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Welcome to the Revenue Rebels podcast, hosted by Alan Zhao, Co-Founder of Warmly.ai.
We feature B2B SaaS revenue leaders who have challenged traditional methods to achieve remarkable results.
In each episode we cut through the fluff and dive deep into modern tactics used to achieve success: intent-based outreach, social selling, B2B Netflix, video marketing, warm calling, customer led sales, influencer marketing and more.
On the show you can expect episodes with those who create demand - marketing experts, partnerships gurus and social media superstars and those who capture demand - outbound and inbound sales experts, leaders, and practitioners.
Our goal is to shine a light on modern, effective and unique revenue generating methods and equip you with the insights you need to unlock your next strategic advantage.
We're huge proponents of signal-based selling and signal-based, data-driven B2B go-to-market as a whole. Ask us what "Autonomous Revenue Orchestration" means and we'll be more than happy to shine a light on our vision of what the field of B2B revenue will become.
For more content, check out our YouTube page and LinkedIn newsletter!
Olivier Roth: [00:00:00] You can look at everyone's network. You can see a lot of potential intro paths that are exciting. You don't want to bombard like, you know, your, your people and your team or your people outside of your company, like your stakeholders with intro requests, right? I think if you equip your stakeholders, your team and your external stakeholders with some content, you can then let them like influence your buyers over time, meaning like signal boosting.
Olivier Roth: I mean, like, Hey, we have a webinar in three months on the, on the topic, you know, it can be like, can you like. invite those people, segment, be strategic, build a process, build a repeatable process that uh, sort of like preserves like people's relationships and time too.
Alan Zhao: All right, today we're here with Olivier [00:01:00] Roth, the Chief Growth Officer at The Swarm. The Swarm is a company that allows you to see the relationship graph of your company's collective network. This data can be used to ask for warm intros, get influence on deals, all of which help to accelerate the sales cycle organically.
Alan Zhao: And today we're going to be talking about how to get the most out of your warm network from a sales perspective. Olivier, welcome. Thank you for having me here. Great. Let's get a quick background about yourself.
Olivier Roth: Yeah. So I used to run a marketing agency. In San Francisco, working with startups, building their growth funnels, um, working with like early stage.
Olivier Roth: So I was doing a lot of different things and having a lot of, uh, a fun working with like startups across the tech ecosystem, mostly B2B. But, uh, David Connors is here at this forum now. It was one of my clients and he then, this company was acquired by Sequoia. Uh, I then worked with Sequoia as a client.
Olivier Roth: And then towards the end of a seven year [00:02:00] cycle for me running my own agency, um, I decided to join The Swarm. Uh, so it was like a perfect, like, uh, perfect shift for me to work in, like, on a product, something that can scale, like, much bigger, um, VC backed, and so on. I was very excited to join.
Alan Zhao: Awesome. And why did you guys start the swarm?
Alan Zhao: Why did David
Olivier Roth: start it? Why did you join it? Yeah. So the origin idea is like comes from this time at Sequoia helping portfolio companies, like make the most of their networks, you know, like VCs are really investing in, uh, helping like portfolio companies or in many ways. And, and one is like, uh, recruiting.
Olivier Roth: And so we developed a series of tools. Um, and that's the origin idea of the swarm is like for recruiting. You know, instead of like asking everyone for referrals, um, and waiting, or even like sitting in a conference room with everyone's [00:03:00] laptop up on LinkedIn and trying to do some, um, uh, you know, like looking for potential candidates.
Olivier Roth: Like, what if we can see everyone's network and search across the network async? And that's the original idea. Then we, we launched it. We worked with design partners, of course, founders, and, you know, A lot of people started to use it for sales. And of course it makes sense. Like you can see everyone's network in your team and across your stakeholders.
Olivier Roth: Now you can do a lot with this data. And so, uh, fundraising is another use case because it's all about networks, but sales is emerging as of course, like the biggest, uh, opportunity right there. So we've been really focusing on that.
Alan Zhao: Nice. And so from a sales perspective, what is the problem with the way that we tap into our network and relationships today?
Olivier Roth: Yeah. So I think the best salespeople And also recruiters and founders, but like focusing on sales, the best salespeople already [00:04:00] do it extremely well, but at the individual level. So meaning like they have like use like LinkedIn to the core and like, maybe like spreadsheets and tables and so on of, of their, their network.
Olivier Roth: But when you try to do that motion at the team level or the company level. Across. Every execs, founders, investors, partners, advisors out of, out of the company using a tool like LinkedIn just doesn't scale because LinkedIn is like built for content and it's like, it's a single player mode kind of tool actually.
Olivier Roth: Um, you know, we, you can, you can see a lot of data and you can find a lot of mutual connections, but because of the first degree. Connection being so loose now, and because it's a content tool to build an audience, everybody's incentivized to accept connection requests, right? Like, why not? Right. People have a different like approach to it, but basically like first degree [00:05:00] connections is not enough as a signal.
Olivier Roth: So it's so super noisy. So you can't really use it to scale the type of motion at the team and company level. And that's where this form came in.
Alan Zhao: Awesome. Do you have any recommendations for best practices for asking for warm intros? For example, for myself, um, it, it takes a little bit longer. Sometimes I find that maybe an advisor of mine, like I don't want them to get fatigued.
Alan Zhao: Any thoughts here?
Olivier Roth: Yeah, it's all about like, uh, the process, I think, and just finding a rhythm. I mean, that's where we are working with our customers with also, uh, now you can look at everyone's network. You can see a lot of potential intro paths that are exciting. You don't want to bombard, like, you know, your, your people and your team or your people outside of your company, like your stakeholders with intro requests, right?
Olivier Roth: So doing it like once a month is one way to do it super tangible, like once a month and tell people, this is the process where important network here, we're going to, once a month come to you with three to five, like ICP type, like [00:06:00] intro requests, and we're going to give you a template. I think it's all, there's a lot of like content out there to how to ask an intro, but like.
Olivier Roth: Being authentic, being to the point, being clear, having a clear call to action, building value and offering some sort of reciprocity if possible. Like just all of that package in a nice affordable note delivered to the right person, it works, people want to help. Like they, they're short on time. So you need to kind of like.
Olivier Roth: Build a process that works for them.
Alan Zhao: Nice. Yeah. So, and it's very bespoke. I think we talked about this before, but warm intros are one of the things that are the most difficult to scale because you have inherently a relationship with the other person and it's not really meant to be scaled in a SAS kind of way.
Alan Zhao: So that makes sense. Um, what, what's an example of warm intros being leveraged correctly from one of your customers? And what was the result?
Olivier Roth: Yeah. So one of our customers, uh, series B startup that's really in like And they had 150 [00:07:00] advisors, they have referral type advisors. They have like, you know, design partners from the early days.
Olivier Roth: They have, um, people that have the advisor role and some advisory shares and are interested in the success of the company. So it's a lot of like people with like, uh, high value networks there. They didn't really have a way to, to, um, look through their, their, they tried like the air table and spreadsheet and downloading everyone's LinkedIn connections and so on, but they joined the swarm to invite all of their advisors, map their networks, and then, and then implemented that, that process of like, Um, you know, having a, a rhythm to a sponge was they layered their target accounts, they had like, um, a few thousand target accounts, um, and, and they're very, they're mid market to enterprise, so it's all like relationship driven sales and for, this is like for this, this type of sales where like the, the, the swarm really, really worked.
Olivier Roth: So, uh, yeah, they're currently like implementing that [00:08:00] and inviting investors, other people just kind of like growing their, growing their swarm.
Alan Zhao: If you're a fan of the Revenue Rebels podcast, please leave us a review on Spotify and Apple podcast. Your support goes a long way in helping us bring on more amazing guests.
Alan Zhao: Thank you. That's amazing. You're growing the storm. Yeah. So I, I know that warm intros is just one of the many methodologies in which you can tap into your network. There's things like influence, getting intelligence. Oh, you know, this person I'm working on a deal with them. What are their problems? Can you talk to me about some of the other use cases for leveraging or warm intros network?
Olivier Roth: Yeah. So segmenting, in my opinion. So you can look at if you have a list of target accounts, let's say you're doing account based selling and you have a. Uh, target accounts, you can look at maybe like the top 10, 20%, you're going to ask intros too, but maybe there is like some like lower value deals [00:09:00] or like a bigger volume of like target accounts where you have.
Olivier Roth: A connection in, but you're, you're, you're not going to ask an interest for every single of these accounts. Those, I think you can, um, I think if you equip your stakeholders, your team and your external stakeholders with some content, you can then let them like influence your buyers over time. Meaning like signal boosting.
Olivier Roth: I mean, like, a webinar in three months on the, on the topic. You know, it can be like, can you like. Invite those people to it and say, if they're interested, that's an intro request, right? That's just, that's just like a bit of an endorsement and, and, or can you just like. Reshare on LinkedIn because that way all your network is going to see it and maybe beyond LinkedIn.
Olivier Roth: But, um, so, so if you segment your, your target and then just decide the one you're going to go with the intro play to, and the ones you're going to go [00:10:00] with like influence type plays to, and then there's the rest. You're going to go, you're going to run your cold. Playbook, and you're going to do more like, you know, like, like different, like plays and maybe lean on like personalized cold emails for them.
Olivier Roth: That that's fine. Um, so yeah, segment be strategic. Build a process, build a repeatable process that, uh, Sort of like preserves like people's relationships and time too.
Alan Zhao: No, it makes sense. What are all the people that need to be added to this collective network? I understand it's your company employees and advisors, anybody else that you should consider?
Olivier Roth: Yeah. I think like taking the time to sit down and be like, okay, who, especially in an early stage startup, like where your resources are limited, like you actually, there's a lot of people that, that can help you. So it's like your, your team. I mean, I think it's the entire team. Of course, like more like maybe like junior people and so on.
Olivier Roth: May not have a strong number, which is like, you know, in inviting everyone. Um, and angel [00:11:00] investors, advisors, design partners, external partners, like agencies or whoever is in your ecosystem. And then like one that I really like is customers. Like your first customers, if you're a two year old or three year old startup, and you have your first 50 customers that have stuck around with you since like, you know, they, they want, like, I'm sure a fraction of them would be, uh, totally, uh, happy to help you.
Olivier Roth: Like, so, um, inviting them on like, you know, you're in, in your network to help you, it makes sense too. Um, so yeah, just sitting down and kind of like mapping, mapping your network, looking at your own, like. Strong connections and, um, and maybe incentivize people. So if it's like a, if it's like a, an industry friend, like maybe there, that's just a social thing where we get introductions.
Olivier Roth: Maybe if it's like a, an [00:12:00] agency partner, there is like an incentive. There's a commission structure. So. Um, yeah, building it out, but not limiting yourself. There is no reason to limit yourself. You can tap into a lot of like the people that are around your company.
Alan Zhao: Have you seen a sustainable way to continuously make asks?
Alan Zhao: Like you talked about incentives and there's commission. Is there anything else that you can offer over time? Yeah,
Olivier Roth: we're, we're doing a lot of discovery on that topic. So I, I don't have all the answers, but I think there's some, something interesting with gamification, like people, you know, people want to, I think social, some sort of like social reward of like, um, you know, giving intros, it's, it's, it's people's relationship and it's really not all about money and commissions and so on.
Olivier Roth: But I think if you find like ways to. Yeah. Like, you know, shed the spotlight on like people who are really helping you create this like really positive, like, uh, cycle. So, [00:13:00] but we're running some discovery on that. So more on that soon.
Alan Zhao: Awesome. Is there, uh, anyone who's helped you in your career that you'd like to give a shout out to?
Olivier Roth: Yeah. Tons of people like come to mine, uh, to be honest, probably my own agency before, but I, I mean, I think I'll give a shout out to, uh, to David, David Connors, CEO of the swarm. It's just been like an incredible boss over the last three years, giving me the opportunity first, but also like, you know, running like, um, experiments, uh, and, and running the marketing and growth, like at this form, uh, sort of like the way I want it and support me.
Olivier Roth: Like, so, uh, yeah, shout
Alan Zhao: out to David for that. Uh, Dave sounds like a great guy. I think one of the things that's really important for people who are coming in and leadership and, uh, first couple of employees type role is just give them agency to run after whatever they need to do and then support them and help them.
Alan Zhao: I think it allowed them to experiment. So it's good to hear. The last question Olivia is how can people learn more [00:14:00] about you?
Olivier Roth: So, you know, definitely like, um, feel free to connect with me. On LinkedIn and even better, like on this one. So we have a free trial on the website. It's a 30 day, pretty generous trial and happy to, you know, connect with people to help them, like not, not necessarily like add up the swarm, but like talk about that motion and how it can apply to their, their company.
Olivier Roth: So yeah, super open to. Meetings and, uh, and more discovery. So yeah, always happy to chat.
Alan Zhao: All right. Please give Olivia a follow on LinkedIn. Connect with them. Connect with him on the swarm. 30 day free trial. It's a fantastic tool. You can leverage your network and, uh, no reason not to. It's there. It's powerful.
Alan Zhao: Thanks a lot. Thank you
[00:15:00] You