welcome to Glide chat where we give you the rundown of all things service now let's talk about the now right now welcome to another episode of Glide chat my name is Mike Lombardo sitting here with Ryan from pitchf fire CEO Ryan how are you what's up Mike thanks for having me oh man it's been a long overdue we're overdue for a little for Glide chat I know I think you you were like hey got to have you come in on glide chat that was like last spring yeah yeah how's um how's business it's good we're we're we're kind of like really picking up a lot of steam right now with people trying to figure out what the hell is going on in the world without cold Outreach yeah uh and that's kind of been like a theme that like we bet on and it's working really well right now what is cold Outreach yeah so for people listening at home yeah about 40% of pipeline for people that are in the sales space that might be listening usually gets generated from you doing cold calls cold emails LinkedIn messages social all that to and get business problem is all the that people used to do to do that you can't do anymore you write cold emails to people one one in every three don't get delivered oh and no one likes receiving them I hate it yeah it drives me like it gets me angry we have a data point um just an entry level employee on average gets prospected 780 times a year oh god wow so I can't imagine you you probably get it's probably 100 times that yeah you probably do you even just do you have someone that handles your inbox or you do it no I do it I'll tell you the emails aren't as bad yeah cuz I just Mark a Spam or delete like it's the phone calls that really really annoy me because like emails I'm kind of used to and go we use Google Google's pretty good at like yeah cutting that out and um and I use your app so I always just send people yeah you know hey if you want to pitch me use pitch fire but yeah for some reason the phone calls like the worst yeah telemarketers spam likely like all those it's it's getting it's getting bad and what's really like crappy is people are now doing text yeah I get text that's the next that's that's the next Mountain to it feels invasive you know what I mean it feels like like you're you're entering my personal space by calling me texting me like email at least like okay that's it's a work email I get it I think something happened during Co where like when everybody started working from home you'd like get a glimpse of like their webcam and their like husbands and wives with the background little kids and dogs barking and all that and when you get a glimpse of that world a little bit something kind of happened where like this mesh of personal and professional life being separated kind of came back together yeah and now like because of that we're a seller supposed to sell you know and they're supposed to get half their pipe button from doing this stuff is a different type of sales for us like cuz because we're sending like we talked about earlier like that Enterprise level customers and you know but but for the smaller companies it's like what do you do like how how do you differentiate yourself how do you get because you're fighting for people's attention right yeah yeah and that's why when I met you and and actually I got cold called yeah that's how I started about your company and um I was just so intrigued because I was like oh my God I never thought of that concept being paid just to be pitched not not to buy yeah not even to buy but just to like hey we understand your time is valuable but why don't why don't we compensate you for to listen to our to our um Pitch yeah the other thing is all these companies that are out there they don't have any process for outbound prospecting when they receive it so like I'll give you example we we did a study where we asked people about Rogue spend almost uh three4 of Rogue spend starts from outbound prospecting wow so like if you cold call someone or they self sign up for a service and they buy it and they're like I really like this they go to their boss and ask this the reason it never ends up procurement desk is because it started with a rep doing cold calling and cold emailing to get in front of that person yeah um so you got that issue y other thing that kind of stinks is that like honestly it's it's hard for a lot I mean we're both pretty successful and make good money but like there are a lot of people out there that don't that are working at your company that are still prospects yeah companies are doing like this bottomup selling thing now we like oh I'm going to start it like I'll go head up a mid-level manager who's probably not breaking 80 or 90k a year um and why not have them get paid and get an advantage for working at your company yeah uh from a seller these companies pay billions of dollars a year to get in front of people yeah exactly so yeah for those because I'm sure a lot of people don't know why don't you explain what pitch fire actually is because people are probably like wait what's going on oh yeah that's true that's true so uh pitch fire uh is basically trying to solve a problem where you can charge businesses money for you to respond to them okay and what happens is B2B companies get cold calls and cold emails and stuff we make products that allow buyers and sellers to connect if you're a buyer uh the way that you can connect with sellers is you force them to a page that they have to pay you money to get a response you get a pitch yeah and you get paid to respond to that pitch with a re like if you're interested in taking a meeting or not you get paid the same no matter how you answer even if you say like not interested like not interested and the reason it's valuable for a seller is today people don't realize this but the average seller has a 7% chance of getting a response over email 7% yep chance of getting responded to what about on pitchf fire on Pitch fire oh it's like I mean it's close is 70% right now almost 80% so you get a higher response rate when you pay yeah and the other part is uh a lot of people don't realiz this a seller has to do six to 15 Steps to actually get in front of someone wow like between calling email LinkedIn and cost of acquisition too yeah yeah and marketing's running ads at these people and stuff dinners anything just anything to get in front of people yeah like I mean I was part yeah yeah like I mean you guys probably do that too you do client dinners and stuff yeah oh tons of events but but even like I even get pitched like hey well well you know you have a chance to win a Louis Vuitton bag if you come to this thing like like gift cards coffee cards like and the gift card thing just feels a little weird I think because there's so much spam and fraud around the gift cards there's like Speare fishing attempts yeah the text where they're like he I need you to send me a t yeah we get that too oh my God I hate that I hate that so there's like I mean there's other stuff too that can happen the cool part about Pitch fire is when you actually get a pitch and an offer yeah the rep has to put a credit card in first wow so like you can't like I can't be like hey I'll give you a gift card if you take a meeting with me yeah and you don't actually know it's legit or hey I'll take a gift card if you respond to me and tell me like even if or take the survey like all that stuff you don't know if they're actually going to follow through so so if I let's say I'm a person trying to to pitch to somebody yeah there's a potential customer I put up 50 bucks 25 bucks to to get their attention if they don't respond I never get charged yeah we don't we don't run the card at all and if you do respond it's not just like hey no go go pound sand it's yeah no here's why here's why or like see let me tell you as a as a company that does pitches I'd rather know like I'd rather like if we're trying to go after a big customer and we get a response that even if it the response is no hey it's not aligning up with our initiatives this year try back next year or we're using this other partner it's going well like just to just to kind of like know and then it's like okay let's put this more on the back burner it's funny because I see that when I'm getting pitched yeah even like people who want to a lot of people like want to work at glad fast hey and I if I'm just like Hey listen we're not hiring for this role right now because I mean there's some people who are very persistent I appreciate your efforts here but we're not hiring we're we have no plan to hire this year in that in that in that geography and they're just like ah thanks for the response you know so even if it is a no it's still a win sometimes because then you can focus your energy on on another different Prospect I'll tell you the other thing that I think this is going to have an impact on it already is too when you send a pitch to someone one of the reasons that prospecting so choppy and crappy and tempod IED and spammy they all have scripts you don't really have enough time to customize stuff because you don't know if the prospect's ever going to answer yeah I've done campaigns before like when I I was a a bdr at dying like 10 years or 12 years ago yeah where I made music videos for prospects and I sent it to them if I did that today about I bet I would get a response from one of them when we did it back then I got responses from five out of six of them wow and the reason that I was able to go do something like that is because email wasn't overcrowded yeah now when you send an email it's like driving on the highway during rush hour it's too much it's too much and and I'll tell you you know I was thinking too while you're were talking like when because I signed up for your platform you know um maybe a few months ago when somebody does give me a pitch I kind of feel obligated yeah to give them a meaningful yes or no or hey reach out to this person because they paid for my time yeah you know what I mean like they're they they've actually they value my time they're paying for it I owe them either an opportunity that's my first reaction is like how can I help them you know like close this deal it's it's almost like you're doing sales can yeah I'm like can I buy this whatever they're selling me and then it's like okay if it's not if I'm not the right person can I get them in touch with somebody who may find Value in what they're pitching yeah um or hey here's why we don't we're not interested you know so it's like you kind of feel obligated because because you're somebody's paying you for something it's just like a job like when you're getting paid to show up at work you know I've always been somebody who's like I gotta work hard because I'm getting paid for it you know yeah yeah so you're selling your attention on it but the other thing that's kind of cool is like if you want to go pitch someone on here you can do a lot cooler stuff than just a text based pitch if you want yeah you know because you know you're going to be more likely to get a response well that you're the that aren't you I yeah I I had a guy I had a guy the other day that used a video prospecting platform yeah was trying to get in front of someone and he grabbed he grabbed a video no he grabbed a ukulele and he made a song for a prospect and heent personing you no no no I wish it was um but he sent he sent a pitch on Pitch fire and heard back from the person he had emailed him a bunch never heard back okay so so wait you can do videos on Pitch too you just put a link you can video link coming soon okay all right so you just put link yeah that makes sense like imagine the how much better and more entertaining I mean did you watch Super Bowl ads during the Super Bowl people watch the ads cuz they're like it's basically every company's Showcase of like exactly this is the best what was the best the Dunkin' Donuts one yeah that one was awesome yeah that was cool Tom Brady I like that yeah but like there always like there's when I was growing up I was like oh I want to make Super Bowl ads like that's that was one of the things like always wanted to do you see Kanye yeah oh wait wait no Oh you mean I didn't see it in real time but he paid $7 million just to do a like he just so the story is the story is that he paid to get seats in front of Tay or Swift site I heard that too but he he he addressed that but he addressed that he said like but so the rumor was he got kicked out yeah right yeah and then he's like no I went up to a different Suite yeah and he just did it to get the story right like I don't know I don't know either way we can talk about Kan EI either way but like the the the genius thing behind it is like you literally you could be making Super Bowl ads for your clients one by one and you know you're going to hear back from them yeah yeah I I think that one of the things a lot of companies do is they just mail in that first impression yeah and you can make a really good first impression with someone if you're creative and fun and different and passionate yeah yeah like like it's not just showing stuff like you're working hard or a jober you also could be in the creativity that your company shows that care like like I said you're the you're the kind of the king of that stuff like I appreciate that can you can you talk talk a little bit about like some of the creative yeah sales Prospect expecting things that you I've done yeah I've done so many crazy things so you really embrace the humor side of it oh yeah well it's just like for me when I was growing up I was like oh I want to be do comedy stuff but I was too much of a wuss to do it so I hid behind business to do it um but like I've made music videos for prospects and sent it to them I like hired a full Production Studio and video team and filmed it and it's just about them it's not about my product or service I've done campaigns I want my easiest one that someone could replicate now I once sent out uh 50 copies of the DVD Point Break you ever see the movie Point Break no I don't think oh Kiana Reeves Gary Bucy no I don't think Patrick S I feel I feel '90s movie it's ridiculous okay I got watch there's a scene where they Skydive all right without parachute anyway but Point Break crazy movie I sent uh 50 DVDs to a bunch of prospects and then and then wrote emails to them and was like hey I sent you the greatest movie of all time did you get it and like people they can't if they don't like Point Break because it's a ridiculous silly movie yeah they make fun of me it gets your foot in the door um yeah that's hilarious that worked yeah I booked about uh 30% of those in the meetings no um you could just like people could do this St okay you would just send them one DVD not 50 one one one I would have been like strain and order if I have an idea I'll like I'll like do it more than once I don't just do a one off no no because you gotta you got to get a you're that's what I also I noticed about you is you're good at the sample size yeah right like okay if like we need a healthy group you know to to trial this on trial group yeah like uh part of the reason I started pitch fire is cu I actually think prospecting and building pipeline can be an art not just a science it is an art it is an art like it's not just like oh I'm gonna use these phrases and give you value and stuff I hate that I hate like when I see some people write like Hey we're Glide fast we're the best partner we you know we've done 100 implementations and like that stuff's I think that stuff's important for once they're on the phone yeah but it's like hey where different you should talk to us once we're in the meeting here's who we are here's what we've done here's how we can help but yeah like if you're just trying to get them on the phone like they get pitched all the time about same stuff the people that listen to this a lot are usually like in the service now ecosystem and stuff right like so they're like probably involved in stuff with like fa customer facing stuff uh operations and like and all that I think like the pattern interrupt is really important not just in prospecting but in everything like I for me for example um have you ever heard the phrase High agency low agency no so there's this terminology it kind of became popular in the late 90s where they went and looked at people that were like that think of things in high agency meaning that they they they don't ask why to do something they ask why not yeah and they like approach things differently and there's tons of different examples of people that have been successful in business doing it one of the most classic examples it's actually like a weird negative one would be like um Elon Musk when he started Tesla someone leaked a letter and sent it out to Tech Crunch and they published it it was them crapping on like it was they leaked a letter El musk wrote to all the employees that was like and they like look what Elon wrote and so he went and found like took everyone's computer and looked at the file size that got sent to the printer hacked into the printer and was able to find out who wrote the email based on the file size matching up with the length of what the file size is when he printed it wow so like but like that's high agency you think of ways to do stuff that outsmarts everybody wow let's say I'm running so did he did he fire the person yeah he found them and fired them this and there's like but there's other there's positive examples of high agency also I mean like Apple's design team decided not to put keyboards on their phones right that's like an example of having high agen that was that was Game Changer I remember when I remember when I saw that I was like I was like I'm not like I didn't grow up being an apple Fanboy I've kind of turned into an apple Fanboy now all I think we all are I I was like one of those people like n PC is better it's cheaper you're done and now I'm like I have like we all we all were like what are we buying that for like I'm not I'm I'm we're not we're not rich enough for that yeah but like if you're listening to this now it's now I could never go back I don't know how people do one of the biggest problems is we have this Monkey C Monkey Do effect thing we do in business we like we go look at what another company's doing and say oh I'm gonna go do that because they're doing that yeah what you should do is like have DNA and fabric of what your company is and then figure out how to take what something's happening and put it in your own DNA yeah exactly like like you know how many times you get on a customer for a support call with somebody and they say the same exact script like oh I every company has the same script do it do it like you got to make it your own this is like even when I talk to my salespeople I'm like here's my pitch here's how I say this there's some things I suggest you pick out of that that you say kind of similar but you have to match it to your flavor it cannot be just regurgitating the same because it's doesn't work fores it's not going to work for you like you have to do it work for you this works for me really well but it's not going to work for you the best thing in the world in business is stories and everyone has their own stories because they all have different backgrounds like I you grew up in Massachusetts and like you're from Everett or something right yeah ever yeah yeah I'm I grew up in Mass but I'm from like the boonies of Massachusetts I grew up in philon which is like tiny remember it yeah like it's like near Gardener and AOL like in between there never heard of either one look at that yeah and he grew up gner maybe Garner maybe G but like I like I grew up in these places we have completely different backgrounds but like the thing that actually attracts businesses and makes you better is having high agency so if you can figure out a way to do I have high agency when I do sales and prospecting and marketing like I'm I'm gonna brag and say I do it's your world it's your that's what you're Niche at like same thing for me I suck at baseball yeah you know I mean I suck at a lot of things yeah but like this this world you're not you're not even touching me like and I it's okay to it's okay to say that it's okay like yeah you're there's certain things where we dominate and certain things we don't and you know I always say like Michael Jordan if you want to be Michael Jordan play him in golf how we're approaching pitch fire is like I want people to be in a world where like imagine if you're a rep and every person reach out to actually got back to you I your life would be different either yes or no not just yeses like there's I hate talking to sales people like you go to the mall and you walk by a kiosk and the person talk you're like ah yeah yeah like you try to avoid eye contact and do it like that whole thing we could flip that whole that whole experience to be better like oh I actually look forward to it because I'm going to get some money for it exactly yeah like I I think I've made like 350 bucks you could probably look it up I think I made I was thinking about looking it up like I know people say whatever dude if you can make 350 bucks a month what's the average person's debt oh yeah average person in United States has $90,000 in debt and that doesn't that doesn't include mortgages either stop yeah so that's like college credit cards yep and not even house you live in yeah I'm still I'm I'm 37 I'm still paying student loans back great education I keep thinking about like if I had taken my 8,000 I spent in college and invested in something else yeah like or started a company I probably would have learned more not to knock my I'm not trying to call listen call I you know I always say when people ask me about degrees and college for some people you got to do it it's the right move for you it's it's your path it's you know if you want to be a doctor you need that right there certain lawyer certain things but for me it just it just didn't work out for me I'm just not a you know not a school guy I do think I do you think there's value in the network you get that's the only especially if you're going to especially if you're going to the higher schools like you go you go get an NBA somewhere or something but I I do think that NBA NBA how much does that cost now how much does that cost too much too much I don't know over 100 yeah I mean on top of a fouryear I mean it's like be paying that debt back forever did a project I worked at Flagship Ventures and we did stuff with Harvard Business School yeah and they basically separate out all these people into sections so like you have like 50 students that are all in your section yeah and those 50 people I guess all help each other out for Life yeah oh yeah like that's the way it works it's like it's a network it's the power Network I mean that's that's one thing I learned at the tech program I went to was they were all about it's all about your network and building relationships maintaining relationships and I'm so grateful Shadow y I'm so grateful I learned that because there's some relationships I have from there whether that was faculty mentors students that I still leverage today yeah and and I'm sure and they and some of them leverage me right and it's like that's that's why I love LinkedIn I mean I would not be here without LinkedIn I'll tell you that 100% yeah yeah well the other part two is you're a guy that's literally hiring all the time right except Hey listen listen if you're listening he's not hir for that position start hiring service now Architects though but but yeah if you're a service now architect you're listen to this listen they got something this is your moment but but if you think about it that Network it the best Founders are able to go build teams really quickly and get people oh you have to you have to have people on it's a chicken or the egg thing right like because you have to have the cash flow you know that's why it was so ear hard early on for Glide fat we didn't have money I didn't I'm not I didn't come from a rich family at all actually quite the opposite um but I saved every penny that shout out Lloyd he you know he saved everything he had and we and we just poured it into into growing the business we paid ourselves last for so many years and it it it paid off but we reinvested it in ourselves and you know because you got to be able to sell but you got to be able to deliver and if you can't deliver you can't sell without the delivery and you can't deliver without the sales so that's the business is is interesting which is which is why by the way if you're listening to this why you should go sign up for pitch fire yes because you get paid and you can save money and you can also I mean the cool part too is if you're someone that buy like pitches and you're listening or something you can pitch people but you also can get pitched too yeah there's still value there there's like been a lot of bottom up selling lately with like what tech companies are doing to get in front of people i' love to give advice to people yeah what's your one advice to Prospectors out there that are trying to get people's attention other than using pitch fire what are what are some what are some advice you can give some them be yourself I know everyone's doing this stuff with AI to write scripts and send the same thing over and over again you could there are hundreds of whatever your company does there's 10 or 15 other companies that do the same thing the thing that's going to differentiate is you yeah you how you write it what you say your personality throw that stuff into what you're doing even if it is on pitchf fire by the way it's over email or phone put some personality into it % and that's in life by the way yeah like you know it's funny I was in the barber shop the other day it's like the like basically the psychologist right iist I just said that with mine on Tuesday yeah it's like literally a therapist and we were just talking and like you know when you see people out like and you're like wow look at that person like they're they're get making the most of life and I'm sure people say that about you and and me or whatever but it's like if you would to try to do exactly what they're doing to try like I want that life I want to be that happy guess what it's not going to work if you got to do what's best for you and your your best life you know yeah because it and because if you try to be someone else and copy somebody else it's just just inauthentic you really that's great advice be yourself yeah it's it's it's with everything there and by the way to stem off of that too you're not just you're when I say be yourself you're also not your company yeah like companies are a collection of individuals that's the way to think about it yeah yeah love it all right all right Ryan thanks for joining us and uh and guys make sure you guys sign up for pitch fire and St getting paid to be pitched and not just getting spammed and cold calls and all that actually turn that into into uh Financial uh growth yeah thanks Mike do you have a topic in mind that you'd like to discuss reach out to us at glidefast decom And subscribe to our podcast for new episodes thanks for listening