GTM Crossroads Podcast Ep1: Optimizing Email Deliverability

In the first episode of GTM Crossroads, Brendan Tolleson, Harris Kenny, and Zach Vidibor explore the shifting landscape of go-to-market strategies with a focus on email deliverability. They discuss the impact of AI on sales outreach, the importance of clean infrastructure, and how targeted messaging can improve engagement.

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Disclaimer

Please note that the GTM Crossroads Podcast is co-hosted by Harris Kenny (Founder, OutboundSync), Brendan Tolleson (Co-Founder & CEO, RevPartners), and Zach Vidibor (Co-Founder & CEO, Octave). Each episode features discussions on go-to-market (GTM) strategy, revenue operations, and sales execution from industry leaders.

The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the individual speakers at the time of recording and do not necessarily reflect the official stance of their respective organizations. Statements made during the conversation may be speculative, evolving, or based on personal experience rather than company policy.

This transcript below is provided for reference and accessibility but should not be interpreted as official guidance, policy, or endorsement by any company mentioned. 

Transcript

00:05 Well, everyone, welcome to GoToMarketCrossroads. Uh, this is actually our first episode. And, uh, look, the intent of this, uh, this series is really to give you the GoToMarket owner actual insights on how to effectively go to market.

00:20 Um, you know, what we’ve identified is really just it’s harder than ever to win, uh, which is ironic because everything you’re hearing the market tells you it’s so easy.

00:30 Uh, and so what I’ve decided to do is to create this GoToMarketCrossroads, um, Channel and invite some of my friends that are much smarter than me, they can help educate and equip you to learn how to effectively go to market.

00:42 So I’ve got Harris Kenny with me as well as Zack Vidibor, um, to really go through a variety of topics.

00:49 Um, but before we do that, Harris, Zack, welcome. I would love to give you the opportunity to introduce yourself. What do you do?

00:57 Um, and then we’ll, we’ll get into a fun topic. Sounds great. I’ll go first since my name came up first.

01:03 So yeah, thanks for having me. My name’s Harris Kenny. I’m the founder of OutboundSync. Um, we are basically a cross-platform router for sequencing tools and bringing that data into CRM.

01:14 And I previously ran a HubSpot solutions partner agency. So I’ve been in the ecosystem for a while now and, um, yeah, I’ve been in sales my whole career and watched it change quite a bit from like Manually calling one number at a time from DNB, uh, like Donald Bradstreet lists in 2009 to- to whatever

01:31 is- whatever it is today. So I’m really excited to chat. Awesome. I’m gonna be here as well. Um, Zach Vidibore, co-founder of Octave.

01:40 One way to think about what we’re kind of doing is we’re trying to give you, like, your ICP is an endpoint.

01:45 You know, we really think about your messaging and positioning, how you talk about what you do, who it’s for, what problems you solve as kind of your company’s like- Unique DNA, if you will, that’s kind of your fingerprint.

01:56 And so we’re trying to give that a purpose-built home, obviously, with AI, where then you can integrate that knowledge into a variety of workflows, whether that be qualification, research, enrichment, um, writing emails, all kinds of cool stuff.

02:09 I’m sure we’ll talk about it hopefully at some points. Um, my background as well. I’ve been in the uh, go-to-market.

02:15 Trench is, if you will, for a long time. So 15 years ago, I was a SDR hammering the phone, you know, the phones and ATMs.

02:23 So, uh, I know this world. I’m trying to bring hopefully some of, you know, what I’ve seen myself on teams I’ve been on, part of what I’m building and what I’m hearing from customers.

02:31 And yeah, excited to, uh, to jam here and hopefully help some people out. That’s great. And I guess I should introduce myself.

02:39 I’m Brendan. I am the co-founder and CEO of RevPartners. Unlike Harris, I’ve stayed in the agency world for better or worse.

02:46 So I am still living agency life while Harris and Zach experience software life in my background. Similar to Zach in a sense of, and actually you, Harris, have, uh, really been in the sales seats from SDR to, You know, in the leadership on the software side, and then move actually into services over

03:04 time. And one of the fun things about doing a podcast like this is, um, these are relationships. And I remember, you know, Harris, uh, you and I first, I think it’s actually at the end of my conference was the first time we got to start, uh, chat and then Zach, I know it was through a connection that

03:17 we both share, uh, and just been really impressed watching, uh, y’all’s content and, uh, building partnerships with your software companies and realizing that your, your point of view is something that, um, Our audience could really benefit from.

03:31 And so I’m really excited to get this kicked off. And, uh, like I said, I mean, I think what we’re realizing is, it’s really hard to go to market right now.

03:40 Uh, despite what you may be hearing, uh, and in fact, for most people, I mean, everyone’s going to market just what, I’m out of how well you’re doing it.

03:46 And for many, we’re going to market is broken. Um, and so this is an attempt to equip you to go to market owner with some of those, um, You know, actual insights they can take.

03:56 So let’s, let’s kind of get into our first topic, guys, for, for this episode, which gets into a not necessarily sexy topic, but a really important topic, which is really around email deliverability.

04:05 And what I mean by that, just to define that a little bit, and then we’ll kind of riff on it, um, as just if you, the more that you, And I talk to sales leaders.

04:13 There’s this frustration that the emails that are sending aren’t actually landing in the inbox. Um, so, uh, let’s unpack that as to what the heck is going on.

04:22 Why are we seeing that deliverability decrease so much? And then ultimately, what can they do to solve that problem? So, maybe at a high level, let’s start with like what, what has happened, uh, to cause that to be such a problem for the sales leader, but ultimately for the sales team that’s doing the

04:35 email, uh, outreach. I’ll let you jump in for a terrorists and then maybe I’ll back you up with some more thoughts.

04:44 Yeah, that sounds great. So I think that it’s important to remember kind of the context of where things came from.

04:49 So, you know, when outreach came out and sales loft and some of these early sequencing tools, it sort of gave sales reps the ability to, Do more to automate some of the workflow and to get more emails out.

05:00 And so you had like marketing would send email blasts, you know, to large lists of existing customers or to a trade show list and then sales historically would go find individual prospects one-on-one and work them.

05:10 And then the ability to reach out to multiple people, you know, and then sequence it and then email a bunch of people in a day.

05:16 And so, you know, and kind of the Halcyon days of how easy that was back then. I mean, you could just Email like a thousand people a day, just from your main email address, from your main domain, and, um, and it was fine.

05:28 And it worked. But as more people did it, um, Google and Outlook, they started to clamp down. And I think, like, when you think about email deliverability, you just have to remember the ecosystem is, it’s like an oligopoly, really.

05:42 I mean, you have a handful of providers, um, that I have very, very, very important roles within the ecosystem, and they set the rules.

05:50 And so if they change the rules, that’s going to really affect how your team can perform. Um, and I’m not saying the rules are good or bad, just, just objectively, like, that’s the way it is.

05:58 They own most of the market, and so they get to decide how it works. And so when they saw these changes, they didn’t like it, and so they made changes to how the filters worked, and then Teams cranked up the volume even more.

06:09 Um, and you’ve got this kind of cat mouse game happening between these sequencing tools and the email providers. And there’s a lot of layers to like what, you know, it’s volume, it’s data quality, it’s the copy.

06:21 There’s a lot of things that go into it. But I mean, that’s the long story short. It was really easy and it’s gotten harder.

06:26 And now it’s to the point where I think that this, even this idea of like one to one email, it’s starting to be taken out of the hands of the individual sales reps now.

06:35 And they’re You know, not doing what they have been doing even for the last five to ten years. And that’s where I think, you know, AI is changing that and the idea of like understanding the customer and like, what’s the right messaging and doing much more sophisticated testing.

06:49 So there’s like a lot we can get into about deliverability, but like in general, that’s kind of what I see is happening on my side.

06:53 Yeah. It’s real quick on that. And then Zaggle E-Roof is, you mentioned the rules of change, Sarah. So maybe before we get into like, what, like, the what’s going on with AI, but what you said rule of change is let’s unpack a little bit further.

07:06 Oh, yeah, totally. I mean, so, okay, we can go. There’s like a couple layers to this. So, I mean, let’s just talk about like, what is a cold email?

07:14 So a cold email is like, when you’re sending someone an email that they’ve never heard from you before. But it’s also like a first time interaction potentially between your domain and their domain.

07:22 And when I say domain, you know, I mean, like, abonsink.com. So my email address is Harris at outboundsync.com. Feel free to call the email me.

07:29 I don’t care. And so if I’m sending email out for the first time from my main main address, Like, the recipient has never heard from me before.

07:36 And so my, my sending tool has to decide, like, should I deliver this email or not? Is it malicious or is it okay for Google to send Harris’s email?

07:47 And then the recipient has to decide, do I want to receive it or not? Um, and so, like, there’s a few basic things that happen.

07:53 You have to have like the domain configured. There’s records to authenticate. I am indeed Harris. And the person who’s receiving it is indeed the recipient of the email.

08:00 So you have like this very like, uh, kind of really technical level. Then you have, like, historical interactions between the domains.

08:08 You’ve got how many emails I’m sending. So when I, when we say it’s getting harder, like, they’re limiting how many emails you can send out from your email address.

08:14 And increasingly if you’ve got a rogue sales rep that’s just blasting out emails, it’s going to potentially affect the entire companies.

08:22 Reputation across their domain because they’re emailing like 10,000 people a day. Their account’s gonna get locked all of a sudden your invoices aren’t sending to customers anymore.

08:30 Um, your customer success people aren’t able to like get in touch. Your salespeople’s calendar invites aren’t going out. So that that’s like kind of like the the first level of risk of like contagion is like the main domain.

08:40 And so that’s why people are moving to setting up secondary domains. And then once you set up secondary domains, which would be like get out bouncing calm. 08:46 Then you still have like additional concerns are on the content. And frankly, like the email providers are rightly filtering, pretty heavily, because there are concerns about fishing and cyber attacks.

08:57 Like, cold email, we might think that our cold email is, um, noble, but someone who’s trying to steal money from a company would probably do some of the similar things that we’re doing when we’re just trying to grow a company and offer a valuable service.

09:11 Um, so things like images and things like links that can be used maliciously are also, um, Need to be taken into consideration.

09:17 And this is also where the copy comes into mind. Because if you’re sending the same email 5,000 times in a row, that’s weird.

09:23 No normal person does that, you know? And so rightly, email systems are like, what’s up? So, so deliverability is like kind of a set of like, that’s like a matroid scale. 09:32 It’s like a nested like set of things where like each one you have to kind of have to like pass this test.

09:39 Um, and so those are where they’re like applying more rules. Whereas like 10 years ago, you could send a thousand emails that were identical from your main domain.

09:45 And now you can’t. Does that? Is that like a big starting point? Yeah, I think it’s a great starting point.

09:51 I think it’s a, it’s a good segue to Zach. Zach is more into by the content. Uh, but even before that, Zach, I think it would be, I mean, you mentioned you, you were an SDR a while back and you’ve been a manager and you probably had teams that, uh, so I think what Harris was talking about is like, before

10:06 the rule change or this concept, the whole changing. Volume was key. Uh, and that’s like what was preached and more and more and more.

10:12 How many activities have you done today? Um, so I’d love to hear kind of your expand on some of the things that Harris was just talking about.

10:18 Yeah. Um, Look, I think as a good market community, like we can take some ownership over the uh, the predictable revenue era, you know, like people got lazy and it kind of worked and you could, you could shove enough activities in the top of the funnel that stuff would drop out of the bottom and like

10:37 That’s just not the reality anymore. And I think just to like, maybe add on to like, you know, what Harris was talking about, some of the like, just technically, you know, like, one thing like, I talked to people about a lot is like, hey, it’s not just about how AI could help you with your sales.

10:53 Like, AI is impacting everything, right? Like, Google and Microsoft, they have AI that’s helping their spam filtering, right? Like, it’s getting much easier for them.

11:03 10 years ago, it was really hard to maybe spot a, hey, we want to track the reputation of like a phone number in a signature that’s like across a bunch of different domains, right?

11:14 Like, oh, you could be using 18 different domains to send from, but they all have your same phone number in them.

11:20 10 years ago, like, that was, that was really hard for them to like track that reputation. Now, that’s incredibly easy.

11:25 Like, they have AI that’ll go like, oh, I’ve seen like, this phone number is associated with a spam report. I don’t care where you’re sending it from.

11:31 So, like, there’s, like, all kinds of things happening in the background, like, technically, that, like, AI, they’re getting much more sophisticated, where, like, yeah, simple templates and variables and spin-tats, like, aren’t cutting it.

11:43 You need to be, like, that much more precise, that much more, um, you know, distinct with, like, each message you deliver, and, like, the key being, like, you just need to take- Good shots on goal.

11:56 I’m like, I kind of think it’s good for the industry in a way. You know, it feels harder and like you feel the, we all feel the friction increasing and it causes a lot of like anxiety for us and our customers, but ultimately it’s good friction that’s like helping us do the right thing, which is like,

12:12 make sure I’m trying to talk to the right people about the right thing. You know, and that’s like the, the gravity of the universe is kind of forcing that all on us.

12:21 And then I think we’re all gonna, we’re all gonna come Come up to a better spot. And like, I think the, uh, you know, the, the goal shouldn’t be like, how do I treat the spam filters like some touring test that I can like sneak my way around?

12:36 Like the goal is like, hey, they, they have, they have good sense. And like, I need to make sure I’m like delivering a message to that person.

12:44 The they go, I know exactly why I got this, you know, like, that should be the goal. And then you’re going to hit the inbox a lot more.

12:51 If like, if you’re trying to hit that target versus like, I’m just trying to game the system, you know. Totally agree with you.

12:58 Yeah. Yeah, and guys, before, before we jump into a bit of the solution, um, which is, uh, it’s always tempting to go into solutions.

13:05 Yeah. But, like, how, I think we talk about the frustrate, like, if you’re the sales leader, you’re frustrated that emails are going to spam, but I don’t know if the sales leader really understands the true impact.

13:15 That it’s having to the business in terms of when you guys mean some word reputation. I think there’s an element of like, there’s the trust with the buyer, uh, which is certainly an impact, but also just what is happening to that company domain when it’s going to spam?

13:28 Can you speak into, hey, there, there actually is a risk the business by not doing this well besides just being frustrated that email’s going to spam?

13:36 Well, I mean, I think it’s like, there’s an incentive misalignment. Situation, right? So like, I mean, talk about a company that just has their main domain and they’re doing everything off of their main domain today.

13:45 I mean, I was this business development leader where I was going to pay it on commission and if I sold more widgets, I got paid more and nobody else was under that incentive structure, but I was and I was, you know, Mary had a house.

14:04 It’s about to start a family. It’s like, yeah, I would like to get paid my full amount of compensation. Um, and so it’s, and meanwhile, like there’s no, nobody else was helping me.

14:13 Nobody else was offering to help set up infrastructure or do anything. So it’s like, okay, well, I just need to send send email because like there’s literally no other lever I can pull.

14:22 I don’t have any control over the marketing budget. I don’t have any control over what trade shows I go to.

14:26 Um, you know, I don’t even, I don’t even access to a really a data provider. And so it’s like, what are the tools I have?

14:32 I have this phone and I have this email address and I have a database and I can work off of this database.

14:37 And so, like a lot of reps are in that position. And so they’re going to use the tools that they have to meet the goals that have been set for them by the company that hired them in the first place.

14:46 And so when they’re doing that, they do potentially risk the company’s ability to function. I mean, because email and like authentication through your email address is You, you like, you might not even be able to log into QuickBooks.

14:58 If you’re, if you get locked out of your email account and you need that two-factor code and you can’t log into your Google, you might not be able to close your books or file your taxes or whatever.

15:06 So, you know, it’s a really, really kind of foundational, um, thing. Uh, it’s like fundamentally like the company that holds your email account holds secure identity in your ability to communicate.

15:15 And so you want to make sure that you’re not putting people in your organization in a position where they can jeopardize that just so they can.

15:22 Dude, the job that you hired him for in the first place, right? I think everyone’s like doing their best. I don’t think anyone has any bad incentives.

15:28 But I think it’s important to remember that what the reality is for the rep in the seat, who’s, you know, just trying to help everybody.

15:34 Frankly, everybody get paid, right? Yeah. Yeah. It could be, it could be real damaging when you’re, uh, your, your proposals and your order forms.

15:42 Yeah. When those aren’t making it through the pipes, then the business really starts feeling the pain. And I think that There’s like also a component of, you know, especially like when we’re talking cold email, you know, like the replies of like, hell yeah, I want to meet tomorrow, give you a demo, like

16:00 those are rarely gonna fall through the bottom and they’re rarely gonna like fall through the bottom right away. Like cold email definitely has a like, there’s a like a compounding that kind of has to build up, right?

16:14 Like it’s it’s useful really as this channel that you can kind of Tap people in the shoulder over time. Like, I’m here.

16:20 I got a relevant message. This is what we do. Hey, you know, you might just be like scanning this thing for two seconds, but you start seeing, you know, buyers pick up on this.

16:28 They start seeing your name. They start seeing, oh, we work with this customer, you know, like, those things add up over time.

16:34 And if like, if you lose that as like a channel, that even if you’re not getting the meetings, like, if you lose that as a channel to like, just again, Get that little figment of your, you know, solution in your, in your market’s mind, like, that’s a huge loss for the company.

16:50 So, I mean, I think, you know, even forget if you’re like getting the, the meetings and a bunch of handraisers going, yes, I want to demo, like, you should care about just this being a clean channel that we can just communicate with our, our tam and, and our market, you know?

17:06 Yeah, I totally agree. I’ll just say really quick too. This applies to other channels. Supply still linked in and then applies to phones too.

17:12 Calling has gotten harder. Doing outreach on LinkedIn has gotten harder. All of these channels have gotten a lot harder. You know, people’s like LinkedIn accounts getting locked and that’s like their personal LinkedIn account.

17:22 Phone numbers being marked as going to spam and just like connect rates plummeting. Um, and so we can also touch on some of these tactics.

17:29 And like how to scale messaging across channels too because I do think that email to the really I know is like the prompt, but I do think it’s also true that the same thing is happening across, uh, across channels for go to market and some like more traditional industries they really rely on phones.

17:42 Um, and if your rep is if everyone in your company’s numbers being marked as spam and you’re a company that sells into trades or education or manufacturing where, Those people answer the phone and they don’t look at their email. 17:54 Um, then you also have a really big problem. You know, the accounts receivable phone number is going to spam. That’s an issue too, right?

18:02 Yeah, I think you’re, I think you’re absolutely right. And I can’t tell you how many text messages now I report a spam.

18:09 So whoever you are, these companies, you’re hurting your company. Sorry, you can’t open your QuickBooks account. Um, I think, yeah.

18:18 To where you’re going here is, I mean, I think there are unintended consequences where when, I mean, since there’s always drive behaviors and while they’re well intentioned, there are, there are impacts that they can have depending on how it’s set up.

18:30 Um, and so let’s, let’s talk a little bit about, um, I think to your point. There’s two, we will talk about other channels.

18:37 Um, and we all started to use that because we talked about the kind of the new rules, if you will, that was alluded to earlier.

18:43 This guy gets in a little bit of the solution. What are some ways that, um, you know, the sales, the companies in the sales teams can really embrace, like new ways or new approaches to avoid spam health?

18:57 Yeah. I think, um, probably starts, you know, with Good clean infrastructure. You know, you should spin up secondary domains like you should get stuff off your primary to start.

19:11 So like we don’t we don’t have a oopsie, right? So I’d say like starts there. Then I’d say, you know, getting a cleaner list is this is like where AI has really like the the needles been moved and like Going through a list of, like, 10,000 contacts, for example, a few years ago, and having to figure

19:33 out, like, all right, can I, can I figure out if everyone in here is, like, sock too certified or not?

19:39 And, like, that’s really important to our sales process. Like, that was, like, incredibly manual. Now you can do things like that instantly, right?

19:47 So, there’s, you know, almost no excuse of, like, get a clean list, you know, like, Have smaller buckets, like you shouldn’t have one massive list.

19:58 Here’s 100,000 accounts that we like, you know, like, bad move, you know, segment them more, clean them, make sure you’re getting, again, there’s just good, good, uh, hygiene practices, make sure you’re verifying emails, you’re, you’re, you’re knowing, you know, if you’re, When we can talk more technical

20:15 stuff, if you’re, you know, trying to be wary of, like, never sending to catchalls where you might be more likely to get bounces and stuff like that.

20:22 You know, there’s lots of stuff now where you can easily do work upfront at scale. That’s going to make sure, like, okay, we have a good group of people.

20:32 We have high confidence. We’re going to be able to deliver to the inbox and, like, we’ve, you know, Put the boundaries in the universe in a way that, like, we can deliver a really specific message.

20:44 And then, like, of course, like, near and dear to my heart is, like, I think each person is probably worthy of, like, a somewhat unique message.

20:51 You know, like, the same way if you were to get on a call with somebody, like, depending on who they are, what they do, what their company does, like, you’re gonna have a slightly different flavor of the message.

21:02 And, like, that’s useful for deliverability. I think that’s useful for, like, Hey, the, the, you know, the, the, the tighter the aperture on our message, like that just gives us a better, a better chance at like getting somebody to engage.

21:14 If you’re kind of wide open with your messaging and value value benefit benefit, we helped the world. Like, people are just gonna have a really hard time like latching onto that and seeing themselves in it at all.

21:26 So say that’s, that’s where, I think, yeah, the, the rubber can meet the road is like make sure we’re targeting the right people, have, have clean pipes, all that, and then give them something to react to, you know, don’t, don’t give them 18 different like broad value statements, give them one hypothesis

21:43 , and you’ll get a better shot of somebody being awesome, not for me, you know, like that, that’s what we want to, we want to get somebody to, you know.

21:51 Yeah, kind of mine. It goes back to me. You were talking about earlier. It’s a camera with a scientific word for it, but like that, like the red car effect, where you see a red car, or you start seeing that car everywhere.

22:01 Um, it’s like, if you do affect a multi-channel outreach, um, I would assume there’s this desire like to your point about, yes, value first, don’t pitch slap, but thinking about something from a long-term perspective of how you’re building, um, that relationship is trying to sell them on that one, that

22:18 one email. Alright guys, assuming that I’m an idiot, which I kind of am. So like, like from the, you guys say things like secondary email, email verification, as like that kind of first step.

22:30 I’m a CRO. I don’t know what y’all are talking about. What is that? What are the, what are those things actually mean?

22:35 And what are some options that I have in my disposal as I’m kind of thinking through, okay, crap. I do have this problem.

22:41 Sounds like those are some of the steps I first need to take. Regardless of content and list, I need to have that in place.

22:46 Here’s what, how would you approach that in terms of A definer and a solution that may be out there for the audience. 22:53 Yeah, so I mean basically if you’re expecting your sales rise to be contacting more than let’s just say 10 to 20 people a day.

23:03 It’s doing anything I get higher volume. You need to think about picking tools that will support those channels that you’re that you’re doing that outreach through. 23:11 So if you’re doing email, um, you know, there are tools like smartly, like instantly email bison that are built for more scaled.

23:20 Outbound that can reach hundreds or thousands of people a day. Um, and then there’s kind of infrastructure setup underlying infrastructure to use those tools.

23:28 So for email, you would buy domains. You would buy email accounts. You would set them up for phones. You know, again, you’d look at dialers and you’d look at setting up phone numbers and dialers potentially that include like number rotation between them.

23:39 And then for LinkedIn, that’s like a whole different ball of wax LinkedIn automation. Um, personally, I avoid that, but I think like Having at least manual tasks that are triggered through LinkedIn, um, there’s ways to do it.

23:53 But basically the point is like, you’re gonna have a number of touches that you’re expecting your reps to make, and then an expected conversion rate for each of those touches.

24:03 And if your volume is gonna go above 10 to 20 across any of those channels, I think you need to start thinking about picking specific tools that are built for those specific jobs.

24:09 And then you can, you know, you can hack the conversion rate by doing some of the stuff we were talking about before, which is like, so if you’re verifying, validating emails, if you’re using a tool like clay, You can validate email addresses if you’re using a tool like Octave, you can get better copy

24:21 . So that you’re going to get a better conversion rate. And then all of a sudden, like, if you think about the fraction that, that like denominator, the number of people you have to reach goes down.

24:28 If you can convert more of those, uh, more of those touches. So I think that that would be like kind of my basic overarching, um, way that I would think about that. 24:37 And, you know, I don’t even have anything to sell you in either, in any of those things, though, I just said, like I don’t.

24:44 Sell email sequencer or call sequencer or blinked in tools. So, but I paid people to do those things and I’ve been doing this for five years, like, and I’ve sent a lot of emails and I’ve sent, you know, I’ve done a lot of this stuff and I’ve done co-calling.

24:56 Um, so I guess my last thing would be like, pick a channel, try to be excellent at that channel and ask for help.

25:01 Talk to people who understand that space and who can help you get upset up in the infrastructure, get upset up with the tools, um, because whatever you, however you think it works, you know, if you’re like in a senior leader position, You’re understanding of it is probably a little bit dated.

25:15 I think you’re understanding of the fundamentals of the job and how to like move the organization forward. Heck yeah, like that’s why you’re in that seat.

25:21 But the like day in and day out, it has changed since you had quota for sure. It changed from a month ago, right?

25:27 So it’s my advice would be like just ask for help or work with vendors. Like that’s what we do for our own outreach and it’s in theory I should be able to do it all myself, but I’m curious what you think about that too.

25:36 Yeah, I would, I think that That last point is like super important and I know like your question brand was like a little more like technical but I think like There is a mindset shift required here where like email was like this like risk-free Consequence-free super low-cost Channel and like that’s fundamentally

25:58 changed like there are there are risk and consequences like if you misbehave on your primary domain like it is now you can get locked out very quick and guess what like The costs have risen too.

26:10 Like, hey, you’re gonna need secondary domains. You’re gonna need new types of tooling and ways to use this channel. But like, the mindset shift is also should be like, you know, damn, like, this is a, this is a path we can get right to our prospect front door.

26:26 Like, if we do it right, there’s kind of no equivalent of like email. I’m just like, I can get right, right to this precise person.

26:34 That, that should have some cost, you know? I think like that’s for, for a lot of organizations, it just, especially the last 10 years.

26:41 Like, it was just emails really free and cheap and we could give every rep a machine gun and go, go sit and like, okay, it didn’t work.

26:50 Like, oh well, that was like the worst outcome. And now the worst outcome is like, well, yeah, now, now your proposals and your, your voices aren’t going out, you know? 26:58 Like, so it’s just like, uh, yeah, I think. For those that are, yeah, kind of, I’m sure there are some people like experiencing this now.

27:06 Like, it is, uh, the landscape has moved a lot. So, guys, what I’m kind of hearing is there’s this mindset shift of, um, from do more to do better.

27:15 I think it’s kind of one of the things that you’re talking about. Tag and Harris is like, hey, the volume game is not necessarily, While that works in the past, it’s no longer going to be, uh, successful in this new, kind of paradigm that we’re describing.

27:27 Um, which I think is a really important takeaway. I think the other thing that I, like, as I’m sitting here, uh, what seems encouraging is yes, the bar is higher.

27:35 Yes, it’s more difficult. But man, there’s this amazing opportunity, even as you’re saying, Zach, of like literally having direct access to your buyer, that the ones that do this right.

27:45 Can not only win but win faster. Uh, and so like that learning curve while maybe higher, uh, man, for those that are willing to roll their sleeves and like really, uh, learn this new world that we live in, uh, there’s an opportunity to really, you know, take your whatever category you’re in to really

28:01 win. So, um, but I’d love to get you all’s thoughts on as we wrap up. Yeah, I’ll just, I’ll, I guess I’ll, I’ll end with the thought and not that working with your market should feel like, you know, warfare, but like it is like we are moving from a, you know, like I was talking about like the, the old

28:18 world is infantry and artillery and like now it’s time for SEAL Team 6, you know, like you need sniper rifles and night vision and like it’s a different world, but damn, like you can be so much more effective, like there is a, There is a happy side on, on this transition if you can make it where you’re

28:34 doing more with less, you’re having better engagement with your customers, you’re getting deeper with them and helping them understand quicker.

28:40 So like I’m, I’m really excited. I’m obviously very bullish, but I think it’s a, it’s a cool time to be, to be taken, go to market teams through this transition and a lot of opportunity for people and, you know, leaving their teams forward and their, their own careers.

28:55 So, um, I see a lot of good stuff coming. I mean, listening to you reminds me of, uh, my co-founder at RPE, Matt Bullion, who went to the West Point.

29:04 I haven’t had this much military conversation in a long time. But, uh, Harris, over to you for a final thought.

29:12 Yeah, I mean, it’s a zero-sum game. Right, I mean, that’s a, like, sound like Ricky Bobby, but if you’re not winning, you’re losing.

29:18 I mean, the reality is, like, people in the market are figuring this stuff out. And I think if you’re listening to this podcast, you’re probably one of them.

29:24 We’re also figuring it out. But if you’re not, like, thinking about it and trying to learn about it, you’re definitely not gonna, it’s just changing too fast.

29:31 The good thing is that there’s outsized, I totally grew at the point, Brendan. There are outsized rewards for the people that spend time to figure it out.

29:38 And in that way, like, the winners will win more. And I think you will see a separation. For companies that are able to spend time on this and think with the end in mind.

29:46 It’s like, what does it mean to go to market? We’re trying to sell. We want revenue booked in our system.

29:51 We want closed one deals. Like, that is the metric that matters. Not like getting replies, not even getting opens, not even sending emails.

29:58 Like, we want to drive business and grow our companies. And people that can work through this and get a little bit every day, I think, are going to, are going to benefit.

30:05 So I’m excited to talk about this with you with you both and get maybe other people on and just kind of talk about on LinkedIn because, um, The only way I’ve found to learn about this is with other people, because everyone’s out there testing, and, um, I’ve never, I mean, I haven’t been able to figure

30:19 this out on my own, so I’m excited to talk about it with both of you. I like the way that you frame that, and kind of as we wrap up, but this really should be viewed as an invitation, um, and kind of you were just describing it.

30:29 I mean, there’s really a choice here guys, and a choice is for every way is listing, and where you’re going.

30:33 It’s like, hey, either wind faster or lose harder. I’m like, that’s, that’s really what you have. And even if you look at like the I mean, there, there is a CRO use provocative language, the CRO death sentence.

30:44 I mean, you, if you were a CRO here, you have 18 months to get it right. Like, that is the 10 year of a CRO right now.

30:49 Uh, and so these type of conversations are so, so important to equip you or aspiring CRO to be successful when you’re in that seat.

30:57 So I’m excited to continue the conversation. As you mentioned, Harris, uh, may invite others in here, um, for the three of us to continue having some conversations on effective ways to go to market.

31:07 So Guys that wraps up episode one, appreciate the time, and uh, we’ll be back at it next week. There we go.

31:13 See y’all. See ya. Thanks.