My Best Personalization Trigger

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Thanks for all your feedback last week on how to improve this newsletter. 

One of the pieces of feedback that stood out was that it wasn’t clear sometimes when I was promoting a product that I was being sponsored versus just sharing tools and tech that I think can make a difference (Thanks Doug!). 

For the sponsored tech I try to call it out and also put in context and highlight why I like it since I won’t take sponsorship from tech I don’t use myself.  That said, I can see where it’s gotten a bit blended and potentially confusing. 

Based on your feedback, I’m changing the format of the newsletter a little bit to see if it makes a difference.

The “spotlight” section is where I highlight sponsors and is usually the first section of the newsletter since it gets the most views and helps support the sponsors. I’m going to put that part at the end now for a few newsletters and see what happens.  

The only thing I’d ask is that you get to the end and check out what the spotlight is. I promise I won’t ever push anything that I don’t think is valuable.

I’m also going to start with Tactical Tips to give you the high-value stuff right away.  

With that, let’s get into it. 

TACTICAL TIPS: A DETAILED CADENCE FRAMEWORK

SALES RESOURCES: PODCAST SUMMARIZER

SALES FROM THE STREETS: THE IMPACT OF GRATITUDE

TACTICAL TIPS: A DETAILED CADENCE FRAMEWORK

Most of you know that I’m not a huge fan of scripted cadences or volume-based prospecting.  Marketing can do that type of thing way better than we can and the AI is getting more and more “personalized” every day.

I think we all need to get back to the basics, start giving a shit again and focus much more on quality over quantity.  

By the way, as I was prepping for this post I found this old-school video of me talking about Quality vs Quantity prospecting that I thought you might get a kick out of.

These days I’ve focused almost all of my efforts on Quality outreach.  Here’s a link to a post I shared a while ago about how I prospect into my Tier1 Accounts (with limited tech).  

However, I know many of us are still being asked to do volume cadences so I came across this Outreach Cadence Framework from GrowthGenie (not a sponsor, more like a competitor). 

This provides a great framework for a cadence with a structure that anyone can use to fill in the blanks with. 

Add this to this post I did on a Quantity cadence that I actually liked and you should have all the tools you need to develop your own. 

SALES RESOURCES:  PODCAST SUMMARIZER

When it comes to quality prospecting and personalization - the “trigger” that still gets the highest response rate for me is when I can use a quote from someone and tie it to the value of my solution.

The structure of that email usually goes something like this:

The problem with quotes is the amount of time it takes to find the good ones.

I usually go to the “News & Events” section of the target’s website and look at the recent press releases and scroll through them looking for “quotation” marks.  

Usually, if there’s a quote, it’s from an executive and then I use that to write the email.

But there are so many other places we can pull quotes from, including LinkedIn posts and podcasts.

I’ve avoided leveraging podcasts for content to prospect with because I just don’t have the time.

That is, until now. 

I’ve been searching for an AI tool that could help me summarize podcasts and pull out specific quotes. Most of them could do it but you had to upload the text transcript which many of them don’t have.

I wanted one that I could just give the link to the podcast and it would listen to it and summarize it for me and I finally found one.

Check out https://snipcast.io/ (not a sponsor) 

Here’s an example of the summary I got from my most recent podcast with Ted McKenna from Jolt Effect. 

It’s spot on. 

It only works with Spotify right now but it’s free and worth checking out. 

Let me know what you think.

SALES FROM THE STREETS: THE IMPACT OF GRATITUDE 

I shared this on Linkedin recently but wanted to share it again because I think it’s a message more people need to hear. 

When I saw Morgan J Ingram on stage at Salesloft's Rainmaker conference in 2016 I knew he was a rising star and wanted him on my team.

He was working at Terminus, a well-funded SaaS company, as an SDR manager with a decent salary and strong upside potential.

I was a 2 person, service-based business with no funding and working from home.

When I approached him about the opportunity to work with me he was interested enough to talk through the details with me but obviously needed to think through the pros/cons before making any commitments.

I'm not sure what the exact conversation was with his parents when he went to ask for their opinion but I'm assuming it was along the lines of - "ARE YOU CRAZY?"

As a parent, I know that's what my response would have been.

Knowing that Morgan weighed their opinions more than most and understanding the risks involved, I offered to meet them in person so they could get to know me and we could talk through any of their concerns.

They agreed so I flew down to Atlanta and we all went out to dinner.

To make a long story short, the dinner went exceedingly well.

We connected on values, music, sports, business and much more including having a laugh at the interesting decor of the restaurant his dad chose (😂)

The rest is history, with our journeys (both together and apart) being well documented here on LinkedIn.

Fast forward to a few months ago.

I did a few posts about losing a $400k deal and some of the other struggles I was going through as I restructured and rebuilt my business (again).

I was at a bit of a low point and then I got a text from my COO Meghan with the image of a card I received in the mail at our office address 

It was a note from Morgan's mom and dad with words of encouragement, gratitude and support.

The timing of the note couldn’t have been better. It’s exactly what I needed at that moment to pick my head up and keep moving. The handwritten note made it even more special.

This is a reminder to reach out to someone every once in a while with a text, a voicemail, or even a handwritten note to let them know you’re thinking of them.

You never know what type of impact it will have but I promise you, it will be a positive one and they will appreciate it more than you know. 

As I say at the end of all my podcasts: “Go out there and make someone smile today because no matter how bad your day is going or how bad you think it went, if you make someone smile you know you had a good day and the world needs a lot more of that these days.”.

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