Tom Daly on ICP Strategy, Prospecting Fit, and Sales Automation

Transcript

0:03 All right, Tom. So, we were talking a little bit before the podcast and you were talking about really honing in on the ICP. Tell me a little bit more about

0:09 what you meant by the ICP uh but honing in on that and then also who it's not.

0:15 Yeah. No, great. And it's funny because of course in in our line of work, we love to throw the acronyms out there, right? So, ICP, you the ideal client

0:24 profile or persona, whatever you like to use. And we do throw that out there because it's pretty automatic. But to the client, it's really what we talk about is what are you amazing at, right?

0:34 The the target is to be the greatest in the world at something. So what is that thing? What what is your real capability to delight a certain segment of

0:43 customer? And then really dig into, you know, what do they want? What are they really trying to accomplish in in general? And you can get specific afterwards. And then more usually more

0:53 emotionally attractive is what pains are they suffering? what can they not seem to do? And when your capability matches

1:00 up to that, now we truly have a basis for conversation. Otherwise, it's just hunting, right? And uh really

1:07 frustrating and anymore super expensive because it's just inefficient. So really defining them. And we like to say if you're really doing your job well, you

1:15 should really understand your clients pains better than they do. And I say better, but you understand it unemotionally. you you are just looking

1:24 for hey we need to fix that problem and this is the solution we're working on.

1:28 So I think once you do that it it you're really making yourself more efficient but god knows you're becoming more memorable hopefully to the targets that you're pursuing.

1:37 Yeah. So let's uh let's start from like a very basic area like I'm one of those people right now and I'm saying hey I have a great product it's for everyone.

1:48 What would be your first what would be your first step to break somebody from from it's for everyone?

1:54 Yeah, it's hard and and that's sort of the the entrepreneurial bone too because you know when we all got started in sales, right, we were pretty probably

2:01 hopefully jazzed about whatever the solution or offering is we were doing and so therefore anybody that had money

2:08 must be a solid prospect. and you learn pretty quickly that's really super inefficient and and that's really what

2:14 it's all about because anymore people really just don't have a lot of bandwidth. I mean that's just the life

2:21 experience and so but anymore with technology we've kind of leaned on it to help us become more efficient. Uh

2:29 hopefully that happens. Maybe not as as dramatically as we would hope, but being able to position ourselves so that when I have an issue, I can quickly hopefully

2:38 do research. I'm connected now with hopefully somebody that's a subject matter expert and I'm going to start to vet them out. And at that point, I'm looking for commonality. Do you get me?

2:49 Do you understand what I'm talking about? Have you done it before? Do you speak my language? Are you aligned? Are you telling me a lot of stuff about you?

2:58 or are you asking me questions about understanding me more? And so that's the kind of conversation we want as humans.

3:04 We want that, you know, more of that would be better. And the more that we can make that happen, the more effective we'll be as the salesperson of a product

3:14 or offering. But it also helps people become a better buyer because if if you're in that position, you're being more efficient. And if it's not a good

3:22 solution, right? you get to that point, I I'm we vetted each other out and it's not a good fit. The best thing a salesperson could ever do is say, "Wow,

3:31 not a great fit." And professionally and politely get out of there because we've done it. I've done it a million times where we've sold the wrong client and it

3:39 causes way more strife and and lots of difficulty downstream and you should never do it. But, uh, it happens and that's what we want to avoid. So when

3:47 I'm when I'm thinking about picking the right person to be reaching out to because that's the ideal state to be in you know should I start from you know

3:54 thinking about demographics the verticals the so on and so forth or should I start with my the pain that I think I solve best you know what's my

4:02 starting point to really begin the journey of honing in on who I really want to talk to. That's a great question and and that's really where um I think

4:11 it separates uh the folks that are really trying real hard from the people that become pros at what they do and I think that's exactly right because I do

4:20 uh error on the bias of understanding that pain point. I'm going to try to learn as best I can and as quickly as I can. Obviously, we all have access to cool LLMs that can give us at least a

4:29 quick dive into what it is, but teen zillion entities out there that are in LinkedIn groups, Facebook groups,

4:36 whatever your jazz is, you can get in there pretty quickly and start to figure out what people are talking about that that isn't working and is working. So

4:43 then really understanding that and then you really just need to really kind of look at what is that vertical, what are the the the through lanes and what are

4:52 maybe the relationship ways, who are the best contacts, what's the best messaging, what's the sequencing, sales cycle, all of that. Once you sort of

5:00 assess that, then you can put together your attack plan and say this is going to be the best way to do it. And then, as we all say, the first time you do it,

5:08 I'm I'm enamored with my first ideas. I think they're great, right? And typically part of it works and part of it doesn't. So you just be in that

5:16 constant cycle of AB test really being critical of your own responses checking the data which very very few companies

5:23 do that well understanding what performance is and is not so that you are really targeting the right client over and over again because if you do it

5:31 right on the front end and you really take care of your client let's assume a lot there but you're doing a great job of that and you onboard them and hopefully they're either a great referral partner or a repeat customer.

5:42 you now have a whole cadence to learn from because you onboarded your clients the right way and you can learn a lot from them and that becomes really high

5:51 margin marketing whenever you have new new offerings that then benefit they trust you.

5:56 Yeah. Yeah. I have I've definitely gone through the process in this year alone of identifying a market that you know everything everywhere I looked it was

6:04 like this painoint matches what they're talking about this painoint this this point that and then you know reaching out and making a bunch of cold calls and having

6:12 a bunch of conversations and realizing man everything I thought sounded right is not resonating with them and eventually we got to the reasons why it

6:20 wasn't resonating the primary thing being that you know you know we help a lot of people like their prospecting stuff and they just didn't have any true

6:28 pain around it and they also didn't have any the way their business structure was nobody forcing them to do the hard thing and so they always squeeze out of it and

6:37 it was like oh okay we did all of our research but then we didn't stay stubborn and we're all right well we thought we had an hypothesis we tested it

6:45 wrong on the right [laughter] um do you have any uh tips or tricks for anyone who's you know gone out there

6:53 they've listened to pain they've connected it to what they're doing and now they're out there testing it, their messaging, testing if it truly is a fit.

7:01 Um, how to better navigate that situation.

7:05 Yeah, kind of interesting. There was a conversation I had yesterday where uh was sort of similar to what you're saying. They they they're pretty sure it's a it's a healthc care product for

7:14 uh females. It has more to do with actually practitioners and a way to do it. And it's extremely compelling.

7:19 They're just having a hard time getting uh traction with their target audience and trying to understand it. And a couple of the things that we talked about was that, you know, part of was

7:28 how they were asking for it and and it was like this is what we all kind of learned. You know, really putting yourself into the audience perspective

7:36 as best you can is helpful. So for them, what we kind of discovered was they were reaching out going, "Oh my gosh, you know, we're uh we have this new thing

7:44 and we're building a company and we really love to have your information make it great." And that sounds super compelling except when you realize these are practitioners that are super busy.

7:54 we're it's an ask with not a whole lot of give back, right? And so it was just kind of crafting it just saying, you know, hey, we're working with your

8:03 target audience. We've seen these pain points and we have learned that this is it. We think that you would add great

8:12 perspective to this and we're asking other professionals and if you can help us out should take 15 minutes. we'll deliver the data and the findings we

8:21 have so at least you'll see exactly what we're seeing out there. So just kind of maybe turning around and ask right I'm asking for the same thing but I'm saying

8:29 hey you know I'm actually targeting your audience because I've discovered this pain point which I would assume that you you feel the same and with your

8:38 perspective I can give you more data about it because I'm assuming that you're kind of thinking about the same thing. So any way I can kind of change my perspective of the ask, that can be helpful.

8:48 Or I want to discover that I'm wrong and say, "Okay, good. That's good info. Now I need to know why." And if you can find

8:56 a trusted partner out there and just say, "Hey, I'd love to come in your hat in hand. Here's my assumption out here.

9:02 This is cost nothing. Here's where I was going. If you could just throw tomatoes at me and tell me every specific way

9:09 that I'm absolutely blind, it would be so so helpful." And and it's funny if you do it in a right way with just a tinge of humor, people will go, "Yeah,

9:17 okay, I'll try." Right? And and it can be very very helpful. So there's no there's no single way to skin a cat. But I always think putting yourself in their

9:25 perspective, trying to figure out what they're trying to gain and then what would it take for them to just go, "Oh, that guy Tom Dailyaly, boy, we're glad

9:32 that we crossed paths because he did the following for us. That's what we all want." So thinking on the front end of the sales cycle before I even meet you, how would I even set up that date?

9:43 Right. So that's that's what I'm trying to do.

9:45 Yeah. So you know, first step it sounds like is really pay attention to your messaging. See if you're doing that correctly. See if you're approaching them correctly. Are you meeting them

9:54 along their journey in the right place, in the right manner?

9:57 Um but then it sounds like but also continue to push until you really have definitive proof where maybe this truly isn't your ICP. But don't just give up

10:05 because you get the right message out of the gate, right? And then that's kind of the the good stuff and everybody nods their head and say, "Yeah, that's a great idea and

10:12 yeah, you can do it." Just be very disciplined about it. Here's the reality that has never changed in sales. That you also have to have structure

10:21 something. Even if you're doing it on your very own, there's got to be a structure of accountability. So whether you're using a sequence, so you're sending an email, maybe a LinkedIn

10:30 connection invite, another email, maybe a call, a text, whatever it is that you're sequencing that you found is appropriate, you need to use that

10:37 repeatedly. Mass customization, whatever your target's going to be, make sure it's happening. If you're going to do 10 of those a day because, you know, you want to be reasonable. You don't want to

10:46 send out thousands at one time. It'll blow up your domain and it won't work.

10:50 So you want to make sure you have like a decent cadence that you know you could follow up with. If I can send 10 emails, three days from now, I can make three phone or 10 phone calls and so on. You

10:59 keep that cycle going. So that's critical and then watch that accountability because you have to keep it rolling. That's the only way this

11:06 thing works. It's really Chinese water torture. you just let it keep going because some folks in this in this very you know attention deficit this world

11:16 that we live in um you might have to touch people five seven times before they react even if they're interested

11:24 and that's just the reality and that's the other piece where automation really can you know play it can be your friend yeah [snorts] I want to dive into

11:31 automation but before we do for anyone that's hesitating about starting to exclude people from their the people they want to focus

11:39 What would be your message to be like, trust me, here's the reason that you want to just keep honing in and yeah, it's actually great that you're going to ignore this

11:48 swath of people, 50% of people you thought were going to be potential customers, it is actually worth getting rid of them.

11:55 Yeah, it's fantastic because, you know, in the beginning when we started doing campaigns in the dark ages, I don't know how long ago that was, but we started using tools like, you know, Mailchimp

12:04 and whatnot, we were just like so bummed. you get all these unsubscribes and you're like, "Oh, this is terrible.

12:08 It must be my message, etc., etc." Not really thinking, you know, 30,000 ft up going, "Yeah, that's the best thing that

12:15 can possibly happen. Somebody actually took the time to at least glance at your subject line or something and realize that they have no interest whatsoever.

12:24 The best thing you can do is give them the quickest exit that they never hear from you again, at least in not in the next year or so." Um, that would be the

12:32 great the best thing you can possibly do because you only have a finite amount of time, a finite amount of resources, and there is a really, even if you're really

12:41 niche down, if you're being honest, your total addressable market out there is gigantic. So, if you you've got to just

12:49 be really, really selfish of your own time and your own resources. Otherwise, it's hard to achieve success because anytime you open up that choke and you

12:57 start hitting lots of people that are either not great fits or maybe eh fits, yeah, it starts to become less efficient, it does not convert the way you needed to.

13:06 So, that's really the bottom line kind of thing and your own time and and frankly your sanity because if you're dealing with way too many contacts, it

13:15 becomes a nightmare pretty quickly and it's no fun. So, don't do it. I mean, it's just it's just that's not why you got into this.

13:21 Yeah. I mean, it I get the the feeling of wanting to not say like to not exclude anybody out, but you got to put yourself in the mindset of when that

13:30 person says no, that's opening up more time for me to for somebody who actually really truly needs us and is a yes and I can't waste my time on the no and you

13:38 know, they're probably right too. Um, so yeah, as you were, you know, we were talking about a little bit before was, you know, the sequences and then

13:45 automation, you know, tell me more about how that comes into play with, okay, you've started to figure out your ICP

13:52 and now now you need to start actually hitting it. How does the sequencing, the automation you're talking about come into play there?

13:58 Yeah, it's a great point because uh anymore these tools that we can use now, even even the other uh the collateral piece of it so inexpensive and simple to

14:07 do. So even if you're starting up or you're a single entity, you can really pull this off which is kind of cool and that's that's the point for the tools because the tools just do that for you

14:15 now. So I'll just kind of give you what works for me and I'm I'm specifically in the B2B space. So it's probably different for you know BTOC types of

14:23 approaches or solely um e-commerce or anything that I'm really talking about the traditional B2B type of transaction.

14:32 And typically you find whatever your ICP is, your person that's just ideal, every aspect about them. Then we even kind of build the Per personas, figuring out who

14:41 is it we're talking about. Is my is my decision maker typically a founder owner? Well, I'm going right for the top, right? Is it more of maybe I'm a

14:48 tech product, so I really really got to walk through the door with an IT manager, a CIO or something like that.

14:53 Great. I determine all that. But then anymore once I have that that ICP down now I'm developing those value

15:01 propositions again that are going to specifically speak to their pain points and really anymore if you have a marketing department awesome. They can

15:08 just crank that stuff out for you. the the three things that you typically need are one you're going to create if you have a let's say you've identified uh a

15:16 particular ICP for you is in a vertical right they are in a vertical let's say they are homebuilders right that's your vertical and so really the first thing

15:24 you want to do is just simply spin up a landing page right and all that does is speak to their pain points what good

15:32 things happen if they remove those difficulties and could be gain point too and then a little bit about your specific expertise that makes you

15:39 wonderful at what you do. So, a little landing page, really simple with a simple, usually a downloadable document, which is a lead magnet, PDF of some

15:47 sort, maybe a, you know, 10 questions you don't know, playbook for doing X, whatever it is, or just simply fill out

15:54 a form and let's chat, right? So, you got that. If you've got a CRM, usually can attach it. You know, gosh, you can probably spin it right up off as Canva.

16:02 You don't have to be an expert at this.

16:04 Really, really simple. And then the second thing, as I said, a lead magnet.

16:07 So lead magnet is a great way where you just bundle up all of those value propositions and pain points and you put it together in a pretty document.

16:14 Anymore you could do it with your LLM, you could use a gamma. There's any there's a zillion tools that can make your stuff super polished and easy to

16:22 make because salespeople for the most part don't want to become artists. Just do their job.

16:28 And then usually I do two things. I make one that's a PDF so that's something that could be downloadable from the web or I could attach it to an email if I know somebody. And then I'll also say do

16:36 the same thing but just make it in a graphic. And so I'll use that graphic for anything I need to. If I even need to mark it that way, I can I can embed

16:44 it into an email. And even if it's a tough spam filter, most of the time it may strip out the doc or it may strip out the image but not the text. And so

16:52 it's a way to get your your value proposition out there in the pretty way, right?

16:57 And so those things you need. And then sequencing software. A lot of the CRM kind of have it built in now, so you can

17:04 kind of do it. Um, if you want it all in one, there's lots of different platforms out there that you can try. Most of it

17:11 is not just the how to, but it's what is that content? So then you spend a fair amount of time making sure emails are

17:18 really super short. It's got the right keywords in it, but it's not something that's war in peace. Use bullets. Uh, make scripts for your voicemails. We

17:27 always recommend physical phones. We have said the phone is not dead. In fact, it's very much alive. It works

17:34 wonders because of its personal touch and really anymore because we have pretty much ver um visual voicemail.

17:40 It's awesome and it tells them that you are trying. And one of the other things is I tell salespeople, people know what you do for a living. You are a

17:48 salesperson. They expect you to be good at what you do. A real demonstration of being good at what you do. Followup. And remember, you're in great company

17:56 because 75% of salespeople never follow up. So if you're doing it, you're going to be successful or you should be anyway. So

18:05 yeah. So yeah, I mean automation definitely is how you get the scale, you get the speed, you start getting what you want out of it. Um, automation will

18:14 also, if you're pointed at a cliff, take you off that cliff even faster.

18:17 [laughter]

18:19 Very true. [clears throat] Is there is there a uh a good timing or like a rough estimate on what you could say is like

18:27 hey now is the time to start considering the automation and yes you might not be 100% correct but there might be a too soon and how would you navigate that space?

18:37 Yeah, for me it's it's the same it's the same ROI as anything else. So you figure whatever your tool costs. So and they're all over the board. I mean there and it

18:45 just depends on what your needs are. I mean, there are tools out there you can probably buy for, you know, 40 bucks, 50 bucks a month, per seat per month or something. Some that'll cost $1,000 per

18:54 seat per month. It just depends on what you need. Um, the key to me is, is it really going to deliver your functionality? Number one, u make sure

19:03 that it's really hitting there because you don't want to, and we've all done it. You like, oh, well, it does like 60% of what I want. The rest maybe it's not all that important even though I really

19:10 wanted it. And like, oh, you know, just keep shopping, looking around, ask questions. um any more of these things can be customizable. So just you know

19:17 ask you never really know and then really be realistic about okay if I invest this much for my team and say I'm just going to bite off whatever it costs

19:26 20 grand more a month so I'm going to bite off $240,000 a year for this. So for me to feel like it's even working,

19:34 maybe reasonably we break even in the first year, maybe make some sort of turn, but in years two and three because we hit momentum, it's great. And if I

19:42 can realistically using really conservative numbers, that's the way I'm going to game it out. And then I'll usually say, you know, don't buy a year up front, you know, do try it

19:50 monthtomonth, try quarter to quarter, uh just make sure it's the right decision because you're going to, you know, you're going to change it again later, but it would be nice if you could sit on

19:57 it for maybe a couple years. Um I mean, technology changes fast. can't predict it, but if you could get something you can use at least for more than six months, more than 12 months, that would

20:06 be great. And then when you game that out with your best, you know, kind of going, okay, if we invest this and if I

20:12 invest $240,000 or $240,000 this year, um, I'm feeling real confident that we're going to be able to turn, you

20:20 know, that plus another 100 grand. I'm feeling good about that. I would say that was our good decision. So, yeah, I just look in terms of the ROI and then be realistic with your sales leadership.

20:30 Make sure that if you're the sales leader that you are going to commit to being learning it, understanding it, and making sure that you're going to keep

20:38 people accountable because, you know, we have to be held accountable or we won't do it. And that that's how you really lose your ROA really quickly that people

20:45 stop using the tool. Um, so that that that's a big one for sure. So, so if I'm understanding this correctly, gather the

20:53 data in like the maybe more manual process, then game it out and be, okay, I I feel like I'm finally at the point where I've talked to enough people

21:01 manually to say, I'm comfortable with this being, you know, x amount of money on return, so I can invest this amount and that'll

21:09 that'll hit me in my ROI. Okay, I like that as a measuring.

21:12 I would. And then even if you're getting started, if you're like, I am just so shoestring budget, I don't have it. You know, I'm like, hey, you know, a spreadsheet in a pinch will work, just

21:21 don't keep it because there are 30 million dollar companies that do run on a spreadsheet. I don't recommend it. But in the beginning, if that's the tool that you've got, use it, right? Um, and

21:30 as you get a little bit more critical mass, maybe you can afford a tool that gives you more efficiency because you can afford it. But the other thing that I also say is that you know some of this

21:39 stuff is sort of DIY and there's a level of like you should know how to do this.

21:44 Most companies don't have that uh expertise and even if they did it's limited and it's not somebody's job. So I typically say when you're going to do

21:52 these things if if it's new to you and be honest even if you think well I'm really good with PCs. I'm like okay

21:59 good. But honestly hire somebody an expert to get you onboarded. It's I've never heard anybody go, "Oh, I'm so

22:07 sorry we got onboarded, right? We spent all that money." They never say that, right? It's always a great investment.

22:12 Nobody ever complains about it and you're always glad you did. So, I always recommend if you don't really know what you're doing because the stuff is a little bit complex. Um, I would hire an expert for sure.

22:22 I mean, I've talked to some teams where they're like, you know, they're talking about building these things in house and it's like, shouldn't your team be building your product inhouse? Like, shouldn't they be focused elsewhere

22:31 right now? And you know, I guess there's always the what their affordable loss is when they're willing to say, "Well, we don't want to quite pay for the super,

22:38 you know, nice, but we'll make our janky version first. We'll prove it out. Then we'll, you know, say, okay, now we can afford the barrel." But always cracks me

22:46 up. Like, now we're just going to build the whole thing inside.

22:49 Well, it's funny you say that because honestly, I think we're all entrepreneurs. We're all like that because if I'm being honest, I am that guy. [laughter]

22:57 Oh, yeah. I will I will try to monkey something around and jury rig it and I'm like what are you doing right? I mean but it's just you almost can't help

23:05 yourself. I think I think it is a it's a real flaw in in the thinking of entrepreneurs. You're like I can do it. I can do that. Yeah. Yeah.

23:13 Well, I mean that's also how you get brave enough to go do something like put yourself out there as an entrepreneur.

23:18 So it's that right the gift and the curse, right? It's true. So right.

23:22 Cool. Well hey Tom, we're about to get to the end of the episode. We only had the half hour meal booked. Um, before we do, I see a podcast name behind you.

23:31 It's It's not zooming out for me. I don't know what Zoom's doing yet, but it's uh Tell us more about your podcast.

23:37 Yeah. So, it's Daily Focus and not full uh I haven't taken the the full plunge yet. Uh, but what I've done is a number of friends and practitioners like

23:45 Bistage Chairs and then company owners are I mean, you learn and you've probably seen it, too. You meet businesses that they should not exist.

23:52 There's just no way in the world. It's just insane. against all odds, they somehow succeeded. And I just love those stories and I love the personal journeys

24:00 because, you know, we get caught up in the numbers and the the metrics and all this stuff. And at the end, these businesses grew because somebody had a

24:07 crazy idea and they actually went out and did it. And and I find the stories just incredibly interesting.

24:12 All right. So, if you need your your your inspiration to continue moving forward or take that dive into entrepreneurship, check out the Daily Focus.

24:20 Awesome. Thanks. Oh, and then, you know, before we we close this off, I always like to ask everyone, you know, what's that final point? That one last thing you want to make sure that if somebody

24:28 listens to this episode, this is their takeaway and they're going to um, you know, take this home to the bank and apply it to their own work.

24:34 Yeah. You're in the business of humans, right? And my my mantra is be memorable in a good way. When you touch people, if

24:41 it's an email, a phone call, a smile, be memorable for the moment. If you do that, you know, the rest will take care of itself. But just be authentic. Be

24:50 memorable. Awesome, Tom. I really appreciate it. Thank you for joining. Thank you, sir. Thanks, Austin.