GTM strategies that work: An interview with Harris Kenny

In this episode of Bridge the Gap powered by Revenue Reimagined, the team sits down with Harris Kenny, founder of OutboundSync, to explore how B2B teams can finally bring order to top-of-funnel chaos.

Harris shares insights from working with hundreds of companies syncing millions of outbound records across platforms like Smartlead, Instantly, Clay, HubSpot, and Salesforce.

We dive into how OutboundSync helps sales and marketing teams attribute revenue, sync activities, manage block lists, and integrate outbound data directly into CRMs for full-funnel visibility.

Whether you’re running outbound in-house or through an agency, Harris offers a clear framework on when outbound at scale works, how to avoid costly data silos, and why thoughtful CRM automation is the foundation for go-to-market success.

If you’re navigating the complexities of modern outbound, this episode is packed with real-world examples, tactical advice, and a candid look at what’s next in the outbound sales ecosystem.

Watch below, via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Watch: Cold Email Is DEAD… Unless You Do This | GTM Strategies That Actually Work

Transcript

00:06 Welcome back to another episode of Bridge the Gap powered by Revenue Reimagined. We have Harris Kenny with us today who is the founder of Outbound.

00:13 I think it’s a super cool tool because it solves a problem that I’m dealing with right now. How do you attribute revenue, sync activities, manage block lists from tools like smart lead and instantly that do outbound at scale that don’t historically tie back to your CRM.

00:30 Prior to that, Harris ran a Gold tier HubSpot Solutions partner agency. We could certainly talk about that because we do that as well.

00:37 Um, was one of the first clay experts and spent past life scaling hardware companies and selling ERP consulting. Man, you’ve done a little bit of everything.

00:47 Welcome to the show. Thanks. Good to be here. Yeah, bounced around. It took me, it took me some time to figure out what I’m doing, but I’m also not young.

00:54 So that helps. Alright, I mean, Dale’s old. I mean, you’re not young now. I’m not young. Dale’s old. I’m old.

01:02 It’s definitely true. Although, now that I’ve shaved my beard off, I’m a little bit younger. But, um, Well, if you, I mean, one, one, one of our clients did send me a slack yesterday being like, oh my god, that looks so young without a beer.

01:14 True story. That’s great. Well, if you follow Brian Johnson, you know, maybe, maybe we can extend our lives a bit here.

01:19 We’ll see how it goes. Yeah. Second person this week to tell us about true story. Yeah. Yeah. I follow Brian a little bit.

01:27 Adam’s like, who is that? So we’re, we’re trying to get Adam into the 24th century and taking care of himself, but we’ll see how that progresses.

01:33 Jim, every morning, man. So Harris, you know, one of the, one of the big things that we’ve always had is struggling with and actually the market struggling with is like out on a scale or top of funnel or like any of these things that we talk through.

01:47 Um, and it’s a problem that you’re trying to help solve with partnerships like, uh, instantly, smartly, et cetera. Where should people be starting to think about out on a scale?

02:00 Is it as they’re building? Is it after product market fit? Is it where is it in the life cycle of building an organization?

02:08 Yeah. Well, I think where we’re so a little bit about OutboundSyncsync. So we’ve got hundreds of companies using our product now.

02:16 Uh, we’ve got we’ve synced tens of millions of records. So we do have some visibility into where We’re seeing things working, and I do think about this.

02:25 I split this in my head of, are you working with an agency or not? Because if you’re working with an agency, it’s going to fundamentally change the types of plays you can run and what you can do with the data, and frankly, how quickly you can move versus if you’re a direct team and the types of resources

02:41 and the types of people required to be successful. Um, why is that? Why do you split that way? Well, I mean, we just see a really big difference between like the on our side, the amount of time it takes for a team to move forward, for example.

02:57 Uh, now, just like to get their bearings, we have a company we’ve been talking to, they are, I don’t want to be named names, y’all just say they’re using a conventional sequencer.

03:09 And they’re like, look, we’re landing in spam. We know we need multiple domains. We know that instantly solves this problem for, that they, you know, liked instantly for their use case.

03:17 We know instantly solves this problem for us. Problem is, we went to go cancel our contract and, um, they auto-vernued us automatically, right?

03:24 So you have this, like, these, like, variety of things that, like, a traditional team has in place. Now, in this situation, like, they have a really strong internal person.

03:33 I would say that is the X factor of, like, do you have an internal person that themselves can drive this entire conversation across the internal org around, like, hey, here’s the problem.

03:44 They need to be able to pick up and learn really quickly about the liberal arts and other things. Have the, the kind of the guts to be like, what we’re doing right now is not working.

03:53 I’m gonna be the one to say it out loud. Um, you know, and then, and then to do the research and then to find there’s a lot they have to be able to do and then, and then get that will with, if you’re working with an agency, like, it’s not the agency themselves, they bring a lot of skills, but also the

04:05 decision to hire an agency seems to suggest like, A decision has been made. A commitment has been made. Let’s bring in someone to solve this.

04:13 And so we just find that companies that do that are able to get stuff off the ground faster. I’m not saying it’s better or worse, but so then the question of like at what stage do companies do this kind of outbound that like start to affect it?

04:23 Because if you’re working with an agency and you have a really clear goal of like, I want to test my positioning or I want to test a couple different ways to then you can do it earlier with different expectations.

04:32 But if you want pipeline generated Yeah, there’s some traction, there’s some offers. You have to know what to put into clay to get the right lists, um, you know, to know the numbers, the dial and then you do the validation, you do, but you have reps that can do calling.

04:48 It’s definitely becoming a game for company with more resources, I think, um, versus I think what I, I think what I heard you say, I think what I was hearing you say was like the agency model.

04:58 We’ll just get you there faster, more efficiently, more effectively, versus like, if you’re doing it internally, it’s almost like a side product.

05:04 Yes. It’s like, okay, do all your other work. And then like, oh, by the way, we also have to figure out this up on a scale type of motion.

05:10 Yep. So it would, like, it’s a, it’s a matter of, and I say this a lot with like sales and marketing, like, Sales people can help you generate awareness outside, but it could take you 12 to 18 months to do that where marketing may take you six months.

05:24 Yep. And I think that analogy is probably the same as, like, if I burn agency, because they do this all the time, they know all the modifications, because things are changing so quickly, right?

05:33 It’s like, just because it worked today, like a month from now, whatever you did today is not really going to be working, and you guys are on top of that all the time.

05:41 Yep. Yeah. I think the side project analogy is like exactly right. Because that’s what I mean, I look, I get an email at eight o’clock.

05:47 From, you know, uh, head of sales, an email eight o’clock at night, being like, okay, I did a bunch of research about how to set up domains.

05:52 Like, can you tell me about DKIM? And it’s like, you obviously just pushed your kids to bed. I know because I did the same thing, right?

06:00 And now we’re getting online for our second shift. So I think the side-gig analogy is exactly right. Our second shift, that’s fun.

06:08 Yeah. Um, does our budget scale work? And let me piggyback off that for a second. So, there’s a gazillion AI tools out there, right?

06:17 There’s a gazillion agencies out there all claiming, you know, we could enrich everything amazingly through clay and like we’re gonna get you this great data, but you’re still gonna send out 10,000 emails and you’re gonna get a 1% response rate.

06:32 Like, is outbound at scale worth investing in? And I understand you’re a little biased based on your product, but like, does it work and if so, where?

06:40 Yeah, well, I would say with our product sometimes Customers use our product to disprove that, you know, to say, oh, I’ve been, it’s not working.

06:49 Um, and that’s okay too. Right. I mean, my court believe me. As long as they pay the subscription, I don’t particularly care what they use it for.

06:56 Yeah. Yeah. Right. And that’s part of why we’re like going to be looking at moving it, supporting other channels is because it’s like maybe email isn’t working or maybe this, you know, and so it’s like, okay, what about LinkedIn, what about phones?

07:06 But I mean, like our core, my core thesis has been like, look, this We had the, like, period of, like, the early sequencers for whatever five, seven years, now outreach created the, created the category, I think, um, and sales loft and these other players.

07:21 But that, like, one, one rep in one seat with, like, that has a one ZoomInfo seat, and they have one sequencer seat with one domain, with one domain, with one CRM seat, that areas.

07:32 Is over basically. Um, I’m not saying that people aren’t continuing to use all of those tools, but the use cases different than it was before.

07:40 And so, um, The question is like, what is this new, what is, what is different now? And when people switched to different tools to get deliverability edge or to get like different better data, maybe more segmented custom data with clay, there is still this like phone home problem.

07:57 And so I think the main thing that we’re trying to solve right now is that People chose new tools to get an edge, but then those new tools on the edge don’t phone home.

08:05 And so they can’t say confidently whether it’s working or not. And even like, what is success? Is it positive reply right away?

08:12 What if outbound influences a lead that converts through another channel like paid ads? Does that count? Does the app on get credit for that?

08:18 Well, we don’t know because there’s no record that we email them in the first place. So that that’s kind of where I think where we sit where the market is.

08:24 I think the market’s very, it’s very early in a lot of ways for these new tools in my opinion. So I, I hear you, um, and I hear everything you’re saying and I agree with you.

08:34 But where does outbound at scale work and where it doesn’t? Yeah. Like, I’m looking for a very, very definitive answer.

08:42 Sure, sure. I’m a series A or series B or series C or I have three BDRs. She thinks I’m talking to her and I’m not.

08:49 Um, where does outbound at scale work and I, yeah. To piggyback us, I love that you said we can be used to prove that it doesn’t, because I’m a big believer there’s places where it doesn’t, and you have to be able to track the activity to know that it doesn’t.

09:01 Yeah. I can give you some examples of people that are real companies that I see in a Slack that are booking meetings right now.

09:08 You don’t even have to name them? Yeah, I won’t name them because I can’t. Um, but like, um, so, okay, there’s, um, there are, uh, like busy There are, there’s, there’s types of products where customers are repeat buyers.

09:26 Uh, so there’s a company that does, well, they’ve talked about this publicly so I can say this publicly. An agency that we work with called C17, they work with a merch company called Jamio.

09:35 And so in Jameo’s a little different because they have really, really high quality merch. Like if you want to buy merch, most of the companies, like it’s really cheap and it’s flunzy and this hard gets good stuff.

09:45 And so they take up like more of a higher value approach. And so what C17 did was they developed a really good offer.

09:51 So, okay, so it’s like an ingredient one of why this is working is that companies are repeatedly buying merch. So if they’re not buying it right now, they might be buying it in three months, right?

10:00 So that is like a prerequisite to this being a thing. There’s like an acknowledgement of a problem. There’s typically a set aside budget.

10:05 They’re kind of, they’re in motion. There’s a little bit of friction because they’ve got like a commitment to maybe a certain vendor.

10:10 They’ve got like a pre-configured shirt design with an existing shirt printer. So, okay, we gotta get them. To consider doing something else besides clicking the reorder button.

10:20 Um, and so what they did was they developed a good offer. And the offer was, we’ll develop, our designers will develop for you a custom, they call them jams, but like some custom looks basically with some of our higher quality merch, some of our fleeces and things like that.

10:34 If you’re game, Mike, I can send it to you and you let me know if it, if it looks cool.

10:38 And it’s like a very, very low risk offer. And so they are crushing it on that campaign. I mean, they’re booking a ton of meetings and it’s extremely successful for them.

10:47 Um, because it’s something compelling, people like to see their brand use in different ways. A lot of times the person that’s designing the shirts and ordering the shirts, like, they’re looking for new ideas on how to do things and they want to keep it fresh.

10:57 They don’t want to just do the logo with like, uh, the founder designed version of merch, which is like the logo is like 300x.

11:06 So that’s one example where I can tell you for a fact that’s winning. So yeah, um, we can we can go through some more, um, other people that I’m seeing winning are that are combining multiple channels.

11:15 So they’re using paid ads plus email or they’re using phones plus link plus, um, plus like some LinkedIn touches and things like that.

11:24 Um, to to find the right channel for the right person, um, because not everyone what you just said is key though.

11:31 It’s not just email. And I tell this to everyone. Outbound at scale, I think has its place. There’s a place for brand awareness.

11:39 I’m also a big believer the goal of any campaign is to book a meeting, right? It’s to get a response.

11:45 Yes or no to get a response and ultimately to book that meeting. Yeah. If you, and I’m super curious your thoughts on this, if you go start doing outbound at scale and we’re going to email 10,000 people and hope that we’re going to get great response rates and they’re going to book a meeting and all 

11:58 we’re going to do is email them. You’re going to be f***** part my French. If we do outbound at scale and couple that with a multi-channel approach and we add in phone calls, we add in LinkedIn, and we make sure that those emails are high value, that’s where I think your outbound at scale has its place

12:13 . But if you are just outbounding, barring very few niche industries, do I think people are going to be like Holy s***, Harris.

12:20 I have been waiting for your email for the past three months of my life. The timing is perfect that you sent this and I cannot wait to get on the phone with it.

12:28 Yeah. Well, so okay, let me drive a bus. I agree, but let me drive a bus through that. Accept me.

12:32 Do it man. Do it. Because I do think there are a lot of industries and I will also say like geographic markets.

12:39 Where the recipients are less, let’s just say cynical, maybe, or less like fatigued without reach, where we do have agencies that are using alternative data provider sources, like scraping Google Maps directly and going to other places, state scraping, like public databases of business registrations 

12:57 and different types of like liquor tax registration, restaurant, reg, whatever, things like that, where, where they are succeeding with a single channel.

13:06 But like others, We know we have a, you know, the customer that, um, Where they saw contractors and like a lot of those contractors like they don’t even they don’t even have websites at all You know, and they’re using a Gmail address kind of thing But then if you find them on Angie’s list, you see oh

13:21 actually, this is a very good roofing company that has Tons of reviews and they could totally use this product So yeah, I mean, I think that that that specialized industry like what does that mean that can also mean different geographic markets I know that we have some agency partners in Europe who are

13:35 Absolutely printing money because they’re sending their cold emails in Dutch To people that speak Dutch. And they it’s like it’s like you turn back the clock and it’s like it’s 2016.

13:47 And people are like, Hey, oh my gosh. Like, thanks for emailing me. This is great. They are treating like that because they don’t ever get emails like that.

13:54 Um, so it’s like the future is here, but it’s just not even so it works outside of B2B tech. Yeah, definitely.

14:00 Oh, definitely. And I that’s And Dale, I know you’re like, f*** dude, let me talk. But that’s another thing that I don’t think people realize we work with a lot of tech companies.

14:09 We talk to a lot of tech companies who see email at scale every day, who see 100 coal calls every day.

14:15 There’s lots of industries out there. Even LinkedIn is the same thing where none of the shit exists. This is so novel to them that people do respond.

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15:30 It’s like we’re back to fundamentals and sales. Where do your buyers live? Yeah. And if they live in a place like we’re working with a client that, you know, they’re in the construction industry as well and they’re, you’ll get them on the phone and much faster you get them on email because they’ll be

15:45 on job sites or, you know, they’ll be in the middle of something. So you can send as many emails as you want at that point, but Uh, it may be a supplemental piece, so as you’re going through, like calling them, calling them, then sending an email versus, like, email first and call.

16:01 So it’s all about where the buyers, the buyers live, um, in the space. Um, I want to switch topics a little bit here.

16:10 So, um, what was the prep, but like, why’d you say, like, let’s, let’s build up on the sink. What are The first three things when you were kind of like building out the foundational elements of your business, that you found challenging, that now you can like say, good, I kind of put a bow on that, and

16:29 I can move forward off of it. Hmm. Well, the first thing I was running a HubSpot agency, which we could talk about, like really was at a great experience being a hotspot partner program.

16:41 We were also doing outbound because I was originally doing outbound and then we had these clients that were all using HubSpot and I decided, okay, well why don’t we why don’t I join HubSpot Partner Program too and so originally I was doing sales consulting like back in April 2019 and went out on my own

16:56 and We had clients who were asking hey, can you Get this outbound data like sort of like duh. Can you get this outbound data in HubSpot actually?

17:05 It’s like oh, that’s a great question currently. No, I can’t So the first question was Um, does anybody want that?

17:14 Do people want to stop on data inside of their CRM or not? Because, like, at the time, none of these tools had any integrations, and even now a couple of them have introduced some very basic ones, but nothing like, um, you know, in all humility, nothing like what we’ve built, because this is all we do

17:27 . So, like, we better, we better make it better. Um, otherwise, what business, you know, what are we doing? Um, so, We started to get requested people being like, hey, I don’t, I don’t want your agency services.

17:37 I just want the app. So that was kind of like that first checkbox. I was like, okay, yeah, I think there’s room for this.

17:42 Um, and then I think the second big question was, okay, but then our, our bigger companies, um, willing to use these new tools.

17:53 And at the time two years ago, like, that was not, Clear that that was going to happen. None of these tools had SOC 2 type II.

18:00 Not a lot of companies denied that that this was even an issue. They’re like we’re landing in the primary we’re landing in the inbox.

18:06 Just fine. What are you talking about? Um, I believed because of a couple of early calls that we had that that it would happen and that the mid market, um, would move in this direction, but that at the time was very unclear.

18:18 Now that is like definitely the case. I mean, we have Um, some really great customers. We have quite a few series D companies who are using our products like that, that is now this mood, this kind of growth hacking movement has gone mainstream, I think.

18:31 Um, and then I think yeah, which is really exciting. So those are, I think probably the two, um, two of the big ones.

18:39 And, and I think that third question was like, okay, people agree they want the data in, in the system of record, they want it in HubSpot or Salesforce.

18:46 Um, but then like, what are they going to do with it? And that I think we are still in the process of, um, getting better and better at identifying like workflows and automation and how to set up call tasks and how to set up revenue attribution reports.

18:59 And that I think is going to be the like, the long term. Project of like, how do we help? And maybe the scary part is like, how do we get too much data?

19:08 Do we have too much data? Yeah, and like, how do we manage all this data? Like, is there a use for the data?

19:14 So yeah, that’s an interesting challenge. Oh, definitely. Well, and I think tied into that, it’s like what we’re starting to see, like in the past three weeks, uh, or maybe a month, I’ve had three different people ask me about sending this data to snowflake.

19:26 So like, Which to me is like holy enterprise bad name I haven’t heard in a long time, but yeah, you know, um, and so it’s like are we sending I were sending too much or are we not sending enough because what they’re they’re considering like like a CDP almost They’re like we’re running tons and tons of

19:42 tons of paid ads and impressions We’ve got like an insane amount of data and we want even more we have this like Veracious appetite to push everything into a data warehouse and then from there, we’ll take care of sending it where it needs to go.

19:53 And so like on the one hand, you’ve got the CRM where it’s like, okay, the CRM is sacred. We don’t want to push too much in here.

19:58 But then there’s this other conversation of like, okay, but what if every single data point is something that we want to capture?

20:04 Um, so that I don’t know where that’s going to go. It’s only come up a couple of times, but it’s already kind of given me that it’s already giving like, I think there’s more there.

20:11 It just feels exactly. Well, then you could just add. You can aggregate the data outside of the CRM and only push in the calculations on what you really want into the CRM versus like the raw data.

20:23 Like the raw data, is it interesting position for people that have a data warehouse? Is it, is a question like, do we, do we push it into a place where we aggregate it and give you the right data points versus having to aggregate it inside the CRM?

20:37 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think it’s still pretty early days, and this is why I’m such a believer in agencies.

20:44 Like, this stuff is super complicated. And so, anything that’s complicated enough, you’ve got someone to help you think through it.

20:52 No matter what it is in life, you know what I mean. So I just, that’s why I’m a big believer.

20:56 Some, some, some people are skeptics of agencies in the space and they say, oh, agencies are going to die or this type of agency is going to work as going to die.

21:01 Or, you know, I’ve seen some software companies be like, we use agencies for like our early validation, but now we’re like moving up market, we’re moving on.

21:08 And like I fundamentally disagree with that. I do not think agencies are going anywhere. Um, sure it’ll change here. Well, that’s good to know.

21:16 I really believe that. That’s a huge part of our business model and it’s a huge core belief in mine. I don’t think.

21:21 It’s just, this stuff is too hard, like, I’m sorry, you know, nobody has enough time to learn it, like an agency does, in my opinion.

21:28 Can’t be a side project. No. Yeah, can’t be a side project. No. You just don’t have time for it, you know.

21:34 It’s too fundamental to go to market strategy. Like, how does AI affect that? And we were just talking to someone the other day who, and it was an agency owner for lack of better terms, who very much believes Harris that we are all Consultants agency is gonna be out of a job in the next three years because

21:52 AI is gonna build the playbooks, do this, do that and I have my opinion which we can talk about in a second, but does AI affect anything that you’re saying is the next two to three years goes on?

22:03 Yeah, sure. I mean, I’ll take the other side of that bet. I’ll bet against that for sure. Um, I think that, I mean, okay, so this is maybe a hot take or not, but like in a year from now, I think there will be fewer people in Like if you look at like the org chart of an organization, I think the number

22:20 of people in like sales revenue go to market rolls, I think that number will be lower. Um, but I think spend per person will be higher.

22:28 And so it’s possible that there will be fewer agencies or that the average agency has fewer employees or something like that.

22:34 Like, sure, AI is huge. We use all of the time. I mean, I was playing around with them, oh, one, um, tattooed beauty, oh, one where it does like the deep research.

22:41 Yep. It was really awesome this weekend. I went on like a long walk and I Asked a question it was going and doing research and was building it.

22:48 It’s really cool. Um, but you still have to know like the questions to ask and how to put it together.

22:54 So yeah, I mean, I don’t think AI is going to fundamentally disrupt the existence of agencies, but I do think it’ll change them.

22:59 They’ll be smaller, span to be higher. I think the expectations will be higher. Um, I don’t know. What do you guys think?

23:04 I mean, you run an agency. What do you, how do you see it affecting your business? I think the expectations are Already higher.

23:11 Um, it’s why when we started, we started with where, where operators not consultants, those days are gone. I think two years ago you could be a consultant and hand someone a pretty slide deck and people were very happy to pay you tens of thousands of dollars for it.

23:22 Um, I think that’s done. Um, I think AI is going to help with things like an age, uh, HubSpot agencies, for example, we’re a HubSpot Gold partner as well.

23:33 Um, how do I build this really complex work for you? Shit, ChatGPT can tell me that and if you’re relatively intelligent, you can follow the steps and go build your workflow and it’s going to get you 90% there.

23:45 When it comes to things like how do I develop a comprehensive outbound motion? How do I get the right copy and the right systems and the right reporting?

23:53 How do I build a go-to-market motion? How do I define my ICP? ChatGPT will tell you how to build an ICP.

23:59 I don’t think it tells you how to do it correctly, um, but it will. You still need someone to execute.

24:05 And I will, I also will bet against it. Our moat isn’t that we have the knowledge to tell you what to do.

24:13 Our moat is that we can execute and show you how to do it, because chat GPKT can tell you what you need, but not how to do it the right way.

24:22 Yeah, and I’ll go further. I think the second part of that moat is like It’s going to be wrong the first time you build it.

24:30 Like you’re going to have to iterate over it based on feedback from the market, feedback from internal feedback from like, uh, and, and this, this process of like, or this, this stop process like, the market is never going to, it never fails.

24:45 Like. They’ll tell you whether they think your value proposition is the best or not. Like, if you believe that you have some impact on people and people are like, nope, I don’t like that impact.

24:54 Guess what? You’re wrong. Yeah. Like, so you got to take all that back into account and like put it back into the mix to then come up with a new ICP or new value proposition or ask the next question.

25:07 Like, when you have kids, you’re like, the kids are like, the three Ys. Like, do this. Why? Because they said this why, because it, because it, and like finally you get to like the real reason on why you want someone to do something.

25:20 So like, that is in my mind where the agency world or the consulting or the operation world is going to be.

25:29 And as simple as like, we’re working with a thawner right now, he’s going through a funding exercise. Yes, you could go ask ChatGPT, like we were talking about CAC and we were talking about You know, LTV and a bunch of stuff.

25:42 Yes, you can go ask, ChatGPT. Like, what does that look like? But then you get to go build it in a hub spot or wherever you’re going to do it.

25:49 You’re going to look at like what the, uh, what the iteration actually ends up looking like. And then you’re going to modify it based on.

25:57 Like, look at it. We only have four records. Like, that’s not enough data points for you to give back to an investor.

26:02 Like, hmmm. Maybe we need a data set of 10 to 20. So maybe we need to open things up. And it’s just, it’s that critical thinking of the plus one and not the initial conversation.

26:13 Yeah. That I think won’t be the value. Yeah, I agree with that. And, and I’ll say, like, so we’re talking about like the nuance, right?

26:18 Like, this is where, like, we type, it’s where things get complicated. Um, I think it’s going to like, I think some of these agencies are going to go, it’s going to be like a little bit of a throwback to like the system integrate or like the earlier days where it’s like, look, this is really complicated

26:30 . And like, you know, you start talking about things like, okay, what, what, what, what this matters for like maintenance and like long term.

26:37 Okay, fine. Like, let’s say it works. Let’s say you’re sales team doubles. And then someone wants to know like, why this one random property and HubSpot keeps changing.

26:46 And you’re like, well, I don’t know. Let’s go troubleshoot the workflow. Okay. Well, the naming convention is just called You know, untitled workflow, you know, 2021-01-01 or whatever.

26:57 You know what I mean? And so it’s like, that’s where I think, you know, you mean you should have a naming convention for your workflows?

27:03 Yeah. So you’re going to start having like GTM tech debt basically. You know, you have people that if they don’t have enough background to experience it, they haven’t done this and made the mistakes enough times.

27:15 They’re going to be creating tech debt for the go-to-market organization, basically, where it’s like someone’s going to have to come in and unwind this stuff and figure out what the heck is going on, and why did we give right access to, like, make ends up here, end, end, end, end, and clay, and then 

27:29 you have, like, these race-conditioned problems where, like, these different, all these low-code things are, like, competing with each other, you know?

27:34 So, like, the complexity can really get difficult quickly, and again, like, to me, these are spaces why you have expertise.

27:42 And also, sometimes it’s wrong. Like, I spent, I have spent time, just like, for no reason, just for my own, like, getting out my frustration, like, getting back at TBT and being like, this workflow action doesn’t exist.

27:57 Like, stop telling me to do it. It’s not real. It’s not in hotspot. This is no, you’re completely hallucinating this.

28:02 I, I’ve run across that a couple of times. So that’s like, not, like, let’s say you can get past all of that and let’s say, like, you know, whatever.

28:08 You, you still have this problem of like, how are you designing? These systems. And then I think to your point, Dale, like, it’s like, okay, but then are you bringing some unique novel idea?

28:17 And it’s that, like, listening to the customer. And then it’s a new company who’s raising money. Fundamentally, they’re going to do something new.

28:24 You’re raising money because you believe something is going to change in the market in the next five years. And that’s why you’re raising money to go build that business.

28:31 So something that’s built to find by the past is not going to be able to as effectively write that deck with you, you know, and tell you what metrics are really going to matter and stuff.

28:39 So yeah, I love AI. I use it all the time. Um, but I don’t, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t think, I don’t think some of this stuff is going to change or is really meaningfully going to go away.

28:52 So what does the future hold? For go to market, for outbound, for specifically top of funnel. What’s the future hold?

28:58 Let’s, let’s just talk next six months. What, what, what, what do you say? Cause you, you, you work with so many companies who are like really top of funnel focused right now and I would argue everyone’s top of funnel focused right now.

29:09 It’s the number one problem we hear. Yeah. What does the future hold? How do you stand out? Yeah, I mean, I think that like, in a word, it’s specialization.

29:16 Like, I mean, what we’re seeing is people are really specializing in like these different channels and the best way to do it.

29:21 It’s like, we’re not just making phone calls anymore. We’ve got like, you know, multiple layers of validation and we’re finding, we’re calling people with a high propensity to respond.

29:29 And for those, we use a power dialer. And then for these other lists, we’re using a parallel dialer, you know, to me, it’s like in every single area, so you’re going to get more and more specialization in order to get that.

29:38 That like Delta to get that to get that return. Um, and so I think most of the market is behind.

29:46 Um, I think that the next. I think that I think that so for people that are behind, I think they’ve got catching up to do, um, you know, if they’re still like, what’s clay?

29:56 Um, they’ve got some catching up to do. And then I think for the people that are ahead. I think the next six months are gonna be less interesting than the last six months because the because they’re ahead they’re getting bigger and bigger clients and I’m seeing this.

30:08 Companies are 1500 employees so with that are now saying all right, you know, let’s set up smartly. Um, the next like six months of meetings are gonna be like with this uh CRM administrator being like, okay, so it’s really important for our data hygiene that we have the territory mapped like, and, you

30:26 know, and, and whereas like they’re used to just gripping and ripping. Hey, I got a list. Boom. We’re sending replies are coming into Slack.

30:32 Let me know if you have any questions. Now it’s going to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

30:37 We need this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, these are our requirements. So I think that’s like a good thing.

30:40 It means it’s more money. It’s working with bigger companies that have bigger problems. But so to me, that’s like, it’s, it’s going to be a tale of two, two levels of adoption.

30:47 The winners, Growing up, um, you know, or like having to like, not grow up as that’s like condescending, but having to like slow down, I should say.

30:56 I’m condescending all the time apparently, so you’re good. Don’t worry about it. Winners having to slow down all the time.

31:01 Basically. And then, and then for the, for the laggards, just definitely needing to catch up and just kind of get up to speed because I think, um, like the, I mean, stuff’s just going to stop working.

31:11 It’s going to be like, it’s going to be like pushing a rope. And so, you know, it’s like, You can solve that a lot of ways.

31:17 You don’t need to use our product. You don’t need to use, you know, work with revenue. You’re imagining whatever there’s a million ways to do it, but, but it’s, but it’s not going to work.

31:24 Some of these things are, are going to completely stop working at some point. That’s what I think. Yeah. It’s, uh, it’s an interesting time, man.

31:32 It’s an interesting time. Um, thank you for sharing. Thank you for your knowledge. Um, I love what y’all are doing.

31:43 I’ve seen the product uh, be used. We’re using it as some clients. Um, I’m excited to see what the future holds for you.

31:49 Let’s uh, before we depart as we wrap up, let’s uh, jump into some rapid fire here. Um, when you look at the go-to-market gap, so stabilization, foundation, repeatability, scalability.

32:03 What in your mind is the number one thing you need to move from stabilization to foundation. Um, Well, I have to, I’m going to, I’m going to, this is not a speed answer.

32:17 I’m going to have to find a little ignorance here. Help me understand this model a little better. Yeah, I just want to give a, I don’t want to give a, I don’t want to give a made-up answer.

32:23 So, so said differently, what, what needs to be fixed? So when we come into companies a lot of times, they, they don’t know what’s working and what’s not.

32:30 And we have to come in, we have to stabilize it, right? Any company needs to be stabilized before you start rebuilding that foundation.

32:36 What is the number one thing, thing that you think needs to be fixed before you could rebuild? I think, I think people are focusing on the wrong metrics.

32:45 I think like for the most organizations that are pre, before they’re ready to lay the new foundation, they’re still talking about like open rates and stuff like that.

32:53 And so it’s like, listen, like the dashboard, if you’re on that previous model, the dashboard you’re looking at would probably gonna delete like at least half of it basically.

33:01 And the numbers that you’re used to looking at, like, we’re gonna have to stop looking at those. I think, I think that’s like the first step.

33:06 And if there’s not alignment on that, then probably not gonna get anywhere. Love it. 100%. So, one of the things that we’re looking at a lot is how often you should revisit those go-to-market foundations, ICP by and percent of value propositions.

33:20 How often do you think you should be revisiting those or pressure testing them, at least, to make sure you’re in the right realm?

33:26 Yeah. I mean, if you look at, like, Octave by Zach Vibidor, it’s a really interesting, um, software company. We know Zach well.

33:33 I spoke for them for an hour. Okay. There you go. There you go. Hopefully you were, hopefully you were nice to him.

33:37 He’s a nice guy. He’s, uh, always, Zach’s great. Where, where, where, where apart? Okay. There you go. Okay. He’s just con, Adam’s just condescending to everybody, so I don’t know.

33:45 Okay. Oh, everyone named him. So this was not coordinated at all, at all, but that’s great to hear. So I think, you know, if you talk to like a Zach, you’d say, yeah, continuously.

33:52 We need we need to have feedback loops on this and we need to be looking at it and looking at changes in the market.

33:56 Um, you know, I think if you’re not doing that, I don’t know, um, defining a cadence that’s sustainable for your organization, whether that’s monthly or quarterly or something like that.

34:04 But it’s definitely not a set it and forget it kind of thing. Uh, I know for sure that’s not it.

34:09 Okay. Cool. I think quarterly is probably the right place for most people right now, but yeah. That’s a lot. I mean, that’s a huge change versus the deck that marketing gave.

34:19 Sales three years ago. Kind of a year ago. Yeah. Two years ago. Yeah. Three. I’m working with a client now where the deck is six and a half years old.

34:26 True story. Uh, Harris early burner night owl. Um, both unfortunately. Oh, yeah. We have young. First happy check when you wake up in the first happy check when you wake up in the morning.

34:39 Um. Slack. Yeah, Adam too. Interesting. No, my first app is Aura. Um, favorite guilty pleasure snack. We talked about Brian Johnson, so he’s got this cocoa powder.

34:56 I have that in the afternoons. There’s like a little hot chocolate kind of thing with the, with a blueprint cocoa powder.

35:02 Cool. Last one, uh, dream vacation destination. Right now, the one that we’re talking about a lot is New Zealand. I’ve been, uh, Doing Lord of the Rings.

35:13 I’ve been telling Lord of the Rings to our four year old and she’s like obsessed with it. It’s our fifth time through the whole series.

35:18 And so we talk about ring story all the time. Shes to me questions about Gandalf and stuff. So that that’s our I’ve wanted to go to New Zealand, you know, for a long time.

35:25 So that’s I’m gonna say that one. Cool. Definitely on my list as well. I’ve heard that’s a very bumpy flight.

35:31 That’s a whole separate conversation. Um, over the years. Yeah, big water. Yeah, big water. Uh, listen, any flight these days, um, that Land successfully is a good day.

35:43 Um, I say that getting on an airplane first thing tomorrow morning. Harris, thank you for joining us, man. Everyone, go check out out Bound Sink.

35:50 Find Harris on LinkedIn. Uh, and thanks for joining the show. Thank you guys. I really, I really, I guess here.

35:57 I really appreciate what you’re doing. This is great. Thanks.