A Product Market Fit Show | Startup Podcast for Founders
00:21:41 · Pablo Srugo, Mark Hughes
[00:21:41] S1: So this is you hire a new customer service rep and you just need to get them trained up, you do the role playing to do that. [00:21:46] S0: Yeah. Because managed attrition is so high in contact centers in particular where they're seeing, like, 100% turnover year over year. They're hiring in batches of a 100 agents at a time. So getting the agent proficient and saving labor costs for every support org, scale support org, you probably have one trainer for every 30 support agents and, like, one QA analyst for every 15 to 20 agents. So we were kinda focused on that, like, the ROI was reduced time to proficiency, like, basically cutting that in half so people were ramped a lot quicker, and then trainer costs. So, like, you wouldn't need as many trainers because this is automating a lot of the role of the trainer. So, like, headcount savings was very easy from, like, our ORWA calculations to show during, like, a POC or a pilot in a couple of weeks, and they were the kind of two things that hit home the most. [00:22:33] S1: So let's do it like this. Like, let's talk about this getting a million in ARR through outbound. Imagine, like, I'm a founder. I come to you. I'm like, Mark, I got this product. I'm telling you the ROI is clear. Like, I've spoken to some customers. You know, they love it. Whatever. I'm ready to go. Take me step by step with the things that you would do to get me to a place where I'm booking, you know, hundreds of demos.
00:22:33 · Pablo Srugo, Mark Hughes
[00:22:33] S1: So let's do it like this. Like, let's talk about this getting a million in ARR through outbound. Imagine, like, I'm a founder. I come to you. I'm like, Mark, I got this product. I'm telling you the ROI is clear. Like, I've spoken to some customers. You know, they love it. Whatever. I'm ready to go. Take me step by step with the things that you would do to get me to a place where I'm booking, you know, hundreds of demos. [00:22:53] S0: Yeah. I think you have to do the manual stuff for the start to kind of to tinker the the messaging. So, like, what I would be telling founders to do is, like, start with social selling on LinkedIn and, like, be as personalized as you possibly can from, like, voice notes to video messages. [00:23:09] S1: Like, true manual. Like, this do this, like, the stuff that doesn't scale. Right? [00:23:12] S0: Do stuff that don't scale. Yeah. And I'd go really deep there to find out, like, what messaging is resonating, who's the persona, like, do a lot of work on finding out who your ICP is. Because as I said, like, now I can tell you, like, our ICP is b to c, enterprise companies scaling past 10,000 support tickets a month that use an outsourced BPO and have an AI agent live. And, like, to your point, like, we still have a massive TAM. It's, like, get, like, really firm on your ICP.
00:23:12 · Mark Hughes, Pablo Srugo
[00:23:12] S0: Do stuff that don't scale. Yeah. And I'd go really deep there to find out, like, what messaging is resonating, who's the persona, like, do a lot of work on finding out who your ICP is. Because as I said, like, now I can tell you, like, our ICP is b to c, enterprise companies scaling past 10,000 support tickets a month that use an outsourced BPO and have an AI agent live. And, like, to your point, like, we still have a massive TAM. It's, like, get, like, really firm on your ICP. [00:23:41] S1: How did you tell me about that because I I think that's critical. Like, you can send half a million emails to the wrong type and you're gonna have way your conversion will be worse. How did you do that at the beginning? Like, how broad did you because you have an idea. You always have an idea. You're like, no. No. I know my ICP is this. Right? Like, how much did you just focus on that versus just go, let's assume I know nothing, blank slate, and you just kind of hit up a bunch of different people. Like, where where did you find that middle ground?
00:24:02 · Mark Hughes, Pablo Srugo
[00:24:02] S0: I spoke to lots of customers, basically, or prospective customers. Like, anyone who would speak to me, I would speak to. From my own network, I would say, like, hey. Will you introduce me to this person, that person? So, like, while Patrick was building the product, I was on lots of discovery calls, essentially, trying to find design partners, trying to find people that would actually test the tool. So there was a lot of that. I would get lots of learnings from those calls and then take that messaging to find similar people who I had better conversations with to then try find because it's it's very easy to if you talk with, like, the mom tests and you can find people in your your network who are gonna be like, yeah, this is great, but, like, I actually needed to verify it with people I didn't know. So then I take, like, the best conversations, their roles in those companies, then go after similar people completely outbound on LinkedIn, get super personalized with it. The messaging that would lead to, like, higher kinda conversion rates from first calls booked, I'd be like, okay, put that in a Google Doc. I know that's a good message. I'd kinda build up a bank that way. And then when that became somewhat repeatable, I scaled it. So that's really helpful. [00:25:01] S1: Do you remember, like, people that you thought should work but actually didn't work? Do you know what I mean? Like, on the ICP finding side, like, things that you you ultimately only found through these reps?
00:25:01 · Pablo Srugo, Mark Hughes
[00:25:01] S1: Do you remember, like, people that you thought should work but actually didn't work? Do you know what I mean? Like, on the ICP finding side, like, things that you you ultimately only found through these reps? [00:25:12] S0: I spent a lot of time in, like, selling to other b to b SaaS companies coming from a b to b SaaS background, and I was just, a complete waste of time. Like, it was really the big eye opener for me is, it seems obvious in hindsight, like, B2C companies that actually have so much conversation volume that they really they have so much support. They have so many conversations coming in, so was the kind of big eye opener for me that's like, okay, kind of changes everything. [00:25:34] S1: So I like that. And then on the messaging front, you you mentioned like as things worked, you would kind of put them in a bank. Do you remember some of the subtleties and the messages that you found started working versus maybe the ones that seemed to work less?
00:25:45 · Mark Hughes
[00:25:45] S0: Yeah. This is kind of the advice I give to salespeople as well or, like, people are doing founder led sales. It's like, you kinda need to remember what is the purpose of the message. Because a lot of people is like, if you actually take the mindset of, like, this message is to close this customer because I need my first customer, it's It's like, never gonna work. So I felt like it was almost like putting too much detail and like why we're amazing, whereas like the goal of the message is to get a call or get a reply. Even if you take a step back, it's like, the goal of the message is get a reply and then when you get a reply, it's to get the first call and then you can go to work from there. So it was really just like simple stuff and like lean on the fact of like, hey, I'm kind of building this startup in this space. I'd love to get your thoughts and your feedback on the version one of the product. A lot of people are happy to help startups, and like those like initial conversations where it is really just, like, feedback, you're not trying to hard sell them, oftentimes they then turn into, hey. Like, you know what? You should talk to John on our team. I think he actually might be able to test this out with, like, a small cohort of users and give you some better feedback than me. So I, like, went really high of CEO, COO and like played ignorance of like I'm a startup founder, please give me feedback. Then they push it down the chain and then fully enough when we actually look back at some of the deals we closed, look at like how the first meeting got booked that it's like from the CEO or co founder of the company, and like by the time it actually gets to the person who procures the software, they probably think they've been told to buy this tool because it's gone from their CEO. So I think that is something that's quite helpful. If you can get in like at the highest level and work down the chain, that's a good starting point.