Episode Description
On today's episode of The Revenue Stream, I had the opportunity to chat with Lydia Hutchison, Head of Business Development at Acryl Data.
Lydia comes with several years of experience building and leading teams that build pipeline through outbound.
We talk about the impact of AI in prospecting, videos, openers that work for her, and more. If you're wondering what it takes to level up your prospecting efforts in today's world, this is the episode for you.
I had loads of fun chatting with Lydia in this episode and I hope you enjoy the show too. See ya on the other side 👋
Show Notes
Follow Lydia Hutchison: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lydiahutchison/
Learn more about Acryl Data: https://acryldata.io
Follow Vikash: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vikashkoushik/
Learn more about RevenueHero: https://www.revenuehero.io/
Episode Transcription
[00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of Revenue Stream. I'm your host, Vikash Koushik. And today I'm super excited to have Lydia Hutchison, from Acryl Data. She heads, the business development, team over there. And, I'm super pumped about this episode. I've been looking forward to this episode for a while now.
And It's primarily because it's, it's, this is the first time we're doing this sort of an episode where, there's a marketer on, on one side and a salesperson on the other side. So it's going to be super fun. And I'm super excited about that. And, Lydia, is over here, she's going to talk us through all the fun experiments she's done prospecting all, all the, projects that she's worked on so far.
Lydia, if you can, give a quick intro about you, that'd be great. Yeah. Thanks. I just wanted to point out, I love that you say first time you're having a salesperson on with a marketer. It's historically, there's been kind of this divide [00:01:00] between sales and marketing. And I think one of my favorite things about the way things have evolved is that, you know, I think the most successful teams have such a tight alignment between the two.
So really awesome. Um, Yeah, I, a little bit of background. I've been doing SDR work since the early 2000s. Um, so definitely seen my share of like Excel is your CRM and dialing on that desk phone, um, but so much has changed. And so I went from doing SDR work to being an account executive for IBM. I got to travel the country, which was really amazing.
Um, Really learned that I just love leading and mentoring SDR teams and orgs though. And so jumped back into that in 2018 ish and have been doing that mainly in the startup world since. So a lot of building, a lot of testing, experimenting, um, And a ton of learning. I bet, I bet. Um, I think, um, because you, you, you started off [00:02:00] with that, uh, note, right?
About marketing and sales, uh, working together. Before we dive deep into, you know, uh, all the cool stuff that, uh, that you've done, um, what do you wish marketing understood? Better about sales, uh, and prospecting. It's something that I think we are getting closer to, but typically, and this is a product of I think, misaligned KPIs, but typically there's this disconnect of, you know, MQLs converting to SQLs and like.
Lack of general agreement and an understanding on what a quality kind of lead looks like, um, you know, you'll get a, let's say a, a list of people who attended a webinar and marketing says, yeah, we've got a hundred MQLs go books and meetings, then we're like, uh, maybe 10 of these are qualified. Um, and that's not really anybody's fault.
That's just, again, kind [00:03:00] of lack of alignment and in what is considered a great. Lead what that handoff looks like, how they actually translate to pipeline. And so I've seen some orgs and we're even talking about it here at Acryl Data where, you know, everybody's gotta be tied to that revenue outcome. Um, and if an MQL isn't converting to pipeline.
then that's not going to work, right? So I think, you know, tying everybody to the same goals is really the key to having that partnership work. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Do you have some sort of, uh, Tips, uh, uh, you know, what do you see work, work really well, uh, when it comes to trying to help marketing and sales, uh, you know, get that alignment.
I think the first step is really having a mutual kind of workshop and process where you sit down and say, here's the [00:04:00] MQL criteria, this is what our ICP is. These are the personas within ICPs that. We tend to have the most success with, um, and then on the flip side, like, here's what typically we don't see.
Well, like, you know, people who don't have a certain number of employees typically don't have money to invest in a solution of this size or whatever those. Sort of qualifiers are, um, so really having those discussions early on about what an MQL actually is. And how that ties into, like I said, pipeline and actual closed won revenue.
Um, and then really being in lockstep with campaigns. Like this never really happened for me until I was at a startup. Like when you're in the larger organizations, marketing and sales, in my experience, just aren't that close to each other. But like today, there's [00:05:00] not a day that goes by that I don't talk to product marketing or demand gen because we've all got to be on the same page about what channels we're using, what campaigns we're running, what the expected follow up messaging should be, um, the collaboration is just so, so critical.
Yeah, I think, um, just from, uh, the, that follow up messaging, uh, expectation, right? Like, um, like how, how do you usually come up with that? Like, is it like, again, is it a collaborative effort or is it more like, Hey, this is the sort of campaigns we're running from on the marketing side. And we think, uh, you know, as a follow up X, Y, and Z type of followups might work better and then sales comes in and pitches, pitches in saying that, Hey, sure.
Yeah, maybe, but I think when we've done, you know, when we talked to the prospects, this typically doesn't work or maybe this works better, like how do you usually go about doing that? Yeah. So one of my like mantras is test and [00:06:00] iterate and then keep testing some more. Like, I, it's. Things are changing, um, regularly.
And so even if you find something that is working for a couple of weeks or maybe a month, chances are it's not going to work forever. And so I think, you know, getting into a group and saying, okay, here's number one, each channel is very different. Like you're not going to follow up with somebody who attended a webinar in the same way that you're going to follow up with somebody who requested a demo.
Um, so those messages have to be really different. Um, coming to the understanding that you've got to meet the buyer where they are, like if someone's following up, or sorry, if somebody watched a webinar and you're sending them follow up, the chances of them wanting to jump right into, you know, a sales meeting are probably lower.
Um, and so thinking about, well, let me make sure that I'm answering your question. So, you know, how do we go about [00:07:00] messaging? I think it has to be a group effort. I think if there are differences in opinions, the best way to kind of vet those out is to test. If you're going to do an email sequence or campaign, A/B test your subject lines, experiment with the call to action.
Try different resources to see which one kind of generates more interest than the other. And then I like to get together quarterly with both marketing, sales, sales development, and maybe even customer success, because they have a really close line on kind of what prospects are saying and hearing. And.
You know, quarterly you get together and I call it a content review committee and we say, okay, here's the messaging that's performing really well. We're going to do more of it. This is what fell flat. Let's maybe step away from that for a second. These are the channels that people are really engaged on.
So let's do more of that. So it's got to be this again, collaboration is, and I know it's such a like catchy phrase or whatever, but it really is like going to be the backbone of, [00:08:00] of success for. The entire go to market team is everybody has got to be on the same page. Amazing. Amazing. I love that. Um, I think, um, just on that subject of, uh, you know, because you brought up webinars and MQLs and all that stuff, right?
Like, um, I think on, oh, here at revenue hero, right? Like the, the way we look at it, um, is the stricter, uh, the definition of MQL is the, the better your MQL to closed won percentage is going to be. Right. And that is going to help you, uh, because, um, there's this sort of like a formula that I typically use, right?
Like, so what is an acceptable cost per MQL, right? And how do you arrive at that? And the way I try to arrive at that is you have your average ACV. Multiplied by your, uh, MQL to closed won percentage, right? So if you're, um, if you're [00:09:00] MQL to closed won percentage, it's like super high. Right. Um, and if you multiply that by your average ACV, then your acceptable cost per MQL is going to be super high.
Right. So that means as a marketing team, you have more leeway to experiment. You have more leeway to do fun stuff because. It's okay if your cost per MQL is a little bit higher than what it is usually, right? So it helps that, uh, bring out that creativity within the team. So you're not just restricted to that.
Probably just those, I don't know, PPC campaigns, uh, your typical Google ads campaigns and that sort of stuff. So I'm, I'm like totally with you on that. Um, especially like if you can, Have a really strict definition over there and like you mentioned, right, like collaborative effort over there, uh, you know, uh, bringing everyone together, sitting, sitting down and saying like, Hey, this is what works.
These are the kind of people that [00:10:00] typically buy or close really well. Um, so yeah, totally with you on that. This, I definitely think that like, so we talk about MQL so much and I personally have, um, of, um, of the belief that I don't think MQL should be a metric for marketing. I think, um, sales accepted leads are really what should be strived for.
Um, because that's, you know, Really what matters, I mean, in, in the grand scheme of things. And that doesn't mean you shouldn't focus on the other things like getting people to subscribe to your newsletter, getting people to watch a webinar replay, like those are all the whole buying experience. Like if you think about the last car that I bought, like I went to this particular Toyota dealership because I already knew that I loved and wanted another forerunner.
And then it was a matter of finding which one had the color and the trim and the [00:11:00] whatever that I wanted. And so I walked in there saying, here's what I want. Give it to me. Um, and that's, you know, whereas like when I was maybe 25, I showed up and was like, Hmm, I need something within this budget. Show me what my options are.
But like people do very heavy research before they actually start engaging with your stuff. And so I think we have to. Really make a shift to meet our buyers where they are and sort of enable them to go on this self educational journey, giving them the resources that they want to consume without shoving a demo down their throat.
Um, and this is where I know this is not about promoting and, and doing a rah rah session for RevenueHero, but it really has like transformed the way that we do things. Like we have so many people on our website that just don't want to do a demo yet. And so we've done a weekly live session for people that want to use their Gmail that maybe don't want to commit to a sales rep calling [00:12:00] them.
But then for those that know exactly what they want and they want to talk to somebody, they can self serve that desire. Um, So this, you know, it used to be like, Oh, let's cold call and set a bunch of meetings, which does still work. But I think, you know, maybe cold call and invite somebody to something that you're doing that would be interesting.
Or instead of sending a cold email, that's like, Hey, here's my calendar link, send a cold email that's like, Hey, we have this weekly publication that has helped other people kind of understand this particular challenge a little bit more. Can I send you a copy? Right. So it's. I think more focused on like educating, guiding people to the channels that you want them to engage on, and then when they're ready, being able to instantly help them.
I love that. Especially, um, your point around, where you said you don't have to necessarily try to, you know, like on the first email or, or, or directly on [00:13:00] first call trying to pitch them and all this stuff, right? Like if you can share some, uh, some sort of helpful content, uh, whatever, right?
Like, uh, and if you can try to get them to engage with you and respond, like just get a response from them, right? Like, uh, have a conversation. Exactly. Right. Yeah. I was just going to say the role has changed dramatically. Um, some people refuse to admit and adapt and that's really sad to watch, but you know, we're not like meeting setters anymore.
Um, in most cases, there are definitely some scenarios where that's still, you know, the, the lifeblood of how things operate, but particularly in the SaaS space, I think, um, you know, the SDR role isn't just an appointment setter. You're an evangelist. You're a thought leader. You are, you know, teaching people new perspectives.
You're creating an emotional experience with every touch point. You, you know, have to let go [00:14:00] of that desire to just like hit your meeting quota and really think about, again, Educating people and enabling them to learn on their own terms. Makes sense. Yeah. I think, um, especially today, right? Given all the, you know, boom and AI and all that stuff, right, like.
When you're trying to, you know, um, reach out to prospects and, you know, uh, share something that is probably relevant to them. Um, and people try to personalize the messaging and all this stuff, according to the prospect, like this, this, this, this is balanced between like personalization to be relevant and personalization that sort of like falls flat, right? Like it's probably just Hi Fname at best, right? How do you usually approach that? because. I'm sure, especially if you have like slightly different personas, you know, that you're going after. Then like, what is the thought [00:15:00] process with that approach over there?
AI is transforming a lot and it's also ruining a lot. Like I had a banter with a group of friends of mine yesterday where we, like somebody shared a cold email that They got and we're like, wow, that's chat GPT. Like, you know, there's a way to use it and there's a way to not use it. And the way that I like to use AI is to better understand the people that I'm reaching out to.
In a relevance context, not like what college did they go to? Um, I mean, you can prompt ChatGPT to say like, Hey, um, pretend I'm a product marketer at a company of this size. And these are the products that I sell. What are my challenges going to be on a daily basis? Um, and so then you use that output to kind of craft your relevant outreach based on things that you've learned about that persona.
You could ask it to tell you about the current issues in the health care space. What kind of compliance challenges do people [00:16:00] struggle with? Um, are there any new regulations that I can call out in my cold messaging? Like, Use it to teach yourself how to write a better message on your own. Um, and I think there are some really good frameworks, like, um, part of my, and I call it, we call it the Ruby project because it genuinely is kind of a side project is I have a, a fractional CMO friend of mine that I worked with years ago and we just stayed connected.
Cause we were like sales development and marketing became best friends. Um, Because we saw this gap and that like sellers just aren't enabled on the buyer psychology. They don't know how to have normal conversations with people. Um, and so what you have to do is take a step back and think about like who you're reaching out to, what's What are they trying to avoid on a daily basis?
What do they not have to deal with? And that's what you talk about when you reach out and how you kind of help work through those issues. But I think, [00:17:00] um, you know, personalization, if it is applicable to their problems, or, you know, maybe, maybe I reached out to somebody yesterday who lives, I saw that he lives in the city that I lived in last year.
And so I said, P. S., you know. Looks like we used to be neighbors or whatever, but like, if you're starting off that way, instantly people go. Okay, this is a sales email, not going to read the rest of it. Um, so I think just like you said, it's like, yeah, relevance versus personalization. I think personalization, if it makes sense, uh, relevance is always going to be number one.
There are a ton of tools that help you find relevant talking points. Um, Like clay, you know, if you're going to use clay, don't just use it to personalize somebody's name and city and in your emails, like, use it to look for companies that are hiring data engineers, because typically that means they're struggling with whatever that challenge [00:18:00] is.
Or use it to look for people that have grown a certain percentage that might be facing issues with that scaling process. Um, and then you tie your pain messaging back to those triggers and signals that you have scraped for. So relevance, in my experience, has gone a whole lot further than personalization.
Um, and, You know, once I've gotten into leadership and actually get these cold emails, I like really understood it even more deeply was like, wow, the bar is really low. Um, but yeah, hopefully I answered that question in two parts. Like chat to BT, use it to enable yourself. Don't use it to write your messaging.
Um, cause people can spot that a mile away, um, and always prioritize relevance over personalization. Cause what it comes down to is like people get hounded by us sales folk. All day, every day. And like, how are you going to be different? How are you going to trigger some meaningful thought about a problem and a potential solution?[00:19:00]
Yeah, I think, uh, a topic that is slightly closer to that, right? Like I think videos. It's one such thing where people are trying to be, uh, trying to use videos to, you know, to try and stand out, uh, either, uh, you know, when you're sending a message on LinkedIn or to email and all this stuff, and, and, and on top of that, you have these AI generated videos where it can sort of like, uh, you just say hi watermelon and, and that watermelon can be replaced by your first name and just upload.
A bunch of, uh, CSV. So do you, do you see that working by engines? I know there's that, uh, you know, uh, this at wow factor to the video, right? Like being able to generate the video in like a fraction of a second, like 10, 15, 20 videos. And then all you have to do is just hit [00:20:00] send. Uh, I get that, uh, attraction to it, but does it work?
Well, I can only talk about what's worked for me. And in all honesty, I'm a little bit old and have been resistant to video. Um, but I did experiment with it here at Acro as a follow up to an event. And it did work. Um, not a couple of conversations for me and you know, but I was recording them one by one and it was like, Hey, Vikash, um, I saw that you were at the event.
I also saw this on your LinkedIn profile and that makes me curious about whatever. I don't think I could scale that with AI. And I think what's probably going to happen is the same thing that's happened with cold email is that it's going to get so automated and so spammy that it's not going to have an effect anymore.
And that's what I'm afraid of. So I definitely try to be selective. Um, I just started playing with sudden spark, like on a very basic level. I'm not really using any automation and just using it to [00:21:00] record and like track engagements. Um, I think there's a place and a use for it. But again, once you start spraying the masses with it, it's going to lose that shine and it's going to become really annoying for most people.
I personally don't open videos from people that I don't, like, I don't know, do you watch videos that random people send you? I don't. Uh, it really depends. Uh, yeah. So what I do is I, I read the first few lines. Uh, in that message and then see if it makes sense, see if that sparks any curiosity and then I open it.
If it is like, Hey, here's the video. And then there's that video and I'm like, what do I do? I think you're right. It really has to come with, it has to be paired with the right message as well. That gets to the point that's not like building fake rapport. That's just like, Hey, here's why I reached out. If you think it's relevant, check out this video.
If [00:22:00] not, let me know and I won't bother you anymore. Like, that's what I think we've lost the ability to do is, one, we assume that everybody wants and needs what we have as sellers, and that's absolutely not the case. And two, we assume that our product is groundbreaking and I can't think of anything that's really in that category right now.
Like, people are getting the job done without you already. One way or another. And so if you're reaching out to somebody who is not really aware of what you do, you're better off talking and teaching and sort of sharing why the status quo has implications and what those look like. Other than here's my cool, shiny new tool that you probably don't need.
Makes sense. I think, uh, on when, when, when taking that approach, right? I guess it's more of. You evangelizing, like you said earlier, right? Like you evangelizing, Hey, here's what you should be doing without talking about the [00:23:00] product, right? Like you basically talking about the problem saying that, Hey, this is why this is a problem and you might want to try and, And ask if it is for them.
Like there's, there's, there's a lost art in tonality too. Like just because a problem is a pain for one person doesn't mean that problem is a pain for somebody else. Like I still personally like to use spreadsheets for a lot of things and there are a lot of fancy tools that could probably make my life easier, but I don't have a problem or a pain with the way that I do things.
And so. I don't care what you're selling. And so there's this like, instead of just going for the juggler and saying, Hey, let's get time on the calendar. It's like, how try, try to understand, like, how are you doing this process today? Is it okay with you? Does it suck when this happens? Do you hate when that happens?
And if not, then there's really nothing else to talk about. [00:24:00] Right? So get curious and like be an investigator is what I like to say. Oh, I like that being an investigator. Just thinking about it, right? Like probably for email, it's probably a little bit easier, right? I'm not saying email, uh, doing cold email is easy, but it's probably comparatively easier when you look at, uh, say cold calling, right?
Like, is there like a certain, Okay. Um, opener that probably works well for you. Um, you know, uh, because at the end of the day, you're calling someone who has no idea what you do, who has no idea who you are. And you're trying to be like, Hey, I'm probably, probably in the middle of driving or something, right?
Like I get a lot of calls when I'm driving. I don't know why, like every time I'm driving. And after I'm, I'm at the office or after I go back home, I see like 10 missed calls. Like, but when I'm at home or [00:25:00] when I'm right now here, I have no calls. Like, how do you folks know that I'm driving and why do you always call me?
That's, that's, that's how it is for me. I think there's two things. Yeah, I was just gonna say there's two things in there that stuck out to me. One is cold calling is harder than email. Absolutely, because you actually have to like do work and be thoughtful about it. But I think in terms of having conversations, getting feedback from your prospects, testing out messaging, it's the quickest and most successful way to do that.
Um, I get a lot of people driving too. And honestly, that's my favorite because then I have something meaningful to say in my followup email, like, Hey, we just talked while you were in the car and you then have something to reference where it's not just a cold email. Um, but I think, so as far as openers, like I'm straight to the point, [00:26:00] like, Hey, Vikash, this is Lydia with Acryl Data.
Um, I noticed that you are working on a couple of things and. You know, typically that means people are coming to check out data hub because they're having these issues. Does that sound like you at all? Like it's the tonality, right? I'm not assuming that you have a problem that I am going to be able to fix.
Um, but I'm, I'm, I'm doing my investigation and that like, Hey, you look a lot like people who have had this issue. Not you look, but you know, based on like your attributes and characteristics of my research. Um, and I want to see like, is this, is this relevant? Is this something that you think is worth having a conversation about?
And look, most people don't have time for a cold call. And so I love the brush off of like, oh, just send me an email or oh, I don't have time to talk right now. Because then when you, Like I said, when you send that email and people in their inbox have that preview line, that's like, Hey, we just talked on the phone.
That's going to stand out more than, [00:27:00] Hey, this is Lydia with so and so company. Like we don't use those first 10 words in email, I think. To our advantage, nearly as much as we should. Oh, I love that. Um, I, I think that removes that, um, you know, you being a completely unknown person when, when I read that email.
Like, that's, that's, I guess, I think that's, that's like super powerful. Yeah, and giving people an easy way out too like, hey, if this isn't relevant, we can hang up. You don't have to stay on the phone with me. And in the email, like, hey, you were driving. I thought I'd try via email. Let me know if it makes sense to talk about this.
And if it doesn't, cool. Glad to have met you. You know, like, no calendar links. No, like, when do you have time? Because We don't even know if it's a conversation worth having. And I've realized that, you know, being pushy gets meetings on the calendar, but being pushy also makes people not show up to those meeting invites.
It also wastes time for account executives that are meeting with people who [00:28:00] didn't really want to meet in the first place. Like, we've got to do better on the front end of these interactions to help those conversion rates and spend our time carefully. Interesting. Uh, when it comes to those, uh, the, the no show part of it, right, like handling that, ensuring, uh, you know, people, uh, who said they'd come for the meeting actually show up, like, how do you sort of like tackle that?
I think the biggest issue or the biggest reasoning behind most no shows, because I've done this too, is like, I'll talk to somebody and I'll say, fine, we'll meet in a couple of weeks. And then it's the day before and I'm like, who is this person? And why am I meeting with them again? I don't remember. And I don't know when the formality of putting an agenda and a calendar invite went away.
But without that, I have no idea what we're talking about. So there are a couple of things there. Like, I think you, it doesn't have to be some formal agenda. It's just gotta be like, Hey, here's what we talked about. This is what we're going to talk about on the next call. [00:29:00] And this is why you said it mattered to you.
And then I think you do sort of a nurture, um, leading up to. Kind of reminding like this is what you're going to get out of this conversation. Not me, right? Like this is what you're going to walk away with. This is what you wanted to know. Um, and you know, then if it wasn't really interesting, they're going to fall off right there and you're going to know.
Do you have, like, very specific, nurture emails that, that, that has worked for you in this, uh, you know, when, when trying to handle the, the no show scenarios and stuff, like, uh, just, just from, yeah. Yeah, I think, um, They're pretty straightforward, Vikash, they're very simple.
Like, Hey, we were supposed to talk about this. You didn't show up. Is this still a priority or not? Like, let's get to the truth of the scenario, right? Is it worth me following up, following up with you or not? That's all I want to [00:30:00] know. And if you don't want to talk to me, I don't want to be a nuisance. Um, so I think, you know, we've gotten too absorbed in these fancy cheeky.
Like email tactics, um, where we just need to like revisit the, what do you want? Like, what are you trying to do here? And people appreciate that. But at some point, like. I'm sure, like, as you keep following up, right, like, after a point, as a receiver, it gets a little bit annoying.
I, I know that there are, like, two schools to it, like, uh, I know on one side people are, like, just keep following up till they say no, and, and on the other end you have people who say, like, dude, you're probably annoying them, like, you'll have to stop, like, where do you, uh, you know, stand over there and, like, what's the balance?
I feel like at a certain point, silence is a no. Um, I might pick it up a little bit. Yeah, take a clue, right? But [00:31:00] maybe things got absolutely chaotic and they just don't have the time to think about it right now. And so I might do one or two check ins over the period of a week and then I'll give it a break for a couple of weeks, maybe four or six weeks down the line.
Hey, we talked about this before, just checking in to see if it still matters. Is there anything I can help with? You know, provide you with any questions or should we just kind of part ways and, you know, if at that point there's nothing, um, I would continue to sort of nurture from like an educational standpoint, maybe every couple months and something that would be useful to them or their role or that, you know, reminds you of the initial conversation that you had with them.
Again, you're taking them on that journey of educating themselves, um, and you just sort of treat it like a, um, you're a teacher, right? Not a salesperson you're teaching. Nice. Nice. And, and do you, uh, is it, [00:32:00] do you, do you recommend working with marketing over here, especially if you want to provide more, more content, more, more educational content, that sort of stuff?
Or, is it more like, Hey, we've already discussed these sort of, messaging works well? So now the BDR team, you know, works, you know, figures out the messaging, figures out what the copy is and they share, their version of it. I think at a certain point, marketing needs to own the nurture and you can maybe trigger and manage that with lead statuses and like, you've got a sales nurture and then a marketing nurture lead status where sales nurture is like, Hey, I'm going to actively do my work on this for the next six months.
And then after that, I'm going to let them get, you know, updates from marketing. Um, I don't think anybody has this figured out a hundred percent. And if they say they do, they're probably lying. You know, trying new things is never a bad idea. Makes sense. Yeah. Um, I know I've had my fair share of confusions when, [00:33:00] when I'm trying to, you know, set up these nurture sequences because like which property should I filter by?
I'm like always confused. Like, because. There's like so many processes set in place and at a point it gets really confusing. That's where you set those common expectations. And I found that using lead statuses can be really powerful because marketing knows what to pull on. You know what's your responsibility.
Um, yeah, I mean, we've got so much power in our CRMs, like the functionality and the ways that we can slice and dice our data. I think lead statuses is one that's so underused. Um, if it were up to me, I would have a list of 50 because you can get so much analytics from like, what happened after each call?
Um, anyway, I could go on for that. I go on about that in a whole nother episode, but yeah, I mean, use, everybody's got to be on the same page for tracking specific data points and how to action them. I [00:34:00] think, um, team effort, right? Interesting. Yeah, definitely, definitely team effort. And, and I think, um, like this sort of brings me to this, right?
Like, because we're talking about CRMs and, and, uh, like, I'm sure like at some point it's like the system is probably failing. The sales reps, right? Like, because we, we recently did this report, right? Like we, we filled out forms on like a thousand B2B websites and 635 of them did not respond and I'm sure like, and I'm sure like sales people, people are not like, Hey, I don't want, I don't want to talk to a prospect, right?
Like I'm sure they want to talk to prospects, right? And maybe some of them are using enrichment and some of them disqualified Um, I'm sure like this, this somewhere, the system is probably like failing. Where do you think that is? Like, do you think there's some sort of [00:35:00] miscommunication, uh, happening over there?
A hundred percent. And I want to say, I don't think there's any excuse for not replying to a demo request because a lot of us, when I. Was looking for a scheduling tool for our website. The first place I went was to my network and said, Hey, what are you guys using and why? And so I'm going to remember I had a bad experience with a data provider that I couldn't really afford at the time.
They wouldn't give me. I knew I couldn't afford them based on what other people had told me. They would not let me talk and get a demo. And then guess what? When I went to a company where I could afford them, I'm never using them. Never, ever, ever because of that experience. And so like, I don't understand why we would ever want somebody to go through that.
Like, even if somebody has 10 employees and they're requesting a demo from us, I'm getting a notification that they were disqualified. And I'm reaching out personally to say, Hey, I know you want a demo. I want you [00:36:00] to understand our pricing model. Here's some more information on what size companies we see the most success with.
Is this still something you want to talk about? Um, and we're able to do that thanks to RevenueHero. I have a workflow built on anybody that's under our employee threshold that I can then go have a one on one conversation with. Um, I think if that's not happening, there's something that's broken.
Somebody who's not talking, something is not connected with something and there's really no excuse for it. Like. You can do it in the free HubSpot version by using lead statuses manually if you really didn't want to pay for a, a routing tool. Yeah, those experiences leave a taste in people's mouth. And that's not something that you ever want to do, especially in today where like, I think we make, I mean, it's no secret that buyers make decisions based on emotion first and then.
like [00:37:00] rationale later, but, um, it's all about that experience and letting people self serve. Yeah. Um, to, to that example that you said, I had a very similar experience with, with one of the, uh, you know, enrichment tools that I was looking out for, I think last year, um, I, I requested a demo. I even spoke to the, the, the sales rep, but they were like, they were like, When I asked for more information, I just did not get the kind of information that I was looking for, and it was like, Okay, what do I do now?
And then like, You're never gonna forget that. Yeah. Uh, and, and I don't, I don't think, I don't think that's the kind of buying experience that I want. Um, and I, I have a pretty strong feeling that, uh, nobody, nobody wants that sort of buying experience. So, yeah. Yeah. We've got to empower people to find if nothing else, the information that they want.
Like I realized we [00:38:00] can't make our sales teams available to everybody who wants a demo, but then give people a chance to find what they need in some other way. Right. Thank you. Yeah, interesting. Yeah. Cool. In terms of, prospecting, right? Like, are there any, specific channels that work really well for you?
I know we were chatting, um, a couple of weeks back on LinkedIn. Um, but I'd love to hear, like, especially because the kind of personas that you're going after at Acryl Data, right? Like it's, it's, it's. I used to, uh, you know, market to developers, so I understand how. Difficult it is. So I'm, I'm like really curious, like what sort of, uh, channels do you see working really well?
Uh, I'm always going to preface this by saying right now, because last year cold email was working great for me, um, this month. It's not so much, I think deliverability has become such a [00:39:00] thing that. You know, once we all figured out how to hack the system, then, you know, the email providers figured that out and it's just getting harder and harder.
And so right now, personally, the best channel for me is LinkedIn. Um, I'm able to get in front of, um, You know what I think is my ICP and have those conversations where I'm asking questions and trying to learn about them. Um, also cold calling. I think, you know, there's so much power in just picking up the phone and having a human conversation with somebody.
But I still do get cold email replies and I still, I'm not going to stop trying. I'm not going to stop using one channel ever. I think, you know, if I had to sum it up, it would be everything works. It just depends on who you're reaching out to and what kind of mood they're in. Um, So, you know, definitely double down on what's working in that period of time, but it's got to be a combination of, [00:40:00] you know, every single channel.
And, you know, maybe you change the way, like for cold email, instead of asking for meetings in those emails, I'm pushing, um, Resources and content to get people to engage where I want them to engage. So on our website or with, um, maybe our pre recorded webinars or Anything that I think would be valuable and educational to them.
Um, So yeah, use every channel. Everybody's different. Um, You never know like and if something feels weird just run an experiment and test it out. Makes sense. Yeah. Amazing. Um, really? Yeah, I think, um, we've, we've discussed a lot. Uh, I think I've learned a ton about prospecting. Um, , I'm now more empathetic of my team over here.
Good. So, so I, I asked them, um, like if they had any. questions for you, [00:41:00] and there was a whole bunch, uh, but in the interest of time, I have two quick questions for you from, from our team at RevenueHero. Leaving voicemail, yay or nay? Yay. I'm pro voicemail. There are a couple of reasons. One, you're not expecting somebody to call you back.
You're telling them to look for your message on another channel. Hey, Vikash, just sent you an email. No need to call me back. Check your inbox. Two, if you don't leave voicemails ever, you're going to get flagged by the cell phone providers as a spammer because all of your calls are under 10 seconds or whatever.
Like it's just, it's, it's bad, I guess, hygiene for your phone numbers. So yes, I'm pro voicemail. Not on every single call, obviously. Uh, but I think like the first and maybe the third or fourth attempt, you can sprinkle one in, but absolutely. And please don't make it longer than like 10 or 12 seconds. Got it.
I, I [00:42:00] never knew. It's really just, I want you to know who I am, right? Yeah. I never knew. I never knew, these telephone providers can actually you know, flag you as spam. Today I learned it. Absolutely. And let's say I have, like, I have T Mobile and this person keeps calling me and I flag them as spam and somebody else who has T Mobile has also flagged them as spam, like, they're done for.
Um, and I think there's been so much buzz around the whole, um, email spam and deliverability. We don't talk about kind of like cold calling deliverability as much as we should, but do some research. There are definitely some ways that you can, um, you know, optimize it for yourself. Yeah. I'll do that. Um, uh, last question, uh, any specific timings that work well for you?
Like to reach people time of the day. Yeah. Yeah. Oh Gosh, I find that people are typically in the best mood on Fridays. And so [00:43:00] that's where I do my biggest cold calling block Again I think it changes based on who and like What time of the year? Um, I try to mix up blocks for myself. I like to do a Monday afternoon, a Wednesday midday, uh, or sorry, a Tuesday midday, Wednesday afternoon, Thursday morning, and then like a Friday right in the middle of the day.
Um, if I'm busy or I have something like this going on where I move my call blackboard, Call block to later in the afternoon. I do that. It just, you know, I feel like there's no, there's definitely science behind what times people pick up more. But I think there's a lot of context behind that data that isn't shared, like geographic locations, what titles, um, a lot of, you know, People like me are in meetings all day long in the morning.
Um, and I won't answer the phone because I can't. And so I just, I think the answer is it depends. Like, like with all things in marketing and sales, it's [00:44:00] always, it depends on the context. So it depends. Yeah. That's my answer for everything. Got it. Amazing. Uh, once again, uh, this has been great Lydia. Thanks.
Thanks a lot. Had so much fun. Thank you. Thank you.