Meeting Title: Brainforge Sales Strategy Discussion Date: 2026-03-23 Meeting participants: Robert Tseng, Ardi Ghasemi
WEBVTT
1 00:10:35.860 ⇒ 00:10:38.140 Ardi Ghasemi: Hey, Robert, I’m so sorry, man.
2 00:10:38.980 ⇒ 00:10:40.619 Robert Tseng: Hey, no worries! Hey, Artie.
3 00:10:40.620 ⇒ 00:10:42.429 Ardi Ghasemi: And what’s going on? Nice to meet you!
4 00:10:42.840 ⇒ 00:10:43.720 Robert Tseng: Good to meet you.
5 00:10:44.240 ⇒ 00:10:46.439 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah, what’s happening? How was the weekend?
6 00:10:47.890 ⇒ 00:10:53.410 Robert Tseng: Good. I’m in New York. I had a… it’s my birthday, so my wife grew up.
7 00:10:53.410 ⇒ 00:10:53.790 Ardi Ghasemi: Hey!
8 00:10:53.790 ⇒ 00:10:57.739 Robert Tseng: surprise birthday party for me, so that was… that was, spot on Saturday, and…
9 00:10:57.740 ⇒ 00:10:58.580 Ardi Ghasemi: Nice!
10 00:10:58.580 ⇒ 00:10:59.200 Robert Tseng: action.
11 00:10:59.560 ⇒ 00:11:01.919 Ardi Ghasemi: Dope, man, I love that. Well, happy birthday!
12 00:11:02.050 ⇒ 00:11:07.190 Ardi Ghasemi: Awesome. I know I’m running late, so I’ll kind of, jump into it.
13 00:11:07.410 ⇒ 00:11:17.530 Ardi Ghasemi: Utam has talked to me a lot about it. I’ve actually, was there day one when he was even, considering Brainforge, so I feel weirdly very close to what you guys are doing.
14 00:11:17.530 ⇒ 00:11:36.470 Ardi Ghasemi: And, he said nothing but great things about you, and what you guys are building there. So, first and foremost, I’m a big fan of what you guys are doing, and I’ve been there when Utam was drawing, out on a piece of paper of what he wants Brain Forge to be at a coffee shop. So, it’s really, really cool to see how far you guys have come, and…
15 00:11:37.860 ⇒ 00:11:55.759 Ardi Ghasemi: typically in these first calls, and I mentioned this to Utam as well, kind of this initial stage before any actions or what we really decide to do, is understand, like, what is true, right? And that’s any organization that I’ve joined, as a head of sales.
16 00:11:55.800 ⇒ 00:11:59.810 Ardi Ghasemi: that’s what I spend time doing, right? Is figuring out what is really true.
17 00:11:59.810 ⇒ 00:12:18.149 Ardi Ghasemi: to understand where the gaps are, okay? So, I was planning on the first, you know, take 10-15 minutes, hear from you, in terms of how you’re seeing revenue, where you see the gaps, and Utam, by the way, updated me that, you guys moved away from Luke.
18 00:12:18.150 ⇒ 00:12:36.940 Ardi Ghasemi: As well, this past week. So, I just want to hear from you, first and foremost of where you think revenue’s at. I’ll have some questions, and, Robert, I’m on you guys’ side, so if I ask any questions that might be kind of heavy, just know that I have no agenda or motive besides just understanding, kind of.
19 00:12:36.940 ⇒ 00:12:56.849 Ardi Ghasemi: what is true, right? And then see if there’s any gaps. I told this to Utam, too, like, it’s awesome the sheet you guys have built. A lot of companies that I’ve worked with, and even when I step into them, they don’t even have that. So, like, kudos to you guys, have a lot of shit already structured, which just makes it easier, for me to figure out where those gaps are.
20 00:12:57.990 ⇒ 00:13:01.550 Robert Tseng: Sure, yeah, no, thanks for all your support, for Brainforge over the years, sounds like.
21 00:13:01.550 ⇒ 00:13:01.870 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah, yeah.
22 00:13:01.870 ⇒ 00:13:17.339 Robert Tseng: or Evolve before I was here, which is great. Yeah, I mean, I can answer anything about the sheet. I built everything here, and I’ve been running sales here at Brainforge, so happy to kind of share, like, my takeaway from… I mean, it’s good timing, like, reflecting on the quarter now.
23 00:13:17.530 ⇒ 00:13:24.540 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we parted ways with a couple people last week, so that’s definitely, like, yeah, I mean, hitting that directly, like.
24 00:13:24.580 ⇒ 00:13:40.500 Robert Tseng: trying to figure out who we need to staff in order to go after it in the next quarter. I have a guy starting in, today, so I’ll be talking to him in an hour. But basically, what I found from even just looking at the snapshot, I mean, I’m sure you’ve taken a look at this, but sometimes the numbers don’t tell the story.
25 00:13:40.530 ⇒ 00:13:50.820 Robert Tseng: I care about, like, two metrics. One is, like, meetings booked. That kind of tells me if we’re really getting in enough conversations to give us, like, enough shots, and then proposals sent. So, like.
26 00:13:50.820 ⇒ 00:14:03.829 Robert Tseng: I mean, it’s not always gonna be, like, a meeting is taken, and then we set a proposal in the same… in the same week, but, you know, over a quarter, we should know, like, how many of these, meetings are really, kind of becoming, like, real sales op…
27 00:14:04.090 ⇒ 00:14:10.749 Robert Tseng: I mean, there’s… they become a real sales opportunity before a proposal is sent, but just, like, I think this was really kind of when
28 00:14:10.750 ⇒ 00:14:24.659 Robert Tseng: a deal is signed or not signed. So, when I kind of, like, looked at this, yeah, it took a while to get our meetings going, because we had to pretty much shut everything off in December, brought in two people then, Luke obviously was leading go-to-market.
29 00:14:24.660 ⇒ 00:14:32.059 Robert Tseng: I think I found that his background was not in sales, and so he was, like, a good content writer and could, like, help us
30 00:14:32.100 ⇒ 00:14:45.420 Robert Tseng: do some stuff in building the marketing pipeline, but even that took, like, a month to really get going, and it was never stable. It was always kind of up and down. So, yeah, I think just from a metrics perspective, we just weren’t hitting the numbers there.
31 00:14:46.910 ⇒ 00:15:08.269 Robert Tseng: And then even the quality of the meetings booked, it felt like he was booking us meetings towards the end of the quarter, but it was not really translating to deals. Like, so you can kind of look through this, and the meetings he was taking, or the meetings he was booking for me, I just… it just felt like it was… a lot of it was a distraction. So, by the time I actually look at… to me, this is, like, the truth, like.
32 00:15:08.270 ⇒ 00:15:13.389 Robert Tseng: These are the proposals, real opportunities. We’ve closed, like, at least…
33 00:15:13.590 ⇒ 00:15:22.020 Robert Tseng: like, 1, 2, 3, like, 10… 5 to 10 of these. But we… we didn’t set as many proposals as I thought we did.
34 00:15:22.020 ⇒ 00:15:37.030 Robert Tseng: And 80% of these came from partner referrals. Maybe, like, 15% came from me directly doing outbound, with the limited time I have. And maybe, like, 1 or 2 deals, so I would call that, like, 5% came from
35 00:15:37.030 ⇒ 00:15:56.840 Robert Tseng: like, all the marketing and other sales stuff that, kind of Luke… Luca’s running then. So, yeah, I mean, that kind of led to some hard conversations, and… I mean, yeah, so anyway, so that’s… that’s… that’s kind of… that’s kind of how I… that’s the story of the quarter that I saw. There’s obviously a lot that kind of happened. We learned a lot,
36 00:15:56.840 ⇒ 00:16:01.020 Robert Tseng: through that, and that’s kind of where the rest of the sheet is, but from, like, a pure metrics
37 00:16:01.020 ⇒ 00:16:10.860 Robert Tseng: standpoint, like, that’s… that’s kind of how I saw the quarter. But yeah, I’ll just pause there, kind of see if that kind of… if you have any questions just initially off of that.
38 00:16:11.780 ⇒ 00:16:12.629 Ardi Ghasemi: No, that’s…
39 00:16:12.760 ⇒ 00:16:21.439 Ardi Ghasemi: I’m just looking at this sheet again. Yeah. In terms of, so you’re saying as the meetings increased throughout the quarter, you’re saying the quality dropped?
40 00:16:22.010 ⇒ 00:16:22.929 Ardi Ghasemi: In terms of…
41 00:16:22.930 ⇒ 00:16:25.599 Robert Tseng: I didn’t really see, like, an increase in, like.
42 00:16:26.640 ⇒ 00:16:27.330 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah.
43 00:16:27.330 ⇒ 00:16:41.619 Robert Tseng: leads. Like, I just felt like it was… we were spending… we were spending a lot of time, more time, but, like, I don’t really think these… a lot of these meetings were not real deals. So, like, there’s a… there’s a problem in the qualification step, and so, like, the one… the one thing that I really put on Luke was, like.
44 00:16:41.700 ⇒ 00:16:53.010 Robert Tseng: We have different stages, so, I mean, I think there’s, like, a marketing qualified lead, so somebody who has a high intense action, engaging with our content, reaching out to us directly.
45 00:16:53.010 ⇒ 00:17:04.889 Robert Tseng: Maybe through an event that we attend, or they, like, something like that. And then, like, there needs to be, like, a real commercial opportunity for them to turn into a sales-qualified lead. Where we maybe had a conversation
46 00:17:04.890 ⇒ 00:17:26.890 Robert Tseng: And, like, they share about a scope of work that they potentially have on the table, and we actually go and try to do discovery with them. So, yeah, I think we were… we were filling the marketing pipeline, but, like, a lot of them were not converting to real sales-qualified leads. And why the numbers are still higher is here is because, like, I’m juicing the numbers, like.
47 00:17:27.400 ⇒ 00:17:34.239 Robert Tseng: I don’t know, you can see there’s, like, a cycle, like, every… every two to three weeks, I have time to come and just, like.
48 00:17:34.290 ⇒ 00:17:51.159 Robert Tseng: I just, like, hit the phones, hit the DMs, like, I’m just, like, driving… I’m driving these numbers up. So, which is fine, like, I will continue to do that to kind of get Brainforce to win, but I did want somebody who was going to be able to consistently do that alongside me, and I still feel like that’s the biggest need.
49 00:17:51.160 ⇒ 00:17:57.330 Robert Tseng: So the guy I’m bringing in now is… he’s… I’m gonna give him the same lead list I gave Luke, but he needs to just release…
50 00:17:58.540 ⇒ 00:17:59.239 Ardi Ghasemi: Oh, there we go.
51 00:17:59.240 ⇒ 00:17:59.750 Robert Tseng: Can you hear me now?
52 00:17:59.750 ⇒ 00:18:05.319 Ardi Ghasemi: I lost you for just the last, like, 10-15 seconds, if you could just repeat the last, like, 10-15 seconds.
53 00:18:05.320 ⇒ 00:18:10.850 Robert Tseng: Okay, sorry, I don’t know what happened there. I said, yeah, I guess…
54 00:18:11.350 ⇒ 00:18:16.190 Robert Tseng: When, if you look at the sales qualified lead, you can see that they’re…
55 00:18:16.870 ⇒ 00:18:28.519 Robert Tseng: you know, you could see a few spikes, and that’s for me, really, just, like, hitting the phones, hitting the DMs, like, I’m, like, I’m juicing these numbers on the weeks where I’m, like, going hard on the outbound.
56 00:18:28.910 ⇒ 00:18:29.250 Ardi Ghasemi: I’m like.
57 00:18:29.250 ⇒ 00:18:34.730 Robert Tseng: I just felt like, apart from that, the team was not really, like, giving consistent
58 00:18:34.730 ⇒ 00:18:50.099 Robert Tseng: building a consistent pipeline. So, the guy bringing in in an hour, like, his goal is really just focused to taking the lead list that we have and kind of doing the qualification. As long as he does lead qualification and really… yeah, I mean, we have a bunch of…
59 00:18:50.100 ⇒ 00:19:05.699 Robert Tseng: leads from last quarter and, like, other marketing efforts that we still have going on. If he can just help me have more consistent pipeline here, I think that would… that would be a huge help, because from that point on, like, I know what our close rates are and everything, like, I have that all modeled out here.
60 00:19:05.700 ⇒ 00:19:14.910 Robert Tseng: In terms of, like, our average deal size, what our close rate is, like, month to month, I think March needs to be updated, but I think we have a pretty good shot. I think…
61 00:19:14.910 ⇒ 00:19:26.180 Robert Tseng: historically, it’s been, like, a 15%… 10% to 50% close rate once… once a… once a lead becomes an SQL. So, I just feel like we just need more… need… need more, need more…
62 00:19:26.830 ⇒ 00:19:28.240 Ardi Ghasemi: At the top of the funnel, you would say?
63 00:19:28.240 ⇒ 00:19:28.950 Robert Tseng: funnel, yeah.
64 00:19:28.950 ⇒ 00:19:39.460 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay, so you… would it be fair to say you think the… like, once I get someone to talk to them, we have a pretty straightforward path to close, but we just need more in that initial pool on top.
65 00:19:39.590 ⇒ 00:19:41.400 Ardi Ghasemi: conversations with. Is that fair?
66 00:19:41.740 ⇒ 00:19:50.479 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I talk to other people in the industry, and, like, I mean, our 10-15% close rates from just, like, top of funnel is, like, pretty, pretty good. I would say.
67 00:19:50.480 ⇒ 00:19:50.980 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah.
68 00:19:50.980 ⇒ 00:20:09.800 Robert Tseng: Like, yeah, I think… I think people are… other… other comparable agencies are probably doing less than that, so I… I… I’m not… obviously, there’s room to improve in every… every part of the funnel, but I think just… if I can get consistent top of funnel, then we’re gonna be closing more regularly. So, yeah, that’s.
69 00:20:09.800 ⇒ 00:20:11.060 Ardi Ghasemi: Those weeks where you…
70 00:20:11.060 ⇒ 00:20:11.400 Robert Tseng: it.
71 00:20:11.400 ⇒ 00:20:22.760 Ardi Ghasemi: Sorry to cut you off, Robert, those weeks where you go kind of ham on the outbound, can you elaborate on that a little bit? Like, what is a lot of call… like, do you… where do you get the leads? Where do you get the numbers? What are you saying to them? Why do you think it.
72 00:20:22.760 ⇒ 00:20:23.080 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
73 00:20:23.080 ⇒ 00:20:23.590 Ardi Ghasemi: well.
74 00:20:24.430 ⇒ 00:20:40.599 Robert Tseng: Well, I’m basically… so, I mean, I think the highest signal ones are just, like, circle back leads for us, so people in Utah and my network that we’ve talked to last year, there’s always a pool that we can pull from. A lot of the time, we don’t move forward because it’s just not the right timing, so there’s that.
75 00:20:40.600 ⇒ 00:21:04.089 Robert Tseng: then it’s also kind of going to our partners, engaging with them, especially the bigger ones where they have AEs that are our friends. I just need to jump on the phone with an AE, and they… sometimes they’ll share lead lists with us. So, yeah, it’s just kind of… I feel like it’s doing that type of relationship nurturing with, like, people that we already have, that it just wasn’t the right timing, or a partner just needs us to give them a little nudge to start handing us more leads.
76 00:21:04.130 ⇒ 00:21:18.620 Robert Tseng: And giving us the warm intro, I feel like, is what I’m looking for. I’m not, like, trying to just do a bunch of cold outbound. I’m, yeah, trying to, like, go back into warm contacts. So, I think that’s been the most effective.
77 00:21:18.620 ⇒ 00:21:28.659 Robert Tseng: And then we’re also, like, pretty active, or… I mean… I mean, I started my consultancy on Upwork, and so, Upwork and Catalanth, these are two, like.
78 00:21:28.660 ⇒ 00:21:30.810 Robert Tseng: Basically, gig platforms.
79 00:21:30.810 ⇒ 00:21:31.310 Ardi Ghasemi: Excellent.
80 00:21:31.310 ⇒ 00:21:39.520 Robert Tseng: like, range, like, I’m… I have a good reputation there, so it’s, like, easy for me to go get, like, 3 to 5 leads a week from there.
81 00:21:39.520 ⇒ 00:21:40.299 Ardi Ghasemi: I’m really just, like.
82 00:21:40.300 ⇒ 00:21:48.889 Robert Tseng: hit… if I just hit those platforms. So, yeah, but it’s just, like, not… I mean, that’s not where most of our business is right now, so I’m not always.
83 00:21:48.890 ⇒ 00:21:49.260 Ardi Ghasemi: Right.
84 00:21:49.490 ⇒ 00:22:03.420 Robert Tseng: get business there, but if I… if I needed to just hit a target, like, those would be the two, like, backs against the wall, I need to just hit my numbers, I’d be… I’d be doing that, just… just to get… get the numbers up.
85 00:22:03.450 ⇒ 00:22:10.460 Robert Tseng: But more proactively, we are running, like, kind of targeted outbound campaigns, and…
86 00:22:10.790 ⇒ 00:22:22.069 Robert Tseng: I mean, we’re… I think the velocity has not been as fast as I wanted it to be. It moved things… it moved a lot faster when it was just me and Utam. But, like, teaching a new group of people to go and, like.
87 00:22:22.470 ⇒ 00:22:26.760 Robert Tseng: run a certain number of experiments, and, like, teaching them how to do that would just…
88 00:22:26.970 ⇒ 00:22:32.629 Robert Tseng: I… maybe I didn’t give it enough time, but it didn’t really show in the quarter, is what I saw. So.
89 00:22:33.100 ⇒ 00:22:40.780 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah. What would you, if you had a magic wand, who would be your ideal customer right now? Do you guys have, like, a very clear-cut ICP?
90 00:22:41.780 ⇒ 00:22:58.100 Robert Tseng: I mean, I don’t think it’s, like, industry-specific, but I would say that, like, target size company is, like, a company doing minimum 100 million in revenue.
91 00:22:58.180 ⇒ 00:23:17.960 Robert Tseng: If it’s a software company, doing at least $10 million in revenue. So that, to me, is like a growth stage, already, I mean, yeah, growth stage company who wants to actually, invest in data and AI, in AI services, is… anything smaller than that is not really a good fit for us.
92 00:23:17.960 ⇒ 00:23:23.260 Ardi Ghasemi: Who’s the ideal, title of that company to talk to, if you had an initial meeting booked?
93 00:23:23.800 ⇒ 00:23:28.750 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so for a CPP company, probably, like, a VP of growth.
94 00:23:29.150 ⇒ 00:23:34.349 Robert Tseng: So, someone who’s heading marketing on that side, that’s usually the main stakeholder for CPV.
95 00:23:34.350 ⇒ 00:23:34.710 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay.
96 00:23:35.110 ⇒ 00:23:49.969 Robert Tseng: For a software company, it’s usually a head of product. Head of product, or head of marketing. So, those are usually the stakeholders that we work with. We’re not really selling to technical leaders so much. Uten Can.
97 00:23:49.970 ⇒ 00:23:58.019 Robert Tseng: because that’s his background, he comes from that world. Yeah. But, like, I guess I… I don’t… I don’t… I don’t sell as well to the host, and that’s… that’s.
98 00:23:58.020 ⇒ 00:23:59.150 Ardi Ghasemi: You and I both, man.
99 00:23:59.470 ⇒ 00:24:03.310 Robert Tseng: Yeah, that’s really just the reason why we’re not going after those as much.
100 00:24:03.310 ⇒ 00:24:05.420 Ardi Ghasemi: That makes sense.
101 00:24:05.560 ⇒ 00:24:23.260 Ardi Ghasemi: Out of these leads that you have on here, like, are you able to quick, like, you know, in February, you know, back-to-back weeks of, like, 12? Out of those, how many would you say fit into these ICPs that you told me? Is all of them? Or rather, the VPs of growth, or my CPG company, or the software company? I’m talking to the head of product?
102 00:24:23.690 ⇒ 00:24:27.060 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I have…
103 00:24:27.840 ⇒ 00:24:42.010 Robert Tseng: I was, like, trying to model this out a bit as well, getting the team to, like, kind of keep track of how many of these conversations that we’re having are actually ICP. I guess we didn’t actually put in a percentage there, but just eyeballing it, if it’s, like, on average, like, 3 out of…
104 00:24:42.010 ⇒ 00:24:48.119 Robert Tseng: 6… it’s, like, less than 50%. So, I did have a… I had an OKR that was, like.
105 00:24:48.210 ⇒ 00:24:53.030 Robert Tseng: 30%?
106 00:24:53.720 ⇒ 00:24:54.700 Robert Tseng: ICP…
107 00:24:54.700 ⇒ 00:24:56.509 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah, it was something like that, right? More than…
108 00:24:56.930 ⇒ 00:25:09.580 Robert Tseng: I said 70% of ICPs from partner source leads should be… which is true, actually, I think this is actually true. Our partners know us, and they give us good leads, that’s why we work with them. But when we’re going out and getting a lead ourself.
109 00:25:09.580 ⇒ 00:25:23.570 Robert Tseng: the ICP, like, hit rate is a lot lower, so I mean, the numbers show that overall it’s, like, less than… less than 50%, like, 30%. So, yeah, that’s definitely something that needs… needs, refining as well.
110 00:25:23.570 ⇒ 00:25:43.220 Ardi Ghasemi: Gotcha. One last question. I took a lot of notes, so I definitely want to share some, how I’m thinking about it, just to get you to start thinking about it, okay? But, so I want to get to that. One last question. In terms of the sales motion itself, like, there’s a meeting booked, it looks like overall, from what I’m seeing, ideally get to the proposal sent, and then deal.
111 00:25:43.290 ⇒ 00:25:49.900 Ardi Ghasemi: How is your level of insight right now into the sales cycle itself? Like, what I mean by that, Robert, is, like.
112 00:25:50.060 ⇒ 00:26:08.049 Ardi Ghasemi: what does a discovery call entail? How long is it usually? What… how many meetings does it take to get to a proposal sent? Do you have any kind of infrastructure for that, or is it kind of like, we get on the phone, it’s very customizable already, it’ll vary. Do you have any… where does it… where does that land?
113 00:26:08.650 ⇒ 00:26:31.110 Robert Tseng: Yeah, it’s not tracked so well here. It’s all in HubSpot, probably. I mean, just, like, off the num… off the number… I mean, I want to track this better next quarter, but typically, we would do… if it’s a small deal, a small deal to me… I mean, at this point, our average deal size is, like, $30K a month, so I would say anything less than that, I would expect it to close, or a proposal to go out after one meeting.
114 00:26:31.110 ⇒ 00:26:36.890 Robert Tseng: anything around 30K or more, like, I expect it to take more than one meeting, and that’s a wide range, like…
115 00:26:36.990 ⇒ 00:26:47.149 Robert Tseng: Yeah. So, I feel comfortable, like, closing deals under that size, within one… one meeting, so getting a proposal out, proposal out, and then we… and then…
116 00:26:47.150 ⇒ 00:27:03.690 Robert Tseng: the close… the close, end-to-end is, like, 21 days, probably. But anything bigger, it… it’s… it’s a… it’s a wide range. And so, like, one thing we did this quarter was we, like, raised… we basically doubled our prices from Q4 of last year to Q1. So, like, you could see before we were at 15K a month, now we’re at.
117 00:27:03.690 ⇒ 00:27:04.060 Ardi Ghasemi: underneath.
118 00:27:04.060 ⇒ 00:27:13.870 Robert Tseng: So, that definitely, you know, slowed down, like, deal cycles as well. I don’t think our team is used to seeing, like, the, like, kind of how, like, deals stalling the way they’ve been.
119 00:27:14.190 ⇒ 00:27:14.510 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah.
120 00:27:14.510 ⇒ 00:27:21.269 Robert Tseng: which is totally fair, but, like, yeah, I mean, like, 21 days and deals… I mean, this is just bad hygiene on our part, but we were.
121 00:27:21.270 ⇒ 00:27:21.619 Ardi Ghasemi: Just so much.
122 00:27:21.620 ⇒ 00:27:30.270 Robert Tseng: like, deals moving, like, on a weekly basis, and now it’s, like, taking two to three weeks before, like, something kind of moves to the next stage. So, yeah.
123 00:27:30.900 ⇒ 00:27:33.090 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay, okay,
124 00:27:33.810 ⇒ 00:27:47.039 Ardi Ghasemi: Perfect, man. So, largely what I’m thinking, and if I look down just now, I’m just looking at my notes, so I want to make sure I get everything right, too. Yeah. You guys clearly have a measurement system, man, that’s working, okay? So, you’re tracking the right categories.
125 00:27:47.100 ⇒ 00:28:02.229 Ardi Ghasemi: I don’t think the problem for you guys is that you don’t have the data. You guys clearly do. For me, from my vantage point, I think the problem is that the definitions underneath the data, right, below the surface level, aren’t as clear as they can be.
126 00:28:02.300 ⇒ 00:28:07.219 Ardi Ghasemi: And for Luke, in that case, like, it wasn’t enforced as it should be, so the numbers…
127 00:28:07.380 ⇒ 00:28:17.769 Ardi Ghasemi: yes, you’re measuring activity, it’s going, and this shows it, but we want to see the system health on it, right? Like, even these… I want to get you, Robert, to a point, I mean, both you and you, Tom.
128 00:28:17.860 ⇒ 00:28:23.540 Ardi Ghasemi: Where, like, this first stage of what is true, you guys know it like the back of your hand.
129 00:28:23.600 ⇒ 00:28:32.799 Ardi Ghasemi: And the more, in my experience, man, the more you start to put a number to everything, right? The more you start to just naturally see where the gap is, right?
130 00:28:32.800 ⇒ 00:28:44.169 Ardi Ghasemi: Like, even the, like, the ICP front, right? For example, like I saw in the OKRs, it was, like, 50 million to a billion is, is one, like, mid-market, and then we have an enterprise.
131 00:28:44.190 ⇒ 00:28:55.629 Ardi Ghasemi: I think for the sake of a great experimentation, you guys should, like… well, you told me, you know it, right? Like, VP of Growth, a CPG company, and those should be tracked experiments that you guys run.
132 00:28:55.750 ⇒ 00:29:15.660 Ardi Ghasemi: Very, very well-defined inputs, which I know Luke obviously wasn’t doing it, but with this new sales guy, or whoever the F you guys get, right, in the future, every experiment is very well tracked. I don’t want to go down to too many rabbit holes, but I would say 30,000-foot overview, the way I’m looking at this, man, is in two buckets. One.
133 00:29:15.900 ⇒ 00:29:25.799 Ardi Ghasemi: is building a foundation underneath what you have built here, right? So, like, I can give you an example. Like, you had, even going from, like, meetings booked.
134 00:29:26.320 ⇒ 00:29:31.590 Ardi Ghasemi: And, like, early, mid-stage, late-stage SQL to proposal sent.
135 00:29:32.010 ⇒ 00:29:37.630 Ardi Ghasemi: I want to get that cycle for you guys, or at least give enough perspective to you, so you start thinking about, okay.
136 00:29:37.790 ⇒ 00:29:52.499 Ardi Ghasemi: here’s an intro call that happens. What does an intro call mean? Okay, it needs to be with this title, this title, or this title. This needs to be the ICP, and then I’ll qualify you as a discovery call intro meeting that I can create, hypothetically, a deal on HubSpot. Okay, cool.
137 00:29:52.500 ⇒ 00:30:10.709 Ardi Ghasemi: How many of those do I need? And then I start working down, okay, maybe the second one is a demo, or more of a negotiation conversation. And then it’s a proposal set. And then we start to see, okay, what is the MQL to SQL conversion? What’s SQL to negotiation? What’s negotiation to proposal? And what’s proposal to close?
138 00:30:11.000 ⇒ 00:30:22.009 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah. So, like, and I hope that aligns with what I’m saying, like, you technically have that up here, so it’s not like, oh shit, we gotta start from zero. Robert, I just want you to start thinking, okay, what is another layer deeper than that?
139 00:30:22.170 ⇒ 00:30:39.349 Ardi Ghasemi: Because right now, it’s still… and just from what I’m gauging from the convo I’m having with you so far, man, it’s like, some of these are still… we’re trying to… the what is true, we’re still trying to kind of figure our way to get, like, what is the actual truth here? And, like, where it’s truly slipping, right?
140 00:30:39.510 ⇒ 00:30:59.170 Ardi Ghasemi: So that’s just so far, frankly, I don’t think is the hard part. You guys have a lot of it here. It starts to… you just gotta start asking yourself questions. I’ve told Uten the same shit. You guys gotta ask yourself a question of, like, okay, when a sales guy, this sales guy you’re gonna talk to the next day, and he’s gonna say, I’m gonna come in here, I’m gonna see what works, I’m gonna try my best.
141 00:30:59.310 ⇒ 00:31:18.400 Ardi Ghasemi: I want you to get used to asking the questions to this guy, but cool. Can you help me understand, John, what does that mean for you? How many calls are you making a day? What is your… where are you getting the list from? What is your sequence, by the way? For example, you told me you guys have, 12 meetings booked on February 9th.
142 00:31:18.550 ⇒ 00:31:21.889 Ardi Ghasemi: My bad, 6 booked. 5 were taken.
143 00:31:21.940 ⇒ 00:31:40.460 Ardi Ghasemi: I want to know the story. What happened to that one that wasn’t taken? How many times are you following up with them? Is it once? Is it twice? Is it 8 calls? Is it 6 calls? How many emails are going through? Is it sequence on HubSpot? Is it not? Right? Out of those meetings taken, which one of them are exactly what we’re looking for? What does the path look like?
144 00:31:40.530 ⇒ 00:31:42.569 Ardi Ghasemi: Which leads me to my second bucket.
145 00:31:42.800 ⇒ 00:31:55.130 Ardi Ghasemi: once you have the foundation set up, which is basically a deeper version of what you’re already doing here, so I don’t think that’s going to be too hard, the second part of it, Robert, is going to be the coaching aspect, more drilling down into the sales aspect.
146 00:31:55.370 ⇒ 00:32:09.569 Ardi Ghasemi: And this is where I can, obviously, I’ve told Uten this too, this could be as direct of me being on a call to see how you guys do pipeline reviews with your next set of sales guys, all the way down to the granular version, as I want to see what’s happening on these calls.
147 00:32:10.090 ⇒ 00:32:26.110 Ardi Ghasemi: that’s the start of where you guys should get… start thinking about, I need to build kind of a core foundation of what my sales frameworks look like, right? So let me show you right now, like, just to give you an idea of what I built, like, in Scentsy here in my last, in the last year.
148 00:32:33.280 ⇒ 00:32:46.449 Ardi Ghasemi: Alright, share my screen really quick so you can see it. Okay. Any sale… any org… any sales org I start, man, the 6 that I’ve started, they all kind of live here in this playbook, right?
149 00:32:46.700 ⇒ 00:33:06.599 Ardi Ghasemi: Now, this largely took a year to build. I start off with a blank canvas, but I want you guys to aspire to build something like this, too. It makes you less reliant on AEs, right? It diminishes your risk of trying to depend on an AE or whoever saying, I’ll do this for you, I’ll try this, and you and Utam are left sitting there.
150 00:33:06.600 ⇒ 00:33:21.399 Ardi Ghasemi: not knowing… you’re just hoping for them to produce, but you don’t really know what produce besides closing deals looks like, and you don’t know where shit is slipping, right? So, again, some of these are just for the team, you know, operations that I have, the functions, that’s not as important.
151 00:33:21.560 ⇒ 00:33:24.320 Ardi Ghasemi: Really, you guys need to get to a point where
152 00:33:24.530 ⇒ 00:33:39.519 Ardi Ghasemi: it is very well defined like these, right? The good news, Robert, you guys are just at this point to build this, so you’re not late, and I’m not here sitting… saying that you guys should have built this. There’s no should’ve. You are right at this point, man, where what you’re seeing here…
153 00:33:39.860 ⇒ 00:33:46.879 Ardi Ghasemi: Customer profiles, intro calls, In terms of it being this detailed.
154 00:33:47.890 ⇒ 00:33:56.689 Ardi Ghasemi: this is the foundation that you guys need to start thinking of building where your stage is at now, right? Where my pitch now, my seventh AE that comes in.
155 00:33:57.330 ⇒ 00:34:08.020 Ardi Ghasemi: I don’t… I’m not… I’m bringing him based on his attitude, his hunger, and the line incentives. If I get that right, I don’t need him to be a hero pitch guy. This is what works.
156 00:34:08.030 ⇒ 00:34:29.000 Ardi Ghasemi: this is what you do. Now, this got created over a year. We failed a million times, this pitch refined multiple times, right? But this is all in that second bucket of us really… you can see how long it goes, right? Like, I have it very well defined. But it keeps going, right? I know for us, for example, after a few months, that, okay, after an intro call.
157 00:34:29.000 ⇒ 00:34:33.200 Ardi Ghasemi: I don’t do the full demo of my product then, I tried it, didn’t work, I need a second call.
158 00:34:33.199 ⇒ 00:34:48.669 Ardi Ghasemi: So I… there’s a demo structure here. And then I said, oh shit, a closing call, we need a third closing call with it. And this is just the learnings that you guys are gonna have, and you’ll have your own version of it. Alright, I’m not gonna dictate that, you guys will, right? Because you know your business obviously way better than I do.
159 00:34:48.690 ⇒ 00:34:53.190 Ardi Ghasemi: But I don’t want to go too deep into it, but does that all make sense, kind of in that sense?
160 00:34:53.199 ⇒ 00:35:06.949 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, this is… this is way more thorough than anything we have, which is like, I mean, great. I mean, it’s great that you… I mean, you’re clearly a, you know, high-level thinker, but then you also kind of have… you go all into the nitty-gritty as well, so…
161 00:35:06.949 ⇒ 00:35:16.399 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think this is… this is helpful. I mean, I don’t know if… you guys obviously… I’m curious, like, kind of, what are all the different components to a playbook like this?
162 00:35:16.399 ⇒ 00:35:28.599 Robert Tseng: Because sometimes people walk in, they’re like, what’s your sales process? I mean, we have our own documentation, but I guess it doesn’t cover all everything that you do, so I’d be curious, like, how we can, like, what should we go and build out, like, now, so…
163 00:35:28.600 ⇒ 00:35:48.020 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah. Yeah, I would say what you’re building now, and it’s a good time you’re talking to this guy, first off is build out your definitions a lot more thorough, okay? So, like, MQLs, SQLs, and what the sales cycle looks like, I want you to just start thinking, how can I go another layer deeper in this? Until it’s defined to a point
164 00:35:48.020 ⇒ 00:35:50.889 Ardi Ghasemi: That is just clear as day, right?
165 00:35:50.890 ⇒ 00:36:09.840 Ardi Ghasemi: here’s what an MQL is, here’s what an SQL is, here’s what an opportunity for us is, and this way, you… when you… and again, this is… I’m not even involved in this, you and Utam agree on what that is, and you stay true to it. And whether it’s this sales guy, or the fourth guy that joins you, or that you hear about, whatever.
166 00:36:10.060 ⇒ 00:36:11.999 Ardi Ghasemi: It is very well defined.
167 00:36:12.200 ⇒ 00:36:19.459 Ardi Ghasemi: that helps you, just like it’s helped me, man, in my career, that I don’t get distracted by salespeople selling me.
168 00:36:19.740 ⇒ 00:36:38.519 Ardi Ghasemi: Right? I don’t get distracted by made-up numbers, right? Remote environments, I’ve had remote teams, it’s gone nightmare for me before, right? Where people manipulate their activities, they manipulate what they’re actually doing. It’s very simple. Here’s what an MQL is, here’s what an SQL is, here’s my sales cycle.
169 00:36:38.520 ⇒ 00:36:43.840 Ardi Ghasemi: and we have HubSpot, which is great, man. Here’s… when you move something from, for example.
170 00:36:43.840 ⇒ 00:36:51.220 Ardi Ghasemi: John, when you move something from a discovery to a demo booked or a negotiation, it needs to be… this needs to be true.
171 00:36:51.450 ⇒ 00:37:00.930 Ardi Ghasemi: this bullet point list, whatever that is, right? And you guys define that. But that way, when you move it, it has to be there. If it’s not there, I’m holding you accountable.
172 00:37:01.600 ⇒ 00:37:17.649 Ardi Ghasemi: Those are the steps in establishing, kind of, standards for your sales process, and you guys now, that’s the beginning of a revenue engine, where it’s a math problem, always. Anything that doesn’t have a number to it, I want you, Robert, to almost become allergic to it, right?
173 00:37:17.960 ⇒ 00:37:27.169 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah. I’ll give you an example of, like, one of your OKRs, which, frankly, I love. You have on there, no, what is it, deal stalled more than 14 days?
174 00:37:27.170 ⇒ 00:37:27.969 Robert Tseng: Right? Yeah.
175 00:37:27.970 ⇒ 00:37:40.430 Ardi Ghasemi: Something like that. Another way I like to do that, same objective, is, hey, I want to, for example, no deal should be active beyond 30 days of, like, an activity.
176 00:37:40.640 ⇒ 00:37:52.710 Ardi Ghasemi: something where it’s become law. Like, I’m not gonna judge, what does stalled mean, right? What does it mean? Did they say, what if they’re on vacation for 3 weeks? Is that a bad sign? Maybe it’s not. Maybe they’re coming back, right?
177 00:37:53.180 ⇒ 00:38:00.150 Ardi Ghasemi: I want you to just start thinking about that, and I’ll get on as many calls as I need to with you as you’re thinking through some of these.
178 00:38:00.340 ⇒ 00:38:09.830 Ardi Ghasemi: But that’s, I would say, the great first point of just say, hey, what does the plumbing look like for my sales engine? And all I want you to think about, for at least this week, is definitions.
179 00:38:10.110 ⇒ 00:38:21.539 Ardi Ghasemi: Definition, definition. Look at your sheet, and just challenge yourself to be like, okay, that’s surface level. What is another level below that? What is the difference between an early-stage SQL and a middle-stage SQL?
180 00:38:22.270 ⇒ 00:38:23.130 Ardi Ghasemi: Right?
181 00:38:23.150 ⇒ 00:38:36.320 Ardi Ghasemi: The more you define that, you’ll start to get an understanding of, here’s how everything’s defined. And I would say that’s kind of… you’ll start to then go into lead engagement, right? For example, for my team right now, any team I’ve been part of.
182 00:38:36.320 ⇒ 00:38:46.759 Ardi Ghasemi: Follow-up is huge, right? Yeah. I’m kind of a drill sergeant with it, with my team. If you ever ask them, they hate me for it, but I don’t let them… if a lead comes in.
183 00:38:47.090 ⇒ 00:39:00.079 Ardi Ghasemi: That is not your lead as the salesperson, that is the company’s lead, right? We’ve spent money for that. You and Utam are spending hard-earned money on these leads, however way it comes in, right? It’s a lot of resources there.
184 00:39:00.080 ⇒ 00:39:14.959 Ardi Ghasemi: So you’re not gonna fuck with me on those, right? So I need to know, as soon as a lead comes in, did you get on the meeting? Well, Robert, they’re a no-show. Okay, when they’re a no-show, you need to have 10 touchpoints in the next 2 weeks. Here are the sequences I typically like to use.
185 00:39:14.960 ⇒ 00:39:33.449 Ardi Ghasemi: here’s how you need to be diligent on it, right? And I have a lead engagement for every stage. Well, Robert, they showed up to the meeting, it was a great discovery. Cool, man, where’s the proposal? Well, they said they’re talking to someone, they should get back to me next week. I want you, Robert, to get allergic to that kind of talk from a salesperson.
186 00:39:33.600 ⇒ 00:39:51.020 Ardi Ghasemi: Hey, man, what does that mean? What did they say exactly? When was your last follow-up? I think I emailed them last week. That doesn’t fly with me, right? That I need something else. You need to be on top of it, right? And I can coach you guys in terms of how you can build out your pipeline reviews with this new guy.
187 00:39:51.120 ⇒ 00:39:54.900 Ardi Ghasemi: With yourselves, whoever it is, so you guys have that standard.
188 00:39:55.260 ⇒ 00:39:59.580 Ardi Ghasemi: I’ve talked a lot, I’ll pause there, I don’t want to overwhelm you, but…
189 00:40:00.120 ⇒ 00:40:06.759 Ardi Ghasemi: anything needs to be cleared up there, anything you’re like, I don’t know where to start, or I don’t know what the fuck to do with this information.
190 00:40:06.840 ⇒ 00:40:10.170 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I mean, I think that all sounds great. I have a couple questions. One is.
191 00:40:10.170 ⇒ 00:40:10.570 Ardi Ghasemi: Like…
192 00:40:12.270 ⇒ 00:40:17.659 Robert Tseng: How much time do you spend just, like, like, auditing your team, you know? Like, making sure that they’re.
193 00:40:17.660 ⇒ 00:40:18.220 Ardi Ghasemi: Yup.
194 00:40:18.220 ⇒ 00:40:28.999 Robert Tseng: I mean, it’s great to have all this documentation, but, like, I mean, common thing across our remote team is, like, adherence to the things that we talk about. And Utop and I are not, like, we don’t have time to micromanage people online.
195 00:40:29.000 ⇒ 00:40:29.950 Ardi Ghasemi: 100%.
196 00:40:30.150 ⇒ 00:40:32.330 Robert Tseng: Walk me through every conversation that you have.
197 00:40:32.330 ⇒ 00:40:33.010 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah.
198 00:40:33.010 ⇒ 00:40:36.580 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I don’t know, I’m curious, like, how do you do that? How do you do it?
199 00:40:36.960 ⇒ 00:40:51.429 Ardi Ghasemi: the way I do it is that that’s the first part of it, the systems you guys build. The more you focus on specific definitions on your sales cycle, your ICP you want to target, and the more you’re well-defined there, and then your forecasts become
200 00:40:51.500 ⇒ 00:40:59.270 Ardi Ghasemi: more applicable, and you don’t have to micromanage, because it becomes all a very simple math problem. For example, for me, like.
201 00:40:59.270 ⇒ 00:41:14.360 Ardi Ghasemi: I don’t know, at every stage right now, I have a conversion rate, a target conversion rate, right? Like, it needs to go from intro… an intro to a demo booked for us needs to be 90% above, demo to demo completed needs to be about 75%, so on and so on.
202 00:41:14.370 ⇒ 00:41:31.800 Ardi Ghasemi: on a once-a-week basis, on a HubSpot dashboard, if I see any of those that are off on a monthly basis, that’s when I start to have conversations, right? For me, I make it… I build the systems for myself, so it’s not like I have to go looking for them. It becomes very obvious where the leak is.
203 00:41:31.950 ⇒ 00:41:44.019 Ardi Ghasemi: And that’s really all you guys gotta do. The more defined you have your sales cycle, from the very top, how are leads coming in? How do we interact with them? How do they flow through our cycle, how do they close?
204 00:41:44.210 ⇒ 00:41:59.139 Ardi Ghasemi: The more you define that, the more you can figure out where are they falling. Is it at the end? Maybe not. Maybe, like you told me, hey, Artie, we’re pretty good, man, once we get it at SQL. Cool, let’s prove that out. If that’s the case, let’s really see stage by stage where it’s at.
205 00:41:59.140 ⇒ 00:42:13.630 Ardi Ghasemi: But that’s where, Robert, yeah, the last thing you guys have time for or need is to micromanage this, right? That’s never gonna work. So, the more you build out your system, and again, I’ll sit down with you and you, Tom, give some ideas of what I’m using for my team today.
206 00:42:13.630 ⇒ 00:42:19.910 Ardi Ghasemi: what I’ve used before, in terms of those definitions, and I’ve used HubSpot for the last 5 years as well, so…
207 00:42:20.180 ⇒ 00:42:32.780 Ardi Ghasemi: I can build out some of those things very easily, just so you guys can now have at least a foundation, because this will be your last sales guy that’s gonna join you, it’s not gonna be the last one, right? There’s gonna be plenty more people that are gonna mess
208 00:42:32.960 ⇒ 00:42:45.560 Ardi Ghasemi: come in and talk revenue. But that’s the way I would say it. It’s… there’s gonna be some part of it where the people that don’t fit, the future Lukes, God forbid, if you have them.
209 00:42:45.880 ⇒ 00:42:55.169 Ardi Ghasemi: they’ll stand out like a sore thumb, right? Because we’ve built out a standard, and this is… when you want to work with Brainforce on the revenue side, this is how we work.
210 00:42:55.370 ⇒ 00:42:59.790 Ardi Ghasemi: Right? And I’m at a point right now with my team right now, where
211 00:43:00.040 ⇒ 00:43:04.060 Ardi Ghasemi: it’s very clear if you can make it on my team or not, and it’s not for everyone.
212 00:43:04.060 ⇒ 00:43:22.609 Ardi Ghasemi: I’ve had people here for a few weeks, and they’re out because they can’t match our energy, they can’t match everything that’s entailed with it. For some people, it’s too intense. For some people, it’s not. That’s not my job to decide for them, and it won’t be yours either, man, right? Once you define your standards and define the inputs that are required.
213 00:43:22.750 ⇒ 00:43:27.630 Ardi Ghasemi: hypothetically, man. When you work with us on the sales side, I need, like, 200 calls a week.
214 00:43:28.190 ⇒ 00:43:29.370 Ardi Ghasemi: That’s what I need.
215 00:43:29.480 ⇒ 00:43:41.450 Ardi Ghasemi: Right? So I don’t have to micromanage you. I don’t need to micromanage you. It’s a Tuesday, you have 60 calls, I don’t give a shit. On Friday, though, if you don’t have 200, it allows me to then figure out, okay, what’s happening here?
216 00:43:41.600 ⇒ 00:44:00.420 Ardi Ghasemi: why didn’t you do it, right? Why aren’t we hitting these numbers? It’ll be easier for you guys to put a spotlight on, oh, this is where it’s leaking, versus having to step back and say, what the fuck’s going on? We only had two proposals sent, and trying to get you guys to put a lot of time to then do… go detective mode and figure out what the hell happened.
217 00:44:00.950 ⇒ 00:44:01.560 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
218 00:44:02.300 ⇒ 00:44:06.800 Robert Tseng: Okay, no, I appreciate that. Last question, I know we’re a little over, is that.
219 00:44:06.800 ⇒ 00:44:07.630 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah, yeah, no, don’t.
220 00:44:08.490 ⇒ 00:44:19.690 Robert Tseng: you know, like, remote or in person. Like, we’re remote only, but, like, I’m considering trying to do, like, a… we’re considering trying to go more in person, and…
221 00:44:19.750 ⇒ 00:44:33.240 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I guess, like, I’m curious, like, what your take is on early sales… I mean, clearly we don’t have a… no one sells in this business other than me and Utam, and we’ve cycled through every quarter, at least, you know, a few people on the go-to-market side.
222 00:44:33.450 ⇒ 00:44:41.810 Robert Tseng: I feel like it’s… I mean, I’m just trying to see if it… does it… should I just… does… does in-person make a difference? Or… yeah, I don’t know. What are your thoughts?
223 00:44:41.810 ⇒ 00:44:51.929 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah, it does. You know, I don’t think it’s required, but in my experience, and I’ve gone almost half and half of managing remote teams and in person.
224 00:44:52.130 ⇒ 00:44:54.830 Ardi Ghasemi: Especially starting a sales org.
225 00:44:55.150 ⇒ 00:45:10.079 Ardi Ghasemi: in person works a lot better, because… and this is just from experience when working with salespeeps and starting a process, there is an aspect of… I don’t even want to call it micromanaging, of… it’s more so stress testing your process.
226 00:45:10.090 ⇒ 00:45:29.569 Ardi Ghasemi: And when you’re in person, you can turn over and say, like, example, like, that’s what I’m saying, a whole bucket is, like, how the calls are going. You can have the best math set up, man, and you’ll have the best definitions. If your sales guy is, for example, talking out of his ass, not saying shit, not value stacking some sales principles he’s not hitting.
227 00:45:29.630 ⇒ 00:45:36.910 Ardi Ghasemi: then none of that stuff matters, right? So for me, in-person works really well for me to be like, hey, I need to get you good.
228 00:45:36.910 ⇒ 00:45:50.029 Ardi Ghasemi: And I need to give you feedback almost after every call, maybe to start, because what you just said is not good, right? Like, you’re gonna lose everyone, right? So, from the coaching standpoint, I love in-person when I’m just starting out.
229 00:45:50.030 ⇒ 00:45:51.090 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah.
230 00:45:51.090 ⇒ 00:45:57.450 Ardi Ghasemi: And again, I wouldn’t say, like, feel like it’s required, but if you’re thinking about it, it is definitely easier.
231 00:45:58.060 ⇒ 00:46:02.649 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Okay. That’s… yeah, thanks for… thanks for that.
232 00:46:02.830 ⇒ 00:46:05.930 Robert Tseng: Cool, yeah, I mean, this is plenty to think about.
233 00:46:06.390 ⇒ 00:46:23.940 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I appreciate your… yeah, I mean, you’re a very systems… systems-driven guy as well, so I mean, that’s kind of how we operate, and I feel like I… we speak… speak a similar language, so, yeah, I’m gonna spend some time doing the definitions. It’ll be good, just to kind of,
234 00:46:24.400 ⇒ 00:46:36.970 Robert Tseng: go deeper on the things that we’ve built. Yeah, it’s always good to have, like, a sales leader kind of take a look at what we’ve built and critique it, other than, you know, internally, we just hear people complaining how they’re not hitting it, and it’s like…
235 00:46:37.670 ⇒ 00:46:39.870 Robert Tseng: really helped me to death. Yeah.
236 00:46:39.870 ⇒ 00:47:04.860 Ardi Ghasemi: No, man, listen, I’ll tell you what I told Utam literally yesterday. It’s all about perspectives, right? I still, even if someone in my role, I still use old sales leaders that I’ve worked with to come and look at everything that I have, and for me, the benefit of that is just guess me to think differently, and that’s it. Like, literally, man, if I could hone it down to something, if I could get you and Utam to just
237 00:47:05.380 ⇒ 00:47:20.769 Ardi Ghasemi: get excited about thinking about a problem differently from a different lens, that’s a win, right? Because you guys are doing everything right, for the most part, I’ll be honest. Like, I would tell you right now if there’s, like, massive, massive red flags. You guys are just now at a point now with your company
238 00:47:20.830 ⇒ 00:47:42.210 Ardi Ghasemi: where your revenue’s at, and I joined 3 companies at this stage where you’re at, this is the time to build it. So you’re not late, I don’t want you to feel like, oh shit, like, we gotta… no, no, no, this is it. You’re now in it, and it’s now important that you guys build the system, especially with this guy coming, man. Like, he’s, you know, he said he’s gonna just do it, try it for 30 days.
239 00:47:42.210 ⇒ 00:47:49.599 Ardi Ghasemi: The worst thing that can happen from this experiment, and I know you guys aren’t paying him, so it’s a little tough, you know, to make it work, right?
240 00:47:49.600 ⇒ 00:47:50.640 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah. But, like.
241 00:47:50.660 ⇒ 00:47:55.420 Ardi Ghasemi: just get used to asking him some questions. I know you’re gonna talk to him soon, right? Yeah.
242 00:47:55.540 ⇒ 00:48:15.709 Ardi Ghasemi: what does trying it out mean, man? What are you gonna do, right? Like, there’s no heroes, there’s no hero pitches, there’s no hero sales guys. It’s all a math problem, right? Yeah. For the most part. So, like, let’s figure out what that is, and I want to get you guys to a point where, whether it’s a few weeks or a few months, you guys can have at least some aspect of a playbook there.
243 00:48:15.800 ⇒ 00:48:27.549 Ardi Ghasemi: you have some frameworks, you have some things, and your OKR sheet is a little bit more built out for just specific numbers, so you guys can just be more relaxed when you’re looking at your funnel, good or bad.
244 00:48:27.550 ⇒ 00:48:36.159 Ardi Ghasemi: Even if it’s bad, you’re like, alright, no worries, like, here’s exactly where it’s at, actually. Here’s exactly why we’re falling short, and this is the area we need to go after. That’s it.
245 00:48:36.160 ⇒ 00:48:36.750 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
246 00:48:37.350 ⇒ 00:48:39.179 Robert Tseng: Okay, cool. I’ll send you a.
247 00:48:39.180 ⇒ 00:48:52.420 Ardi Ghasemi: over, I had a bunch of chicken scratch from looking over your things. I put it together just on claw to put it in typed format, so I’ll send that email over to you guys, just of everything I thought, and then
248 00:48:52.640 ⇒ 00:48:59.009 Ardi Ghasemi: Let’s set up another call, too, whether it’s for this week or next, man. I’ll work with you guys however you want, okay?
249 00:48:59.310 ⇒ 00:49:01.249 Robert Tseng: Sure, thank you so much, Artie. Appreciate your time.
250 00:49:01.250 ⇒ 00:49:03.110 Ardi Ghasemi: Of course, Robert. Take care, man. Talk soon.
251 00:49:03.110 ⇒ 00:49:03.930 Robert Tseng: Back to you later.