Sept. 8, 2020

1328: Why Product-Led Growth Is Not a Silver Bullet w/ Jason VandeBoom

In this episode we talk to Jason VandeBoom, Founder & CEO at Active Campaign.

If you like this episode, you'll probably also love...

....this book:

Never Lose a Customer Again: Turn Any Sale into Lifelong Loyalty in 100 Days


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Transcript
WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.400 --> 00:00:08.630 Welcome back to be tob growth. I'm Logan lyles with sweet fish media. 2 00:00:08.710 --> 00:00:12.269 I'm joined today by Jason Van de Boom. He's the founder and CEO over 3 00:00:12.390 --> 00:00:15.429 at active campaign. Jason, welcome to the show, sir. Thanks for 4 00:00:15.429 --> 00:00:19.070 having me. Absolutely, Jason. We like to get to know our guests 5 00:00:19.109 --> 00:00:21.980 a little bit, and one of the things I think has been interesting in 6 00:00:22.219 --> 00:00:26.579 this you know, pandemic era. Have you picked up any new hobbies or 7 00:00:26.660 --> 00:00:31.300 any new habits during this time of quarantine and self isolation that have been kind 8 00:00:31.339 --> 00:00:35.929 of fun or interesting or surprising? Yeah, so I've started to grow a 9 00:00:36.049 --> 00:00:40.250 lot of different vegetables and things like that, with varying levels of success, 10 00:00:40.450 --> 00:00:47.009 but previous to the pandemic it was not something I did at Allso enjoying that 11 00:00:47.170 --> 00:00:49.890 though. Yeah, okay, very cool. I didn't know if you were 12 00:00:49.929 --> 00:00:52.439 going to say growing a beard. I didn't know where you are going with 13 00:00:52.560 --> 00:00:56.439 growing and then vegetables. That's awesome, very cool. So, Jason, 14 00:00:56.479 --> 00:00:59.840 we're going to be talking about your journey at active campaign and finding the right 15 00:00:59.960 --> 00:01:04.109 approach between self serve and a real high touch sales model. Now some organizations 16 00:01:04.230 --> 00:01:08.629 just based on who they serve and where their product or service fits. They 17 00:01:08.670 --> 00:01:11.989 might have a very clear path in we need to go product led or we 18 00:01:12.109 --> 00:01:15.629 need to go very custom high touch sales model. But for a lot of 19 00:01:15.750 --> 00:01:21.859 us there's usually this wrestling, there's this debate and you have experience kind of 20 00:01:21.900 --> 00:01:25.500 swinging of the pendulum from one side of the other and found something that has 21 00:01:25.540 --> 00:01:29.299 worked for you guys. Before we get into the specifics of what that's looked 22 00:01:29.340 --> 00:01:33.849 like, why is this something that you think a lot of organizations wrestle with 23 00:01:34.049 --> 00:01:38.370 and what were some of the components of wrestling with that in your own journey? 24 00:01:38.409 --> 00:01:42.969 Yeah, I think it's a perception of there's a right way of doing 25 00:01:42.049 --> 00:01:49.599 things, meaning sometimes there's this perception of high touch, often accompanied by move 26 00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:55.519 up market, and that equal success for an organization, when really you know 27 00:01:55.640 --> 00:02:00.480 that that does not equal to success, perhaps for your business. Also the 28 00:02:00.599 --> 00:02:04.590 idea of being product led. So my background is very much it was engineering 29 00:02:04.750 --> 00:02:09.189 going into product and I really held on to that as like there needs to 30 00:02:09.430 --> 00:02:13.990 be in product led. Is this like pure way of thinking of things? 31 00:02:14.789 --> 00:02:19.819 Bringing in human touch or human components to the sales process or something means that 32 00:02:20.340 --> 00:02:24.099 you failed and I think that's a huge fallacy. And and when I talk 33 00:02:24.259 --> 00:02:30.289 internally with our team and whatnot, I really try to focus on let's we're 34 00:02:30.330 --> 00:02:35.889 not a product first, product led company where customers company and sounds kind of 35 00:02:35.889 --> 00:02:38.729 cheesy at first, but like, when you start digging into that of like 36 00:02:38.889 --> 00:02:44.289 how you operate and how do you find the right pieces and balance, it 37 00:02:44.479 --> 00:02:50.439 changes things a lot. Like when we were only ten people or so back 38 00:02:50.520 --> 00:02:53.319 in the day, I always thought like I'll never have a sale. Say 39 00:02:53.319 --> 00:02:55.759 we're going to figure this out. Every business as a sales team, though, 40 00:02:55.879 --> 00:03:00.229 unless you literally don't talk to your customers right, like so someone is 41 00:03:00.270 --> 00:03:04.430 playing the role of sales at some point or you're just not answering questions, 42 00:03:04.469 --> 00:03:09.349 one of the two. So going through this figuring out like what different way 43 00:03:09.389 --> 00:03:13.659 of building a sales team, and maybe it doesn't end up all that different 44 00:03:13.659 --> 00:03:15.860 compared to what's out there, but figuring out how do you blend that into 45 00:03:16.060 --> 00:03:20.780 like what you value? I think you still get the elements and then portant 46 00:03:20.780 --> 00:03:23.780 pieces of being product led, but you put the focus on what matters the 47 00:03:23.860 --> 00:03:28.610 most, your prospect your customer. I love that. I know in previous 48 00:03:28.610 --> 00:03:32.169 conversation we talked a little bit about the way you guys have have changed those 49 00:03:32.289 --> 00:03:37.129 human touches from your sales team. I want to circle back to something you 50 00:03:37.289 --> 00:03:39.569 said. They're, maybe a little bit later, a different way to build 51 00:03:39.569 --> 00:03:43.800 a sales team and I think some of the things we changed about we'll hit 52 00:03:43.919 --> 00:03:49.240 on there. But you mentioned this fallacy that getting away from product led means 53 00:03:49.319 --> 00:03:53.159 that you're not going to market in the purest form and adding those sales touches 54 00:03:53.599 --> 00:03:58.430 means that you've somehow kind of given up in some way. Why do you 55 00:03:58.509 --> 00:04:03.909 think that's such a commonly held belief? I think it's the idea of there's 56 00:04:03.949 --> 00:04:06.830 a way to improve, there's a way to get efficiency. I think as 57 00:04:06.949 --> 00:04:14.020 we seek for efficiency is naturally we look at any sort of human touch point 58 00:04:14.139 --> 00:04:17.779 as being less efficient. The problem with that is that ends up being an 59 00:04:17.860 --> 00:04:24.139 experience at a prospector customer Dosnim and like being a customer experience automation company. 60 00:04:24.180 --> 00:04:28.009 It's fascinating to watch both ourselves internally on our customers, of the way of 61 00:04:28.290 --> 00:04:31.250 people are wanting to automatic as much as possible ride for time savings, but 62 00:04:31.370 --> 00:04:36.290 that over automation that can occur could really hold back a business and so finding 63 00:04:36.370 --> 00:04:40.680 that like, yes, how do you make those touch points? How do 64 00:04:40.720 --> 00:04:43.800 you make your sales or ups, your support, your customer success, more 65 00:04:43.920 --> 00:04:48.319 performant, more informed about how to personalize when they talk to someone, to 66 00:04:48.480 --> 00:04:53.389 save them time? But you're really enabling, using automation, enable both sides 67 00:04:53.430 --> 00:04:57.670 versus or a place. And and then I think there's this goes beyond sales 68 00:04:57.709 --> 00:05:00.230 as well, like if if the idea of like services is brought up in 69 00:05:00.350 --> 00:05:04.550 a lot of startups or something like that, once again it feels like something 70 00:05:04.550 --> 00:05:08.860 has failed, like you don't need services, a lot of people would say, 71 00:05:09.300 --> 00:05:12.980 if the product or platforms good enough. At the same time, services 72 00:05:13.019 --> 00:05:16.660 can actually help you improve the platform or product over time in a rather unique 73 00:05:16.699 --> 00:05:19.860 way and it can give you quite a bit of differentiation compared to the competition. 74 00:05:19.980 --> 00:05:24.850 So it's like it doesn't give you that like nobody's going to congratulate you 75 00:05:24.930 --> 00:05:28.410 on building out a service as team or a free services team or something like 76 00:05:28.529 --> 00:05:30.449 that, but if it's going to better your business, better the customer experience 77 00:05:30.449 --> 00:05:34.329 for your prospects and customers, it can be the right way of doing I 78 00:05:34.449 --> 00:05:40.160 love that. We just heard from a CEO of a SASS company whose platform 79 00:05:40.360 --> 00:05:43.519 is all about automation, that automation is not the key to everything. I 80 00:05:43.839 --> 00:05:46.639 just want to make sure that that wasn't lost on everyone there. I think 81 00:05:46.639 --> 00:05:48.879 that's a really interesting point, not just, you know, to be made. 82 00:05:48.879 --> 00:05:51.230 There's a lot of people saying, Oh, we've over automated things, 83 00:05:51.310 --> 00:05:56.350 but from your perspective in to say that with some definition and I think that 84 00:05:56.550 --> 00:06:00.709 comes from your experience. So, before we get to how listeners can really 85 00:06:00.910 --> 00:06:05.899 think about taking a blended approach and taking the best from product led and selfserve 86 00:06:06.060 --> 00:06:10.740 and high touch sales model, what were some of the bumps in the road 87 00:06:10.860 --> 00:06:14.620 that you guys saw or some of the things that caused alarm bells to go 88 00:06:14.779 --> 00:06:16.500 off for you and your team, Jason, saying, man, we the 89 00:06:16.620 --> 00:06:21.250 pendulum swung too far here and it's causing some negative effects that we didn't really 90 00:06:21.290 --> 00:06:27.050 foresee. Yeah, it's been interest. So we were starting entirely selfserve. 91 00:06:27.730 --> 00:06:30.290 Started realizing, through support and what not, we were doing sales, we 92 00:06:30.410 --> 00:06:33.720 just were not necessarily doing it very well. So we decide, okay, 93 00:06:33.720 --> 00:06:38.240 let's solve that, like this has been solved before. So we start with 94 00:06:38.319 --> 00:06:41.839 a couple sales reps and whatnot, start working in leads had a strong and 95 00:06:41.959 --> 00:06:46.920 bound volume that we're kind of picking things off of over time. Makes Sense 96 00:06:46.040 --> 00:06:49.910 to add in sort of people to qualify and things like that. Now we're 97 00:06:49.949 --> 00:06:55.069 starting to eat into that selfserve base. As a product person, that starts 98 00:06:55.069 --> 00:06:58.230 to make me feel a little uncomfortable, right, like I want to have 99 00:06:58.589 --> 00:07:01.660 that selfserve. I believe there's buyers out there that want true self serve and 100 00:07:01.740 --> 00:07:05.379 that's definitely the case for some. So for a while there we're looking at 101 00:07:05.379 --> 00:07:09.100 it and looking through data. Look like, okay, we're actually touching a 102 00:07:09.220 --> 00:07:11.819 lot of leads, so we didn't have to. What was that data? 103 00:07:11.899 --> 00:07:15.699 What were some of the the indicators for you that we you were touching leads, 104 00:07:15.930 --> 00:07:17.569 the dead have to as you put it. So we were looking at 105 00:07:17.649 --> 00:07:20.850 like of the of the leads that are sent to our sales team. What 106 00:07:20.970 --> 00:07:25.769 leads do we actually not qualify, do we not actually close or pass along? 107 00:07:25.810 --> 00:07:28.649 Right? So we're trying to make our reps more performant. We're trying 108 00:07:28.689 --> 00:07:33.279 to push more onto self serve as much as possible. So we identified pockets, 109 00:07:33.360 --> 00:07:36.279 so different different types of verticals, company sizes, things like that. 110 00:07:36.800 --> 00:07:41.160 We thought, okay, like we are geniuses. We figured it out, 111 00:07:41.319 --> 00:07:45.310 like there's a segment of customers and whatnot. We're going to create some selfserve 112 00:07:45.389 --> 00:07:47.790 flows and whatnot. It'll be fine. So we make that transition. I'd 113 00:07:47.790 --> 00:07:50.870 say on the sales side it look like it was working, like our sales 114 00:07:50.870 --> 00:07:55.149 team have more time for some other leads and whatnot. Two months in we 115 00:07:55.230 --> 00:08:00.420 start to see an impact on selfserve and an odd way, meaning all of 116 00:08:00.540 --> 00:08:03.420 that outreach, even if it wasn't a resulting and like a qualified lead or 117 00:08:03.459 --> 00:08:07.220 even all the time you've been resulting in the sale, started to create this 118 00:08:07.300 --> 00:08:15.610 compounding effect of not having that that human outreach that we couldn't replicate just through 119 00:08:15.610 --> 00:08:20.569 automation and whatnot, meaning those times where an SDR or or salesperson would go 120 00:08:20.689 --> 00:08:24.370 reach out, whether by email, phone or whatnot. Those pieces, even 121 00:08:24.370 --> 00:08:28.439 if we didn't get engagement, actually mattered a lot and started to build up, 122 00:08:30.040 --> 00:08:33.639 similar to what can occur with a pound at times as well, where 123 00:08:33.639 --> 00:08:39.080 you don't see success immediately, it seems like it's a failed effort for your 124 00:08:39.159 --> 00:08:43.750 odd building up some sort of brand equity as part of it. And so 125 00:08:43.190 --> 00:08:46.830 we realize that and then so we started to try to figure out like okay, 126 00:08:48.429 --> 00:08:52.149 take both of those together, find a little bit of a metal ground. 127 00:08:52.590 --> 00:08:54.110 And then, while we did that, like what are those touch points 128 00:08:54.779 --> 00:08:58.820 that were influencing? What can we automate in terms of from a messaging standpoint, 129 00:09:00.340 --> 00:09:01.980 the things we can't, like those personal calls and whatnot, how do 130 00:09:03.059 --> 00:09:07.059 we just make that more efficient? And so started building that out, making 131 00:09:07.059 --> 00:09:11.809 it easier for for reps to focus on the touch points that they actually had 132 00:09:11.889 --> 00:09:18.250 to do as individuals and then keep that that automated sort of nurturing outside of 133 00:09:18.330 --> 00:09:22.970 it. But it's an interesting wet thing of you know, you can quickly 134 00:09:22.129 --> 00:09:26.399 come to conclusions and in that case it took us a couple months to see. 135 00:09:26.919 --> 00:09:30.879 It took us a couple months to correct and while it was fascinating, 136 00:09:30.960 --> 00:09:35.200 it was that equals four months of less than what I would have liked in 137 00:09:35.399 --> 00:09:39.830 terms of sure nurturing those lads. Yeah, I mean it seems like founders 138 00:09:39.870 --> 00:09:43.710 and CEOS of your mindset. I literally just hopped off a call with our 139 00:09:43.789 --> 00:09:46.629 CEO bill and we were we were joking about, you know, some plans 140 00:09:46.669 --> 00:09:50.629 we have and James, our founders, said, well, do you think 141 00:09:50.669 --> 00:09:52.659 we can get that done tomorrow? And sometimes it's just like the rest of 142 00:09:52.740 --> 00:09:58.379 the team cannot quite move as quickly enough as the vision of the CEO. 143 00:09:58.460 --> 00:10:01.539 So I like that little insight into your team that I think replicates some of 144 00:10:01.620 --> 00:10:05.500 what we experience. What you said there, though, Jason, that basically 145 00:10:07.019 --> 00:10:11.409 those those human touch points that were happening along the selfserve journey that didn't that 146 00:10:11.610 --> 00:10:16.090 didn't result in a phone call connection, didn't result in an email reply or 147 00:10:16.169 --> 00:10:20.559 a meeting book to take them down the sales route. Still having those touches 148 00:10:22.000 --> 00:10:26.840 led to more conversions on the self serve and there's two aspects of that I 149 00:10:26.879 --> 00:10:31.320 think are interesting from our perspective. One when when we cranked up an outbound 150 00:10:31.360 --> 00:10:35.870 campaign. You know, we're primarily inbound generated here at sweet fish, but 151 00:10:35.950 --> 00:10:41.830 we do some some outbound and we were prepping for a website overhaul and we 152 00:10:41.990 --> 00:10:45.789 noticed, okay, at this point, man, our volume really spid. 153 00:10:45.990 --> 00:10:50.139 Direct traffic and branded search seemed to be contributing to that. We're like, 154 00:10:50.179 --> 00:10:54.019 wait, what did we start at that time that outbound? So outbound can 155 00:10:54.059 --> 00:10:58.100 actually be you know, so often outbound is seen as just what is the 156 00:10:58.139 --> 00:11:01.860 measure of success? Meetings, booked opportunities, generated. But there is a 157 00:11:01.940 --> 00:11:05.090 component of outbound if you approach it the right way, that can actually be 158 00:11:05.330 --> 00:11:09.090 brand awareness. From from what you were saying, and I literally have a 159 00:11:09.129 --> 00:11:13.889 marketing team I'm working with right now and they said someone on the marketing team 160 00:11:13.929 --> 00:11:18.049 found a lot of our content around podcasting, presented that on why and how 161 00:11:18.090 --> 00:11:20.840 they should do a podcast and said, well, we should look at sweetish. 162 00:11:20.840 --> 00:11:24.200 So like the inbound content model working to a tea right. Well, 163 00:11:24.320 --> 00:11:26.840 the VP of marketing said, Oh, yeah, I've heard of sweet fish 164 00:11:28.080 --> 00:11:30.879 and where had she heard of us? Not Our content, but she had 165 00:11:30.919 --> 00:11:33.710 seen an email campaign. She didn't reply. I didn't book a meeting, 166 00:11:33.269 --> 00:11:37.789 but we've kind of seen some of that in our in our own experiences too. 167 00:11:37.309 --> 00:11:41.950 I think it's a good way, especially for people that are really product 168 00:11:41.029 --> 00:11:46.750 led, maybe less have less leaf and the sales motion things like that. 169 00:11:46.870 --> 00:11:50.100 Are Probably the same type of people that are less leaving and like doing a 170 00:11:50.139 --> 00:11:54.539 bunch of brand marketing or brand advertising and what that. This is a perfect 171 00:11:54.580 --> 00:12:01.220 way of you're chipping away at the brand side of things. You'll get something 172 00:12:01.299 --> 00:12:03.809 in return. You have to allow it to maybe not be as much as 173 00:12:03.929 --> 00:12:09.090 you expect because you know you're getting something on the brand side. Yeah, 174 00:12:09.090 --> 00:12:11.610 I love that. There's always that. There's always that tension in marketing worse. 175 00:12:11.649 --> 00:12:16.759 Right. So let's talk a little bit about how you guys first change 176 00:12:16.799 --> 00:12:20.000 the way you looked at and SDRs impact. And then what did that look 177 00:12:20.080 --> 00:12:24.960 like? From coaching incentive to to kind of change the role into what you 178 00:12:26.080 --> 00:12:30.830 envisioned it to be. Yeah, so it's it's been interesting, both in 179 00:12:30.870 --> 00:12:33.669 the way of trying to push on self serve, but also how do we 180 00:12:33.750 --> 00:12:37.950 create the right amount of focus? And so as we've started to dial more 181 00:12:39.029 --> 00:12:41.990 and more into what what should have a human touch point, then comes the 182 00:12:43.029 --> 00:12:46.379 challenge of like what should someone be focused on, right? And so I 183 00:12:46.500 --> 00:12:52.580 think instinctively we started thinking about it as like let's create these limits, so 184 00:12:52.019 --> 00:12:56.620 leads that we think are of a certain value will go to an SDR, 185 00:12:56.659 --> 00:13:01.049 they'll qualify them, it'll move on to a closer. But then we're actually 186 00:13:01.049 --> 00:13:05.570 holding back a lot of leads that are close to transactional but would value from 187 00:13:05.570 --> 00:13:09.450 a little bit of human touch, right. And so we started bringing those 188 00:13:09.490 --> 00:13:11.450 at and then, but how do you do that? You don't want to 189 00:13:11.450 --> 00:13:13.240 send it to a closer. So we were thinking I will let the SDRs 190 00:13:13.320 --> 00:13:18.039 actually close as well, and so we did that and then then we started 191 00:13:18.159 --> 00:13:22.840 steering towards it. While they're really enjoying the closing part and there's such a 192 00:13:22.919 --> 00:13:28.710 bounty of leads. They're now they're overclosing and not so much qualify and whether 193 00:13:28.750 --> 00:13:31.870 it's from like a more of an engineering mindset or something. So then we're 194 00:13:31.909 --> 00:13:35.070 like, okay, let's create a guard rail, and they they can only 195 00:13:35.110 --> 00:13:37.389 close up to certain amount and whatnot. Yeah, we do have to. 196 00:13:37.509 --> 00:13:41.460 We need an if then statement exactly, as if humans work like that. 197 00:13:41.340 --> 00:13:46.580 Perhaps more importantly, though, it's like what are we trying to cater to? 198 00:13:46.899 --> 00:13:48.740 Like, we're trying to cater to our own efficiencies, right, we're 199 00:13:48.779 --> 00:13:52.580 trying to cater to our own needs, not the needs of our prospects and 200 00:13:52.740 --> 00:14:00.129 and customers. And by all of those different sort of like limits and whatnot, 201 00:14:00.529 --> 00:14:05.529 it creates tension within the customer experience, especially at that critical moment of 202 00:14:05.610 --> 00:14:09.649 they're like being introduced to brand and whatnot. Nobody wants to feel like they've 203 00:14:09.649 --> 00:14:13.080 got to sell into a certain amount or be sold into a certain amount or 204 00:14:13.120 --> 00:14:16.679 they're not good enough for wrapper or get tossed around like that. So ultimately 205 00:14:16.720 --> 00:14:22.039 what we ended up doing is now we allow our stairs to close deals, 206 00:14:22.679 --> 00:14:26.590 we allow them to qualify deals. It's actually fairly equally weighted from a quote 207 00:14:28.110 --> 00:14:31.549 standpoint and whatnot. We scaled up the team and instead of trying to create 208 00:14:31.629 --> 00:14:37.230 these like super scientific guard rails, we're investing more in like how do we 209 00:14:37.389 --> 00:14:41.139 coach, how do we work with them and whatnot, and spending more time 210 00:14:41.340 --> 00:14:46.100 there, while more work on our side, versus saying like there's limits all 211 00:14:46.139 --> 00:14:48.820 over the place. From a customer experience standpoint, it's the right thing to 212 00:14:48.899 --> 00:14:54.129 do. There's got to be some art mixed in with the Scienti yeah, 213 00:14:54.690 --> 00:14:56.490 and then yeah, and I think all of this, like, I don't 214 00:14:56.529 --> 00:15:00.690 think most of this would, would shock a lot of people of like add 215 00:15:00.690 --> 00:15:03.370 the right amount of human element into the sales process at the right times and 216 00:15:03.450 --> 00:15:09.559 whatnot. What's funny those like the second a sale closes, I think the 217 00:15:09.679 --> 00:15:13.559 idea of adding a lot of human touch becomes like a thought. Don't do 218 00:15:13.799 --> 00:15:18.840 that, like, and I think that's a huge mess for a lot of 219 00:15:18.919 --> 00:15:22.629 businesses. Like this is an obvious are where you can we can utilize sort 220 00:15:22.669 --> 00:15:26.629 of that personal touch and whatnot. But after the sale it's just so critical 221 00:15:28.190 --> 00:15:31.309 to maintain that. I think there's ways of taking that, those same exact 222 00:15:31.350 --> 00:15:35.019 concepts and applying it pote because, like, you don't want to keep finding 223 00:15:35.100 --> 00:15:39.860 customers, you want to be finding advocates over time, right, like is 224 00:15:39.899 --> 00:15:43.340 then that's your growth. MISSIE. Yeah, I love that. It feels 225 00:15:43.419 --> 00:15:48.179 like probably three times this week I've already quoted Joey Coleman's book. Never lose 226 00:15:48.220 --> 00:15:52.169 a customer again. But it is just it is such a great framework for 227 00:15:52.490 --> 00:15:56.169 anyone, whether you're in customer success or sales or marketing. Right now. 228 00:15:56.289 --> 00:15:58.610 And and one of the things that he talks about is, you know, 229 00:15:58.730 --> 00:16:02.889 the moment that we're ringing the sales gone, whether that's a you know, 230 00:16:03.090 --> 00:16:07.559 hand to hand combat deal closed by an ae or we're looking at all right, 231 00:16:07.559 --> 00:16:10.720 we've got, you know, ten selfserve deals that close today or whatever 232 00:16:10.759 --> 00:16:14.440 it is, the moment that we're hitting that sales gonge, the customer is 233 00:16:14.519 --> 00:16:18.360 thinking, did I make the right choice? I put my neck out here 234 00:16:18.480 --> 00:16:22.309 to make this decision, whether it's a CEO of an SMB and they're thinking 235 00:16:22.629 --> 00:16:26.590 internally, or it's that marketing leader who says, you know, I convinced 236 00:16:26.629 --> 00:16:29.149 our team that this was the right way to go, and now we're going 237 00:16:29.149 --> 00:16:33.820 to have to go through a transition and migration implementation. And so when we're 238 00:16:33.100 --> 00:16:37.500 super excited, our customer is really at the lowest, most vulnerable point. 239 00:16:37.659 --> 00:16:41.419 So why wouldn't you put more human touch right there? It seems to only 240 00:16:41.539 --> 00:16:45.179 make sense. But we forget about that disconnect. But I think the human 241 00:16:45.299 --> 00:16:48.370 touch. People listening to this can't see me talking with my hands here, 242 00:16:48.450 --> 00:16:52.370 but I'm pointing together from this high in this low. How do we connect 243 00:16:52.409 --> 00:16:56.929 and bring them up? Otherwise, man, we set ourselves up for churn 244 00:16:57.129 --> 00:17:00.919 down the road. That, I'll never be attributed to how they felt during 245 00:17:02.039 --> 00:17:04.720 onboarding. They'll blame it on something else, but that'll really be the crux. 246 00:17:06.160 --> 00:17:11.200 And I think part of that like flood sort of mindset and over up 247 00:17:11.240 --> 00:17:15.440 session at times leads you to that like onboarding has to be automate, automore 248 00:17:15.440 --> 00:17:18.990 even has to be the product on boarding, and you should do that that, 249 00:17:18.390 --> 00:17:21.910 but like find that way to blend it in, find that way to 250 00:17:21.950 --> 00:17:26.230 actually provide some free services that are human assist services, because what I say, 251 00:17:26.269 --> 00:17:30.259 your compact competition probably won't be able to even do that or it'll eat 252 00:17:30.299 --> 00:17:33.380 away at their own revenue if they even try. So not only are you 253 00:17:33.500 --> 00:17:37.819 helping kind of build to what you're talking about, but it gives you a 254 00:17:37.859 --> 00:17:41.900 competitive differentiation as well. Yeah, absolutely. We do something very simple in 255 00:17:42.099 --> 00:17:45.609 onboarding customers here at sweet fish. Now we are not a SASS company, 256 00:17:45.690 --> 00:17:49.529 we're a services company, but we act a lot like SASS company because we 257 00:17:49.890 --> 00:17:55.450 have a scalable model and a recurring revenue sort of business. But anyway, 258 00:17:55.609 --> 00:17:59.000 one of the things that we regularly do is a new customer comes on board, 259 00:17:59.319 --> 00:18:02.079 we have five or six members of the team that are going to be 260 00:18:02.240 --> 00:18:06.359 involved in their podcast launch film, a quick twenty five second video. We 261 00:18:06.480 --> 00:18:08.720 have a process to get that to our video team. Nothing super fancy, 262 00:18:08.839 --> 00:18:12.950 but just put some Polish on it and they get a personalized message from about 263 00:18:12.950 --> 00:18:17.349 a half dozen people on the sweet fish team. Probably takes us all told, 264 00:18:17.750 --> 00:18:19.390 you know, an hour and hour to do for each new customer, 265 00:18:19.670 --> 00:18:23.630 and we've had people rave about that on Linkedin. We've had people say we're 266 00:18:23.670 --> 00:18:27.940 going to implement something similar, and so that's just an example. Maybe that's 267 00:18:27.940 --> 00:18:32.819 not what it looks like for your organization, but something like that adding that 268 00:18:32.900 --> 00:18:37.059 human touch to the on boarding. Now we've systemized that, we've made it 269 00:18:37.099 --> 00:18:40.700 as efficient as possible. It used to be just kind of this hodgepodge of 270 00:18:40.740 --> 00:18:42.250 all right, let's let's do this, let's make it work. Now it 271 00:18:42.450 --> 00:18:47.049 is a systematic, step by step process that that kicks off in a sauna 272 00:18:47.410 --> 00:18:49.569 when we have a new customer sign up. So it doesn't mean that human 273 00:18:49.690 --> 00:18:56.519 touch means nothing's automated or nothing's efficient. It's where does the automation stop in 274 00:18:56.559 --> 00:18:59.000 the human touch begin? Right, exactly. And if you were too over 275 00:18:59.119 --> 00:19:02.680 the automate that even further, it'd be what like an animated version of you 276 00:19:02.880 --> 00:19:06.279 talk to here, something like. You would lose that that that quality and 277 00:19:06.359 --> 00:19:08.960 that wow sort of a fact that you should be trying to create at every 278 00:19:10.029 --> 00:19:12.710 touch point. Yeah, it would be. Hey, Jason, welcome to 279 00:19:12.750 --> 00:19:15.710 the sweetish family. That's just not going to work. Guest him do more 280 00:19:15.829 --> 00:19:19.230 harm than good. It's like, yeah, that wasn't even worth the worth 281 00:19:19.349 --> 00:19:22.630 the time, Jason. As we round it out today, I want to 282 00:19:22.670 --> 00:19:27.099 see if there's any advice that you have for folks specifically in that coaching of 283 00:19:27.140 --> 00:19:30.980 the SDRs. We talked a little bit about you know you don't want to, 284 00:19:30.299 --> 00:19:34.460 especially if you're going to a model where your SDRs are closing and qualifying 285 00:19:34.579 --> 00:19:38.009 for as. There's a lot of tension there and things to figure out in 286 00:19:38.130 --> 00:19:41.289 both the incentives the guard rails. You don't want the customer to feel like 287 00:19:41.650 --> 00:19:45.569 well, unless you're over fifty employees, I can't really move you at this 288 00:19:45.690 --> 00:19:49.569 stage. That's that's the Platinum Club right and you can't go in there. 289 00:19:51.130 --> 00:19:56.759 So any final advice for folks in building that different sort of Sales Development Environment 290 00:19:56.839 --> 00:20:02.400 and coaching those reps well, even if it's challenge and I think in some 291 00:20:02.480 --> 00:20:06.839 bad businesses would be much greater of a challenge than others, it's worth doing 292 00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:11.349 for the customer experience. Also thinking about it as how do you make the 293 00:20:11.109 --> 00:20:15.509 leads that maybe would have just disqualified and pushed out or not even addressed? 294 00:20:15.269 --> 00:20:18.910 Is there a way to make that like a single call close or something like 295 00:20:18.029 --> 00:20:22.140 that? Try to get some objectives for your stars around that that you can 296 00:20:22.220 --> 00:20:27.740 coach to, but allow a little bit of blurringess on everything, meaning avoiding 297 00:20:29.059 --> 00:20:33.299 clear things of like at a certain contract value size you have to ask that 298 00:20:33.460 --> 00:20:37.849 is escalated and in that situation you create discomfort because if the person is ready 299 00:20:37.849 --> 00:20:42.210 to buy that could actually be in a hot situation, to force them to 300 00:20:42.250 --> 00:20:48.049 talk to another person and then you ultimately turn your closers and to check out 301 00:20:48.130 --> 00:20:51.880 people, essentially. So allowing that learning is and allowing it to sort of 302 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:56.279 change over time. But just like it's take whatever efficiencies you're trying to drive 303 00:20:56.519 --> 00:21:02.160 and just like balance that. And that's not a very specific action, but 304 00:21:02.920 --> 00:21:07.869 it's the hardest part of doing that. Yeah, as I summarize it, 305 00:21:07.910 --> 00:21:11.349 I kind of think of it boils down to these three things. If you 306 00:21:11.430 --> 00:21:15.710 are going for this blended approach, it's going to be all about coaching and 307 00:21:15.829 --> 00:21:19.900 the qualitative feedback. Number two, you have to allow for some great area. 308 00:21:19.900 --> 00:21:23.019 It's not something that you're just going to you're going to set a formula 309 00:21:23.099 --> 00:21:29.220 too. And then three, as much as you can align incentives so that 310 00:21:29.660 --> 00:21:33.529 the the action that you want is aligned with the incentive so that you get 311 00:21:33.569 --> 00:21:34.970 the result that you want. So, I mean, is it fair to 312 00:21:36.049 --> 00:21:38.450 say that those are kind of the three main things your advocate dating for Jason, 313 00:21:40.049 --> 00:21:41.450 and I think then soun up pieces it go. It goes into like 314 00:21:41.529 --> 00:21:45.650 if you're growing as an UR, like if you mash those three things and 315 00:21:45.730 --> 00:21:48.599 whatapp then you kind of grow through your sales career and whatnot. So then 316 00:21:48.640 --> 00:21:52.960 it's all sort of backed up by action on behalf the company as well. 317 00:21:52.000 --> 00:21:56.599 Absolutely what. Jason has been a fantastic conversation man. If anybody listening to 318 00:21:56.759 --> 00:22:00.470 this wants to learn more about active campaign, follow along with what you guys 319 00:22:00.470 --> 00:22:03.430 are doing, or reach out and stay connected with you personally. What's the 320 00:22:03.509 --> 00:22:07.430 best way for them to go about that? This factive CAMPAIGNCOM. Otherwise to 321 00:22:07.470 --> 00:22:11.430 reach out to me, Jason, that active campaigncom have it shut. Awesome, 322 00:22:11.589 --> 00:22:14.990 Jason. Thank you so much for being our guests on the show today. 323 00:22:14.990 --> 00:22:18.259 I'll let you get back to growing those vegetables and and best of luck 324 00:22:18.380 --> 00:22:26.019 on the next crop, man. I'll appreciate it. Thanks again. Gary 325 00:22:26.059 --> 00:22:30.769 v says it all the time and we agree. Every company should think of 326 00:22:30.890 --> 00:22:34.569 themselves as a media company first, then whatever it is they actually do. 327 00:22:36.369 --> 00:22:38.569 If you know this is true, but your team is already maxed out and 328 00:22:38.690 --> 00:22:42.730 you can't produce any more content in house, we can help. We produced 329 00:22:42.730 --> 00:22:47.720 podcasts for some of the most innovative bed brands in the world and we also 330 00:22:47.799 --> 00:22:52.119 help them turn the content from the podcast and the blog posts micro videos and 331 00:22:52.480 --> 00:22:55.759 slide decks that work really well on Linkedin. If you want to learn more, 332 00:22:55.839 --> 00:23:00.230 go to sweet fish Mediacom launch or email logan at sweet fish Mediacom