Meeting Title: Account Mapping + ICP Refinement Date: 2026-05-05 Meeting participants: Fireflies.ai Notetaker Ardi, Robert Tseng, Lisa Whall’s Calendly Notetaker, Lisa Whall, Ardi Ghasemi
WEBVTT
1 00:04:15.650 ⇒ 00:04:16.920 Ardi Ghasemi: Hello.
2 00:04:16.940 ⇒ 00:04:18.260 Lisa Whall: Hey, nice to meet you!
3 00:04:18.269 ⇒ 00:04:21.409 Ardi Ghasemi: Nice to meet you too, Lisa. How are you?
4 00:04:21.540 ⇒ 00:04:22.570 Lisa Whall: Good, how are you?
5 00:04:22.970 ⇒ 00:04:24.150 Ardi Ghasemi: Wonderful.
6 00:04:25.960 ⇒ 00:04:26.870 Ardi Ghasemi: 7 o’clock.
7 00:04:30.330 ⇒ 00:04:31.590 Robert Tseng: Hey, Artie. Hey, Lisa.
8 00:04:31.740 ⇒ 00:04:32.210 Lisa Whall: What’s…
9 00:04:32.210 ⇒ 00:04:32.970 Ardi Ghasemi: Robert.
10 00:04:36.270 ⇒ 00:04:37.460 Ardi Ghasemi: How we doing, man?
11 00:04:38.520 ⇒ 00:04:44.119 Robert Tseng: Good. Yeah, sorry I missed you yesterday. Are you, still traveling, or are you back?
12 00:04:44.880 ⇒ 00:04:46.169 Ardi Ghasemi: No, I’m back. I’m back this week.
13 00:04:46.170 ⇒ 00:04:47.710 Robert Tseng: Like, you own a garage.
14 00:04:48.120 ⇒ 00:04:52.540 Ardi Ghasemi: No, I’m actually at the Capital Factory in, in Austin, so…
15 00:04:52.540 ⇒ 00:04:52.880 Robert Tseng: Oh.
16 00:04:52.880 ⇒ 00:04:55.150 Ardi Ghasemi: It might look like that, yeah, yeah.
17 00:04:55.610 ⇒ 00:04:56.070 Robert Tseng: Nice.
18 00:04:56.070 ⇒ 00:04:58.530 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah, man, what’s new with you?
19 00:04:59.760 ⇒ 00:05:08.479 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we just came back… I mean, I was… I was traveling the past two weeks as well, so… Oh, really? It’s the first week, I’m really just kinda…
20 00:05:08.950 ⇒ 00:05:23.699 Robert Tseng: planted in New York, and just kinda… we’re… I mean, we changed our positioning, over the past two weeks, so, I mean, we can share that with you, but, yeah, you know, I might just Slack with you, help you better understand.
21 00:05:24.170 ⇒ 00:05:24.840 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah, that’d be great.
22 00:05:24.840 ⇒ 00:05:30.020 Robert Tseng: kind of what… this is, like, our general deck now.
23 00:05:30.300 ⇒ 00:05:42.200 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I just tried to, like, find a way to unify all of our services under one, like, coherent narrative. So, yeah, I mean, we’re kind of rolling with this language now.
24 00:05:42.670 ⇒ 00:06:00.100 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I saw your messages about the ICP kind of thing with, the edge activation thing with Zora, so I was thinking we could go through that today, and then I know Lisa had a couple outstanding items that she’s also wanting, kind of, your feedback on. And then if we have time.
25 00:06:00.110 ⇒ 00:06:14.990 Robert Tseng: thank you for setting up that HubSpot sequence. I’ve kind of tagged you in Miranda, because Miranda was supposed to be working on kind of, like, an internal tool that was supposed to, like, be, like, our outbound sequencing, tool.
26 00:06:15.180 ⇒ 00:06:30.830 Robert Tseng: I guess what you’ve shown is that HubSpot can pretty much do everything that we wanted that to be, so I want her to pivot and just, like, use what you have set up there to actually do the deployment, but I had a few questions outstanding for her, because, like.
27 00:06:31.360 ⇒ 00:06:38.930 Robert Tseng: you know, if I load a lead list into your HubSpot sequence, and it’s my email, like, is it doing all the…
28 00:06:39.090 ⇒ 00:06:43.450 Robert Tseng: Basic things that it should be doing to, like, protect our domain.
29 00:06:45.240 ⇒ 00:06:46.000 Ardi Ghasemi: You know what?
30 00:06:46.430 ⇒ 00:06:55.239 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so, like, those are the things that are part of her solution, but I’m not sure if they’re out of the box with HubSpot, so I wanted her to get with you to kind of figure that out.
31 00:06:56.040 ⇒ 00:07:13.369 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay, yeah, yeah, and I’m happy to connect with her. Really quick, before we get going, the… what you sent me in terms of the pivot that you guys are doing, is that in line with what you had shared with me regarding that call? Like, is that the pivot and the kind of the service that you guys want to focus on? Is this aligned with that, or is this something different?
32 00:07:14.070 ⇒ 00:07:18.189 Robert Tseng: No, no, this is not a… this is like a general services deck. If I’m doing.
33 00:07:18.190 ⇒ 00:07:18.560 Ardi Ghasemi: I see.
34 00:07:18.560 ⇒ 00:07:21.990 Robert Tseng: which, like, I’m usually doing more… something more specific.
35 00:07:22.120 ⇒ 00:07:25.809 Robert Tseng: But if people are like, what does Brainforge do? Like, this is what.
36 00:07:25.810 ⇒ 00:07:26.360 Ardi Ghasemi: I see.
37 00:07:26.360 ⇒ 00:07:27.410 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
38 00:07:27.410 ⇒ 00:07:27.840 Ardi Ghasemi: Oh, God.
39 00:07:27.840 ⇒ 00:07:28.200 Robert Tseng: That’s true.
40 00:07:28.200 ⇒ 00:07:28.670 Ardi Ghasemi: How’s this?
41 00:07:28.670 ⇒ 00:07:36.469 Robert Tseng: The doc that you shared… You’re kind of capturing just one piece of it, with that offering, like…
42 00:07:36.680 ⇒ 00:07:40.770 Robert Tseng: You know, context as data, like, I think…
43 00:07:41.030 ⇒ 00:07:41.510 Ardi Ghasemi: Right.
44 00:07:41.510 ⇒ 00:07:44.400 Robert Tseng: There’s a slide there that talks about
45 00:07:44.510 ⇒ 00:07:57.919 Robert Tseng: you know, well, I… there’s, like, five… we kind of are saying there’s 5 different types of data, context has multiple layers, the work that you’re talking about with Zoron is really just, like, the top two layers. It’s, like.
46 00:07:57.920 ⇒ 00:07:58.690 Ardi Ghasemi: I see.
47 00:08:00.040 ⇒ 00:08:16.419 Robert Tseng: behavioral data, like, specific session details, and actions that users are taking, and, like, how you’re logging them. There’s a lot more to data than that, and I think that’s just like that. That’s just the very… that’s, like, the top of the funnel for data, so…
48 00:08:17.200 ⇒ 00:08:17.990 Ardi Ghasemi: Perfect.
49 00:08:17.990 ⇒ 00:08:20.970 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I, I mean, I, I would want…
50 00:08:21.130 ⇒ 00:08:30.080 Robert Tseng: the different SLs on the team to be building offerings that are, like, each slice of that, but the bigger picture is that, like, these are all
51 00:08:30.270 ⇒ 00:08:39.879 Robert Tseng: components of data that feed into context that you need to, like, harness in order to, like, build your organizational brain. So, like, that’s kind of how it all fits together.
52 00:08:40.860 ⇒ 00:08:56.490 Ardi Ghasemi: No, I love this. This is… this deck’s great. I was just looking over it, so I’ll definitely dig into this, and I can further add to that ICP side. But, yeah, I’m gonna give you the floor, see what you want to cover, and then I can jump into a couple of things that I’m trying to cover as well.
53 00:08:56.880 ⇒ 00:09:00.850 Robert Tseng: Okay, cool, yeah, I mean, I saw your docs, maybe I’ll just start with that.
54 00:09:01.730 ⇒ 00:09:08.760 Robert Tseng: I I know you asked some questions, but, what do I have here?
55 00:09:12.950 ⇒ 00:09:17.910 Robert Tseng: Okay, I’m just gonna share my whole screen. So again, that’s the…
56 00:09:17.910 ⇒ 00:09:22.490 Ardi Ghasemi: ICP for what you shared on that, and again, we can expand this as well.
57 00:09:22.740 ⇒ 00:09:36.659 Robert Tseng: Yeah, yeah, so yeah, so that, that is… that’s right, like, this is just, like, you know, I’m talking about on this particular slide, like, you know, what Doron’s service is… and it was, like, I think as you get to know
58 00:09:36.990 ⇒ 00:09:50.290 Robert Tseng: different people on the team. Like, Zoran’s work only really touches these first two layers. And then Greg’s work really touches this. I mean, I’m gonna throw names out there, man, I’ll talk to everybody. It’s okay. But, like, yeah, and then…
59 00:09:50.570 ⇒ 00:09:53.980 Robert Tseng: you know, this part is more like Awashia’s work.
60 00:09:54.110 ⇒ 00:10:13.519 Robert Tseng: And then, like, I mean, market is just, like, external, so, like, I mean, more strategy. I would say maybe Jasmine kind of, like, fits into here, because she has a background in, like, she’s on, like, the TikTok governance team or whatever, so, yeah, like, understands a lot about regulation, how to, like, enrich data by pulling in external sources, etc. So…
61 00:10:13.520 ⇒ 00:10:14.280 Robert Tseng: I…
62 00:10:14.280 ⇒ 00:10:31.090 Robert Tseng: Nobody in our organization is an expert across all of the… all of it. Maybe, except for me and Utam, like, we’ve kind of seen data at all of it, and so all of this is, like, these are all the different parts of the data, like, these are all different types of data that we work with at Brainforge.
63 00:10:31.090 ⇒ 00:10:31.580 Ardi Ghasemi: Yo.
64 00:10:31.580 ⇒ 00:10:35.529 Robert Tseng: But, like, people… like, from a customer perspective.
65 00:10:35.630 ⇒ 00:10:55.439 Robert Tseng: they’re not going to know all of this. They only maybe know a couple of the things that they care about. And yeah, like, what the AI team is doing is that instead of, like, having, you know, five… this used to be 5 to 6 different tools to access each of the different things, you know, this would be, like, a Salesforce, like.
66 00:10:55.490 ⇒ 00:11:16.549 Robert Tseng: Salesforce plus HubSpot kind of situation. Market data is maybe some syndicated data set that you’re purchasing, from, like, a third-party vendor. You know, journey data is maybe more, like, what you would get out of, like, a CEP, like, a product analytics tool. I’m just, like, describing, like, there used to be, like, so many different things that people are, like, using.
67 00:11:16.550 ⇒ 00:11:22.779 Robert Tseng: Which is… yeah, I think this is, like, a pretty traditional way of, like, showing what
68 00:11:23.480 ⇒ 00:11:40.280 Robert Tseng: yeah, these are all the different tools in the data stack. I mean, no organization has all of them, but it’s… it’s really kind of complicated. But, like, because of AI, we’re moving to a world where it’s, like, you don’t really need to have, like, this entire stack, like, all figured out, like, you don’t need all these different components.
69 00:11:40.280 ⇒ 00:12:00.229 Robert Tseng: actually what people want is, yes, there are still different types of data, but, like, AI will allow you to access data from any surface that you’re using, and so it’s more like, you know, we’re calling it a composable canvas instead of, like, a traditional stat. So, anyway, like, I think you can kind of sit with that and really try to, like, unpack… I think it… yeah, anyway, and then…
70 00:12:00.330 ⇒ 00:12:14.700 Robert Tseng: So, to tie that into what you’re describing here, like, yes, this is, like, a very specific, like, target account profile, like, these… I think this is a good lead qualification for, like, who would be… we would be working with on, like, why our…
71 00:12:14.850 ⇒ 00:12:27.979 Robert Tseng: we… why we’re so good at, like, doing just, like, the top of the… the data funnel, which is moment and session data. Yeah, I mean, I think these pain signals make sense. I mean, generally speaking.
72 00:12:28.100 ⇒ 00:12:34.260 Robert Tseng: It’s… it’s… I think that what’s missing here is just, like, some… some tangible, like.
73 00:12:34.690 ⇒ 00:12:42.050 Robert Tseng: The most obvious is just that, digital…
74 00:12:42.150 ⇒ 00:12:50.699 Robert Tseng: Digital companies can only identify maybe, like, 60-80% of their visitors. That’s pretty industry standard.
75 00:12:50.830 ⇒ 00:12:58.320 Robert Tseng: I think different verticals have different specifications. Healthcare is actually less, it’s probably closer to 60% or less. Maybe, like.
76 00:12:58.380 ⇒ 00:13:13.760 Robert Tseng: maybe, like, a less regulated e-com is, like, maybe 80%, a little bit north of 80, but, like, we have just, like, a standard way of delivering 95% accuracy. And so it doesn’t matter what industry that they’re in, Zoron’s work is just… just for that, so…
77 00:13:13.760 ⇒ 00:13:22.919 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, there’s, like, a feedback loop where I think in the calls that I had… I had shared with you, we kind of walked through, like, why this is,
78 00:13:23.120 ⇒ 00:13:28.930 Robert Tseng: helpful. I don’t exactly remember which calls that I referenced for you, but, there’s.
79 00:13:28.930 ⇒ 00:13:31.900 Ardi Ghasemi: We only sent one with a customer. Yeah, so…
80 00:13:32.310 ⇒ 00:13:37.409 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay. That was one… I only had one with us, so I would say, for me, that’s been,
81 00:13:37.590 ⇒ 00:13:52.820 Ardi Ghasemi: the biggest gap for me to get a lot more color of it. I would love to see more calls with prospects that you guys have. I think I can add a lot of value there, because that’s where I saw, kind of, the biggest gaps, the overall the way the call went. And to your point.
82 00:13:52.950 ⇒ 00:13:56.540 Ardi Ghasemi: And maybe you could add light to this in terms of, like.
83 00:13:57.840 ⇒ 00:14:01.600 Ardi Ghasemi: Why was Roland even… why is he on that call, specifically?
84 00:14:02.020 ⇒ 00:14:08.700 Ardi Ghasemi: like, kind of an introductory call. If he’s not a salesperson, if he’s very tech-oriented,
85 00:14:09.200 ⇒ 00:14:12.410 Ardi Ghasemi: Is it pretty standard for him to be on call like that?
86 00:14:13.080 ⇒ 00:14:31.089 Robert Tseng: No, I don’t… I don’t need him to be on a call like that. I think he’s really just there to, he’s like a sales engineer. I think that prospect was not in… he was not a good… he was not a good prospect. Like, he was, like, the budget was too low, the traffic he was doing… he was using was way too low. I never followed up with him.
87 00:14:31.190 ⇒ 00:14:41.859 Robert Tseng: Yeah, but, like, somebody I connected with was interested in, like, our approach. I brought Zoran in to kind of talk about it, but he was also, like, kind of,
88 00:14:42.240 ⇒ 00:14:57.229 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we didn’t disclose, like, too much. Like, I could tell that that guy had, like, he was… it was nowhere near, like, where he needed to be for our service to be useful. Like, he was nowhere… he’s not even close to 60% accuracy, so it doesn’t even… doesn’t even matter, like, going from 0 to 95%.
89 00:14:57.230 ⇒ 00:15:09.659 Robert Tseng: But there’s another call that I shared with you. This is more of, like, a partner. Early June’s a partner of us, of ours. They work with, like, a wide breadth of clients, all within similar, like, range for, like.
90 00:15:09.710 ⇒ 00:15:13.040 Robert Tseng: The type… like, the size of company that we want to work with.
91 00:15:13.050 ⇒ 00:15:27.509 Robert Tseng: So, that’s not a sales call, that’s more of just kind of explaining, like, our value to them, so that they can pitch us. So, yeah, I mean, and then, like, there’s been a couple other deals that we’ve closed that don’t even require a call, because
92 00:15:27.510 ⇒ 00:15:37.469 Robert Tseng: It’s just like, oh my god, you can get us to 95%, like, no-brainer, we’re just gonna do it with you. So, I think, like, there’s not really even a call to share with you
93 00:15:37.470 ⇒ 00:15:44.589 Robert Tseng: Out of those two. Like, we have… it’s not like I’m selling this all the time. Like, I would like to, I think it’s… I would like to… to sell more of it, because it’s pretty easy.
94 00:15:44.590 ⇒ 00:16:00.050 Robert Tseng: But yeah, anyway, so I think, like, the problem is very defined, it’s very easy to describe, like, the exact metric that we’re moving. Visitor identification will go above 95%, like, I think that’s just, like.
95 00:16:00.490 ⇒ 00:16:13.950 Robert Tseng: a more sophisticated buyer would understand, like, the value of that to their business. An unsophisticated one, like, would not be interested because they can’t even… there’s no benefit to them between, like, 60%, 95%, so…
96 00:16:13.950 ⇒ 00:16:25.569 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think it’s… it’s quite self-selecting as long as we index on… on that particular point, because nobody… if they don’t have enough traffic, they’re not gonna… they’re not gonna feel the pain enough. I think that’s…
97 00:16:25.570 ⇒ 00:16:25.940 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah.
98 00:16:25.940 ⇒ 00:16:27.170 Robert Tseng: That’s… that’s all it is.
99 00:16:27.450 ⇒ 00:16:28.400 Robert Tseng: Okay.
100 00:16:28.400 ⇒ 00:16:47.889 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay, and so I’m just trying to piece everything together on my side. So, basically, with the ICP exercise, I think that’s the first thing we’re starting at. Everything you told me here, and the overall deck you shared, I think we just need to put it on paper. And again, the idea is to be able to track it and have a strategy of who we’re going after, like.
101 00:16:47.980 ⇒ 00:17:03.589 Ardi Ghasemi: Robert, the way you’re talking about everything is fine. It’s just, how do we get it to a point where an AE come in and run some of these direct, like, at scale, right? And be able to, for you to sit there and have a more, like.
102 00:17:03.590 ⇒ 00:17:27.550 Ardi Ghasemi: for lack of a better, like, a congruent view, a very clear view of what it looks like with this type of, you know, e-commerce site, or this, consumer good, or whatever, it may be, because right now, it’s easy. I can… I know, obviously, it’s like a handful, so the sample size makes it easy to decipher for you what’s going on. I don’t need Zarone on the call, and that’s fine. It’s more so of, like, what happens when we want to scale this?
103 00:17:27.550 ⇒ 00:17:37.180 Ardi Ghasemi: Right? Like, if we want to have, I don’t know, 20 calls a month with these on this product line, how does that look like? And more importantly for you guys, how you guys can track it. So.
104 00:17:37.180 ⇒ 00:17:52.429 Ardi Ghasemi: that’s the only reason for the ICP. I think you’re gonna teach me more than I teach you in terms of the product line, and for, and with all due respect for me, it’s… I’m not gonna know that shit to the level that you guys are, and I don’t need to know it, right? I just need to know in detail what you explained is perfect.
105 00:17:52.430 ⇒ 00:18:13.129 Ardi Ghasemi: But the ICP doc expanded to a point where everything is clear, what is the pain points we’re shooting for, and then that way we can start the outbound engine. And that way, whether you bring an SDR, whether you want to run something with the team, it’s just clear that, okay, here are the pain points, they’re 60%, everyone needs 90%, the messaging follows that, the discovery call frame kind of pivots them to that.
106 00:18:13.130 ⇒ 00:18:16.199 Ardi Ghasemi: so on and so on. That’s just on the ICP front.
107 00:18:16.200 ⇒ 00:18:17.590 Ardi Ghasemi: On the…
108 00:18:17.590 ⇒ 00:18:24.839 Ardi Ghasemi: on the call side, again, I think… and you tell me if, like, calls typically don’t go like that, and that was a random…
109 00:18:24.870 ⇒ 00:18:39.870 Ardi Ghasemi: there are some big gaps in there in how the calls go. We’re… easy fixes. We don’t need to, like, discuss it for months. It’s like, hey, here’s a call structure of an intro call structure. I don’t care who you are, this is how you do it. You should not be getting your first questions to the customer 26 minutes in.
110 00:18:39.870 ⇒ 00:18:47.969 Ardi Ghasemi: Which is what happened that call, right? Like, you guys spoke about 25, 26 minutes, and then you asked the question, and to your point, he was not a fit.
111 00:18:47.970 ⇒ 00:19:00.799 Ardi Ghasemi: But why wait 26 minutes? Figure that out in the first 5, say, hey man, it’s not working out, right? And then you scale that, and if an AE has 20 calls and he’s able to buy back his time like that, you just get so much more efficient down the line.
112 00:19:01.560 ⇒ 00:19:02.190 Robert Tseng: Okay.
113 00:19:02.900 ⇒ 00:19:10.890 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I think, like, this is a good effort. I mean, I would just say, like, if you need me to answer questions, I know, like, I’m happy to, kind of.
114 00:19:10.890 ⇒ 00:19:11.490 Ardi Ghasemi: Yep.
115 00:19:11.730 ⇒ 00:19:16.640 Robert Tseng: do that. I, I mean, I kind of lean on you to kind of create the structure that you feel like you need to.
116 00:19:16.640 ⇒ 00:19:17.570 Ardi Ghasemi: Of course.
117 00:19:18.370 ⇒ 00:19:27.069 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so, I mean, I just picked this one because I thought it’d be easy to define, and then we’ll be able to see, like, you know, end-to-end, you’ll tell me, like, hey.
118 00:19:27.070 ⇒ 00:19:39.340 Robert Tseng: I think this is ready, we could actually go and bring in a seller now, and he can go and start selling this particular service line. So, whatever we need to do to get there, like, I’ll help you kind of push for that. I think, as far as more…
119 00:19:39.340 ⇒ 00:19:55.640 Robert Tseng: like I said, there’s only, like, a few calls, and there’s, like, there’s SOWs that are… that are out there in the platform that you can look at. I think I’ve sent you some things already. You talked to Zoran, yeah, so I think that’s… that’s pretty…
120 00:19:55.760 ⇒ 00:20:02.710 Robert Tseng: I mean, if there’s anything more that we need, like, you can tell me, but I don’t really think I have anything else to give.
121 00:20:03.000 ⇒ 00:20:14.399 Ardi Ghasemi: No, no, you’ve given a lot. I think it’s just any more, like, calls like that, if I asked Kayla to… any way for easier for me to find them, I don’t want to make you guys do extra work, but that call that I reviewed was gold.
122 00:20:14.400 ⇒ 00:20:30.459 Ardi Ghasemi: like, I learned so much from seeing how you guys talk about the product, how you guys are learning about the prospect, and that gives me so much ammo to work with. So, I know there’s not enough, but anything, that’s in there, and then the other aspect of it, which I shared the doc, is that CRM side of it.
123 00:20:30.460 ⇒ 00:20:48.409 Ardi Ghasemi: Again, that side is just cleaning it up, so when that AE comes in, again, the overall summary of my CRM audit, if I had to trim it down to one sentence, is your pipeline needs to represent where the prospect is at, not where your activities are at.
124 00:20:48.440 ⇒ 00:20:58.100 Ardi Ghasemi: And that’s what the stages right now indicate, is largely of what you guys are doing, which is great, but that can be tracked via properties on the contact and company levels.
125 00:20:58.100 ⇒ 00:21:10.410 Ardi Ghasemi: In terms of, this is what we’re doing, we’re nudging them, we’re asking them for this, and that’s great. But you don’t want your deal pipeline to represent your activities, because when you do that, now your conversion rates, we don’t know what’s true.
126 00:21:10.820 ⇒ 00:21:15.579 Ardi Ghasemi: We don’t know, right? Because it doesn’t represent right now where the buyer truly is at.
127 00:21:15.630 ⇒ 00:21:35.030 Ardi Ghasemi: it represents what activity you guys are doing. That was the overarching theme that I saw. And again, happy to… they all connect, right? So, like, we’ll do the intro call framework, we’ll do, like, what, you know, whether a seller comes in at the top of the funnel when they have a discovery call, and what the next steps look like. But then I think what’s important for you and Utam on the back end of it.
128 00:21:35.030 ⇒ 00:21:40.209 Ardi Ghasemi: is, okay, when I see a deal in I don’t know, negotiation?
129 00:21:40.630 ⇒ 00:21:57.940 Ardi Ghasemi: I want to make sure that that is the same definition of what that means, and not because of what guy thinks it’s a negotiation. Oh, I think these guys are a negotiation doesn’t help you new, Tom, because then your conversion rates become kind of not trustworthy, and we don’t know what is true or not.
130 00:21:57.940 ⇒ 00:22:10.300 Ardi Ghasemi: Those definitions for you and UTOM is not important, and you guys don’t need them, and you guys know the product, but for a new person, or anyone else looking at your pipeline, you want to be able to say, hey, when I have it, this is my opportunity pipeline.
131 00:22:10.300 ⇒ 00:22:21.950 Ardi Ghasemi: opportunity. This isn’t just any combo I had, this is what it means. You move someone to a demo, this is what it means. You move someone out of a demo to a negotiation, you send a contract, that shit better be signed.
132 00:22:21.950 ⇒ 00:22:40.529 Ardi Ghasemi: For me, my contracts I send my team, anything less than 80%, I’m on them. Why would you send it? We don’t flow contracts. When you send the contract, when I look at it, I should be excited. If I see 300K, I should see minimum 250K, 260K of that come back. If not, then my team is doing something wrong.
133 00:22:40.530 ⇒ 00:22:56.209 Ardi Ghasemi: Right? They shouldn’t be floating. If that… just… I know I’m spitballing, but just, that CRM audit is a big thing, too, which I don’t think you guys need to overthink it. We can just trim it down, give some definitions, for the whole company to know what your opportunity pipeline looks like.
134 00:22:57.560 ⇒ 00:22:58.839 Robert Tseng: Yeah, okay.
135 00:22:59.740 ⇒ 00:23:05.579 Robert Tseng: I think a couple things that I’ll do after this call, I’m just gonna…
136 00:23:05.870 ⇒ 00:23:07.750 Robert Tseng: I’m just gonna try to… I’m like.
137 00:23:08.300 ⇒ 00:23:22.399 Robert Tseng: I’m just trying to give you, like, a list… I mean, just all the sales calls, like, whatever we have. Like, it’s not gonna be… it’s not going to be, like, this… just this service line. I think you just need to, I guess, maybe just watch more of us. I mean…
138 00:23:22.400 ⇒ 00:23:22.870 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah.
139 00:23:22.870 ⇒ 00:23:24.340 Robert Tseng: All of our Monday calls?
140 00:23:24.750 ⇒ 00:23:26.230 Robert Tseng: added, like, our…
141 00:23:26.230 ⇒ 00:23:26.940 Lisa Whall: Me too.
142 00:23:27.050 ⇒ 00:23:29.130 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, so I’ll, I’ll send the…
143 00:23:29.130 ⇒ 00:23:30.789 Lisa Whall: I just need to, yep.
144 00:23:31.800 ⇒ 00:23:38.460 Robert Tseng: all of our go-to-market planning and cook-off calls, I think, kind of, if you just type that into platform, like,
145 00:23:39.660 ⇒ 00:23:42.620 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so…
146 00:23:44.320 ⇒ 00:23:58.160 Robert Tseng: like, let’s see, let’s see what cursory comes back with. So yeah, I’m, like, I’m in Dashboard, I’m, like, GTM planning kickoff. Like, there’s one, like, every week. So, all of these, I mean, maybe go for the ones that have higher quality scores, but, like.
147 00:23:58.160 ⇒ 00:23:58.800 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay.
148 00:23:58.800 ⇒ 00:24:04.970 Robert Tseng: that will kind of… like, I’m going through, like, the reps every single week. I’m going through our pipeline.
149 00:24:05.450 ⇒ 00:24:06.150 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay, maybe…
150 00:24:06.150 ⇒ 00:24:25.460 Robert Tseng: the frustration that I have with over, like, not being able to understand the HubSpot, kind of conversions, like, through the different stages. I just don’t really think that that’s… but yeah, I just don’t think that anybody has really taken it on themselves to be like, this is how the lead should work. So, I mean, HubSpot is really just a slice into how I see our activity.
151 00:24:25.460 ⇒ 00:24:34.559 Robert Tseng: Right now, so I agree with you there that, like, you know, if there’s some adjustment we need to make there to make the accuracy of the tracking better, like, I would want to know that.
152 00:24:34.580 ⇒ 00:24:39.939 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so… I… other than that, like.
153 00:24:40.510 ⇒ 00:24:43.809 Robert Tseng: I think the view of the business is pretty, like.
154 00:24:43.910 ⇒ 00:24:46.729 Robert Tseng: I… I… I stick to this very, like.
155 00:24:47.000 ⇒ 00:24:53.329 Robert Tseng: very clearly, like, this is… I run this with the team every week, so, like, I’m always talking about these metrics.
156 00:24:53.490 ⇒ 00:24:58.090 Robert Tseng: And, where the gaps are, so, like, you know, this past week, we…
157 00:24:58.100 ⇒ 00:25:13.830 Robert Tseng: we had a gap… we have a… our top line is dropping, because, like, I’m not pushing as much over the past two weeks as I was at events, so this week, I’m trying to drive top line again. And so, like, I mean, I have enough visibility to know where… at least where I need to go and double-click into, because.
158 00:25:16.550 ⇒ 00:25:24.919 Robert Tseng: Yeah, like, I… I just… at least I… at least this helps me spot, like, where in the… in the pipeline things… things are… are… are, like.
159 00:25:25.320 ⇒ 00:25:30.039 Robert Tseng: are being stuck, and I just moved to that,
160 00:25:30.040 ⇒ 00:25:47.290 Robert Tseng: But until I get to the pipeline, like, to the deal stage granularity, I don’t trust our reporting there currently, and I mean, frankly, our deal flow is not that much. Like, we have 11 active leads right now. Like, I’m able to float about 20 on my own, so I think, like, there is, you know.
161 00:25:47.290 ⇒ 00:25:53.040 Robert Tseng: if we’re gonna bring in another seller when Lisa’s fully ramped up, like, I want these numbers to go up, for sure, but…
162 00:25:53.040 ⇒ 00:26:09.450 Robert Tseng: I just don’t… I… it feels like it’s too over-engineered to go and, like, fix all of that when I only really need to keep track of, like, 10 to 20, leads at any given time. So, that’s why I’m not going to move to that problem, but if you… if you do, like, kind of…
163 00:26:09.450 ⇒ 00:26:10.940 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah, if…
164 00:26:10.940 ⇒ 00:26:20.890 Robert Tseng: as part of your CRM audit, if you have… if you’re opinionated about that, you know, just… just push it, push it forward, and, like, I will… I will take the feedback.
165 00:26:21.050 ⇒ 00:26:26.129 Ardi Ghasemi: No, and I’ll check this list too, and I hear you loud and clear, like, the idea is not to…
166 00:26:26.170 ⇒ 00:26:37.769 Ardi Ghasemi: get you to over-engineer anything or work extra on anything. Again, for that new seller, like, for example, I saw a lot of deals that were sitting in stalled stages, not even installed, like, they were kind of just…
167 00:26:37.770 ⇒ 00:26:51.069 Ardi Ghasemi: sitting in these… I don’t know what they were exactly, I flagged it on the audit. I think Uten put an action item to Ricoh or someone to, like, look through it. But that’s for a new seller, if they come in, you can point them and be like, hey.
168 00:26:51.200 ⇒ 00:27:01.550 Ardi Ghasemi: here’s a bunch of things, right? Like, here’s a bunch of conversations that seemed like they came in, we had a touch, we didn’t. And if you just add definitions to that, I think it actually takes off more off your plate.
169 00:27:01.550 ⇒ 00:27:12.399 Ardi Ghasemi: you can keep your Google Sheets that you’re using. I’ll actually have to revisit that. And then, the last thing is, if you don’t mind, whenever you are doing kind of the top of funnels things, I’d love to just kind of
170 00:27:12.440 ⇒ 00:27:28.190 Ardi Ghasemi: be on a Zoom with you. I just want to see how you’re thinking about it, how you go about doing it, because there’s still a lot of things I think I can learn, Robert, and I just want to get more exposure into how you’re working it, because the ultimate goal is
171 00:27:28.360 ⇒ 00:27:31.890 Ardi Ghasemi: getting a seller to come in so I can take a lot of that off your plate, man, right?
172 00:27:32.250 ⇒ 00:27:32.850 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
173 00:27:34.280 ⇒ 00:27:44.589 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, I mean, as far as, like, top of funnel, what I was trying to do, I mean, I wanted Miranda to give me the ability to send… like, I have… we have 50,000 HubSpot contacts, like.
174 00:27:44.590 ⇒ 00:27:45.150 Ardi Ghasemi: I don’.
175 00:27:45.150 ⇒ 00:27:50.469 Robert Tseng: I built a list that’s, like, about 26,000, like, legal contacts, like, I want to just…
176 00:27:50.530 ⇒ 00:28:10.290 Robert Tseng: I just want to start hitting them. I’ve been wanting that for the past two weeks, and we’ve not been able to deliver that, so, whether… I mean, I’m not gonna get to it today, but tomorrow I’m gonna log on, and if her tool’s not ready, I’m just gonna try to do it through HubSpot. And if the domain breaks and everything, like, I don’t know, I think that’s just.
177 00:28:10.290 ⇒ 00:28:11.359 Ardi Ghasemi: No, no, don’t do that.
178 00:28:11.360 ⇒ 00:28:14.120 Robert Tseng: The team has to figure that out, like, I’ve waited.
179 00:28:14.120 ⇒ 00:28:14.440 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah.
180 00:28:14.440 ⇒ 00:28:18.579 Robert Tseng: weeks for them to get that ready, which is just kind of ridiculous, in my opinion.
181 00:28:18.990 ⇒ 00:28:33.500 Ardi Ghasemi: I can add some guidance on that. If you’re losing high volumes like that, it’s HubSpot mixed with, like, you can play around with domains with, like, there’s some tools to give you a bunch of different domains so you’re not destroying your domain. If you want to send a couple hundred.
182 00:28:33.500 ⇒ 00:28:45.759 Ardi Ghasemi: you’re fine to do that. I say if you’re gonna go thousands, you’re just gonna break it and land in spam folders. So, leave it to… let me… I think someone hit me up. I forgot who it was, sorry, I’m still learning everyone on the team.
183 00:28:45.920 ⇒ 00:28:55.140 Ardi Ghasemi: Someone hit me up, but I know, I feel bad. Lisa, we haven’t given you a chance to speak, and I wanted to make sure… I know you had some questions for me.
184 00:28:56.560 ⇒ 00:29:09.860 Lisa Whall: No, no, this has been… I mean, everything that you’re saying applies to partners, because right now, I am an AE, in essence. My deals are this coming from partners, and I’m taking them to close, unless I’m off-base on that, Robert, but that’s…
185 00:29:09.860 ⇒ 00:29:11.200 Robert Tseng: Oh, yeah, great, yeah.
186 00:29:11.450 ⇒ 00:29:22.949 Lisa Whall: So everything that you’re saying… I am the first AE right now, so I could be the guinea pig, I guess is what I’m saying. And would love to talk to you in depth.
187 00:29:22.950 ⇒ 00:29:23.570 Ardi Ghasemi: Excuse me.
188 00:29:23.710 ⇒ 00:29:31.970 Lisa Whall: kind of the gaps that I’m seeing, at a detail that, Robert, you don’t… I mean, we can handle it, like, that’s why you hired us.
189 00:29:31.970 ⇒ 00:29:47.119 Lisa Whall: But I think it would be helpful for us just to work in tandem, because I’m not just a partner manager right now, handing off leads, which is kind of the traditional role, right? I’m going to be… which is fine, because I’ve done… I’ve been an AE, I’ve been done…
190 00:29:47.150 ⇒ 00:29:51.940 Lisa Whall: I’ve done a lot of jobs. But… so I need to be able to…
191 00:29:52.020 ⇒ 00:29:57.139 Lisa Whall: not only do the partner mechanics side of things, but I need to be able to
192 00:29:57.850 ⇒ 00:30:17.480 Lisa Whall: do the things that you’re saying, and understand them. And so, I’m here. So you might as well use me as, like, does this make sense to an outsider, right? I guess is what I’m saying. And I saw some things, too, that, again, just would like to talk to you a little bit about without over-engineering, because I…
193 00:30:17.830 ⇒ 00:30:25.220 Lisa Whall: I’m anti-over-engineering, as you are, as Robert is, but… I’m just seeing, like.
194 00:30:25.910 ⇒ 00:30:29.920 Lisa Whall: right now, I’m having to keep a separate partner spreadsheet, right? Like.
195 00:30:30.960 ⇒ 00:30:47.039 Lisa Whall: Is HubSpot going to be our source of truth and record? If yes, then let’s do that, right? Those kinds of things I’d like to talk to you about, so that we’re tackling… because we have 60-80% of our opportunities to come through partners at the end of this year.
196 00:30:47.790 ⇒ 00:30:51.520 Lisa Whall: So we really have to engineer this, our HubSpot instance.
197 00:30:52.060 ⇒ 00:30:52.940 Ardi Ghasemi: to…
198 00:30:53.340 ⇒ 00:30:56.450 Lisa Whall: Assume that most of our leads are going to come from partners.
199 00:30:57.730 ⇒ 00:31:05.800 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay, yeah, Lisa, let’s set up some time for either, tomorrow or Friday, and we can, you can throw a bunch of stuff at me, and.
200 00:31:05.800 ⇒ 00:31:06.230 Lisa Whall: Thanks for the…
201 00:31:06.230 ⇒ 00:31:08.269 Ardi Ghasemi: I can guide you a little bit.
202 00:31:08.270 ⇒ 00:31:12.360 Lisa Whall: too, because it’s been a while since I’ve used HubSpot, and
203 00:31:12.640 ⇒ 00:31:22.750 Lisa Whall: you know, I just want to get some quick wins, too. There might already be some things in place that just aren’t being used, as an example, right? That, like, let’s start using that so I’m not tracking it in a third-party spreadsheet.
204 00:31:23.210 ⇒ 00:31:30.349 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah, you got it. Robert, really quick, I want to make sure I’m working with the right person. Hannah hit me up? Is that… is that the right name who’s working on that campaign?
205 00:31:30.790 ⇒ 00:31:33.199 Robert Tseng: Yeah, Hannah and Miranda are both people.
206 00:31:33.200 ⇒ 00:31:33.630 Ardi Ghasemi: Where’d that.
207 00:31:33.630 ⇒ 00:31:37.609 Robert Tseng: That will be… that should be reaching out to you.
208 00:31:37.610 ⇒ 00:31:38.150 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay.
209 00:31:38.150 ⇒ 00:31:41.609 Robert Tseng: Yeah. Hannah basically runs, like, our out… I mean…
210 00:31:42.170 ⇒ 00:32:00.769 Robert Tseng: She’s more, like, nurturing, she does, like, LinkedIn-only campaigns, and also, like, just follows up with people manually. Miranda is more supposed to be in the go-to-market engineer role, and, like, trying to build tooling to support the team. Yeah.
211 00:32:01.000 ⇒ 00:32:02.010 Robert Tseng: Okay.
212 00:32:02.350 ⇒ 00:32:07.369 Ardi Ghasemi: let me connect with them, and then I can share with some tools for that campaign, just so…
213 00:32:07.680 ⇒ 00:32:12.060 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah, I know you’re frustrated with getting out. I would just say,
214 00:32:12.060 ⇒ 00:32:14.250 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I just want to send 500 emails, and it’s.
215 00:32:14.250 ⇒ 00:32:14.850 Ardi Ghasemi: Like, no.
216 00:32:14.850 ⇒ 00:32:15.749 Robert Tseng: redoing? It’s been too.
217 00:32:15.750 ⇒ 00:32:28.549 Ardi Ghasemi: I know, that’s too much, because the reality is, if you started two and a half weeks with some of these, like, email warm-up tools, like, you… it takes about a week or two to warm them up, and then you could send fucking 10,000, not even 500.
218 00:32:28.550 ⇒ 00:32:28.890 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
219 00:32:28.890 ⇒ 00:32:29.330 Ardi Ghasemi: So…
220 00:32:29.330 ⇒ 00:32:33.310 Robert Tseng: We have, we have, like, 60,000 contacts. I want to hit everybody, so…
221 00:32:33.310 ⇒ 00:32:40.410 Ardi Ghasemi: I love that mindset. Okay. The sequences are the easy part. I think it’s just the email infrastructure. I’ll just flag to Miranda and Hannah.
222 00:32:40.410 ⇒ 00:32:40.900 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
223 00:32:40.900 ⇒ 00:32:42.600 Ardi Ghasemi: To just be wary of, because…
224 00:32:42.600 ⇒ 00:33:07.209 Ardi Ghasemi: The last thing is, like, I’ve broken plenty of domains and asked Google to, you know, unsuspend me hundreds of times. I don’t care about that, it’s more so, you don’t want these emails to be a waste of time, so they’re going into spam, right? So, but 200 to 500, you should be fine, especially your email right now is already pretty warmed up, and you’re sending emails every day, so… But let me connect with them, on that, and I’ll guide them.
225 00:33:07.260 ⇒ 00:33:20.290 Ardi Ghasemi: into tools that I’m currently using today, for outbound efforts, and the tech stack I’m using, if they want to use it, or at least give them ideas to build something for Miranda, she seems like the engineer, I’m not, so…
226 00:33:20.290 ⇒ 00:33:20.910 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
227 00:33:21.180 ⇒ 00:33:22.010 Robert Tseng: Okay.
228 00:33:22.290 ⇒ 00:33:31.030 Robert Tseng: Cool. Yeah, let me just go to work on just sending both of you, just, yeah, sales, sales calls, and then,
229 00:33:31.460 ⇒ 00:33:36.279 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I think you should just look through some of our go-to-market planning calls, because I know.
230 00:33:36.280 ⇒ 00:33:37.099 Ardi Ghasemi: That would be huge.
231 00:33:37.100 ⇒ 00:33:41.819 Robert Tseng: Kind of where I… I’m, like, talking to the team weekly about how I’m thinking about sales.
232 00:33:42.220 ⇒ 00:33:53.119 Ardi Ghasemi: Then let me… yeah, I’ll focus on that, restructure that for you, just to make it more efficient and more productive, less headaches, and then we’ll work on the outbound, and then I’ll…
233 00:33:53.330 ⇒ 00:34:09.559 Ardi Ghasemi: I’ll work for the CRM without over-engineering it, make sure that it’s not… I want to make sure you see the value of it, because until it’s there, you’re not going to, which is fine, but leave it to me, to kind of format it in a way where it’s no burden on you, but you guys should start to have this one source of truth.
234 00:34:09.900 ⇒ 00:34:16.710 Robert Tseng: Okay. Yeah, I hear you about, like, we don’t really use tags well, so, like, I mean, curious to hear what you come up with, so…
235 00:34:16.719 ⇒ 00:34:17.699 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay, you got it.
236 00:34:17.699 ⇒ 00:34:18.209 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
237 00:34:18.900 ⇒ 00:34:21.069 Ardi Ghasemi: And Lisa, hit me up on the side, okay?
238 00:34:21.409 ⇒ 00:34:26.059 Lisa Whall: I’m going… I am going to. I can’t speak.
239 00:34:26.060 ⇒ 00:34:26.730 Ardi Ghasemi: Bye, guys.
240 00:34:26.730 ⇒ 00:34:29.349 Lisa Whall: Good morning on Snowflake, I’m brain dead. I’ll see you guys.
241 00:34:29.350 ⇒ 00:34:30.799 Ardi Ghasemi: You’re good. See, you’re good.