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Welcome to "Future Proofed," the podcast for forward-thinking professionals eager to keep their career and company at the cutting edge.
Traditional go-to-market (GTM) strategies have become clunky, inefficient, and bloated. This show explores the intersection of AI and GTM strategies to ensure you cut the GTM Bloat and build a future-ready approach.
Each episode of "Future Proofed" dives deep into how AI redefines what it means to craft effective go-to-market strategies. From actionable insights on integrating AI into your sales, marketing, and product strategies, to expert interviews that shine a light on the new best practices changing industries, this podcast is an essential resource for anyone looking to upgrade their GTM playbook.
Our host, Kyle Coleman, is a seasoned expert in GTM and AI innovation. He breaks down complex concepts into practical, actionable advice. With "Future Proofed," you'll learn how to:
- Leverage AI and machine learning to supercharge your GTM strategies.
- Navigate the challenges and opportunities presented by new technology trends.
- Adapt and thrive in the fast-paced digital economy.
- Foster a culture of innovation and agility within your team or organization.
Don't let the wave of the future leave you behind. Tune into "Future Proofed" and stay ahead of the curve as you learn to leverage the power of AI for your GTM strategy.
Nathan Thompson (00:00)
Alright, welcome to season two, episode three, and actually the third part in our Cold Calling series. We are joined today by Scott Coleman. He has been with us for six months now, about six months, a little bit over. ⁓
Scott Coleman (00:14)
A little longer, a little longer, yeah. And then you can finish up the
fantasy. I was an intern there for a while, but you know.
Nathan Thompson (00:19)
Yes, that's right. Well, I forgot because you moved so quickly to the other, you just moved up so quickly. And the reason is the success that you, Brie and Erin, have been finding with cold calling. And so we spoke with Brie, we spoke with Erin. Today we are speaking with Scott Coleman. Scott, why don't you introduce yourself, tell us who you are, ⁓ what you do generally.
Scott Coleman (00:40)
Yeah, so as you said, I am ⁓ on the inside account team ⁓ making cold calls, reaching out to people, trying to book meetings. ⁓ Yeah, I joined CopyAI in August of last year, had to prove it for a little while, and then got officially brought on the team around the same time as Aaron and Breeze, so we're all kind of, you know, in an official capacity, been here around same time. ⁓
Yeah, just doing the damn thing, making calls, trying to book meetings.
Nathan Thompson (01:12)
What, and I have to ask because I've seen this a lot. mean, every channel is dead right now, but I do see like cold calling is dead and outbound is dead and all that. And then I laugh because our channel in Slack is consistently filled with like, Scott just booked a demo through a cold call and Bree just booked a demo with this person. It's like blowing my mind. So I want to start at the beginning. We're not going to talk about outbound emails. Let's just talk about the cold calling. Let me, what's the day in the life of Scott Coleman look like with regards to cold calling?
Scott Coleman (01:41)
Well as many as I can fit in right because it's a numbers game So you really want to hit the phones hard you want to make as many calls as you can But you also want to make sure that you're calling the right people you want to make sure you're calling into the right personas You want to have your your messaging together for who you're calling? but at the same time, you know, really the the least ⁓ Gains you're gonna get in your day are from truly cold calling so
Anything that you can do to make it not an icy cold call is what you're going to want to do beforehand. So you say you don't want to talk about emails, but at the same time that goes a long way when you're calling in concert with emailing and with connecting with people on LinkedIn, they see your name, they see Copy.AI you know, even if they just go and just delete, delete the email, if you get them on the phone, they still have that recognition. So it goes a long way.
And you can't, mean, you know, it's incredibly hard to cold call as it is, but to have it be the first time they've ever heard of you or heard your name or heard the name of your company, you're, know, you're making it even harder on yourself if you're, there's zero recognition right out the gate.
Nathan Thompson (02:58)
and I'm happy to be corrected on that because I don't know what I don't know about this. So it almost sounds like, like in my world, it'd be like talking about SEO without keyword research. You almost need it in order to move more quickly in the direction you want to go. Is that right?
Scott Coleman (03:14)
Yeah, mean, exactly. I don't know how your world works necessarily, so that was kind of in one gear, out the other. Yeah, I'm sure you're picking up what I'm putting down. And it's not just one aspect. You cannot talk about cold calling without talking about also having emails in your sequences and connecting on LinkedIn and connecting with as many people as you can and just trying to create any amount of
Nathan Thompson (03:20)
sorry, yeah, no, no.
Scott Coleman (03:42)
of recognition leading up to your calls. Paramount.
Nathan Thompson (03:46)
So walk
me through that. What's your process? What's the Scott Coleman process? You're going to wake up and you've got to start reaching out to a list of people. What's that look like?
Scott Coleman (03:52)
Yeah.
Yeah, well it depends because all the you know any list is not created equal but if it's purely cold Folks that we know have never heard of us that we know we're starting from scratch ⁓ It's really a good move. I feel like to get on their LinkedIn You want to obviously research the company which thankfully copy AI does for us in large part But getting on their LinkedIn see who they're connected to see if there's any
You know like like I said a few minutes ago if there's any amount of warmth that can be manufactured or that you can have leading into that phone call To be able to have that person pick up the phone and say hey I'm Scott with copy AI and I'm calling you because of this because we may know a similar person or because you may recognize This that whatever the case may be So when you're looking through a list of people or you're you know, you're going through and deciding
what sequence to use in outreach or how you want to approach that person. You need to know a little bit about them. You need to know a little bit about their company and you need to formulate an approach for that phone call. ⁓ Now that being said, you know, it is a tough game. Most people are not going to pick up the phone. You have to realize that as well. So do I spend 15 minutes preparing for every phone call researching each individual extraordinarily thoroughly?
No, because I'd be banging my head against the wall, know, spending an hour to make four phone calls and they don't answer. you know, that's what I've erring, probably alluded to in my approach is like, you know, move with speed, move with velocity, but don't move blindly.
Nathan Thompson (05:44)
Yeah. Has it ever happened that you got someone picked up and you're like, oh shit, I don't know who this person is. What am I doing? Has it ever happened?
Scott Coleman (05:50)
yeah.
yeah. Thankfully I am a pretty good flying by the seat of my pants. So I think you have to have that if you want to have success cold calling or as a BDR in our role. ⁓ You just have to be able to kind of not fake it till you make it, but be able to make a conversation interesting on the fly, you know, and that also comes down to preparation. So you need to not only be prepared for
Nathan Thompson (06:12)
Good.
Scott Coleman (06:20)
who you're talking to, but what you're talking about. If you don't know what you're selling, if you don't know the product, then what are you gonna say to this person, even if you get them interested in having a conversation with you? ⁓ You need to be able to talk about Copy.AI, you need to be able to talk about what you're selling and why you're excited about it and why they should be excited about it.
Nathan Thompson (06:44)
I want to talk really quickly about that idea of excitement because I do think that people's I use the word energy loosely not like energy like with crystals and stuff like that we won't get any I mean more energy of just like positive negative this person sounds bummed out when I pick up the phone this person sounds angry when I pick up the phone this person's happy how do you consistently bring excitement and positive energy after 19 people just told you to screw off like how do you do that
from call to call consistently. That blows my mind.
Scott Coleman (07:15)
Yeah, well the short answer is you don't. mean, it's like, like, right? It's just not possible to be like a super uber happy-go-lucky every single time you're about to make a phone call. if you feel your mood slipping, if you feel your energy waning, then the best thing to do is take, take a moment for, know, like get up, walk around. I work from home. have my two kids at home still. So go spend a little time with the kids and you know.
Nathan Thompson (07:45)
Take it off.
Scott Coleman (07:45)
Reset
reset the mood. ⁓ but yeah, you have to be very self-aware to to know When you're not in the right mind space to have a good conversation with anybody right because sometimes you can just get locked in and want to just get through your call list and You know, you're getting turned down or someone's you know, people are mean sometimes it happens ⁓ So if someone's mean to you, know, you'd like to say it doesn't affect you but it anybody's gonna be affected by that. So
Nathan Thompson (07:58)
Yeah.
Scott Coleman (08:15)
and anybody's gonna be affected by a bunch of no's in a row. So you just gotta know yourself and know how to kinda, when you might need to get away from the computer and put the headset down for a minute and refocus your energy and re-center yourself however you do that.
Nathan Thompson (08:34)
That makes a lot of sense. curious. I'm curious that I got two more questions for you. This one and for anybody listening, by the way, Scott had zero preparation for this conversation. I like to just have a surprise jump scare podcast recording specifically to get as much of the real unprepared answers as I can. And this is exactly what I'm shooting for. I would be curious. What's your hook or how do you approach the hook or does it change every time?
Scott Coleman (09:01)
Yeah, it's, it can be mood dependent, honestly. Like sometimes you want to try different things. Sometimes you want to come at people with a fresh approach. ⁓ It doesn't often change in this role, but I've, I've heard for other roles, it does depend on who you're talking, who you're calling into. You know, like highly technical people are not going to want some kind of like foo foo ⁓ opening where you're trying to like get them to open up or laugh or something.
But with most folks I do something along the lines of if it's like a cold cold call Because again any sort of manufactured warmth, that's what you lead with You know, you want them to know why you're calling or why you have a legitimate reason for calling them But a purely cold call where I don't know if they've seen my emails. I don't know if they know copy AI it's something along the lines of Hey Scott with copy AI. How you doing? I always ask how people are doing, you know, I don't want to just like jump right into a pitch
And then good who are you who are you who are you calling with? What is this about? Yeah, so just to get ahead of it This is a sales call you can go ahead and hang up on me if you would like But if not, I'll try to make it as interesting over two minutes as possible. I'll just take a little bit of your time What do you say, know something like that? That was a bit verbose, but you know something along those lines
Nathan Thompson (10:17)
I would not hang up on that because you invited me to hang up and then I'd feel like the jerk. I'd be like, okay. yes, I love it.
Scott Coleman (10:21)
Right? Guilt trip! Yes.
Yeah, that usually gets a laugh and just kind of opens them up and a lot of people actually say, hey man, you know what? I've used an opening like that before. So I respect the game and yeah, let me hear what you got. yeah, it's always fun to try like different iterations of that opening, you know?
Nathan Thompson (10:37)
That's me.
Well, and now I'm curious. Are you nicer to cold callers when they call you?
Scott Coleman (10:54)
Yeah, thankfully I don't get too many because my role does not dictate any sort of attention from outsiders. yeah, I'm pretty forgiving. Although I have been getting a lot of spam calls lately, so if I got a legitimate one now, I probably wouldn't even pick up the phone or just be like, please leave me alone, I'm getting too many of these right now.
Nathan Thompson (11:18)
I love it. ⁓
Well, hopefully in the future. Okay, last question. Let's say I'm either considering getting started in a sales role or I just started out on feeling discouraged. What advice would you give me to kind of pick myself up from the bootstraps and be like, no, okay, I could do this. I just got to change the approach. just got to, you know, what advice would you give a discouraged sales rep who has just a list of calls to make in a day?
Scott Coleman (11:46)
Yeah, I mean, it's kind of similar to what I said earlier is like, fine, you need to know yourself. You need to know how to get yourself in a good mood. You know, go outside and take a walk, get some sunlight, get some exercise. I mean, sometimes I'll just like hop up and do some pushups and get my blood flowing and get, you know, reset, reset your mentality, however you need to do that. ⁓ know, whether you, sometimes I just,
close my eyes for a few minutes and just try to get some peace and quiet. Sometimes I go play with the kids. You just have to have some, you just have to have a level of self-awareness ⁓ and don't try to, don't try to fight through the bad feeling by doing nothing or just keeping on keeping on. That's the one thing that I try really hard not to do is if I'm like, if I catch myself after a certain phone call being like, man,
This sucks. I don't just keep going. you know, do something to get yourself out of it, but you got to know. I can't tell you what that'll be. You have to know for yourself what is going to turn your mood around. know, grab a snack, have an ice cream sandwich, Nathan.
Nathan Thompson (13:03)
Yeah, well do get grumpy. need to get ice cream sandwiches and I don't even have to talk to anybody throughout the day. I don't know how you all do it. It's awesome. Well, alright.
Scott Coleman (13:08)
Yeah, it happens
to everybody. In every role, every job, people have moments where they're like, man, I don't want to do this right now. ⁓
Nathan Thompson (13:18)
Well, I love that you use ice cream. I was going to suggest whiskey, but I guess no, ice cream works just fine. Yeah, yeah. Just start, if you want cold calling, just start becoming a heavy alcoholic and calling people. I bet this is Scott Corbin method. I'm kidding. We're going to edit that part out. Awesome. Scott, this was amazing. Thank you so much. If people wanted to reach out to you, LinkedIn would be a good place to do that. Very cool. All right. Thank you so much. ⁓
Scott Coleman (13:22)
Only at five o'clock, my man.
Yeah, take a couple shots, loosen the thumb up.
Yeah, absolutely.
Nathan Thompson (13:48)
We are just going to hold on one second.