1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:01,680 Hey, Rob, welcome back. Good to see you man. 2 00:00:02,200 --> 00:00:03,240 You too. How's it going? 3 00:00:03,880 --> 00:00:06,920 It's going great. You've got Jonas Vanguard in 4 00:00:06,920 --> 00:00:10,760 making his first appearance in your newsletter, the two time 5 00:00:10,760 --> 00:00:13,400 Tour de France champion. So I was. 6 00:00:13,400 --> 00:00:15,440 I was. Currently crushing the currently 7 00:00:15,440 --> 00:00:17,200 crushing the Jiro. We had a great day yesterday. 8 00:00:17,680 --> 00:00:19,080 Amazing. Amazing. 9 00:00:19,760 --> 00:00:22,480 Well, I'm excited to talk. Today we're talking about arrow 10 00:00:22,480 --> 00:00:24,040 mode, the two things that matter. 11 00:00:24,680 --> 00:00:28,320 This one was like a gut punch to me at the moment, given where 12 00:00:28,320 --> 00:00:30,080 given where it can bring my this, this is. 13 00:00:30,080 --> 00:00:35,360 But before we jumped into the content, Rob, we hinted at this 14 00:00:35,360 --> 00:00:38,400 on the last one or your books coming out soon. 15 00:00:38,440 --> 00:00:42,320 Let's just quick PSA. What should folks do? 16 00:00:42,840 --> 00:00:46,120 Yeah, so quick PSA, my book is called The Power of Pull. 17 00:00:46,400 --> 00:00:50,000 It is the one by Rob Snyder, not the other Power of Pull by 18 00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:53,880 somebody else. It has a red cover that that 19 00:00:53,880 --> 00:00:56,240 should help. You can you can pre-order it on 20 00:00:56,240 --> 00:00:58,920 Amazon, Barnes and Noble, kind of anywhere online. 21 00:00:58,920 --> 00:01:00,000 You should be able to pre-order it. 22 00:01:00,400 --> 00:01:02,880 And we are launching a thing where if you go to 23 00:01:02,880 --> 00:01:09,640 robsteider.org/book and submit a picture of your pre-order, 24 00:01:10,040 --> 00:01:11,600 you're going to get some cool stuff. 25 00:01:11,600 --> 00:01:16,000 So we're going to do some private AM as with me where come 26 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:20,080 ask questions, hang out. And also we're going to be 27 00:01:20,080 --> 00:01:25,400 giving away my clod codes skill or my clod skill that analyzes 28 00:01:25,400 --> 00:01:27,280 sales calls that a lot of founders are using. 29 00:01:27,520 --> 00:01:29,600 At some point I'm going to release it publicly. 30 00:01:29,600 --> 00:01:33,000 But if you want early access to it, just go to 31 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:38,080 robsnyder.org/book, submit your kind of pre-order receipt there 32 00:01:38,280 --> 00:01:42,120 and you'll get access to IT. People really find it useful. 33 00:01:42,120 --> 00:01:45,560 You really find it useful and and I I find it useful too. 34 00:01:46,200 --> 00:01:49,640 Yeah, I've used it on several of my calls and basically you just, 35 00:01:50,720 --> 00:01:54,880 you know, you import the skill to Claude and then you upload 36 00:01:54,880 --> 00:01:59,160 the transcript of a a sales call and it tells you was there pull. 37 00:01:59,160 --> 00:02:03,160 It gives you helpful coaching. It breaks down like what was 38 00:02:03,160 --> 00:02:06,400 what was the pull that it identifies using your frameworks 39 00:02:07,160 --> 00:02:10,160 and probably a lot of folks listening like they can also try 40 00:02:10,160 --> 00:02:13,800 to sort of back end create it just like upload all of your 41 00:02:14,080 --> 00:02:17,360 content. But you've specifically refined 42 00:02:17,360 --> 00:02:20,800 this one with, I don't know, a couple 100 sales calls probably 43 00:02:20,800 --> 00:02:23,680 at this point. So that it's a much closer 44 00:02:23,680 --> 00:02:27,200 approximation to like the way that you actually think in the I 45 00:02:27,200 --> 00:02:29,440 found it that it's not 100%. It's like I'll have 46 00:02:29,440 --> 00:02:32,240 conversations with you about the sales calls that I have and 47 00:02:32,240 --> 00:02:34,760 usually, you know, there's often like a little tweak, but it's 48 00:02:34,760 --> 00:02:39,080 very close and honestly, like it gets me really far without 49 00:02:39,080 --> 00:02:41,880 having to just constantly badge for you width. 50 00:02:42,600 --> 00:02:46,640 Would you watch this 35 or 30 minute or whatever it is sales 51 00:02:46,640 --> 00:02:49,400 call, but anything else you want to add about about the book or 52 00:02:49,400 --> 00:02:51,240 the code or the the skill or anything? 53 00:02:52,560 --> 00:02:55,640 Just the only other thing on the on the skill is like pull is 54 00:02:55,760 --> 00:02:57,960 pretty much a deterministic framework. 55 00:02:58,440 --> 00:03:01,400 It's like it's getting there towards being deterministic. 56 00:03:01,680 --> 00:03:05,680 And so if you just like use, you could, you could try to build 57 00:03:05,680 --> 00:03:08,080 this yourself and use it and you will get things that are 58 00:03:08,280 --> 00:03:11,800 plausible. The goal, though, is to get 59 00:03:11,800 --> 00:03:15,680 things that are true and right. And so that's why I've been 60 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:19,520 working on the scale and why I keep refining it because like 61 00:03:19,520 --> 00:03:22,440 more, more information is not making it better. 62 00:03:22,440 --> 00:03:25,600 It's absolutely how do I compress the degrading rubric? 63 00:03:25,600 --> 00:03:28,040 How do I, how do I compress and, and get it to actually 64 00:03:28,040 --> 00:03:29,760 understand pull as I understand it? 65 00:03:30,080 --> 00:03:31,880 And so it's been a fun challenge. 66 00:03:31,880 --> 00:03:35,840 There's probably more skills and things to be built. 67 00:03:35,840 --> 00:03:38,800 I have people asking me to just like, hey, can you plug into all 68 00:03:38,800 --> 00:03:42,200 of my calls and maybe also my CRM and like also all this other 69 00:03:42,200 --> 00:03:46,240 stuff. And so anyway, get, get the 70 00:03:46,240 --> 00:03:47,680 skill. Let me know what you think, 71 00:03:47,680 --> 00:03:51,720 reach out. And if you need more things in 72 00:03:51,720 --> 00:03:55,880 that realm, let me know as well. Because I, you know, I would be 73 00:03:55,880 --> 00:03:59,360 down to invest time in building something a little bigger there. 74 00:03:59,920 --> 00:04:03,600 Yeah, and it's anybody that's tried to have a conversation 75 00:04:03,600 --> 00:04:09,920 with TBT or cloud or whatever about about sales it without 76 00:04:10,200 --> 00:04:13,480 Rob's framework. I find it like sort of counter 77 00:04:13,800 --> 00:04:15,560 helpful. Like it's, it's just like it 78 00:04:15,560 --> 00:04:16,880 leads you in the wrong direction. 79 00:04:16,880 --> 00:04:19,720 It you know, it's I don't know how it it works on the back end. 80 00:04:19,720 --> 00:04:22,520 I'm sure a bunch of your your audience does, but it's just, it 81 00:04:22,520 --> 00:04:24,200 doesn't it's not it's not useful. 82 00:04:24,240 --> 00:04:26,480 And so this is the, the first thing that I found that's like, 83 00:04:26,520 --> 00:04:29,200 I actually want to, I finish a call and I'm like, I need to 84 00:04:29,200 --> 00:04:30,880 upload. I need another opinion on this. 85 00:04:30,880 --> 00:04:33,920 And, and it's helpful. And this is a way to get it, you 86 00:04:33,920 --> 00:04:37,360 know, three months early like get the goat like basically 87 00:04:37,360 --> 00:04:41,040 imported the PMF goat imported to your imported. 88 00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:43,120 That's super interesting. That's my experience too, which 89 00:04:43,120 --> 00:04:47,800 is that I, it's like just vanilla feedback sounds right. 90 00:04:48,800 --> 00:04:53,920 And that makes it so dangerous. It's like so dangerous and so 91 00:04:53,920 --> 00:04:56,160 counterproductive. Like, like I just have a bunch 92 00:04:56,160 --> 00:04:58,400 of people who will reach out to me and say, hey, Claude gave me 93 00:04:58,400 --> 00:05:00,080 this outbound message or whatever. 94 00:05:00,240 --> 00:05:02,280 And it's the worst thing you've ever seen. 95 00:05:02,280 --> 00:05:05,880 But it seems like it would be an outbound message that could 96 00:05:05,880 --> 00:05:07,520 plausibly work. And it connects in an 97 00:05:07,520 --> 00:05:08,920 interesting way. And it's like, yeah, this is 98 00:05:08,920 --> 00:05:12,120 going to get 0% response rate. Or if you implement the, you 99 00:05:12,120 --> 00:05:15,320 know, whatever call feedback you get from just a generic LLM or 100 00:05:15,320 --> 00:05:18,680 from evil feel like a really good model, it's going to be 101 00:05:18,680 --> 00:05:21,000 counterproductive. And so, yeah, we'll see. 102 00:05:21,040 --> 00:05:23,480 Give it a try. Awesome, awesome. 103 00:05:23,480 --> 00:05:25,400 All right, let's jump into into this one. 104 00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:28,000 We're back into something very practical. 105 00:05:28,000 --> 00:05:32,480 So again, this this 01 last thing we'll put the links to 106 00:05:32,480 --> 00:05:35,080 Rob's book and to the whatever in the in the show notes for 107 00:05:35,080 --> 00:05:36,280 anybody that wants to find them. Easy. 108 00:05:37,200 --> 00:05:41,760 All right, arrow mode, the two things that matter, right? 109 00:05:41,760 --> 00:05:45,640 This in this one we're talking about, you know what's going on 110 00:05:45,640 --> 00:05:48,600 at the start of the business. How do you choose the ICP? 111 00:05:49,720 --> 00:05:52,760 Rob, before we get into the details, like why is this on 112 00:05:52,760 --> 00:05:54,400 your mind and who's this one for? 113 00:05:55,360 --> 00:05:56,640 Yeah. So it's, it's just I've been 114 00:05:56,640 --> 00:06:00,000 talking to quite a few founders who are in the stage where they 115 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:05,000 are growing but wanna be growing insanely fast. 116 00:06:05,600 --> 00:06:10,480 And so the, the, they all kind of generally have the, the 117 00:06:10,480 --> 00:06:15,560 realization that in order to grow super fast, we need to 118 00:06:15,800 --> 00:06:20,360 actually narrow down further and do fewer things. 119 00:06:20,360 --> 00:06:23,200 So that the things that we actually do, the people we 120 00:06:23,200 --> 00:06:27,920 actually serve, like we can repeat that faster and faster 121 00:06:27,920 --> 00:06:31,960 and faster and, and not have to worry about slow sales cycles, 122 00:06:31,960 --> 00:06:35,480 not have to worry about churn. And so in my mind, there was 123 00:06:35,480 --> 00:06:37,680 this, there's, I was actually writing this out and I was 124 00:06:37,680 --> 00:06:40,120 talking to a start up that's, that's featured in here. 125 00:06:40,120 --> 00:06:42,640 I kind of rewrote this as I was talking to and I showed them 126 00:06:42,640 --> 00:06:46,160 like the party bike mode. It's like it feels like you're 127 00:06:46,160 --> 00:06:48,440 in the party bike mode right now where you have all these 128 00:06:48,440 --> 00:06:50,880 different features and seats and different kinds of people you 129 00:06:50,880 --> 00:06:52,280 could sell to. There's a lot of moving parts 130 00:06:52,280 --> 00:06:56,560 here and we want to get down to arrow mode where you are just 131 00:06:56,560 --> 00:07:02,840 like on the on the drops and like minimizing wind resistance 132 00:07:02,840 --> 00:07:06,480 and maximizing power output so that you could do like basically 133 00:07:06,480 --> 00:07:08,960 riding a time trial bike. Yeah, yeah. 134 00:07:09,160 --> 00:07:13,560 And for anybody that's not deep in the Cycling World, the the 135 00:07:13,640 --> 00:07:17,360 party 1 is like if you've ever gone out on like a 12 seater 136 00:07:17,360 --> 00:07:20,560 beer bike kind of experience, you're you're all pedaling in 137 00:07:20,560 --> 00:07:22,440 the wrong direction. You're sort of probably moving 138 00:07:22,440 --> 00:07:26,240 with a an A motor anyways. And then on the drops just means 139 00:07:26,240 --> 00:07:30,360 like there's as little friction as possible hitting your body. 140 00:07:30,360 --> 00:07:32,520 It's like that everything is designed for that. 141 00:07:32,760 --> 00:07:39,480 And Rob, maybe before we get into like, what is it like to to 142 00:07:39,480 --> 00:07:43,240 be in arrow mode to be like, you know, down low wind resistance, 143 00:07:43,240 --> 00:07:48,120 just like flying? What are some of the resistances 144 00:07:48,800 --> 00:07:51,800 like that what that you're running into when you're, you 145 00:07:51,800 --> 00:07:53,000 know, before you get into that state? 146 00:07:53,800 --> 00:07:55,800 Yeah. So the the resistances are 147 00:07:55,800 --> 00:07:58,480 alike. If you have multiple different 148 00:07:58,480 --> 00:08:01,920 Icps, multiple different personas, or multiple like 149 00:08:02,120 --> 00:08:05,680 multiple different things, then you basically have to absorb 150 00:08:05,680 --> 00:08:10,360 that variation yourself. And so let's say you sell to VPS 151 00:08:10,360 --> 00:08:14,160 of sales and also VPS of customer success for as as like 152 00:08:14,160 --> 00:08:17,640 one just super simple example, your entire pitch has to be 153 00:08:17,640 --> 00:08:21,280 different, which means you have to switch between pitches when 154 00:08:21,280 --> 00:08:24,360 you're selling to people and there might be a new person that 155 00:08:24,360 --> 00:08:26,360 needs to be included in this case or right. 156 00:08:26,360 --> 00:08:28,560 Like it's the same thing if you're selling to smaller 157 00:08:28,560 --> 00:08:31,040 companies and bigger companies at the same time, there's like a 158 00:08:31,040 --> 00:08:33,640 different process, a different pitch, a different, like 159 00:08:33,799 --> 00:08:37,039 everything is different. And so you wind up having like 160 00:08:37,240 --> 00:08:40,960 multiple different funnels, multiple different messaging, 161 00:08:40,960 --> 00:08:42,720 multiple different website pages. 162 00:08:42,880 --> 00:08:46,800 And it's just a, it's a function of adding complexity, even even 163 00:08:46,800 --> 00:08:48,680 multiple different go to market approaches. 164 00:08:48,840 --> 00:08:52,400 OK. We do outbound and we do SEO and 165 00:08:52,400 --> 00:08:56,920 we do events and we do like, if you're an early stage startup, 166 00:08:57,040 --> 00:08:58,520 it's hard to be good at anything. 167 00:08:58,800 --> 00:09:01,880 And so it's basically impossible to make 5 things work. 168 00:09:02,160 --> 00:09:08,240 And so the, the like basically everything that we do, every 169 00:09:08,240 --> 00:09:10,280 extra thing we do is just hard to do. 170 00:09:10,400 --> 00:09:13,200 It adds wind resistance because it's another thing we need to 171 00:09:13,200 --> 00:09:14,520 think about. It's something we have to switch 172 00:09:14,520 --> 00:09:15,680 between. It's something you have to get 173 00:09:15,680 --> 00:09:17,840 good at. And then the final thing that 174 00:09:17,840 --> 00:09:21,640 adds wind resistance is customers not pulling. 175 00:09:22,400 --> 00:09:24,880 Your customers not pulling before and after they buy. 176 00:09:25,360 --> 00:09:29,600 And think of it like, you know, if you're on a bike and you're 177 00:09:29,600 --> 00:09:33,000 being pushed right, you're going to go faster. 178 00:09:33,200 --> 00:09:36,280 But if you're on a bike and you're dragging somebody behind 179 00:09:36,280 --> 00:09:39,720 you in a wheelbarrow or just on the ground, right, like you're 180 00:09:39,720 --> 00:09:42,200 going to go a lot slower because there's a lot more drag. 181 00:09:42,600 --> 00:09:49,080 And so when you find customers who have pull, they will help 182 00:09:49,080 --> 00:09:52,880 you move more effectively, more efficiently with less with less 183 00:09:52,880 --> 00:09:54,680 draft. When you find people that you 184 00:09:54,680 --> 00:09:58,880 have to convince each step on along the way, you have to drag 185 00:09:58,880 --> 00:10:03,880 each customer along with you before and after they buy, get 186 00:10:03,880 --> 00:10:06,200 them to then try to get them to value it, try to get them to 187 00:10:06,200 --> 00:10:08,840 understand it, educate them, like all that kind of stuff, 188 00:10:09,040 --> 00:10:14,760 which just prevents you from getting the kind of rapid growth 189 00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:17,760 that that you're after. Yeah, thinking about my early 190 00:10:17,760 --> 00:10:21,200 calls, the the first half of the call wants education. 191 00:10:21,880 --> 00:10:24,200 And that's just, it just doesn't want. 192 00:10:24,200 --> 00:10:26,680 It's annoying for everybody, literally everybody. 193 00:10:26,720 --> 00:10:29,520 It's insulting to them and it just doesn't work. 194 00:10:29,560 --> 00:10:31,840 And there's a bunch of reasons for that. 195 00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:35,720 Yeah. Do you your like the medicine 196 00:10:35,720 --> 00:10:40,280 that you prescribed for this is 2 parts 1 is who has pull who 197 00:10:40,280 --> 00:10:42,720 would be specifically weird not to buy? 198 00:10:43,320 --> 00:10:46,760 And the second one is what's 1 pipeline approach that works? 199 00:10:47,320 --> 00:10:50,880 And how do you get some subset of the people with pull to be 200 00:10:50,880 --> 00:10:54,240 weird not to meet with you? So we'll hit we'll hit both of 201 00:10:54,240 --> 00:10:56,080 those and we'll talk about a case study here. 202 00:10:57,120 --> 00:10:58,680 We've you've written about these in the past. 203 00:10:58,680 --> 00:11:02,840 Some some of the listener might be already familiar with these 204 00:11:02,840 --> 00:11:04,960 both the toll booth and the weird not to buy the Rob. 205 00:11:05,040 --> 00:11:10,360 Why don't Why are these two things the most important and 206 00:11:10,720 --> 00:11:12,720 can you may it? Let's just start with weird not 207 00:11:12,720 --> 00:11:15,560 to buy after that. Like what does that mean? 208 00:11:15,560 --> 00:11:19,080 Because it's subtle, but it's super important the difference. 209 00:11:19,720 --> 00:11:22,800 Yeah. So, so the, the, the recent 210 00:11:22,800 --> 00:11:26,800 realization that led to this post was actually on the 211 00:11:26,800 --> 00:11:30,840 pipeline approach, which is basically once you figure out 212 00:11:30,840 --> 00:11:34,920 the pool of people who would be weird not to buy, there are a 213 00:11:34,960 --> 00:11:38,800 variety of approaches you can get to get them to maybe talk 214 00:11:38,800 --> 00:11:41,560 with you. And so the we have to layer on 215 00:11:41,560 --> 00:11:45,760 we're not to buy and we're not to meet with you. 216 00:11:46,360 --> 00:11:49,920 And when you can do those two things, that is the like most 217 00:11:50,080 --> 00:11:55,640 efficient method that I have seen that causes startups to 218 00:11:55,640 --> 00:11:58,440 grow super fast. And so it's the combination of 219 00:11:58,440 --> 00:12:00,640 these two things. That. 220 00:12:01,280 --> 00:12:03,600 Actually matters. And it's like, OK, once we know 221 00:12:03,600 --> 00:12:06,880 who is weird not to buy, then let's think about the pipeline 222 00:12:06,880 --> 00:12:09,600 approaches that would make that specific person and that 223 00:12:09,600 --> 00:12:12,560 specific situation weird not to meet with us. 224 00:12:13,400 --> 00:12:15,960 Yeah, let's talk about it. Let's bring it to life with this 225 00:12:16,160 --> 00:12:21,000 AI SEO example. So let I'll I'll read a little 226 00:12:21,000 --> 00:12:24,240 bit of the context that you have and then and then let's get into 227 00:12:24,240 --> 00:12:25,600 it. Let's really use this to tear 228 00:12:25,600 --> 00:12:29,920 apart weird not to buy versus could buy what you write. 229 00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:31,920 You met with this. It's a a friend of yours. 230 00:12:32,400 --> 00:12:35,720 He started starting an AISEO company. 231 00:12:35,880 --> 00:12:38,080 He started by selling to customers of all shapes and 232 00:12:38,080 --> 00:12:41,240 sizes, tech startups, mortgage brokers, manufacturers, 233 00:12:41,240 --> 00:12:44,080 healthcare services companies. Some of their customers are 234 00:12:44,080 --> 00:12:45,920 startups that still think self mode is the thing. 235 00:12:46,320 --> 00:12:52,280 Others are decades old multinationals that sounds 236 00:12:52,280 --> 00:12:55,640 probably sounds very familiar to a bunch of like early stage 237 00:12:55,640 --> 00:12:57,320 because you don't you don't know yet. 238 00:12:57,320 --> 00:13:01,840 Like who's weird not to buy? And then what you what you do 239 00:13:01,840 --> 00:13:03,920 after that is you list off and then I'll shut up, Rob, because 240 00:13:03,920 --> 00:13:05,440 everybody wants to listen to you, not to me. 241 00:13:05,880 --> 00:13:08,400 You you list this off. This leads us to a simple killer 242 00:13:08,400 --> 00:13:11,200 question. Who would be weird not to buy 243 00:13:11,200 --> 00:13:13,320 and renew? And then you list four options. 244 00:13:13,320 --> 00:13:16,840 Somebody who wants to grow, somebody who gets that AI search 245 00:13:16,840 --> 00:13:19,160 is the future. Somebody with a marketing team, 246 00:13:19,160 --> 00:13:22,240 a new startup that's AI native Rob. 247 00:13:23,520 --> 00:13:26,520 Any other anything else you want to layer on his contacts or 248 00:13:26,520 --> 00:13:30,160 these like people that could buy that examples that you give? 249 00:13:30,480 --> 00:13:32,480 Yeah. So this is this is like the 250 00:13:32,560 --> 00:13:37,760 hardest thing for a start up to accept which like in this 251 00:13:37,760 --> 00:13:42,280 situation we were looking at their customer list and and when 252 00:13:42,280 --> 00:13:45,000 you look at their customer list and then you look at like 253 00:13:45,000 --> 00:13:46,920 they're they're kind of like sales pipeline. 254 00:13:47,280 --> 00:13:48,920 And you see, OK, why didn't these people buy? 255 00:13:48,920 --> 00:13:51,960 Why did these people buy? What's common across these 256 00:13:51,960 --> 00:13:55,000 different people? There are so many different ways 257 00:13:55,000 --> 00:13:59,360 to cut that, to try to figure out what to do and like, how do 258 00:13:59,360 --> 00:14:01,280 we grow super fast based on that? 259 00:14:01,600 --> 00:14:08,000 And so you can ask the we kind of went in circles until we got 260 00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:11,880 to the like, OK, wait a second. Who actually would be weird not 261 00:14:11,880 --> 00:14:15,760 to buy and and we're new and, and be successful after they've 262 00:14:15,800 --> 00:14:17,760 bought. And so when you ask that 263 00:14:17,760 --> 00:14:21,520 question, you can think about the like all the different 264 00:14:21,520 --> 00:14:24,360 permutations of people who could buy. 265 00:14:24,520 --> 00:14:28,040 And AISEO is like the perfect example of this because it's 266 00:14:28,040 --> 00:14:31,240 hyped up, it's like hot, it's the new thing. 267 00:14:31,240 --> 00:14:33,320 A lot of people find it interesting. 268 00:14:33,440 --> 00:14:36,000 A lot of people think it's the future, right. 269 00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:39,040 And so in that's in that situation, there are many people 270 00:14:39,040 --> 00:14:41,920 who could buy, many people who should buy even anybody who 271 00:14:41,920 --> 00:14:46,320 wants to grow their company, right, in theory should buy a 272 00:14:46,320 --> 00:14:48,720 ISEO tools or as whatever, right? 273 00:14:48,720 --> 00:14:52,240 Like those, those things are just like, it's just, yeah, 274 00:14:52,280 --> 00:14:53,680 don't you want to grow your company? 275 00:14:53,720 --> 00:14:57,640 Obviously you should want this, but that's not like that's not 276 00:14:57,640 --> 00:15:02,240 the right lens because so this is actually the my favorite 277 00:15:02,240 --> 00:15:03,720 thing that I have written recently. 278 00:15:04,160 --> 00:15:07,200 Not everybody who should want it buys. 279 00:15:07,720 --> 00:15:12,520 Not everybody who buys is sold. Not everybody who benefits 280 00:15:12,520 --> 00:15:18,000 renews. Plus many customers who do buy 281 00:15:18,280 --> 00:15:22,560 could have not bought and many customers who do renew could 282 00:15:22,560 --> 00:15:26,360 have not renewed that like once you. 283 00:15:26,400 --> 00:15:30,640 Understand the transcript for for that one and just visit 284 00:15:30,640 --> 00:15:34,000 that, visit the blog and and read that just like stare at 285 00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:37,080 that for three minutes. So once you get to that, you're 286 00:15:37,080 --> 00:15:42,480 looking for the person who basically can't not buy and they 287 00:15:42,480 --> 00:15:45,120 can't not renew. They they must buy, they must 288 00:15:45,120 --> 00:15:49,560 renew and it would be it, it just, And so for people who, you 289 00:15:49,560 --> 00:15:55,200 know, just want to grow, it's OK if they don't buy because they 290 00:15:55,200 --> 00:15:59,040 can grow by other means. They could invest more in 291 00:15:59,040 --> 00:16:01,360 traditional SEO or they they they've never done SEO in the 292 00:16:01,360 --> 00:16:03,720 past or or like. You know. 293 00:16:04,960 --> 00:16:06,840 So there's a variety of different things there. 294 00:16:07,120 --> 00:16:09,320 There's what you've written in the in the past on that, is 295 00:16:09,880 --> 00:16:11,880 there? There's 200 things that they'll 296 00:16:11,880 --> 00:16:14,560 consider that they won't buy and they'll buy one thing. 297 00:16:14,560 --> 00:16:16,520 And so they're, it's not weird that they don't. 298 00:16:16,640 --> 00:16:19,920 Buy you or 0 things being made by zero things and just keep 299 00:16:19,920 --> 00:16:21,200 doing what they're currently doing. 300 00:16:21,800 --> 00:16:25,880 Yeah. And so like you could, so you 301 00:16:25,880 --> 00:16:30,120 can imagine and in here there are people right there have, so 302 00:16:30,120 --> 00:16:33,520 who would be weird not to buy. There's basically only one kind 303 00:16:33,520 --> 00:16:36,360 of person who would be weird not to buy while everyone else could 304 00:16:36,360 --> 00:16:38,440 buy. The person who'd be weird not to 305 00:16:38,440 --> 00:16:42,440 buy is the person who has historically relied on SEO. 306 00:16:43,760 --> 00:16:49,720 So SEO has worked and they all reliant on it and their results, 307 00:16:49,720 --> 00:16:54,640 their results from SEO are going down and that person is in a 308 00:16:54,640 --> 00:16:58,960 situation where they would be, we're not to want to replace the 309 00:16:58,960 --> 00:17:01,800 traffic that they are losing on SEO. 310 00:17:01,800 --> 00:17:07,880 Yeah. And that person has had SEO 311 00:17:07,880 --> 00:17:12,000 historically work. So they know what works, what 312 00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:13,560 people are actually searching for. 313 00:17:13,960 --> 00:17:17,760 And so if you have those characteristics not be present, 314 00:17:18,200 --> 00:17:22,839 you see, like you wind up with somebody who could buy, could be 315 00:17:22,839 --> 00:17:25,240 successful. And they had examples of 316 00:17:25,240 --> 00:17:30,720 customers who did buy and were successful, but they could have 317 00:17:30,720 --> 00:17:33,200 not been successful and they could have not bought. 318 00:17:33,520 --> 00:17:37,200 And so when they tried to sell to more people, like the ones 319 00:17:37,200 --> 00:17:40,680 who were successful but might not have been successful, who 320 00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:43,440 did buy but might not have bought, most of the time they 321 00:17:43,440 --> 00:17:45,840 didn't buy. And, and it was just like 322 00:17:45,840 --> 00:17:47,880 scratching their heads based on that. 323 00:17:47,880 --> 00:17:51,440 And then once they switch to like, no, OK, these are actually 324 00:17:51,440 --> 00:17:57,040 the characteristics of somebody who is weird not to buy, then 325 00:17:57,040 --> 00:17:59,640 it's basically like, OK, almost everybody buys. 326 00:17:59,800 --> 00:18:02,800 Like it's weird if somebody doesn't buy now and it's weird 327 00:18:02,800 --> 00:18:07,200 if they don't buy fast because we know the the characteristics, 328 00:18:07,760 --> 00:18:10,880 the situation that makes somebody weird not to buy what, 329 00:18:10,880 --> 00:18:14,240 what are what are the forces that are present there that are 330 00:18:14,240 --> 00:18:17,040 not present elsewhere, even though they could buy and could 331 00:18:17,040 --> 00:18:19,880 be successful? Yeah, I think that's my deepest 332 00:18:19,880 --> 00:18:25,200 founder NB is hearing about, you know, some of the the teams that 333 00:18:25,400 --> 00:18:27,680 you've worked with that are like, we know within three 334 00:18:27,680 --> 00:18:31,520 questions at 90% certainty if somebody's going to buy because 335 00:18:31,520 --> 00:18:36,720 it it fits into that category of of weird not to buy. 336 00:18:36,720 --> 00:18:40,240 Like it's just like it's that clear what's going on with them. 337 00:18:42,600 --> 00:18:44,800 And so Rob, we we break this into two parts. 338 00:18:44,800 --> 00:18:47,480 The first one, and I think you have to approach them 339 00:18:47,600 --> 00:18:50,680 sequentially like that. The first one is know who would 340 00:18:50,680 --> 00:18:54,080 be weird not to buy? And it's almost like suspend the 341 00:18:54,080 --> 00:18:59,640 second question until that is hyper clear and tell us about 342 00:18:59,640 --> 00:19:03,400 the the OR let's jump into the second question of how do you 343 00:19:03,400 --> 00:19:07,040 make it weird for them not to meet with you? 344 00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:10,120 Yeah, yeah. So you you can. 345 00:19:10,360 --> 00:19:17,120 So if you think about all the people who could buy a ISEO and 346 00:19:17,120 --> 00:19:20,480 you know, should buy would benefit from it and then it and 347 00:19:20,480 --> 00:19:23,000 you start with that as your starting point and then say, 348 00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:25,160 well, how do we get people to meet with us? 349 00:19:25,160 --> 00:19:27,560 How do we generate pipeline? You're going to come with a lot 350 00:19:27,560 --> 00:19:31,160 of ideas and most of them are going to kind of work and mostly 351 00:19:31,160 --> 00:19:32,800 going to be a waste of money because they're the ideas that 352 00:19:32,800 --> 00:19:35,920 everybody else is thinking of. And again, you're going to get a 353 00:19:35,920 --> 00:19:38,280 bunch of people who meet with you who could buy, which is 354 00:19:38,280 --> 00:19:41,120 great, but they also might not buy and probably won't because 355 00:19:41,120 --> 00:19:44,960 of that. And so once you know, OK, I know 356 00:19:45,360 --> 00:19:49,760 that when somebody's numbers are going down in SEO that they have 357 00:19:49,880 --> 00:19:56,160 historically relied on SEO, that that person would be weird not 358 00:19:56,160 --> 00:19:59,960 to buy from me, Then the question is, OK, how do we get 359 00:20:00,040 --> 00:20:05,120 that person in that moment to be weird not to meet with us? 360 00:20:05,120 --> 00:20:08,480 So how do we own that moment in some way, shape or form? 361 00:20:09,920 --> 00:20:13,760 And so ideally, and that AISEO case would basically be like 362 00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:17,720 you're looking in Google Search Console and seeing the numbers 363 00:20:17,720 --> 00:20:21,200 go down and as. When it notices that you're just 364 00:20:21,200 --> 00:20:25,440 staring at the screen in desperation, there's an ad that 365 00:20:25,440 --> 00:20:29,400 pops up that says, hey, have you ever considered AI SEO? 366 00:20:29,400 --> 00:20:31,040 Because it can replace some of this, right? 367 00:20:31,560 --> 00:20:35,960 That's like the ideal or something near the ideal. 368 00:20:36,280 --> 00:20:40,360 Like if you had that, they would click it or like if they had 369 00:20:40,360 --> 00:20:43,240 that you presented it reputably it would be and they didn't 370 00:20:43,240 --> 00:20:44,600 think they were going to download a virus, they would 371 00:20:44,600 --> 00:20:46,600 click it. Yeah, basically that. 372 00:20:47,000 --> 00:20:50,200 If you owned that, they'd be weird not to meet with you. 373 00:20:51,120 --> 00:20:55,160 You probably can't do that, but that's the way to start 374 00:20:55,160 --> 00:20:56,640 thinking. And you work backwards from 375 00:20:56,640 --> 00:20:58,600 there to like less ideal, less ideal ways. 376 00:20:58,600 --> 00:21:01,480 And eventually you might wind up with a yeah, the best we can do 377 00:21:01,480 --> 00:21:04,280 is kind of cold call a targeted list and we can do a bunch of 378 00:21:04,280 --> 00:21:05,720 volume of that. And OK, that's fine. 379 00:21:05,920 --> 00:21:10,160 But you want to start from the like, what's the method that we 380 00:21:10,160 --> 00:21:12,880 can do that would be weird not to work because it'd be weird 381 00:21:12,880 --> 00:21:15,280 not for them to meet with us, right? 382 00:21:15,280 --> 00:21:18,360 Like that's, that's kind of, that's the approach to pipeline 383 00:21:18,600 --> 00:21:24,320 here that you can do once you understand who is weird not to 384 00:21:24,320 --> 00:21:27,720 buy from you, it gives you weird things that you can do from 385 00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:28,840 there. And that's what I called a 386 00:21:28,840 --> 00:21:31,800 tollbooth historically. But the way I envision it and 387 00:21:32,080 --> 00:21:35,840 this actual and the, the graphic that I include in here for how I 388 00:21:35,840 --> 00:21:39,600 thought about this in my own business, my own world was 389 00:21:39,600 --> 00:21:42,400 basically you take the category of people who'd be weird not to 390 00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:45,920 buy, just take that as a circle. And then you kind of like layer 391 00:21:45,920 --> 00:21:49,640 on you, you think of it as, OK, I can't get all of them, but I 392 00:21:49,640 --> 00:21:52,600 could get a sunset of them by doing certain things. 393 00:21:53,120 --> 00:21:55,920 And so I just kind of like, and, and, you know, and then by doing 394 00:21:55,920 --> 00:21:57,840 those things, I'd also get some people who aren't a fit. 395 00:21:57,840 --> 00:22:00,280 And, and so I just thought of it as like, you know, there's this, 396 00:22:00,400 --> 00:22:02,640 this base of people who'd be weird not to buy in there. 397 00:22:02,760 --> 00:22:05,800 There are tactics that you can layer on top of it that have 398 00:22:05,800 --> 00:22:10,160 different levels of fit and, and like will work in different, you 399 00:22:10,160 --> 00:22:12,000 know, they'll work better or worse. 400 00:22:12,400 --> 00:22:14,920 And, and like, that's the, that's the hard thing. 401 00:22:14,920 --> 00:22:17,840 That's the creative thing that you have to to do here to figure 402 00:22:17,840 --> 00:22:21,400 this, to figure this part out. Yeah, and let let's get into 403 00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:23,520 some of the practical stuff before we we wrap. 404 00:22:23,720 --> 00:22:27,560 One is, let's say hypothetically, you're talking 405 00:22:27,560 --> 00:22:31,960 with the founder who, who still struggles with the, I've got, 406 00:22:31,960 --> 00:22:38,360 you know, 345 Icps that are potential. 407 00:22:38,360 --> 00:22:40,880 There's there's some sales there, there's some tractor, 408 00:22:40,880 --> 00:22:46,720 there's some evidence, but hasn't nailed the, you know, 1 409 00:22:46,720 --> 00:22:49,640 limited. This is the the buyer who would 410 00:22:49,640 --> 00:22:52,720 be weird not to buy for you. How did they like, how do you 411 00:22:52,720 --> 00:22:54,440 work with it? What do you tell that founder to 412 00:22:54,440 --> 00:22:55,280 do? Yeah. 413 00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:58,800 So what we do in that situation is we will list out the three 414 00:22:58,800 --> 00:23:02,680 different ones, the five different ones and just try to 415 00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:06,560 destroy, like literally just try to kill them by saying by, by 416 00:23:06,560 --> 00:23:09,040 testing them specifically on the, the couldn't this person 417 00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:11,200 not buy? Is it OK if this person doesn't 418 00:23:11,200 --> 00:23:13,120 buy? And, and like how many of the, 419 00:23:13,840 --> 00:23:16,520 if they, it survives that, then like how many of those people 420 00:23:16,520 --> 00:23:18,760 are there And do we want to serve them, right? 421 00:23:18,760 --> 00:23:21,880 It's, it's questions like that. You just try to kill, you don't 422 00:23:21,880 --> 00:23:25,000 try to make them work. You try to get rid of them and 423 00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:29,480 the ones that survive based on your proof, based on your sales 424 00:23:29,480 --> 00:23:32,160 call recordings, based on how the sales have felt. 425 00:23:33,680 --> 00:23:36,920 Then you kind of like pick one and you go all in on it and you 426 00:23:36,920 --> 00:23:41,760 see you, you try again, you try to kill that one in the next 427 00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:43,520 week. You do, you do it in a very 428 00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:46,120 short period of time. How do I get five of these 429 00:23:46,120 --> 00:23:50,160 people to talk to me like as soon as possible so that they 430 00:23:50,160 --> 00:23:53,000 can tell me and I'm specifically going to go to them and and try 431 00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:56,120 to convince them not to buy essentially and see if they 432 00:23:56,120 --> 00:23:58,720 fight against me? Yeah. 433 00:23:59,280 --> 00:24:01,720 And so like that's the, that's the kind of approach when you 434 00:24:01,720 --> 00:24:07,400 have multiple different Icps that all could work and all kind 435 00:24:07,400 --> 00:24:10,280 of makes sense. Yeah, it's like flipping from 436 00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:15,320 wishful thinking to almost like I actually don't even. 437 00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:18,280 It's like putting everybody through a furnace on the and 438 00:24:18,280 --> 00:24:21,360 like seeing who like all the fats going to burn off like 439 00:24:21,360 --> 00:24:24,720 everything that that was, you know, not going eventually not 440 00:24:24,720 --> 00:24:26,840 going to work. It's a time saving mechanism 441 00:24:27,080 --> 00:24:29,440 that let's talk about the second one. 442 00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:33,600 OK, you found your ICP. You know who's weird not to buy? 443 00:24:34,080 --> 00:24:37,480 How do you develop the like the make it weird for them not to 444 00:24:37,480 --> 00:24:38,400 meet with you? Like what? 445 00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:39,840 Tactically, what do? You do. 446 00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:43,360 Jeez, this, this is the hard, hard one, which I'd say I'm I'm 447 00:24:44,400 --> 00:24:47,760 I've I have many examples and they're all weird. 448 00:24:48,560 --> 00:24:52,920 So like Datadog scaled from zero to 100 sales reps literally only 449 00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:57,440 doing conferences. Zapier owned SEO for connect X 450 00:24:57,440 --> 00:25:00,400 system with Y system. These are all permutations of 451 00:25:00,400 --> 00:25:02,200 the thing. There's the samurai sword 452 00:25:02,200 --> 00:25:04,160 example too. These are all permutations on 453 00:25:04,160 --> 00:25:08,320 the thing and so. In my samurai sword example was 454 00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:11,760 somebody that identified that CE OS that were going through like 455 00:25:11,760 --> 00:25:17,600 public crises needed to receive a samurai sword in the mail that 456 00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:20,120 said I'm on your team or I'm willing to go to battle with 457 00:25:20,120 --> 00:25:21,480 you. And then that made it weird for 458 00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:23,800 them not to call them back. Anyways that it was I think it 459 00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:26,160 was like podcast number one or two or something like that that 460 00:25:26,160 --> 00:25:28,240 we didn't anyways for anybody that's newer. 461 00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:30,960 All right, Robin, so you're saying like every, all of these 462 00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:33,640 examples are bizarre, Like they're, they're weird. 463 00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:37,520 They're they're almost always weird and and they might be less 464 00:25:37,520 --> 00:25:39,440 weird, right? Like you just have like 1, you 465 00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:42,240 nail one partnership, right? It could be the thing, right? 466 00:25:42,320 --> 00:25:46,360 Or, or something like that. In in my case, it turns out, I 467 00:25:46,360 --> 00:25:48,240 think the pull framework is a tollbooth. 468 00:25:48,320 --> 00:25:52,400 Like it's, it is the best piece of it's the best framework out 469 00:25:52,400 --> 00:25:56,080 there, the best, best tool out there for product market fit 470 00:25:56,080 --> 00:25:57,880 sales. It's like it's this kind of 471 00:25:57,880 --> 00:26:00,720 upstream thing that you need that everybody's going to need 472 00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:03,400 to nail. And so that just happened to be 473 00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:08,360 a a tollbooth that randomly emerge, but is, you know, it 474 00:26:08,360 --> 00:26:10,480 couldn't be content. It could be IP, it could be 475 00:26:10,480 --> 00:26:14,640 something like that. It's we have to like sit down 476 00:26:14,640 --> 00:26:17,440 and look at the pull framework and make sure the pull framework 477 00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:21,480 is right in terms of this would be this person is weird not to 478 00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:23,680 buy from us. And then there's the question 479 00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:27,400 of, OK, cool. The situation that is defined by 480 00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:30,520 you here. There's a situation as the you, 481 00:26:31,600 --> 00:26:33,760 how do we own that situation? What are different things we can 482 00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:35,880 do to own that specific situation? 483 00:26:36,240 --> 00:26:38,280 And that's where you start kind of like thinking about different 484 00:26:38,280 --> 00:26:39,960 things. Yeah, love it. 485 00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:43,680 Well, let's not carry this on too long, Rob. 486 00:26:43,680 --> 00:26:47,360 Anything else on your mind for what founders should do with 487 00:26:47,360 --> 00:26:49,080 this? Yeah, the the hard part about 488 00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:54,680 this as you are are are thinking about, yeah, is is you have to 489 00:26:54,680 --> 00:26:57,440 kill good things, things that could work that sound 490 00:26:57,440 --> 00:26:58,760 compelling. Yeah. 491 00:26:59,800 --> 00:27:02,080 And it's you. You kill good things to get to 492 00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:03,280 things that are We're about to work. 493 00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:07,440 Yeah. And and, you know, you lose a 494 00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:11,520 bunch of gadgets, you lose a bunch of a lot of your ego has 495 00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:14,320 to get thrown in the gutter too. Like of here's here's the list 496 00:27:14,320 --> 00:27:17,200 of awesome things that I really want to do that we are not doing 497 00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:21,240 in service of we're not to buy, we're not to meet with us and 498 00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:23,920 making that just repeat and and scale. 499 00:27:24,120 --> 00:27:29,160 Like, yeah, it's it's it is mostly an ego thing of I want to 500 00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:33,840 be, but I envision da da da da. It's like, I don't care who's 501 00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:36,160 weird not to buy. And how do you grow as fast as 502 00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:37,440 possible? By getting those people to be 503 00:27:37,440 --> 00:27:41,120 weird not to meet with you and make that system just work with 504 00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:43,440 the minimum wasted effort with the minimum track? 505 00:27:44,160 --> 00:27:46,040 Yeah. You know, the other thing that 506 00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:49,120 I've been going through recently is like reducing the footprint 507 00:27:49,120 --> 00:27:52,400 of our products because our products were getting like in my 508 00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:55,240 case it's media, in other, in other cases, I'm sure it's, you 509 00:27:55,240 --> 00:27:58,960 know, software code or whatever. But basically we, we eliminated 510 00:27:59,120 --> 00:28:03,160 25% of what we were producing because at the end it was like, 511 00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:05,200 I'm doing this so that my team has something to do. 512 00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:08,520 It wasn't actually like, because that's what was being demanded 513 00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:13,000 and pulled and that was hard. It just, it hurt like, you know, 514 00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:15,080 abandoning things that you're excited about, you invest about 515 00:28:15,680 --> 00:28:18,840 are really difficult. But all right, Rob, anything 516 00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:20,840 else on your mind? Nope, Kind of rock. 517 00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:24,000 All right, awesome. Well everybody the the link to 518 00:28:24,000 --> 00:28:27,640 the to the book is going to be in the in the show notes and 519 00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:29,680 otherwise we will see y'all next week.