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Welcome to "Visionary Voices" the podcast where we dive into the minds of business owners, founders, executives, and everyone in between.
Each episode brings you face-to-face with the leading lights of industry and innovation.
Join us as we uncover the stories behind the success and the lessons learned along the way.
Whether you're climbing the corporate ladder or just starting your business journey, these are the conversations you need to hear - packed with visionary voices and insights.
Let's begin.
So Max, thank you so much for joining me on today's episode.
Could you give us a top level view about what it is that you're working on right now and
your journey so far?
Akhil, absolutely a pleasure to be here and thank you for having me.
For the past year and a half, I've been building a fractional business development agency
that niches itself within the robotics industry.
So we work with early stage robotics startups, primarily post Series A or Series B on
their go-to-market strategy and execution and really just general business development
initiatives.
So we consult with founders, chief revenue officers, and CEOs.
Very cool.
So let's unpack that.
How did you get into the robotics industry for starters?
Because that is a very unique niche and I've not heard of anyone else working within that
niche within, especially the marketing sector.
So how did you get into that and what's the story there?
Well, it was a bit of a happy accident, truth be told.
My background was a bit eclectic before jumping into the tech world and particularly
within robotics.
I initially got my start in working with an early stage robotics company myself that was
trying to sell into manufacturing and very quickly fell in love with the industry and kind
of these prevailing technologies that were helping reshape these huge initiatives like
reshoring here in the United States, which is.
which is something that I'm certainly passionate about.
And so really took that experience and leveraged that into working with another robotic
startup after experience hyper growth within that initial company I was at and just kind
of rinsed and repeated itself.
throughout that time there, know, and experiencing what a venture-backed looked like, as
well as all the good and the bad that came with that, you know, I saw a lot of different
practices that were in...
They were unsustainable, if you will, in terms of how to scale a sales team.
And so the hypothesis I questioned during my time there really was surrounding how can
startups build sales teams and build pipeline in a way that's scalable and sustainable for
their business?
Mind you, all the things that are happening in the market.
so having seen a lot of different agencies being born that were more generalist within
kind of offering these services,
We leveraged our industry experience and nuances and went out to a few relationships that
we already had established and gained our first clients through there and it's just
snowballed since then.
Yeah, that's such a cool journey.
You managed to experience so many different things, which is great.
I do want to zoom into working in that venture-backed startup, which raised a lot of money
and you scaled up very quickly.
So what was your experience like there and what are some of the, I guess, challenges that
you had within your role there going through that hypergrowth period?
Because I think a lot of companies want to go through that hypergrowth period, but the
reality is it's very difficult.
So what was your experience in that side of things?
I'm so grateful for it, man.
In hindsight, I think it was such an element of right place, right time.
I was so green in my career that I didn't even recognize the rocket ship that I was on
until about six to eight months went in.
And I looked around and I thought to myself, like, wow, this is pretty special what we're
experiencing here right now and all the momentum that's within it.
I think specifically what I am appreciative of during my time there is just being able to
be surrounded by such
incredible people who had maybe worked at companies like Google, Facebook, or guess now
Metta, other huge enterprise level companies that were once these small companies and knew
how to scale companies really quickly.
I think that was really impactful for me as well as kind of on the sales side working with
people who were experienced and I kind of watched them just via osmosis in terms of how
they interact.
sold and the traits and the behaviors that they put in place and quickly distinguish who I
wanted to be versus who I didn't want to be as a sales professional.
And so I think those were things that really I walked away with like tenets in terms of
how my professional life I carried throughout my time there as well as, you know, again,
kind of seeing the good and the bad of startup world and again, just being appreciative of
being, you know, being able to be a part of it.
I think that's such an important point.
And, you know, as you know, being like a young, young entrepreneur, a lot of things that
might've got us into entrepreneurship is all about, hey, you should just start this
business and make a bunch of money.
But the difficulty we have is, unless you have context with the industry that you're going
to be working in and all those different things, which you get from actually working a job
in that industry, it's very difficult to get the momentum.
I mean, I definitely found that my first agency that I started, I got into the dental
niche for some reason, never worked in a dental practice,
anything about it.
I just thought, hey, they charge a few grand, like maybe it could be something I could
market.
And so I had no industry experience.
And it was just a struggle and that business ultimately, you know, didn't work out.
Whereas obviously the lessons that you took from your job, you then applied it and
thought, you know, there's actually a gap here that we could fill.
Let me build something and cater to that need.
And so you're not just building what you think the market needs, you actually know what
the market needs because you worked in it.
Right.
And so I think when you reverse engineer the method that like that.
you make your chance of success so much better than if you didn't do that basically.
And to your point, I don't have a business background.
My formal education did not evolve in this arena.
And how I've learned is just through observation and trial and error and a lot of failure
amidst all of that.
And I think the allure of being an entrepreneur sometimes can...
gravitate even to our algorithms where you know we see Content that surrounds hey, here's
a way you can make a lot of money really quickly But there's no real authenticity or
purpose behind it It's just the the idea that you can make a lot of money And I challenge
that kind of status quo that I think a lot of young entrepreneurs that are kind of see
kind of seeking
The ability to have freedom and to choose your own schedule and to be particular about
your time and all the other things that come with being your own boss and building
something on your own is great.
but you have to have purpose behind that.
And I think those are things that as we started this business, we were honestly more
generalists.
We were taking what we could get at the beginning in terms of working with SaaS companies,
working with technology companies, even working with creative service firms, just any way
we could kind of help companies with their go-to-market and strategy.
That entire time we were working with early-stage robotics companies too, and it killed
the juxtaposition between the value
we were creating for those companies and the nuance of that and understanding of that
industry that I had and like you shared like the gap that I saw versus those other
companies that I enjoyed working with but they weren't necessarily filling my cup up and
as well as the end result wasn't equating to that what we saw in Robox companies it was
night and day and I think as an entrepreneur what I am really grateful for the lessons
that people shared with me was this kind of mantra of value-based pricing and the riches
and
itches.
So if you know an industry well and you know that some sort of service or it could be
really anything.
you can charge much more than say what a generalist could if they were offering a service
to a myriad of different industries.
And that was a bit of a light bulb moment for me because as you're selling an
entrepreneur, I mean you always have to be selling, right?
And as you're selling your services, people are gonna come back to you and say, I don't
know if it's worth this price or would you be able to do this price?
And you second guess yourself a lot.
You don't know if this is actually validating or if the value you're creating equates to
this price.
And again, kind of in the genesis of where we started, we were just taking what we could
eat.
So we were charging less, more than half.
half of what we're charging now and more so.
And so for us, kind of being able to niche ourselves within this industry and kind of put
our line in the sand, it's created so much more value from us, not only financially, but
as well as credibility and at the same time, scalability.
So, you know, again, kind of, I would encourage entrepreneurs to kind of look through that
lens and that lens helped me a lot, especially someone who didn't have like a formal
background.
I've had a lot of failure in that regards.
It's helped me a long way and by no means are we done growing or scaling and we haven't
achieved the kind of success that I want, but I'm proud of what we've done here as of
today.
Yeah.
And I think you raise again, a really important golden rule, I guess, of, marketing or
building a business is knowing your ICP, right?
And that ICP, when you, when you figure that out, it just unlocks so much value within the
company because everything becomes so much clearer and so much easier to scale, right?
Your messaging becomes clearer.
The sales is so much easier.
You can actually speak to them, right?
And resonate with them because again, you're specific within that niche, that ICP.
And I agree, right?
The generalist, especially the agency world, the generalist.
really do struggle with actually cutting through the noise and, and you're signing those
higher ticket clients, whatever that looks like, because you just can't speak the same
language as someone who is in that niche lives and breathes it and knows every intricacies
with it.
And I agree with the pricing point of view, you know, pricing for agency services.
mean, I remember my first client ever, I ever signed, I think it was like 200 pounds a
month or something like that, 200 pounds a month or something like that.
And it was
like it was nothing right because I couldn't even charge anything more because I had no
knowledge about the industry or anything like that.
I was just trying to guess my way into into marketing this thing.
And that's where a lot of companies and agencies find themselves where you know they can't
price those premium prices because they're just not in the industry.
And same goes with with other companies as well.
know, coaches, consultants, whatever is those generalist ones like they just fall on deaf
ears all the time.
So I think that's a really
key point is nailing that ICP so you can speak that language and charge those prices that
you need to charge.
I mean, with your own, I guess, go-to-market strategy internally, what did that look like?
Because when you got started, you're starting this business and starting a business is
very difficult overall.
It's a very interesting journey.
And getting those first few clients is always one of those painful things.
So how did you go through getting first few clients?
What was that go-to-market strategy for yourself?
Our go-to-market strategy was very minimal, I would say.
And the term that I would use that I think many entrepreneurs would align with, was
predicated on the idea of survival, right?
How do I survive?
How to provide?
What's gonna be enough to get me through?
We were really fortunate in the beginning to leverage some existing relationships that we
had with fellow entrepreneurs.
And I would encourage everybody to tap into your network right away if you have a service
to provide and you're starting a service-based business.
Tap into your network and see who you can help with because had we not done that, I don't
think I would still be doing what I'm doing.
probably...
So that was a piece of our go-to-market strategy there, and as well as leveraging our
industry experience.
I'm a big believer in a world of 10 nos equal one yes.
And having experienced that in my companies that I've worked for, doing volume still works
in the year of 2025.
I think I would encourage everybody to do a lot of outbound.
messaging, whether that be through LinkedIn or email, there are great tools that enable
you to do that for a fraction of the cost and the return on investment is unparalleled.
And I think had I not done that, one, I would have not been able to facilitate
conversation because that's what it's about.
If you're able to facilitate conversation and get reps at bat.
even if somebody says no, like the more conversations you have, the more likelihood
somebody is to say yes.
And that may sound cliche, but it's certainly true.
I think it's 100 % true because you become more confident and as well as if you truly
believe in what you're doing and selling, it'll resonate with somebody on the other end.
And it's really like a vibe check if you will too.
So our go-to-market strategy was simple, just leverage relationships, utilize outbound
tools and...
industry experience and really be clear on what we offer because I think if you say you're
you could offer this and you can offer that and Maybe we can do some of this too It leaves
room for failure.
I think and I found that out the hard way to where You get sucked into these things that
may be in your initial scope of work You didn't want to do and at the end of day you were
penalized for that whereas that's not what you signed on to initially do but
Had I been more clear about that in my messaging, think I could have alleviated such
problems.
now in our go-to-market 2.0, we are as direct as we possibly can be and say no to more
than we actually say yes to.
Yeah.
And again, you raise a really interesting point initially about when you got started,
right, using that network that you have, because a common trend that has come up in these
conversations with entrepreneurs is when I speak about, you know, how did you get started
and what was the initial push that got you some of that momentum?
It was always the network that helped get them started and at least get their foot in the
door with certain opportunities and start delivering on these services that they want to
build out.
And so I think that's such an important aspect for people looking to start is
use what you got as Alex Moses says, It's just use what you got.
If you have a network, then use that.
And it's also a case of don't underestimate the network that you have as well.
Like if you've worked in a job for even like three, four years, from that job alone,
you've built up a network, right?
Of people that you can reach out to.
So don't be afraid to kind of put yourself out there and do that.
And I know for me, when I started, I kind of said to myself, I want to be rich and
unknown.
So I'm not going to post anything.
I'm not going to tell anyone what I'm doing.
And that made it a hundred times harder than it needed to be.
It wasn't until I started using that network to start moving things, we got some momentum.
But that second point of more conversations, I mean, it's something that I tell to all my
clients and it's literally our core marketing message, I guess you could say is that more
conversations is what you need in the company.
More conversations is more clients.
More conversations, more relationships, more pipeline, clients.
And it all stems back to having just more conversations.
What can you do?
to have more conversations with your ICP because more conversations you have, more money
you make.
And that is the number one rule of any company, Is you need to optimize for those
conversations.
And so is your chosen way of doing things now within the service delivery for these
reposited companies?
Is it through cold outbound itself, as you mentioned, or is it through multi-channel
approaches?
What does that look like from your service delivery for these companies now?
It's still, I would say, nuanced in terms of multi-channel.
We just recently brought on a partner into the business.
His name's Ryan Tanaka, and he had an industry experience that I think I didn't have, and
it was huge for our business in the sense that he had a network that I hadn't tapped into
as I had a network he hadn't tapped into, and he was providing fractional business
development.
to robotic startups too.
And so we saw a natural union between the two of us where we thought we could come
together and create bigger scopes.
And so that's what we've been doing in terms of our outbound messaging and multi-channel
approach.
For us...
in our industry specifically still, because a lot of our industry is still legacy based.
And what I mean by legacy based is the robotics world really started within industries
like automotive and manufacturing, within applications like material handling, pick and
place, welding, palletizing.
And now there are new startups that are coming in to those applications and competing with
legacy players.
I've said, hey, we'll integrate technologies like AI that help your throughput and help
create faster cycle times for your production, or we'll save you ROI.
There's just a lack of labor in those sorts of places that are enabling where automation
and robotics make sense to help keep competitive, whether it at your company or where you
live specifically.
But to answer your question poignantly, so we still...
still very much so relationship based and I think that ability to have trust is huge.
You know, we've retained two clients over a year and half to two years and in fact those
clients have grown to some of our main clients within our portfolio and they've referred
business to us.
Another thing too, yeah, I mean, we still are always, I'm a big believer, even when things
are going great at Kill, always be doing outbound and always be sending messaging.
I advocate that to all my clients.
Some of my clients think they don't need to do any sort of outbound anymore.
And I always say, you can't afford not to do outbound because even when you fulfill work.
there's still more work to be done.
So, multi-channel approach and we'll continue to do that for as long as we can with an
emphasis on building relationships with people.
Yeah, no, I completely agree.
And what you said there about not stopping the outbound machine, right?
Is, it's so important because again, this happened to me on a couple of occasions where,
you know, we were pumping outbound, had a bunch of appointments, whatever.
We had a good, a good run for like two or three months and then things got quiet.
And we're like, why did it get quiet?
Well, we stopped doing the activity that was getting us the results.
And, and so, yeah, I agree.
And I think a lot of companies do fall into that trap as well.
A lot of entrepreneurs, because once you start getting
that momentum, that success coming through, you just feel like you can kind of take your
foot off the pedal a little bit off some of those basic things.
But ultimately, you do need to be pushing through all the time to keep growing the company
itself.
And so yeah, I think it's so, so key that you keep pushing with these activities.
I guess within the outbound space as well, or the marketing that you're doing, have you
noticed a change in...
in the landscape of things.
So what I mean by that is, you know, a lot of outbound agencies are popping up now.
People's inboxes are flooded all the time.
People's LinkedIn is flooded all the time.
So how are you finding, how do you cut through that noise and kind of get those
conversations flowing relationships?
Because a lot of people are struggling with that cold outbound element now, especially in
today's day and age of tech and AI.
great question.
actually got coffee with somebody this morning and we were talking about that very same
question that I think you're proposing here.
And what I'll share is it's always evolving, right?
be able to adapt and to recognize where current situations are as well as how.
communicate with I think is extremely important.
Last year Google and Microsoft or Office 365 announced that many companies that were doing
outbound often had multiple accounts to do outbound, displace it so that way they weren't
saying do a thousand emails a day from one account.
Google and Microsoft were essentially on a witch hunt shutting down people's emails
accounts if you were pumping out volume versus the emails that were coming back in.
And there were legitimate reasons, right?
Because there are people that are committing, you know, not good things on the internet in
your inbox, which we all have experienced probably in 2025.
But I think a way you can cut through that is one, obviously adapting and recognize that
process has to change even when something's going really good.
You have to make sure that your methodologies and strategies are aligned with what's
coherent within the sales world.
And two years ago, we were doing so much volume, so much volume.
mean, even at a company I was working at, I think at one point I was sending 3,000 emails
a week from one email.
You know that can't happen today a kill my email would have been shut down three weeks ago
had I done something like that so in our industry specifically What's kind of seeing a
resurgence right now and what I really enjoy is And I would advocate this for this if it
makes sense within your industry the power of cold calling has never met more
than it ever has before in 2025.
And the reason that being to the thing that you had just shared, how do you cut through
the noise?
Email is an easy way out, right?
Email, you cannot respond and not, and go through the motions there and not have to
interact with this person.
And you could even.
be sending the right email to the right ICP in the right industry and knowing that company
makes sense to do business with.
And if they don't respond, it's not because they're not necessarily interested.
Maybe they didn't see it or maybe they don't want their inbox flooded.
So cold calling has been such a, I would say, power tool for us because we're able to go
direct to the ICP and to have a conversation as a human to human and establish human
connection before we sell.
I don't even want to say sell.
Before we kind of put out there, hey, here's why this may make sense for your company as
we ask qualifying questions.
And this is what I do.
You know, I think there's nothing around right now, at least within kind of calling
initiatives that...
that are saying, cold calling is gonna go away.
Now, you could ask another question, how do you alleviate or how do you separate yourself
from the noise from all the spam calls you get too, right?
That's a legitimate concern.
What's working right now is volume and calling also.
So I would say be strategic with who you call.
Call with a purpose.
I wouldn't say just call everybody and anybody off the list.
Maybe you would in an email outbound campaign.
But cold call somebody with diligence and as well as the back end research.
say, hey, here's why I'm calling you today.
And I think this is why this could make sense for us to have a conversation at a higher
level.
Would it make sense to have 30 minutes of your time?
Yeah.
I kill more times than not that kind of phrasing is positive, at least in our industry.
And I think if you approach it from that sort of strategic diligence, as well as knowing
that if you can cut right to the source and talk to somebody, I think it's super powerful.
And I heard a story the other day, maybe it was a piece of content that I kind of was
looking at where...
this founder in Silicon Valley, he was 16 years old and he was calling people, he was cold
calling people because email wasn't working for them and they were pitching their idea for
their business and he called one of the biggest venture capital firms in the world, I
think he called Sequoia Capital.
and he calls Sequoia Capital and he said, he, somebody answers.
And that first time somebody answers, can be kind of jarring because it, you know, it's a
file, it's fired by, or trial by fire at that point, right?
Where you're trying, you're like, hey, here we go.
This is, this is the big leagues now.
He hangs up cause he's so nervous and.
If I imagine every entrepreneur who has cold call much like myself, you I still have
moments where I get very nervous if I'm talking to somebody that.
But what I'm getting at is he just, he did that.
It was a volume game.
And with that, you know, actually on the call, I think he said, he called them back and
they said, Sequoia said, we'll never invest in you.
You're an idiot, right?
You don't know how to present yourself.
Long story short, they ended up investing in the company years later because he was
diligent and as well as kept calling them and doing the volume thing and tried to build a
relationship with them.
So I think one thing to separate yourself from the noise is call people, but call people
strategically and make sure you know how to solve their problems with the solution that
you bring to them at the end of the day.
Yeah, I completely agree.
And I think it goes back to, you know, there's so many different platforms you can average
to people on is people do have preferences to what they're going to reply on.
Like some people reply to emails.
Fine.
Some people will never reply to a cold email, but will pick up a cold call or will reply
on LinkedIn or whatever that looks like.
And so that's why that multi-channel approach is, so important, especially if you know,
you're in this service based business, right?
You're, you're high ticket.
need to kind of do everything you can because the market isn't just
B2C where you have millions and millions and millions of people, you have a specific
niche, right?
You need to do everything you can to capture that attention as you mentioned.
And it's quite interesting you mentioned about the cold calling side of things because
it's something we're looking to add into our current stack of things because right now we
predominantly are just on LinkedIn and cold email.
But we want to move over to cold calling as well because I think what we're seeing in the
market is a lot of people or
teams who were originally doing outbound, right, they have defaulted to doing things like
email more than cold calling because the email side of things is so easy and the bar at
the entry is so low and it's cheaper than ever to run a campaign.
I mean, we ran campaigns before where it's like $300 for that month in like data, email
accounts, whatever.
And then we've closed about 30K and, you know, recurring revenue from that.
It's like, what type of returns can you get that, you know, from paid, you could even get
that from paid ads or anything like that realistically.
a cold email and those cold outbound channels you can, but when you're adding cold
calling, it does take a bit more time and it's not as fully automated, whatever.
But I think, as you said, it will differentiate yourself a little bit more if you call
with the right intentions, right?
And the script is how it needs to be.
Not like these people who are very transactional, but from that value-based approach,
right?
How can you give as much value as possible?
And it's quite interesting as well.
A lot of people ask me as well, what is value?
And it's such an interesting.
kind of question, right?
Like what is value and how do you create value?
And I think it's just on that case by case basis is based on your ICP, what would they
actually resonate with and what would they want to get, which would normally cost
something, but you can give it to them for free, right?
And the cost could be obviously time or money or whatever, but what can you give them?
And that's what that value creation looks like from the value point of view.
And so yeah, so if you're gonna run outbound and you're gonna have that value first
approach, firstly, think about
in relation to my ICP, what is value to them, not value what I think is going to be, but
value to them actually.
And then you can run that play and you'll see the results from that.
Yeah, I mean, we've seen some incredible results on our side from that type of thinking
and that type of lens.
Amazing.
Yeah, I think if you can certainly phrase your cold call interactions more of a them
versus mentality versus I or yourself, it shows that you understand their business well.
And here's the thing, I mean, you can understand somebody's business and like, if you do
some research before you call them and 60 seconds to...
three minutes, if you just get a general understanding of what they do and then you can
say, okay, here's maybe the connection of what we do versus your business, but have their
business be the focal point.
I think, again, people are super receptive to that.
And the way we kind of deploy cold calling strategy, you know, again, I think in a world
where a lot of people want to sell you a lot of services, I'm a service provider, so I get
it, right?
Like, you know, we can...
What's winning right now, think, is a resurgence of simplification in these areas.
And how we do that and how we go about strategically calling people is very much so
following the data.
And what I mean is specifically when we do our outbound campaigns.
If somebody's opening my email three times, because I can see that, if they've opened my
email three times in 40 minutes, I'm gonna call them that day because it's top of their
mind.
And even if they're clicking the emails, going through them, it's more likely than not
that they're actually engaging with the content or thinking about it or sharing it with
somebody and their company forwarding it.
And so...
We've had such tremendous success with just following that those little data sets and
calling people right away Because it's an indicator of interest and as well It's better
use of your time as opposed to ripping 200 cold calls and our horse Yeah, and our whole
format is simple like I
Again, I think people overcomplicate things where you need all these scripts, and
certainly you do to kind of have an outlier, but if you diffuse a cold call, because it
can get tense, right?
If you don't know how to handle it in the right way, if you can diffuse it within the
first 10 to 15 seconds with just a, you know, how are you doing?
How's your day?
What's going on in your world?
maybe see where they're located, ask them what's going on there, et cetera.
If you can diffuse those sorts of things and kind of connect at a person to person level,
and then they say, okay, this isn't some telemarketer, or this isn't somebody calling me
about my car's extended warranty, or somebody who doesn't know what my business does.
More times than not, you'll have successful conversations that may equate to new
opportunities generated from those sorts of things.
And then with that, have a conversation about what their business does and ask them
qualifying questions and then end with maybe what your business does and then steer them
into a discovery call with you.
I think that formula is simple and it's not like proprietary or special, but.
It's again simplification is kind of having this resurgence and I think we're seeing it
work a lot and work well in our industry and I think it could certainly be agnostic to a
myriad of other industries.
Yeah, I think that simplification point is so important because the last three years,
amount of like tech, AI, this, that the other golden shiny things that have been popping
up everywhere is, especially in the go-to-market space, there's so many tools out there
that you can get distracted so easily, but it's always the foundational things which make
the most impact.
So just keep doing those foundational things, as you said, there's little, you know,
there's little, you know,
tips and tricks and whatever, you know, when someone engages or whatever, yeah, call them
then that makes no sense.
It makes so much logic, but people overcomplicate things and add in like this huge tech
stack, which is just bloated and not needed.
and then don't just don't do these foundational things.
And I'm definitely guilty of that where, you know, I love new technology testing stuff
out, building stuff out, but ultimately the key things right.
That move the needle.
I've just been the basic things that do not.
When I've actually just launched a campaign rather than, you know, trying to build
something out prior to launching it, the launching of the campaign is something that gets
results, not all this like kind of stuff I was testing before and building out before.
It's the core activity of launching a campaign and just getting conversations flowing.
As long as you do that foundational thing, like the rest of it will take care of itself.
And, and I think as well, when people are listening to this and thinking, do you know
what, cold outbound's dead, like cold outbound doesn't work for me.
I've tried it once before and it didn't work.
Firstly, if you think it doesn't work, maybe you're not the person who's receptive to it,
but people in your ICP definitely are.
So that's the first thing.
And the second thing is if you tried it once, like you need to try cold outbound, like
multiple different times and different variations, different flavors, different seasons of
the year, all these different things you've got to test to see, okay, what actually gets
some type of result.
And like with each campaign, you get better and better, right?
As you said, you you send one campaign, okay, your open rates better than...
the previous campaign that you launched, or you're calling a certain lead list and do you
know what, this lead list is more receptive, but I can't actually get the conversion.
And you make those small iterations over time with each campaign, each lead, whatever, you
eventually find what works for you.
And then once you kind of hit that, it's such a interesting moment.
mean, we found internally like a kind of sequence and a script and all these different
things that have worked really, really well for us to consistently get conversations every
single month.
without fail for the last like over a year now.
And that's only came from doing so much testing to figure what does that look like.
But for every company, do think there's like this, there is a golden sequence that would
work for them, but you need to go through so much kind of shit to get to that golden
sequence of what works.
But once you find it, it's like everything becomes so much easier that you can just kind
of get these conversations flowing consistently.
And then you can obviously start looking to grow the business, right?
And that's what we want to do.
How do you retain that patience amidst all those trial and errors?
That would be my question to you.
Well, that's the tough thing.
And I think the key thing is when you go to launch one of these campaigns or whatever
initiative is, is figuring out, what are the data points that I need to be monitoring to
then get the feedback loop?
And I think when you don't have a feedback loop in place, you feel like, hey, I've just
launched a campaign.
I didn't get the results.
This sucks.
Like I've wasted so much time.
Whereas if you know, okay, we're going to be monitoring like this, this, this, this data
point, this is the feedback loop we're going to get.
So put it simply.
open rates are low.
Okay, the feedback loop is okay, we need to look at into our deliverability.
We need to look into our subject line called the next variation.
We test those things.
Obviously, that's a very simple model.
But when you have that, means that you're continuously improving on it.
I think the patient side of things is when you you can't see the progress.
But there's always progress in every campaign, you either get money or data back.
So as long as you're monitoring that data, that's what helps with that.
And each inch you make forward, right, is
is progress there and so you feel better about it.
Don't get me wrong, it's still annoying if you launch a campaign you think is perfect and
it doesn't do what, you know, it doesn't get the results.
But ultimately, if you have the feedback loops there, that's what's going to help you stay
on track and keep moving forward with those initiatives that you want to implement.
Yeah, I totally agree with you.
think it's one of the main tenets in being an entrepreneur and kind of doing these sorts
of things within selling is that patience.
And with that comes grit and tenacity and humility to recognize I'm only going to get
better if I fail, we'll change and we'll adapt.
Those are lessons that I've learned.
100-fold.
No, I completely agree.
So I mean, changing things a little bit, you know, I want to talk about your company.
I mean, what's the plan for the company over the next few years?
Where do want to take this thing on?
What's the vision there?
Because so far, what you've managed to build out is so interesting, I think, and
especially the niche you're operating in is so interesting.
So what's your plans in this space and what you're looking to do?
Yeah, think our vision, you the whole goal of this company and really the ethos behind it
was helping these startups scale.
And I keep using the same words and they may sound like buzzwords, but I truly do mean
them when I speak them into existence, know, sustainably and scalability.
We want to see our clients grow and become these awesome, huge companies.
And they may be in place and time where they don't need us anymore, quite frankly, and we
recognize that.
But we could say we were at the early stage level.
I think one of the big things for us, of where I see this vision growing, and I spoke to
it earlier, bringing a co-founder in this business after doing it by myself, and seeing
somebody who shared that same vision as well as industry nuance and experience, it's been
night and day experience.
With that, we're able to create bigger scopes.
So how we're going about this is we're now presenting it as myself and my co-founder
working on behalf of these companies.
And we can charge even more.
At the same time, we can pitch maybe bringing in further 1099s to fulfill the work below
us.
Parallel to all this, another thing of ours is to consult with venture capital firms, and
we've already begun to do that, where they ask us the questions, what's the value
proposition between an insourced sales team versus an outsourced sales team that knows the
industry like yourself?
And to my knowledge, we're the only players in the space right now that are kind of
positioning ourselves this way.
But what's that value proposition, or really,
the distinction between the two if we were to invest in these companies.
And so to some extent we're serving as venture scouts for these firms and we want to
create further relationships with them and understand them better.
And a big thing that we're working on too is working with some of the big three consulting
firms also where we can work with large enterprise corporations that maybe want to
penetrate robotics or even procure or buy these robotics companies or they want to make
investments in these robotics companies.
And we can kind of come in and leverage our experience as well as go to market strategy
and really good behaviors that we see in place and say, hey,
this would be a company worth talking to or this company wouldn't be worth talking to.
I mean, ultimately we want to productize and develop more products where, you know, I
think many entrepreneurs, we build businesses to satiate our lifestyles, right, to provide
for us.
But the goal is always the end result and that goal being maybe an acquisition or selling
to some somebody or something.
So I would be lying if I said that wasn't the goal.
That is the goal.
Whether we join a bigger consulting firm, I don't know.
feel pride in what we're building and excitement day in and day out, which is why I think
I'm so passionate about it.
And hopefully, the clients that we work with and the prospective clients see that passion
and excitement for what my co-founder and I do every day.
But we want to keep working within robotic startups.
We want to work with enterprise companies that want to penetrate robotics or make
investments, VCs.
And we created a few kind of simple products, man.
By no means do I have it completely figured out, but we have a roadmap that we think can
really be successful in the next three to five years if we do everything right.
Which we won't.
We're gonna make mistakes, but we're gonna be as close as we possibly can.
Yeah, no, definitely.
you know what you said with...
those goals that you have, you're so well positioned within the niche that you're in
because it is so niche that your expertise is valued like everywhere, right?
Anyone who's looking to get into that industry in any way, shape or form, you can provide
that value.
So that gap you can close with the value creation is so big that you can get a slice of
that and it's gonna equate to a lot in terms of your business growth itself.
And I love what you said about having like a co-founder as well.
Being a solo founder myself is...
you're always spread so thin and it's hard to kind of focus sometimes in the needle moving
activities because you're so bogged down with the day to day of all this other kind of
little stuff that takes up your time.
think having or finding that co founder is definitely a trait of some of these big
successful companies I've had on this show as well, because they kind of had, hey, look,
this co founders, you know, specializes in X, this other one specializes in Y.
And so when they come together, they just have so much
like depth into these skills so they can just grow the company.
So I think that's a really cool move as well and makes so much sense for the future of the
company on top of it all.
So one of the final questions we always ask guests on the show is if you can go back to
your 18 year old self and only take three lessons with you, whether it's some technical
knowledge, some philosophical knowledge, some mindset knowledge, it can be anything.
But what would those three lessons be and why would it be those three things?
Hmm.
You know, often I joke that, you know, I'm a bit older, but I still feel like my
18-year-old self.
I think since starting this business, that curiosity and that kind of hunger for when I
was 18, not really knowing where I wanted to apply myself then is still there, but now
it's just more applied focus.
That's a great question.
I think three things that really I would focus on or that I would tell myself.
You know, I think one, and these are kind of tenets in my life right now, really.
One being that of tenacity, you know.
There are tenacious moments in your life, whether that be in business or in personal, when
things are going tough and you're in the thick of it, they often require tenacity.
And I think in our modern civilization of pure abundance and access to everything, moments
of being tenacious are rare in few.
And that certainly was me in my younger days, and I think I would have not...
I didn't know if I had that in me.
And as I reflect more, I think I did always have it in me, but I just would have probably
had a more applied focus to where those moments could be within.
So that being one, if that makes sense.
would say another one would be humility.
Recognizing that you don't know everything and that you don't need to know everything.
A lot of my early 20s were catarized with me being on my own and thinking I could figure
my own shit out a lot of times and we're all at fault for that.
But what I had learned in my later 20s and now in my 30s...
Now having kids and having family and just kind of seeing the world in a different way,
the humility aspect only enriches your life, both personally and professionally, in ways
that I don't think I've ever even imagined before.
And had I not had that kind of mentality when starting this business and still to this
day, I don't think we would have had the success that we've had.
And just to even apply it recently in terms of bringing on a co-founder, recognizing that
I had limitations or that I had gaps and that I wanted to build this business and that I
probably couldn't do it the way that I had dreamt of if it was just me.
and trying to go find somebody and truth be told, wasn't even trying to find somebody, he
found me.
When you surrender that way and be humble, and I truly be humble, amazing things happen.
amazing things happen and at the same time, we're to build relationships better.
And I think that's something I lacked in my early twenties too, was kind of seeing the
value in relationships, whether it be, again, personal or professional, but especially in
my professional life, how it's helped me and created such more equity in my life and
enriched my life.
You know, it's been amazing.
And then lastly, I think grit, and I guess I'm speaking to more traits or tenancy here,
grit is something that you don't know about yourself until you're kind of in those
moments.
And grit can be everything from, you're being exhausted and you have to finish work or...
You have to fulfill client work in a certain way, in a certain timeframe.
For us, like our scopes are based, and our KPIs are based monthly.
And it's the 20th, right?
When it's the 20th of each month, and you still have some work to be done, buckle up.
It's gonna be a long nine days.
So you have to make sure you have that grit mentality to kind of go through.
And I guess it's kind of synonymous with tenacity where...
You stay calm, cool, and collected during those moments.
You don't freak out.
And I think there were moments in my life where maybe I would have freaked out a little
bit, quite honestly, and not having a little bit of experience, both good and bad, in my
life.
I'm so grateful to be doing what I'm doing at the end of the day that if you just kind of
deduce those sorts of things and say, any problems I have, like,
If I just focus and kind of power through this, everything's gonna be okay, right?
Even if it sucks for a little bit.
I'm okay experiencing that.
And I think I wasn't okay with experiencing that with my 18 year old self.
So in short, or in summary, know, those tenants being tenacity, humility, and grits would
be the power three that I would share with my 18 year old self.
Great question.
I think those are some great lessons there for anyone listening.
And that's why we have that question in there, right, is for any listeners that are
looking to start or younger in the game is some of these lessons that are so important.
But I think those three in particular are the core fundamentals that you need to look to
improve on during this whole thing of life, right, keep improving on it.
And it is so important, like all those points that you mentioned.
So thank you so much for taking the time today to jump on this podcast episode.
Where can people find you if they want to learn more about you and maybe some of the work
that you're doing as well?
Sure, Akhil, it was an absolute pleasure.
think the work that you're doing is fascinating, my friend.
And you're providing real value in your industry too, amidst how podcasts are helping
share so much information to people far and wide.
And I certainly learn so much through these kind of mediums.
So I appreciate you being kind of a steward of that.
Where people can find me is simple.
You can email me at max at robot sales club dot com or you can find us on robot sales club
on LinkedIn and then also on my personal LinkedIn, just Max Joseph.
via Robot Sales Club on LinkedIn and happy to chat with somebody or connect or talk on a
virtual coffee.
I try to be approachable and again, share those traits that I just talked about there and
always down to make a meaningful connection.
Amazing.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, thank you Akil, appreciate it.