Meeting Title: Account Mapping + ICP Refinement Date: 2026-05-11 Meeting participants: Lisa Whall’s Calendly Notetaker, Ardi Ghasemi, Robert Tseng, Lisa Whall, Fireflies.ai Notetaker Ardi
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1 00:00:10.700 ⇒ 00:00:11.770 Robert Tseng: Hey, Artie.
2 00:00:17.760 ⇒ 00:00:18.710 Robert Tseng: Can you hear me?
3 00:00:27.490 ⇒ 00:00:29.279 Ardi Ghasemi: Hey, Robert, can you hear me?
4 00:00:29.900 ⇒ 00:00:31.040 Robert Tseng: Yep, I can hear you.
5 00:00:31.040 ⇒ 00:00:36.399 Ardi Ghasemi: Perfect, sorry, my Zoom is, like… Trippin’ out the window box.
6 00:00:36.400 ⇒ 00:00:37.090 Robert Tseng: No worries.
7 00:00:37.090 ⇒ 00:00:38.720 Ardi Ghasemi: Lord Jesus.
8 00:00:40.830 ⇒ 00:00:51.309 Ardi Ghasemi: it still thinks I have… I’m not on my monitors, but it thinks, like, I’m on my monitor, so the size of it was, like, 4X my laptop screen, and… Anyways, what’s going on?
9 00:00:53.050 ⇒ 00:01:16.169 Robert Tseng: Oh, good, all good. It’s, it’s, happy Monday, and we’re, we’re, yeah, just kind of, we make some adjustments, kind of heading into the week, so, yeah, I mean, I think on this call, want to address the email that you had sent, and then… Okay. Yeah, then I want to… I mean, I frankly want to spend more time on doing account mapping and ICP kind of discussion, so…
10 00:01:16.170 ⇒ 00:01:16.889 Ardi Ghasemi: Let’s do it.
11 00:01:16.890 ⇒ 00:01:18.870 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think,
12 00:01:19.690 ⇒ 00:01:34.899 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I don’t know if you got my email, but basically, I tried to synthesize all the different things that you had shared with us before. So, yeah, I mean, I think the TLDR of my email is, like, yeah, took all your assets, I’ve already put them all into the platform, like, as far as, like.
13 00:01:34.970 ⇒ 00:01:49.849 Robert Tseng: making them more accessible, like, we’ve already done that, we’ve implemented all your HubSpot recommendations, and so, and then you raised… there’s a few gaps. So, I think I left out, like, a few things. You talked about a lead lifecycle kind of doc.
14 00:01:49.850 ⇒ 00:02:05.349 Robert Tseng: some deliverables, like, I was thinking we could just, line by line, go through those gaps, make sure that we understand that, like, what the gap actually is, and whether or not we actually want to address it. And then after that, we can kind of just move on to… to, to account mapping.
15 00:02:05.870 ⇒ 00:02:06.470 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah.
16 00:02:06.680 ⇒ 00:02:07.900 Ardi Ghasemi: That sounds good.
17 00:02:09.080 ⇒ 00:02:13.250 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so is there anything that you felt like I missed from the email to start with?
18 00:02:13.250 ⇒ 00:02:36.449 Ardi Ghasemi: No, no, no, first off, I think it was great. I appreciate you addressing everything. No, I think, we’re on the same page. I just wanted to kind of ground us before we went any further, just to make sure we’re on the same page, so I think we’ve gotten to that point now. And yeah, I’m… as I mentioned in my email, I’m leaving the system stuff in the back now. You guys have it enough to run with it. I can obviously dip in, as you guys need from there.
19 00:02:36.530 ⇒ 00:02:48.840 Ardi Ghasemi: the overarching, I guess, gap for me, Robert, like, and I’m just trying to put myself in a position of a salesperson sometimes, so, like, for example, when, do you guys close the deal? Uten told me you guys closed the deal last week.
20 00:02:49.840 ⇒ 00:02:50.390 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
21 00:02:50.390 ⇒ 00:02:59.399 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay. Some of those, like, am I able to, like, find that lead and figure out when they came to the system, when the first call was?
22 00:02:59.630 ⇒ 00:03:03.810 Ardi Ghasemi: basically, how long did it take to close? What was the pain points on there?
23 00:03:03.990 ⇒ 00:03:09.509 Ardi Ghasemi: what is the deal size? Like, simple stuff like that, when a deal closes. Are you today…
24 00:03:09.700 ⇒ 00:03:20.080 Ardi Ghasemi: Without any, like, his input, are you able to, like, just clearly see that information and see that flow of when the lead came into your system, and how it closed, when it closed, etc?
25 00:03:21.590 ⇒ 00:03:31.460 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think so. I mean, it’s just, I mean, it was my deal, so, like, I… I know, like, if I just, I just opened it up, and I mean, I’m just gonna…
26 00:03:32.900 ⇒ 00:03:38.289 Robert Tseng: Let’s see… So, Sunstone…
27 00:03:41.510 ⇒ 00:03:43.529 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I think…
28 00:03:44.610 ⇒ 00:03:52.980 Robert Tseng: there’s some… I mean, the activity was, like, kind of messed up, because there were, like, multiple contacts, it was, like, through a different, like, a third party.
29 00:03:53.410 ⇒ 00:04:01.760 Robert Tseng: partner that gave us the deal, but basically, it was created in February, and it closed on April, and this was… these are the notes.
30 00:04:01.910 ⇒ 00:04:09.579 Robert Tseng: So, yeah, I think this was… the deal size was there, and, yeah, I mean… Boss, yeah. So, I feel like…
31 00:04:09.580 ⇒ 00:04:14.140 Ardi Ghasemi: How’d you guys… how’d you guys get in front of this lead? Was it an event, or just inbounds?
32 00:04:14.840 ⇒ 00:04:16.990 Robert Tseng: It was, partners.
33 00:04:17.620 ⇒ 00:04:19.699 Ardi Ghasemi: It was a partner. Okay, got you.
34 00:04:19.850 ⇒ 00:04:25.430 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay, and if I look at this here, I can tell it’s a partner, or is it just, like, you know it’s a partner, like, in terms of…
35 00:04:25.430 ⇒ 00:04:29.429 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, it’s like, Sunstone Therapies is the client, but it came
36 00:04:29.850 ⇒ 00:04:41.199 Robert Tseng: who Small Grant Ventures is a partner. So, I mean, it’s not, like, accurately, like, mentioned as a partner referral, but that’s just because whoever was maintaining this didn’t
37 00:04:41.260 ⇒ 00:04:53.890 Robert Tseng: didn’t really connect the dots, but when I see something like this, I know that if the contact is not the same as the person… as the account, then it probably was a partner.
38 00:04:54.610 ⇒ 00:05:04.630 Ardi Ghasemi: Gotcha. Okay. Yeah, and again, we don’t have to spend too much time here on the gaps. I can kind of surface them as I see them more. The ultimate question, Robert, and I think I mentioned it in the email.
39 00:05:04.630 ⇒ 00:05:16.339 Ardi Ghasemi: I know when you and Utam look at it, this makes sense. And if it was just continuing to be you guys, I would say don’t change a single thing, because it’s working for you guys. It’s just a question, if I’m an AE looking at this, can I tell the same things that you just saw?
40 00:05:16.340 ⇒ 00:05:34.149 Ardi Ghasemi: Right? Without your context and you knowing your deal to your level, right? And then… and then the bigger question is, like, when you look at an AE’s deal, right? And you’re trying to get an idea of where the hell are we with this, does that come really easily, or do you have to dig a little bit? Do you have to hit them up for details on it?
41 00:05:34.150 ⇒ 00:05:48.210 Ardi Ghasemi: And that’s… that’s really the gaps of it, is, again, I try to put myself in the persona of the fifth grader, of, can I just see the sales process very simply, of this is how it goes, this is typically the flows of it, doesn’t have to be perfect.
42 00:05:48.210 ⇒ 00:06:04.010 Ardi Ghasemi: And it’s not about the systems. Again, I mentioned it. I don’t care if it’s on HubSpot or your Google Sheet, right? Because even on the Google Sheet, right? Like, I looked at last week, you guys added a certain amount of MQLs, and then there’s certain proposals sent. Simple questions.
43 00:06:04.010 ⇒ 00:06:11.219 Ardi Ghasemi: I don’t know, like, are those proposals from those MQLs? Are they from MQLs from previous weeks? How many of those became SQLs?
44 00:06:11.330 ⇒ 00:06:21.919 Ardi Ghasemi: simple stuff like that, where we don’t have to dig into for this call, but those are the gaps where I don’t necessarily, like, if you go on actual QBR.
45 00:06:22.510 ⇒ 00:06:23.570 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I’m there.
46 00:06:24.020 ⇒ 00:06:29.959 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah. No, my bad. It was actually a year. Yeah. So,
47 00:06:30.440 ⇒ 00:06:35.029 Ardi Ghasemi: like, I… just looking down on it, like, you created, what, new SQL.
48 00:06:35.030 ⇒ 00:06:54.750 Robert Tseng: Yeah, but you’re not gonna find, like, lineage, like, from deal. Like, this is just, like, a snapshot per week, so, like, it’s not like the proposals are from the MQLs. I just know that, like, the MQLs are not converted to SQLs, so… Gotcha. Like, I don’t even really care… I mean, I care about measuring that, but, like, to me, I’m spending more of my time… I mean, yeah, the story…
49 00:06:54.750 ⇒ 00:07:07.799 Robert Tseng: I don’t expect an AE to be able to tell the story. Like, I think this is a story for me as a sales… as a sales leader to know, kind of, like, where things are. Like, I just… I find… I don’t think it would be possible for me to…
50 00:07:07.800 ⇒ 00:07:08.300 Ardi Ghasemi: Yes.
51 00:07:08.300 ⇒ 00:07:14.029 Robert Tseng: kind of present this, like, yeah, I think it’s just, like, a different… different… a different way of looking at the business.
52 00:07:14.580 ⇒ 00:07:25.230 Ardi Ghasemi: Makes sense, man. So let me move on to the other gap, and this is just for my understanding, you guys might have this, cleared up already. The AE you’re looking for, and overall.
53 00:07:25.230 ⇒ 00:07:29.860 Robert Tseng: I think Lisa is that AE, currently. She is, like, our first seller, yeah.
54 00:07:30.200 ⇒ 00:07:36.600 Ardi Ghasemi: Perfect. Okay, so let’s just use Lisa as an example here. Is, is, lisa, you’re on? I think you’re on.
55 00:07:36.600 ⇒ 00:07:37.250 Lisa Whall: Come on.
56 00:07:37.680 ⇒ 00:07:40.490 Ardi Ghasemi: You’re on? Okay, awesome. So…
57 00:07:41.140 ⇒ 00:07:44.919 Ardi Ghasemi: I would love to hear from you, Lisa, right now, like, what your…
58 00:07:45.060 ⇒ 00:08:02.609 Ardi Ghasemi: process is, what your workflow entails. I saw your Slack, you’re trying to get introduced to the Snowflake. Is it… are you in charge of generating your own pipeline and converting it? Is it a little bit of both? I’d love to hear, in your words first, what that scope looks like in your, kind of, day-to-day.
59 00:08:03.120 ⇒ 00:08:07.930 Lisa Whall: Yes, I am in charge of creating my own pipeline and converting it, so it’s…
60 00:08:08.140 ⇒ 00:08:18.790 Lisa Whall: A lot of times, As we grow, you kind of typically separate out the partner management, you uncover…
61 00:08:19.060 ⇒ 00:08:33.859 Lisa Whall: leads, in the ecosystem, and then you hand it off to an AE. Like, that’s… as we grow, that will… that could be our structure. It might not be, but that’s kind of a typical structure for a medium to large size SI.
62 00:08:33.970 ⇒ 00:08:38.530 Lisa Whall: What we’re doing here is… I’m sourcing.
63 00:08:38.990 ⇒ 00:08:48.009 Lisa Whall: my deals from partners. So, Robert’s focused on sourcing directly, seeing that, and I’m focused on sourcing from partners.
64 00:08:48.210 ⇒ 00:08:56.990 Lisa Whall: So… That’s… So I understand, my little line item very well.
65 00:08:57.400 ⇒ 00:09:15.030 Lisa Whall: Not a little, it should be big, actually. I don’t like it being at zero. But I understand the conversion, I guess, from how my deals will look and feel on this spreadsheet, and how I’m being measured. I’m very comfortable with that. Did that answer the question? And Robert, did I miss something?
66 00:09:15.170 ⇒ 00:09:18.220 Robert Tseng: No, I think, I think that’s a good… yeah, I agree with you. Yeah. Yeah.
67 00:09:18.630 ⇒ 00:09:25.449 Ardi Ghasemi: No, that was great, Lisa. And right now, like, in terms of building that pipeline, is there… are you guys… do you guys have any,
68 00:09:25.580 ⇒ 00:09:32.900 Ardi Ghasemi: kind of, how do I put this? Like, a goal in terms of any OKRs around it, like, for example, like, hey, you know, this quarter.
69 00:09:32.900 ⇒ 00:09:46.640 Ardi Ghasemi: try to get $300,000 in pipeline created. Out of that, I would love to… might shoot for, like, a 15% close from that, and then start to just measure it based on that. Is there any figures of that, right now in play?
70 00:09:47.960 ⇒ 00:09:59.480 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I think the targets are here, and then also, like, there are… I mean, I don’t really do it that granular. I think for… for someone like Lisa right now, I think it’s…
71 00:09:59.620 ⇒ 00:10:14.320 Robert Tseng: really just trying to make… yeah, just increase sales… SQL from partners, and also, I mean, there’s something, like, about activity that we want to share more transparently with our partners, so we can keep… build momentum, but that’s… that’s… that’s it.
72 00:10:14.890 ⇒ 00:10:23.870 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay, understood. And… and, like, that 100… that was $180,000 a week, was that, like, pipeline created? Did I read that right, Robert?
73 00:10:24.480 ⇒ 00:10:26.840 Ardi Ghasemi: Was that it? Yeah. Okay, and where did that come from?
74 00:10:26.840 ⇒ 00:10:31.610 Robert Tseng: That’s the target that’s set. I said it. I build all the forecasts, so…
75 00:10:31.610 ⇒ 00:10:34.560 Ardi Ghasemi: Gotcha, gotcha, okay. And then,
76 00:10:35.120 ⇒ 00:10:44.180 Ardi Ghasemi: Is there, like, an any… any… and again, it doesn’t have to be granular, and I hope, Lisa, please, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, these questions. I’m not trying to… there’s no got-to moment.
77 00:10:44.180 ⇒ 00:10:46.910 Lisa Whall: I mean, trust me.
78 00:10:46.910 ⇒ 00:10:49.240 Ardi Ghasemi: Just, it’s for just… episodes…
79 00:10:49.450 ⇒ 00:10:50.120 Lisa Whall: Personally.
80 00:10:50.120 ⇒ 00:10:50.450 Ardi Ghasemi: That’s.
81 00:10:50.450 ⇒ 00:10:54.539 Lisa Whall: No, we’re trying to get a process done, this is not a personal thing.
82 00:10:54.540 ⇒ 00:11:10.859 Ardi Ghasemi: Awesome. Yeah, and I just want both of you guys to know there’s no got-you moment at the end of this. So, like, 180,000. Is there any expectation of, like, what goes… what are the inputs to get that 180,000? Is it just find the snowflake AEs? Am I making a certain amount of calls? Am I just emailing?
83 00:11:10.860 ⇒ 00:11:25.340 Ardi Ghasemi: Is there… and Elisa, I know you know your workflow, but what does that look like for you when you… if, like, someone asks you, hey, $180,000 in a week, what are your inputs in order to get that? Even if the output is zero, what would be your inputs in an attempt to get that 180,000?
84 00:11:25.340 ⇒ 00:11:30.539 Lisa Whall: Well, my inputs right now are going through and really understanding,
85 00:11:31.150 ⇒ 00:11:36.640 Lisa Whall: I’m doing a… well, let me back up. So, now that I’m settled in.
86 00:11:37.220 ⇒ 00:11:47.120 Lisa Whall: And week 3, and we’ve kind of cleared some things, we’ve got some hurdles. I’m looking at reaching out to at least 50 AEs a week.
87 00:11:47.430 ⇒ 00:11:58.529 Lisa Whall: I haven’t figured out my exact funnel to get to that 180 yet, like, we have not gotten to that stage, but ideally, I’m reaching out and communicating with at least.
88 00:11:58.530 ⇒ 00:11:59.250 Ardi Ghasemi: all this language.
89 00:11:59.250 ⇒ 00:12:15.110 Lisa Whall: 25 to 50 AEs. That being said, if there is an AE that’s producing more than, of course, your time gets skewed accordingly. So, even today, I’ve gotten introduced to some AEs from Snowflake that we’re currently doing business with. They may skew.
90 00:12:15.110 ⇒ 00:12:15.680 Ardi Ghasemi: I suppose.
91 00:12:15.680 ⇒ 00:12:18.409 Lisa Whall: If they have other accounts and other deals.
92 00:12:18.670 ⇒ 00:12:28.509 Lisa Whall: I might skew towards a lower volume of Snowflake AEs that I’m interacting directly with, because I’ve built the relationship with
93 00:12:29.380 ⇒ 00:12:38.399 Lisa Whall: let’s say 5 to 10 A’s, and that kind of… that’s kind of typically how these things turn out in the end, but I don’t have my 5 to 10
94 00:12:38.440 ⇒ 00:12:50.490 Lisa Whall: Yeah, that are feeding us deals. So I’m doing a wide net right now to get to the 180. So it’s a little different in the partner world than with direct, because direct, you’re…
95 00:12:50.970 ⇒ 00:12:54.389 Lisa Whall: I feel, and Robert, again, jump in, but I feel like direct…
96 00:12:55.760 ⇒ 00:13:12.110 Lisa Whall: kind of stays relatively the same of, once you build the funnel, what you need at the top to get to the bottom. Partners skew a little bit, because let’s just say you end up with a partner who is large enterprise, who I’m literally emailing right now, and he’s got 5 accounts.
97 00:13:12.290 ⇒ 00:13:22.869 Lisa Whall: that represent $4 million of potential opportunity for us, then our time gets skewed, and then maybe we hire, etc. So, I’m not there yet to answer that exact question.
98 00:13:23.090 ⇒ 00:13:35.359 Lisa Whall: But right now, I’m at the stage, especially with the Snowflake conference coming up, of casting a very wide net so that we can quickly build up at least the top level of the pipeline.
99 00:13:36.430 ⇒ 00:13:37.480 Ardi Ghasemi: Amazing.
100 00:13:37.480 ⇒ 00:13:40.140 Lisa Whall: answer the question, and Robert, did I miss anything?
101 00:13:40.860 ⇒ 00:13:58.739 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I think just, I mean, the 180 is just… I mean, it’s a… it’s a calculation off of our first… the average size of our first deal is, like, 30 grand. So, this is, like, 5 deals, or there’s, like, 5 leads per week, and on the partner side, it’s less in your control, because it is very much… you need to have
102 00:13:58.740 ⇒ 00:14:05.379 Robert Tseng: you need to have the reps that are passing you the leads consistently, and it, like, it’s… it’s seasonal. Like, I’ve… we’ve had partners
103 00:14:05.810 ⇒ 00:14:17.289 Robert Tseng: That have… yeah, I had people that were passing me 5 leads a month. I think then they move on to other businesses, and the pipeline is not as… as… as clear as… as, like, with…
104 00:14:17.310 ⇒ 00:14:41.399 Robert Tseng: with, like, marketing-driven leads. I think that’s more of a numbers game. If we just put things out consistently, then the funnel is clearer, and in terms of, like… and you can see that we’re consistent… we’re more consistent in that line. And then for direct sales, like, it’s… obviously, it’s not consistent either. This is very much… I’m the only one building this, so it’s… all the numbers are purely off of whether or not I put time to it or not.
105 00:14:41.400 ⇒ 00:14:57.459 Robert Tseng: So, the past two weeks, I did not do anything, so there just was no… there was no new sales pipeline there. So, yeah, I think that’s kind of the… like, that… the trends make sense to me, for, like, why… why partnerships is more lumpy.
106 00:14:57.460 ⇒ 00:15:03.590 Robert Tseng: And then, like, marketing is probably the most consistent, and then direct sales is, I mean, very just much driven by.
107 00:15:04.130 ⇒ 00:15:06.530 Robert Tseng: Like, my, my, my effort right now.
108 00:15:06.530 ⇒ 00:15:19.709 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah. No, I get that, and Lisa, I appreciate you going through it. You know the partner world sure as hell more than I do. You guys both do. I’m not, I haven’t traditionally sold into the partner ecosystem, and I’m not trying to influence that. You guys know that.
109 00:15:19.710 ⇒ 00:15:37.030 Lisa Whall: Right. It does take a little time to ramp up, like with anything, because you have to build those relationships, transfer the relationships, all of those things that will happen in the next couple of weeks and will accumulate at the Snowflake Summit, so I expect
110 00:15:37.400 ⇒ 00:15:40.499 Lisa Whall: I… not this expect. I will tell you that
111 00:15:40.830 ⇒ 00:15:49.730 Lisa Whall: after that, we should see a very large spike after June 1st of partner qualified deals. I’ll call them partner.
112 00:15:49.730 ⇒ 00:15:50.450 Ardi Ghasemi: For sure.
113 00:15:50.450 ⇒ 00:15:53.030 Lisa Whall: SQLs, sales qualified deals.
114 00:15:54.450 ⇒ 00:16:05.010 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay, for sure. I get that aspect of it, and the output of it, and the seasonality of it. I’m not questioning any of that. All… my only recommendation, take it or leave it, is
115 00:16:05.010 ⇒ 00:16:17.569 Ardi Ghasemi: anything that is being done, whether you contact 50 AEs this week, and the next week it’s 25, and whether you go with XY messaging, and the other ones are different, and whatever the handoff, however many they hand off.
116 00:16:17.740 ⇒ 00:16:35.070 Ardi Ghasemi: in my career, it’s just… it’s… the more I know, the better. The… and again, whether the output is irrelevant. It’s the inputs that I’m putting in, and if I’m building a system, if I want to look back on… just, we’re on this sheet, 180,000, and again, regardless of when the results come in.
117 00:16:35.070 ⇒ 00:16:43.479 Ardi Ghasemi: in the next 6 to 8 weeks, if I can just look back and see the trends and the inputs, and what has led to it. So when I do hit 180,
118 00:16:43.590 ⇒ 00:16:45.720 Ardi Ghasemi: it’s very easy to say how I hit it.
119 00:16:45.900 ⇒ 00:17:03.520 Ardi Ghasemi: Because right now, it’s like, oh, well, obviously it was a Snowflake conference. Was it? Or was it maybe, hey, I’ve hit up 35 AEs in the last 3 weeks, here’s exactly the messaging, here’s the numbers of it, here’s what’s got us in there. And it just tells the story, whatever, whenever you guys are at, whether it’s great or it’s not.
120 00:17:03.520 ⇒ 00:17:10.349 Ardi Ghasemi: You guys have a path to say, hey, here’s some trends, here’s what’s happened. And again, for good, bad, or ugly, that’s irrelevant.
121 00:17:10.349 ⇒ 00:17:18.990 Ardi Ghasemi: you just have a story that aims to it. So again, I’m biased towards inputs, and just having somewhere where that lives.
122 00:17:18.990 ⇒ 00:17:31.440 Ardi Ghasemi: And again, I’m not trying to influence the partner ecosystem, and everything you guys mentioned all can be true. I just think it’s worth tracking it, and it doesn’t have to be too granular, but just setting an idea of, like.
123 00:17:31.440 ⇒ 00:17:40.289 Ardi Ghasemi: I’m going after… you nailed it, Lisa, I mean, you’re already doing it, right? Like, 25 to 50, here’s when I get, you know, maybe recommended to 5 accounts from them, and then…
124 00:17:40.290 ⇒ 00:17:52.239 Ardi Ghasemi: Robert, you mentioned, okay, then they move on to the next one. Okay, is there a pattern in that? Do they all do that? Only some of them do that? Because only those answers would gain you guys the ability, and Robert, you the ability for
125 00:17:52.240 ⇒ 00:17:59.490 Ardi Ghasemi: forget about even next year, this year. Next year, you can map out the inputs, and your forecast can be that much more accurate as well.
126 00:17:59.490 ⇒ 00:18:05.279 Ardi Ghasemi: Based on those inputs, and then say, Lisa, you’re crushing it, and there’s another partner person you’re gonna bring on. Okay.
127 00:18:05.280 ⇒ 00:18:23.270 Ardi Ghasemi: Now, in terms of what that new partner person does, hey, my onboarding took 6 weeks, because I had to figure out a lot of stuff, but maybe this person coming in, their onboarding could be 2 weeks, because I can tell them exactly what he needs to do day one. And he doesn’t have to try to find this, this, and that. He can go this workflow, here’s where you start, here’s how many people.
128 00:18:23.280 ⇒ 00:18:28.830 Ardi Ghasemi: I’m just throwing out examples just to get you guys thinking, and to display how I’m thinking about it.
129 00:18:30.070 ⇒ 00:18:48.550 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so I mean, I think Lisa and I, we talked about this a little bit, so just connecting the dots, like, earlier, you know, the whole, like, yeah, making sure that all the activity is being logged into HubSpot, right? So, you know, we already said that you’re gonna… I mean, with these messages that you’re sending out, like, that’s how we’re tracking the inputs. The inputs right now are the…
130 00:18:48.550 ⇒ 00:19:02.289 Robert Tseng: are the emails that are being… that are being sent, the LinkedIn messages that are going out, so, yeah, and then, like, I mean, it’s just those, plus… it’s the activity plus time, and, like, we’ll be… and that’s… that’s… it’s a… and then we’ll be able to…
131 00:19:02.480 ⇒ 00:19:06.040 Robert Tseng: We see how long… how long things took to go from stage to stage.
132 00:19:06.980 ⇒ 00:19:11.329 Ardi Ghasemi: Awesome. Okay, Robert, you want to move on to the account mapping and ICP and what you have?
133 00:19:11.690 ⇒ 00:19:23.729 Robert Tseng: Yeah, sure. Yeah, so I think this, Lisa, for… I think this is really just to try to get back on towards, like, okay, well, we’re talking… we talked a little bit about verticals earlier that were…
134 00:19:24.170 ⇒ 00:19:36.109 Robert Tseng: trying to do some discovery in, but also kind of, like, within our… you know, I would like to just discuss, like, who are we going after this week? You know, I know you’re going through partners, it’s a little bit more direct, but…
135 00:19:36.480 ⇒ 00:19:42.860 Robert Tseng: Yeah, we already talked about region to focus on. You know, I was… we were…
136 00:19:43.140 ⇒ 00:19:47.180 Robert Tseng: We, we have, we have the, the financial services,
137 00:19:47.260 ⇒ 00:20:07.090 Robert Tseng: lead that’s coming from OpenBB this week, and so I would like to spend a little bit of time talking about, like, how does Brainforge really serve that, that, that audience, and why the timing is… is good. But yeah, I don’t think we have, like, a structured… this is how we do account mapping yet. I think… I think we just need to figure out, like.
138 00:20:07.120 ⇒ 00:20:13.449 Robert Tseng: how do I communicate enough of this information to you so that you feel like you’re able to,
139 00:20:13.830 ⇒ 00:20:21.600 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so you feel as flipped going into these conversations. So, yeah, I guess, like.
140 00:20:21.990 ⇒ 00:20:39.080 Robert Tseng: on the… on the note of, you know, did we do… I know you did some lead research on the… on… on the… on… on the bank, so I don’t know if you wanted to kind of talk through, like, hey, you know, we have this call possibly booked tomorrow or Wednesday, like.
141 00:20:39.080 ⇒ 00:20:55.470 Robert Tseng: what… what do you, like, what do you think is, like, kind of the brain forge pitch, like, going into that? I mean, I can… I can drive the con… I just want to… but I want… I think this is more educational for you than it is for me, because I feel like I can walk into that call and talk about whatever with… with, with the… with the lead.
142 00:20:59.770 ⇒ 00:21:06.570 Lisa Whall: So… I’m just gonna be honest, I thought that you were gonna lead the call, and I…
143 00:21:06.750 ⇒ 00:21:14.240 Lisa Whall: haven’t… other than this looking that I… I guess… I’m just confused on what you’re looking for from me.
144 00:21:14.410 ⇒ 00:21:14.960 Lisa Whall: Here.
145 00:21:14.960 ⇒ 00:21:15.610 Robert Tseng: Okay.
146 00:21:15.610 ⇒ 00:21:18.530 Lisa Whall: I mean, quite can…
147 00:21:18.710 ⇒ 00:21:36.689 Lisa Whall: I was just trying to get meetings on the calendar here so that we can start selling. I didn’t do a deep dive on these guys until we actually get a meeting with them, because this was great that he set it up, but until I actually see something on the calendar, I wouldn’t spend a ton of time on it. That’s just me, and if you think that that’s wrong.
148 00:21:36.690 ⇒ 00:21:43.909 Lisa Whall: When partners throw these kinds of leads on a Friday afternoon, it’s great, it’s fun, but I’m just following up with him right now to see if
149 00:21:43.930 ⇒ 00:21:55.709 Lisa Whall: we’re gonna move forward with the meeting. Once we have a meeting scheduled, then I typically do a complete, which is so easy with AI, like I did for Udom on the,
150 00:21:56.740 ⇒ 00:22:00.059 Lisa Whall: On, the insurance one is…
151 00:22:00.060 ⇒ 00:22:07.129 Robert Tseng: Yeah, why don’t we talk about TSIV, then, and just kind of see, like, how do we… I mean, yeah, okay, why don’t we… why don’t we talk about that one instead?
152 00:22:07.130 ⇒ 00:22:12.910 Lisa Whall: Yeah, no, so, okay, yeah, that’s another one, yeah, sorry, I just was… you kind of caught me off guard on that one.
153 00:22:12.910 ⇒ 00:22:13.320 Robert Tseng: No worries.
154 00:22:13.330 ⇒ 00:22:27.189 Lisa Whall: So, on that one, the… my process is… actually, I want to create a form, so thank you for reminding me, of… I always want to prep the executives, especially early on when I can’t handle a call on my own. I…
155 00:22:27.190 ⇒ 00:22:34.639 Lisa Whall: the next step in what I did for that company is I create a brief with all of the
156 00:22:34.660 ⇒ 00:22:43.770 Lisa Whall: The participants, any notes that we’ve had from the meeting, go back through recordings, and… Yeah.
157 00:22:44.450 ⇒ 00:22:45.630 Lisa Whall: And…
158 00:22:52.610 ⇒ 00:22:54.620 Lisa Whall: And just really prep.
159 00:22:54.890 ⇒ 00:23:00.599 Lisa Whall: the team for the call itself. So, in that case, I had the call with Ian.
160 00:23:00.720 ⇒ 00:23:08.640 Lisa Whall: And I went ahead and created a brief that I should absolutely add to HubSpot. See, this is why it’s good we have these conversations.
161 00:23:09.610 ⇒ 00:23:14.499 Lisa Whall: just put notes in HubSpot, I think actually would be the best thing for us to do.
162 00:23:14.630 ⇒ 00:23:18.900 Lisa Whall: And then always have a prep call.
163 00:23:19.110 ⇒ 00:23:28.109 Lisa Whall: Even if it’s just 10 minutes with whoever on the team is going to join the call, so that we go in with our objectives that we want to…
164 00:23:28.740 ⇒ 00:23:31.050 Lisa Whall: Breach, and our next steps.
165 00:23:34.170 ⇒ 00:23:47.379 Robert Tseng: Yeah, so we did… created this… so, Tom took the first call on April 22nd, then, yeah, obviously, we were trying to… we were trying to do the call, last week, but you gave some… you gave some info.
166 00:23:47.380 ⇒ 00:23:53.890 Lisa Whall: I mean, I also did a brief, but I… I realize people don’t open attachments, so I do like to expose things in…
167 00:23:54.150 ⇒ 00:23:58.190 Lisa Whall: And again, tell me if this is wrong.
168 00:23:58.460 ⇒ 00:24:06.750 Ardi Ghasemi: Can I jump in here, guys? What happened in that first call with Dutan? Do we know? Was there anything learned on it? Was it just their… them agreeing to a call? Any intel there?
169 00:24:07.380 ⇒ 00:24:07.890 Lisa Whall: Yeah.
170 00:24:08.800 ⇒ 00:24:18.690 Lisa Whall: they were very interested, they talked about the fact that they’re going to be adopting AI, and the next call was to be more granular and specific on
171 00:24:19.290 ⇒ 00:24:29.209 Lisa Whall: some use cases, both from our side, which is the, deck that you created, Robert, if you recall, that 3 commercial deck that you created for me.
172 00:24:29.870 ⇒ 00:24:36.439 Lisa Whall: So that we could go in with some ideas on our side, and then we also reached out to the customer, because the customer had…
173 00:24:36.620 ⇒ 00:24:42.349 Lisa Whall: committed to giving us 3 ideas on their side, in terms of where they would like to implement AI.
174 00:24:44.770 ⇒ 00:24:50.819 Lisa Whall: So, I guess I… I’m sorry, you guys, I’m just confused, like, where we’re going with this. Like, what…
175 00:24:51.360 ⇒ 00:24:57.739 Lisa Whall: I’m sorry, I just wasn’t… I don’t really understand what we’re trying to accomplish here.
176 00:24:57.900 ⇒ 00:24:58.900 Lisa Whall: Maybe I’m missing something.
177 00:24:58.900 ⇒ 00:25:05.799 Robert Tseng: yeah, no, I mean, I think, like, what I’m trying to see here is, like,
178 00:25:06.340 ⇒ 00:25:24.230 Robert Tseng: when we are talking about an account, I mean, I’m trying to put the pieces together, like, of, yeah, what… already saying, like, you know, how much of this is actually logged, I guess that’s… that’s the perspective he’s taking. He’s gonna keep asking us, like, you know, the… I guess, for simplicity’s sake, is all this showing up at HubSpot?
179 00:25:24.230 ⇒ 00:25:36.539 Robert Tseng: clearly some of it’s not. I mean, he’s kind of seeing that some of it is kind of just Slack threads. We have a brief that… it’s just kind of… there’s some fragmented data around, like, this account that, you know, as we’re just picking one and trying to do a retro.
180 00:25:36.540 ⇒ 00:25:53.539 Robert Tseng: kind of, you know, what happened on this call, and also, like, planning for, like, how do we, like, what’s, what does the next call look like? Are there other lookalikes to this? If this is TCIP in this particular industry, what is the industry… I mean, I think this is still too early to even really
181 00:25:53.540 ⇒ 00:26:03.669 Robert Tseng: we’re not, like, talking about a proposal, like, we just picked a deal that was, like, kind of on the first call, so I think that’s fine. I just wanted to at least do a walkthrough of, like.
182 00:26:03.670 ⇒ 00:26:18.900 Robert Tseng: what do we know about this account? How are we… how are we attacking it? And like, you know, what… what… I just want to know what… where the gaps are that you… that both of you are seeing, so that we can… we can try to move this… move this deal along. That’s… that’s…
183 00:26:19.320 ⇒ 00:26:20.709 Robert Tseng: That’s Simpson’s the one we picked.
184 00:26:20.710 ⇒ 00:26:25.160 Lisa Whall: Okay, well, they ended up canceling the call, and we have to reschedule, so we never had the call.
185 00:26:25.880 ⇒ 00:26:26.520 Robert Tseng: Yeah.
186 00:26:26.520 ⇒ 00:26:29.600 Lisa Whall: Yeah, so, I mean, but from a prep perspective.
187 00:26:30.410 ⇒ 00:26:38.190 Lisa Whall: stage, I went to Udom’s first call notes, thank God we have everything recorded, and we went ahead and
188 00:26:38.870 ⇒ 00:26:42.439 Lisa Whall: You know, did a… a deep dive into
189 00:26:42.800 ⇒ 00:26:48.080 Lisa Whall: The customer itself, and some ideas, so… I… I… What?
190 00:26:48.620 ⇒ 00:26:51.790 Lisa Whall: Again, I… I’m sorry, I’m just… Kind of…
191 00:26:51.790 ⇒ 00:26:53.600 Ardi Ghasemi: Lisa, it’s not supposed to… and I don’t know, Robert.
192 00:26:53.600 ⇒ 00:26:56.620 Lisa Whall: It feels a little interrogation-ish.
193 00:26:56.620 ⇒ 00:27:21.549 Ardi Ghasemi: This was no… at least from my standpoint, there’s not an interrogation at all. We’re diving into a deal, you have a call on. I hope it’s very just casual. Robert mentioned some of the system stuff, yes, but I’m also just… I’m still learning, so I’m curious how calls are approached. Like, for example, I’m just genuinely curious, like, when you had the UTAM call, did we get all their pain points? Do we know exactly, yes, they want AI, but why? What are they trying to solve? Do we know
194 00:27:21.550 ⇒ 00:27:24.030 Ardi Ghasemi: So, for example, answers to those
195 00:27:24.030 ⇒ 00:27:27.110 Ardi Ghasemi: Like, questions that would be handled in a standard disco.
196 00:27:29.480 ⇒ 00:27:40.930 Lisa Whall: We do, because we’re very familiar with the industry. Utom’s, one of his really good friends introduced us into this company, so we actually had… we already had a whole,
197 00:27:41.410 ⇒ 00:27:46.870 Lisa Whall: Artifact around their specific industry created.
198 00:27:46.870 ⇒ 00:27:47.780 Ardi Ghasemi: Amazing.
199 00:27:47.780 ⇒ 00:27:51.069 Lisa Whall: Yeah, it was pretty amazing, actually. It was pretty amazing.
200 00:27:51.070 ⇒ 00:27:53.149 Ardi Ghasemi: That’s awesome. So if we jump into this…
201 00:27:53.240 ⇒ 00:27:54.440 Lisa Whall: Yeah, with the…
202 00:27:54.440 ⇒ 00:27:54.830 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah.
203 00:27:54.830 ⇒ 00:27:58.859 Lisa Whall: Some of their pain points and what we’re trying to do there.
204 00:27:59.050 ⇒ 00:28:00.310 Lisa Whall: So, am I…
205 00:28:00.310 ⇒ 00:28:01.110 Ardi Ghasemi: Gotcha.
206 00:28:01.110 ⇒ 00:28:01.600 Lisa Whall: Yeah.
207 00:28:01.600 ⇒ 00:28:13.860 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay, cool. And whenever that call does get scheduled, what does the, like, the light agenda looks like, from your standpoint, and how you conduct, like, a call like this? I’m just using this as an example. I’m just curious.
208 00:28:16.340 ⇒ 00:28:22.159 Robert Tseng: Well, I mean, I think it’s interesting, because, like, this is… this is, to your point, already, like.
209 00:28:22.380 ⇒ 00:28:40.719 Robert Tseng: I mean, Utam took the call, he’s not on this call right now, so he, like, doesn’t have… I mean, we’re just trying to put the pieces together based off of, like, what we can see about this deal. So, I don’t even know when the next call is scheduled. I don’t… to your mind, I don’t know if it got scheduled. I don’t really know what the next…
210 00:28:40.720 ⇒ 00:28:41.150 Lisa Whall: Let’s go.
211 00:28:41.150 ⇒ 00:28:46.659 Robert Tseng: I don’t know what the next agenda is, either, like, I don’t… I don’t really know any of those things.
212 00:28:47.870 ⇒ 00:28:50.660 Lisa Whall: And I… we’re just waiting for Ian, who’s…
213 00:28:51.180 ⇒ 00:28:56.810 Lisa Whall: Our initial contact to reschedule the call, which he’s looking at calendars, we’ve given him dates.
214 00:28:56.810 ⇒ 00:28:57.370 Ardi Ghasemi: Gotcha.
215 00:28:58.370 ⇒ 00:28:58.850 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay.
216 00:28:58.850 ⇒ 00:28:59.240 Lisa Whall: what?
217 00:28:59.240 ⇒ 00:29:06.339 Ardi Ghasemi: And Lisa, to your understanding, based on just what you know, do you know who’s gonna be on that call exactly? I’m sure Ian will be there.
218 00:29:06.650 ⇒ 00:29:09.430 Lisa Whall: They’re all in the notes that I have. Okay.
219 00:29:09.430 ⇒ 00:29:10.080 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay.
220 00:29:10.390 ⇒ 00:29:11.180 Lisa Whall: 4, yep.
221 00:29:11.790 ⇒ 00:29:14.920 Lisa Whall: In my group that I drew up, yeah.
222 00:29:16.170 ⇒ 00:29:16.760 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay.
223 00:29:17.150 ⇒ 00:29:18.030 Ardi Ghasemi: Awesome.
224 00:29:18.740 ⇒ 00:29:20.600 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah. Yeah, I’m actually.
225 00:29:20.600 ⇒ 00:29:25.569 Lisa Whall: I guess I have a question. Where would you put this type of prep work? Where would you put it?
226 00:29:25.770 ⇒ 00:29:29.949 Lisa Whall: Because I… A brief, for…
227 00:29:30.400 ⇒ 00:29:49.079 Lisa Whall: anybody that I’m pulling… as a salesperson, I always feel I’m the herder of the cats, so I don’t expect Robert to know that Peter’s going to be on the call, so I go through and I find out their background, what their pain points are, and put together a pretty significant brief that then we can walk through, because I don’t expect executives
228 00:29:49.080 ⇒ 00:29:57.170 Lisa Whall: to necessarily have the time or patience to read through it. So that’s my process, is I’m the quarterback, and I go through and
229 00:29:57.250 ⇒ 00:30:03.269 Lisa Whall: I’m always… prepping if I have counterparts coming onto a call.
230 00:30:03.570 ⇒ 00:30:09.079 Lisa Whall: what role, who’s gonna play what, and Utam and I did exactly this. We went through the draft.
231 00:30:09.450 ⇒ 00:30:18.430 Lisa Whall: We went through who’s gonna play what role, and what we wanted out of the call at the end, which was a…
232 00:30:18.570 ⇒ 00:30:25.399 Lisa Whall: discrete project that we wanted to work on, that we could then get MSAs in place, get paperwork in place.
233 00:30:26.060 ⇒ 00:30:34.150 Lisa Whall: knock the cover off the ball, so to speak, so that we could get our first project up and running there. That’s typically how I operate. So, I guess…
234 00:30:34.380 ⇒ 00:30:40.549 Lisa Whall: where would that kind of play into HubSpot? Where would you put that kind of documentation?
235 00:30:40.840 ⇒ 00:30:41.709 Lisa Whall: Or would you please…
236 00:30:41.710 ⇒ 00:30:42.250 Ardi Ghasemi: I think…
237 00:30:42.250 ⇒ 00:30:42.859 Lisa Whall: button, or.
238 00:30:42.860 ⇒ 00:31:07.539 Ardi Ghasemi: In terms of the documentation, again, I don’t want to spend too much time on HubSpot, but to answer your question, I think you having the notes and maybe pinning the notes and activities, like, that’s fine, right? You have it in there, you have the intel in there, that’s the biggest aspect of it, and you’re clearly doing that. And then the other part is what, the redesign’s getting worked on to just figure out the stages of where it’s at, and when I look at a deal, if I see the stage, and if I see the notes, it just tells me a story.
239 00:31:07.540 ⇒ 00:31:24.300 Ardi Ghasemi: Some of these questions around, like, how the call’s set up, again, you’re quarterbacking it, I don’t have any additional feedback to add, like, on what you’re doing, that’s great. I… the more prep we have, and to figure out what that call is going to look like, where, again, do I want a call to be a presentation, or do I want it to be a conversation?
240 00:31:24.300 ⇒ 00:31:32.629 Ardi Ghasemi: If it’s a conversation, okay, you know, is it gonna be… then if I have a 10-15 minute slot that I’m having someone speak on our side, then
241 00:31:32.630 ⇒ 00:31:38.269 Ardi Ghasemi: it’s just taking it out of the conversation, and again, when I talked to one of my sales guys.
242 00:31:38.270 ⇒ 00:32:02.010 Ardi Ghasemi: I ask these questions of, what are you going to do with the call, what’s the prep for it, and what are the gaps you’re trying to address? And they usually come to me saying, Artie, okay, here’s what I do know, here’s what I don’t know. And I need to… and I’ll say, okay, why do you need to know X, Y, and Z? Well, Artie, I need to know X, Y, and Z, because that’s the only way this value prop is going to hit their pain point. I need to create a leverage on that, and I need to create a bridge from this to that. I say, okay, cool, and how are you planning on doing that? Well, if we get this
243 00:32:02.010 ⇒ 00:32:08.289 Ardi Ghasemi: them to answer this question, I have this deck, or this slide, or this thing I’m going to share that I think is gonna hit it on the head.
244 00:32:08.290 ⇒ 00:32:31.590 Ardi Ghasemi: that’s just the plan, and I just looked to my team to see how well are we prepared to going about this, and then what’s the next step? Well, Artie, if this goes well, next step we want to do is set up another call with ex… this person, John, is going to be there, he’s the decision maker, so he should be good with it. We’ll see if there’s anyone else that needs to be on it, but our next call is going to be the one for… to do a design session, where we’re going to figure out the implementation and get the contract sent. Boom, boom.
245 00:32:31.590 ⇒ 00:32:34.929 Ardi Ghasemi: Again, the sales inputs are rarely,
246 00:32:34.930 ⇒ 00:32:38.030 Lisa Whall: 25 years, so I get it, yeah, so…
247 00:32:38.390 ⇒ 00:32:39.190 Ardi Ghasemi: Perfect, yeah.
248 00:32:39.300 ⇒ 00:32:41.020 Lisa Whall: Pretty much what we did.
249 00:32:41.770 ⇒ 00:32:42.530 Ardi Ghasemi: Amazing.
250 00:32:45.500 ⇒ 00:32:51.380 Robert Tseng: Okay, cool. Yeah, I guess, like, that’s helpful for me to see from, like.
251 00:32:52.010 ⇒ 00:32:54.340 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I think the…
252 00:32:54.730 ⇒ 00:33:02.160 Robert Tseng: I think we should just make a decision here and just say, you know, not everything has to be created in the HubSpot note, but let’s just kind of… anything that’s, like.
253 00:33:02.380 ⇒ 00:33:10.969 Robert Tseng: research, or kind of, like, separate external briefs that we’re creating, let’s… let’s put it on the deal. And then, like…
254 00:33:11.440 ⇒ 00:33:17.099 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I think kinda sounds like from Artie’s feedback, just having more clarity on what the next step is, like.
255 00:33:17.310 ⇒ 00:33:24.929 Robert Tseng: I mean, I’m assuming that Utam was the one that, wrote this, but… so I think he’s… some more… there’s less…
256 00:33:24.930 ⇒ 00:33:43.600 Robert Tseng: I mean, I think it’s missing some details. When the next… when the next call is going to be booked, who’s going to be involved, also kind of, like, what we’re expecting. Maybe at least some of that context, at least, in the next step, I think, would be… would be helpful. Yeah, so I think that… that could… that to me is, like, a takeaway from what I’m… what I’m learning from this.
257 00:33:43.610 ⇒ 00:33:49.499 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, we already updated all the deal stages according to already what you had described, so…
258 00:33:49.580 ⇒ 00:34:05.700 Robert Tseng: I mean, kind of threw me for a loop. I was, like, kind of cleaning it up this morning. I don’t really think we have this many that are, I think… I think some of these are probably a little bit out of… out of sync, but yeah, I mean, there’s a… I’ll speak to a few more deals that are coming up.
259 00:34:05.770 ⇒ 00:34:11.569 Robert Tseng: like, Second Harvest, for example, I have an onsite with them on Friday. I’m going to be in San Jose.
260 00:34:11.790 ⇒ 00:34:15.930 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, the details would not be in HubSpot, like, I think…
261 00:34:15.940 ⇒ 00:34:21.589 Robert Tseng: all the emails are kind of tracked here, and it should have the materials that I had shared with them.
262 00:34:21.590 ⇒ 00:34:38.310 Robert Tseng: So I feel like there’s… there’s… there’s some context there. But yeah, we’re kind of at the proposal stage. I already named the price, we’re just trying to close the deal. So, that’s that. Then there’s a few deals that are in contract. This one, we’re just kind of negotiating prices right now. Like, I expect this deal to close,
263 00:34:39.020 ⇒ 00:34:52.560 Robert Tseng: I don’t really know why the emails are not synced on this one, but… but yeah, I think… so then… so anyway, there’s… I… there’s… there’s stuff at different stages. I think I probably care more about moving along, like, the…
264 00:34:52.690 ⇒ 00:35:07.969 Robert Tseng: the deals that are in discovery or in scoping right now. But, like, otherwise, the proposal and contracting stuff, I’m basically following up on these leads every, every, like, twice a week, pretty much, just to try to move them along. So, yeah, I mean, just.
265 00:35:07.970 ⇒ 00:35:08.390 Ardi Ghasemi: It’s rubber.
266 00:35:08.390 ⇒ 00:35:13.050 Robert Tseng: We can see there’s, like, you know, 3 or 4 deals that I expect to close, in the next 2 weeks.
267 00:35:13.590 ⇒ 00:35:20.200 Ardi Ghasemi: Got you. When it’s on contracting, does that mean they’ve received an actual contract, or you’re negotiating pricing, or a little bit of both?
268 00:35:21.000 ⇒ 00:35:26.540 Robert Tseng: I mean, this is kind of where Utam just kind of, went, and he…
269 00:35:27.120 ⇒ 00:35:32.679 Robert Tseng: made the change. I don’t really… I don’t… I mean, I… I don’t… I don’t really know, like, I…
270 00:35:32.680 ⇒ 00:35:33.839 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay. I mean, so…
271 00:35:33.840 ⇒ 00:35:39.019 Robert Tseng: Looking at these deals, like, I mean, they all have contracts on their plate, like, it’s… and they’re maybe…
272 00:35:39.020 ⇒ 00:35:39.430 Ardi Ghasemi: So that’s.
273 00:35:39.430 ⇒ 00:35:53.960 Robert Tseng: maybe redlining right now, and, or we might be adjusting pricing. Like, for this one, like, the pricing is still being adjusted, but, like, the contract has been shared with them at this point. At least that’s my understanding, just looking at these names, like, I think that.
274 00:35:53.960 ⇒ 00:35:54.620 Ardi Ghasemi: Gotcha.
275 00:35:54.620 ⇒ 00:35:55.840 Robert Tseng: What we have with them.
276 00:35:56.440 ⇒ 00:36:19.000 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay, I’m gonna dig in there. I’m so… I’m stoked you guys made these changes, and I’ll… I’ll build some dashboards myself, so you guys can start to see a… we can start just tracking a funnel of it. Yeah, I’m just learning, I’m just trying to get an understanding of the… kind of the definitions between stage and stage, and that in itself clear… just creates clarity, where, like, you know whatever deal you see in what stage, and I know he just changed these over the weekend.
277 00:36:19.000 ⇒ 00:36:33.479 Ardi Ghasemi: you just… you just know a certain prerequisites are hit that you don’t have to question, right? You guys all kind of live by the same definitions of what does a proposal mean, what does a contracting mean, and they might not seem important today, but it does, because I have refs today that will
278 00:36:33.480 ⇒ 00:36:49.840 Ardi Ghasemi: put it in contracting, and they’ll say, well, I’m still negotiating, I’ve just sent a proposal, but I feel good about it already, and they put it in a different stage based on their feeling, and then it just kind of fucks everything up. So, that’s just work in progress with it. We’ll work on it, not as urgent on it.
279 00:36:49.900 ⇒ 00:36:51.700 Ardi Ghasemi: But, just to get you thinking.
280 00:36:53.170 ⇒ 00:36:54.569 Robert Tseng: Okay, cool.
281 00:36:54.570 ⇒ 00:36:55.210 Ardi Ghasemi: Okay.
282 00:36:56.050 ⇒ 00:36:59.530 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I mean, I think…
283 00:37:00.600 ⇒ 00:37:06.870 Robert Tseng: next time, I mean, on these calls, I always want to keep kind of grounding it back in the intent behind this call.
284 00:37:06.870 ⇒ 00:37:07.620 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah.
285 00:37:07.620 ⇒ 00:37:10.070 Robert Tseng: I mean, account mapping, to me, is like…
286 00:37:10.320 ⇒ 00:37:33.939 Robert Tseng: what accounts do you… are you working on? What accounts am I working on? Is there anything that’s worth bringing up? Do we need assistance here? Like, I don’t… I’m not confident in closing the second Harvest deal because I’m missing playbooks from… from my delivery team, which I’ve been hounding them for. So, I think I expect them to produce that probably by… by Wednesday, because I’m going to need it by Friday. So, I think that’s something that I’m worried about on this deal.
287 00:37:34.370 ⇒ 00:37:37.240 Robert Tseng: And then on the ICP side, it’s kind of like.
288 00:37:37.240 ⇒ 00:37:57.619 Robert Tseng: well, is there a new vertical that we’re kind of talking to? Maybe it was, like, if that, OpenDB deal, kind of, we actually booked that meeting, and the Nova Bank, or whatever, this one, if we did get a book… that booking on, there’s not that much, history of us pitching to financial services.
289 00:37:57.620 ⇒ 00:38:16.540 Robert Tseng: So, I would expect maybe, like, Lisa or Utom to, like, not really know how to… how to talk to them, but, like, you know, I’ve… I’ve had some… maybe I’d be able to jump in and be like, hey, actually, I think this is how we should approach, kind of talking to a… like a… like a financial services company, or it’s like… or…
290 00:38:16.540 ⇒ 00:38:25.869 Robert Tseng: hey, you should talk to this partner, they… they work in that industry better, they’ll be able to give you more context. So that’s… that’s my intention for, like, what… what this…
291 00:38:25.870 ⇒ 00:38:42.230 Robert Tseng: what this is… what this should be more of once, like, there’s more volume to talk about, I guess, from… from… from the people that are on this call. But, I guess, like, that’s… but leading up to that, I think we should do these, like, just pick a… pick a deal, and then just, like.
292 00:38:42.290 ⇒ 00:39:01.760 Robert Tseng: how to interrogate it, like, figure out, like, what’s missing, like, what… why is it in the stage that it’s in, like, what’s stopping it from moving on? Like, I’m just hoping that having that deal-level conversation is going to be helpful for people. If it’s not, then, like, we don’t have to do it that way, but that’s, once again, what I was… what I was trying to do.
293 00:39:05.370 ⇒ 00:39:14.619 Ardi Ghasemi: I think, Robert, you have the right intention with that. We can clean up a little bit of the side of it, but I think that intention is exactly where you guys don’t have the volume to make it, like.
294 00:39:14.620 ⇒ 00:39:28.019 Ardi Ghasemi: too much yet. There’s a second part to that I can introduce, but this is something where a different view, for example, you pick a deal owner, just you, Elisa, and again, I know the volume is not there, but the goal of these aligns with your intention.
295 00:39:28.080 ⇒ 00:39:46.009 Ardi Ghasemi: we’re just here to talk about what’s in the pipeline, what’s next step, what’s blocking me. And that’s it. And to your point, by sharing that, usually, you know, people on the call have another perspective, another idea, hit up this person, do this, and just kind of keeps everything in line and making sure whatever resources someone does need, it happens.
296 00:39:46.010 ⇒ 00:39:48.839 Ardi Ghasemi: But I would say these polls should not…
297 00:39:49.040 ⇒ 00:39:57.760 Ardi Ghasemi: it feel like an interrogation by any means, it’s just, trying to put everything to surface to see who can help what, and what can we do to drive things forward. That’s it.
298 00:39:57.760 ⇒ 00:40:05.429 Lisa Whall: Yeah, I’m sorry, I didn’t really understand the purpose of this meeting. Now I do, so thank you for…
299 00:40:05.630 ⇒ 00:40:16.999 Lisa Whall: I just… I didn’t understand. So, it’s… it’s basically our deal review meeting, is what we’re doing here. So, I… I thought it was more, like.
300 00:40:17.910 ⇒ 00:40:28.889 Lisa Whall: just based on the other conversations that we had, we’re more of fixing things or doing things differently, not talking specifically about deals, so that’s why I was a little off, so…
301 00:40:29.050 ⇒ 00:40:34.509 Lisa Whall: I understand now what’s going on, so… thanks, guys.
302 00:40:34.510 ⇒ 00:40:41.880 Robert Tseng: Okay, yeah, I mean, I’ll rename it if that’s more helpful, like, I guess I don’t… I mean, yeah, whatever is, like, the lingo that you would… that makes.
303 00:40:41.880 ⇒ 00:40:42.459 Lisa Whall: Oh, no, I…
304 00:40:42.790 ⇒ 00:40:52.399 Lisa Whall: I understand the con… I just really didn’t understand the context, but this is, like, our weekly deal review meeting, and asking for, like you said, playbooks, or help, or…
305 00:40:52.580 ⇒ 00:40:55.109 Lisa Whall: Like, is that the purpose of this meeting?
306 00:40:55.610 ⇒ 00:41:08.840 Lisa Whall: is just our… it’s our deal review meeting, like, Respite. See, I would con… I would have gone into this, like, completely different… I apologize. I would have said, Respite, Poonot has not gotten back to us. That deal was…
307 00:41:09.160 ⇒ 00:41:17.639 Lisa Whall: Sourced by Procopo. I’m gonna hit up Pripal right now, see how we get on that calendar. TSIB.
308 00:41:17.930 ⇒ 00:41:24.460 Lisa Whall: here’s what, you know, our meeting got canceled, I’m working with Ian to reschedule it. We’ve got 3 opportunities there.
309 00:41:24.600 ⇒ 00:41:27.919 Lisa Whall: That we’re proposing, and they’re gonna propose 3 different deals.
310 00:41:28.070 ⇒ 00:41:40.390 Lisa Whall: We’re gonna try to end up at the end of our next call with one solid deal, and then we’re going to try to move it through procurement so that we can get the paper. Hopefully, it leads to deals with Turner…
311 00:41:40.390 ⇒ 00:41:52.240 Lisa Whall: construction. The other deal with, Bank of Scotia. It’s not in here yet as a deal, because I don’t know the person that we’re dealing with at Scotia, so I’m…
312 00:41:52.590 ⇒ 00:41:58.969 Lisa Whall: working with OpenBB to get all the things so that I can put a deal into
313 00:41:59.090 ⇒ 00:42:12.970 Lisa Whall: Into HubSpot so that we can start tracking it. Like, is that a better way to approach this meeting than what just happened? I just want to understand. I don’t like to come to meetings unprepared, and I just wasn’t…
314 00:42:13.400 ⇒ 00:42:16.269 Lisa Whall: prepared. Is that what we’re doing here for this meeting?
315 00:42:16.270 ⇒ 00:42:35.279 Robert Tseng: Yeah, well, I guess I’m… it’s multi-purpose… I mean, I think we should spend the first chunk kind of addressing any of the concerns that Artie is kind of spotting from a systems level that we need to patch, and then we transition over… I mean, I guess… sorry, I don’t come from the sales world, you guys talk… call it a deal review, like, I guess, to me, this is what made sense to me.
316 00:42:35.280 ⇒ 00:42:37.019 Robert Tseng: No, it’s great, I mean, I think whatever…
317 00:42:37.020 ⇒ 00:42:37.400 Lisa Whall: Oof.
318 00:42:37.400 ⇒ 00:42:42.749 Robert Tseng: I only care about talking about the ones that we actually need help to move forward.
319 00:42:42.750 ⇒ 00:42:43.230 Lisa Whall: Yes.
320 00:42:43.230 ⇒ 00:42:54.269 Robert Tseng: I run… I run stand-ups across all of our delivery teams as well, so, like, I’m not asking people to talk through the tickets that they’re working on, I only want to know about the problem… the problem tickets. So, yeah, that’s…
321 00:42:54.270 ⇒ 00:42:54.740 Lisa Whall: better.
322 00:42:54.740 ⇒ 00:43:16.729 Robert Tseng: Otherwise, like, everything else can… it’s pretty self-explanatory, or, you know, we maybe have already heard a different thing. So, definitely don’t expect to come in and just talk through everything in the list, like, I don’t think that’s that helpful. I just… I just think we should just bubble up, like, the most important things to talk about from each person, and then we can… we can try to… try to, like, unblock it from there.
323 00:43:16.930 ⇒ 00:43:20.270 Lisa Whall: Oh, I love that even more. That’s perfect.
324 00:43:21.170 ⇒ 00:43:23.969 Ardi Ghasemi: This is, this is progress, believe it or not, guys.
325 00:43:23.970 ⇒ 00:43:28.399 Robert Tseng: Yeah, no, I… yeah, sorry it’s a bit painful as we’re kind of getting there. No, it’s not painful at all.
326 00:43:29.120 ⇒ 00:43:32.630 Lisa Whall: I just don’t like to look unprepared, like, it’s just my pet peeve, like, I don’t go.
327 00:43:32.630 ⇒ 00:43:33.460 Robert Tseng: App.
328 00:43:33.460 ⇒ 00:43:34.560 Lisa Whall: Oh, Kevin, okay.
329 00:43:34.560 ⇒ 00:43:37.430 Ardi Ghasemi: Yeah, kind of a hard stop. Robert, I just want to pick your.
330 00:43:37.430 ⇒ 00:43:38.060 Robert Tseng: Yeah, I can too.
331 00:43:38.060 ⇒ 00:43:41.809 Ardi Ghasemi: kind of unrelated outside of Saturn. Yeah, thanks, Lee.
332 00:43:41.810 ⇒ 00:43:42.160 Lisa Whall: Sorry.
333 00:43:42.160 ⇒ 00:43:42.730 Ardi Ghasemi: It’s good speaking.
334 00:43:43.100 ⇒ 00:43:43.890 Robert Tseng: Alright, bye, reset.
335 00:43:47.350 ⇒ 00:43:49.390 Ardi Ghasemi: Alright,
336 00:43:49.430 ⇒ 00:44:06.720 Ardi Ghasemi: Robert, a few notes, and I think, just talking to Lisa now a few times, so this is… it just kind of raised it for me again, that’s why I want to make sure I don’t forget it. Kind of like setting up these meetings where you do ask her, like, some of those questions, I asked early on.
337 00:44:06.720 ⇒ 00:44:19.639 Ardi Ghasemi: And again, it might come off like she’s a little bit standoffish, or not standoffish, you know, this thing’s like getting interrogated. Yeah. She sort of feel that way, and I know she said the meeting, she didn’t know what it was, and yes, it could be a deal review, but, like.
338 00:44:19.640 ⇒ 00:44:28.919 Ardi Ghasemi: you start your weeks off, like, just ask her, like, what I have my team do, for example, on our Monday meeting. Yeah. They do a list of saying, what are you gonna do this week?
339 00:44:28.920 ⇒ 00:44:34.809 Ardi Ghasemi: And they do, like, a retro of, like, what happened last week. I tell them, like, hey, what does success look like for you on Friday?