess what nobody eats
00:20 it welcome back to another episode of
00:23 the revenue reimagine podcast we have
00:25 with us today Mark Kosoglow who is the
00:27 co-founder and CEO of operator AI the
01:30 former cro at Catalyst where he took
01:32 them from uh I don't know 5 to 10
01:34 million in 14 months in some of the
01:36 toughest Economic Times we've seen and
01:40 employee number one at Outreach where
01:42 scaled from zero to over 230 million in
01:45 Revenue we're talking really small
01:46 numbers here Mark um so I'd say it's
01:48 safe to say that he knows a thing or two
01:51 about building and scaling Revenue in
01:52 orgs of all sizes and all economic
01:55 climates he's taken all of those years
01:57 of experience and is now determined to
01:59 help you break through the great ignore
01:02 Mark thanks for joining man wow I think
01:04 I need to put that last like five
01:05 seconds on the on my website like you
01:07 come in and you hear Adam talking about
01:10 the great ignore and that nighttime DJ
01:12 voice let's go so you know I used to do
01:15 radio right true story no I did not
01:18 that's why Dale has me do all the
01:21 intros we we gave so I say I say often
01:24 if if I could just do this all day long
01:28 and make like a reasonable living I'd be
01:30 very happy happy
02:31 person but I'm I'm happy to be your
02:33 voiceover on the website and I won't
02:34 even
02:36 charge awesome thanks for joining Mark
02:38 like tons of experience there so let's
02:41 kick off this is a little bit different
02:43 what is the great ignor let's give the
02:45 audience like a taste of what you guys
02:46 are doing and then the second part of
02:49 that question is like why start operator
02:51 and I think they probably blending
02:53 together yeah yeah I think they do blend
02:55 together um listen the great ignore is
02:58 the fact that it takes 20 needed 25
02:01 touches now to get somebody's interest
02:03 that's not even to book a meeting that's
02:04 just to like Peak their interest uh and
02:07 the great ignore really if if I boil it
02:10 down to in essence what it is it's um
02:14 the fact that we're sending such lazy
02:16 automated horrible irrelevant
02:19 uncompelling messaging that's so
02:21 self-centered and so wrong and we took
02:24 those ideas that actually were semide
02:26 decent and sort of worked back in the
02:28 day when in the Golden Age of sales
03:30 before the economic downturn and we
03:33 scaled that out of control and now uh we
03:35 have things like gdpr CCPA and do not
03:38 call this which are societal push backs
03:42 governed law body people making
03:46 legislation against our own crappy
03:50 salesmanship that's what that is and uh
03:53 that's led to now people you know are to
03:56 the point where rather than kind of try
03:57 to Wade through the noise to find a few
03:00 signals they've just given up and they
03:02 don't care about the signals anymore
03:04 because there's just too much noise and
03:06 so I feel in a way send me responsible
03:09 for this uh because of my role at
03:13 Outreach and and I always like to say
03:15 this because it's super important uh we
03:17 talked about this a lot at Outreach in
03:19 the beginning and honestly constantly
03:22 about how people would abuse the
03:24 platform and create this and it's you
03:26 know this is probably controversial
03:28 maybe I shouldn't say this or whatever
03:30 but no please please let's do some
04:31 controversy it's like a gun A gun never
04:33 killed anybody a person shooting a gun
04:36 is what killed somebody Outreach didn't
04:38 create this people using Outreach with
04:41 ill intent created this despite the fact
04:44 that we had a myriad of settings and
04:46 stuff that we put inside the application
04:47 to prevent people from doing this and
04:49 it's funny we first saw this really
04:51 quickly with a a guy that named Vlad we
04:53 nicknamed him internally Vlad The
04:56 Destroyer Vlad was the first person that
04:58 sent a thousand emails in a
04:00 and he broke our system way back when
04:02 and we're like wait vad you shouldn't be
04:04 doing this well it did pressure test
04:06 some stuff and led to some you know more
04:09 you know interesting and and robust
04:12 infrastructure but then Vlad was the
04:14 first person to send 10,000 emails in a
04:16 day and he busted and then Vlad was the
04:18 first person to try to send 100,000 a
04:20 day and that's when we kicked Vlad The
04:21 Destroyer off the platform but like he
04:24 pushed the limits of this kind of like
04:26 I'm going to just automate the crap out
04:27 of everything and uh we did did a lot of
05:30 work in the product after that to
05:32 prevent that but anyway that's kind of
05:33 going down a rat hole but that's what
05:34 the great ignore is and the reason that
05:36 I'm I'm after is I love sales I love
05:39 salese I I think that salese are some of
05:42 the best Educators on the planet and
05:44 intro introducers of new ideas and all
05:48 of that value of part of salesmanship is
05:51 going away because people are just
05:53 ignoring us now and we brought it on
05:55 ourselves uh but uh we can fix it I
05:58 think and it's not even sales it's also
05:60 marketing right I mean it's always like
05:02 it's the same type of thing like if
05:04 something work is working a little bit
05:06 like people always want to push more
05:07 push more like look at what's happening
05:09 with GPT and chat and all that kind of
05:11 stuff is is is making even those
05:14 messages even worse Adam loves getting
05:16 those every day send them to Adam more a
05:19 good a good metaphor is this is like 10
05:22 15 years ago how many websites had
05:24 banner ads y all of them and it was just
05:28 like what ha what did we all do with it
06:30 we just started ignoring it it was just
06:32 no noise except for the punch the monkey
06:34 one where like you could actually
06:35 interact with it no just that one became
06:38 adorable too after you punched the
06:39 monkey a couple times but you know what
06:41 I mean what it did is it evolved
06:44 something that was spammed to Hell on
06:46 every website on the planet that
06:48 everybody ignored what did we start to
06:50 evolve into we evolved to Instagram ads
06:53 that I talk to more and more people that
06:55 are like yeah I kind of shop on
06:56 Instagram I just talked to somebody
06:58 that's like when I shop for something
06:59 actually go on Instagram and kind of
06:01 trick the algorithm into giving me ad
06:03 yeah Adam you're doing it too that
06:06 that's where I return 90% of it but I I
06:09 do my wife will tell you like I'm a mark
06:12 on Instagram oh that pan looks cool
06:13 let's order it but you know that that's
06:16 that's I think where we need to start to
06:18 evolve as salespeople is can we be so
06:21 relevant so compelling so inside what
06:24 people are doing that what we're
06:25 presenting to them causes the ads to be
06:28 valuable and if you said to somebody 5
07:30 years ago oh yeah I love the Instagram
07:32 ads every think you're crazy
07:35 yeah it it's funny because everything
07:38 has changed right like I get probably 10
07:41 to 15 emails a day Mark you probably get
07:43 more with CEO and co-founder that's
07:45 basically hi Mark because you're the CEO
07:48 and co-founder of X you must struggle
07:49 with Y and I could solve it with Z zero
07:51 personalization zero relevance or my
07:54 favorite is like do you need you know 20
07:56 guaranteed leads a week in your inbox
07:58 from someone who has 2,000 follow on
07:00 LinkedIn um and the world is changing
07:03 and I'm super curious to hear how
07:06 operator is going to make a difference
07:08 because we like you love sales love the
07:11 profession of sales and certainly think
07:12 that when you're adding value and you
07:15 have a relevant offer that speaks to
07:18 relevant pain in a timely manner that
07:21 that is is good cold Outreach what isn't
07:24 good cold Outreach is hi I have this
07:26 product and you're a CEO could you use
07:27 it but before we go there I actually
07:30 just saw this the other day and I don't
08:31 know if you've seen this or not and I'm
08:32 curious how this will play into operator
08:35 um because I feel like Outreach has done
08:37 a lot to not become a spamming tool
08:41 there's plenty of spamming tools out
08:42 there now where it's like oh get your
08:43 170 domains and your 54 emails per
08:45 domain and you know feel free to send
08:47 them out but Google has announced that
08:49 they're starting October 15th they are
08:51 stepping up their game with Gemini to
08:53 identify spam more effectively um
08:56 secondary domain icted this like six
08:57 months ago and second SEC you did hold
08:01 on one second I I I'm going to try not
08:03 to monopolize but secondary domains like
08:06 tri.com whatever Etc are going to be
08:09 identified redirects from those domains
08:11 are going to be tracked um and
08:13 ultimately they're going to block you
08:15 based on that warm-up tools gone like
08:18 that shit's not going to work either so
08:20 how do you stay ahead of this curve
08:21 because all these things that tools like
08:24 instantly and smart lead and warmly and
08:26 all these ones that are or not warmly
08:27 I'm sorry warm up that are like oh we're
08:29 going to fix it we're just going to get
09:30 you all these sub subdomains and you're
09:32 good you're not yeah what do you do and
09:35 how does operator stand out from that
09:37 crowd to keep outbound relevant lot of
09:40 lot of stuff on that so let's let's
09:42 unpack it a little bit is like well
09:43 first of all um there's the letter of
09:46 the law and there's the spirit of the
09:48 law the spirit of spam laws is to keep
09:52 people from spamming us the letter of
09:54 the law says you know if you do these
09:57 behaviors we're going to mark you as
09:59 spam so just because you find spamish
09:02 behaviors that aren't listed in the
09:04 letter of the law and you're not
09:06 technically spamming according to the
09:08 legal definition you're still
09:10 spamming you're still violating of the
09:13 law and you know what happens when
09:15 people find edge cases and cracks to get
09:18 around the things that have been put in
09:20 place to protect us and do stuff like
09:22 that eventually they get shut down and
09:25 like I said about six months ago I did a
09:27 post and I'm like listen let's take this
09:28 AIS SDR thing all the way to the end and
10:31 like I got ludicrous at the end because
10:33 I was kind of like listen in the end
10:35 there'll be an AI anti-i SDR AI that
10:40 battles the AI sdrs and what they'll do
10:43 is they'll they'll start to figure out
10:45 like oh my God we got to do this this
10:46 and this next thing you know we got
10:47 World War III and the Terminators are
10:49 running all over the planet
10:50 because the AI created a robot to go
10:52 knock on your door because it
10:54 circumvented spam law or whatever you
10:56 know what I mean so like that that's
10:58 being ridiculous and I'm a sci-fi geek
10:00 so like of course my brain went there
10:03 but like I think that that's uh these
10:05 kind of cheat your way I I use that term
10:09 I don't know if that's the right term
10:11 but that's what it feels like to me is
10:12 it feels like we're if we're all playing
10:14 a game and there's somebody sitting
10:16 across the table from you that's playing
10:17 by different rules and bending the rules
10:20 and not quite playing it it's just not
10:22 fun for anybody when they they they're
10:24 winning and so like you know maybe those
10:26 people that use that stuff were winning
10:28 and like the same thing have have you
10:29 heard of this spin tax stuff too yeah
11:32 yeah like we were just talking about
11:34 that with the client yesterday yeah spin
11:36 tax domain warmup all of that stuff is
11:40 meant to violate the spirit of the law
11:43 and eventually the technology will catch
11:45 up to it and it will be Obsolete and if
11:48 you built your GTM motion on that you
11:51 will start to fail and so what is
11:54 operator doing to me the thing that I
11:58 see great growth hackers doing the ones
11:01 that actually provide huge value in the
11:04 Outreach that compels people to respond
11:07 to an offer or a message the thing that
11:10 I see the top 10% of sales reps do that
11:13 you give them 12 accounts and sure
11:15 enough by the end of the year they got
11:16 opportunities with six or seven of them
11:18 that are humongous right the thing that
11:20 I've done dozens and dozens and dozens
11:23 of interviews since I've started since I
11:25 started to move in the direction of
11:26 founding operator and I've done years
11:29 and years and years of coaching and
12:31 helping people that are in those same
12:34 spots and using some of those Services
12:35 right the core thing I found is they
12:38 have real business Acumen and what
12:41 they're able to do is typically find
12:44 unstructured extremely valuable data
12:47 somewhere on the Internet or somewhere
12:50 they bring it into a place they analyze
12:52 it they take their time they find what's
12:55 interesting and then they get so excited
12:57 about why this person or company should
12:60 be a customer that they can't help but
12:02 figure out a super compelling way to get
12:05 them into a conversation because they're
12:07 so excited to share and to teach and to
12:10 and you know to give value uh because of
12:13 what they figured out that's the process
12:16 that I think uh Outreach or that not
12:18 Outreach CM so program uh that operator
12:21 is trying to create is uh how do we take
12:25 a core set of of lists and help you
12:28 sharpen what your ICP do definition is
12:30 because most people have a super sloppy
13:31 ICP definition how do we help them build
13:34 that good list how do we then go
13:36 identify and fetch this unstructured
13:39 data that we can add to that core data
13:41 set that is extremely valuable and
13:43 personable how do we then analyze that
13:46 data for insights that are interesting
13:49 and then how do we make sure that those
13:51 insights are actually compelling enough
13:52 for us to reach out it's okay to take a
13:55 list of a thousand companies and say we
13:57 don't have something to say to 700 15 of
13:60 them it's okay y'all because guess what
13:03 you don't waste time on the 715 that are
13:05 never going to do anything you convert
13:06 the 285 that you can and this is the
13:10 number one thing I see when I started
13:11 operator people were like well Mark you
13:12 G have more accurate day you G have
13:13 better coverage and I'm like no we're
13:16 not going to have the most accurate data
13:17 we're not going to have the best
13:18 coverage do you know why you need more
13:19 accurate data and they're like why I
13:21 said let me do a math problem for you
13:23 how many contacts do you have in your
13:24 database right now 200,000 all right
13:26 great 200,000 what's your data accuracy
13:28 level 50% all right so that means you
14:31 have a 100,000 people that you know
14:33 their name and address and phone number
14:35 and the right job they're at you can't
14:37 convert a 100,000 people into your next
14:39 $2 million of Revenue you don't have an
14:42 accuracy problem you have a conversion
14:44 problem or product problem or product
14:47 Market fit problem like there's a lot of
14:49 other problems that you have yeah you
14:51 don't you don't need more accurate data
14:52 you don't need better coverage you just
14:54 need to fix the stuff that's meaning
14:56 that's not letting 100,000 people that
14:58 you know you can reach out to convert
14:00 over into customers and then the last
14:02 thing is sending that Insight off when
14:03 the structure data to create it into
14:05 other tools that you can use to you know
14:08 uh you know reach out and do all that
14:10 kind of stuff uh operators fuel not
14:12 engine we want to deliver high octane
14:14 fuel to the GTM machines that you've
14:16 created inside your stack so let's let's
14:19 bounce off of this one a little bit um
14:22 you do someing you do some investing um
14:25 you like we're talking to almost
14:28 individuals now but it's not really the
14:30 individual's challenge right this is an
15:32 investor problem because they're like
15:33 okay they're they're I listen to um Kyle
15:37 Norton and Jason linss podcast earlier
15:39 today and what they were talking about
15:41 was like we're we're doing playbooks
15:43 from like five years ago which are not
15:45 relevant today so investors are like
15:48 more volume more data like call out to
15:51 more people then that comes to the CEO
15:53 or the cro and so like the sales people
15:55 are almost like stuck in between because
15:57 some sales people are like I want to do
15:59 more quality over quantity and then
15:01 you're getting from the top down no you
15:03 got to do quantity because if we you
15:05 know if we do 100 calls a day and like
15:07 they start doing this conversion math
15:08 which is totally irrelevant so how do we
15:12 stop that Insanity at the investor or
15:15 the executive level people buy from
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16:31 entire sales process trust me I led
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16:46 y y'all have heard the phrase I'm sure
16:49 sales is a numbers game but most people
16:52 under only understand half of what that
16:54 phrase means the way that most people
16:57 understand it is if I don't do enough
16:58 activity I won't get enough results
16:00 that's like would you say 100% of people
16:03 you know what the flip of that coin is
16:05 if I do too much activity I don't get
16:08 results interesting and see that's the
16:10 thing that people don't consider there
16:12 is a goldilock zone of sales activity if
16:16 you automate stuff to the level of toxic
16:19 Automation and you go past and now the
16:22 porridge is too hot guess what nobody
16:25 eats it and if you don't put enough heat
16:27 on the porridge the porridge is too cold
16:29 nobody eats it because you haven't done
17:30 enough there's a goldilock Zone where
17:32 that porridge and oatmeal with the
17:34 little golden raisins and a little brown
17:37 sugar let me eat some of that stuff
17:39 that's where we need no raisins raisins
17:42 come on no raisins some raisins and some
17:43 oatmeal do you all right give Adam some
17:46 beets he likes
17:48 beets beets I like beets too oh I hate
17:51 beets they taste like
17:54 dirt it's here wash them first before
17:59 you eat them then they don't taste I
17:00 mean yeah you definitely do my wife
17:02 loves beets like she loves a good beet
17:04 salad like it's no one's business
17:07 um sales the saying that sales is a
17:10 numbers game I I think we hear it every
17:13 single company with every founder we
17:15 work with right it's get more contacts
17:17 make more calls get more leads send more
17:19 emails and like ultimately if you send a
17:21 100 emails like you're you're going to
17:23 have more success than if you send five
17:25 y um and I would argue the opposite I
17:27 would argue that if you send five highly
17:30 tailored really relevant emails that
18:32 touch a pain exactly what you were
18:34 saying I'd rather convert four out of
18:35 five than two out of 100 um and spend
18:38 that time and spend that effort but
18:40 people don't do that a lot of CEOs I
18:43 think have this mindset and when you
18:45 talk about like the outdated contacts in
18:47 HubSpot or or Salesforce or whatever
18:49 your CRM is like so relevant I literally
18:52 just sent a slack to one of my partners
18:53 I'm like all right I I marked
18:56 4,654 contacts for deletion they're in
18:58 there they haven't been been touched in
18:59 two years half of them you know show a
18:02 ton of bad contact data and the
18:06 push back I get from the CEO is well the
18:08 ones with bad contact data like of
18:10 course delete those but the others like
18:12 why aren't we just emailing them how do
18:15 you fundamentally change this mindset of
18:18 non-go to Market sea-level Executives
18:22 who truly still believe no matter what
18:24 the data is that this is not the way you
18:27 want to do things like I feel like we
18:29 need a reckoning and nothing has changed
19:32 it yet which blows my mind so off the
19:34 top of my head like the first thing that
19:36 pops in is um what we used to do at
19:39 Outreach and I remember early on at
19:40 Outreach everybody would say Mark we
19:43 have Salesforce for this that's what
19:45 people say and I'd be like what are you
19:47 talking about they're like yeah we just
19:48 I don't see it working and I had this
19:50 saying at Outreach let your passion
19:52 overcome your professionalism and I also
19:54 had a little thing that if I didn't get
19:56 one complaint about a repa a year year
19:59 about them being too aggressive they
19:01 weren't being aggressive enough and so
19:03 what I would encourage my reps to do is
19:05 and I I would listen I did this myself
19:07 I'd be like listen you don't believe
19:08 what what we do works all right let me
19:10 just tell you right now Adam that's
19:12 I'm about to bring up my screen
19:14 and show you exactly how I worked you
19:16 inside of Outreach to get this meeting
19:18 that you're in right now all right and
19:20 so there's no argument to that fact
19:23 right now let's take that to this if I
19:26 take any executive to their inbox and
19:28 spam folder right now I'm like do you
20:31 want this madness to continue and what
20:33 are they going to say no I don't like
20:35 that well then why would you do
20:37 something that you don't like to other
20:40 people like we just have to get it
20:42 through our stupid heads that we're not
20:44 going to be the outliers we're not going
20:46 to be the one that everybody loves to
20:48 get 10 emails from a day or 100 calls a
20:51 week you know what I mean like we got to
20:53 get that out of our mind we're just
20:54 regular people like everybody else and
20:56 the things that usually annoy and cause
20:59 us to ignore buyers if we do those same
20:02 behaviors we'll have that same result in
20:04 our buyers it's not just us right so I
20:08 think that that's a really important
20:10 thing for an exec to see like you you
20:13 want to get more spam Mr CEO all right
20:16 no problem we're g to add you into our
20:18 own Cadence and you're going to start to
20:20 get like lit up by us just like
20:22 everybody else that is irrelevant
20:24 uncompelling and doesn't have anything
20:26 interesting to say is doing to you which
20:28 you say that you hate but you're asking
21:30 us to do I know hypocritical
21:33 contradicting behaviors that are very
21:35 but every day it it's it's every day
21:37 it's the CEO who hires a bdr team but
21:40 then is to the bdr that cold calls them
21:43 like that's my we see it all the time
21:46 Adam you you have heard it the VP of
21:49 sales that you've coold called that said
21:51 I don't take coold calls but is on the
21:53 floor yelling at their reps to make Co
21:55 calls all day that those people need to
21:58 get out yeah you know I mean disgusting
21:00 it's just old school go to market is not
21:02 a modern go to market but that's exactly
21:05 the same though as a CEO that's telling
21:06 you to spam your Tam when they don't
21:09 like to be spammed if they like to be
21:11 spammed all right cool then F we'll
21:13 follow your lead but nobody does yeah
21:16 and and is this just a symptom of like
21:18 the real problem the underlying problem
21:20 which is they don't know the ICP they're
21:22 just going out after everybody they and
21:26 and they don't really how understand how
21:28 to articulate the value to what they're
22:30 trying to sell so we have we have two
22:33 big challenges like when you go talk to
22:35 a head of sales CEO like give me your
22:39 value propos proposition 10 words or
22:42 less that no one else can say like it's
22:43 like crickets and then it's like what's
22:45 your ICP and it's like well my Tam is
22:48 this and it's like no not your Tam like
22:50 who can you sell to what are you trying
22:52 to sell to and what's that value to that
22:54 person like isn't that the real problem
22:56 yeah I I I think the real to me the real
22:59 problem is um I did a post on this
22:01 recently and it's like a little grid
22:03 like you know an axis the the y axis is
22:07 the level of
22:08 personalization and Adam talked about
22:10 the lowest form of personalization which
22:12 is you you have a problem do you have
22:15 this problem here's how we fix it one
22:17 step up from that but not much better is
22:19 industry all right hey we kind of know
22:21 that you sell Nails most nail
22:24 manufacturers have this problem the next
22:26 one is Persona all right we know that
22:28 you are the lead engineer on the machine
23:32 that makes Nails you they usually have
23:34 this problem do you right those things
23:36 used to work they don't Needmore the
23:37 next up though is company hey nail you
23:41 know Acme Nails we see that you've done
23:44 these these things that starts to get
23:46 pretty good and then the last is the
23:47 person hey Adam line manager at Acme
23:51 Nails we've heard that you are having a
23:54 problem with this in your plant on these
23:56 machines okay that's get you can the
23:59 level of relevancy and and how much how
23:02 compelling it is goes up on the x-axis
23:05 is how hard is the data to get so if the
23:08 data is easy to get if I can just do a
23:10 zoom info search or a s a little quick
23:13 you know Google search and find the data
23:15 even if I personalize at the person
23:18 level it's not as compelling the harder
23:20 the data that is to find probably the
23:24 more interesting that it is right so
23:26 what we're after at operator what I
23:28 think Beth the best reps have always
23:29 done what the growth hackers do is they
24:31 try to get to the company or person
24:33 level with hard to find data and when
24:36 you're in that quadrant that or not even
24:38 quadrant I don't know how many squares
24:40 are in my thing but when you're that
24:42 area of the grid you are you are going
24:45 to be high a high converting outbound
24:48 machine and if you can do that at scale
24:51 you can you should do it at scale but I
24:53 would argue that most of the time to
24:56 reach a level of appropriate relevancy
24:58 and compellingness that you're you
24:01 probably need to reach out to a lot less
24:03 people than you actually think you
24:06 can I I think that last sentence is what
24:09 holds so true to me you need to reach
24:11 out to a lot less people pick the right
24:13 people manically focus on them and get
24:17 rid of the that just makes you look
24:19 busy right are you busy or are you
24:21 productive Adam this just came to me
24:23 right now because of what you just said
24:25 and it goes back to our CEO thing that
24:26 we were talking about earlier VPS that
24:28 don't like whatever so um what does
25:32 every cro do over time to the size of
25:37 territories of reps shrink them they
25:39 shrink it why do they shrink it because
25:42 so you can be more focused be more
25:44 focused you're gonna get better results
25:45 at a small yet every CEO and board says
25:49 what we need to expand the people right
25:51 expand higher higher higher reach out to
25:54 more people that's insane that is
25:56 hypocritical self-contradictory Behavior
25:59 I I I see a future LinkedIn post coming
25:01 from you on this of we all start here
25:03 yet we always end here right every
25:04 company every time every CEO is like CR
25:07 I need you to make those territories
25:08 smaller make them smaller get the make
25:10 make sure those reps really get every
25:11 drop out of it but at the same time I
25:13 want you to reach out to even more more
25:15 people it's a mixed message it doesn't
25:17 make sense when I um when I was at toast
25:20 we started with uh everyone everyone's
25:23 Tam if you will was like half the state
25:26 right like your territory covered half
25:28 the state and then we dropped it down
25:30 you know several times and we ended on
26:32 if you're a rep and toast your territory
26:34 is 600 restaurants period the end why
26:37 because I want you to know every
26:39 thing about those 600 restaurants so you
26:41 walk in you know their business better
26:44 than them you know who the manager is
26:46 who the server is who's sleeping with
26:48 who who eats where you know true story
26:50 in restaurants but you know everything
26:52 and when we did that the Reps were like
26:55 up in arms right like what do you mean
26:56 I'm not going to be able to make as much
26:57 money I only have 600 rep like what am I
26:59 going to do I need this giant territory
26:01 PS comp went like this yes it did win
26:04 rates went like this because now you are
26:08 the the term we use was the mayor of
26:09 your town like you know everything about
26:12 everyone and people want to work with
26:15 that person versus Mark who comes in
26:18 once a month on his rotation because you
26:19 are restaurant number 228 and you went
26:22 from Com or you went from
26:25 industry product personalization to
26:28 restaurant an owner and then from easy
27:31 to get information that anybody can find
27:32 on the web to intimate information that
27:34 only somebody that is that deep can get
27:37 into and boom you were in the you are in
27:39 the The Fun Zone where you actually are
27:41 starting to get results again right we
27:44 have to we have to we've we always talk
27:47 about conversion and maximizing
27:49 conversion and but the way that we
27:51 always talk about it is make the pool
27:54 and as big as you can and get as many
27:56 fish out of as you can well sometimes
27:58 you just need to shrink the the pool
27:60 you're going to get the same number of
27:01 fish but you're not like just you know
27:03 going nuclear on a bunch of other people
27:06 and things that you know are never going
27:07 to happen you're never going to catch
27:09 the reality is like how many can you
27:10 really go after I Ain given time like
27:12 okay you have 600 restaurants but like
27:14 that's a lot of restaurants to go sit in
27:16 eat in look at take notes on figure out
27:19 what people are doing like could it was
27:22 quadruple that before yes you do that to
27:24 2400 restaurants like you're leaving a
27:26 lot of fruit on the tree like pick the
27:28 right fruit and like move on so yeah
28:31 well you know there there comes that
28:32 stage of a company where you have to
28:35 start to climb the tree to get the good
28:37 fruit the low hanging fruit is gone and
28:39 when people have uh something that they
28:42 put in that gathers low hanging fruit
28:44 Unfortunately they they think that that
28:45 means that it's a really great system
28:47 when it's just a really great system for
28:48 low hanging fruit and then they scale
28:50 that up and like to me the worst of that
28:52 is these new AI sdrs I'm starting to
28:55 hear rumbling that like they're uh only
28:58 converting 20% of their trials over and
28:00 most of those are people that aren't
28:02 aren't churning but they're not paying
28:04 anymore either they're on for free while
28:06 they fix it and like all we could have a
28:10 whole we could have a whole podcast on
28:11 Counting customers that aren't paying
28:13 customers yeah right exactly or listing
28:15 on your website I've seen that movie
28:17 Facebook is a customer when it's one rep
28:19 in one city using fa Facebook but any at
28:21 any rate like that that's what we have
28:24 to we have to be just so concerned about
28:28 is like like how do how are these loow
29:31 hanging fruit tactics polluting scale of
29:36 really strong foundational tactics that
29:39 if you've been in sales for more than a
29:40 minute you know work but you know what
29:43 you you got to hire the right people
29:45 that can do that work they got to have
29:46 the right business Acumen they need to
29:48 have the right data to do it and I'm I'm
29:50 what I'm hoping operator can do is
29:52 provide some of some help on that and
29:55 this is the one of the travesties to me
29:57 is like if you're in college
29:59 and your sales professor gave you a list
29:00 of 100 accounts and the the goal of the
29:04 project was for you and a small team a
29:06 group like a little group project was to
29:08 deliver here's the the 20 accounts that
29:12 are most likely to convert why what
29:14 we're going to do you would have three
29:16 or four meetings with your group you
29:17 would sit down you do it you'd have an
29:19 idea it might not be right but it would
29:21 be logical and you to think through it
29:23 do you know how many reps do that maybe
29:26 10% maybe very very small
29:29 they do it for a grade in college but
30:30 they won't do it for money in their bank
30:31 account I'm
30:33 confused well it once again that's a
30:35 leadership thing because they're talking
30:37 volume they're talking like and and we
30:40 see it all the time like we go to Coach
30:41 people and we we're like like as simple
30:43 Mark as send a recap after you have a
30:46 call like what are the action items
30:49 who's got the action items and what are
30:50 you gonna do and then like I I look at
30:52 the recap it's like thanks for joining
30:54 us on the call no like no actions
30:57 nothing else if if they even send it
30:59 like ridiculous like sales 101
30:02 stuff yeah yeah well you know when you
30:06 if you don't do 101 you never get to
30:08 2011 301 401 and unfortunately right now
30:11 it takes a PhD which is like 601 level
30:15 stuff to get results and you know I
30:16 think we need to try to level that down
30:18 a little bit but like um you know that's
30:21 why the great reps you know what they're
30:23 not talking on LinkedIn about how
30:24 they're not not making money they're not
30:26 talking about how they don't have
30:27 pipeline like I love uh reading Brian
31:31 lman stuff that dude's crushing Brian's
31:34 awesome yeah and he but he's out there
31:35 hoofing it and he is in the 400 level
31:38 classes doing that kind of stuff and you
31:39 know what he hasn't been in AE that long
31:41 you can get there you just got to try
31:43 you got to work you got to treat your
31:45 job like it's College you got to treat
31:47 getting a good grade like it you know
31:49 like or you have to treat making money
31:51 like getting a good grade you gotta work
31:52 for
31:54 it you you you nailed it this uh this
31:56 was the 101 of this show I feel like
31:59 there's so much more that we could get
31:00 into and hopefully you will bless us
31:02 with scheduling a 2011 followup because
31:05 we are just about out out of time um
31:09 outbound is changing outbound has
31:11 changed um and if you are not adapting
31:14 with the times not only are you not
31:15 going to sell your domain's going to get
31:17 blocked your company reputation's going
31:19 to get ruined um and then you're not
31:21 going to be able to email your customers
31:22 so then you're gonna have a whole lot
31:23 more issues uh Mark before we wrap it up
31:25 are you are you game for some rapid fire
31:27 yeah hit me all right here we go 10
31:30 words or less early bird or night
32:32 owl uh
32:35 neither I work about 8 to 5 and I crush
32:40 it inside that time period And I don't
32:42 work really early or really
32:43 late cool that's awesome uh if you
32:46 weren't in Tech what other trade or or
32:49 activity would you would you
32:51 do uh my favorite thing to do on the
32:53 planet is coaching Youth Sports I uh
32:56 have more fun doing that as a parent
32:58 than anything else and if I could make a
32:60 living coaching youth sports teams I'd
32:02 strongly consider it that's incredible
32:05 what sports uh I did basketball and
32:07 soccer but basketball is my is my is my
32:10 favorite I love it other than your
32:13 iPhone uh what's the one tech tech
32:15 Gadget you can't live
32:19 without
32:21 uh I don't think I have one besides
32:25 that I could do without anything I could
32:27 do without my phone be honest with you
32:30 what's your most used uh Emoji in in
33:32 work slack text oo great question uh I'm
33:36 not sure if it's green check mark thumbs
33:39 up green check mark or thumbs up
33:43 okay what um but my favorite email is
33:47 yeah ghost Emoji apostrophe d space sad
33:54 face space mark
33:58 that's my that's my ghosted email to get
33:01 people re-engaged 80% reply
33:04 rate is that one time is that the
33:06 subject line or in the body of the text
33:08 that's the body of the text it says Adam
33:11 empty line ghost Emoji apostrophy D line
33:16 sad face line
33:22 Mark I like it last one let's let's wrap
33:24 this baby up dream vacation destination
33:28 uh I'm going to go uh
34:30 Bali Bali nice nice yeah I want to St
34:33 one of those huts on the yeah I love
34:35 that I love that love to do that I love
34:38 it mark thank you so much for joining
34:39 man a ton of value super excited uh for
34:43 operator AI um can't wait to learn more
34:46 and can't wait to have you back on the
34:47 show man thanks y'all appreciate it
34:48 thanks Mark appreciate it man cheers