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Welcome to The Transaction.
From ABM to PLG, from MEDDIC to MEDDPICC, the world of business is constantly evolving. We’ll cover the who, what, where, when, why and most importantly how you get… The Transaction.
Hosted by Craig Rosenberg and Matt Amundson.
Presented by Ringmaster Conversational Marketing, the go-to branded podcast team. To discover how your company can leverage B2B podcasts to deliver outsized ROI, visit ringmaster.com.
Gag Reel to Sales Tech Talk: A Spirited Start
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[00:00:00]
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: The gag reel is gonna be good this season.
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: Oh, geez. It's always good. Anyway. All right. Well, by the way, we're talking sales tech today, so this is going to be fun, Matt. And, uh, uh,
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: a passion of yours, Craig?
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: It is. Well, it is. I mean, actually, I, I would say I was worried that it was no longer going to be a pack. We just had other problems, you know, like that in the sales side of the world beyond tech.
Um, and then with AI and all the new ideas that are coming, I think there's really exciting stuff to talk about. And so I'm. Back in it again and You know, there's just a lot there's so there's a lot happening. So I'm having fun I'm doing a lot of briefings and getting caught up. It's it's been a while. So
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: Okay.
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: cool, well, let's let's um Let's get this party started here.
Introducing Nicholas: The Sales Tech Savant
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craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: So [00:01:00] Matt I just have I want to introduce you to Nicholas.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: We've met before.
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: He's my guy
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Yeah, we've met
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: All right, well then, I'd like, Matt, I'm gonna go ahead and just pivot and call this a reintroduction,
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Thank you.
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: for years I followed Nicholas because he is basically created the definitive sales tech landscape, you know, similar to the massive NASCAR map that Brinker did around marketing.
Nicholas was the sales tech one. And then, you know, I'm like, well, I got to meet this guy when we had Topo. And then he's like, well, I'm also just, I'm a fractional CMO and product marketing guy doing, you know, all this other stuff. [00:02:00] I'm like, wait, this is a side job. Um, so, uh, yeah, I mean, it's incredible. So with everything happening in the world of sales tech, as we just talked about, Honestly, there's, there's literally, in my opinion, no better guest to have on than Nicholas.
And, you know, as this, as the world continues to evolve, Nicholas, we hope to have you on. So everyone, the transaction welcomes Nicholas D. Kaczewski to the show.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: Thank you for having me. Sounds
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: Yeah, of course, man. So here's how. So basically, here's the thing.
Diving Deep into Sales Tech Trends and Tactics
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craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: I mean, obviously the themes, you know, sales tech and what I, you know, we, as you know, we start the show with this idea of like, what, you know, what is that thing or things and this one, this show, I know we're going to do a bunch of things, but that the market.
thinks is right or their perception is right, but actually they should challenge and think differently. And that's how we'd like to start the show and see where the conversation [00:03:00] goes with there. And I know you've got lots of opinions here, so let's start with that, Nicholas, and then let's see where we go from there.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: I wouldn't say it's surprising. But, uh, it hurts me. Um, obviously sales have been much more challenging and I see a lot of people desperate find what could be the next best motion. So if you go back, this year is going to be signal based sailing,
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Yeah.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: Uh, last year it was near bound. The year before it was product led growth. So. I get that there's a first mover advantage, and I get that because things are tougher, you want to be open and look at things. But there is a bit of a, what's the next shiny object syndrome here?
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: hmm.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: uh, what's happening is people rush to a motion, new motion, and [00:04:00] it comes at the expense of the others. And, um, I mean motion is like wine, you need time, you need to hone it. And this type of bang bang type approach is, I think, killing many organizations. And what's, what's incredible when you look at, uh, and it ties to the technology, technology has been reinventing virtually everything. I mean, events for some time was completely, Disregarded.
And then we, we reinvented it. Likewise, partner motions, and they are multiple, were no longer, um, very much considered tough to track. And then near bound popped.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Right.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: Um, so I think that the. Companies, they need to figure out what's the right mix of motion, and they should view their [00:05:00] motion more as big boats that you steer, optimize, rather than jump from one to the other.
And arguably, a lot of what I'm saying applies to tech companies. I think larger companies are a little more progressing like that. I would critique larger company in being a little too slow. in viewing new motions that are emerging, because there's definitely changes happening. Um, but yeah, that's the first thing, uh, that I think you want to challenge.
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: yeah. So, but like if, so, well first of all, just for the audience, like, signal-based selling, you know, tell us more about it. And then let's talk about how we steer a boat around that as
well.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: yeah. So, signal-based selling,is based it's on the, the uh, on the, I would say the assumption. It's not the assumption, it's the reality that, uh, in a given market, there's [00:06:00] probably 5 percent of the market. maximum of companies that will be at a given point in market for a given type of solution. And the idea is to harness technologies, and I'm going to explain how it can look like, to figure out which are the ones. And based on that, you can direct your effort to them. Um, so I think it's an area where, because it's a buzzword, people lump tons of things, signal. Uh, first it's intent. Uh, so think of a Bombora Uh, there's alternate ways where, um, you look at, uh, the content that people are consuming. You have the alternate way that looks at, uh, the ads that people are consuming.
So Uh, that's, uh, uh, one, one way. Then you have all the signals that the company may give on the internet. So they are hiring for a role. You can analyze job [00:07:00] descriptions to figure out what is, where they're investing from a technology standpoint. Um, you can track job changes. All these indicate a potential interest.
And this finally, uh, what I call, and this is truly signals. Now I'm lumping a bit intended signals. And then there's engagement and engagement, depending on your motion, can mean different things. At minimum is tracking who is coming to your website. Um, it can be also if you are, Um, on using a product-led motion, it can be tracking how people are using across the company your product decide when to introduce a, a a seller.
So it's really the combination of those three things. And
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: Matt, you do a lot of that, right?
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: We do, we do. Yeah, it's interesting. We don't use, uh, we don't use a lot of like dedicated, uh, applications for that. We [00:08:00] are, we fall into the category of, or where I believe everything is going, which, um, We use a lot of tools in the modern data stack. So we're using tools like Fivetran and Airbyte to collect information from how people are using the products, but also how people are engaging with our ads specifically on LinkedIn.
Uh, I think we use, we use Airbyte to pull, um, engagement data there. Not just are they clicking on it, but like, have they actually seen it? Um, which is really interesting. Um, and then we are, we are piping in data from a data source. Uh, no free commercials here, but the company is called Sumble. Uh, they get that scrapes for, uh, for job postings and things like that.
Um, they sort of operate in the same place as a business like Clay. I think they're just a little younger. Um, And we just pipe all that data into our warehouse, push it back out to CRM and some of our other downstream business tools. And that works just [00:09:00] fine. And what's interesting is like I see a lot of the sales tech that's coming out that does this.
But I think if you are, uh, if you're a business that's pretty technically savvy, you can actually get a lot of this data without having to necessarily go out and buy these products.
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: Yeah.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: the two things that are super promising is job postings. I think you have a wealth of information. Uh, you can figure out technographics from job posting,
and this is much more powerful than just scraping a website because not all technology is visible on the website. The second thing is what people are doing.
on social networks and communities.
Uh, what we've seen in the last couple of years is content is much more consumed now on social networks and communities. And social networks in particular, they're pretty closed They're walled
gardens So now we start to see technologies, as well as [00:10:00] regulation that forces, uh, those walled gardens to open up.
up That can give you tons of very interesting things. And the name of the game is exactly what Matt described. Is how you can suck all this information, put it in a repository where you can apply AI. Because The volume of information is completely insane. And the way to make sense of those signals is very likely to be specific to, uh, to, to to each and every business.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Mm hmm. Yeah. I think that's one of the things that's challenging for a lot of the technology, uh, companies that are coming out that are, are, are applying this, this data or supplying the data, I should say, is that, Um, they strive to be a one size fits all and that it just doesn't work. And so, you know, as a company, like, sometimes if you're harnessing intent data, you, you think you're getting the right type of intent data, but you might not actually be.
So if you have the capacity to go [00:11:00] dictate what you actually believe is intent data and capture that, that can be, uh, that could be far more interesting.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: And indeed, so, um, a numbers of tech companies are building their own infrastructure. Now to your earlier, uh, question, Craig, I do see a kind of a mini category emerging. So let's be prudent with mini categories, because that's so, so something we're We might want to discuss what's a true category. Uh, but it's hard to build, uh, uh, from scratch a data repository.
Uh, not everybody has the skills. on staff to apply the models. there's different, um, uh, solution out there. There's pure repository. There's some that also come together with, uh, uh, data sources. But that's definitely, uh, something that I see happening. And it could almost be the transition to, uh,
CRM Conundrums: Navigating the System of Record DebateThe CRM As The System of Record
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nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: Another area I'd love to discuss is, is [00:12:00] the CRM your system a record?
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: Oh, well, Jesus, I mean, you're just buttering Matt up now. My God, man,
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: my favorite guest. my
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: Oh, Jesus. I mean, man, well, we should, let's do that because I knew Matt would light up. I actually, I'm not sure if I shared with him some of our notes. So like this might actually, we might've actually truly surprised Matt, but this is Matt's favorite topic.
Let's talk about, here's the topic, the CRM as the system of record. Is it? Where are we at on that? And, and, and, well, Nicholas, you start, and then I know Matt's going to jump in. This
is like, we might, we might
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: it's uh, Yeah,
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: Okay. Keep going.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: so I would say that All companies I know of who would like CRM to be the system of record. And they are trying to do it, and I think in the last couple [00:13:00] of years, we've seen some crack, and we've seen some changes. Um, so let's first step back because the reality, and I'm an old fart, CRM is a database with no admin. So maybe even in large companies, and sometime I do project with large companies, I am literally astonished how, how poor the control is on this database that is inside CRM and all the consistency it will create. So it's a very rigid data model. We're still, we have leads, contact, Oh man. We've, yeah, yeah.
And when you look about it, it triggered generation of two categories. I mean, marketing automation was marketers, and I've been a marketer many decades. I mean, it was [00:14:00] so hard to do it with two objects. And marketing automation, just say there's one model, one object, it's a person. When you look at the Sixth Sense, Demandbase, ABM of the world, it's built around an account.
And now, so you have generation of system, PLG, at the short life for now, it's the same thing. So, you have generation of Ancillary systems that are getting created to offset the rigid data model. And, um, I think what was the straw that broke, uh, the camel's back is unstructured data. All what we discuss is about using AI to make sense, not just of transactional data, but unstructured data.
And you cannot have
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: Transaction
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: recordings, you cannot have emails, all that stuff in a [00:15:00] CRM. So, that's how things started to crack. And, um, I mentioned as well that every time there was a new motion, or it was difficult to use technology for motion, we created new systems of records. So, Matt, do you use an ABM platform?
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: No,
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: Do you use a marketing automation platform?
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: a little bit.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: Okay, so you would do it yourself. So you avoided that. But often I run into companies that have all those systems and they, they all there, they are synchronized. And, um, I think everybody's trying to put back the information into Salesforce.
But when you look from a reporting standpoint, Uh, you have less and less information.
And think about the reinvention of forecasting with revenue intelligence. It's a new system that [00:16:00] you overlay on top of those system to do forecasting. So the first trend I saw was the decoupling of instrumentation from the actual systems. So, to some extent, revenue intelligence is that, and there are other categories that end up doing that.
So, you, you take for, um, as a fact of life that you have multiple systems, and you basically suck the information into, back to your point, Matt, it's a modern data, uh, ba uh, a modern data architecture. You bring all this information, you do the correlation, and then you can overlay on that. Uh, on this instrumentation, your model.
So forecasting was one of the early use cases. You can do it as well for coaching and development of people. Like it doesn't stop there.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Yeah.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: And the things I start to see now is the decoupling [00:17:00] of the customer database. And that one is emerging. So very hard to figure out, but large companies, I mean, think of banks.
I've started five, six, seven years ago to build massive data warehouses. And they basically suck all the information, they build pipes, they have to instrument this entire data stack to deal with compliance. And, uh, they create this platform and then they, they pile up. I mean, I know banks, they have three, four hundred data scientists.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Sure.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: when you think about it, a bank is all about information.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Mm hmm.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: Now you have the movement in the, uh, marketing, uh, space of CDPs. And CDPs have started to move into, uh, other part of the organization. And, uh, I start to see now commercial products, That are basically going to [00:18:00] assemble in a flexible data model, your customer and prospect view, and it's going to simplify how you engage.
And there's two types of products. There's the pure, uh, okay, provide the, uh, the, the data infrastructure and some also source some of the data. So without, uh, I mean, it's always tough not to, to mention all the, the companies that are innovative, but a Matkudu company
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Mm
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: initially scoring,
and now you buy a Midi CDP with built in sources. So I forgot, I think they have, uh, HG Insight for technographic, they have something else for the account. So you, uh, they have a third for job changes. So you have those different types of products that are kind of emerging. And, um, yeah, I think you really want to challenge is UCRM, [00:19:00] uh, the system of record, because all what I described.
are key issues of practitioners, whether marketers, I mean, anyone in the revenue, uh, organization. And they also with the new heart of the possible with modern data architectures and AI. And the two comes side by side, right? Uh, I mean, together. Yeah.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: My, Matt, your is there's, I mean, you know, I feel very similar. The thing that, the things that I will say is the CRM, I believe will, will largely always be the system of record for salespeople. Right. That is, you know, in, in, in, for, for, for businesses historically, that's been, you know, everything sales related has happened there.
And then anybody who wanted to use that data for marketing, for finance, for, uh, for operations has sort of had to sort of peer into that platform. [00:20:00] The same has been true for CDP, which has been this database of record for marketers. And then, you know, you have ERP for finance, et cetera. And you have all these different places where data is being stored and you're trying to keep it all.
Up to speed and together. And then the compliance and regulation issues around like, how is this data transferred from place to place? Are there potentials for breach, et cetera? And this is the reason why I think, you know, the center of gravity is, is, is moving towards a cloud data warehouse because using. architecture or a modern data stack, you have the ability to make that your centralized repository that feeds into every single other place, uh, within your business. And I mean, department, when I say place, uh, you can, you know, your finance team can use it. Your marketing team can use it. Your operations team can use it.
Sales can use it. Uh, even HR can be using it. And so, I believe [00:21:00] that, I don't believe CRM is going anywhere, but in terms of it being a centralized database for everything that you have, uh, from like a customer 360 perspective, no way it wasn't built for that in the first place. Why was CRM built? CRM was built because we had salespeople that were taking people out to golf and traveling all over the country.
And we needed a place to store all that information around their interactions. And what we've tried to do is mold it into. You know, the central hub of the, uh, of a business, right? The, the heartbeat of a business. It was never designed that way. And if you think about just like from the simplest, uh, perspective, what a cloud data warehouse can hold on an individual versus what Salesforce can hold on an individual in terms of just like rows of data, you know, what are we, what are we capturing in CRM, uh, on a person, you know, their name, their email, their, their, you know, their job title, maybe an address, you know, Uh, maybe some engagement data, but in a cloud data warehouse, it's like, [00:22:00] you know, infinite number of rows of data that we can store on this person.
So the CRM is just not built to house all the information that we can capture on people. And I don't just mean data that we would need in order to market or sell to them more effectively, but data we would need to. Bill them data we would need if there are somebody that we wanted to recruit to become our next employee, etc.
And and that's why I believe that the warehouse is going to become the center of the universe. It's cheaper. It's faster. It's infinitely more flexible. The problem that exists today with the cloud data warehouse and why it's not already everybody's center of the universe is it doesn't have UX for people who are not data professionals.
So if you are a salesperson, you're like, cool, I'm going to go grab some data out of Snowflake, you're not, you're not. You're going to be met with, uh, an interface that you're just not familiar with, and you don't know how to manipulate. The [00:23:00] same is true for anybody else in, uh, uh, on the business side of the house.
So, uh, when when we talk about a modern data architecture or modern data stack, it is the things that get built around the warehouse that enable us to add as much data to it as we possibly can build models on that data. Normalize that data so it can go in cleanly and then activate the data so that we can put it into places that we're all used to using, whether that's a CRM, a marketing automation system, or, you know, a sales engagement platform or ad network, or, you know, if you have direct mail, your Sendoza or your reach desk or whatever, uh, that is, The way the game is going, and I think we're sitting here sitting right at the precipice of that, but I expect over the course of the next 10 years that that's going to become the standard by which most companies operate.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: So, two, two comments to, to continue to iterate and riff, and I love the brainstorming. Um, [00:24:00] so, if you go back to the original promise of CRM, it was to build a single repository of all the information. And, um, I want to be prudent because it's super hard. So, and, um, even large companies that have invested in mass, in building massive data warehouse, are start to see popping different warehouses.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Mm hmm. Mm hmm. So, uh, in the early days of data warehouses, you had data marks and data warehouse. So data mark was the name given to those, Uh, ancillary, or those more specialized data warehouses, uh, that were, uh, that were built. Um, the, um, so that's, uh, something I felt compelled to, to share. The second thing is, yes, it's is a key issue of querying the data, uh, warehouse.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: [00:25:00] Now, a technology that is making tremendous progress is conversational AI. Oh, yeah, And, uh, with GenAI, you can actually query the data. You can address things. I mean, the data models are so complicated. Mm hmm. So, um, the problem is you don't even know how to ask a question. Because we're talking academically. But if you lift the hood of a data warehouse, It is scary, Mm hmm. and really understanding what is this data, how it was built, uh, what does it mean, is super hard.
So I think this is where there's no other way than to embrace conversational AI, and to have the queries, whether it's, I would say transactional, like about a customer, or it's more something for you, for example, as a CMO, you want to make sense, uh, what working with a program, what's not, all this type of thing, [00:26:00] Yep. Craig, your thoughts?
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: Alright, well first of all, Nicholas mentioned transactions twice and you did zero, so Nicholas 2, Matt 0. Um, no, look, I'll keep it, he's clapping, he's clapping, Nicholas, I'm sorry. Oh, here he goes, he's clapping again, I can't, I, it's something that, you know, I enjoy, enjoyed initially and now has become his way of, like, basically that's his way of saying this is great, I love where we're going.
Or, Craig, please redirect. Um, [00:27:00] no, look, I'll just keep it simple. You guys, I think like right now, you know, when I'm working with early stage companies, like I'm recommending to them that they start today putting data into Snowflake or whatever cloud data warehouse that they have. We're not playing around.
And uh, by the way, they're all good at it. You know, I work with tech companies, they're good at it.
Diving into Data-Driven Sales Strategies
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craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: You know, putting data into cloud warehouses anyway, I mean, because we're still a founder centric organization or whatever, but let's start from the start so that we can properly look at the business. If you take the initial topic, which is signal based.
Everything. That's a Rosenberg. Hey, I'm in.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Yeah. Oh,
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: Um, uh, we're going to, you know, it doesn't matter if you're an early stage. Can you imagine outbounding as an early stage company right now? You know, it's like you read Predictable Revenue, you hear all these stories of these incredible outbound programs and then you're like, Hey man, this isn't working.
And like, that's why we talk about signal based. Signal based [00:28:00] selling allows you to at least make way better bets. Now. So we got to start out of the gate and we need to start collecting that data. We start to look at everything. It's like, for me, like if I can't get ahold of anyone, just, just talk about engagement data, bro, engagement data.
I mean like, what are we doing here? You know, like we got to sort of understand everything, but that's one where it's like, there's a ton of great data sources, but I'm just saying, You're going to be signal based selling or data driven out of the gate because you
have
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Yeah.
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: Um, and so you'll start collecting data.
Signal Selling and the CRM Conundrum
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craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: And what we're basically saying is, look, it's a, in, in, in a year and a half, it's a pipe dream that the CRM adds data driven value to you. It does, there's enough sort of training and years of using it that it's a valuable experience. Well, it's not a value experience to sales. It's a, uh, experience that RevOps understands that they could [00:29:00] present to sales.
Right. Um, but like it's over, like we have to be building out of the cloud data warehouse, out of the gate and building that data. And yeah, like we have to build over that set over there, there's tools right now where you can, as Matt said, build around the cloud data warehouse to be able to actually query and access this stuff and make use of it.
So in my opinion. Like I'm coming out of the gate. I'm telling them like, you know, if I'm going to recommend a CRM Consultant I'm like we're putting that data. We're gonna start collecting that data in the right place So that's me the but and then I just touched on signal based selling because you know What's gonna be fun for the rest of the show is just taking on these business topics with the sales tech guy Uh, Nicholas here, because, you know, we, and they'll, you know, everyone's sort of talked about, um, the difficulty now of engaging with customers.
We'll just call it that. Cause it's, it's a marketing problem. It's an outbound problem. Like we're, [00:30:00] we're readjusting it in the world. Signal based is part of that. That is how, that is incredibly helpful. And, you know, if we're talking about everyone steering boats, uh, keep, that boat going in this direction.
What you have to figure out is what to do with the data, and that takes time, right? And, um, as we find, so we know that signal base is one of the things, but like, I'd love to get Nicholas take on, you know, what is, you know, from an automation and tech guy perspective, what can we do for engaging customers, in particular with Outbound or, you know, any other sort of Uh, you know, new prospect attraction, whether it's a marketing site.
So I'd love to get your reaction on that new
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: Yeah, so tough.
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: please clap on and off on that. Yeah, yeah. Uh,
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: initially we wanted to be contrarian, but I completely agree. If you start a business right now, uh, your [00:31:00] data should be the foundation and it will be your mid to long term sustainable differentiator against, uh, uh, any legacy business because it's so hard.
So, uh,
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: yeah,
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: and automation.
Automation and Precision: The Future of Outbound
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nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: So first, I, so it's super hard outbound these days Mm hmm. and we are moving from a time where it was providing So great results, but it was tied also to the exuberance in spending and some of the market where it was applied. So there was a, you, you want to a little bit of dump in the perception of past results, but I want to acknowledge first, it's super hard.
Um, now, um, I see, Two approaches. One is automation, and the other is going to be, um, precision. So, I will explain the [00:32:00] precision at two levels. So, I wish I had the magical recipe to make outbound work. I think you still want to do it. But very selectively and, and precisely. Um, let's talk first about automation. I see now, uh, so first there are some, uh, some motion where you start to steal from marketing and do email at scale. You can with AI, you can automate the writing. Uh, you now have what I call autonomous agents. And, uh, basically, I'm gonna give the infomercial, no brand, I'll tell you what I think about it.
But you basically go in front of the machine, you define your ICP, it's gonna find for you, scrape the internet to find customers, then it's gonna go on your website, it's gonna figure out what's your value proposition, the pain points that you're doing, and [00:33:00] potentially it can get some signals. And automatically it's going to generate a sequence to do it. So, it's logical, um, I see a lot of offerings. I've yet to see results, frankly. And, uh, when I, because I, I, I try to track everything in the industry. My goal is to show the art of the possible. So when I, I discuss or go on the website, most of those offerings are pretty nebulous. It seems an offshoot of a lead generation agency.
So the jury's out. Now, technically all those steps. Uh, can be at least partially automated or done at scale. So at one point, it will come out. But right now, I definitely would not go there. Um, and those that are trying it, they usually have [00:34:00] all kind of technology to make sure it's not going to damage their domain and usually use massive email, uh, email outreach.
So, I think back to your question on outbound, we have to, uh, I'll do a segue after that. We have to go back to, uh, the discipline of trying to be relevant. So signal is definitely something because you build relevance by connecting to people at a point where this is something they might be interested in.
You know, they have, you know, They're going to spend cycles. Mm I think that we
Mastering Messaging and Market Segmentation
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nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: lost the discipline of segmentation. Everybody is saying, Hey, here's my ICP. And it looks, because we have three letters, you're ticking the box, I have an ICP. When you look at how ICPs are [00:35:00] defined in most companies, It's very, very high level.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Mm hmm.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: I think the precision that you need to, um, uh, to apply to the definition of ICP is very, very important. Usually you have loose size bands. I see industries such as financial services. Let's stop it there.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Mm hmm.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: Financial services is not an industry. It's an aggregate.
Yeah.
Uh, so credit unions and even credit unions, you have different size bands that behave completely differently. Non-regulated uh, lenders. These are true industries. And you need to get to this level of precision to define your, your, your ICP. The same applies for personas. So we use this word personas. The reality is [00:36:00] things are changing so quickly. People are retitling themselves.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Sure.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: So and an industry, I also do a lot of things in is CX, customer experience. Everybody is retitling himself or herself or whatever, uh, CX something.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Yeah.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: So you have CX people that are collecting the voice of the customers. You have CX people that are agents in the contact center.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Mm
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: You have CX people that are janitorial services, because this is the fundamental proposition they're making to other customers. So, when you look at personas, the classical approach of throwing in numbers of titles no longer works.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Yeah.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: You have to go really granular to analyze what's behind the title. So, the title becomes a proxy in really understanding the role of the person in the story. In the context of the company and how the [00:37:00] company operates is critical, and that is hard.
Now the technology can help. So that's the second thing. So we said, uh, leverage the, uh, the signals for sure. Uh, the, let's go back to, uh, STP, uh, segment target position. The old way, Precision in segmenting both for the ICP and the personas. And third, and I know it's a, a, a topic near, uh, near to your mark.
It's the messaging.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Yeah.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: I think we got a little loose on the messaging at the point, in a period where everybody wanted to explore any and everything.
Now we need to sharpen the
message.
And, um,
One issue is that we have a generation of marketers that is very disciplined to articulate the value of what they're offering.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Mm hmm.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: That's very good. However, let's talk about sales tech. Many people define the [00:38:00] value of a piece of software for sales as growing revenue, improving productivity of your sellers. So welcome to the club of 2000 companies. And what I see is many customers prospects I mean, it turns them down. They don't trust you. This is so vague.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: hmm.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: Customers they want to understand what you do, how you do it. It doesn't mean going into the details of features, but many messages fail to explain a little bit of the what you do specifically, how to do it in a way where people say, okay, that might help. I start to connect the dots with my problems. And, um, so messaging is the third thing. So no magic recipes. I'm sorry about that. Um, right now I would be very careful with [00:39:00] automation. Go back to the basics, segmentation, messaging, signals.
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: that was big. So, Matt,
I noticed you only clapped when I was saying ridiculous stuff. You didn't clap during Nicholas's
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: I, well, I don't like to disrupt brilliance when it's in
motion. You know what I mean? Like, yeah,
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: clapped during
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: do need a snippet for my wife
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: So
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: because they have way less respect.
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: I, well, the way I describe our pod, Craig, as I said, it's Craig and I plus a smart person always. So,
yeah. And well, yeah, that's why I say always. Sometimes it comes in choppy. Oh, got it. Got it. Got it. Um, so on the outbound AI, like, um, well, I have a couple of thoughts. Actually, let me go through areas where I would just say here, here, one is [00:40:00] precision is going to be everything. And that's why, like if you, the idea of signal based selling combined with what you're talking about, which is like, Uh, what you're calling segmentation is, uh, a term we used to take very seriously and now we need to do it again, like the ICP in and of itself and segmentation, these things cross wires and, and need to do that in a positive way.
As you said, like, often times, I get this too, I go and, no, we know our ICP, it's North America, you know, I'm just making that up, it's like this big thing, it's like, well, no, that's your TAM, like, that's everything you could sell to, like, where will we, are we most likely to win? And then we use signals to figure out when, and we can be really smart and precise, so I love that.
Um, and messaging to, in this world, It's incredible. If you think back six years ago, you could actually just start with SDRs [00:41:00] or with marketing automation. So like a demand gen person, you're starting out, you could just hire a demand gen person and be like, bro, one run webinars, you're good. Right? Because it would work.
It was incredible. You didn't even need a message. You just copied a thought leadership piece that someone else was doing. You did the same, you would get 300 people even with an early stage list. So that, you know, and then Outbound would just put some SDRs on the phone, uh, let them sort of manipulate what they saw on the website, VP of Sales might jump in, and it worked okay.
It was fine, we could fill the funnel, and now we can't. So we need to take a mission and a message to market that goes across everything from how we prospect, uh, how we, um, you know, bring ourselves to market from a marketing perspective. I think the only thing I'd say on the outbound AI, you'd call it, so on the, you know, automating a lot of the process.
So the, uh, I, I think the market's still sort of, uh, testing that product, as you [00:42:00] said, and we need it to, for all to sort of really realize what this is. What's going to work and where the use cases lie. But what I like, so, and by the way, caveat, right, I do work with regi. ai, they're part of my portfolio at the organization I work at.
Um, but, so it's allowed me to dig in a little bit. I do like right now on the outbound side, taking away the mundane. and enabling a faster path to getting the message out. I am that, I mean, man, I, I just did like, I just did this thing. I was trying to reach out to, so it took forever for me to like take everything in and like into login.
So I'm, I'm all in that I think is real right now. Efficiency is real for sure.
It's real man. But the, but you're right. The truly autonomous SDR. So. Uh, that's going to take time. We got to learn a lot as a market. But like the, the truly enabled outbound, like [00:43:00] if, you know, right now you talk to A CRO, they're like, well, we need our AEs to prospect, otherwise we won't make pipeline.
It's true. But there's a lot of work that goes into not even sending the message, man. And so I love that. I also think there's mundane SDR work. Inbound SDRs,
I think, should be fully autonomous. Um, and so that, that, those things are happening today. So that, that would be my reaction to that. But the big, so the, the overall, though, is a, you're talking about, you know, what we do as a business.
Precision.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Yeah.
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: You know what I mean? Like that's like, uh, that's in segmentation. So it's STP segmentation,
uh, target
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: I didn't do an MBA, but this is one of the MBA 101 in marketing. So I was told.
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: no.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: I learned on [00:44:00] the And
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: an outbound. Yeah.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: but you know, I think you, you said a few things that, uh, are very important. Um, I, the, what you describe is, uh, a scenario where AI. Assist the seller. And this I 100 percent believe.
And it helps on two fronts. I think it helps on the mandate tasks. Yes, and also from a content writing, content assembly personalization, you can do things of an incredible quality with AI, which frankly are tough for, um, a, um, a, uh, an SDR or BDR. So, uh, Uh, the other thing I wanted to say is I completely agree.
So there's two motions. I use the old way BDRs for outbound, SDR for inbound. I know that it's not really,
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: Okay. Perfect.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: whatever, because everybody has his own definition, but I completely agree that inbound, um, it's [00:45:00] almost overdue that the inbound is not fully automated. Um, the technology allows it, um, and I'm baffled that companies have not adopted more.
So I agree on those three points, even if it hurts me to agree with you, Greg.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: No.
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: Yeah, it's hard. I know. CLAP! Oh, sorry. Yeah. I, uh, I really appreciate you agreeing with me. That's it. Let's end. No, I'm just kidding. No, um, so Uh, uh, yeah, so I love it, but let's get one other thing in, which is like, let's take a business issue and bring it to the, uh, tech guy who will bring us back to the business issue, which is, as you know, that's just what, what just happened, right?
Precision messaging. It's pretty funny. But like the other one is like, it's, it's not just hard to prospect, it's hard to sell. And I think there's a flight to value, right? And so. [00:46:00] Right. What you said just now is real in the actual hand to hand combat of selling a deal, right? Which is, uh, the messaging, the precision of your messaging, the use of signals to be able to be as relevant as possible up front.
So I think, you know, from, like, your point of view, what, you know, as we think about selling value, just as a generic term, like, there's obviously a lot of different, um, It plays around this. The, the key message is it's hard to sell right now, but in, but is there opportunity in that? And you know, I'd love to hear your reaction to that.
nicolas-de-kouchkovsky_2_03-14-2024_091459: Oh, yeah. That's an issue not only for sales, for customer success. Um, yeah. So in addition to what I mentioned about the value, I think we need to get to the right level of detail. Um, so when I work with companies in particular, large ones, I see now departments that are tracking the performance, whether it's customer [00:47:00] service or sales, they're dedicated to track the performance. If you sit down with those departments, they are analytics guys, basically sucking the information from everywhere and looking at it, they can tell you what matters to the company. And, uh, you can work with them understanding, um, how you, you can impact what I call the ROI or the value levels. That's the first step. The issue is that, um, so let me give an example of contact center in industry I know very well, probably the most measured industry in the world. So, a key metrics is the average handling time. You can go, there's hundreds of vendors on all the websites. Everybody says, I reduce average handling time, usually it's almost an industry obligation between 20 and 30%. [00:48:00] Now, companies like your former employers, Gartner, do regular surveys of businesses and they find that As an industry, the average handling time grows. And there's a reason for that is because what people are dealing with gets more and more complex. All the simple stuff gets self service. Help me reconciliate that. Impossible. So, uh, we're back to taking the value statement, bringing it down several levels. Being able to work with your customers to figure out, I mean, there's causation, correlation, it's okay, it's not perfect, as long as you make progress and move the needle. That's something very important that enterprises need to figure out.
And right now, a portion of this is the kind of the given to customer success, which is [00:49:00] asked job number one to get renewals and up sales. So it ended up ends up. being the leftover child, uh, of someone's organization. The second thing I would say is we, when, if I use the revenue terminology for all the customer facing functions in the past five years, It became like a car assembly line where we broke down all the jobs into, uh, small chunks. And the problem is sellers have lost the big picture, the true understanding of what the value proposition, what are the pain points of customers. So one thing which I found is very promising is now we're saying, okay, we can no longer afford. You have a gazillion set of jobs and the movement is [00:50:00] to give back to the seller this kind of quarterback responsibility, which put the seller in the position where the seller can learn from all his customers.
So he or she can become someone that has some insights, some interesting things to tell to a prospective customer. Versus saying, okay, you have a question, let me pull in the, uh, the solution architect. You have another problem, we're going to do a demo and those type of things. I think the behavior, uh, that will, is going to come together with this re concentration of the roles.
Um, the seller is, and it's going to be tough for, but, uh, the good sellers will be, will gain trust, will know things. And um, I think we're going to rediscover that. Um, but it's, it's a journey, frankly.
craig_7_03-14-2024_091459: we're at the top. This was [00:51:00] amazing, think we'll need to continue because I remember like a year ago when we were data driven, um, now we're signal driven. Um, but like, let's, we can, we can figure that all out. I do want to, uh, say thank you very much.
This, the transaction is. And our goal is to figure out all the pieces you need to put together. And this was really about tech and where it fits into the major issues everyone's facing today. So I really appreciate it and we'll have you back on soon. In the meantime, uh, that's the transaction for you.
matt_8_03-14-2024_091459: Bye [00:52:00]