Getting Outside Help
Welcome back, everybody. Another episode of Bootstrap Web. Brian Castle, great to see you.
Brian Casel:Great to see you, buddy. How are doing?
Jordan Gal:Good. Good. Good. It's Friday. Short week.
Jordan Gal:Pretty intense, though. Getting everyone back into the rhythm of school. You you know, a larger Did you average amount
Pippin Williamson:of yelling
Jordan Gal:in our in our house. Oh. We Okay. We had a phenomenal Labor Day weekend. We took the kids to their first Michigan football game.
Brian Casel:Oh, there you go. That's So we got in
Jordan Gal:the car now that we live in the Midwest. We got in the car, and we drove four hours to Ann Arbor. And what a trip.
Brian Casel:That's gonna
Jordan Gal:be a scene. It it was a great scene because it is the beginning of school, and it was like Eastern Carolina. So, like, a chill game. So we were able to get tickets and get a hotel room and all this other stuff. But for anyone who doesn't know me at that level, my wife and I met sophomore year at University of Michigan.
Brian Casel:Oh, that's great.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. We got set up on a blind date in college. And so we went back and, I mean, we had dinner with the kids at places that she and I used to go on dates.
Brian Casel:Oh, wow.
Jordan Gal:So it was it was a real it was awesome. We got to show them the school. We got to show them here's where dad lived. Here's where mom lived. Here's where I went to business school.
Jordan Gal:Here's where these classes. So it was it was a beautiful sunny day. Went to the Yeah. Football game.
Brian Casel:I just it was beautiful too. Like, the the university. Right? It's probably amazing.
Jordan Gal:It's it's like classic just, you know, big college architecture with the entire town surrounding the campus.
Brian Casel:I went to my first two years of college, I was in at IU Bloomington, Indiana Indiana University. Okay. Same idea. Like, huge school, beautiful campus. And I I went to a bunch of I went to a couple of football games and a lot of basketball games at IU.
Jordan Gal:Okay. I don't I don't think I knew that we we had some big 10, you
Brian Casel:know, coming out. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:It's awesome. So we had a great time. I spent a mortgage payment on gear. Thanks to Lululemon and Michigan collaborating. I spent so much money.
Jordan Gal:The kids got tricked out. You know, they wanted all the everything. And then we came home on Sunday and then still had money to go to the pool. It was great, but I was I feel ready. Summer was great, but let's turn the corner.
Jordan Gal:Let's get to work. Feels good.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Monday morning on on Labor Day, I thought that I was gonna have my usual Labor Day, which is just like have a quiet day at work when when everyone else is taking off. Okay. But then, you know, my my wife and kids were off, so they were like, hey. We're gonna go out to the beach and take a walk for the first morning first half of the day.
Brian Casel:And I was like, well, that sounds a lot better than me sitting on this computer. So I'm gonna True. Actually take I took half a day off on Labor Day. That felt pretty good. So but then then back at it.
Brian Casel:Back to the grind.
Jordan Gal:Back to the grind.
Brian Casel:What are
Jordan Gal:we gonna do? The grind. Yeah. So we have some fun stuff. Right?
Jordan Gal:So so we have thirty second signals being crazy again. We can talk about that.
Brian Casel:I love it. This once thing. Or I don't I don't know if I I I we gotta see see what's what. I alright. We'll we'll get more into that later on.
Jordan Gal:Yes. Here's what I like about it. When when people on Twitter were asking them and, you know, people on Twitter now feel much more free to push back on them than they used to. So it's it's a lively debate, which they can handle.
Brian Casel:I'm just gonna state public. I said it on Twitter. I'm I've always been a fan of them through through it all. And and right now,
Jordan Gal:I I don't I'm with you.
Brian Casel:I actually don't really use their products right now. I have many times over the over the years, but, I'm still always impressed and fun to watch and inspired by what they're doing. You know?
Jordan Gal:I agree. They're they're the the OG content marketers. They gave so much value and then got some back. And I admire their you know, just the way they run their business. So what I liked was in some of those conversations where people were pushing back, what Jason Fried said is that I think he posted a blog post that they feel an obligation to not hold back.
Jordan Gal:They have no investors. They have more money than they ever need. If if anyone can just try things and just say the things they really mean, it's them. And he he's like, we have this obligation to do that. And I I loved I loved hearing that there's someone out there that doesn't have the you're right.
Jordan Gal:There are billionaires out there that are still scared of what they're saying because they don't wanna look bad. At least there's someone in the industry just being like, whatever. It doesn't for us personally, it doesn't matter, so let's just do what we wanna do.
Brian Casel:I didn't read his post about that, but I I mean, it makes sense. I I think that but I don't think that they they they're so outspoken strategically. I think that's just their both Jason and DHH's natural personalities, they're they're gonna talk some shit about like, they're gonna speak their mind. You know?
Jordan Gal:Yes. They're gonna go against the grain. Like
Brian Casel:yes. They're gonna go against the grain, and they're gonna tell people about it.
Jordan Gal:Yes.
Brian Casel:And but, like, that's that's why I like, like the original building public sort of thing. One thing that I am always amazed by, I don't know what it is about maybe it's their personality or the way that they communicate this stuff. I just always happen to notice this with they attract so much immediate pushback and controversy. Mhmm. And I'm always amazed by that.
Brian Casel:I'm I'm like, this new thing, once.com. Okay?
Jordan Gal:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:They haven't even launched any products on this thing.
Jordan Gal:Yes. Nobody even knows what It's
Brian Casel:just the concept that it's gonna be one time selling of products, like not subscription. Yes. Literally, the only thing that they have announced on this page. Yes. And and there's just a wave of like, oh, that'll never work.
Brian Casel:You like, you don't understand SaaS or B2B or or or the needs and or this product or whatever. Like, you don't even know what the products are. Like, let's let's take a beat.
Jordan Gal:Right. You're you're just mad at the, I don't even know, the concept or the idea or maybe it's natural. And maybe in some ways, the fact that they get such immediate and loud criticism and pushback, maybe that's actually success in marketing. Mhmm. If I said something controversial right now or against the grain, I don't think anyone cares.
Jordan Gal:And that's that's a sign of, you know, people aren't paying attention. And to them, people are.
Brian Casel:And I guess we could speculate about what we think the products might be. But just the concept of, a one time purchase purchasable product, I mean, this is not a obviously, not a new concept, but I don't think it's at it's completely unwork like, there's a lot of people literally saying like, oh, that'll never work for the types of in in terms of, like, replacement for what would be a SaaS product. I mean, there are plenty of products that that I think could be viable one time sale products and maybe even work better that way. It may be even easier to sell. Because if you think about the lifetime value of a typical customer and plus, this is not new.
Brian Casel:Mean, look at the WordPress industry. I mean, that's Yes. You know? Downloadable products. Yeah.
Brian Casel:They renew licenses, but that's still download and host your own. You know? Yeah. I'm I'm I ways to make this work.
Jordan Gal:I think people are the same way we are right now in this conversation, people are focusing on the business model of pay once instead of pay monthly. I think for them, it dips one more turn into ideology where ownership and control of the software is also a key element in the argument as opposed to on someone else's servers, under someone else's control, at someone else's whim, and all the things that go that go with it.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I guess you could like, it's it's so hard to to debate this really if you don't know what the product and problem solution is yet. But I I would wonder I'm I'm I'll one of the things I'll be curious to see is, like, is the whatever the product is, is the value proposition the fact that it's being sold in a one time purchase scenario or the fact that they get to self host it. I tend to think that, like Right. Most people or businesses, with some exceptions, don't care so much about the infrastructure and the fact that it has to be self hosted.
Brian Casel:I think it gets much more important when it's much larger enterprise where they care about security and and and owning the owning the stack in in house. But I I think that for for 37 signals customer base, I I just don't see them a, doing a a super high end enterprise play. Mhmm. So if they're selling to small businesses, whatever the product is, if they're selling it to, like, smaller folks or smaller businesses, I don't think that they care that it's a
Jordan Gal:Hosted or not?
Brian Casel:Yeah. And and I think it would probably look something like like WordPress products. Not in terms of, like, it'll be a CMS, but but, like, somebody who who buys WordPress products like themes and plugins Mhmm. They're not that person is not hosting it. They're they're paying a WP engine or whoever whoever's hosting their their site.
Brian Casel:So they're that's still a SaaS to them. It's just that they're paying they're paying two different providers, the the hosting provider and the plugin per the product provider. You know?
Jordan Gal:That that's an interesting distinction you make there. Right? That that is important in the equation. In the WordPress world, there's a separation between the initial software creator and where it's hosted.
Brian Casel:Yes.
Jordan Gal:Right? In SaaS, they go together. You're renting the software. Yep. Yes.
Jordan Gal:So that yeah. That's interesting. We we have I have come across more in the last six months, more companies and more instances of companies that want to own the infrastructure. Yeah. So we we have actually created a version of Rally that you can self host.
Brian Casel:Oh, okay.
Jordan Gal:Yep. Because because what we were doing is we were bumping up against larger merchants and their business has historically been owned by their team. And they chose Adobe Commerce because they can own it and host it and control the code and the infrastructure and the testing environments, and that's important to them. And we got into several scenarios in the sales process where they wanted our product. But at the very end, the decision came down to buy versus build, and they just didn't want to change the nature of their company and how they did things by depending on us to host their checkout.
Jordan Gal:And we worked with merchants like that and now you can take Rally elements and host it on your own page. So it is our service and infrastructure that's hosting the fields just like Stripe elements, but they get to control the code. They get to to control the deployments, and that's important to them.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I mean, like, early on in Zip Message, I explored the same idea. I was talking to some some leads who and I don't know if we might ever do this in the future, but this was like over, I don't know, a year and a half, two years ago. Early on in Zip Message, I was like, I I was exploring different ways to niche down. Right?
Brian Casel:And one one option on the table was, like, where we become more of, like, an API or more like a front end. Like like what you're talking about, like like elements, but you handle the hosting and of of your own media, video content, you know, with your own like, instead of us. And that, you know, that still might be interesting at some point, but isn't but but, like, you know, if you think about literally almost all SaaS, like, it's it's like AWS instances. It's, you know, any whoever, the the DigitalOcean, like, any of these other it's all the same. Like, it's all being hosted on the same small handful of of infrastructure in the world.
Brian Casel:Mhmm. And that stuff is getting, you know, yeah, like the nitty gritty AWS panels are insanely difficult to manage. But now you have all these other, like, simplified layers of of spinning these servers up that make it easier and easier for other people to run their own stuff. So Mhmm. Yeah.
Brian Casel:I don't
Jordan Gal:know. Yeah. Cool.
Brian Casel:Any any quick speculation on what the product might be? Just so that we can, like, point back to this and say, like, I called it.
Jordan Gal:Oh, I haven't even I haven't even thought of it. My assumption was that they would take their existing products and and offer them as
Brian Casel:I think so.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Yeah. I really haven't thought of it,
Brian Casel:but that was my My thought would be that they
Jordan Gal:base camp on on your servers. Go for it. Okay. You know? Pay once and then go host it yourself if you want.
Jordan Gal:But I I could be wrong. It would be cool if they came out with a new product. I didn't know that they were even alluding to a new product.
Brian Casel:I I thought the thing the page said, like, they are planning multiple new one time sale products. I I thought that's what they said. I would think that they don't want to compete with their own Basecamp. I'm not sure.
Jordan Gal:Well, if they're coming out with new products, then then at the very least, it will be interesting to see what
Brian Casel:Yeah. Would come out. I guess. I mean, a help desk is is is one thing. I'm I'm sure Lanceman will will love that one.
Jordan Gal:So be you.
Brian Casel:Let's see. CRM, I I mean, they've had high rise. I don't do they still did they take that back? I forgot what happened.
Jordan Gal:No. Maybe they sold it to someone.
Brian Casel:Yep. That that could be one that can make sense.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Well, we just we just covered that topic entirely Yeah. Before getting into it. Yep. We we also have some
Brian Casel:Check it off the list.
Jordan Gal:Right. We've got we've got we've got two topics that both of us have had on our list before we talked. One was around marketing, and one was around, like, coaching and consultants. So we can go to either one of those.
Brian Casel:I think that's interesting. Okay. Yeah. We literally, we were we were both planning on talking about this probably in in different ways. So how should we how should we
Jordan Gal:get into it? You wanna start it? Sure. So I guess what I what I wanted to talk about was an experience that we've been having. It's still present tense because it's still ongoing and I hope it continues for a long time.
Jordan Gal:But at some point the other day, it dawned on me that this consulting engagement that we're in the middle of with G, that's her name. Her name is Gordana. She goes by G and she's the one that I've talked about in the past that has been helping us with our sales process. At some point a few days ago, I thought to myself, I think this is the single biggest positive impact a consultant has had on either of the software businesses. Wow.
Jordan Gal:It's been like three or four months. When you're a
Brian Casel:consultant. So it's not like a direct hire and it's not like an agency. It's somebody to Yeah.
Jordan Gal:It's one person bringing in their expertise from outside the company. Mhmm. Right now, we work together a lot. It it's just pseudo employees, what it feels like, because we work together all the time.
Brian Casel:I wanted to feel like you you've talked about this person multiple times on previous episodes about, like, kind of it. So she consults and advises on the sales process and selling to larger companies and
Jordan Gal:Yes. Cadence and everything. And I thought it made sense for, like, the podcast context, not so much about, like, hey. We're doing this new thing. Because when I talk that way, we're talking about an area that we've been educated in or going up a learning curve and have improved on something like that.
Jordan Gal:But this is like, this is an interesting experience where someone from outside the company, you know, all of us have hired consultants, coaches, agencies from from outside. Right? So not like a full time hire. And the experiences there range from I mean, I've had I've hired a consultant who then stole our code and tried to launch the same product under a different name. You know?
Jordan Gal:So I've gone from, like, criminal Yeah. Betrayal all the way to waste of time, waste of money, going in the wrong direction, and then all the way to some good experiences. Yeah. But this feels like a very different thing where
Brian Casel:What I'm curious about with with g is what what is the structure? What like, how often do you meet? When and how do you meet? What what's the input? How how much of it is, like, she's actually in the in the weeds with you?
Brian Casel:Mhmm. And And who on the team is she talking to? What is what does all that
Jordan Gal:look like? So that's exactly what I thought was worth talking about because we we haven't really covered how it's being done. So it starts
Brian Casel:off like you're you're not her only client. Right? Like, or
Jordan Gal:Right now, we may be her her only client because she didn't she's not a consultant by trade. Okay. So she okay. So it starts off with a little bit of luck combined with, helping create that luck. So one of our investors, he's a board observer.
Jordan Gal:And so he joins the board meetings. Okay? So he's from Felix Capital, our VC in London. And the VC from March Capital is on the board. And JP from Felix is an observer.
Jordan Gal:And so he's he sees the board meetings and at he's at that level of transparency and trying to be helpful. Okay. So as he hears about our go to market learnings and struggles and successes and failures, at some point, it dawned on him, hey. We have another portfolio company that we just invested in. They have a great go to market person right around the same space as you in ecommerce.
Jordan Gal:They happen to be a front end solution. You're a check checkout solution. You should talk to this person. See what kind of insight she has. So I look at, like, her LinkedIn.
Jordan Gal:I'm like, well, this person, you know, really has a lot of the same the expertise that we're looking for. So I get I get in touch with G and then the luck happens. The luck is I've just decided to leave my previous position. So I now don't have a nine to five. So I'm happy to lend my expertise to you.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm. And so that's how we got started. And then I start in these situations, when the person's of like a high caliber, I get this pressure to perform. And I rise up to that occasion because I feel like I'm performing more publicly and someone's watching. I want to intrigue them into wanting to work for the company because it's an exciting opportunity and there's something good going on and it's got potential, that type thing.
Jordan Gal:So we started working together in a way that it was like a it was hourly. Okay. So it starts off as hourly. Here's the hourly rate. I'll write down at the end the week how many hours I put in.
Jordan Gal:At the end of the month, you pay me. Right? Like, pretty standard hourly. What then happened was as I opened up the kimono and showed, okay. Here's how we do our CRM.
Jordan Gal:Here's our this is what happened. This is how we closed this big deal. This is how we lost this big deal. All the stuff, it starts to dawn on her like, oh, I can help these people because they're they're dealing with things that I am very well versed in. And so we start to tackle it.
Jordan Gal:We start to say, all right, if you were going to fix this go to market or really build this go to market function, what would you do? And then it really just started from the top of the funnel down. It was like in a call. So she would join a demo call. Okay?
Jordan Gal:So she's literally on Zoom on the call, and we're going around and we're saying, this is I'm Jordan. I'm the co founder and CEO. It's great to meet you. This is Sam. He runs our sales and customer success.
Jordan Gal:And this is Gee. She's helping with our go to market. So she's fully, fully in the conversation. Mhmm. And then I would give a demo and we would hang up and then we would start a new Zoom for just us, for myself and G and Sam, and we would break down what happened.
Jordan Gal:And she would start to say, okay, here's the deal. This is what you're doing right. This is what you're doing wrong. Clearly, have a discovery issue. You're not doing enough discovery.
Jordan Gal:You're not asking enough questions to understand what the merchant really needs. And then she would go out and create a Google Doc. This is how you do discovery.
Brian Casel:So it's
Jordan Gal:like she
Brian Casel:sees something and then it's like, okay. This is a teachable moment. Let's let's get it up, like, document it all.
Jordan Gal:Yes. And and now we have a document that shows how Rally does discovery. So when hired
Brian Casel:Again, like, the luck situation for you with this person is that she is is not and was not a consultant long for a long time. So it's like she's also becoming a consultant for the first time with Rally. You know what I mean? Like
Jordan Gal:Yeah. She's done
Brian Casel:No. She's super experienced in what she does in her career. But I mean, like, function of being a consultant for ex like, externally for
Jordan Gal:Yes. That's not for likelihood.
Brian Casel:But but there's a there's an interesting benefit for you there Mhmm. In in that there's there's a tendency for a lot of consultants, not all of them, but a lot of them, that, like, they have their own playbook, and they're gonna push their playbook on across all everyone in their client base, rinse and repeat. But and and so in your case here, it's like she's literally crafting her her like, her recommendations.
Jordan Gal:A strategy on how.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Literally based on your current needs, you know? And it's not just like, well, I've already like like that Google Doc that she wrote up. I think there's a lot of consultants out there who probably have a similar thing, and they've written it before. They don't wanna write it again.
Brian Casel:So they just wanna go back to the one that they used before.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. It was custom.
Brian Casel:It's custom for you, you know?
Jordan Gal:Yes. Yes. And I think maybe she's done some consulting. It's just, like, not her livelihood. She's been Yeah.
Jordan Gal:You know, an an executive and a leader in multiple companies, like, consecutively. Mhmm. So that's how things started off. And the further we got in, I think the more pulled in she got by how interesting the opportunity and how big the opportunity feels. And then after about a month, I started to feel like it was my responsibility.
Jordan Gal:One of the most important things on my plate at that moment was to make sure that we did not lose her as a resource. Because clearly, we were starting to move up this learning curve in such a way that I needed to make sure that we do not stop moving up that learning Like, because we we were finally getting there. We were getting this expertise and knowledge that we needed, and we did not have anywhere else. And all of a sudden, we found someone that this situation fit perfectly, and I needed to make sure that that wasn't gonna end. And so then we we communicated about that, and we we started to move things toward not hourly so she doesn't have to deal with, you know, bread in the oven hours and just basically saying, okay.
Jordan Gal:Every month, it's it's x. You don't have to worry about every hour. We know we're getting value out of it. Let's just remove that entirely. So you know what you're getting and we know what we're paying, and we can start not worrying about hours.
Brian Casel:Yeah. I like that.
Jordan Gal:And so so now it's like this hybrid where she spends probably half her time with our company. Mhmm. And she's waking up. She's on the West Coast, so she's waking up at 7AM for demos, and she's on demos that I'm not on. And the CRM is being shaped.
Jordan Gal:I don't know what that mix is. I don't know what the lessons are, but there is something to identifying a direction, which was we need to go toward demo complex sales process and we don't know how to do that. And bringing in someone, I mean, I have to tell you, I have not felt so inadequate in a long time professionally because this person knows so much more than I do that she's often explaining things to me like I'm a little beginner. Like, okay. Here's how business works, buddy.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. You know, this this is what happens next. And I do feel I feel stupid often and I feel inexperienced, and I feel some shame. And I'm just like, I have to just the smart thing to do is just go with it. And it is one of those moments where, you know, you wanna hire people who are better than you, and that challenges your ego, but you know that's the right thing.
Jordan Gal:So now we're starting to, like, look for an AE. Like, now the people that are we're bringing in, they're so far above me on this front that it feels awesome. Like, wow. This is this is who we need in the company. People who really, really know their stuff well beyond myself or or anyone else.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Pretty similar mindset for me right now, especially on because I'm in this mode you know, I looked at my investor update the other day, and it was like a lot more on the I have a big section that's like marketing stuff that we're doing, and then a section on product stuff that we're doing that I put in my monthly update. And usually, they're about equal, like between two and four big bullet points on on those lists, on on each of them. And this month, it was like, I think it was something like six or maybe six big initiatives happening on the marketing side and, you know, two or three things happening on as as usual on the product side. So just a lot more activity, a lot so we're in this mode of, like, we we are try we are in marketing experiments mode.
Jordan Gal:Okay.
Brian Casel:Multiple channels, figuring out which one has the most potential. Everyone is in different stages of development. You know, some have been in development for months. Some some are sort of short term experiments. Some are in the early development phase, and we'll see where they go as they as we move along.
Brian Casel:So, you know, like, it's it's never clean, like, okay, two weeks here, two weeks there. It's usually longer term experiments, but multiple things happening. On the coaching topic so there's actually two I I'm literally, I I have hired one coach now, but I've but I'm looking to hire another coach. A set like a second one. Okay.
Brian Casel:And they're two different it's really two completely different use cases for a coach. Right?
Jordan Gal:Right. Or areas of expertise or or to address. And I just wanna can I just ask for a second? I wouldn't be surprised if she listens to this, and I just wanna close out by saying how grateful I am for her and how exciting it is to work with her and almost, like, look at the future and have the confidence that we are we're not gonna lack for knowledge and, like, these gaps. So those are gonna be filled in, and we we have a much better chance at success because of it.
Brian Casel:So And I and just wanted
Jordan Gal:to say that before we move on.
Brian Casel:On that same note, I'm I'm extremely jealous that you have someone like like Gee. And and and because that's literally what I'm about to describe and what I'm looking for in the second coach that I haven't hired yet.
Jordan Gal:What what was the first one? What I'm looking for
Brian Casel:you guys. One is is, I guess, what you might think of as, like, a typical business coach. I just hired Rob Hatch to for at least the next six months, probably longer, to to be the just a strategic coach for me.
Jordan Gal:Someone from the outside you can go to. Here's what we're thinking. Here's what we're doing. And just get that other perspective.
Brian Casel:Yeah. And and in that in that scenario, it's I I think because I've had multiple conversations with him recent or over over the last several months. I got to know him, like, through through a couple of podcasts and some customer research with coaches and stuff, and and I I just really clicked with with with him in general. And what I what I like what what seems to be like his strength as a coach is in helping to figure out the prioritization and the and and the strategy. Okay.
Brian Casel:Not to not not, like, dictating a strategy, not giving me any sort of playbook, but, like, come inside my business, and together, we're gonna hash out. Like, these are literally the 10 different priorities that I'm trying to battle in my as as a solo founder. That's that's the thing. It's, like, I'm completely solo. I don't have partners like you.
Brian Casel:I don't I don't even have, like, senior level team members to to lean on in that way. I'm I'm much, much leaner. So I'm really at a point now for I've been for a long time. Like, I've become comfortable as a solo founder, but, like, I still really, really struggle with decision fatigue, prioritization, you know, just knowing that and, like, maybe, like, second like, I can make decisions quickly, but then I'll second guess them two or three weeks down the line. You know, it's stuff like that.
Brian Casel:Like and, yeah, I've got a master a couple of mastermind groups, a couple of longtime friends and advisers that I that I can go to for advice and stuff. But, like but they they're running their own business. You know? They're and and a lot of that, it's great, but it's surface level. Right?
Jordan Gal:It's Mhmm.
Brian Casel:So I I wanted to actually see how how things could potentially it's more learning for me to see, like, if I have someone that I'm talking to every two weeks who really is is inside my business with me and and know and can we can hash out these decisions. That's that's how I see working with with with Rob for that. Yeah. The now the other one
Jordan Gal:That's great.
Brian Casel:And okay. So the other the other side of of this, the the other type of coaching, and this is really a totally different thing, but much more like what you're describing with with g is, like I said, I have multiple initiatives running. There's always the product stuff. I feel like we have our our own flow, me and the developers. We you know, I'm I I always feel like that's the stronger side of things for for myself.
Brian Casel:And so I I kinda have a handle on product and I mean, it's got its own challenges, of course.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:On the marketing side, the I for me, there's there's just been a constant evolution in terms of, like, how I go about hiring and executing and and just going after growth channels. And I've and I've gone this is over multiple years, multiple businesses, but I've I've shifted between hiring call it in house, but, like, okay. They they might be contractors, but they work day to day with me. Maybe maybe most of their time is working with me on my business, but they are talented, but lower level, like, task oriented. Like, someone to to knock out the legwork that's required.
Brian Casel:Probably talented and very creative and smart. Mhmm. And and and but, like, they need, like, okay. Here's the project, and they're just gonna go execute the tasks so that I'm not in the weeds on on stuff like that. So think, so I have a marketing assistant who I've been working with for a while.
Brian Casel:She's been great right now. So she does, like, a lot of, like, blog SEO work. She does the podcast editing. She does some graphics. She, you know, she does some email marketing work.
Brian Casel:She like, social media stuff. Like so she's sort of like an executor creative person. Right? And then in other okay. So so that's one approach is to, like, hire someone.
Brian Casel:And and in those cases, like, it's me spending a lot of my time and effort and hours learning and figuring out the strategy and the tactics and me literally writing up processes and delegating them to people like that to to execute the tasks. Then there are areas where it's like, I've I've tried it myself a couple a couple times, and I know enough that, like, this is something I have to completely outsource.
Jordan Gal:Right. Okay.
Brian Casel:A good example is pay per click. Right? Like, pay per click advertising is, okay. I know a little bit I I know enough to to be dangerous. I know how do the tools sort of work.
Brian Casel:That's just an area that
Jordan Gal:I'm You shouldn't be doing it.
Brian Casel:And I should not be I do not wanna log in or touch those interfaces. You know? K. Fair. It's a channel that we're testing, and I hired a really great consultant to to run it.
Brian Casel:He's been awesome. I've recommended him to to several folks. And so so that's an area where it's like, okay. Like, I'll give him the positioning and knowledge and keywords and competitor data that I have, and then he'll he'll build out the campaigns and run them and report back. And that's great.
Brian Casel:You know? Remains to be seen whether that's gonna be a channel for us, but it's, for me, it's pretty low touch. And in that in that in that sense, like, you know, we're veering off the coaching topic, but that's just the consultant who's who's, like, running it. He's a contractor who's running it for me. And then there's other areas, and I would say the sales piece is one, but the other one is SEO.
Brian Casel:And under that umbrella, you've got, like, blog content, you've got the product pages, homepage, comparison pages. But a lot about the the top of funnel blog content. And, you know, I've been doing that kind of work for for years from from AudienceOps and then into into this business, and I've evolved it quite a bit. And with my marketing assistant, we've developed quite a bit of process around incorporating AI into the production process, combined with human touch, combined with a lot of keyword research and HRF's work and and all this stuff. So we have a pretty efficient production process down.
Brian Casel:And and it's definitely an important channel for us. We get, most of our traffic and customers from this channel, but it needs to grow. And given the number of months that I've been hacking at this channel, I feel like we need help. And this is a thing this is where I wanna get back to the evolution of of of my hiring approaches. Because I have tried I've I have tried hiring, like, like, an expert consultant to do it all.
Brian Casel:I have looked at hiring extremely expensive agencies to do it all, where, you know, it's just super high price per month and they are doing it all. Keyword research, writing content, deploying, probably doing link building. I I've looked at outsourcing that too. And and then and then I've also looked at, like, sort of a mid midway consultant where they're sort of maybe doing the keyword research and writing briefs, but then they hand it to us to write the briefs. Tried that for a little while.
Brian Casel:Then I I finally circled back to like, okay. That's not really working and it's a lot a lot of expense for not a lot of results. Let's just refigure this this strategy out from the ground up and hire and and I got my marketing assistant and run it in house. Very lean, but it's very efficient.
Jordan Gal:K.
Brian Casel:But what I'm looking for now is someone to, on an ongoing basis for several months, come in, review everything that we're doing, look over our shoulder, and, you know, help help it grow. It it fix our mistakes, help us course correct. And what I mean by that is someone who really lives and breathes this stuff. So right now, I happen to be looking for this role on the SEO channel. But I'll probably be looking for it on the sales stuff as well.
Brian Casel:The but, like, someone to what I'm not looking for is a one time, like, of, here is a strategy. Let me teach you Best practice. All that. Best practices. Okay.
Brian Casel:Like, I I kinda know all the best practices, and I could read about them anywhere I want.
Jordan Gal:Okay.
Brian Casel:I what more so I want is someone to have multiple calls on an ongoing basis or call it three to six months. And a lot of it could probably be async, but probably some live calls too, where I'm opening up our metrics, our analytics, our Notion docs, everything that my assistant is running, all all of our Ahrefs, and, okay, here's what we've got so far. Come in and poke holes in it and tell us where we should how we should how we should reallocate our resources next month and then the month after and course correct from there. And how can we double and triple this this traffic channel? Just someone you know you know, like, that's all they need to do.
Brian Casel:It's just, like, ongoing basis, just like come
Jordan Gal:And then and then who who does the execution of the work that's
Brian Casel:being recommended? Continue to do it, like, between me and my marketing assistant. And may maybe and and occasionally, we we do still hire writers to write some articles that are more important, so we can do that. Like, I have writers that I go to for stuff. I have VAs that I go to for stuff.
Brian Casel:We have the tools. I know a thing or two, but I'm also mostly distracted and focused on product, so I'm not in it every single day. This person and I'm not looking for this person to, like, put in hours, but just have a call once every two weeks or so to review.
Jordan Gal:And Right. Is it like recommendations. Like an outsourced, like, CMO kind of a director of marketing type of a right? It's it's recommend channels and
Brian Casel:I I like, one person to just who is just an, like, an SEO blog content expert to just focus on that one channel, and we'll have a call to review only what we're doing on that channel. And then for the sales stuff, that's I would think it's a different person. Like, I'd go go to that person for, like, maybe sort of like what what your your working relationship with g is like.
Jordan Gal:Right. How should we set
Brian Casel:things up? What do you recommend And we have some cold cold outreach stuff going on. Maybe review our our our outreach emails, review the way that we're prospecting lists, review how we handle demos and the follow ups, and help us in increase the close rate. Like like, between me and my small team, we can execute and build, and and we can even create our own processes. But I I would really like the expert to come in and review it all and fix it and and tell us tell us if tell us, like, how how they like, based on our actual results from the last four weeks, how should we adjust in the next four weeks?
Brian Casel:And then we rinse and repeat. It's not just like a one time, here's here's a playbook and you can do what what you want with it. You know? So that's so so I think I I do just need more coaches in in the operation that rather than just try constantly trying to figure it out. You know?
Jordan Gal:Yeah. That's tricky. I don't know how that exists in that way because what you're really looking for is someone knowledgeable enough that you are looking to them for expertise, but you also want to be very efficient on how you use their time pay for that time. Feel like maybe we've done that before. We have done that before in a sense.
Jordan Gal:I'm trying to think back to what this is, but I think we have done that before. At Cardhook at some point we had like a marketing coach that was something like $2,500 a month. And they would just kind of come in every two weeks or now I remember who it was. And it was just strategy and advice.
Brian Casel:The challenge here is that a lot of the more experienced folks, they start to treat themselves like like an agency, where they where they just charge a whole lot. And and maybe they do deliver some things like like, article briefs or keyword research reports and stuff like that. And and, like, I just think that that's overkill and overspending for not a lot of results. That that's just been my opinion my my experience. I know that there are some great agencies who do some great work out there.
Brian Casel:I'm just saying, like, in my experience, there is a a leaner way to execute this stuff. And Mhmm. And it's and and, like, again, like, I've I I usually go to, like, well, I could spend the hours and figure it out and do the hard work myself. But the reality is it's just not my strength. Like, know enough to to know, like, it's not my strength.
Brian Casel:I just and I know how how most of it works, and I know how to hire really smart talented people to execute tasks and processes. I just need a little bit of a high level help and review and and, you know, course correction. That's the key word I think is course correction. Is someone to look at look at everything that we're doing and everyone that I've hired and how they work and and find the areas where, like, that's that's wasteful, or you should be doing it this way. And if you're trying to hit these targets, maybe make these adjustments.
Brian Casel:Like, someone to tell me that.
Jordan Gal:You know?
Brian Casel:Because, like because and and also, like, that kind of stuff, I don't think can really come from, like, mastermind groups or Slack communities or conference talks or podcasts. It's someone who has to be in it, like, in the tools with you or multiple calls over over a period of time to to see the trends and then course correct.
Jordan Gal:You know? Mhmm. Yeah. You need a level of familiarity with the business and the details to give good advice. And your friends are supportive and can do that to a degree, but they haven't spent, you know, several hours over the last month going over what happened and why based on the efforts from three months ago and really understanding it in at that level.
Brian Casel:Yep. Yep.
Jordan Gal:Okay. I'm curious what you come up with. I have seen certain things like marketer hire, for example, is a site that direct I to consumer think it started off in the direct to consumer land, but it's expanded beyond just that. But these, like, Shopify brands that are two or three people and they needed to hire marketing experience, but they didn't wanna go and hire full time marketing employee. I think marketer hire kind of fit themselves into that wedge where depending on what strategy you're trying to employ, here's someone that's an expert in working with influencers on Instagram for beauty brands.
Jordan Gal:And then you could kind of work with that expertise in someone's experience and it was hourly or a relatively low monthly retainer.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:And it wasn't full time. So maybe that's kind of
Brian Casel:like I was the starting to look at at clarity.fm, just, you know, have a
Jordan Gal:couple Okay. Of like Okay.
Brian Casel:Pay per minute, just call. But like, even that is a little bit too short term and quick. I'm I'm looking for someone who is definitely available for ongoing calls for a fixed period of time. Like, call it three to six months of help help us take this channel from where it is today, and our history up until now that we can download to you, and help it look a lot better six months from now. Know?
Brian Casel:That's so I I had one more thing here. I don't know if you had anything else.
Jordan Gal:No. I I have something to talk about on marketing that I came across recently that got me so excited that I wanna share it.
Brian Casel:Oh, yeah. Yes. Me switch over to over to product real real quick, and then we'll Sure. Hop back to marketing. Okay.
Brian Casel:Alright. I had this thing. I wrote it down. This was probably not gonna make much sense, but I wrote UX hangover and challenges.
Jordan Gal:Okay.
Brian Casel:Alright. And I've talked a little bit of a lot over the many months now of this transition that we've had from ZipMessage to Clarity Flow in the product. And this is not just a marketing and name change and new headline on the website. It's very much a change in the product. The core remains the same.
Brian Casel:Async conversations, video, audio, text, conversational layout. That's still the core of the product. But we've but we've now shipped and and built, quite a bit more, you know, programs for running courses. You can run community spaces in Clarity Flow. We're very getting just a couple weeks away now from from releasing payments.
Brian Casel:And the use case and the and the market and the customer for Clarity Flow has changed a lot. We're selling to coaches. You know? And with that has come it's so it it has been such an incredibly hard challenge to get the product evolved from Zip Message to ClarityFlow. And I just can't stress how difficult this this evolution has been.
Brian Casel:Because it's like, what we've built with Clarity Flow today, if you just look at it, there's a lot. And building that from scratch would be difficult enough. But it
Jordan Gal:Yeah.
Brian Casel:First existed as ZipMessage. And we had and we've had to evolve into Clarity Flow. And that too that that has been even more challenging, I think. And it's not just the code base side of it, and there's some challenges there with, I don't know, legacy code that they were fundamental technical designs that maybe would be different had we known we were going into Clarity Flow later on. But most of the core functionality, again, is still there, which means the code base that was why I did not start a new product.
Brian Casel:I evolved the code base. So that was fine. I think the more challenging thing is the UX.
Jordan Gal:Okay. And what do you mean by UX hangover? You just been thinking about it so much? You're sick of it?
Brian Casel:What do I mean by that? I I think that one thought one bullet point here is like, okay. I take the approach of, like, we need to ship these features. Let's get the basic feature out as soon as possible into the hands of customers. Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And then we have a hangover of several weeks or months where it's like, okay, customers are excited about that feature, but they're they're having a challenging time with it because the UX, it has has some issues. It's confusing. It's, you know, it's it's just not fully formed. Like, the functionality, there there are there are, like, clunky ways to get to the solution that you need to get to. And I think you'll hear a lot of, like, SaaS advice of, like, we'll just solve the customer's problem.
Brian Casel:And if it if it solves the problem and they can they can replace that spreadsheet with your tool, then it's good enough and go out and sell it. And that's, I mean, that's a that's a bootstrapper mentality that I do take. We like to move fast. We like to ship fast. But the reality is just because we've shipped a feature doesn't mean that the feature is done.
Brian Casel:And it doesn't mean we need to add more bells and whistles to it, but there's been a lot of, like, we ship a feature, and then we have to spend another month or two, maybe later on, to reorganize, redesign the flow of how that feature gets used. You know, like like, invite client onboarding and invite client like, onboarding clients and sending clients invitations to come onboard into Clarity Flow, and then giving them an onboarding experience has been one of those examples where, like, we had a very fast onboarding thing from ZipMessage days, and then we then client onboarding became a super important piece. So we added the whole flow for that. And now we've gone through a third iteration of, like, making that even easier and more streamlined to onboard your clients. And it's like and it's a constant battle of, like, well, do we work on the new features like payments?
Brian Casel:Or do we circle back around to features that we've already shipped? But I know that customers are having issues with it, so we have to improve the the UX flows. And it's a it's a battle because, like, it it sounds like, well, you could if you've shipped the feature, don't spend more time on it. Right. That's a waste of time.
Brian Casel:But but you can go insert but the you know, a customer signing up for Clarity Flow has to be able to successfully invite and onboard their clients. That's a key step in getting activated and successful as a customer. So we have to make that flow work really well. If it doesn't, then it's gonna kill our conversion rate. So that's that's the kind of feature that is, like, important enough to circle back around and improve.
Brian Casel:And that that's one of the improvements that we just shipped. So I don't know. It it's like a a constant challenge. I'll say the other thing about this type of product is user experience is so so important. It's I've I mean, I'm so I'm so jealous of these SaaS that you that you can just buy it, turn it on, set it, and forget it.
Brian Casel:Or buy it and and plug it into a business and have one person in the office work with your SaaS tool to run it day to day, and it solves their problem, and it's great. But in in this type of product, it not only has to be great for the coach themselves, their experience of using it day to day to communicate, but it has to be great for their clients.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. And they have to feel that it's great for their clients.
Brian Casel:To feel it. They have to use it on mobile. They have to not be annoyed by little nitpicky things that that seem small, but, like, that's super annoying every if if that's how I have to communicate with my coach every day. You know? So, it's it's just a lot of, like, detailed interfaces and UX work that that I mean, this is why features not only take longer to ship, but even after I ship them, people are excited about it, but it's not gonna be a hit right out of the gate.
Jordan Gal:Uh-huh. So you have to go you have to go back to it often.
Brian Casel:There's still a lot of, like, circling back to, like, to fine tune. You know, because you a lot of the UX stuff, you don't even see until you until it's in the hands of customers. Right?
Jordan Gal:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:And then there's the other challenge of the fact that, like, I'm not a coach. So everything so it's not like I built this as a scratch my own itch tool. Yeah.
Jordan Gal:You need feedback.
Brian Casel:The initial zip message I did, like, I because I use it for async conversations. But when you get into selling courses and community spaces and combining that with coaching, these are workflows that I don't use myself. So there's a there's an extra layer of of I do a ton of customer research around this, but still, like, I don't I there there's there's a lot of little, like, UX gaps that I that I learn after the fact. So that's just been an ongoing challenge. You know?
Brian Casel:Mhmm.
Jordan Gal:That that sounds hard. Our our product challenges are there are just a never ending number of dependencies around our product. So even though the product right now processes millions of dollars a month, there's still integration with loyalty points, integration with gift cards, integration like that is never ending. And right now, we are in like a sprint between now and the end of the year to get as many of those done that we are very aware of, the ones that keep coming up with this new ICP so that in Q1, when we have any sales conversation, that those are not blockers because we definitely would have closed a handful of deals over the last few months, but didn't because we we just were not quite ready to satisfy what they needed. And for one reason or other, that that kinda killed the deal or slowed the deal or whatever else.
Jordan Gal:So we don't we have some run runway in terms of, like, knowing ahead of time. No one's really not that no one's gonna sign up, but right now we're in negotiations. No one's gonna launch in the middle of Q4.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. I mean and and also like with those products, see it really front and center when I do these sales demos. I had one this morning and I had one right after this call. So I'm doing a lot more sales demo calls now.
Jordan Gal:Like live combos?
Brian Casel:Yeah. Live combos with and showing the product. And you know what it is? It it I I spent a lot of time just talking to the to the coach, to the to the customer, and fielding their questions, and then showing how the product solves those questions. And it's what's interesting about this, I love that I'm doing more sales demos now, because they dictate to me what they expect to see in in the flow.
Brian Casel:Like, literally this morning, a guy who he he's trying to move his courses off of another platform into Clarity Flow because we now have our courses feature, which we call programs. He's describing like, well, how do I do this? Or I would expect it to look like this. How do I set up that flow, for example? And that's when I have that moment of, oh, well, okay, you could do that, but it's a couple clicks away, and we're gonna make that part a little bit easier in the next few months.
Brian Casel:But, technically, it's there. It's in the product. You can do that. That's the answer to most of these questions now.
Jordan Gal:Mhmm.
Brian Casel:We have the database built out. We have the interface there. But the way that it's organized can be tricky in certain areas. And then it and and then I don't really see it until I get asked about it on a call, and I have to show how to do it. You know?
Brian Casel:And and I and I think a lot of this can probably circles back to, like, I as a solo founder, I have so much going on, and I'm really close to the product every day, plus distracted with marketing stuff that, like, you know, maybe I just don't have enough time or bandwidth to to put my, like, UX hat on, in the development process. And then and then it it happens, like, once it's in the hands of customers, and then we have to circle back and just reorganize things. You know? Fun stuff.
Jordan Gal:Oh my goodness. I I I hear you.
Brian Casel:What's the you wanna get into that last, market
Jordan Gal:Yeah. This is something that I heard about recently, in terms of a marketing tactic. And we're gonna give it a try on our end, and I'll report back. This is one of those things that after hearing it, I felt like such an idiot that we weren't doing it. So you know how over the last few months, maybe years, you and I have often talked about not knowing what to do with marketing.
Jordan Gal:What works? How to stand out? What's worth the effort? What's worth the money? Like, you know, it's there's like a some confusion or maybe lack of confidence around, here's what we should be putting all of our efforts in.
Jordan Gal:So as we have gotten more and more sales driven as a company, right? Everything is do a demo, go through the sales process. I have started to question what to do on marketing even more because all the efforts on sales are working and we're getting people into our pipeline through SDR doing outbound outreach. So it's again, I'm like, okay, so now what does marketing serve to support sales? Is that marketing's role or does it have its own role?
Jordan Gal:So I've been asking myself these questions. Yesterday, I had a conversation with someone that explained to me how they use effectively how they use marketing to drive their sales driven process. And the way they do it is with a tool called ZoomInfo. Many of us are familiar with a company and product called Clearbit. There's one for like the e commerce world called Retention.
Jordan Gal:There are a few of these services and what they do is they keep track of your visitors to your website and then they send you a report on where those IP addresses came from. And so really what you're getting out of it is you're not getting an email address. Sometimes you are, but the goal is to give you an idea of which companies are visiting your site. And I had this report. We have Clearbit on our site.
Jordan Gal:We use the free version. And when you use the free version of Clearbit, once a week on Friday, I get an email saying, here's who visited your site last week. And you click on it and you get the free report and it shows you like 20 different companies and how many times they visited. And so if it's like
Brian Casel:So they just a company These these tools know they they've just mapped IP addresses to, like, the where they know the locations of a lot of large companies.
Jordan Gal:That that is my assumption. I don't know what they're doing. I'm not familiar with the tech. But all I know is I get an email with a report that shows this specific company. There were eight visits in the last week from that company and has like a little thing next to it that's like intent.
Jordan Gal:Right? Like this person's visiting your site a lot. You should pay attention. And so we've been getting that free report for months and it's interesting and every once in a while it's useful. Right?
Jordan Gal:Every once in a while, I'm like, oh, I know that company. We've talked to that company and now they're coming to our site. Or maybe it's I've I've looked at it from like VC firms and partners and banks and credit cards. So it just gives you a little glimpse. It's like spying on your traffic.
Jordan Gal:And so the way this company uses that is they identify their target persona in their ICP. And so they'll go to LinkedIn and they'll say, let's target these 3,000 companies and these 20,000 people that are associated with these 3,000 companies. And let's run ads, LinkedIn ads, and just organic content to our LinkedIn followers and to that audience in particular. And what they're doing is they're admitting that the likelihood of someone seeing this promoted content and coming to your site and then also submitting a form is just really low. And so instead of aiming for a form submission as success, right?
Jordan Gal:Ideally you want someone to come like you're running an ad, someone clicks on it, they go to your store. They're so wowed by your content, what you've said in your website that they fill out a demo form and say, I want a demo of this software. I want to learn more. Mhmm. That is cool, but it's such a tiny fraction of the time that that happens that what this company does is it looks at it and says, not only is a form submission rare, but a form submission from the people that we actually want to submit the form, right?
Jordan Gal:Like these higher end decision makers, the likelihood of that is near zero. Yeah. And so instead, what they're doing is they're driving that traffic and then they're paying for the full blown version of ZoomInfo or Clearbit or one of these other ones. And they're getting that report daily and that's what they're piping into their CRM for their SDRs to wake up in the morning and say, are the 10 companies that visit us our site yesterday. Don't go off to your list of totally cold contacts that have never heard of of us before.
Jordan Gal:Yeah. Approach these ten first.
Brian Casel:Might hire me if you go go to them.
Jordan Gal:Exactly right. And so you send an email and you do LinkedIn connections and you make a phone call and you say, we saw that someone from your company was on our site yesterday. How can we help?
Brian Casel:Yeah. I've been going on on these tools for, like, Outreach and and list building over the last I've done this several times, and and I've been in this mode lately of, like, warming up the Outreach engines, if you will. And, like, some of the tools now are really impressive on what you can and and, you know, there's there's one clay.com I found very impressive. You know, there there's Apollo. There's several others.
Brian Casel:And you can you can chain together different stuff like Phantom Buster. There's a whole rabbit hole you can get into. But Yes. Yeah. But being able to and that's something that I'm really looking at as well and learning a lot about.
Brian Casel:Because what you were saying about, okay, we're always lost in terms of which marketing channels to focus on and spend resources on. Yeah. I think the thing about that is we all know what the big five to 10 marketing channels are. Right? Like, whatever.
Brian Casel:There's, like, SEO, there's ads, there's
Jordan Gal:Email. Outbound Right.
Brian Casel:You know? We all know that, but there are so such, like, smaller sub strategies within these. Like like, what you were just describing, like like, highly targeted, that combining content and ads with outreach and, like, sales outreach.
Jordan Gal:Right. Powered by these, like, pseudo spying tools.
Brian Casel:I've I've been getting some that
Jordan Gal:I've gotten that ClearBit email for for months. It just didn't click in my head.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Yeah. Like, I I had a couple really good conversations with with some folks, like, show like, who just show me your stack when it comes to, outbound, sales messaging. And, yeah, there are some tactics that are just like, oh, that's so like, that's so smart, and I could see you know, because we all receive cold emails and stuff like that. And and we, you know, we ignore them, we delete them.
Brian Casel:And maybe you've tried it, and it's, like, super low open rate. But, like, when you do it in a certain way with with some specific strategic strategies, it's pretty incredible. I I mean, I I don't wanna get all into it, but it's like, that that's what what is is to be uncovered when you have conversations. Whether it like like looping back to the stuff about a coach or just talking to friends and advisors who like, I really and this goes back to something I was talking about a few episodes back, I think. It's like, the more that you can ask a fellow founder to show me inside your company, or show me inside this part of what you do, just show me what you guys do.
Brian Casel:Like, that is so so valuable. It's so you you the substance that you get from that compared to the surface level that you hear on a podcast or you see on Twitter is so different. You just learn so much more by literally seeing what just show me what you do. I've had a couple of those calls. It sounds like you have too.
Brian Casel:That where it's
Jordan Gal:Yeah. It's you you have to maintain those relationships because they're based on trust. Yeah. And they're based on shared value. Right?
Jordan Gal:You can't just randomly show go up to someone and say, give me all of your hard fought around secrets.
Brian Casel:Yeah.
Jordan Gal:But but it when you do get there, it's usually the result of them making mistakes and learning new mistakes and learning. And you're then you're getting a picture of it. It is you do have to have the maturity to understand that you can't just take exactly what they do and copy and expect the same result. Right? We're all used to that.
Brian Casel:Yeah. Like like that But
Jordan Gal:it does give you an insight.
Brian Casel:But that that's the thing. Like, if if I get on a call I've had a couple of these calls recently where where I'm on a call and and the person is showing me their stack for how they do sales outreach. I know that they it's it's super clear that they went through months, maybe a year or more of trial and error and putting all the pieces together. And it's clear to see how hard it is to put that together, but I could see what that end result actually looks like. And then it's like, it helps me and I I know that I have a lot of work ahead of ahead of me that that I've been doing lately, but, like, seeing seeing what that end result looks like helps me skip some steps and get and and get there faster, even though I still need to do all that work to do
Jordan Gal:And the motivation to go on your own journey to get to where your version of where they are. I remember at the very beginning of our sales journey, maybe six months ago, I had a conversation with a friend of mine who runs an email marketing company. And the horror of what their journey actually looked like to figure it out is wild. Hiring a whole sales team, firing the entire sales team, starting from scratch and then doing it. And then again, and then, it just takes a significant amount of experimentation and learning.
Jordan Gal:But to see where they got after their pain was incredible. And to see what it can do once you get there is so motivating. And it was the end of the conversation with he and I was definitely, you got to go on your own journey. But just stick with it and you'll get there.
Brian Casel:There's one common thread, I think in this episode, I think it's that it works both ways, right? Like there's one side of the mindset where it's like, you can't just always figure out everything on your own. You do need to seek outside help. But at the same time, that outside help, it's so much more helpful if if they can see into what you're doing and apply it in your case rather than someone just giving you a blanket, like, use this playbook. It will work on a 100 different companies.
Brian Casel:Like, it you know, you you can't take outside help and expect it to or or look at some what someone's doing and expect it to work exactly. So it's like the the more it's, it's just integrated, the better. Yep. There we go.
Jordan Gal:So it goes, journey continues.
Brian Casel:Yes, sir.
Jordan Gal:And now the beginning of the weekend journey continues, my friend. Thanks everyone for listening.
Brian Casel:Alright. Have a great weekend. You too, buddy. Later, folks.
