How to Sell Podcast: Learn to Master B2B Sales and Lead Generation

Ricky [00:00:00]:
Most founders come to us, they wanna talk about the product. And so we have to start them off saying, nobody wants to talk about you. They wanna talk about themselves. So let's let's flip this. Let's talk about the problem that you're solving.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:00:11]:
So I'm delighted to have you join us for what will be another incredible episode. If you're a long time listener, thank you. I really appreciate you joining us each and every week because I create this content to help sellers be the very best they can be. And if you're joining us for the first time, welcome. We'd love to hear what brought you to our podcast. Connect with me on LinkedIn. Tell me what you think at the end of this episode. If you like it, say, hey, I loved it.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:00:32]:
If you don't like it, say, Luigi, thanks. But no thanks. It's not for me. In a world where if you do listen to the news, if you do watch the news, the first thing I can say is absolutely stop listening, stop watching. I mean, I don't listen to it because I tell you what, there's enough negative sentiment, there's enough negative talk about, you know, the changing economy, downturn in economy, etcetera. And for me, I'm sort of saying, hey. No economic climate is gonna stop me from achieving my goals. And for you, as a sales professional, no economic climate is gonna stop you from achieving your goals.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:01:01]:
So before we get into today's episode, in today's episode, we're gonna talk about all things outreach in a declining economy. 5th people are saying that the economy's slowing down. This is where you need to be proactive. You need to really put in place your outreach strategy so that you can be proactive in generating more pipeline so that the economic climate doesn't impact your performance.

David Fastuca [00:01:25]:
Just a quick interruption to let you know about a free resource that Luigi and I wanna hand over to you. This resource has helped lift close won rates to over 73% on average. Plus, you'll get a b2b sales newsletter that drops weekly where you can learn what it takes to build a repeatable sales process and creating a pipeline full of qualified deals. To get this resource, just go to growforum.ioforward/newsletter or click the link in this episode and sign up today.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:01:57]:
I've had enough rambling. You're probably going Luigi. I know it. I hear it. Okay. Tell me a bit about this week. So this week, we have Ricky. We have Ricky Pearl as our guest.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:02:08]:
Now Ricky runs he's gonna tell you a bit about himself, but he runs a business that helps companies generate pipeline. Right? That's what he does. He does it. That's his that's what his company does. So I thought, you know what? I was talking to Ricky recently. I thought, Ricky, come on the show. Let's talk about let's show you know, let's talk about your proven process, the strategies that you implement that help you generate pipeline, not just for you, but for your clients, for companies that pay you to do pipeline generation activities for them. So this is gonna be a great episode.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:02:41]:
Ricky's gonna step out the process that he goes through when setting up an effective campaign, so there's a lot of positive takeaways. And as always, guys, please, would love a rating, would love a like, would love a review on the podcast player you listen to because the more positive feedback we get from you, the more people we can influence in a positive way. And if you're a long time listener, I just wanna say thank you. You know how grateful I am for coming on, for hearing the content that I put together, for engaging with the content that I I put together because I put this content to help you. And if you're new to our show, thank you for joining us. I'm excited that you've joined us, and I hope you find this episode valuable because I put this content together to help you be the very best sales professional you can be. Welcome to the show, Ricky.

Ricky [00:03:31]:
Thank you for having me.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:03:32]:
Yeah, man. Pretty pumped. And, just for our listeners who might not be watching this right now, and one of the things that you'll learn about Ricky when I when I push you to his LinkedIn profile is some of the content that he shares, he shares content talking about topics around outbound and a whole variety of different sales topics walking on his treadmill, and Ricky is actually walking on his treadmill now. So for Ricky, I am proud to say you are the 1st guest that have joined us on the SalesIQ podcast, walking and talking, mate. So welcome to the SalesIQ podcast.

Ricky [00:04:02]:
Thank you. So it's a great walk and talk, right? Do have interesting conversations and to try and get healthy at the same time. We've got to multitask here.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:04:10]:
Gotta multitask. That's right. Especially if, you know, we're in sales, man, and we're working long long hours, and we're we're doing what's needed to get the job done. But, mate, I wanna say thanks for jumping on. But before we get into today's topic and talk all things outbound and how we turn on an outbound strategy so that we can create more pipeline for ourselves,

Ricky [00:04:26]:
Yeah.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:04:26]:
Tell us a little bit about how you started in the wacky world of selling.

Ricky [00:04:30]:
I think sales really started with me developing the sales attributes, like being a salesperson, and it really, I think, is one of those origin stories. Like, I was super naughty as a kid, and I'm talking, like, you know, very, very young, very early days, getting into things I shouldn't do, and I think I learned how to convince people, how to convey a story, how to get out of trouble. I think that was really the first thing I started selling. And, you know, that kind of taught me the attributes. It wasn't what I loved, though. That's the tactics. I loved the strategy of it. And when I started my own businesses, I realized the product part is actually pretty easy.

Ricky [00:05:09]:
You can have a good product. Now what? And as a business owner, most of the time, I spend selling. Yep. But that's what you have to do as a founder, as a business owner. You're either selling the vision, you're selling the mission, or you're selling the product. Mhmm. And, really, that just, you know, developed into me falling in love with sales, sales processes, and developing that as

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:05:30]:
my superpower. Yeah. Awesome, man. And do you mind me asking, you talk about those attributes. What are the attributes that you define that make up a sales professional?

Ricky [00:05:39]:
Yeah, it's a tough one, and I can give you all of those standard wanky terms of, like, empathy, you know, resilience. But, you know, there's a mix, and I don't think there's any 1, 2, or 3. You know? I think some of it is, like, resilience is definitely one of it, but strong mental fortitude, emotional maturity, knowing where your weaknesses are and being able to compensate, knowing where your strengths are and being able to play to them. Like, I think those are things that are really underrated. Yeah. You could be shy. You could be quiet. You could be introverted.

Ricky [00:06:13]:
You could be extroverted. You could be dry, or you could have, like, a very flamboyant sense of humor. Like, all of those can work if you know how to use your attributes. And I

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:06:23]:
think you're interested, but I but I think what you said like, I I really like that. I've never actually had that sort of conversation with anyone, a response. But I think understanding your strengths and weaknesses, I think, is a really, really important is an important point you make for sales professionals because you're right, the extrovert introvert, one isn't better than the other. I know early in my career, it was the extrovert, the the flamboyant, the outgoing personality was what a lot of people looked for. Right?

Ricky [00:06:52]:
Yeah. And that's like your classic salesperson, like, on the floor. Yeah. You know, like, you're in retail. You're talking to a 100 people a day. Like, maybe maybe better to be extroverted there. But as soon as you're beyond that Yeah.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:07:03]:
But I think I think the reality though, as we've as we've as the profession has evolved Yeah. Data literacy, search, like, when we think about some of these key attributes, these weren't things that people looked for 20 years ago. It wasn't something data literate. Or what does the sales team need to be data literate? But But today, data, understanding data, being able to look through data, being able to turn data into insight and education is absolutely fundamental.

Ricky [00:07:29]:
It is a very different ballgame, the skill sets you need to be a successful sales professional these days. You know, I mean, out like, talking about outbound specifically, you know, you come to the sales world, and, all of a sudden, you're looking at, like, the technicals of email configuration and server configurations so that that email can even be delivered.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:07:49]:
Yeah. You

Ricky [00:07:50]:
know, things have generally shifted. It used to be that that loose lipped, fast tongue kind of salesperson who could talk you into a petal. But now it's how sophisticated is your writing? You know, can you construct a good email? Can you put together a good document, a good briefing? You know, how well can you articulate someone's problem in a business case, in a well structured business case? Like, it is a lot more sophisticated, and the skill sets required have completely shifted.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:08:17]:
So this is awesome, man. And I think I think we're gonna have a really lot of fun in in in the time that we've got today, Ricky, and I've been been pumped to be able to to share some of your concepts with my listeners. But I just wanna talk a bit about why my listeners should really think about your point of view. So at at at the moment, you run Pointer. Yeah. Can you tell me or can you tell us exactly what Pointer do? Because I think that'll bring to life exactly why

Ricky [00:08:42]:
Sure.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:08:42]:
I've brought you on to talk about outreach.

Ricky [00:08:44]:
So, I mean, Pointer has this great like, this origin story of really trying to help people.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:08:49]:
Yeah.

Ricky [00:08:50]:
It used to be good enough that you could be the best mechanic in an area, and your workshop would be full. Right? You just had to be good at doing something or have a good product. Yeah. Nowadays, if you don't understand, you know, how to advertise on Meta and on TikTok and how to do all all of these other sophisticated sales and marketing motions, your business might fail. Yeah. And so I wanted to help businesses thrive. I understood how to do sales, I understand how to do outbound, how to start conversations, particularly that top of funnel, those early stages within a business. And, if I could help people overcome those barriers and help them thrive, then I can thrive too.

Ricky [00:09:30]:
And this could be like a win win situation for everyone. I get to do what I'm passionate about and help people fulfill their dreams, which is incredible. So we start at Pointer. It's focused on that top of funnel, that outsourced business development, outsourced sales development rep kind of a role where we're doing the real dirty work, that grind that most people don't want to do, the cold emails, cold calling, cold outbound in general, starting conversations with people who could use our customer's products.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:10:03]:
Yep. Okay. So I hope that brings for all my listeners, man, I hope that kind of shares exactly why we've got you on. Right? Because that's your business. You people outsource the business development function to you so that you can create top of funnel pipeline for them. Yeah?

Ricky [00:10:20]:
And now we've seen this across every industry, every from service of, like, small to medium businesses within health care through to massive SaaS, you know, tech start ups in every industry. So, like, we really understand now, and we've developed this expertise around how to how to build that function well. Yep.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:10:39]:
Alright. So this is good. Right? So I wanna now, I wanna take 2 scenarios. The first scenario is, because you're working across different different sectors and you're applying your own methodology, the scenario I want us to to walk through is a campaign that you might have recently executed or recently run for a client Yeah. That delivered results. Can you walk us through your process, your playbook, you know, what you did to get to get use Outreach as a mechanism to drive more pipeline. Sure. Where did you start?

Ricky [00:11:11]:
I'll start off by saying there's no magic Yeah. In in business development, right? That's what everyone's looking for. They're looking for some pill that they can take that takes the pain of outbound away, and it just doesn't exist. Right? Like, there's a human problem to outbound, which is that we don't like rejection, and there's a lot of deep psychological concern like, challenges there. There's also a massive technological issue now that you could be fine with all of that, but if you can't get your email to land in an inbox, it's like, you know, I don't know what p rating you have on this podcast, but it's like pissing into the wind, right? Like, you're just you're getting nowhere. So when we set up a campaign, we've got a standard methodology, a very simple playbook of who do you want to talk to, Who has a problem that you can solve? Yeah. And we spend a lot of time on that because if you get that right, you know, like, if you come and say, Hey, Ricky, do you need a home loan? And I don't need a home loan, you could talk to a 1000000000 Rickies who don't need home loans and you're just spinning your wheels, getting nowhere, or you could talk to me when I've just bought a piece of land and I'm considering building, you know, and saying, Hey, I assume you're going to be building soon. You know, what are your finances like? Do you need help? All of a sudden, you're in a conversation, right? So if you find the right person at the right time, everything else is easier.

Ricky [00:12:32]:
Yeah. So, we've always got to start with who do we want to be talking to, whose problems are we solving. And the more detailed, the more nuanced, the deeper we go there, the more successful the campaign is always, you know, right? Now, we're going to say, alright, these are people I want to talk to. What are we going to be saying to them? Like, what's the message? Now, obviously, there's technical issues, there's a lot of challenges in that list build. Now, there's the messaging, the marketing issue. What are we going to say? Most founders come to us that want to talk about the product, and so we have to start them off saying, nobody wants to talk about you. They wanna talk about themselves. So let's Yeah.

Ricky [00:13:09]:
Let's flip this. Let's talk about the problem that you're solving. Like, hey, Ricky. I assume you're gonna be building, you know, this is going to be the biggest expense in your life over the next 30 years. Yeah. If we could help take some of that pressure off you by getting you better rates, would that be interesting? I'm like, that's interesting to me. I don't know what your interest rate is. I don't even what the product is yet.

Ricky [00:13:31]:
You're just saying, hey, if I can make this less stressful for you, would you be interested? So, that messaging is super important. And once you have that messaging, it's like, well, how are we going to have this conversation? Is it over email? Is it over LinkedIn? Is it over a phone call? But you've got various channels to have the conversation. No.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:13:48]:
It shouldn't go back. This is actually really good. Right? So I'm I'm I'm gonna break this down I'm gonna break this down step by step. So the first step that you're you're talking about is really understand defining your target market first. Really giving consideration to the target market and who within that market that we wanna be talking to and why. Right?

Ricky [00:14:06]:
And build up from there.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:14:07]:
Yep. Then the second step is all about understanding message. So problem v product. So instead of going out with a product and saying, this is what we do, let's actually focus on the problem that you help people solve. And the 4th step is all around your channel assessment. Which channel are you gonna be using and leveraging to engage with your target market? Yeah. So I'm I'm liking how, you know, you're stepping this out. But I just wanna go back a step because I think something that you said earlier on when we were speaking about that data literate sales professional

Ricky [00:14:41]:
Yeah.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:14:42]:
You spoke about email structuring, service structuring, and I I see this a lot like yourself, companies not setting themselves up to actually get their emails to deliver. Uh-huh. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Can you just talk us through the the step 0? Let's call it step 0. Right? Yeah. What do we need to do to set our systems up to ensure the emails that we do finally pressed when we press send get through to the other person.

Ricky [00:15:15]:
This is just something everyone's getting wrong. Here's the concept. Spam, phishing emails, scams is like a multi, multibillion dollar problem in this world. So companies like Google and Microsoft are constantly trying to solve that problem and make their inboxes better experiences. So, essentially, they are on a war against unsolicited email. Yeah. There's laws competing, there's a whole lot of challenges there. So this is an uphill battle, and it's a moving feast at the same time.

Ricky [00:15:44]:
So, at the moment, you have to be technically perfect to get emails delivered to the inbox. If it's going through to spam, you might as well not send it. If it's going to the promotions folder, like, your success rate is your promotions folder is the new spam folder. Right? You have to be in the inbox. Yeah. And this is now a criteria of sales, is get your emails into the inbox. So you have to be looking at things like your technical service side, your DKIM, your SBF, your DMOG. These are very technical things that have to be configured right in order for your emails to be delivered.

Ricky [00:16:17]:
On top of that, you've got volume issues, you've got language issues. So, this isn't just a technological problem. There's also how your people interact with those emails. Do they just bang out 50 in an hour? Yeah. Right? Or do they send a 1,000? You know, like, Gmail, technically, the limit is 2,000 emails a day. I can promise you now there's no inbox sending out 2,000 emails a day that are getting delivered. So there's a people problem, and then there's a procedural problem. And, again, how are companies structured to make sure that the emails that these new sales reps are sending don't have spam words in it? You know, like, they'll say, like, hey.

Ricky [00:16:53]:
You know, like, you don't even realize what the spam words are because that wasn't a skill set that a salesperson needed to know. Yeah. Maybe the marketing manager might know because they've been sending emails for decades, but this now has to filter through to the sales team. So there's a whole lot of people challenges, process challenges, and technical challenges now Yeah.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:17:11]:
At ground 0. Okay. So we're at step 0. You've now blown the mind for many of the sales professionals listening to this going, what the hell is Demark, DK, this, that, and the other. Right? So

Ricky [00:17:22]:
Yeah. Before look. I know

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:17:23]:
this is not the episode where we're gonna go technically into this. Right? But can you maybe share a a a a URL that you've shared previously

Ricky [00:17:30]:
Sure.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:17:30]:
That if salespeople wanna check if their emails have got spam words, if there are any issues with their emails, what's a URL they can use to check

Ricky [00:17:40]:
Sure. We we can drop some in the show notes. There's, like, Mail Tester, Mail Genius, Mail Meteor. Yep. All of these free services literally takes you 5 minutes and can change the course of your the trajectory of your of your career because it's a difference between success or failure if your messages are being delivered or not.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:17:58]:
Awesome. So we're gonna put those in the show notes. I think they're and and I use them all the time. Right? So so for for for all my listeners, this is actually really important stuff. Right? We've got a we've got a when we talk about the the the that planning and is the foundation for success. Right? So before we start executing, we've got step 0. We're gonna just make sure that we've got everything set up in the background so that we can give out we can increase the chances of success. So step 0, set your structure up right.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:18:26]:
Step 1, define your market and be very clear on who you're gonna be engaging with. Step 2 is defining the message, making sure that it's problem focused versus product so that you're not pitching your features.

Ricky [00:18:38]:
It it it has to be relevant. Right? That's the most important thing. Like, everyone's very hyper focused at the moment on personalization. Hey, Luigi. I heard you you like to use this particular product in your hair. By the way, what are you doing for your HR payroll solutions? You know, like, that's personalized, but it's not relevant. So that messaging is is key as well. Absolutely.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:19:01]:
But Yeah. So we show them we know them, and we make sure it's relevant. Right? So the personalization connects to relevance. Then step 4 is we're gonna check out our our channel. So which channel are we gonna be using? Obviously, we advocate an omnichannel approach. Once we do that For sure. What's the next step that we have to execute on when it comes time to running an effective outreach strategy?

Ricky [00:19:22]:
So so we start looking for conversion. And, at the moment, we've made assumptions. We've made assumptions on the audience, we've made assumptions on the message, and then we've made assumptions on the channel. Because we're doing omnichannel, we're calling 1st, are we emailing 1st, are we starting off fast and slowing down, are we starting slow and speeding up? There's a whole lot of different things. And when you add these variables together, there's, like, 10 variables on your audience and 10 variables on your message and 10 variables on your cadence, all of a sudden, you have a 1,000 different variances here and different options of how this is all configured. So now, we want to go through a scientific approach of maximizing conversion. So we start off slow, You know, we start off, like, send 10 emails. Did we get a response? No? Maybe tweak.

Ricky [00:20:10]:
Alright? Send another 30 emails. Did we get a response? Was it positive, negative? Tweak, tweak, tweak, and keep tweaking until you've got the channel right. You know, what we'll find, for example, is we'll start off a campaign, and we're realizing emails aren't working on this campaign. Calls are killing it. Right. Let's do more calling, less emailing. Right? Like, these are the these are the things that we do to start maximizing. So we're changing the cadences, tweaking the message, and looking for refinements within that audience.

Ricky [00:20:41]:
So, at the same time, we're trying to lift them all up, make a tighter fit, a tighter fit, a tighter fit, and just keep optimising that campaign. And once that campaign is running smoothly, effectively with high conversion, we pick up the second ICP. Alright, great. So now we were calling this market for this particular pain point. Let's try now and pick up the next one.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:21:03]:
So you're hyper personalizing, and you're segmenting You can be very laser focused. And then once you've got the conversion outcome, you then migrate to other ICPs. So I'm absolutely loving this content. Do you mind sharing the importance with our group of your data? So when you've built your ICP and your buyer persona, you know, why they should be really thinking about using data enrichment tools to build that list out so they have the relevant contact info.

Ricky [00:21:30]:
Data is like the, you know, data's the new the new oil. Yeah. It changes everything. So there's so many things that go into the data, right? So, firstly, there's just the accuracy of the data. Can I contact you by email, by LinkedIn, by your mobile number? And we have campaigns, for example, where mobile is 80% of the meetings we get booked will be off of mobile. Yep. But if I can't get people's mobile numbers, now I have to use e mail or LinkedIn or some of the other channels, and I know those are less effective channels. Yep.

Ricky [00:22:05]:
Finding the right data, it lubricates the entire motion. Within that data, there's different pieces, right? So, like, some data is easily relevant and targetable and achievable, and some of it's much harder and It might rely on a trigger or timing. Yeah. Right? So, for example, I use that I'm buying a house. Well, you could look at data. Hey, this person meets this LSM group. He earns roughly this kind of income, or he has this title. He's probably in the property market.

Ricky [00:22:36]:
He might fit our ICP. Like, that's not very tight. If you could go one level deeper to know that I purchased land, now you've got a much better data, right, because you're going to be targeting better. If you could go one level deeper to know that the house that I bought is clearly a knockdown, I'm going to be developing. Now, it's even more laser focused. Now, just off that data, you could hyper personalize and make this make it relevant without even knowing me. Hey, Ricky. I know you just bought some land.

Ricky [00:23:07]:
I'm assuming you're going to develop. Right? And that was still all on the research piece. You could probably go even one step further than that too.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:23:16]:
So this is good. So now we're talking about becoming more mature in the way that we approach this and look at the trigger events and intent data that allow us to really connect the relevant message to them and hyperpersonalize it even further. So I'm absolutely loving this. I think for all of our listeners, we've got from step 0, we're already up to step 7. Right? Right? And I love the fact that you talk about testing. Do you mind sharing, by testing a campaign or a cadence with a smaller sample group will yield a greater return over the long term.

Ricky [00:23:53]:
There there's 2 big pieces here, and you'll appreciate this. Right? So much of the sales advice comes out of the states. They're, like, hey, use this human assisted parallel dialer. You can make a 1,000 calls in an hour, and I'd be like, then who am I gonna call the next hour? Because that is my total market here in Australia. Right? Like, we don't have this we don't have this market size in most of these countries. Like, you can just send a 1,000 emails a day. I'm, like, and then I'll and what do I do next week? Like, do I just close-up my shop? I've spoken to everyone. They all said no.

Ricky [00:24:25]:
Like, find a new job, find a new business. So, like, you have to focus on quality in markets like this. It's more of an account based marketing motion Yeah. By default in a market like this, and conversion in outbound, because you don't know where they are in their buyer cycle. We'd make that assumption that 3% of the market at any given stage is in the market. They're ready to buy. Mhmm. So, if you spoke to 100 people, you should succeed with 3 of them.

Ricky [00:24:58]:
But 30 of them are willing to entertain the concept, And that's where the real value is. Can you convert up that extra 30 percent? Can you get them to engage with you? And it's all about maximizing that conversion and not spamming your TAM, your total addressable markets, and just churning through your TAM. Yeah. And companies get this wrong because they see, oh, my sales rep is getting me one meeting a day. That's what I expected from them. But what's the opportunity cost? How many people have said no Yeah. In order for them to get that one yes? Yeah. And is that hurting you in the long run? Like, are you bringing forward today, and it's going to and paying for it tomorrow? Yeah.

Ricky [00:25:40]:
So, increasing conversion is everything, and at the same time, as a business, you should always be interested in those noes. Because if a 1 in a 100 is saying yes to you, what about the 99? Because you build up those ones, right? You get 1 in a 100 say yes to you, you build up those into a 100 customers, and now you're getting feedback from these 100 customers, and you're working with your 100 customers to put information back into your product development, but there's actually a 100,000 who said no to you. Yeah. And if you could build in the features for them, if you could help understand their challenges, and you were going more towards getting more people to say yes, that's a much bigger market than the 100 you have.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:26:27]:
Absolutely. I love what you're talking about, right, because I think I think for for anyone that's in an it's just for everyone. Right? But I think, you know, as an individual contributor, there's only so many things that we can control. We can't focus on the things that we can't control. But, again, if I'm running and this is why I'm a big believer, quality over quantity. Right? Mate, I've shared my numbers with my audience, Ricky. I sit at around 15 to 25% of people that I reach out to, I'm gonna get into a a booked meeting. Yeah? Yeah.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:26:57]:
And am I doing a 100 outreaches a day? No. But I don't need to because I do what you say. Looking for trigger events. I'm trying to make sure it's relevant. The message is strong, and the point of view that I'm bringing to table, people wanna hear.

Ricky [00:27:12]:
You wanna work smarter, not harder. Absolutely. If you want to go from 10 to 20, and typically, there's a diminishing return on investments on effort. Yeah. Right? So to get that next 10 takes more effort than to get the 10 that you've already gotten, and to do the 10 after that is even more. So as a sales professional, if you're looking to grow, what's what's your only option? Do more, do more, do more, do more. It's bloody tiring, and you're going to burn out. But if you could do smarter and achieve more by doing less, now you've got efficiency.

Ricky [00:27:45]:
Yeah. Now you can scale. Now you can do well and thrive.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:27:49]:
So this is awesome, and I know we haven't gone into the tactical element of making that cold call structuring that email today. I think the fact that you've shared your blueprint of, hey, these are some of the key things that we need to do in order to set up an effective outreach strategy. You know, I know that we haven't got much time, but do you mind sharing with me sort of when you are coming up with that messaging framework, what are some of the, you know, what are some of the must haves in your messaging framework? I know you said, you know, you've got to personalise, you've got to show relevance, but can you just give us an example of what that should sound like so that our listeners can kind of go, You know what, I've got the blueprint now, and here's even the structure that I should be using.

Ricky [00:28:30]:
I'll I'll go one level higher. So, firstly, like, we've built out the 7 process Yep. On this call. My actual to do list, when I set up a new outbound, is a 197 tasks, right, and 12 different stages Okay. Which we achieve normally over 2 to 3 months. Like Yeah. There's a lot that goes into this. So when we're talking about emails, here's some of the things that we do a bit differently.

Ricky [00:28:53]:
Firstly, our first email, we'll normally have 4 or 5 different variants going out. Why? Yep. Well, because we're testing. I you know, I'm not a magician. I can't tell you which is gonna be the best message over time, maybe, but we're testing. And so we can put different structures. It actually makes it easier, because if you have to choose a perfect email upfront, it's very hard. But if you just have to choose your best 5, well, it's actually a bit easier.

Ricky [00:29:18]:
So we'll put in 5 variants upfront. That also does something else incredibly important. It reduces the amount of the same emails going out from your servers or being received by servers, because that same email going out on mass gets flagged as spam. Each email being unique increases delivery. So, we'll always write 5 of the first email, 4 of the second email, 3 of the third because, presumably, as people are moving through our cadence, they're getting converted, yes or no's, and so less of email 4 is going out than email 1, as an example. Yeah. So, that's something we always do in our emails. In terms of the actual wording, I am massive.

Ricky [00:30:01]:
There's 2 things I'd do. Go click on your spam folder. Right now, you look at your spam, read all of those emails. Whatever those say, don't do that.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:30:12]:
Yeah. We've got heaps of grating. That's right. You're right. I love this. Like, you have examples of what not to do in your junk folder. Right? Yeah. Looking at I'm gonna go to mine right now.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:30:22]:
Right? Because I I do this when I'm running courses.

Ricky [00:30:24]:
And it changes. So at the moment, the things that used to work for us in outbound that were new and novel don't work anymore because it's now been picked up internationally. It's now everyone's doing that, so now that's all what's that's being seen as your typical spammer. So you've gotta be different.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:30:40]:
Yeah. Absolutely. I've got this. The the the Philippines' booming economy are driving more Australian. Then I open it, and it tells me, do I want outsourced people, blah blah blah blah. I've got, mate, heaps of these emails in my in my in my junk folder, so that's a great strategy for anyone.

Ricky [00:30:57]:
So there we go. That That's what not to do. So what to do, I like to think like this. Firstly, what kind of an email do I want to receive? Right? Like, I'm a human. I'm a person. I'm a busy professional. So are you. So are the people I'm trying to contact you.

Ricky [00:31:11]:
What do they wanna receive? And, honestly, I I just want it to be short. I want it to be sharp. I want it to be the point. I don't want it, like, all of this wanky different, like you know, we've been renowned in this whole company history, So we keep it as short as possible. You know? Hey, Luigi. You're building out some incredible stuff with SalesIQ. Listen to your recent podcast that had, you know, talking about had Todd Gavoni on, bloody inspirational, loved that mountain, whatever. I might not even go into that much detail, but just to show you that I'm not some person like that email you just read, outsourcing from the Philippines.

Ricky [00:31:49]:
So, just one line. And it doesn't matter what that one line is. I'm just saying, hey, Luigi, I'm a normal person here in Melbourne. Yeah. That's all I want you to read in my first line. I can't say that, Yeah. But that's what I want you to know. And then I'll just go straight into it.

Ricky [00:32:04]:
You know? Like, how are you getting this, or how are you doing that, or you're probably struggling with this? 65 words, 125 words is maximum, yeah, and signed off simply, we normally use no signatures because it decreases delivery, but that's all into the technical stuff. Yeah. Super simple messaging.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:32:23]:
And I love that. And you know what? You know, I'm a big fan of Will from Lavender who shares some incredible tips on LinkedIn. Exactly. He's been on our, show before. So

Ricky [00:32:32]:
That would be my my exact thing. Like, I'm not the email I'm not the writing expert. No. We've got a copywriter on our team. But you can use lavender. You could write your own message. But if you're using a scientific approach of optimizing, then it doesn't really matter what your message is because each week, each fortnight, each month, you're just going to make it better and better and better.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:32:51]:
Do you know what? This is one of the things that I look, as much as I love Will from Lavender, he talks about 50 words, 11 seconds, mate, I've sent emails that are a 100 words, but because they're very personalized, it's very relevant. I've got my meeting. And and then we see levels. I've got one I've got one coming up. Yeah. 15 minutes that I reach out to the chief commercial officer, and I got the meeting. Right? And it wasn't dim. It wasn't 50 words.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:33:14]:
It was about 80, 90 words. Okay?

Ricky [00:33:16]:
There's huge cultural things. A lot of the advice that everyone's getting from these American gurus, and they are exceptional, and maybe in 2 years' time, we'll need to be following that advice. Culturally, things are different in every country, and you have to be relevant for that country. When I'm prospecting into Japan, if I tried a 65 word email, I'm not getting a response. I could write a 1,000 word email in Japan, and if it's relevant and to the right person, they will read every single word of it and compose a formal response.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:33:47]:
But you you're absolutely right. But in saying that, by prospecting to the US, I don't always follow the 50 word rule, and I get meetings. Because, again, for me, I'd rather demonstrate because I'm not doing mass volume, I'm going, hey. You know, I've I've, you know, I've got a recent one that I said, hey. I've just understand x. I also noticed your competitor is growing x, you know, in a this total addressable market. This is what they're doing. I think there's a way for you to achieve x.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:34:15]:
Ban, chief revenue officer, responded within about 8 minutes. Amazing. When do you wanna meet? Right. So we could talk about this for hours, Ricky, and I think we've got another episode which we're gonna have to get you on. And you know what, mate? I don't have a lot of people that come on twice onto the Sasaki podcast. I think we've only ever had 2 people come in our show twice, but I think you're a candidate to come on. But

Ricky [00:34:34]:
Oh, jeez. That would be that would be an honor. Yeah.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:34:36]:
And this time, time, he'll be running, folks. He'll be running on the

Ricky [00:34:38]:
street. He'll be going 6 and a half kilometers at least.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:34:42]:
Hey. Just before we wrap up, where's the best place for our listeners to engage, find? How can they find you and your walking content? What's the best place?

Ricky [00:34:52]:
So pretty much on LinkedIn. Yep. Right? Like, that's the best way to to engage with me. I'm in a lot of the different sales channels. You know, if you can get my phone number off LinkedIn, phone me. Like, I always I appreciate a good cold call. Yeah. You know? That's that's how I do my recruitments.

Ricky [00:35:05]:
I, like, wait for good cold callers. I'm like, yeah. This person's good. Right? Hey. Is this call being recorded? Yeah. Yeah. We need you. We need you on the a team.

Ricky [00:35:15]:
But, yeah, LinkedIn's a great place to engage, and, like, I love it because I want to learn from I have something to learn from everyone as well.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:35:21]:
Yeah. Awesome, Ricky. Well, mate, I just wanna say, you know, obviously, we we're gonna put your LinkedIn in the show notes. I wanna say, man, I actually do value content. There's been a lot of useful URLs that I've picked up. You've given me food for thought when it comes to my outreach, and this is what I love doing what we do. Right? Because I am only scratching the surface of what's possible. And our listeners are on this listeners listen to this show every week because they're trying to be the best they can be.

Luigi Prestinenzi [00:35:47]:
So I wanna say thanks for the contribution you make to our community.

Ricky [00:35:49]:
Well, thank you, and thank you for the work that you're doing. Like, I've taken so much inspiration from your podcast, from the whole from the whole group. You know? I'd call it a group, but I could also call it an enterprise. Like, the people involved in your network are are changing the face of sales, and it's fantastic to be close to the action. Yeah. Well, thanks, Ricky. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Cheers.