The Exchanges

Q them get leads. Give me the copy. Let's say I was one of the target audiences. I was a head of HR at a big company that Sendoso wants to get me to send gifts out right to my employees. Right. So I'm a target customer. What might you put, like, what's the actual text of that combo ad that you might send me? And what's the gift card size?

A Yeah. So we've tested millions of dollars of gift cards. Um, the most effective price point is a hundred bucks. I don't use a hundred dollars cause it doesn't, I like everything we do to be shockingly memorable. So the copy would go like this. Hi, Nathan, 29 minutes, a 105 dollar gift cards and gift giving technology. You've never dreamed as possible. That's the hook. And then we help brands like X, Y, and Z deliver gifts and delight in a new modern era. Take 29 minutes. Hop on a call with one of our team members. At the end of the call, we're going to send you a 105 dollar gift card. Sound good? And then it goes into conditional logic. And so the way a combo ad works, it uses like, yes, no. And so let's say, and so we can qualify them still. So we'll say, Hey, do you manage gift giving at your organization? Let's say yes or no. And if they say yes, we can put them into our sales funnel. If they say no, we can put them into like a Slack community or some type of bridge where they can still interact with the brand, even though they're not ready to buy.

AI assessment note: “So the copy would go like this. Hi, Nathan, 29 minutes, a 105 dollar”

Q some of the, you know, brand name SaaS companies, whether it's Sendoso or post IPO companies like Blackline, even folks like Bill.com. Obviously, you guys heard Alex Bean come on from Divi right before Bill.com bought those guys. Sumo Logic. We're going to dive into all of that today. So Garrett, fast forward to today. How are you helping somebody like, you know, Zach Lee or Sendoso or Zoom Info?

A Yeah. So there's a big problem we're trying to solve in the market that every marketing leader is getting their butt kicked by, which is most SaaS organizations exist today because they solve, they solve a specific problem in a specific niche and search, which is the default. I have a hundred grand. I'm going to spend it. Let's go to Google ads is somehow this like default mentality, but the problem with Google ads is it has intent, but not firm graphics. And so what happens is it's very difficult to scale while controlling your life cycle stages down funnel. And so what happens is people try to go to LinkedIn, but then the problem with LinkedIn is it has firmographics, but it doesn't have intent. And so we developed our own methodology here called customer generation, which is essentially looking to build upon the promise demand gen forgot about, which is how do I actually increase revenue? And so we help organizations move from MQLs As like the signposting to SQLs so that everything we do is filtered through sales. And then essentially deleted the go to market function that the playbook everybody uses on LinkedIn. So the playbook on LinkedIn, let's say if you're bill.com is like the ultimate guide to AP software, decreasing accounts receivable, whatever that is, right? Like they have this guide and then you do lead gen, right? Like you download an asset and then you try to se…

AI assessment note: “we developed our own methodology here called customer generation”

Q Can we hear it? So I really, so I just, I disagree with you there. I really want to make this episode valuable for software founders listening. And if you give an example of how a software company works with you, they will take, and they will learn from it, even if they don't ever pay you for anything. Can we, can we use a software company as an example?

A Yeah, I'll use this like a metaphorical one. So the, the, with software. The way we like to look at it is kind of short-term and long-term at the same time. And so most software companies have actually a blessing in review sites. And so most of companies have to try to grind out for years to kind of become number one or number two or number three in their category. But what review sites let you do and what most people don't realize is you can essentially pay to be number one. And so what we help do is we help to look at it holistically because the buying journey Requires multiple, a lot of times these SaaS companies are buying center. So you have to figure out how do you get someone from apathy to action? So on LinkedIn, we're running convo ads on review sites. We're positioning.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I'll use this like a metaphorical one. So the, the, with software.”

Q Okay. Well, you shared a bunch of numbers. So what, what I'm totally fine not, and not asking you things that you're not comfortable sharing, but you just shared sort of more than nine million bucks in revenue. What is your growth target for next year? Are you trying to grow a hundred percent year over year? You want to stay flat and stay consistent?

A Well, right now we're doing about, we're trying to grow a hundred percent month over month. So I try to use month over month because the cool part about using relative numbers, when you think about OKR setting is your team can always reset. So most people set goals and quarterly functions and they use absolutes. So we want to get X amount of revenue this quarter. Now, the problem is if you have a bad month to start the quarter, you have to reset and nobody, and then it's like, you're losing. So then you spend the next two months where your culture and the growth and the organization, how your team's approaching it goes down. So what I like to use is relative numbers because even if you miss, let's say in July, you only grew eight percent. Actually, it's easier in August to grow 10% because you actually like It has diminishing marginal returns.

AI assessment note: “we're trying to grow a hundred percent month over month.”

Q Well, well, well, no, it's so it's 29 minutes is one of five gift card, but, but you just said, do you lead corporate gifting? Right. That's obviously Sendoso specific. What would like a bill specific.com sound like?

A Do you manage ARAP or something like that? So you're just taking it into that value prop. Now, the bigger mistakes is actually not the copy you can play with and get better at. There's a bigger issue of what happens at SaaS organizations when they go to market. They're not disciplined. And what I mean by that is I can't tell you how many organizations, let's just say, honestly, frankly, like 99% of them have too small of a budget for an amount of verticals and personas they're trying to target. It's like the number one plague is killing them. And so essentially what they do is let's say they have a 50,000 dollars a month to spend. They'll then want to spread that out across healthcare, Government, whatever those industries are, right? Let's say five industries. And then we all have this lie that we've been told that we need to market to decision makers. And that's BS. So the biggest problem in SAS is they all think the C level and the V level is how you market digitally. And it's actually not true. I have a saying that I believe the champion is more important than the decision maker. So what we help our clients do is we'll go through their client list. We'll work with their finance organization, their sales organization, and we'll start to pull out which vertical has the highest close rate, which vertical has the best gross margin, which vertical has the largest LTV.

AI assessment note: “Do you manage ARAP or something like that? So you're just taking it”

Q So what did that take us in your head? 2016, 20 17. How'd you feel?

A Motivated. I don't know, man. I'm not like, I'm not nearly where I want to be. So I'm like a pretty driven dude. So I, I still work, you know, all day, every day, to be honest, like for eight years straight. Like, I mean, I tore my Achilles twice and I'll go to work the same day after surgery. I'll go and lead the exact team. Like I'm not one of those like people who like, my whole thing is I'm here to become a better man and individual and leader. Um, you know, like if I wanted to go make a bunch of money, I could probably just go do independent consulting and charge a bag of money. To whoever I wanted to. So to me, it's not really all money related. It's more like culture and leadership related. So like, I'm more proud that like knowing that my organization makes less than 70,000 dollars, you know, we have a hundred percent healthcare. We have really, really, really strong, um, values that are fully integrated to the rest of the organization. To me, the money is just a signpost. It means you're doing well. Um, the problem is a lot of people in the agency world They like to make their blog. They like to make their brand about how successful they are. But like the money you make as an agency is indifferent from the results you drive for clients. And they're usually not correlated because the quickest way to make money in the agency is you just kill your people. Essentially, you…

AI assessment note: “Motivated. I don't know, man. I'm not like, I'm not nearly where”