It's Marketing's Fault

Sam O'Brien [0:00 - 0:54]: It's interesting because at the same time, we've seen the PLG motion being pushed up and up and up, and more people are comfortable, like closing a deal, a larger size deal, with never having spoke to anybody. And I think, like, if you look at numbers from a few years ago, if you'd said, oh, you could close a 2k deal via self service, people would think you were crazy. And now you hear stories of people running, you know, 10, 15K deals purely through self service. Put it on a credit card. Happy days. When you move that slight bit up and it kind of gets out of the credit card range and you've then got to start bringing in sales and people want to be, as I say, more consultative and involve those other people. I can see that creeping down again, definitely more into your, let's say, like 15K range, because I think that's probably the ceiling for PLG at the moment. And then that's where people are having to involve sales to close the deal.

Eric Rutherford [0:54 - 1:22]: Welcome to It's Marketing's Fault, the podcast where we discuss how to do marketing the right way. I'm your host, Deric Rutherford, and I am thrilled today because I have with me Sam O'Brien. He is the vice president of marketing at Dealfront, which is the go to market platform, giving sales and marketing teams the data, applications and insights they need to win any market. Sam, welcome to the show.

Sam O'Brien [1:22 - 1:26]: Thanks for having me, Eric. It's great to be here. Looking forward to chatting.

Eric Rutherford [1:26 - 1:41]: Yeah, I'm excited. You? I'm excited to chat. Looking forward to it. And I gotta ask just up front, what is something that many people think is true about lead generation that you disagree with?

Sam O'Brien [1:41 - 1:45]: Yeah, this is straight in there with a hard question. I love it.

Eric Rutherford [1:45 - 1:52]: Well, I'm just, I'm throwing that out there so that we can just get into it and you can shine.

Sam O'Brien [1:52 - 3:06]: Yeah, let's go. I think, I think, I mean, there's so much content out there these days about lead generation being dead and stop doing lead gen. Focus on demand generation. And actually off the bat, I disagree with that. I think lead gen still has its part to play. Okay, yes, we want to be focused on revenue, we want to be focused on further down the funnel. But I still need to fill my database with prospects. I still want to find the right people. So I think lead gen overall is still a good strategy. And because of that, we hear so much stuff about not gating content. You know, everybody says don't ever gate content. And I disagree. I think the right piece of content can be Gated. And it can be gated at the right point. So a nice way to do this is you bring someone onto the website with, you know, a good quality blog or something interesting to them and during that process you then start presenting them with, hey, here's a white paper which goes way deeper on this topic. And you may find it interesting at that point, like the person's already built up a little bit of trust with you. So then if you gate that content, chances are they're going to convert. But yeah, that's one. I believe strongly that it's not as black and white as saying gated content doesn't work.

Eric Rutherford [3:06 - 3:43]: It's true. And I appreciate you going into that because there's some very polarizing opinions in the marketplace about this. Like, you know, gated. No, gated. You know, it's like that's if you want to get into a great argument, like throw that out there on LinkedIn or Twitter and it's just, it's like voracious. Just the comments that you lost your evening. I know, I know. So I appreciate you bringing that up. Let's just, let's just jump into deal front a little bit then. So tell me, what is deal front?

Sam O'Brien [3:43 - 5:13]: Yeah, dealfront's it's a coming together of two companies. So we had Leadfeeder, which is Finnish, founded. They were in the website identification space. So identifying who's coming to your website, allowing you to run marketing messaging to them, campaigns to them, bring them into a BDR team and help with the sales process there. So that was on one leg. Then we had EchoBot. EchoBot was your data provider, everything sourced from the public directory. So being a German founded company, they were very compliant, follow all the GDPR rules. So much more on the compliance side compared to some. And what happened is the two companies were actually going out for funding, interestingly about the same time, and both went to the same private equity firm and they went, hold on guys, if we put you together, you've got this platform to offer, you can complete the flywheel. So now what we're able to do is you can come in from different angles, we can identify who's on your website. You can then use the data that EchoBot had and that then allows you to see, you know, who's in that company. What, what are the, let's say you targeted marketing, who's in marketing? Can I go and get those profiles? But it also allows you to go from it from the other lens of building really detailed target account lists that you want to go after and then measuring it through so understanding when they come to the website and bringing them into different campaigns. So it's created this nice flywheel, good vision from our private equity firm to put the two companies together.

Eric Rutherford [5:13 - 5:52]: I love that. And so as you're doing this, so it sounds like you're able to see, you're able to get information on who's getting to the websites, you're able to get background information on the companies themselves and who's at those companies. So then does that, do you then take that information and companies can leverage that. Is that like outbound leads where you're just trying to reach out directly because you don't know exactly who at the company has come to you. But you just, but you know, hey, these are very likely people who have and then reach out. How does that work?

Sam O'Brien [5:52 - 6:56]: Yeah, exactly that. So we would recommend, let's say large company visits your website, you already know. Normally you should know who's in your buying committee. So then within our platform you'll be able to see, okay, here's the contacts for this person, this person, this person. And this is honestly where gated content comes in because now you're able to start creating more of a personalized experience for that company and retargeting to that specific company via our IP advertising platform. So then you bring them back in and eventually you know, you're hoping that they convert but if they don't, your SDR team is also working it via the outbound leg and trying to reach out, you know, softly going into via LinkedIn, building their presence within the company. And I think that's probably when people are more successful with us is when they apply that like coverage approach of I'm going to make sure I'm building my presence within a company versus putting everything on one contact, expecting that one contact to be the only person I need to speak to.

Eric Rutherford [6:56 - 7:23]: And that's a good distinction because sometimes just because somebody visits does not mean they are the one who is either in charge of the buying decision or has the authority. Like they could just be, they could just be browsing but be be doing some research for others in the company. So it sounds like that that broad approach gives you, I say it just increases the opportunity for you to be able to, to connect with interested parties.

Sam O'Brien [7:23 - 8:00]: Yeah. And as you move more enterprise and upper mid market these buy groups are getting bigger. I think I read the other day they're up to 7 in S&B. Now you can have a 7 person buying group. So you've just got to Increase your visibility within the company. And I always think of it as, we may have the Champion, and that's great, and the Champion's buying into us, but we've then got to make it easier for the Champion to sell internally. So if the people the Champion's selling to start seeing our brand and they're seeing our adverts and they're coming through the website, it's a very good sign that that deal is going to close.

Eric Rutherford [8:00 - 8:44]: That's a good point. Yeah, because then it's not simply the Champion doing the selling. Like, there's this other opportunity, this other source of information coming in for those people as well, which, yeah, that. Multiple sticking points along the way, that, that helps tremendously. So what, as you've described it, lots of opportunities for Dealfront in terms of how it functions. Like, is there one main problem that, like, Dealfront solves for their customers? Like, is it what keeps your customers up at night that they're like, okay, Dealfront is going to help me sleep better and I'm actually going to sleep through the night tonight because I've got them?

Sam O'Brien [8:44 - 10:32]: Yeah. I think, like, marketing is getting challenging, sales is getting challenging, outreach is challenging. So where we're coming from this is we are providing the context of who to reach out to. So again, versus buying a list. You know, we've got customers who previously would have gone and they would have brought a list from a vendor of contacts, put them through an email sequencing tool and, you know, a small portion of them may end up picking up the phone and talking to us. The way we're approaching is saying, like, look, one, you can filter far more granularly with our platforms and we've got a nice feature where actually you can search the websites for mentions of things that they may have mentioned on their website. So prime example is you're targeting people who are, let's say, ISO compliant, and you want to find out they've mentioned it on the website that they're ISO compliant. So first off, we're helping people by targeting the right people. Then comes to the next point, can we find it at the right time? And that's where using the trigger events, the signals, you know, financial records, things like that, provide insights to the sales rep of, hey, this person's probably starting to look for a new solution. That's the first layer. Then you start looking at the website visibility and who's coming to your website. And when you get the three, like, you're finding the right people, you've got the right time and you know, they're on the site, then you're reaching out. So ultimately we're just helping people close more business by reaching the right people and at the same time focusing their resource. So it's not, you know, we're not saying you need to go reach 5,000 people to close one deal. We're like, you can get these numbers down, you filter down, you find the right people to target, save your resource. Go down to like targeting a hundred people and you're still closing the same amount of business.

Eric Rutherford [10:32 - 11:12]: That's huge. That's huge. I like how you talked about context, that the context is really what you're giving them. So that it's not this spray and pray kind of method. It's not going after enterprise companies with a thousand to two thousand people. And you're aiming for everybody who has marketing or sales in their job description. It's like you get to, you get to narrow down the field and you're really getting at that company level and then able to provide even more information to make it much more feasible.

Sam O'Brien [11:13 - 12:00]: Yeah, yeah, I think that's it. It aligns with the sales strategy where from our perspective, we want to be the consultative seller. You know, we're not trying to sell something for the sake of it. And that's what's really nice about working at a company like this is you see the way we're going to market and then you realize that actually all you're doing is helping other people go to market in the same, the same way and use the same tactics. So nice. It gives me a nice big part to play in the, in the education of the market. But yeah, that's what we've seen is, you know, so much of these spray and pray spam cans are out there now, the people's like, attention to email is getting really low. Whereas when you can find, you know, again, the right people and you have that context to add in, your conversion rates just grow so much.

Eric Rutherford [12:00 - 12:27]: And that's a huge, and not only time savings from a company standpoint in terms of outbound and lead generation, but money and just it saves so much in terms of resources that any, I don't want to say a shortcut, but it is kind of a shortcut, really. It's just being more efficient in using your resources.

Sam O'Brien [12:28 - 12:55]: Yeah, yeah. And the one which, I mean, I haven't got the data yet, it's something that I'm working on because this really interests me, is what's the damage to your brand by doing all this, you know, mass marketing and struggling to get the numbers. But I guarantee you it's, you know, you're technically shrinking your market by, you know, you are targeting more and more people and annoying them, which technically shrinks the amount of people you can then go and sell to.

Eric Rutherford [12:55 - 13:29]: That's a good point because, yeah, sometimes it definitely becomes an annoyance. Right. It's just like, I don't want to see another email from this company. And the problem then becomes if you sort of annoy the people, like, they may be your customer down the road, or they may want your services down the line, but if you've set this bad precedent, if they have this sort of bad taste in their mouth because of what you've done in the past, even if they want and can use your services, they're not going to reach out.

Sam O'Brien [13:29 - 13:31]: No, exactly.

Eric Rutherford [13:31 - 13:38]: That, yeah, that's. That's in it. I. Those numbers would be fascinating because we, we don't often think that.

Sam O'Brien [13:38 - 13:38]: Right.

Eric Rutherford [13:38 - 13:47]: We often think, okay, well, it's just a numbers game. If we just reach enough people, we're bound to get. But we forget the opportunity cost that comes with that.

Sam O'Brien [13:47 - 14:28]: Yeah, yeah. And honestly, I mean, I'm saying this, I don't have the numbers, so they could prove me wrong, but I'm sure it won't. And I think that's the thing. Like, we'll get to this point where we hopefully can quantify. Like, look, by doing this, you are shrinking your brand, you're decreasing the amount of companies you can reach, and your effectiveness is actually getting worse. Like, we've seen reports now of these AISDRs sending out 20,000 emails a week and getting a conversion rate of like 0.03%. It's just terrifying. I mean, yes, we may all have a big market, but ultimately I think that's still. That's 20,000 people that you're annoying.

Eric Rutherford [14:28 - 14:36]: And that's significant. That's really significant. And I think we overlook. I think we overlook that.

Sam O'Brien [14:36 - 14:36]: Yeah.

Eric Rutherford [14:36 - 15:08]: So let me ask Ian, what are one or two insights that are most important to generating leads from web traffic? I know you talked about being able to, you know, to identify. Company, to identify, you know, narrow down. Is there like sort of the. I don't know what you would call it. You know, pick your metaphor. You know, you know, magic bullet, like key data. Like, is there one thing that is, like, just above all one or two things, or is it really just a combination?

Sam O'Brien [15:09 - 16:18]: No, I think there's. There's different signals. So I've always, anytime I've. I was a customer of Leadfeeder for Several years as well. So I've set it up before working here, which is nice. And I always set up the like, hot pages, you know, so if they're looking at case studies, they're looking at pricing, if we've got some demos that they're looking at. So you start seeing, as you filter down, you go, okay, these are the target, these are my target profile. And then I can see these ones are visiting hot pages. So already there's more intent. And then you've got a layer of how many people from a company are visiting. So all of a sudden you've gone from having one person doing all the research to now you've got four people on your website. That's a good sign. They're talking about it internally. Good time to reach out. And I'd say the other one is just the engagement, you know, are they on the pages long for a long time? Are they watching videos? Are they looking at that kind of stuff? Or is it like an in and out visit? Because if they're on for 10 seconds, chances are it was a mistake. If they've viewed multiple pages and they're looking at videos, then I think again, it's a good, good sign to reach out.

Eric Rutherford [16:18 - 16:44]: So it sounds like then it's sort of that combination of data that you're really able to, to put together and say, okay, when these things come together, this is sort of that, you know, this is that sweet spot. This is the overlap when we really want to begin. Hopefully we've already begun engaging, but we really need to emphasize and put some effort into engaging with this company.

Sam O'Brien [16:44 - 17:30]: Yeah, yeah. And the way we'll structure it is, let's say the first bit of criteria is we want them to get to one of our key pages. And as soon as we see them on one of the key pages, that's when we'll use our IP advertising platform to start advertising to that company. So again, we're increasing our visibility within the company. Then hopefully the next step is you're going to see more people from the company visiting and then you're going to see more people visiting the key pages. And at that point, you know, the SDRs have already gone down their funnel of like working their way through LinkedIn and trying to find connections and ways to start building up that personal connection and to just meet in the middle and, you know, we get to start talking to them and closing business.

Eric Rutherford [17:30 - 18:05]: So it sounds like it starts with the key pages, then moves into brand awareness and kind of getting that brand out there. And then it Just kind of keeps cycling within that as it is, as it just kind of builds upon that. Is that where you're able to kind of look at the information and say, okay, these are my key pages and I'm not getting traffic to them, therefore I need to make some changes to my key pages or I need to make some just as a customer on their side, they are able then to say, okay, I can adjust my own content to try and draw more people to these pages.

Sam O'Brien [18:05 - 19:04]: Yeah, yeah. So this is. I stole this term from a guy I worked with Ringcentral called Progressive Discovery. I love it because the whole theory is the further you go down the website, the more qualified you become. Again, something that we're working on, building a playbook to help people build their own funnels. But it's kind of like a rabbit hole. You know the, you want to direct people through the website onto these more valuable pages because ultimately if they make it through this, this funnel, this micro funnel on your website, there is a higher chance that they're engaged and they are going to convert. Definitely something that, you know, we see people, it's like if you run PPC ads and you just send everyone to pricing, then yeah, you got a load of people on your pricing page but they don't know anything about your product. Whereas if you send them through a few pages and you get them then engaged, then again you're able to really start identifying, yes, these ones are interested. They've looked at the product, they've looked at the pricing, they've looked at the features. Let's go and reach out.

Eric Rutherford [19:04 - 19:33]: That makes sense. That makes sense. And just kind of looking so, you know, looking at the dealfront website and kind of going down some of those pages and trying to look at that. One of the, one of the terms I saw was sales intelligence data. So would you elaborate on what sales intelligence data is? Is that what we've been discussing? Is it a bigger piece? Because the blogs I read on that were fascinating. I'd love to get your insight.

Sam O'Brien [19:34 - 20:31]: Yeah. So again, because of the merger we have the two categories. So sales intelligence was what Echobot played in and web visitor intelligence was what leadfeeder played in. But actually deal front crosses over both and you could arguably say everything that is in Lead feeder is also sales intelligence. So the way we see it is it is providing, you know, sales SDRs, full cycle reps, you know, any kind of sales reps with like you said in the start, the data and the insights they need to go and close deals. And I Think the space itself, there's been a lot of, A lot of players that are doing maybe slightly different things to what we're doing, but ultimately we're all trying to build around the foundation of data and having that good quality data, which is like one compliant, two like reliable. And you're able to, you know, find those insights to find who you want to target next.

Eric Rutherford [20:31 - 21:21]: Now that makes sense. That definitely makes sense. How do you see, how do you see this connection between sales data, marketing data? Because depending on the company especially, well, okay, any company can either have a good relationship internally between sales and marketing or a bit of a siloed relationship between sales and marketing. It could be small business, it could be enterprise level. Any given company, they can either work well together or be their own silos. How do you see this information that you guys are able to provide sort of bridge the gap between the two? Like, is there a way that it can do that? Are you seeing companies who are able to both use it for marketing and sales and sort of working together in that?

Sam O'Brien [21:21 - 22:36]: Yeah, it does become almost a bridge because on one hand you've got sales who, like, especially when you move up market, you may have a sales rep that says, here's 10 companies that I want to go and sell to and they might not be the right companies. So it's a bridge in that sense where you can then help them within the same platform filter down to find the right companies to go and target and then run ABM to them. It works nicely in that sense. But on the other hand, what also works nicely is quality is always a conversation in marketing and between marketing and sales. And what we do is, let's say opportunity comes through. We actually in marketing will also go and look at that opportunity. And in our data set we'll go, okay, you know, they're this size, this many employees, this much revenue, this industry, blah, blah, blah, blah. Is it a good match, is it a bad match? And we also are qualifying it at the same time. Like, especially our performance marketing guys, they'll spend quite a lot of time doing that. So when we have the conversation with sales about quality, it's. We've all got the same data set. We're all looking at it from the same angle. So you kind of. There's no longer an argument about who's right. It's like, yes, this one met the criteria. No, this one didn't.

Eric Rutherford [22:36 - 23:15]: That's a really good point. Because suddenly they have like one source of truth for the data. Right. I know companies I've been In, boy, that's a hot topic. Like, just in terms of. Well, I've got my data and you've got your data and I've got these anecdotes and like it, man, it is like, it's like a street fight sometimes when you come together in these. These interdepartmental meetings. So that. But this really can change the game because suddenly you're working from the same data and everybody can at least agree that this is. This is what we're going to be using.

Sam O'Brien [23:15 - 24:03]: Yeah, yeah. And the other nice angle you asked about customers and we have a customer we're working with and they do the use case where somebody's come through the opportunity is already in with sales, but they're going to start advertising to the wider business to make sure they're building the brand and the feedback. Because we have champions both in sales and marketing in this organization. And the feedback from the sales department is normally, it's like something comes in marketing chuck it over at the sales team and then they ignore it. It's like our job's done and they now feel like marketing is supporting them because they know that they're continuing to advertise to the accounts to bring them further down. So on that end as well, it's like we're collaborating more together. We're helping each other out more. We're all in it for the same thing.

Eric Rutherford [24:04 - 24:29]: That's huge because, yeah, that definitely happens within marketing. The lead gets handed off to sales and marketing is on to the next. And sales can feel unsupported in a lot of different ways. I like how that continues, that relationship between the two. Because companies where sales and marketing are working well together, I find they are the most successful.

Sam O'Brien [24:30 - 24:38]: Yeah. Yeah. I was on a call the other day and they said, if you don't know what your CRO. How your CRO takes his coffee, then you've got a problem.

Eric Rutherford [24:38 - 25:03]: It's true. And especially the bigger the company and the more people involved, the longer they've been at the company. You get personalities, you get different ways of doing business. So being able to bridge that gap in a way that everybody feels heard and everybody feels like they're a part of the solution. That's a game changer.

Sam O'Brien [25:03 - 25:05]: Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Eric Rutherford [25:05 - 25:40]: So let me ask about. Let's just kind of jump into buyer behavior real quick. What's. Because it seems like I see a lot of different things in buyer behavior. It seems like it's like trying to nail jello to the wall. It just seems to be changing what's buyer behavior look like in today's business, a business marketplace. And how have you seen that change over the last couple of years? Is it holding pretty consistent or are you seeing some pretty decent changes over the last few years?

Sam O'Brien [25:40 - 26:58]: Yeah, definitely seeing changes. I was actually speaking to another client about that this morning and you know, the feedback they were giving, which we've heard a lot, is that people a lot less likely to commit and they're leaving it right to the, to the need is really present. So actually getting the commitment of a deal is continuously getting pushed out and it's very hard to really be able to forecast. We know this deal is coming in, you know, this month or this quarter. They're finding that even though they're not losing deals, they're just slippage is happening a lot because I think people are, you know, bringing more people in now to the buying process. We've got more CFOs coming in. I hear there's a lot more like in our space, more CIOs and CTOs being involved. Data and compliance perspective are now coming in and being involved in deals. So the buying groups have got bigger and I think the appetite to commit is kind of dwindling and people are taking a little bit longer and really making sure they find the right prospect. So again, just speaking from our experience, we find that, you know, as a marketer we're now having to nurture people a little bit longer, keep the relationship going because they are coming back around. It's just not moving as quickly as it used to.

Eric Rutherford [26:58 - 27:22]: Is that, are you seeing that more industry specific? Are you just kind of seeing that across the board? In terms of most companies I love just. And you know, you don't have to have hard data and just what you're seeing it would be, would be huge because I know different industries, different cycles. Yeah. What are you seeing?

Sam O'Brien [27:22 - 28:20]: Yeah, very much in the B2B2B space. Obviously B2B tech space. We're seeing it and I think it is for those companies that are selling more mid market like the S and B motions do seem to just be full steam ahead, no change. I think it's those from what I'm seeing like the mid market, upper mid market where things have just slowed down. And I was talking to a sales guy a little while ago and his explanation to me was that actually what's happened is your mid markets are now behaving like enterprises and the sales process is closer aligned to that. So you know, maybe you're selling what what feels like it should be 100k deal and actually it's only a 20k deal because you've now got legal involved and like say the engineering department or something like that are involved. And I honestly think that's just come from. It's the old mentality of no one gets fired for buying IBM. It's like people are being very careful with their money and they're trying to make the right choice now.

Eric Rutherford [28:20 - 29:28]: Yeah, I can definitely see that. I appreciate you bringing that up because yeah it seems like come from when I've seen more departments are being brought in. Like there's so much I don't want to say second guessing but like really trying to get everybody on board and honestly the challenge with that just for any company is man more approvals, more anything. So it definitely slows it down, it can or squash a deal or anything like that. So that def, I mean that's a major, it can be a major problem or major challenge. I don't want to say problem. I mean I guess it depends on who you are in the company whether you think it's a problem or not, but definitely a challenge or. And the way you talked about it, how it's, it's moving, like it's not enterprise only, it's like moving downwards through mid market is. Do you see that kind of continuing going forward? Do you think this is going to sort of have like creep into the more smaller businesses or do you, you know, what, what do you see? What do you think? Yeah, the next year or two looks.

Sam O'Brien [29:28 - 30:51]: Like it's interesting because at the same time we've seen the PLG motion being pushed up and up and up and more people are comfortable like closing a deal, a larger size deal with never having spoke to anybody. And I think like if you look at numbers from a few years ago, if you'd said oh you could close a 2k deal via self service, people would think you were crazy. And now you hear stories of people running, you know, 10, 15K deals purely through self service. So I mean just purely my perspective, but I think what you're going to see is when it's very customer centric, you've got a PLG funnel, it works. People can get access to a tool they can play around with. You know, yes, there's a salesperson there if they need them, but at the same time they're not being pressured, they're kind of making their own mind up. I think there's no need for them to involve more people. You know, they, they can get the process done, put it on A credit card. Happy days. When you move that slight bit up and it kind of gets out of the credit card range and you've then got to start bringing in sales and people want to be, as I say, more consultative and involve those other people. I can see that creeping down again, definitely more into your, let's say like 15K range, because I think that's probably the ceiling for PLG at the moment. And then that's where people involve sales to close the deal.

Eric Rutherford [30:51 - 31:35]: I like that. That's a really cool observation. I hadn't thought about that. But in terms of where that price point is, and obviously as it's creeping up, just in terms of what people are willing to pay and the involvement, so for everybody listening, that is something to keep in mind is what is your price point? That's not saying go low, but that's just saying be aware. And honestly, those numbers, that's a whole lot higher than I thought of. People that are just like, yeah, let's just buy it, let's just do it. I'm like, wow, that. It feels like it would be a lot lower. Like, you know, maybe, you know, at most, like you were saying maybe 3,000. Okay, but. But yeah, 1015, that. That's a much bigger number than I expected.

Sam O'Brien [31:35 - 32:25]: I think you've got companies now who have realized the economics of running a business like that and they're willing to have people, you know, they're not pushing for annual. They're willing to have people on monthly contracts. So again, I always put it down to a credit card, but if you can sign up via a credit card, then it's like, it's so much easier than having to involve anyone else. You can almost slip it through the back door, get up and running with something, and then move to a point later on when you involve. When you involve sales. And actually, I mean, we run our website on Contentful. We're in exactly that situation where we signed up via a credit card. Now we're looking at scaling the solution and we need to add more functionality. So now we're talking to sales. And this is two years into our relationship with Contentful, but it's come to the point where they go, well, you can no longer do this on a credit card. It has to be a. We have to start learning things properly.

Eric Rutherford [32:25 - 32:53]: But that's really a cool way. It's getting in the door. It's getting in. It's getting what you need. I say a lower tier, but really it's just you're providing the service that's needed. And then as they scale up, you have the opportunity to, to serve them in a better way. I like that idea of if they can pay with a credit card, it's going to be a much, much smoother or less intensive sales process.

Sam O'Brien [32:53 - 32:59]: 100%. Yeah. Yeah. And I hope the finance director, Dealfront, doesn't listen to this because he'll cut my credit card off.

Eric Rutherford [32:59 - 33:22]: We will do all that we can to make sure that they don't get this episode. We want everybody else to, but not them. So we'll see what we can do about that. Oh, so one takeaway that you'd like to leave businesses with today. So for any like, one takeaway that you think would be most helpful for.

Sam O'Brien [33:22 - 33:59]: Them, I just think don't buy into the spray and pray. You know, targeted marketing, targeted outreach. Find the right people. And as marketers, we've kind of lost our way. We got so used to, like, Google working and it was, we didn't really care about who we were bringing in anymore and we just focused on volume. And I think, you know, as a, as a discipline now, if we start targeting the right people, the results follow. You know, we, everyone, we closing more business and spending a lot less doing it. So, yeah, that's, that's the takeaway, I would say, is just really focus on your targets and who you're reaching and don't buy into the spam.

Eric Rutherford [33:59 - 34:16]: And that's really, it's really important because if we, you know, qualifying the leads, it just makes it easier on the business, it makes it easier on everybody involved and you definitely get more for the resources involved.

Sam O'Brien [34:16 - 34:18]: 100%. Yeah.

Eric Rutherford [34:18 - 34:25]: So, Sam, if people want to know more about you, more about dealfront, where would you like them to go?

Sam O'Brien [34:25 - 34:36]: Connect with me on LinkedIn. Drop me a, drop me a note. I'm always happy to chat. Chat on LinkedIn and go and find Dealfront. Yeah. Dealfront.com explore there. And if you've got any questions, questions, let me know.

Eric Rutherford [34:36 - 35:07]: Awesome. So for everybody listening, we're going to drop those links in the show notes. Definitely reach out to Sam. Check out dealfront. They are doing some really cool stuff in terms of being able to help your company be more efficient in that sales and marketing process and really make it a better experience and a faster experience for everybody involved. So, Sam, this has been fun. I've learned a ton. And yeah, thanks for joining me today.

Sam O'Brien [35:07 - 35:09]: Thanks for hosting. It's been great.