Perfect Timing, Terrible Copy: Fixing the Signal-to-Message Breakdown (webinar) 🔗 **Source:** [Perfect Timing, Terrible Copy: Fixing the Signal-to-Message Breakdown (webinar)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UnOiHO_Dac) > [!note]+ Document Notes > tags: [sales-development, outbound-prospecting, signal-based-selling] > author: Floren Tulia > source: YouTube > reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UnOiHO_Dac > date created: 2024-12-19 10:45 > > # 🏷️ Title: Perfect Timing, Terrible Copy: Fixing the Signal-to-Message Breakdown > <!-- deep-read:sections start --> ## 🧰 Action Inbox - [H1] Test creative prospecting approaches out of pocket before requesting budget — show data to leadership #outbound - [H2] Build inventory of closed-lost calls with transcripts for Q4 re-engagement campaigns #sales-process - [H3] Map network connections systematically across team to avoid duplicate outreach #network-selling ## 🧭 Table of Contents - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📚 References](#-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🛡️ DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ### 🔗 References - [Common Room](https://commonroom.io) - [Perfect Timing, Terrible Copy Webinar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UnOiHO_Dac) ## 📝 Summary - Sales teams struggle with converting abundant signals into effective messaging that breaks through buyer noise - AI-driven prospecting has created "fake relevance" where signals are used as reasons to reach out rather than context for valuable messaging - First-party data and network-based selling provide sustainable competitive advantages over third-party intent data - Creative, unscalable approaches combined with deep account research consistently outperform high-volume automated campaigns - Success requires bridging signal detection with contextual storytelling that provides genuine value to prospects ## 📖 Main Content The fundamental challenge in modern sales development is the disconnect between having access to more prospect signals than ever before while experiencing declining response rates and pipeline generation. Floren Tulia from Common Room and sales expert Scott Leese explore how sales teams can leverage signals effectively by focusing on context over volume. The core issue stems from the proliferation of AI-powered sales tools that scrape web signals and generate seemingly personalized messages. However, these create "fake relevance" - messages that reference a signal but fail to connect it meaningfully to the prospect's business challenges or provide genuine value. The solution involves three key elements: First, prioritizing first-party data that competitors cannot access (call transcripts, product usage analytics, internal conversations). Second, developing systematic network-based selling approaches that leverage warm introductions for higher conversion rates. Third, creating unscalable but highly targeted experiences that demonstrate genuine investment in the prospect relationship. ## 🗒️ Notes #### ⏱️ [00:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UnOiHO_Dac?t=0) — [H1] Introduction and Signal Problem Setup - Key idea: AI and automation have created more noise, not better results in sales outreach - Evidence: "Email volume is projected to continue increasing through 2028 while effectiveness decreases" #### ⏱️ [03:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UnOiHO_Dac?t=195) — [H2] Defining Signals vs Intent - Key idea: Intent shows direct interest in your product, while signals indicate broader timing opportunities - Evidence: "First-party signals are data only you own - CRM notes, product usage, call transcripts" #### ⏱️ [07:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UnOiHO_Dac?t=450) — [H2] The Volume-Response Rate Decline - Key idea: Historical progression from personalized emails to sequence blasting to AI-generated spam - Evidence: "It was much easier back in 2014 to send one-on-one emails and get decent reply rates" #### ⏱️ [12:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UnOiHO_Dac?t=765) — [H1] Network-Based Selling Strategy - Key idea: Warm introductions through personal networks yield 75-80% meeting acceptance rates - Evidence: "I know about 5-6% of my 127,000 followers well enough to text and get responses" #### ⏱️ [18:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UnOiHO_Dac?t=1100) — [H3] Quantifying Network ROI - Key idea: Mathematical approach to network value demonstrates massive pipeline potential - Evidence: "If your average deal is 50K, and I know 5 of 100 prospects, that's 200K pipeline from one referral partner" #### ⏱️ [23:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UnOiHO_Dac?t=1390) — [H2] The Fake Relevance Problem - Key idea: Using signals as the reason for outreach rather than context for valuable messaging - Evidence: "I saw you liked this person's post - first of all, I don't even know who Nick Viloski is" #### ⏱️ [28:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UnOiHO_Dac?t=1715) — [H3] Website Visit Signal Misuse - Key idea: Website deanonymization should trigger research and network checks, not automated emails - Evidence: "153 vendors offer website deanonymization - everyone has the same data" #### ⏱️ [34:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UnOiHO_Dac?t=2090) — [H2] Custom Industry Signal Discovery - Key idea: Find signals specific to your industry that create genuine relevance - Evidence: "Company monitoring software outages alerts reps when prospects have technical problems" #### ⏱️ [40:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UnOiHO_Dac?t=2415) — [H1] Closed-Loss Re-engagement Strategy - Key idea: Use call transcripts to re-engage prospects with their own words about urgency - Evidence: "Send video clips of prospects saying 'this is the most important project' when they marked it closed-lost" #### ⏱️ [45:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UnOiHO_Dac?t=2730) — [H2] Groundswell Prospecting Intelligence - Key idea: In-person events provide insider information impossible to obtain through digital channels - Evidence: "15-minute conversations reveal more than 3-6 month sales cycles" #### ⏱️ [50:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UnOiHO_Dac?t=3045) — [H3] Internal OKR Signal Example - Key idea: Access to internal company goals enables highly targeted executive messaging - Evidence: "Subject line using exact CRO words from internal slide: 'Artist or Scientist'" #### ⏱️ [56:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UnOiHO_Dac?t=3380) — [H1] Creative Physical Outreach Examples - Key idea: Unscalable physical experiences stand out when millions send digital messages - Evidence: "DocuSign donut box delivery - 9 out of 10 didn't work but landed one massive whale" #### ⏱️ [62:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UnOiHO_Dac?t=3730) — [H3] Event-Based Creative Approaches - Key idea: Replace generic booth invitations with personalized experiences based on prospect interests - Evidence: "Offer morning runs instead of coffee, airport pickups instead of booth visits" #### ⏱️ [67:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UnOiHO_Dac?t=4065) — [H2] Convincing Old-School Leaders Strategy - Key idea: Position creative approaches as additions to, not replacements for, traditional activities - Evidence: "Test out of pocket first, then present data showing results in addition to regular activities" ## 📚 References - [Common Room Platform](https://commonroom.io) - [Sales Development Metrics Research](https://salesforce.com) - [Network Selling Platforms](https://www.swarminc.com) ## 🗣️ Paraphrase - Modern sales teams have access to unprecedented amounts of prospect data and signals, but this abundance has created a new problem: everyone is using the same third-party signals to send automated, superficially personalized messages - The real competitive advantage lies in first-party data that only your company possesses - call recordings, product usage patterns, and internal conversations that provide unique insights into prospect needs and timing - Network-based selling through warm introductions dramatically outperforms cold outreach, with 75-80% meeting acceptance rates compared to single-digit response rates from automated campaigns ## 📰 Newsletter **Breaking Through the Signal-to-Message Gap** Sales teams today face a paradox: more prospect intelligence than ever, yet declining response rates across all channels. The latest thinking from Common Room and industry experts reveals why. **The Problem:** AI-powered sales tools create "fake relevance" - messages that mention a signal but fail to provide genuine value or insight. When 153 vendors offer the same website visitor data, that signal becomes noise. **The Solution:** Focus on first-party data only you possess (call transcripts, product usage, internal conversations) and combine it with systematic network selling for warm introductions. **Key Insight:** Signals should trigger research and creative outreach, not automated emails. The most successful teams use unscalable approaches that demonstrate genuine investment in prospect relationships. **Try This:** Audit your closed-lost calls from Q1 2024. Find prospects who said your solution was "urgent" or "critical" but went with "not right now." Re-engage them in Q4 with their own recorded words. Resources: [Sales Development Metrics](https://salesforce.com), [Network Platforms](https://www.swarminc.com), [Common Room Signals](https://commonroom.io) ## ✅ Action Items #### DevRel - Developer advocacy: Create signal-based developer outreach programs targeting GitHub activity and Stack Overflow engagement patterns - Education: Build workshop content on ethical use of developer data for sales teams - Developer experience: Implement product usage signals for developer-focused re-engagement campaigns #### Community - Contributors: Develop community engagement signals for identifying potential enterprise prospects within open source projects - Ecosystem: Create cross-project coordination for sharing ethical prospecting approaches across community leaders #### WordPress - Community: Implement WordCamp attendee engagement signals for local meetup organizers to follow up with potential contributors - Marketing: Develop first-party content engagement signals from WordPress.org downloads and documentation visits - Support: Create ticket pattern signals to identify customers who might benefit from premium support offerings ## 🧪 Hypotheses - First-party signals provide 5-10x higher response rates than third-party intent data when combined with personalized messaging - Network-based introductions maintain 75-80% meeting acceptance rates regardless of industry or company size - Creative physical outreach generates higher deal values but lower overall volume compared to digital campaigns - Teams that position unscalable approaches as supplements rather than replacements get higher leadership buy-in ### 📊 Methodology - A/B test first-party vs third-party signal campaigns across matched prospect segments - Track network introduction conversion rates by relationship strength and industry vertical - Measure ROI of creative outreach investments against traditional email/call volume approaches ### ❓ Questions - How can teams systematically capture and analyze first-party signals without overwhelming sales reps? - What's the optimal ratio of creative unscalable outreach to traditional volume-based prospecting? - How do different buyer personas respond to various signal types and creative approaches? ### 🔮 Future Research - Impact of AI-generated content on buyer signal recognition and response patterns - Effectiveness of video-based signal messaging vs text-based approaches - Long-term relationship building effects of creative prospecting on customer lifetime value ### 💡 Implications - Practice: Sales teams need to shift from automation-first to research-first prospecting approaches - Policy: Organizations should establish ethical guidelines for using prospect data and internal intelligence - Security: First-party data collection requires stronger privacy controls and consent management - Education: Sales training programs must emphasize research skills and creative problem-solving over tool mastery - Funding: Marketing budgets may need reallocation from intent platforms to creative outreach and event participation ### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment Reading level estimate: Grade 12 #### 👀 Visual learners - Present: Email examples, signal flow diagrams, pipeline conversion charts - Improve: Add signal-to-message mapping visualizations, ROI comparison infographics #### 🔊 Aural learners - Present: Full webinar recording with clear audio and discussion format - Improve: Create 5-minute audio summary highlighting key tactics #### 🗣️ Verbal learners - Present: Clear definitions of signals vs intent, specific terminology explanations - Improve: Add glossary of sales development terms, analogies for complex concepts #### 🧩 Kinesthetic learners - Present: Specific email templates, step-by-step creative outreach examples - Improve: Create interactive signal analysis worksheets, hands-on prospecting checklists #### 🧠 Logical learners - Present: Network ROI calculations, conversion rate comparisons, systematic frameworks - Improve: Add decision trees for signal prioritization, mathematical models for outreach investment #### 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Social learners - Present: Network selling strategies, team coordination approaches, collaborative prospecting - Improve: Add discussion prompts for sales team meetings, peer learning frameworks #### 🧘‍♀️ Solitary learners - Present: Individual research techniques, personal network audit methods - Improve: Create self-assessment tools for prospecting effectiveness, reflection questions #### 🌿 Naturalistic learners - Present: Industry ecosystem thinking, signal pattern recognition - Improve: Add buyer behavior ecosystem maps, natural signal occurrence patterns ### 📊 Accessibility Assessment #### Screen reader semantics - Present: Clear heading structure, descriptive text for examples - Improve: Add alt text for email screenshots, timestamp descriptions #### Keyboard navigation - Present: Standard video controls, accessible transcript - Improve: Add skip-to-section navigation, keyboard shortcuts for key concepts #### Contrast and readability - Present: High contrast video presentation, clear audio quality - Improve: Ensure email example screenshots meet contrast requirements #### Text resizing and reflow - Present: Responsive video player, scalable transcript text - Improve: Test email template examples at 200% zoom #### Media and captions - Present: Full transcript available for 70-minute webinar - Improve: Add timestamps to transcript sections, downloadable summary #### Forms and interactions - Present: Simple Q&A format, clear chat functionality - Improve: Ensure any follow-up forms have proper labels and error handling ### 🌍 DEIB Assessment #### Cultural breadth - Present: Examples from multiple company sizes and industries - Improve: Include global prospecting considerations, cultural sensitivity in outreach #### Inclusive language - Present: Gender-neutral examples, professional terminology - Improve: Avoid industry jargon without explanation, provide plain-language alternatives #### Neurodiversity support - Present: Structured format with clear sections and timestamps - Improve: Add visual breaks in long transcript, consistent formatting #### Representation - Present: Diverse range of company examples and scenarios - Improve: Ensure speaker examples represent varied backgrounds and perspectives #### Psychological safety - Present: Respectful discussion of sales challenges and failures - Improve: Emphasize ethical prospecting practices, respect for prospect privacy ### ✅ Logical Validity #### Strong reasoning - Deductive strength: "If AI can find signals online, messages will become noise" - strong logical progression - Inductive strength: Multiple examples support pattern of creative outreach success - Causal reasoning: Clear cause-effect relationship between signal quality and response rates - Analogical strength: Network selling compared to traditional prospecting shows valid parallel structure #### Fallacies - Survivorship bias: Focus on successful creative campaigns without discussing systematic <!-- deep-read:sections end --> ## 📺 Video  --- # 📄 Full Transcript *Auto-generated from YouTube captions · timestamps roughly every 30 seconds · [watch on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UnOiHO_Dac)* **[00:03]** And we are live. >> What is up everybody? >> Happy Wednesday. Super excited to do another wonderful webinar. Uh funny enough, I'm now in uh Austin, Texas uh for today and Scott is out here as well. We did not meet in person uh for this, but that's okay. Um, so what we're going to do, uh, we'll just give people 30 seconds here just to to hop on in. We'll get started. If you **[00:36]** want to drop in the chat where you're from, I'm always just super curious. Scott, can you hear us? Okay. >> Yep. I'm there now. >> Yep. >> Sorry about that. >> No, no worries at all. little Bluetooth uh switcheroo. >> Yep. >> All righty, we'll get started. Uh just so that everybody knows, obviously this uh webinar will be uh recorded, so don't you worry. Um super exciting topic **[01:08]** today. Uh we'll go through some brief introductions here. So my name is Florentulia. I'm the head of sales development here at Common Room. I've been doing this outbound game for uh a very long time now. Uh this is my fourth company where I've built a pipe genen program. Um so I've seen a few things, have a few opinions on how everything works. And this is obviously a topic that's uh super near and dear to my heart around um this idea of you know having a ton of signal um and a lot of **[01:38]** data in a world of AI, but how do we actually break through the noise? Uh and we have our guest here today, which I'm super excited about because I've been following Scott Lee for uh many, many years. uh and he's someone that I look up to and uh it's the first time we're chatting. So, Scott, welcome. >> Yeah, thanks for having me, man. Excited to uh be here with you and everybody else and talk about this stuff. So, yeah, looking forward to it. >> You've always uh at least my perception of you has always been um you don't strike me as a guy that focuses too much **[02:10]** on like, you know, automating everything and uh technology. I feel like you're more of a fundamentals type of guy, more of like a humanto human person. Is that a fair depiction of you there? >> Yeah, I think I think that's very fair. I think that um there is a distinction a little bit between how I run my businesses uh versus how I would run it if I was a VP of sales again. >> Yeah. But generally speaking, um, yeah, **[02:40]** I I am more in favor of humanizing things. Um, and doing some unscalable things rather than just like automate everything and, you know, increase the volume of the spam type stuff. That's never been my never been my style or my my approach. >> Yeah. >> 100%. And I think there there's places to automate different things and there's places where you shouldn't. Uh, so I'm sure we'll get into that a little bit today. Today's topic. So, perfect timing, terrible copy, fixing the signal **[03:12]** to message breakdown. Uh, now in terms of an agenda, just so that everybody knows where we're at, we do have about an hour here or just under now. So, uh, for the first little bit, we'll go over the signal problem. So, what is the problem in today's day and age with um, uh, signals and intent? Uh I think every single sales leader that I talk to gets bombarded by AISDRs and signal platforms and intent platforms and it's a very hot space obviously. So you're going to get **[03:42]** a lot of different companies that are looking to do it. But uh what have we seen in terms of how uh it's becoming a problem then? How do you actually connect the data or the signal to uh something else we're calling the messaging problem? So what I've realized talking to a lot of different companies is that uh most companies especially if you're like uh you know in the mid-market or enterprise space you already have a ton of data uh and my team has made this mistake too **[04:14]** where we pitch more data and I don't think that's what uh any team is actually looking for. It's more how do you contextualize the data that you have and make sure that it's super relevant so that you can break through that noise. So, we're going to touch on that a little bit today. And then, uh, if you know me, I like to not be too fluffy and I like to provide actual real tactical examples. So, we'll go through, uh, a few ideas on how you can actually turn signals into stories um, in some different creative ways. And then, uh, we'll also leave some room at the end for uh, Q&A, any audience hot takes. Um, **[04:47]** and yeah, excited to to kick off the conversation. Scott, is there anything else you wanted to add there? >> No, that's good. Looks good. Don't be shy, everybody. >> Yeah, please do not be shy. All right. So, uh the first thing I wanted to do is just define uh signals and intent. This is not something brand new in itself. I think uh as sales people, we've actually been using signals or triggers or observations, whatever you want to call it, for uh likely as long **[05:19]** as we've uh been around, right? So, here's just a few examples that I had. Uh, about a dozen or so. Uh, funding round, I think that's one that was like, you know, in 2015 was super hot. Uh, 10K reports and looking through that, especially in the enterprise is something that, um, has been super important. Merge and acquisition, new product launches, job listings, prospects, LinkedIn posts, which, uh, I know are Scott's favorite. Uh, so here's just a few examples. And **[05:50]** uh I want to make a clear distinction between uh signal and intent because I I do think they're quite different. So for me uh intent is essentially when someone is showing some kind of behavior that directly links to them uh potentially being interested in your product. Right? So that could mean that they're on your website or a web visit. Um, uh, it could mean that they signed up for a free trial on your, uh, your website or that they downloaded, uh, you know, something on your site as well. That doesn't **[06:22]** necessarily automatically mean that it's intent, but that's when we talk about the world of intent, that's what we mean, right? Now, signal can be anything. So, at common room, we actually break down signals into a few different categories. So, uh, there's first party signal, uh, which we're going to get into quite a bit today because I do believe it's the most powerful. So, this is your owned data that you as a company have and, uh, likely nobody else does. So, think of, you know, CRM notes, uh, **[06:55]** things that are in your marketing automation system about like the buying journey that people took, website visits, uh, in your product if you're a software company, product usage analytics on what users you have, what they're actually doing in your product, uh, call transcripts, uh, all those kinds of things. Then you have this idea of second party signal where you don't necessarily own the medium like you own a website but uh you own uh let's say a community that's on Slack or for some of our **[07:25]** customers like in Discord right you own that community but the medium of Discord and Slack is an external um uh software or tool that you use and then comes uh third party signals which I think this is where traditionally most people think uh about signals. So, this is going to be like your job listings, you know, the classic news and events, keyword intent. Uh most salespeople have had access to some form of account level intent platforms like **[07:56]** Zoom Info, Six Sense, and and Demandbase and have had varying success with it. But we're going to dive a little bit deeper into that. But just wanted to set the stage of like what the definition of these uh signals actually is. Now uh the question becomes what what is the problem in in today's day and age and and this is one thing right so with uh the launch of a lot of these artificial intelligent type software uh and even before there's a clear trend **[08:26]** of more noise uh breaking into the buyer's inbox or on calls or whatever that is right so it's very clear here this is projected out to 2028 it's real data of the number of emails that are sent or received per year. And this number is only going to continue going up. And uh when you think about this, I've been in uh the outbound sales world since 2014, and I've actually seen all this kind of play out now. So it it was much easier back in the day uh to send oneonone emails. You **[08:59]** used to use something like yes, and you get those like little name variables and you got excited about them. It was pretty easy to send an email. It didn't have to be super customized or relevant and you would get a decent reply rate. Then we went into this world of like the SCP or the sequencers and uh a lot of love for sales loft and outreach. Uh we're a customer of outreach ourselves. So I'm not hating on them. I'm just saying that what that technology has allowed uh sales people to do is essentially uh blast their whole target market with a relatively generic email. **[09:31]** And that caused reply rates to go down even further, right? And then now 20, 2022, 2025, we start to get in this world of Chad GPT, AISDRs, where they're going out and scraping the web for all these different types of signals. um and sending what looks to be like more relevant messaging, but it's actually just causing uh us to spiral even more out of control and it's making it even harder to break through the noise because it's like fake relevance **[10:02]** or personalization is what I like to call it. Right? So, uh, one thing that I've personally realized with my teams and and Scott, I don't know what you're seeing with some of your clients here, but the more volume you have and you know, trying to get these AIS SDR type of platforms to build pipeline for you, that that is actually not um the answer. >> Yeah, Tommy, do I see the same exact thing with all of my clients, regardless of industry, regardless of sales cycle, regardless of geography, where they're **[10:33]** based, they're spot on. So what what do we actually do about that? And what is the problem when this comes to like okay we have all this data we have all of this signal why aren't we breaking through the noise and what I've tend to realize is that if AI can actually go and find some form of signal online it can go and scrape the web the message itself will likely become noise unless you're able to extrapolate some **[11:03]** uh form of context or POV on that message and combine that with uh first party data and we We'll go a little bit deeper into to what that means. But now for me, one of the big questions is what is the role of salespeople and even marketing teams in a world of AI? And I think one of the most important things that we can do is actually focus on collecting uh or getting material firstparty information. **[11:34]** So this can come from conversations you've had with prospects. It can come from your network, from uh field marketing and and events that you actually go to call transcripts. So, you've talked to these people in the past, right? That's the type of stuff that AI can't go and scrape online and is a competitive advantage to you as a company. And Scott, I know you're pretty big into I don't I think you might even be an investor in some of these like network **[12:06]** um type platforms that connect you with different people in your network to get pipeline going. But uh curious to hear your thoughts on on how this kind of manifests in your world. Yeah, I mean those those platforms are a reaction to declining reply rates. And you know, in addition to the increased noise and the volume and all that stuff, I I think with the advent of all these AI tools, you we've lost sort of the belief in the sincerity of a message. So **[12:37]** even if you write me a message, Floren, my initial reaction right now might be, I don't think he wrote this. even if you did, right? And so you're looking for things that can't be faked or copied. Uh things that are unique to you. And that's why, you know, me going to you and saying, "Hey, man, you knowand so. I don't know if they have this problem or not, but if they do, you know them well enough to maybe make an intro to me." And then that relationship, **[13:09]** if it gets kicked off, is based on mutual trust straight away. Yeah, >> that third party is saying, "Well, I trust Floren. Floren trusts Scott. This will be a decent meeting." And so those meetings um you know tend to happen more more frequently. They have a faster sales cycle. They have higher average contract values when they do close. They those customers file less support tickets. They churn less. So you're you're just you're looking for ways to replace all of this kind of frenetic **[13:40]** activity and and high failure rate activity with something much more personalized, much more specific, much more human. Uh and that is a massive advantage because it's not something that AI or any kind of platform can uh can replicate right now. Maybe ever. Maybe ever. Right. >> Yeah, I agree with you on that. >> Yeah. One question I've been meaning to ask you on the network side of things because I I fully agree with you by the way. So I think especially like in the early days for a startup uh **[14:12]** realistically your first 10 maybe 50 customers will the easiest way to acquire them is to go through your networks or you know if you're VC funded definitely leveraging uh that I know that's something like Y Combinator for example is famous for doing to get people from zero um to one and we do this a lot in like our enterprise deals too. It's like team selling, right? So, we never let like a rep sell alone. This the CEO is messaging their CEOs and going through their networks to get connected to different uh VPs. And same **[14:42]** for all different lines of of management at at those companies. But uh as a person uh you even if you have like a large network you you're kind of like there's some form of fatigue of I can't be asked to intro you know everybody in my network to different people. So how do you think about that as a company skills? Like do you only use your network strategically? Do you use it um uh all the time or or or h how do you **[15:13]** make sure you don't burn that out if that makes sense? Well, I I think it should be used all the time. Yes. I think that um the difference is you're not pushing people to do something that they're not comfortable with or that they don't feel strongly is going to work. So, an example for that might be um you know, Crystal and I know each other, but we don't know each other that **[15:43]** well. we've never had conversation. We've never hung out. Right? So, some people might look at that and say, "Well, I'll just fire over a request of hers and see if she's open to making an introduction." Whereas, the right way, in my belief, to do it would be that is not somebody that you ask an introduction of because you don't have that strong of a of a connection or a bond yet. Right? If you look at my network, and I've run this motion for years now, I tend to know about five or six% of my network well **[16:15]** enough that I can text. So, I've got like 127,000 followers. So, who was ever good at math? Like, that's how many people, you know, I can text and feel confident that I'd get a response from. Those are the people that I would feel comfortable if you came to me and you said, "Hey, man. Do you know Crystal well enough to make an intro? I want to talk to her about common room and what we do. Um, so I would go to those people. So you're not burning political capital, network capital on sort of **[16:47]** lukewarm or soft connections. You're making those requests of people that you already have a really good, you know, relationship with. So that's number one. And number two, if you're actually running this motion as a referral kind of partner, um you can't you can't be messaging these people a hundred times a week, you know. So, you have to be careful about how many companies do I do this with, how often I ask somebody. You obviously have to have belief, very **[17:18]** strong belief in the product and the team because I don't want to refer somebody a product that's bunk or a to a rep that's unprofessional or doesn't follow up the right way, right? So, so you have to be intelligent um about it. And you have to do it as a team. You have to do it sort of at at scale and consistently. So, if you've got 10 reps on your team, it shouldn't just be one person doing this. It should be all 10 people looking through your network. And **[17:49]** then you have to be careful to avoid missteps where like Floren and Scott both know somebody and they both hit this person at the same time for a referral. That's not good. That's going to make you look silly. >> Yeah. >> So, like everything else, it takes some strategy. It it takes uh common sense. There's a little bit of patience involved. you can't just, you know, start firing off requests for introductions. That would be a the spamming of this motion and that would undo all the things that make it work so **[18:21]** well. Um, so you have to be you have to be smart with it. >> Yeah, that's a good point. Actually, we've tried a few of those like network platforms like whether it's Cabal or uh I think one's called the Swand or something Swarm. Sorry. >> Swarm. The Swarm. Yeah. Yeah. There's there's a there's a lot of different platforms and and they all are trying to solve the same problem. I do think it's important for people to know you don't even have to use a technology platform to do this at all. >> You know, you mentioned um you know founders and Y Cominator and stuff like **[18:52]** that and you know founders historically go to their venture folks and they get like the first couple introductions but they stop right there. So why would you stop at your investors? Why not go to colleagues of yours, past colleagues of yours, friends of yours, family of yours, people that you know and respect in the industry, right? And and so they they just haven't cast a big enough net. And so historically, what they've done is those Y cominator companies just sort of buy and sell to each other. It's sort **[19:23]** of like fake ARR in a in a way, right? They're they're kind of fluffing up each other's own metrics. What what I've been seeing is this is the simplest easy way for people to actually go from zero to a million dollars in ARR without having to hire a sales team, without sending over hundreds of emails, without cold calling. And I' I've been seeing it work really really well for the last I'd say two years or so. Um important important to note those platforms certainly can help, but they're not compulsory. You **[19:55]** don't have to >> Yeah. 100%. That makes sense. It kind of reminds me of the core where you're like what six degree of separations from anybody in the world and then if you have a hundred you know common rooms like just over 100 people you can imagine that how far that network actually spreads if you really do use everybody. So that I think that's a good reminder for for myself and and for everybody here to to think about your networks a little bit more deeply. >> And I and I think if you do the math with it all and quantify it, the impact really becomes like palpable and **[20:26]** obvious. you know, if if you send me a a list of a hundred prospects or contacts that you want to get a hold of and I know five of them well enough to reach out to, the numbers that I see is about 75 80% of them agree to those meetings. So, that's four meetings that I just got for you. >> Yeah. >> I don't know. I'm making up an ARR number, but if your average deal size is 50K, that's 200k of pipeline that I just generated for you. >> Yeah. Right? If you're closing 25% even, **[20:59]** that's a fifth 50k, right? And I'm one referral partner. If you came to me twice a month with these kinds of lists, that's a 100K that you would get from me. If you had 10 versions of me, that's a million bucks that you'd get from me. So, it compounds really, really quickly once you start doing it the right way. And that's what makes it so attractive. And if you compare and contrast that to how much effort and and you know the fail rate of like calls or emails and so forth, it's like are your people **[21:31]** generating you know 200k every every couple weeks in pipeline? If they are great, supplement it with this. If they're not, well [ __ ] maybe replace it with this and and see the see the difference in action. >> Yeah, that's a really good point. It's kind of funny because I like even uh again not going back to like the softwares but I actually see networks as signal. If I know somebody that's to me is a potential signal that can help me build pipeline like Scott's talking about. But obviously that's very **[22:01]** different than intent because that person's not showing any form of intent. I think we just need to uh think a bit or expand our minds on what signal can actually uh mean. And that that's something that I've realized working in the signal space as well that there's so many different types of things that can um that can be signal. Now that's the signal problem. So uh here's here's the message problem in my opinion. So I think too many people use a signal **[22:32]** as the reason that they are reaching out to somebody. Well, for for me uh or in reality, I think a signal is really just telling you that the timing might be right to try to build a more contextualized message and provide a POV. And I think a lot of of teams that I've seen that are trying to build outbound pipeline are are really uh getting this wrong. And what that ends up leading to is a ton of messages that **[23:05]** I get on a daily basis uh that look something like this where I call this like again fake relevance or personalization. Uh you know I saw you like this person's post first of all like I literally don't even know who Nick Viloski is. I have no idea. Um, yes, we did launch a product called RoomAI Spark, but there's nothing here like really connecting the dots for me as to how that specific post one uh is **[23:35]** is is relevant to the conversation and what your and how your solution actually ties uh to that. So, I actually got an email the other day. I I think there is a better way to do this signal specifically if we're going to use socially engaged signals. I had uh Nick here. He called out Kade's post. Kade is on uh my team, so I know him by name in that preview line. But that that's not what was interesting to me. The interesting thing to me here was that we were talking about um competition. They **[24:07]** specifically called out two of my competitors and then uh they they incorporated very relevant information which to me at least caught my eye. Right. So this is not rocket science. Uh I think it's a pretty good email. It definitely caught my attention as I mentioned. So that's the part that people are missing. It's like that bridge between okay there's a signal and how does that actually relate to uh not only to your buyer but to the account and can you add other information in there. So this is like level one of **[24:40]** relevant contextualization that I think uh can work. I still believe this can start to get automated by AI pretty easily. So, we want to go a little bit deeper into this. Another very common example, uh, we have website deonymization where we can find specific people on your website. I looked on G2 the other day. There's 153 vendors that offer the exact same thing. So, that means that every you, your competitors, most people are probably **[25:11]** using something like this. Uh, what you should not do, and too many people are once again guilty of this, is calling out like, "Hey, I noticed you were on the website." Maybe it works for sales and marketing folks because we're really used to this technology. I've sold them to engineers. I wouldn't even try this with cyber security folk. Um, it's can be seen as an invasion of of privacy. They don't like it. Uh, and again, it's should never be the reason you're reaching out. the fact that somebody's on your **[25:42]** website, whether it's on the pricing page, whether it's, you know, they downloaded uh like an industry report, it's just showing a a potential intent that it might be top of mind and that this might be the right time for you to really sit down, go to your network, maybe like Scott is mentioning, to see if there could be an introduction there or build a POV that is going to help you break uh through the noise. And the introduction point is a good one because let's say, you know, Crystal **[26:14]** shows up on my website, I get that notification. Instead of messaging her straight away and saying, "Hey, Crystal, saw you were on my website. Would love to talk to you about what I do over here." Instead, I get this notification. I go look at Crystal's profile. I figure out like who do we have mutual connections with or who is she connected to that I might know. Then I go to a couple of these people and I say, "Hey, do any of you know, you know, Crystal well enough to make an intro? Do you know what she's working on? What she's **[26:45]** struggling with? Like here's what I do over here. I don't know if she has this problem or not. You know, by the way, we offer like 10 to 20% of first year's revenue if I end up closing the deal. Do you know them well enough to make an intro?" All of that stuff is going to give me a better chance than just saying, "Hey, saw you're on my website. Would love to talk to you. 100%. And going back to the problem with like technology and automation, our default now is to automate this, right? So it's like, oh, someone comes on your website workflow, shoot them this email based off of like these three data **[27:16]** points where I actually think what works best and what Scott's saying too is like slow down. Uh, do more research, look at look through your network. Is there other points that you can make like bring this together? And I I have an example here. This is an one where uh we we have a template specifically where we can stack multiple signals. So I'm looking at I care about their tech stack data at the account level. I'm looking through job listings to see if there's something like interesting happening there. So **[27:47]** you'll notice in this email I'm not even calling out that someone was on our website. I maybe I know that they are, but now I'm trying to build a more of a relevant POV. Uh I noticed that they have two enterprise job listings. Is there anything I could tie in there around like a problem um with the fact that their enterprise team is growing and then can I uh propose some kind of a solution? So this is just like one basic example where uh again **[28:19]** not you don't even have to go that deep. It's just looking at a few different signals tying them together in one email and building a more relevant POV. Uh, moving on to turning signals into uh stories. So, uh, Scott, I'm curious to get your perspective here, too. Uh, I have some examples of of potential strong signals that uh, you know, we've used in the **[28:50]** past or I've seen uh, be helpful. This is not the end- all beall by any means. Uh, one of the most powerful things you can do is find what I consider custom signals to your industry. So, we were just recently speaking with a company that monitors software outages, right? So, a signal that's very valuable to them that AI can go and actually find for you is, hey, can you alert my rep in, you know, Austin, Texas or whatever, **[29:23]** uh, whenever a company in his territory, his or her territory has an outage, a software outage, right? So, that's like that's a relevant business problem that the accounts in that region might be having. So it makes sense. >> Yeah. >> To to to use that. >> Yeah. You know, there there's you have to be a little bit sensitive to this, but there's the natural disaster uh signal, if you will. I'll give you a **[29:54]** specific example. I I used to work for a company that sold um title insurance software to title insurance companies and real estate attorney offices uh in the in the housing market. And a lot of these companies, this is like eight, nine years ago, uh, still had onrem software. And so like a hurricane would hit Florida, right? And or there was a flood in the Gulf in Louisiana and whatnot. And so, you know, you you reach **[30:25]** out to these people and you're like, "Hey, how's your server? Like, did you did you lose everything?" And they're like, "Yeah, we lost everything." It's like, okay, you know, there's a reason why people use uh stuff in the cloud. It might be time to kind of, you know, make the transition, right? And you have to be sensitive with it and and message it and massage it the right way, of course, because of what people might be struggling with from a human level perspective. But the point is like you're looking at those kinds of things **[30:55]** and saying okay the the weather might be a signal but the reason to reach out is the suffering and the pain that's caused by having an on-prem system rather than a cloud-based system and you might look for that right now the but the government is shut down like maybe there's people here who are selling into industries that are impacted by that in some way and maybe your solution provides an alternative and if they were on your solution, they wouldn't be as impacted by that right now. That could **[31:25]** be a way to take us turn a signal into a story and uh you know that might resonate with with folks >> 100%. Uh another one of my favorites which uh everybody has access to is closed loss re-engagement. So uh pretty much any AI agent now is uh trans transcribing the calls that you have most likely, especially if you're in like the the software space. Uh there's this is **[31:57]** first-party data that only you have. Nobody else can go out there um and analyze your specific calls, right? So, a play that we're running right now, especially because it's Q4 and we know a lot of companies are going through their budget cycles, we're uh asking our agents, go out and find me everybody that we talked to. um or maybe we lost a deal to to a specific competitor in January and February of this year. Um tell me who we lost to and what the **[32:28]** reasons were so that we can go out now and build a more compelling uh story to be like, "Hey, uh I know we lost a deal because X, Y, and Z. Uh sounds like you might be reconsidering budgets for next year. You know, can we get another shot or or whatever that that might look like?" I've had I've had a lot of luck with some of my clients in the last six months with this closed loss re-engagement strategy and specifically around um a closed ro loss reason of like we're too busy right now **[33:00]** or this is not a priority right now or whatever. And the actual signal that that that we have is them on tape saying how important this is and saying how urgent it was. and we go back and find the recording and we clip the recording and we send them video and audio of their own words from a few months ago saying, "Oh man, this is like spoton. We need this. We need this implemented by, you know, November 15th. It's the most **[33:30]** important project right now." And then, you know, those those had turned close lost and you you let it sit for a minute and then you just use their words against them, so to speak. >> Yeah. And that's been working like incredibly well for a bunch of my uh clients, you know, right now just as a way to re-engage some of these clothes lost. It's unique. It's different. Uh you know, it's kind of clever. It's it's using their own words. You're not even really telling the story. You're just reminding them of the story that they **[34:00]** created and for whatever reason they lost their way from that story. So that's an example of something that uh folks could try. >> It's actually a really good example. might have to to incorporate the the actual snippets. I remember >> Oh, it works great. >> Yeah, >> Gong had that famous commercial where they like had all the people that were just like mind blown. Um, and they brought a bunch of those like snippets together in an ad. Uh, which I like. So, being actually using their words against them to some degree, uh, I think is is **[34:31]** really valuable. >> And maybe the last one I'll talk about here is like insider information or what I call ground swell um, prospecting. So, let's say for example, you're a company that maybe doesn't transcribe like your your calls or you're relatively new and you don't have uh a ton of calls or even if you're more uh established. So, uh I think events and whether it's networking events, conferences, whatever are a fantastic place to meet your buyers and have real conversations with **[35:01]** people. Again, this is not something that AI can replicate today. And learn some form of material information about a business or internal politics, what their buying committees actually look like. I was just at the pipeline conference in uh Dallas last week for sales development leaders. A ton of target accounts there. You'd be shocked how much information we learn in like a 15-minute conversation that we did not learn in sales cycles that were like 3 to six months. There's something about **[35:33]** like human interaction when you look somebody in the eye and you know they they trust you a little bit more as to how much information they're willing to to to give you and I think that's u a huge uh advantage and I actually have an example of this and this is almost like metaphorically so ground swell prospecting is the idea that you go and talk to like um you know people that are potentially below the line or it could be really anybody at the company but I almost like to say that metaphorically what you're trying to find when you're **[36:04]** talking to somebody uh whether it's in person or if you're just having a more casual chat with like an end user that's not a decision maker. You almost want to find what their like what's on their OKRs. What is their CRO or their CMO or their VP of engineering care about? And here's an example where when I was actually talking to a company, he he literally just shared me. He's like, "Hey, here's the the SKO, the sales kickoff slide that our CRO shared." **[36:36]** So, this was interesting to me because there's a bunch of bullet points here, but then I I noticed a few things that were in bold, right? So, one thing that caught my attention was RAM time being too long. So, I was like, "Okay, I actually think we can tie a specific value prop uh at common room to that." So, here's an example of the message that I, you know, would send the the CRO. Uh, first of all, subject line, artist, a scientist. It's the exact words the CRO used on that slide. So that's kind of internal information. Not kind of, it **[37:07]** is. >> Yep. Yep. >> Um, then we talked about the focus on lower RAM times, which was a a bolded bullet point. Uh, talking about specific like ARR numbers. You might want to be careful wi-i with that one uh not to disclose like too much information per se, but then you could also tie in more external signals here to general company research of like who their new account executives are, what kind of motion they're running. They have a Slack community that this is all information that's easily easy to aggregate online. **[37:38]** And I think the combination of the insider information with the external signal is what uh is the type of messaging that really does break through the noise and what we're um we're trying to do. Great example. I actually love the PS of that because you're sort of leaving them like a little coaching tip in a sense. This is like a freebie. Hey, like you might want to pay attention to these two signals that be relevant for you to track regardless of if you take a call with me, regardless of if you take a **[38:08]** meeting with me, like this piece of information is valuable for you. >> Yeah. And this is actually something here um that one of our best STRs uh Harry does very well where uh one obviously he's looking for signals. So in this case and sorry if this um the text was a bit small but I just wanted to like highlight this for you all. So uh he realized that uh uh Dedra here **[38:40]** uh was going to be on like 10 minutes of of Martekch episode. So that in itself going back to like the website example or the social engagement is not that valuable. Like it's interesting, maybe it'll catch their attention, but you have to go back to the account level, right? So then what Harry does very well uh for us, he actually provides value upfront and he gets very deep into accounts. So hey, here's some examples of what you could be doing with signals in our case. And you can see he calls **[39:11]** out very specific terminology that is only relevant to that account. So now that that's some value upfront that even if they never buy common room, it's like, hey, we could probably run this play manually somehow. You don't necessarily need to automate it or maybe they already have something in place it doesn't matter. But that builds trust, right? And then what uh we do as well with multi-threading. So with Dedra, he calls out specific people that he's talked to, um, drops multiple names. So it just **[39:42]** seems like it's a much more internal type of email. And this is again what is breaking through the noise for us. It's a much more difficult to to fully automate this as of today. And that's why it works. >> Yeah. >> Um, and then maybe one more creative play here. And I I know Scott, when we talked to you, you had a few examples here, too. But uh going back to not just like using a signal in isolation. So here this is for uh docyign last year. I had uh again **[40:15]** quote unquote a ground swell conversation with a middle level manager. I got the signal that it was likely the right time to engage uh more senior people there. So what we did we literally r this is what's his name? Drew from um Drew Dri. I I sorry Dale Dale Dri. My fault. Drew is the guy in the in the email here. Dale DR's um idea with the donut box. So, we didn't come up with this, but again, this is like, okay, you got the signal. Now, spend **[40:45]** time to go above and beyond. Whether that's through network, whether that's dropping off like this care package where we had this idea with the donuts and literally went to their office. So, that's what was required to land these very large types um types of of deals. And it might not have been possible in a just a well-ressearched email or uh or or a phone call or maybe even with network. I don't know. >> And the these this is a good point because these types of experiences right now are what stands out. There's a **[41:15]** million people sending emails every single day. There's not a million people sending MV donut boxes. So you could make a metaphor, and I'm literally making this up on the spot right now, but you you said you got a signal about the timing being right. You could find like a broken watch somewhere at a pawn shop or around your uh around your house. Maybe you have an old watch. I have a couple that are busted. I can mail somebody a busted watch and tie a message to it saying, "Hey, timing might be right to fix something like this." >> You you we've talked about the **[41:45]** importance of getting in front of customers and like shaking hands and whatnot. Okay. Well, every time you go to an event, what are the messages you've been sort of trained to receive or send? It's like, "Hey, Floren, I'll be at booth 42 on the fifth floor. Like, come stop by. I'd love to buy you a coffee." Like, dude, those are so boring, right? Instead, what if you know that Floren likes to go run in the mornings? He's talked about it. You've heard him. You've seen posts of his or **[42:16]** something like that. Why not offer to wake up at 6 a.m. and do a little morning run with him? Why not offer to pick him up at the airport so he doesn't have to spend 50 bucks on an Uber if he's flying into your town, right? Like if Floren was a prospect of mine and he's flying into Austin today and I knew that, I could have said, "Hey man, rather than spending 50 bucks on an Uber, how about I pick you up? We can have a have a little chat. No pressure, right?" If he says yes, which most people do because they're they're sort **[42:47]** of like, "Wow, that's above and beyond kind of thing." Now you've got a a now you've got a a captive audience for 20 30 minutes, right? And you're going the extra mile. Send a black car for somebody, you know, that costs 50, 60 bucks. Take them from the airport back to or take them from the hotel back to the airport. Anything that stands out that is unique and different can be helpful right now to break through the noise because most people aren't doing it and you are demonstrating your desire **[43:20]** to give them a different type of experience. And even if it doesn't quote unquote scale, you don't care. What you care about is winning this business and doing whatever it takes. >> Yeah. Yeah, that's that's 100% right. And I have this like uh term I think like you still need to it's like be it's so easy and fluffy to say like be human, but these are like the little experiences that you know Scott's mentioning with **[43:50]** the black car like the donut box that that is like tactically the stuff that you need to do to to be human and and break through that noise. Now, you don't always have to go that above and beyond as like you've seen from everything that we've talked about today, but uh I think this new day and age, we lose sight of like the fundamentals of of sales and psychology and what it means to to to be human. And I think if you don't learn the fundamentals, all that AI is going to really help you do is just uh scale **[44:21]** uh the bad stuff or help you suck at scale is what I like to say. >> Yeah. sucking at scale. Yeah. >> So, uh that that brings us here to to the end of, you know, what we wanted to talk about. Um Scott, I don't know if you had any like final words before we go into to a Q&A there, but yeah, appreciate you taking the time with me here. No, I think my final words would would be that people need to lean into their their curiosity and their **[44:51]** creativity right now. And the sort of lowest common denominator stuff does not work. It certainly doesn't work good enough for you to hit your number, right? So, you have to be willing to experiment and try some things. And sometimes they'll miss. Sometimes maybe you send an empty box of donuts and it doesn't work. Who cares? you made 90 phone calls today that didn't work either. You didn't you didn't suddenly stop cold calling in the last 20 years, right? So, just because **[45:21]** something is new and different and maybe a little bit uncomfortable for you right now does not mean that it's not the right thing that you should be doing and trying and experimenting with. You know, if you don't like the doughnut box idea, come up with a different one. You don't like the idea of sending a busted watch to somebody, send a Rubik's cube in the mail for somebody to fix. You don't want to pick somebody up at the airport, fine. come up with something different. It's not the specific play, it's the creative motion that is important. It's you and **[45:52]** your sales team should be trying to think differently, get outside of the box, come up with new ideas and experiences. And a signal in itself is not enough. A story in itself is not enough. All these things have to be kind of tied together to really break through the noise. And I think that's the main thing that I would want people to leave with. 100% good parting words there. And it reminded me with the donut box thing, like quite literally nine out of 10 of them didn't work, but you know, you book one of these massive whales and it's all worth it. So, keep **[46:24]** keep trying, keep iterating, do things that don't scale. Um, I do I can tell you and attest to this from being on the ground floor that uh it it does work. >> Probably important also to remember to have fun with this. Our jobs are the hardest jobs in the world, right? And you get beat up and demoralized all day long every day. And for me at least, I'm not good at at just struggling and suffering through that. So, I have to find ways to make what I'm doing fun and **[46:56]** find joy and find pleasure in it. And sometimes, you know, exploring creative prospecting ideas or creative follow-ups or kind of copy and pasting people's own video clip to use against them. It's kind of cheeky and snarky and like fun. It's a way for me to kind of have fun with it and kind of poke at you, right? And energize myself and that's okay, >> right? >> Yeah. 100%. I'm I'm exactly the same way, too. Like just being more of myself and not just like being a email, you know, robot or whatever is like it gives **[47:27]** you purpose and it's more fun. For sure. >> Yeah. >> I think uh Brad raised his hand. Brad, are you still here? Uh, let me double check. >> No, I don't think he's uh here anymore. That's okay. **[47:58]** >> Any other questions? There's a there is a question from Jonathan Coin in the chat saying, "Would that be vertical specific?" Though in the data world, people should realize when they look or click on a website, they know it's being tracked. I acknowledge the website visit and ask if that curiosity with us is associated with a new project or a stalled current one. So, I guess that's kind of getting at is there a way to look at a website visit um and engage with it directly that is still okay and still still works. **[48:30]** Yeah, 100%. And that's why, for example, I think we're selling to sales and marketing, like we're very familiar with this type of software, and I think we're just naturally more okay uh with uh being deanonymized because we understand how works. Uh when I specifically when I sold into security and uh engineering teams, like that was a big fauxpaw. Like you just couldn't do it. I actually found that if I was too personal with people, it would uh even though I thought it would break through the noise, it didn't work. So, you have to know who your persona is. Like, in **[49:00]** the data world, if they expect that if you click something that they will be denomized, then 100% I think that's a totally okay to do. It just depends on your your persona, your buyer. >> Good question. >> Uh curious question for sales leader Javon. Is that how you uh pronounce your name? Did you want to type out your question there? **[49:32]** >> Maybe in the the meantime, Anthony Richards, Scott, are you a Curb fan? >> Of course. I can see the sign right here. Pretty pretty pretty good. >> There is a question in the uh Q&A form from Brandon Parker. Maybe I'll ask it and you can answer, Floren. >> Yeah. >> Um, natural disaster signals or outage based signals typically feel like ambulance chasing. Fair enough. Do you recommend prospecting directly into the companies impacted or chasing down **[50:03]** competitors and sharing stories about avoidance? >> That's a it's it's a very good point. And I think uh to Scott's point earlier, especially when people are in like dire emergency situations, I think this is where it goes back to like being a a human first. And this is where I think like automation and stuff like AI SDRs can really screw you over because again, they're not thinking through this type of stuff. Um but you want to give people time. You want to be super empathetic. Um I actually really like the idea of **[50:35]** going to uh competitors. uh 100%. I I think that's what you should do and then maybe give those um those other people like a few uh days. For example, one thing that actually just happened to to us, so uh we were reaching out to an SVP of sales, uh one of my reps ended up like cold calling his uh I think his wife ended up picking up his cell phone. He ended up getting in a a minor car accident. Uh so what did we do? We ended up like **[51:05]** sending them a gift card so that they didn't have to, you know, like dinner was on us so they didn't have to worry about like cooking or anything like that with no expectation for anything in return at all. And I think to this day we still never booked that meeting. But uh when we sent that over to him, he's like, "Wow, like that's so uh so nice. Thank you so much." So that's just like one of those like human interactions where it might pay dividends later on. It might not, but that's like kind of not the point, right? You're just trying to like position yourself in the best way possible. want to be human and and **[51:36]** to uh maybe if that person switches jobs and goes to somewhere else and we reach out to them there that'll uh you know stay in their their mind it'll make it easier for us to to break through the noise. So >> good stuff. >> That's how I think about it. >> Squeeze a couple more questions in here. This question from Matt and this is all too all too common. Uh, how do you go about convincing quote unquote old school sales leaders that these kinds of things that don't scale easily, letters, care packages, are actually worth doing? Great question that I know lots of **[52:07]** people deal with. Um, I think at least for me, I've had some old school sales leaders, too. I I don't know if Scott, you tell me if this is good advice or not, but I usually like to test things out. So, for example, uh if you want to send like a gift, maybe for the first time, do it out of pocket, you know, whatever you spend 30 bucks, get them a gift card or like pay for dinner. And then I usually like to go to **[52:38]** uh my leaders with some form of data to being like, hey, like I know we're doing things this way. >> I just sent out four gift cards. You know, I booked two meetings. Is there any chance I can get a little bit of budget or uh some kind of wiggle room here to try this play out at a bit more scale? >> Well, the data point is super important. If I can jump in on this one. I think what old school sales leaders hear is you want to do these things instead of all the things that they historically want you to do. So, they hear you **[53:10]** thinking about I want to try a letter campaign or a care package campaign. And in their brain, what they're hearing is, "Matt doesn't want to make cold calls or send emails anymore. That's not okay with me. That's not going to work." So, you have to make sure that they understand that these things that you're going to test to Florence Point are in addition to. They're not in replacement of, they're in addition to. They're augmenting your current process. And then what you do is you keep track of the data. And so let's say you send 10 boxes out and two of them hit and and **[53:41]** produce, you know, meetings and one of them turns into a deal. Then you go to this boss and you say, "Hey, here's the results from my, you know, regular kind of go to market activities that we historically do. Here's results from some of these unique different off-the-wall things that I've been funding myself." And look at those results. these results from these care packages and whatnot are superior to the results over here. So, how can I, you know, get you to help me lean into the **[54:14]** areas that are working better? And perhaps everybody in the company should start leaning into these areas. And you make it kind of a collaborative conversation that that if I was your sales leader and you had that approach with me, I would 100%, you know, be open to that and be supportive of that if I originally was like a very old school kind of person. So hopefully that helps uh answer Matt's uh question there. >> Yep. And we got a few more questions here in the chat. >> Yeah, >> we'll try to rapid fire them. So Dylan **[54:45]** asks, "How do you actually break through the noise with engineering leaders, um CTO's, etc. I feel like LI video and DMs don't really work uh and are pushing them away." I mean, uh I can give you my opinion as someone that's sold to them. though I I by the way I fully agree it's very difficult with like the videos they're not on LinkedIn they don't hang out there uh they don't want to hang out there so one you have to go where they're at I we actually spent a lot of time like in Stack Overflow or like **[55:16]** going through like different forums and and Slack communities and just understanding like how they talk and using their lingo and just usually the messaging for engineering leaders has to just generally be more cut and dry and uh more rational to some degree as oosed to like playful. That's what I've realized. Uh I also have a friend at a company that sells into engineering leaders. They built a full department and I know this is not do doable for everybody. They started like a CTO community and they just hosted uh events with like uh specific well-known CTOs as **[55:49]** like uh the headline speaker. So that uh you're not really selling them on the event. more like this idea of the CTO is kind of selling that that event to them. So, uh I don't know if that's helpful, but that that's what's been working for for us. >> That's great. Uh Ben had a question about do you have team innovation meetings to brainstorm creative plays? How do you get the team to adopt a creative mindset? So, I'm interpreting this perspective as I've been your your **[56:19]** leader. Um could you specifically have meetings around that? Yeah, you could. Do you need to? I don't think that you need to I don't think that you need to pull off however many reps you have and and call a whole meeting to kind of brainstorm things. You can do it over Slack, you can do it over WhatsApp, you can do it in a collaborative um you know notion doc or or Google doc or whatever. I the more important thing I think is how do you get the team to adopt this kind of creative mindset? Number one, you give them freaking permission to **[56:50]** explore it. You support it. You encourage it. You don't beat them up because they made, you know, seven less calls today because they were working on like a, you know, unique kind of creative campaign idea or something like that. So, you don't beat them up about it. You encourage it. You support them. You're okay when things don't work. You pay attention to the things that do work. You share across the team what's worked for so and so and what's not worked. Um, so I think it's this kind of collaborative thing. It's it's the play **[57:20]** with it. It's the fun element and it's just not beating them up over, you know, not hitting the sort of old school like KPIs of did you send your 40 emails today? Well, who cares if I sent 40 emails today if nobody [ __ ] reads any of those 40 emails? What difference does it make, right? So, give them permission and you just establish a culture where it's okay to test and experiment and try this stuff. >> Yeah. The the only thing I'll say there as like a manager that's managing reps **[57:51]** uh I' I'm fully for fostering creativity. We also do have like KPIs in place for for a reason. So if you're going to do something like that, at least like communicate it, right? So it's like if I know you're supposed to make $100 today. If you come to me and say, "Hey, I'm going to make $50 today, but I'm building this new play. I'm going to test it out. I just need a few hours of space to do it." That's totally fine. So, just like communicate that ahead of time so that I'm not looking at dashboards and I'm seeing that you've technically done absolutely nothing today because that just makes me **[58:22]** question like a few different things. >> Yeah, good point around communicating your your intention with it. >> And then maybe Matt, the last question here. How do you decide the difference between a small signal like a website visit versus a signal that's a reason to reach out to somebody? Um, I guess I I can take this, Scott. >> Yeah. >> So, it's not always like super uh easy because to me, a signal in isolation by **[58:53]** itself is almost never a good reason to reach out to somebody. And I think kind of the the whole point we're trying to make here is that you need to like contextualize that with uh either multiple signals. So, for example, I mentioned like, you know, you you know, they're on your website, you're looking at their tech stack, you're looking at, uh, job listings, you're looking to see, is there some form of like a a an event happening in the world or around this industry that is compelling for you to reach out to. Um, I think that that's ultimately my answer that no signal by itself is a **[59:24]** reason to reach out to somebody, right? So, be more well-rounded and think about the account level as well, not just this idea of like the person level. I know we're we're selling person level signals, but again, you still do need to focus on the account as well. Uh we're up on time. That's uh one hour. Thank you all so much. Thank you, Scott, uh for being here with us. I I hope that was helpful for everybody. And uh we'll see you. >> Take care. See you, everybody.