Dan Martell - Doubling Down on The Models That Work with Vivek @ MovableInk.com - Escape Velocity Show #6

00:00:00.000 When you have something that works, you've got to squeeze out all the value that you possibly can.

00:00:03.840 And so we had a model, go to enterprise clients, talk about a use case that's meaningful,

00:00:08.280 get them successful, and keep iterating on that.

00:00:11.640 So the second year, we did $2.2 million in bookings.

00:00:15.320 Ignition sequence start.

00:00:17.260 Three, two, one.

00:00:19.100 Ladies and gentlemen, we're here with Vivek Sharma.

00:00:30.620 How's it going, man?

00:00:31.440 Good to see you.

00:00:32.040 Dude, so good to see you.

00:00:32.960 Old friend, Canadian, but New York City

00:00:36.260 running a large 50 million plus ARR SaaS company.

00:00:40.100 I'm not Canadian.

00:00:41.660 Are you not?

00:00:42.500 I'm not Canadian, yeah.

00:00:43.460 Why do I think that?

00:00:44.300 Because I'm nice.

00:00:44.960 Is that the thing?

00:00:47.840 I've never played hockey.

00:00:49.220 I thought it was Toronto.

00:00:50.560 I thought there was something there.

00:00:52.560 Maybe, did you ever say, I feel like an honorary Canadian?

00:00:56.320 I went to school in upstate New York.

00:00:58.300 That's it.

00:00:58.880 I feel like Toronto.

00:01:00.300 I don't know why my head just was like.

00:01:01.320 I've lived in the cold, and I went to a hockey school, RPI.

00:01:04.480 So maybe there was something there.

00:01:05.680 Yes, so if you know hockey, then you're Canadian, I guess.

00:01:08.880 Anyways, appreciate the time, man.

00:01:11.360 I'm super excited to see you again.

00:01:13.100 You as well.

00:01:13.720 Last time we saw each other, we were hanging out in Dublin.

00:01:16.500 Some amazing photos, man.

00:01:17.420 Skeet shooting. 0.65

00:01:18.140 Skeet shooting, Guinness in an Irish pub.

00:01:22.480 Always.

00:01:23.360 Yeah, just all the activities.

00:01:24.980 I'm still trying to.

00:01:25.800 It was a really SAS stock.

00:01:26.860 It was, yeah, SAS stock, and shout out to that,

00:01:29.640 if you guys get the chance to go, and the SAS Society.

00:01:33.420 Yes.

00:01:34.080 The second part, a lot of people didn't know about this,

00:01:36.020 but the secret two days, it was two days afterwards,

00:01:40.600 where I think it was kind of 3 mil, 5 mil AR companies

00:01:44.300 Plus got together and shared some cool founders,

00:01:48.320 like the Hotjar founders.

00:01:51.380 Is it Teamwork.com, that guy from Dublin?

00:01:54.300 Yeah.

00:01:54.880 And I want to thank you.

00:01:56.080 You did a cool panel with me and Mark Morgan

00:01:58.560 from formerly Eloqua, just on culture, company building,

00:02:03.980 the stuff you've learned.

00:02:05.240 I thought that was really fun.

00:02:06.340 It was a lot of fun.

00:02:07.360 I appreciate the opportunity, because I think you brought it

00:02:09.980 up, was it's easy to talk about strategies of doing stuff.

00:02:12.840 But at the end of the day, it's how

00:02:13.840 How do we deal with the hard stuff?

00:02:16.300 Which is why I wanted to create this show to talk about escape

00:02:22.000 velocity and building momentum.

00:02:24.760 Your journey, I believe it's getting close to a decade-ish?

00:02:28.400 Yeah, we'll be nine years old in October this year.

00:02:31.400 Eight and a half years so far.

00:02:32.600 So we met a long time ago.

00:02:34.000 And what was the product when you first started versus today?

00:02:38.160 I know it's evolved, but at the core, I feel like it's similar.

00:02:42.460 Yeah.

00:02:43.600 So Movable Inc. is the company I started.

00:02:46.180 We offer something called a visual experience platform.

00:02:49.060 And I'll get into that in a bit around category design

00:02:52.340 and naming a category.

00:02:53.800 But very early on, what we observed

00:02:55.640 was companies were sending out lots of emails.

00:02:58.280 And there are these email service providers

00:03:00.120 that can help them segment their lists,

00:03:02.440 get the email in the inbox, make sure they get delivered right.

00:03:06.220 But content was an afterthought.

00:03:08.160 No one was making sure or giving you

00:03:10.240 the tools to make sure the content was very tailored

00:03:12.520 for every single individual you're emailing to.

00:03:15.680 This was weird to us.

00:03:16.840 And we were like, why is no one else doing this?

00:03:19.360 Exact target, responses, the enterprise ESP, ET,

00:03:23.800 responses, Epsilon, Cheetah Mail.

00:03:27.340 This wasn't really the core focus.

00:03:29.200 And we built a technology that we thought

00:03:32.920 was kind of interesting, which allowed us to change emails

00:03:35.000 at the moment it opened.

00:03:36.360 So the second the email gets open,

00:03:37.700 we could detect context.

00:03:40.020 Whether outside, it's snowing outside,

00:03:42.180 you're in New York, it's 7 PM, you're on an iPhone.

00:03:45.360 And that was sort of the genesis of this.

00:03:47.400 And there were some early use cases that were pretty simple.

00:03:49.620 Such a great name for that.

00:03:51.060 Yeah, and the name was evocative,

00:03:52.920 so we put some thought into that.

00:03:55.240 The name we didn't go with, and it was a serious contender,

00:03:59.000 was Picklater.

00:04:00.740 We own Picklater.com.

00:04:02.300 So you could have been sitting here talking

00:04:04.140 to the CEO of Picklater, which would be really just lame.

00:04:07.180 And Movable Inc. just ended up being the thing,

00:04:09.460 and it has changed a lot.

00:04:11.520 So in eight and a half years today,

00:04:13.860 what this visual experience platform really does,

00:04:17.460 brands have a ton of data about their customers.

00:04:19.820 They have data about the state changes in their business.

00:04:23.040 It might be sitting in their CDP, or their DMP, or their CRM,

00:04:26.420 or they're using Pega for next best action,

00:04:28.760 or OfferPop for social content.

00:04:30.520 All these enterprise tools.

00:04:32.580 Yeah, we plug into all the stuff.

00:04:34.080 We can absorb any data.

00:04:35.680 We can tap into any live data source.

00:04:38.080 We can tap into any content source,

00:04:39.540 including your own website.

00:04:40.940 and intelligently combine it, activate the data,

00:04:43.180 and generate the perfect creative for you in that moment,

00:04:46.700 in the millisecond that you're engaging with it.

00:04:48.680 So what does an average deal look like for you guys?

00:04:51.140 Like, what's the size of customers you guys have?

00:04:53.060 So our customers do skew to enterprise or large mid-market.

00:04:57.660 So we've got brands like Hilton, American Express, The Gap,

00:05:01.940 Starbucks that we work with.

00:05:03.740 And then we've got some mid-market-y type of clients.

00:05:06.280 I know Columbia University was using us.

00:05:08.220 Warby Parker is using us.

00:05:09.940 Super cool.

00:05:11.980 Casper, I want to say, either we're talking to them

00:05:13.940 or they're using us.

00:05:14.940 So there's over 650 brands that we work with.

00:05:17.560 And so it varies.

00:05:18.760 But on the enterprise side, probably the smallest

00:05:22.000 we'd ever do a deal is maybe $30,000 or $40,000 a year.

00:05:26.080 But we have a great land and expand model.

00:05:27.820 So we can get the initial one or two really compelling use

00:05:31.480 cases, get one team live.

00:05:33.840 And then over time, this gets into the mid to high six

00:05:37.120 figures and even north of million dollar accounts.

00:05:39.400 We have several customers paying us.

00:05:40.980 There's one customer almost paying us $3 million a year.

00:05:43.280 So is that like when, I'm assuming,

00:05:44.920 you guys have kind of, do you do outbound sales, inbound?

00:05:47.780 What's the?

00:05:49.020 We've experimented.

00:05:50.160 We've learned a lot of stuff about everything.

00:05:51.980 Channel partners?

00:05:53.380 General partners.

00:05:54.080 Channel partners.

00:05:54.640 Channel partners.

00:05:55.400 Yeah, we've done it all.

00:05:56.740 We've tried it all.

00:05:57.900 And years ago, I read Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross.

00:06:01.520 And good dude, good book, wrong model for our business.

00:06:05.980 For sure.

00:06:06.480 So I think that works a lot more with more of an inside sales

00:06:10.080 team, BDRs, inbound lead qualification.

00:06:12.860 He's a good decision maker.

00:06:14.140 Eventually, where we ended up was ABM, kind of figuring out

00:06:17.560 before it was named.

00:06:18.800 But we have a direct sales team.

00:06:20.460 Somebody said that to me once.

00:06:21.780 They said, oh, it's like a named account sales process

00:06:26.520 before it was called ABM.

00:06:27.720 Yeah.

00:06:28.220 Yeah.

00:06:28.720 Isn't this what people used to do?

00:06:30.100 Sales people used to take you to the baseball game

00:06:32.100 and spend time with you and know who they're talking to.

00:06:34.100 Yeah, steaks and other stuff, yeah.

00:06:36.120 So you guys use an account-based marketing.

00:06:38.280 Do you mind if we dive into how you guys do it?

00:06:40.340 I'm just kidding.

00:06:40.880 I mean, what are those touch points?

00:06:44.060 If somebody's thinking of doing that,

00:06:46.480 how would you approach it, and what do you guys do?

00:06:49.020 Yeah.

00:06:49.300 So I think maybe the difference is there's

00:06:51.960 a lot more data that we analyze today.

00:06:54.680 So at the start of every year, last year, or two years ago,

00:06:57.920 it was the Inc. 1000.

00:06:59.100 We call it our, and we have our own nifty-fifty of dream

00:07:02.620 accounts that we're really going after.

00:07:04.620 And there's a good amount of data crunching that happens.

00:07:07.280 So you segment right off the bat, qualify.

00:07:09.940 These are the people.

00:07:10.440 We say these are good prospective customers

00:07:13.600 for Movable Ink.

00:07:14.460 So you use the Ink 1000.

00:07:16.020 The Ink 1000.

00:07:16.860 And there's some work that's done there.

00:07:18.620 We look at here's some key industries

00:07:20.700 that we've been really successful at.

00:07:22.180 They include retail, travel and hospitality, financial services,

00:07:26.440 and media entertainment and publishing.

00:07:28.500 And there's a little bit of art there, too.

00:07:30.240 There's people who can name accounts

00:07:31.920 that they just want to go after, and they

00:07:33.520 feel like they're big media accounts.

00:07:35.980 And we build that list in a little art, a little science.

00:07:39.140 And we come up with that.

00:07:40.000 And then we divvy that up into territories.

00:07:42.580 And so I think right now, I want to say maybe 40 accounts

00:07:48.360 is what an average rep has that they're going after.

00:07:51.960 And we make sure that's kind of refilled constantly

00:07:54.680 if things are coming out of it and we sell deals.

00:07:57.460 But we're far more effective because of a finite list.

00:08:01.640 What we found was we were running this engine that

00:08:04.340 was just hungry for more and more opportunities, more leads.

00:08:08.720 And if you look at the scale, you're

00:08:10.800 not going to find 20,000 companies that

00:08:12.560 look like a Starbucks.

00:08:14.580 And the inbound model just wasn't working.

00:08:16.520 And being more focused, giving reps fewer things to go after,

00:08:21.320 but making them more thoughtful about what that approach

00:08:23.780 was going to be like, yielded much greater results.

00:08:26.300 And would you divvy up industry per rep

00:08:28.340 so that they were going after similar types of accounts,

00:08:30.900 or just geography?

00:08:32.400 We haven't done that yet.

00:08:34.320 I think in the future, we might consider that.

00:08:37.440 But it's more geographically based right now.

00:08:39.480 And our reps do work with some accounts in this industry

00:08:43.220 versus that industry.

00:08:44.100 And you do geography so that if the reps get on a plane,

00:08:47.340 that they can essentially make their visits?

00:08:49.860 Yeah, it's a mix of, I wouldn't say it's pure outside sales,

00:08:54.600 but there are some emailing, some phone calls,

00:08:56.340 and then there's onsites.

00:08:57.600 We do see a lot of success in making sure,

00:08:59.640 having those on-site meetings.

00:09:00.840 For sure.

00:09:01.440 And we'll pull partners in.

00:09:03.300 So our partner program is something that's also

00:09:05.420 evolved for years.

00:09:06.400 I definitely want to come back to the sales

00:09:07.760 of how does the partner program work for you guys?

00:09:10.140 Yeah, years ago, we probably stumbled in.

00:09:14.480 So our first partnership, we stumbled

00:09:16.200 into our first partnership when I was invited

00:09:20.660 to the Cheetah Mail conference unofficially.

00:09:23.120 We were 10 people.

00:09:24.320 And the VP of sales said, just sort of walk in there,

00:09:27.360 walk the floor, keep a low profile, keep a low profile.

00:09:31.980 And it was a very exclusive event.

00:09:33.720 I remember they had celebrities and Mariah Carey

00:09:36.920 at their after party.

00:09:38.180 And it was just me and Ryan Pipkin.

00:09:40.720 You remember Pip?

00:09:41.560 I love Pipkin, yeah.

00:09:42.340 Yeah.

00:09:42.640 So he was our first sales rep.

00:09:44.420 And so the two of us just kind of walked the floor.

00:09:46.140 I think that's my, is that how we met, through Ryan?

00:09:49.180 Could have been the Engine Yard days.

00:09:50.900 Oh, wow, yeah.

00:09:51.680 So maybe that, and then through Ryan again.

00:09:53.420 So multiple points again.

00:09:54.900 You know a lot of people.

00:09:55.720 Yeah, yeah.

00:09:56.600 It turns out.

00:09:57.980 So we walked the floor.

00:09:59.000 We had these conversations.

00:10:00.300 We kind of crashed their conference.

00:10:01.560 And we started generating good business

00:10:04.840 and started to sell those.

00:10:05.940 And the next day, I meet with their VP of BD.

00:10:08.840 And he was a skeptic.

00:10:10.220 And then quickly.

00:10:11.040 So Cheetah Mail ended up being a technology partner,

00:10:14.400 in the sense that your product worked on top of Cheetah Mail?

00:10:17.520 Right.

00:10:17.780 We always felt like the ESPs.

00:10:18.940 OK, so there was no conflict.

00:10:19.440 You weren't trying to steal that customer.

00:10:20.360 We felt, we're not going to be an ESP.

00:10:21.880 We're focused on content.

00:10:22.980 But hey, could we partner with these guys?

00:10:24.480 Perfect.

00:10:24.840 And they were skeptical at first, and then they jumped in with both feet.

00:10:29.840 And back then, it was sort of a battle of giants.

00:10:32.780 The Clash of the Titans, E.T. was fighting Cheetah, which was fighting Epsilon and Responsis.

00:10:38.400 And Cheetah felt like they needed a weapon in their arsenal.

00:10:42.080 And we didn't know all this.

00:10:43.400 Suddenly, they were really interested in our company, and I negotiated a partnership, which was semi-exclusive for a year.

00:10:50.240 But I didn't really believe they'd be very active.

00:10:52.620 Most partnerships are just that on paper.

00:10:54.200 and they went all in.

00:10:55.640 I call them Barney Relationships

00:10:56.600 where you both agree to hug

00:10:57.540 but nothing happens.

00:10:58.460 Yeah, I like that.

00:10:59.880 Yeah, I like that.

00:11:00.920 That's usually biz dev.

00:11:02.040 Yeah, so joint webinar.

00:11:03.560 They gave us a platinum sponsorship

00:11:04.580 to their conference.

00:11:05.680 I did a talk at their conference

00:11:07.620 and it was like wall-to-wall people.

00:11:09.240 So I love that you did a joint webinar.

00:11:10.620 So you actually created some content.

00:11:13.000 They promoted it to their audience.

00:11:14.380 Yeah.

00:11:14.560 You delivered it.

00:11:15.240 I was interviewing, yeah.

00:11:16.120 I mean, people don't realize

00:11:17.200 a lot of companies

00:11:18.700 that could be distribution partners,

00:11:21.880 they just don't have content.

00:11:23.180 They don't have somebody

00:11:23.660 willing to present something.

00:11:25.280 Yeah.

00:11:25.780 And I just feel like it's so lightweight as just a strategy

00:11:28.420 to get your name in front of perfect customers, too, right?

00:11:32.100 Low commitment.

00:11:33.360 You can do this.

00:11:34.180 You should be out there speaking at as many things

00:11:37.700 that are complimentary.

00:11:38.520 And now we're doing that, too.

00:11:39.900 We have a vibrant partner network.

00:11:41.540 And we work with Curalate, and Pega, and BlueCore,

00:11:45.220 and you name it.

00:11:47.020 The joint stuff has turned out to work really well for us.

00:11:49.860 And then on the back end of the webinar,

00:11:51.520 You prompt them for a demo or reach out?

00:11:55.540 Yeah, that was an interesting one.

00:11:57.300 Cheetah Mail specifically, the client services teams

00:11:59.700 were our biggest proponent.

00:12:02.000 So it wasn't the sales team.

00:12:03.380 We kind of muck up a sales process

00:12:05.660 because they have a long sales process,

00:12:07.120 and selecting ESP is a big deal.

00:12:09.460 But their client services team needed to go into QBRs

00:12:11.700 and talk about something meaningful.

00:12:13.020 They didn't have anything for a little while,

00:12:14.720 and they were getting a little antsy about that.

00:12:16.400 And ET was eating their lunch a little bit.

00:12:18.220 Yeah, exact target, those that are not.

00:12:19.160 Exact target.

00:12:20.640 So we were the thing that they brought into every single

00:12:22.920 meeting.

00:12:23.240 And suddenly, we were just inundated

00:12:25.280 with all of these interested prospects.

00:12:27.620 And it was like you threw jet fuel on the business.

00:12:30.560 And we could barely keep up.

00:12:32.360 So that one-year exclusive worked out

00:12:34.100 to be a pretty good OK deal.

00:12:36.440 In retrospect, you're like, exclusive, no way.

00:12:38.980 But we didn't have the bandwidth to take on more than one ESP.

00:12:41.220 They needed you more than you knew it at the time.

00:12:42.840 We didn't know that at the time.

00:12:44.160 And then you capitalized on that.

00:12:45.780 And then, but what's cool is that you see the pattern.

00:12:47.560 And then it's like, as soon as the exclusive goes away,

00:12:49.180 you can get ready to.

00:12:50.440 Yeah, and then others got FOMO.

00:12:52.420 Because they were like, hey, how come move blank?

00:12:54.240 What is this thing?

00:12:55.180 Move blank.

00:12:56.120 How come Cheetah has it? 0.99

00:12:57.160 How come we don't?

00:12:58.840 And we got so much inbound.

00:13:00.520 Like Ryan Pipkin's strategy was to ignore emails

00:13:04.320 from prospects until someone bugged him enough.

00:13:07.300 Because he had such a high volume.

00:13:08.680 I thought this was crazy.

00:13:10.180 A little rude.

00:13:11.140 Yeah, when you're trying to create a pipeline,

00:13:12.500 he's like, let's just ignore them.

00:13:13.680 Ryan was just, you know, I'm going to eat all of this.

00:13:17.440 And that worked really, really well for us.

00:13:20.480 So we learned from that.

00:13:21.520 We started partnering with other ESPs.

00:13:23.800 And lots of things.

00:13:26.200 Resellers didn't quite work for us.

00:13:28.260 When you have a new product, you have to educate the market

00:13:30.460 on it.

00:13:31.960 If you've got a commodity, maybe a reseller can sell it

00:13:34.360 and explain it, or just flip a switch.

00:13:36.200 Return Path had that model with a lot of the ESPs.

00:13:39.040 But the explaining to the market what this new thing is

00:13:41.320 and how to use it.

00:13:42.200 It's a lot more involved.

00:13:43.060 Yeah, where we ended up today is around co-selling.

00:13:46.280 So we will never let a partner just sell us directly.

00:13:49.500 But we will pull them into a deal,

00:13:52.160 even if we're going it alone.

00:13:53.480 And sometimes there's-

00:13:54.380 You'll pull them into the deal as an ESP?

00:13:57.260 They could.

00:13:58.380 So there are other partners that we might pull in.

00:14:00.520 Sometimes it's the ESP.

00:14:02.220 But maybe they generate the opportunity for us.

00:14:04.340 But in other cases, we say we should involve your partners,

00:14:07.960 the technologies you're already using.

00:14:09.960 And that ends up being-

00:14:10.760 Oh, so if they already have the client,

00:14:13.420 so if they're using an ESP, you're saying, hey,

00:14:15.960 We'll proactively go in there.

00:14:17.000 We're going to connect into.

00:14:17.680 Why don't we talk to their account exec?

00:14:19.840 Yeah.

00:14:20.380 Because they know how to navigate the sale.

00:14:22.020 They know the ins and outs of that account.

00:14:23.420 Can you piggyback on top of their ProVenders list

00:14:25.780 and all that other stuff?

00:14:27.040 So American Express.

00:14:28.700 I just want people watching to know this is the good stuff.

00:14:31.500 Yeah, the financial services company.

00:14:34.160 We're a 10-person team.

00:14:36.440 And you'd be like, this is a nightmare.

00:14:37.580 We're never going to get in there.

00:14:38.460 They asked me for more due diligence

00:14:39.580 than any investor ever did.

00:14:41.060 We got walked into the door.

00:14:42.860 Ryan's wearing a MoveBlank t-shirt.

00:14:44.740 I have at least a button-down shirt.

00:14:46.740 I'm like, Ryan, what are you doing?

00:14:47.640 This is Amex.

00:14:48.960 And we sit down, and like 10 people come to our meeting.

00:14:51.940 We close the deal within 60 days of first meeting.

00:14:54.860 Incredible.

00:14:55.400 And this is because we were on Cheetah's paper,

00:14:57.440 and we streamlined some things.

00:14:59.600 And so there's some amazing things that can happen

00:15:01.320 when you have the right partner walking you in the door,

00:15:03.600 giving you some intelligence, being a coach,

00:15:05.300 and they've got a stake in the success of your business, too.

00:15:07.860 I find it fascinating.

00:15:08.580 I've never heard the strategy of if I've got an opportunity,

00:15:11.700 And I know that they have a technology already deployed.

00:15:14.820 And we integrate well to actually reach out to them

00:15:17.640 to co-sell together.

00:15:20.340 And obviously, you might give up some points on that.

00:15:22.340 But it's worth it to accelerate the deal

00:15:24.860 and to then also say, hey, who else do you

00:15:27.000 have that looks like this?

00:15:28.940 This is a very unconventional thing.

00:15:30.860 And going back 15 years, there can be only one.

00:15:35.500 You go into a deal, and there's wallet share,

00:15:38.040 and you've got sharp elbows.

00:15:40.020 And so we flipped that.

00:15:41.280 And the way we sell now, we embrace all of our partners.

00:15:44.200 We actively bring them in there.

00:15:46.400 And surprisingly, we've got a great thing with Persado going.

00:15:49.380 Surprisingly, there's a joint solution

00:15:51.360 that the sum is greater than the parts.

00:15:53.760 The clients love it.

00:15:54.600 The customers love it.

00:15:55.360 And it just juices the partnership.

00:15:57.600 They want the problem solved.

00:15:58.500 And they're like, this is great.

00:15:59.340 I've got two, three of my vendors working really well together.

00:16:02.340 You guys figure out the details.

00:16:03.480 And they're not fighting and telling me lies.

00:16:05.300 And they're talking back behind each other's back

00:16:07.740 to get rid of the piece of the pie.

00:16:09.600 How do you find those?

00:16:10.680 I mean, Ryan, just a stud, but how have you

00:16:13.860 found your other salespeople as you've grown?

00:16:18.000 Because I'm assuming sales cycles are long.

00:16:20.400 People can kind of talk the talk,

00:16:22.680 deliver no results for months, and it's just really tough.

00:16:26.480 What's your process today for recruiting

00:16:29.480 and making sure that they can actually get the job done?

00:16:34.760 Depends on the era or the stage that the company was at.

00:16:38.800 So early stage startup sales, I hired Ryan Pipkin

00:16:42.820 through a friend's referral.

00:16:44.980 I wanted someone who was going to be relentless.

00:16:47.260 Ryan had zero experience in enterprise sales.

00:16:50.200 He had been at, it was called AngelSoft.

00:16:52.420 I think it's called Gus now, which is a deal management

00:16:54.460 platform.

00:16:55.960 And when I hit up some friends, I

00:16:58.200 wanted someone who could figure out this path with me

00:17:00.300 and then be relentless.

00:17:01.120 So create the playbook with you, not somebody

00:17:03.920 that you just follow.

00:17:04.700 And in fact, the lack of knowledge sometimes

00:17:07.540 can be an advantage, because you don't think. 0.57

00:17:09.460 Ignorance. 0.99

00:17:10.120 Yeah, ignorance. 0.66

00:17:10.720 You don't know there's not a path here.

00:17:12.940 And sometimes you find that way through.

00:17:14.840 And so Ryan was awesome at this, and really scrappy,

00:17:18.220 and then like a machine.

00:17:19.320 The second something worked, he was off to the races.

00:17:21.680 And you sold most of the initial deals, I'm assuming?

00:17:24.300 The two of us sold together.

00:17:26.040 Ryan would tell me, would say, I gave away too much business.

00:17:29.740 And he was the real salesperson.

00:17:31.420 He gets a ton of credit for doing that.

00:17:33.120 But I was out there selling.

00:17:34.220 And then we were implementing our early customers, too.

00:17:36.980 So first year, we sold maybe, it was like nothing.

00:17:42.600 Our total revenue was like $12,000.

00:17:44.700 Our MRR was $200 a month in October of 2011.

00:17:49.140 And we're like, this is not a real business.

00:17:51.200 And then we sold a $6,000 pilot to DirecTV, a $12,000 pilot.

00:17:55.880 So this is a landing span.

00:17:56.940 So I'm a big fan of POCs, proof of concept.

00:17:59.780 Let's sell a pilot.

00:18:01.300 Don't try to go for the full enterprise deployment.

00:18:04.480 Get in one use case, right?

00:18:07.300 Because that'll just.

00:18:07.920 We had no real logos.

00:18:09.040 We had nothing really to go on.

00:18:10.160 It was hard.

00:18:10.700 It was a hard slog.

00:18:12.200 And then a couple of those click, and we say, you know what?

00:18:14.980 We've got to go all in on enterprise.

00:18:16.420 And like a couple of deals, we've

00:18:17.460 sold more than everything else combined.

00:18:20.260 Then we go all in, and then we're

00:18:21.460 closing one deal a month, two deals a month.

00:18:23.740 And suddenly, this thing started to really,

00:18:25.720 you know, there's 10 things that might not work.

00:18:27.520 And one of those things might not work,

00:18:29.100 and the whole thing, the sales process doesn't play out.

00:18:32.420 But when you have something that works,

00:18:34.340 You've got to squeeze out all the value that you possibly can.

00:18:36.880 And so we had a model, go to enterprise clients,

00:18:39.660 talk about a use case that's meaningful,

00:18:41.300 get them successful, and keep iterating on that.

00:18:44.660 So the second year, we did $2.2 million in bookings.

00:18:47.580 Wow.

00:18:48.200 So it was just Ryan, and I hired a chief revenue officer,

00:18:51.100 a brilliant guy, this guy Tim Bryan, who is at Castoro right now.

00:18:55.920 And we killed it, and then we kept doing that model.

00:18:58.960 So scrappy people.

00:19:01.840 So there was a good era.

00:19:02.960 And then things stopped working after a while.

00:19:05.840 We hired a bunch of people.

00:19:06.840 Was it because of the low-hanging fruit

00:19:08.080 that you took out of the market?

00:19:09.640 Because I see that sometimes.

00:19:10.900 They get too optimistic because it works really well.

00:19:13.080 And then it's like, oh, you got all the early adopters,

00:19:15.920 but now we got to cross the chasm.

00:19:18.880 We were successful in telling the story,

00:19:20.420 but we weren't equally successful in getting our clients

00:19:22.960 to adopt the really meaningful things.

00:19:24.640 So the client experience team had to mature as well.

00:19:29.340 Yeah, getting people activated.

00:19:31.340 So there's some trivial things we were doing for our early customers.

00:19:34.860 And over the years, we honed that up.

00:19:38.700 And so today, a lot of things happened.

00:19:40.380 There were industry seasoned salespeople, enterprise salespeople we hired.

00:19:44.180 It turned out eventually not to work.

00:19:46.080 They were used to selling.

00:19:47.400 The seasoned vets.

00:19:48.060 The seasoned vets.

00:19:49.020 Why didn't it work for them?

00:19:50.880 And I don't take anything away.

00:19:52.500 I think they're successful in other places.

00:19:56.020 I think Oren Hoffman writes about this, which is the different types of salespeople.

00:20:01.340 And there is a relationship-based seller.

00:20:03.520 And there's a more product-based seller

00:20:05.380 that, depending on your type of company, you might need more.

00:20:09.040 So what we were doing was a completely new type

00:20:11.880 of technology, a new type of market,

00:20:13.680 required real product knowledge.

00:20:15.900 And the seller even had to be pretty competent

00:20:18.620 in understanding the use cases and maybe demoing

00:20:21.340 the technology.

00:20:23.780 And that traditional type didn't seem

00:20:26.620 to be able to do these things.

00:20:28.120 Relationship is traditional.

00:20:29.280 The relationship was the more traditional.

00:20:30.280 Totally, because they don't want to get into the weeds

00:20:32.140 of the technology.

00:20:33.260 They just try to sell to the account.

00:20:35.180 But you're saying it's like the buyer

00:20:37.260 needs to be a sophisticated buyer,

00:20:38.800 because it's a very, it's innovation.

00:20:40.520 I mean, what you guys were doing was like,

00:20:42.420 the first time you see it, it does look like magic.

00:20:44.240 Like, how did that do that?

00:20:45.220 Why is that different for me than the guy?

00:20:47.000 It's like, oh, well, now there's this, you know,

00:20:48.760 the data's there, the device is like, all that stuff.

00:20:51.140 So it's like when you see something new,

00:20:53.300 then you almost need to guide them to the use case.

00:20:56.460 If not, it can just be too broad,

00:20:58.600 and then you don't latch on to something.

00:21:00.280 Yeah. One of the terms I use is a mental model. I like when sales reps have a mental model of how

00:21:05.840 the pitch is actually working and the elements that are at play. So if you have a rep, they can

00:21:12.180 look perfectly fine. They can go end to end in a sales deck and deliver it convincingly and

00:21:17.340 charmingly. But they don't really, if you go slightly off script, they don't really know

00:21:21.740 what's happening, what's happening under the covers. So we needed people who could pivot on

00:21:25.640 the fly, take a conversation wherever it needs to go,

00:21:29.200 and may not be the most eloquent, may not,

00:21:31.640 but they really know their stuff.

00:21:33.880 And that turned out to work really well.

00:21:35.500 So that mean that you hired people

00:21:37.200 that technically had more product knowledge

00:21:39.380 and then taught them the sales skills?

00:21:41.400 Yeah, yeah.

00:21:42.640 We have people pitch Movable Ink to us now.

00:21:45.020 We do a simulation when we interview.

00:21:46.760 And our successful sellers come in as BDRs, really.

00:21:51.020 There's a guy now running our US sales who was a lawyer

00:21:54.920 before he came to Movable Inc.

00:21:56.620 I didn't know what to do with him.

00:21:57.680 We hired him to be a BDR.

00:21:59.900 He crushed it, became an inside seller, crushed it,

00:22:02.760 became an enterprise seller, crushed it, ran a small team,

00:22:04.760 crushed it, and is now running US sales.

00:22:06.760 Wow.

00:22:07.860 So fast capacity to learn very quickly.

00:22:11.400 Even our worldwide sales head, he

00:22:13.420 was our first salesperson on the upsell team.

00:22:16.160 And just has shown this remarkable capacity

00:22:18.060 to grow, lead teams, understand motivations, all this stuff.

00:22:22.040 So we've grown reps really successfully.

00:22:24.700 And that's a model that, from BDR to STRAR,

00:22:27.680 is the more seasoned BDR.

00:22:29.200 What's a STRAR?

00:22:30.340 We call it a strategic account rep.

00:22:31.840 Walk me through.

00:22:32.420 I'd love it.

00:22:33.200 So BDR, then junior, senior.

00:22:36.760 Yeah, so we've got two types of teams.

00:22:38.560 There's an enterprise team, and there's a mid-market team.

00:22:41.120 The enterprise reps are called account executives,

00:22:43.480 and they have BDRs to support them.

00:22:45.840 And in the traditional SaaS world,

00:22:48.680 the BDRs are doing all the outbounding and cold calling

00:22:51.540 and just that, and they hand the lead

00:22:54.040 over the opportunity to qualify to the rep.

00:22:56.740 We look at all of our BDRs and STRARS,

00:22:58.900 which I'll describe in a second, almost like junior reps.

00:23:01.640 They're being groomed for the next level in their career.

00:23:04.360 So we don't want them just to do that,

00:23:06.100 not understand the mechanics of the client problem,

00:23:09.520 and how do you add value, and what

00:23:11.360 are the elements of making this industry successful.

00:23:14.860 So BDRs and AEs for the mid-market team,

00:23:17.500 we call them strategic account reps, which is basically

00:23:20.140 STRARS, and STRADS, strategic account directors,

00:23:23.940 on the enterprise team.

00:23:25.820 And that's been a really successful model.

00:23:27.900 And we've seen people regularly learn the ropes.

00:23:30.960 So does the star not have SDR or BDR?

00:23:34.920 They don't, no.

00:23:35.620 So they essentially manage the whole sales process

00:23:37.800 themselves.

00:23:38.580 They do.

00:23:39.280 And there can be some outbounding.

00:23:40.660 There is like getting the attention.

00:23:42.100 But we have the seller on the first conversation.

00:23:44.520 If you're lucky enough to get a VP of marketing at Starbucks,

00:23:47.880 you don't want your most junior person who's never

00:23:50.400 done this before.

00:23:51.120 You want to bring your A team there.

00:23:52.980 Bring the seller, bring a partner in, perhaps.

00:23:55.560 We do a lot of intel on the account

00:23:57.580 in advance of the first conversation.

00:23:59.520 We subscribe to their emails.

00:24:01.420 Oh, yeah, talk about that, because I thought it was awesome.

00:24:04.100 You essentially, do you guys do a report with that

00:24:06.960 for the industry or anything?

00:24:08.360 I mean, you guys have access to all their emails.

00:24:11.340 Yeah, there's a tool called MailCharts.

00:24:13.860 There was another one out there that you can get all the emails

00:24:16.600 sent by every single brand.

00:24:18.300 There's a company that goes out there.

00:24:19.540 So we can go look at this and look at the pattern.

00:24:21.340 With this campaign, we could have done this with this.

00:24:23.540 Yeah, and so we come in with ideas that are tailored to them.

00:24:25.840 So you're pitching solutions with their stuff.

00:24:28.060 We're solution selling, yeah, totally.

00:24:30.100 And the big focus now, we call them director-level objectives.

00:24:34.660 We don't want to go talk about our product.

00:24:36.280 We want to know, this director or this VP,

00:24:39.280 how are they being gold?

00:24:40.540 What are the key strategic initiatives for the company?

00:24:42.840 For their comp, their role.

00:24:43.780 For their comp, how do you get promoted?

00:24:45.340 The personal.

00:24:46.360 Yeah.

00:24:46.860 How does this make you look good?

00:24:47.380 How do we make you a hero?

00:24:48.640 And then we try to figure out, what

00:24:50.240 is the best use of our technology

00:24:51.500 to go connect to those objectives you own.

00:24:54.800 And the sales pitch.

00:24:56.000 So you pitch a solution that's going

00:24:57.620 to get them a fast win, so that you can look good,

00:25:00.440 and then you expand?

00:25:01.460 Is that like?

00:25:02.300 Yeah, there's been some debate and change over the years.

00:25:05.360 And we have a lot of data to indicate

00:25:07.320 that if you do what we call a meaningful or sophisticated

00:25:10.620 use case, and it's tied to a key strategic initiative,

00:25:14.480 the retention is off the charts, the net churn is off the charts.

00:25:17.360 Totally.

00:25:17.860 So you know that it may not be the bigger thing,

00:25:19.860 but it's the first thing.

00:25:21.640 Yeah.

00:25:22.140 Well, this could be the bigger thing.

00:25:24.100 But we don't want to have a trivial conversation

00:25:27.100 around putting countdown clocks in your email.

00:25:29.680 We want to aim for the bigger thing.

00:25:31.560 And maybe just to get you up and running,

00:25:33.820 we might do the smaller thing.

00:25:35.120 But we refocus you on the big thing constantly.

00:25:38.340 Because this is a thing I see in sales teams all the time,

00:25:40.780 where the countdown clock perfect example

00:25:44.040 would be the one thing they do that wows people.

00:25:47.580 But it really doesn't connect to a problem.

00:25:50.160 So there's a lot of sizzle.

00:25:51.640 And the more junior, this is the other thing,

00:25:53.340 the more junior you're selling to, the marketing manager,

00:25:56.560 they're like, I come in at 9, I want to leave work at 5.

00:26:00.140 What can I throw into my emails to make it perform better

00:26:03.100 and I don't have to think about?

00:26:04.460 So you can be deceived as a salesperson,

00:26:06.600 going, oh, they're really engaged.

00:26:07.720 They're going to sign a contract.

00:26:08.640 They do all of these things.

00:26:10.200 But then they churn out a year later.

00:26:12.340 Because they've done that, and they're like, this is fine,

00:26:14.200 but we don't know what the value is.

00:26:15.980 So rather than set that kind of expectation,

00:26:19.260 we try to make sure we're going high enough,

00:26:21.360 but not too high in the org.

00:26:22.540 Director level.

00:26:23.040 So director level is sort of perfect for us.

00:26:24.740 I love that.

00:26:25.160 Someone has some responsibility, has some ownership,

00:26:27.580 but you're not fighting for attention with the CMO.

00:26:29.500 So in the sales conversation, that's

00:26:30.680 part like you guys say to your salespeople, go find that.

00:26:34.100 Like if you don't have a director level objective,

00:26:38.660 is it kind of like part of what an opportunity requires

00:26:42.140 to be an SQL?

00:26:43.280 We're grading deals now.

00:26:45.420 Based on that.

00:26:46.180 Because to me, that's like, hey, that's the big thing.

00:26:49.380 It's the thing.

00:26:49.960 It's the quality of the deal.

00:26:51.520 And don't be selling trivial stuff.

00:26:53.280 And we're assigning grades and saying,

00:26:55.020 is this an A, B, or C?

00:26:56.800 And you might get a $200,000 deal.

00:26:59.580 But if it's a low quality, we're like,

00:27:01.500 do we really want that?

00:27:02.860 Yeah.

00:27:03.960 I give you one example.

00:27:04.960 Yeah, do share.

00:27:05.800 Because I think it's just the, as a founder,

00:27:09.540 it's having the fortitude, the discipline to say, hey, yeah,

00:27:13.240 we could get that.

00:27:13.980 But we know it's not going to be a great referenceable account.

00:27:17.020 It's going to have a high churn.

00:27:18.020 So we've got to be patient.

00:27:19.160 We need to really fight for the director of ..

00:27:21.720 In the early days, you kind of take what you get.

00:27:23.980 You've got to get the case study, the logo.

00:27:25.660 You've got to kind of build that up.

00:27:27.740 But later on, you start to really focus

00:27:29.840 on the quality of the revenue.

00:27:31.460 And a recurring revenue that retains and upsells at a high

00:27:34.760 rate is extremely important.

00:27:36.360 And you're going to give an example?

00:27:37.660 I didn't want to cut that off.

00:27:38.660 Of certain brands we know are going to churn,

00:27:42.060 we've got a couple of presidential candidates now.

00:27:43.940 as clients, which is great, which is exciting.

00:27:47.300 But we know if they're the winner or the loser,

00:27:51.680 they're not going to be spending with us anymore.

00:27:55.000 Is that from a resource point of view for you guys,

00:27:57.080 in regards to, hey, we could spend a lot of time

00:27:59.060 on this account, or we could go after a different account

00:28:02.540 and know that it'll stick around longer?

00:28:04.020 Is that why?

00:28:04.700 It's a resourcing thing.

00:28:05.740 It is a weight on our client services team

00:28:07.540 to work with accounts that one day may not be around.

00:28:10.040 So you've got to think about the lifetime value

00:28:12.140 of the customer, and is it worth that investment?

00:28:15.900 And I'll give you an example.

00:28:16.980 Mid-market accounts churn at a higher rate

00:28:18.740 than enterprise accounts.

00:28:20.480 But we still do it, one, because we

00:28:23.100 think there's a real mid-market business,

00:28:24.740 and it could be an acceptable level for us.

00:28:27.340 And two, it is a proving ground and a training ground

00:28:30.160 for our salespeople.

00:28:31.580 So we like that.

00:28:32.960 We don't want to give that up.

00:28:34.340 We have people go from BDRs to account execs,

00:28:36.860 to senior account execs, to enterprise strategic account

00:28:39.560 And just to go back to that, that is the career path.

00:28:42.200 You guys like to develop your sales team.

00:28:44.020 They'll start typically at a BDR level.

00:28:46.320 Yeah.

00:28:46.800 They don't always stick in sales.

00:28:48.140 So people, if you're just out of college, they can come in as a BDR.

00:28:51.880 But then, hey, they realize owning a quota isn't really for them.

00:28:55.800 But they're technical.

00:28:56.860 They can solve customer problems.

00:28:58.240 The client experience team makes sense.

00:28:59.780 Or they've shown some promise on the partner team, potentially.

00:29:03.840 And they could be good at BD or partnerships.

00:29:05.900 So there's multiple routes and paths open to someone.

00:29:08.440 And they learn the ropes, they learn our industry,

00:29:10.980 and they learn our products.

00:29:11.600 How many partners do you guys have today?

00:29:15.600 There are 130, I think.

00:29:19.640 And then in regards to how you guys

00:29:23.060 kind of farm those partnerships, do you guys

00:29:25.640 put together an editorial calendar for webinars,

00:29:27.800 joint webinars, speaking at their events, booths and stuff?

00:29:31.560 What's the implementation of the playbook for you guys

00:29:35.440 for a partner?

00:29:36.060 Yeah, there are probably three categories of partners

00:29:38.200 that we have.

00:29:39.200 First, we do work with the ESPs and marketing clouds.

00:29:41.520 So we work with Salesforce, we work with Oracle,

00:29:43.300 with Epsilon, with Cheetah, Digital.

00:29:46.580 That's one class and there's clearly value

00:29:48.740 and that's where we cut our teeth initially.

00:29:50.860 Then there are technology companies that,

00:29:54.320 remember, when we plug into data sources that are unique

00:29:57.580 and provide the intelligent creative layer on top of that.

00:30:00.820 So we're a value add on top of a data set

00:30:03.680 or an API provider you already have.

00:30:05.520 So Pega, OfferPop, Carolate, BlueCore, BounceX,

00:30:09.020 you name it, Telium.

00:30:09.900 You're the use case for their data.

00:30:11.420 Yeah, we can be really compelling.

00:30:12.900 So that makes a ton of sense for us.

00:30:14.620 But there's a much higher volume of those types of companies.

00:30:17.280 But we have a game plan for those.

00:30:19.540 And then lastly, there's agencies and marketing service

00:30:21.660 providers that are building on top of our platform,

00:30:25.680 delivering value, and services-driven businesses.

00:30:28.660 So they're bringing opportunities in as they

00:30:30.460 work with clients.

00:30:31.200 Yeah, and they want to do more meaningful things

00:30:32.920 for their clients and improve their marketing program.

00:30:34.920 So Digitas or Dentsu in Japan's been a really good one.

00:30:39.400 The big agencies.

00:30:40.280 And for you guys, is it 50-50 in regards

00:30:42.860 to generated opportunities from partners

00:30:45.320 versus your own named accounts or ABM?

00:30:48.140 Yeah.

00:30:50.320 The generated opportunities, I couldn't tell you off the cuff.

00:30:52.820 I don't know why companies don't.

00:30:54.780 I mean, from a CAC point of view, they're efficient.

00:30:57.920 They can get you, like, your first year.

00:30:59.460 Like, you can bring a windfall of really good logos.

00:31:02.960 It's not always just opportunities generated.

00:31:04.720 We also look at influenced by.

00:31:07.500 And in the early days, it's a softer and fuzzier description.

00:31:11.900 So CFOs like hard lines, like do they generate the opportunity or do they not?

00:31:16.260 But having an ESP or a technology provider whisper in the ear, give you some intel on what's important to the client.

00:31:23.340 So they're helping you navigate the sale.

00:31:24.580 And we have the data to show that our win rates double and our average selling prices increase significantly when we involve a partner.

00:31:31.500 And there's a good reason to proactively do this,

00:31:34.680 even if you think you got it.

00:31:35.760 I mean, this is like, even if you have somebody

00:31:37.560 to be able to walk you through, almost act as a champion

00:31:40.460 or a coach in the deal because they've sold,

00:31:42.860 it's like, oh, you need to talk to Mark in IT.

00:31:45.180 You talk to Jane in procurement.

00:31:47.440 Yeah, I'll give you one example.

00:31:48.780 Amex, years ago, Cheetah said, it was like a throwaway statement

00:31:52.300 that the VP of BizDev said, hey, you know,

00:31:54.640 you might ask Amex to prepay for a year.

00:31:57.560 I don't think they'll have an issue with that.

00:31:58.560 And we're like, really?

00:31:59.040 That would be awesome for a cash-starved startup.

00:32:01.560 Yeah, yeah, yeah, no cash rich.

00:32:03.060 We asked, and they had zero problem with that.

00:32:05.160 And we're like, this is like one little sentence

00:32:08.260 changed the value of that account for us.

00:32:10.600 So it's stuff like that that we learn.

00:32:12.320 I think that's not as obvious to a lot of founders.

00:32:14.860 Again, people watching 2 million trying to get to 10.

00:32:17.920 One thing that you shared with me

00:32:19.340 is you guys do the customer conference, right?

00:32:21.460 Yes.

00:32:21.840 You've done it two years now?

00:32:23.580 We've done it now three years.

00:32:25.680 Three.

00:32:25.980 And this year, it'll be our fourth one.

00:32:27.340 It'll be fourth.

00:32:28.100 And what have you learned about that in regards to,

00:32:33.500 I just assume there's all these values.

00:32:35.980 You've got this timeline, this artificial timeline

00:32:38.280 from a product point of view, because you

00:32:39.880 want to be on stage to announce the new stuff.

00:32:41.540 You've got this reason for connecting

00:32:44.080 with prospects that are in a pipeline, invite them out.

00:32:46.400 You've got customers you can put on stage that are going to.

00:32:49.940 I feel like Dreamforce has always, and HubSpot's

00:32:52.460 done a great job at Inbound.

00:32:53.860 What have you guys, what are the things

00:32:56.280 that you do that gets you big ROI from your customer

00:32:59.880 conference.

00:33:00.720 Events have been awesome for ROI for us.

00:33:02.880 And it started very organically from our client services team,

00:33:06.060 in fact, not even our sales team, going out to visit a city.

00:33:09.280 And we'd get a bunch of our customers together for a dinner.

00:33:11.780 So it'd be like 10 or 12 people together for a dinner.

00:33:14.680 And it would be conversational, casual.

00:33:17.340 And it just seemed to.

00:33:19.900 These are post-purchase.

00:33:21.420 Post-purchase clients.

00:33:23.040 And we'd get them in a room and talking to one another.

00:33:25.080 and we'd have dinner and facilitate that.

00:33:26.080 To share best practices and just add some value.

00:33:28.380 And we did that.

00:33:29.700 And we said, wow, they're really engaged with us.

00:33:32.260 They're coming to our dinner.

00:33:33.080 Starbucks is coming to our dinner.

00:33:34.440 And so that was exciting.

00:33:35.340 And we said, why don't we do a slightly bigger version of that

00:33:38.260 and do a road tour?

00:33:39.880 And we called it our email transformation tour.

00:33:42.140 And we picked a few cities.

00:33:43.220 And we got 60 or 70 people at these things.

00:33:46.280 Yeah.

00:33:46.980 Like a rock concert sort of thing.

00:33:48.280 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:33:48.780 We're going to be in your city next week.

00:33:50.260 Yeah.

00:33:50.560 And so suddenly we're like, wow, 60 or 70 people

00:33:52.460 are showing up at every time.

00:33:53.160 60 or 70 people.

00:33:54.060 And what, 30% were clients, the rest of them were prospects?

00:33:57.180 Yeah, we had a mix, usually half and half.

00:33:58.640 Would you ask your current customers

00:34:00.660 to invite somebody like them at another company?

00:34:03.660 We could.

00:34:04.340 Or did you field it yourself?

00:34:06.040 We fielded it ourselves.

00:34:07.440 And we just said, hey, do you want

00:34:08.540 to meet the VP of marketing at this company?

00:34:10.680 Yeah, and we'd have useful content for them.

00:34:12.480 And we had sometimes a guest speaker.

00:34:13.600 And what were you doing?

00:34:14.300 Was it like an extended lunch or a night event?

00:34:17.100 It was usually there's a cocktail hour.

00:34:18.720 Oftentimes, it was like at a bar or something.

00:34:21.000 And we'd do a little presentation maybe for an hour.

00:34:23.120 We've done it in London and Stockholm and Tokyo.

00:34:25.120 So it wasn't formal content.

00:34:26.100 You literally just like drinks and then 45-minute talk.

00:34:29.220 Well, we had 45 an hour and then socializing after.

00:34:32.120 And that turned out really good.

00:34:35.140 And we looked at the ROI very carefully.

00:34:37.820 We used Splash to track our events and use them.

00:34:40.900 And the ROI, our events ROI, was really good.

00:34:45.060 And so we said, you know what?

00:34:46.780 I think we have enough of a critical mass

00:34:48.120 to do a customer conference.

00:34:49.800 And I think that first year, maybe we had 180 or 200

00:34:52.780 How long did you do that for two years, kind of the nighttime

00:34:56.120 dinners and the cocktail hours?

00:34:57.060 It's still going.

00:34:58.100 So we never stopped that.

00:34:58.960 But before the first customer conference.

00:35:00.720 Yeah.

00:35:01.620 For how long?

00:35:02.200 Kind of like 3 million AR plus-ish.

00:35:06.560 This was maybe four or five, the dinners,

00:35:10.100 four years ago maybe or so.

00:35:12.020 So perhaps we were like 15 million AR or something like that.

00:35:16.320 And it worked out really well.

00:35:18.160 So that turned into our first client summit.

00:35:19.700 And we're like, wow, everyone showed up.

00:35:21.440 And it was at the Dream Hotel, and we were really nervous.

00:35:24.420 You're trying to fill the house.

00:35:25.420 And are we wasting our money on this thing?

00:35:27.460 Do people care?

00:35:28.160 Did you charge the clients to go a few hundred bucks?

00:35:30.260 We didn't charge.

00:35:31.140 The first two years, we didn't.

00:35:32.320 Sponsors.

00:35:33.680 We paid the first year.

00:35:35.560 You covered the cost, yeah.

00:35:35.920 The first year.

00:35:36.380 And you're like, whoa.

00:35:37.340 And then we had sponsors the following year.

00:35:39.780 Yeah.

00:35:40.080 And last year was the first time we actually charged a fee.

00:35:43.380 And we've got some VIP tickets.

00:35:45.520 But we had our clients there, put them on stage.

00:35:48.640 this amazing larger-than-life event happens,

00:35:51.100 and it becomes, your brand really gets built.

00:35:53.920 And so this last year, we had 600 marketers in,

00:35:58.760 totally blanking on the name of the bank,

00:36:00.400 the bank that's in Midtown, but this old building that's

00:36:03.900 got like a Roman style, giant vault, all that stuff.

00:36:07.840 So huge stage, and it looked like this larger-than-life thing.

00:36:10.240 So people are showing up.

00:36:12.580 Our whole premise is visual is the language that moves people.

00:36:15.400 In today's world, visual is how people can communicate.

00:36:18.400 and our events were in line with that kind of branding

00:36:21.420 and that strategy.

00:36:22.820 And when you get clients that are happy

00:36:25.580 and they're talking to one another,

00:36:27.060 we literally had VPs pulling aside others

00:36:29.740 and just raving about us next to them.

00:36:31.580 You can't get a better, warm recommendation

00:36:35.600 than something like that happening

00:36:37.120 versus a salesperson doing it. 0.99

00:36:39.440 So it was this amazing thing we start to see happen.

00:36:42.500 The ETT's still happening.

00:36:43.580 We have a customer advisory board now.

00:36:45.560 So there's a lot more community,

00:36:47.280 And I think you know TK Cater?

00:36:49.880 Yeah, for sure.

00:36:50.580 Yeah.

00:36:50.880 So I remember TK, years ago, he's like,

00:36:53.340 I don't want to build a company.

00:36:54.480 I want to build a religion.

00:36:56.520 So he has a little L. Ron Hubbard tendency, maybe.

00:36:59.340 But there was a really brilliant insight in that,

00:37:01.800 which is there's a movement.

00:37:02.800 There's a community that's happening.

00:37:04.920 And it's bigger than just your company.

00:37:07.220 And Gainsight does this, too.

00:37:08.720 Yeah.

00:37:09.140 No, I feel like back in the day, there was CrowdFlower.

00:37:14.700 I think it was called CrowdConf.

00:37:16.060 It's interesting, because there's two models that I've seen.

00:37:18.520 There's kind of like the industry conference.

00:37:20.660 So if it doesn't exist, creating it, owning it, which

00:37:23.500 is some degree inbounded that by owning the word.

00:37:26.980 And I think Drift's doing a great job,

00:37:28.440 which is the same playbook around conversational marketing.

00:37:31.740 And then there's really just the customer conference, which

00:37:35.180 one cool example I saw was Leadpages,

00:37:37.760 where they, in a registration flow, so in the sign up,

00:37:41.240 they actually upsold me to the ticket for the event.

00:37:43.500 I was speaking.

00:37:44.360 But I just was, I appreciated the fact that I signed.

00:37:46.520 They were like, they had two upsells, one to a three-year.

00:37:49.600 If I paid for three years, I got 60% off, right?

00:37:52.480 It was a really, it's like, it's kind of a no-brainer.

00:37:54.160 If you know you're going to be around,

00:37:55.160 you're going to use the product.

00:37:56.380 And then they were like, hey, we've

00:37:57.420 got this customer conference.

00:37:58.580 It's $600 a ticket.

00:37:59.680 But if you buy it now, it's $300.

00:38:01.080 And it's just like.

00:38:01.680 And you're speaking at it.

00:38:02.720 Yeah, but I just thought it was neat

00:38:03.980 that they used the registration flow

00:38:05.780 to fill up their event.

00:38:07.300 And then from a retention, you guys get the data.

00:38:10.700 Like, if somebody comes to your event,

00:38:13.020 they're probably way more higher at lifetime value customer

00:38:16.380 than if they don't.

00:38:17.880 And we deal with enterprises.

00:38:19.000 So 600 people there, director level, VP level, major speakers,

00:38:24.960 and they're getting up on stage and talking about your company,

00:38:27.460 the social proof of that.

00:38:28.920 It's just a reinforcing thing that happens.

00:38:31.200 And there's nothing bigger you can do for your brand

00:38:35.080 than your first.

00:38:35.580 And you never feel you're ready.

00:38:36.960 You're nervous to do your first client summit.

00:38:39.700 And you got to, at some point, if you've

00:38:41.880 done it at the smaller scales and you've got a little bit of a playbook, you've got to bite the

00:38:45.780 bullet and just do it. It's time to move to the next level as a company. Yeah. Would you have

00:38:51.120 done them sooner? Knowing what you know now, going back to the event as a marketing or as a

00:38:57.480 customer, what's your prescription? As a more seasoned operator now, I would certainly do it

00:39:07.420 sooner in a company, but that early on,

00:39:10.640 there's just so many logistical details and planning.

00:39:13.440 And so your team, the team that's going to implement that

00:39:15.940 really has to be ready.

00:39:16.720 You always need somebody dedicated to it.

00:39:17.600 Yeah, and we have a wonderful director of marketing

00:39:20.540 who took that on.

00:39:22.300 She'd never done anything at that scale,

00:39:23.800 but she's just meticulous, detailed follow through.

00:39:27.020 That first year, she probably didn't sleep for weeks,

00:39:30.520 but she did an amazing job and just created an experience,

00:39:33.020 a true experience for every single person.

00:39:35.320 So if you have a team that can pull that kind of thing off,

00:39:38.940 because you as a CEO, you've got just way too many things

00:39:41.600 going on.

00:39:42.480 You've got to lean on that person to help drive it.

00:39:45.740 It can be an amazing thing.

00:39:47.800 One question I love to ask founders is,

00:39:50.260 it's kind of a deep question, but whatever.

00:39:52.040 We're friends.

00:39:53.140 Who did you need to become to build this business?

00:39:57.560 Hmm.

00:39:58.600 Like, what are the things when you look back

00:40:00.460 at when you started versus how you lead today

00:40:02.540 and who you've become?

00:40:03.360 What are the?

00:40:04.460 Yeah.

00:40:06.740 There's something we talk about at MoveBlank,

00:40:08.700 which is pushing yourself into an area

00:40:11.000 that you're slightly uncomfortable constantly.

00:40:13.400 And if you're not slightly uncomfortable,

00:40:14.700 you're probably not growing.

00:40:16.640 And so I was a former engineer.

00:40:18.440 So my bias was to probably not get out there and go selling,

00:40:23.700 go selling a product.

00:40:25.040 It was to go come up with a brilliant idea and whiteboard it

00:40:27.860 and go build this thing.

00:40:28.580 People will just buy.

00:40:29.360 And years ago, I actually started a company that

00:40:31.600 failed because I didn't do enough being in front of clients,

00:40:35.320 engaging with them, understanding what kind of pain

00:40:38.260 points they deal with.

00:40:39.620 So it's pushing some of that stuff away

00:40:42.820 that I'm naturally comfortable in, and doing sales,

00:40:48.040 getting out there and speaking at events,

00:40:50.320 doing the keynote at things, and also improving yourself.

00:40:54.700 So I've got coaches that work on different aspects of it,

00:40:58.640 from speaking to how I'm building a team,

00:41:02.160 how I'm leading, different playbooks that you can apply.

00:41:05.940 So that constant pushing yourself

00:41:08.340 and never allowing yourself to fall into a zone of comfort

00:41:11.820 is what's needed.

00:41:13.160 And I try to step back and work on the company

00:41:16.740 rather than in it, and think about what

00:41:18.360 does the company need for me to go to that next level.

00:41:21.240 And you've got to push yourself.

00:41:22.680 Sometimes it's a little scary to do that.

00:41:24.780 But that's where the growth happens,

00:41:26.300 And that's where the rewards to your company will really accrue.

00:41:30.080 And it also lets other people step up

00:41:31.760 into really meaningful roles.

00:41:32.960 So you mentioned coaches in different aspects.

00:41:35.900 So investing in yourself to become that person,

00:41:39.140 was that something that in the beginning you thought

00:41:40.880 you'd have to do, or just you discovered it

00:41:42.820 through wanting to perform?

00:41:44.360 I didn't.

00:41:45.780 I didn't know I'd have to do that.

00:41:47.180 And I think I've probably been the kind of person who

00:41:51.420 prefers to learn by doing.

00:41:53.360 And maybe I'm a little stubborn, or I

00:41:55.760 figure I can go find a way or I can go sell and I get the feedback. At some point as the company

00:42:00.180 gets larger, you don't have the room for error as much. And it's very valuable to learn how other

00:42:05.640 people have done things. And you can take what's useful and discard what is not. But you can reflect

00:42:11.700 on that. And you put your ego away. You have to be a beginner at certain things. That's totally

00:42:17.180 okay. And it's okay to fail at giving a presentation or doing a sales meeting or learning

00:42:22.360 from others.

00:42:23.020 I find I'm constantly learning from the people

00:42:25.240 that I've hired.

00:42:26.600 And it's like, wow, that person's really good

00:42:28.200 at running a meeting or at the next steps in a sales meeting

00:42:31.600 or presenting in this thing.

00:42:32.960 And so be a constant student is super valuable.

00:42:38.080 And to do that, you have to put your ego away.

00:42:39.660 I love it.

00:42:40.360 Where can people find you online?

00:42:41.860 What platforms?

00:42:44.980 I'm pretty active on LinkedIn.

00:42:46.700 Yeah.

00:42:47.280 I've found that is the secret social network.

00:42:49.300 It's surprising, man.

00:42:49.880 It keeps creeping back up in my life.

00:42:51.400 I actually check LinkedIn a couple times a week now.

00:42:54.280 It's really effective.

00:42:55.460 I've found more than Twitter, more than any other channel,

00:42:58.240 more than Instagram.

00:42:58.780 For business, for real business.

00:42:59.720 For business, for B2B.

00:43:00.720 And we're able to reflect our whole visual

00:43:03.160 as a language that moves people.

00:43:04.300 So we try to kind of Instagram effect on LinkedIn.

00:43:07.480 Yeah, I heard the organic posts are doing incredibly well.

00:43:10.340 It's incredibly effective.

00:43:11.420 And I connect with all of our big clients, our partners.

00:43:14.980 And so they see the stuff.

00:43:15.940 Direct access to the CEO.

00:43:16.700 Yeah, they see the stuff.

00:43:17.860 They hear directly from me.

00:43:18.960 I post things, updates.

00:43:20.180 And so subtly, your brand, no one will, you can't directly attribute to everything that

00:43:25.820 you're posting, but people will say, wow, movable link is everywhere.

00:43:29.060 I hear about you guys all the time, and suddenly it snowballs, and your brand becomes a larger

00:43:32.800 than life thing.

00:43:33.700 I love it.

00:43:34.340 Vivek Sharma, appreciate you, man.

00:43:35.820 Thanks so much for coming on.

00:43:36.940 Cheers.

00:43:37.660 Thanks for watching this episode of Escape Velocity.

00:43:40.900 Be sure to like and subscribe, and leave a comment with your biggest insight from our

00:43:45.340 conversation.

00:43:46.360 Be sure to check out the next episode.

00:43:50.180 Thank you.

Dan Martell - July 18, 2019

Doubling Down on The Models That Work with Vivek @ MovableInk.com - Escape Velocity Show #6

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