[00:00:00] James: This is Outfoxed, the podcast brought to you by Hunter.io, the trusted B2B lead generation platform built for every professional. Get ready for no playbooks, no posturing, and no egos. This is the show for the builders and not the theorists. Let's get into it
[00:00:17] All right. Today I'm joined by Matt Lauro, the founder of Fractional CRO. Matt, great to have you today.
[00:00:23] Matt: Yeah. Great to be here, James. Thanks for having me.
[00:00:25] James: We have been talking on and off, I think, for two or three months, and I won't bore our listeners with the reason why we were talking in the first place.
[00:00:34] But once we had started talking enough, I realized that you have, like, a really unique story to tell people about going from sort of a corporate role through to building your own thing in terms of Fractional CRO services and today I'm looking forward to diving into that. But before we do get into that, I love starting Outfoxed with a question that's a little selfish.
[00:00:57] It's top of my mind. So we've recently done a survey that has looked into the use of multiple channels for outreach.
[00:01:05] Matt: Yep.
[00:01:06] James: And, Matt, I know that you have plenty of experience in this. Something that stood out is that when founders go beyond the one to two channels they typically use, they can almost double their reply rates to lead generation activities.
[00:01:20] In your experience, how many channels do you typically look to leverage when you're running outreach, and how does that, you know, how has that affected your ability to be successful when helping, clients and the businesses that you've worked for?
[00:01:35] Matt: Yeah, I think, channel strategy is always something that's kind of top of mind with the founders that I work with.
[00:01:40] A lot of the founders that I talk to, they're at different stages, right? So the big thing is that, is understanding where they're coming from. A lot of the founders that I've worked with kind of tend to fall in the bucket of, we have all these channels, and we don't really know where the ROI is coming from.
[00:01:56] So they, you know, have listened or seen on Google or an ad's popped up or somebody's reached out to them that they need to do paid ads or they need to do ads on social or they need to do more events or they need to do more digital and they kind of have this like hodgepodge of channels and no real understanding of like how they're getting their leads ultimately.
[00:02:18] Or they have a lot of channels that are driving really good brand awareness, but then they don't know how to convert that brand awareness top of funnel to more mid-funnel and qualified conversations. So that's typically where I step in. I tend to take like the simple approach, kind of almost peel back and really truly understand the customer at the end of the day, because we know, you know, from attribution models and stuff like that, it's not as clear cut as everybody would like it to be.
[00:02:51] Like, it's not, "Oh, I saw your ad online, and now I've checked out your website, and now I've booked a meeting, and now I'm a customer." Like, sometimes it goes that clearly, but typically it's: "Hey, I saw your email. two months ago I saw you at an event. Oh, you're a sponsor here. Oh, I saw an ad pop up on LinkedIn, or I saw a post from you."
[00:03:10] So it's a multi-touch attribution, and that then makes it very hard, you know, from a channel strategy to figure out what channels are actually truly converting those leads and those qualified conversations. So what I typically do is I strip back and I look what are the kind of like foundational channels that you're focusing on?
[00:03:28] Which are the ones that you feel comfortable on? Which are the ones that you're not just starting off and like putting pennies, you know, where you should be putting hundreds of dollars towards, but what are the ones that you have a really strong foundation? And then build from there, test that out, maybe do some different kind of touchpoints along that channel itself, and then build from there, right?
[00:03:52] So kind of strip it back, because a lot or lots of channels strip it back to one or two kind of core channels, understand if that's converting at the level we want, and then start adding on from there. I think the other really kind of interesting dynamic that we have when we talk about channel is that a lot of channels that we've looked at as a, marketing or sales leader in the past have been digital, right?
[00:04:16] And I think there's this big transformation I've seen where, what was probably 10, 15 years ago, everybody was like, "You need to be online. You need to be digital. Everything needs to be online. People are looking online to make B2B business decisions." To now everything's digital and open rates, click-through rates, engagement rates are all tanking to a degree.
[00:04:39] I think people are now looking more towards that personal face-to-face interaction, right? You see increases in events and in-person events and stuff like that, where there was a period, obviously with pandemic, with kind of the digital first approach, that we weren't having this like personal outreach.
[00:04:58] And I think now more than ever, especially when you have entrants like the AIs of the world blasting out marketing messages constantly, that personal, authentic face-to-face interaction is really key. So a lot of the clients I'm working with now, that's kind of a step, right, is they kinda understand to a degree the digital channels and yeah, it's a little bit of, okay, maybe we put some money here on social or we do Google paid ads or we do SEO or whatever those channels are.
[00:05:25] But now it's how do we then add on the offline channels? And I think that's really key because that's where I'm seeing really, really strong engagement. Yes, it sometimes takes more, you know, more time, more effort, more money in some cases, but sometimes you can do face-to-face and those kind of in-person events or channels, you know, really, really cost effective and really get them up and running pretty quickly.
[00:05:52] So that, I think is, the next phase that I'm starting to see, not only in my own business, but the business that I, work-- the clients I work with and that to me is super exciting, right? Because then you start to stand out and you start to differentiate yourself and just the channel strategy itself versus what everybody else in your market's doing.
[00:06:11] James: Right. Yeah. And I love what you say there about kind of standing out. I've always said that in times of like hyper competitive, you know, cycles that I think a lot of us are, especially right now when it comes to sales and marketing, whether it's software or services, the best way to stand out is good positioning and therefore good messaging.
[00:06:32] But what you're saying there is kind of like the layer down from that, which is like once you understand who, you know, who you're trying to sell to, how you want to speak to them, it's then where do you speak to them? Founders don't adopt multi-channel because it's too complex. And if they were to listen to what you're saying here, and, I would agree, if you were to strip back to basics and think about where are you comfortable, where are your, you know, where are your buyers hanging out, and then how can you stand out, do those three things, then yeah, you should be able to differentiate
[00:07:14] and to your point, like you, you're clearly excited. You should be. Standing out actually isn't about putting more dollars into Google Ads. Google does not need more money, I can tell you that. And it's also, it's doing something different. Like I recently spoke to, a CEO of a direct mail, SaaS platform, which may sound like a contradiction, but, he was saying the same thing as you, Matt, which is that people are discounting offline and actually because we're so online, to take things offline, to go to events, to send direct mails or, letters, whatever, that's,
[00:07:50] it's almost like it's, old but it's new, and I'm just, I'm fascinated to see how things are gonna evolve at kind of like a, at a professional level for us in terms of being revenue facing people. I think it's really interesting.
[00:08:06] Matt: It's super. I mean, we're going back to the old way of it, right?
[00:08:08] Like putting ads in newspapers, local magazines, radio ads. Direct mail is something I've talked to several of my clients about, right? Because I think, you think about the only time you get mail that you actually enjoy is around the holidays, right? You get Christmas cards and personal
[00:08:24] pictures from family and friends. That's the only time I actually care about the mail and my family cares about the mail. But if you've ever received something from like maybe you signed up for a new service or you bought a new house and the realtor sent you something, like those are really cool moments to get something that's personal, that means something, in the mail, right?
[00:08:45] It's this whole idea, I call it, you know, and a lot of marketers do like the sea of sameness, right? There's a lot of noise, and a lot of the noise right now is on digital and messaging and all of that, and how do you continue kind of that messaging and what your customers actually care about? But look at other channels where you can really stand out, right?
[00:09:03] Because if you think of a direct mail, you're not competing with all the other digital messages that the person is seeing, right? They're collecting their mail, and they're seeing your message front and center next to a bunch of junk mail typically, right? So you have a real opportunity in those offline channels to truly stand out because not everybody's doing that yet.
[00:09:25] So I think there's a ton of upside in that, yes, there's a little bit more planning, a little bit more costs in some of that. But honestly, to your point, I'd rather spend less money with Google and be in that kind of sea of sameness as all my competitors and, reallocate that money towards something that's really gonna turn more conversions and conversations, out of the marketing, right?
[00:09:45] So...
[00:09:46] James: Right, yeah. And, you know, it's said that when you are personal, relevant, and trustworthy, you're more successful with your comms.
[00:10:08] And that just applies across the board. But the thing that was really interesting to me is that with cold email, and I think this applies to what we're saying here because there are smaller groups of people, with cold email, if you send a campaign to less than 50 people, your reply rates go from 2% to 6%.
[00:10:26] That is indicative of the, importance of knowing who you're trying to talk to and spending more time to understand who they are and then providing value for them, and that's the same thing as sending direct mail or going to events. There's something there that it's all about building trust.
[00:10:45] It's about having that one-to-one relationship where you say something that gets the interest of, the recipient or the person you're talking to, and they buy into what Matt is saying or what James is saying. I think that is... I like that you're taking a different approach to, kinda like how you're advising your clients.
[00:11:03] And, you know, natural segue here, right? So Fractional CRO, your company. Tell us about that company. Tell us about how you went from your, nine-to-five to then transition into this and what are you, trying to achieve? What are you trying to help people do with, offering- Yeah
[00:11:20] these services?
[00:11:22] Matt: For sure. So I, you know, I have been in the professional services staffing workforce solutions space for 20-plus years. I kind of grew up in it, I say. So I've, done everything from I've actually temped and answered phones out at the bank. They would call me same day and be like, "Hey, Matt.
[00:11:40] How fast can you get out here and answer phones on the trading floor at Bank of America?" to running global teams and actually spending some time overseas at a corporate headquarter of one of the companies I worked with. So I've kind of seen it all from, like, bottom to top, in that space.
[00:11:57] And I learned a lot throughout that. And yes, I would not change anything from a journey perspective of the experiences that I had and the knowledge that I gained, but I always had this kind of itch of like, I think I can be my own boss. I think I can do something on my own. And it was a couple of my mentors, you know, said, "Don't do too early.
[00:12:16] Really gain the experience that you, will gain as you enter," I'll give my age away, "into your 40s," right? "And have 20 years of experience and network and stuff like that. Then, see if you can start to kinda test the water." And to be quite honest, James, I was, uncertain. I thought I kinda knew what I was talking about, and I thought I had a lot of, good ideas and answers and stuff, but I didn't really know if people would actually want those services, right?
[00:12:44] Or need them or ask for them. Until I started, you know, tapping into some local friends, entrepreneurial groups, and just saying, "Hey, you know, is this something that'd be interesting?" Drew up kind of a business case. You know, talked to a couple founders locally. I'm, based in Charlotte, so a couple founders in Charlotte.
[00:13:02] And they were like, "Yeah, this is exactly what we're looking for. We'd love for you to come and talk to, me and the leadership team and, start to do some kind of retainer work." So I did that kind of on the side as kind of as a side gig with, really different industries that I hadn't been tapped into before.
[00:13:18] But I — What I quickly realized is that all of the knowledge and experience that I gained was super valuable to these medium-sized companies, even if it wasn't the same industry that I grew up in. And then, you know, after a while of doing that, I just thought, "Maybe I should do this full time." Yes, it's gonna be a leap.
[00:13:36] It's gonna be a little bit scary to make that, change. But you know, it, so earlier this year, I, made the leap and, kinda went all in on Fractional CRO, and, the rest is history. I've really enjoyed it, and it's allowed me to, now that I've left the nine-to-five, I can really focus on what matters most, which are the customers and the companies that I'm working with to try to grow and scale and get to that next level.
[00:14:06] And that, to me, is the most rewarding piece, is being able to work directly with these founders, presidents, CEOs, and being able to really help them figure out, how do we navigate, to your point earlier, like our channel strategy, our overall market, our go-to-market? You know, all of these big questions that they have while on the side they're having to run a business, right?
[00:14:28] And make sure that the business is staying afloat. So this is typically the sales and marketing piece is typically something that's in addition to their plate and kind of gets bogged down by some of the other priorities. So being able to take that off their plate and really align, with their business strategy and drive forward their strategy around marketing and sales and customer success, is really what Fractional CRO is all about.
[00:14:52] And I think one of the core kind of, principles I've realized since I started this, and now, that I'm all in full-time on it, is really that collaboration and working directly with the customers is something I loved in the corporate world. I was navigating, you know, these global organizations, now bringing that down into these more mid-sized companies.
[00:15:12] You know, where anywhere from 10 to a couple hundred, couple thousand employees. Navigating, the complexities of those organizations and really collaborating, thinking of, "Hey, what do we need to do in order to grow this business, and be successful?" But then also giving them the tools, processes, foundational pieces that then allow them to scale and grow past, you know, me being in the seat, you know, in a retainer basis with them, so...
[00:15:38] James: I have spoken to probably well over 100 founders now in the last two or three years, and that's not my idea of fun. But it's been very, very valuable to me. And, one of the things that, that you really get a sense of... Like, first of all, to even get, these sort of people onto a call sometimes is quite challenging.
[00:15:59] And then secondly, you know, to be offering services to, let's say, probably the, smaller sized, companies that you do serve, there's a trust element here, isn't there? There's a trust element that it's not just does Matt, can Matt talk the talk? Can he walk the walk? There's just an inherent trust element of, kind of like, this is my baby.
[00:16:19] This is something that I've built, and now I'm, getting advice from you, and I'm not sure how I should approach that advice. It's a change management issue, right? So how do you go about that challenge? Like, how do you overcome that challenge of trust, right? 'Cause trust is the number one thing that is gonna help you really to be successful with, what you're offering.
[00:16:44] Matt: Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head, James. It's all about trust and credibility, right? I think, the more authentic you can come across as a fractional executive coming into a business, the better. I don't know all the answers. I know a lot, and I've, seen a lot, but I don't know all the answers, right?
[00:17:03] So I think the... And I'll talk to founders, and I'll talk to CEOs, and they'll say they talked to other fractional executives, you know, in interviews or kind of pitches. And sometimes some come across as they kind of know all the answers, and they kind of are, you know, like the parent telling the child like, "Hey, you're doing it wrong.
[00:17:20] This is how you should be doing it." And that's never been my approach. Even if I know there's something glaringly obvious, like in my initial kind of consultation with an organization, I want to understand why it's there and how it's gotten there. Because to your point, it's all about change management.
[00:17:35] I can come in and say, "This is everything we need to do. Here you go. Here's your gap analysis, and good luck." But that's not gonna change anything, right? I mean, I've been on the other side of that in, the corporate world, where the big consulting companies have come in, made big changes, given us kind of that, you know, really nice polished report, and then we kind of go back to basically doing what we did before they came on, right?
[00:17:59] Maybe some minor changes here and there, but we weren't doing anything transformational. So my biggest piece, right, is that relationship. It really comes down to that relationship. And if that means, you know, being there face-to-face with them, you know, for those initial meetings, you know, being there in the office if it's local, being on, you know, consistent, you know, meetings on a week-to-week basis, giving updates, really getting to know the team.
[00:18:24] One of the first things I do, two of the first-- two of the things I do when I have a first consultation or a, you know, engagement with a new customer is, one, I want to meet all the, people in the organization that matter that they think I should meet. So I typically do, like, 20, 30-minute conversations with everybody, and I just pack like two days, because it's really important for me to understand from the executives all the way down to through the organization what's happening, what's working, what's not, and really get that insight, because then that helps me.
[00:18:54] You know, I'm not gonna come in with all these assumptions. I have some ideas from some of the initial conversations, but that really helps me plan the best next steps. And then the other big thing is kind of to the point that we were talking about earlier, having client focus groups, talking directly to the clients, right?
[00:19:10] Because a lot of these founders say, "Oh, yeah, our clients love us, and this is why they love us." But a lot of that is kind of going back to that sea of sameness. We're kind of saying the same thing as every other competitor is in the market, right? So understanding directly from those clients and having those authentic conversations with the end customer is really key because then you can start as a marketer or a salesperson, start really collecting what, actually made them purchase, you know, your service or solution?
[00:19:37] What keeps them staying? What made them choose you over a competitor? And then you can feed that back into your messaging framework and your go-to-market messaging, to drive that consistency, right? So, and all of those, you know, meetings not only help me learn about the business, but I think going back to your question, it, really helps solidify that, hey, Matt really cares about us, and he's not just basically copy and pasting a playbook that he's done ten million times across the business.
[00:20:05] He's actually making this very authentic, to who we are as an organization and where we want to go as a company. Because yeah, these founder-led organizations, they're the baby, right, of those founders. And you don't ever want to tell, you know, somebody that their baby's ugly, right? But you want to be able to help them get the baby to the next level so.
[00:20:26] James: But that is a, it's a difficult, it's a difficult balancing act to embrace the need to get feedback, but also acknowledge that this is someone else's baby. So if that's the case, in your shoes, you, have these conversations with customers, users, you get the feedback. What is a lesson that you've taken from that experience that you could offer our listeners today in terms of having those, honest conversations where you want the real feedback, not superficial feedback of, "Oh, James, that was a great pitch."
[00:21:00] Like, no, you wanna know what, was it that resonated? What is it that, that missed the mark? What is it that's, you know, that sort of, like, latent need that they don't even realize they have? Like, what's some advice that you could give to our listeners on how to ask some of those questions?
[00:21:15] Matt: Yeah, I mean, I think the biggest is just having, like, an authentic conversation with your customers, right? Because I think customers are completely honest typically, right? Yes, there's some that will kind of make every... Like rainbow and sunshine, and everything's great, but there's also been a lot of customers where I talk to and they're like, "Yeah, things are going really, really great, but actually this stuff, if we could do this better, that would make a huge difference."
[00:21:40] Right? So I think hearing directly from the clients and your customers, is huge. Hearing that feedback direct from them. And, honestly, coming in as kind of an outsider in my role, they sometimes tend to be more open and honest with me, versus maybe the stakeholder that they work with every day at that company.
[00:22:03] So using somebody like myself or somebody as an outsider to gain this true feel of the customers is really, you know, a potential tool that I think other founders could use as well in their own businesses.
[00:22:35] James: No doubt. And I think that it kind of goes back to that issue of trust, doesn't it?
[00:22:39] And trust is a... It's a two-way thing, you know. So one of the things that can be hard is if you're a founder is to get help. Say that you're more of a, product mindset. You're a technical founder, and you potentially need to get the help of someone like yourself, Matt, and, you know, really see how different skills and tactics are gonna be able to help you to grow the business.
[00:23:06] You've taken a different approach. Like, you've actually fully embraced this idea of, building relationships and, you know, you have this, thing called the, Fractional CRO Collective. Can you tell us a bit about that and, sort of why you think that is the right way to approach offering the services that you do to these businesses?
[00:23:26] Matt: For sure. So I think the Collective is really my idea of an attempt at building a community, right? So I think there's, two ways. When I look at my own business, there's two ways that I've kind of just always thought that I could scale. One is I could hire a bunch of, staff that executes and, you know, builds out a sequence or builds out social copy or builds out emails or whatever I am doing and rolling up my sleeves with the clients, and I could just kind of sit at the strategy level.
[00:23:55] Or I can identify others like me that can do strategy to execution with other companies that come into our portfolio. The reason I've gone the second route is because the first route, yes, I can grow and scale, but there's also still a limit, right? Like, I could only work with so many clients, and I think there's really a lot of opportunity out there and a lot of need.
[00:24:17] I also think there's a ton of value going back to what we've been talking about, James, with, like, that authentic and that relationship building. If I'm gonna just sit here as a true kinda consultant and just do strategy and not actually ever get my hands dirty, to me, there's something, like, not so valuable, especially at the size companies that I'm working with in this mid-tier.
[00:24:36] Like they, they need somebody that can wear both hats, the strategy and the execution. And if I just kinda do the strategy and then pass it on to somebody that maybe doesn't have a relationship or doesn't understand the business, things can get lost in translation. So I just think it sometimes is better, especially in the size organization that I'm partnering with, to have somebody that understands the business, that's running the strategy, and that is able to execute that strategy on the back end.
[00:25:00] So really the Collective is looking for others that want to work with customers similar that I do. So really building those relationships, collaborating with them, listening first before, you know, acting. You know, all of those kind of core values that I've built out in Fractional CRO over the last six months, is really identifying others like me, that can sit on the bench and that, you know, I can bring them in on, different opportunities with prospects and customers.
[00:25:30] But more than ever, really, you know, start to build a community and of like-minded professionals, being able to talk about what's going on, what are we seeing, similar to what me and you tend to talk about, you know. Like what are we seeing across sales and marketing, any advice or thoughts or, "Hey, I'm dealing with this problem with a current customer of mine."
[00:25:48] Like, "Have you dealt with the same thing? How did you, know, how did you go about it?" Like, just sharing best practices, right? Which I think, in professional circles, like, there's not always the best kind of reliable circles and communities that you can tap into for really honest feedback and answers, and that's really what I'm trying to build, out of the Collective.
[00:26:08] And yes, I think there's other values of joining the Collective from, like, a kinda back office setting up your own business. A lot of CROs, honestly, James, as I launch Fractional CRO, have reached out to me, said, "How did you get started?" I just got started. I had an idea, and I built out my website, and I built out...
[00:26:26] I needed to build consulting agreements, so I went and did the research and built consulting agreements. I had to build, you know, proposals. I had to build pitch decks. I had to do all of this stuff. And a lot of CROs, I don't know if they're lazy or they just don't want to, they just wanna get to the fun stuff, which is working with clients.
[00:26:42] They don't wanna do all that back end stuff. So I think there's also value there of like, "Hey, join the Collective," and you get the brand recognition, all of this marketing and sales that I've done for the business already from day one, right? So you get that brand recognition right away, you get the tools right away, et cetera.
[00:26:59] And then I think that Collective piece and that community piece of, like, just sharing best practices, sharing what's happening, connecting dots across an industry that sometimes is disconnected, that's ultimately what I'm looking to do. And not... I don't need 100, 200 people in this Collective. I really want it to be a small, intimate group, that get to know each other, really build relationships within the Collective that then we can translate and be better for the customers that we work with.
[00:27:25] James: And that's really important. It's no different from, you know, my team here at Hunter, making sure that I can trust my team and they have the right skills, and we're able to help one another with our personal development. Like, clearly that is, that's important no matter what the structure is in terms of the business that you're working in or that you, run.
[00:27:44] So you said something there about kind of, like, the getting to the fun stuff. I wanna get to the, I wanna get to the fun stuff in terms of, like, how are you getting to market right now? Like, what are you, doing to raise awareness? What are you doing to win, you know, your, customers?
[00:27:58] And sort of how are you... Are you passing on those insights? And are, they, influencing the services that you offer when you actually have those clients?
[00:28:08] Matt: I've taken a very kind of... I feel like the running red thread of our conversation has been around authenticity, right? I've taken a very authentic approach to how I've gone to market, for Fractional CRO.
[00:28:21] I don't wanna come across as one of, like, the big fractional shops out there. At the end of the day, it's a people business, right? To our points earlier, our questions and conversation earlier, they're buying me as a, as an executive, as a leader to come in and work alongside their leadership team and their, overall organization.
[00:28:39] So they have to know who I am and, have a good understanding of what they're investing in, right? So I've taken a very personal approach. So the personal approach has extended to LinkedIn and sharing, you know, personal updates like completing a triathlon and what that actually taught me about running a business, for example, and really bringing those personal elements into kind of my go-to-market messaging and, what I talk about out there.
[00:29:05] Coupling that obviously with, like, some more advice, how-tos, things like that. But really that personal approach, right? So one of the things I did recently is I partnered with a old colleague of mine who's now running Fractional CPO, CHRO as well. So he also comes from a professional services background, just like myself.
[00:29:27] We have combined around 50 years of experience. So we're starting to do, like, a video series, right? So once again, kind of getting our faces, our personalities out there in front. I could care less about the brand of Fractional CRO. I want people to see me as the Fractional CRO, and really connect with me, or not connect with me, right?
[00:29:46] And then we realize that I'm not the right fit for their organization. And I think that's, one of the big things, if I could give any advice from founder to founders that I've learned kind of as I've grown my own business, is that it's not always gonna be 100% alignment and a good, a prospect turning into a customer, right?
[00:30:05] I think it's a two-way street. They have to feel like, "Yes, hey, this guy Matt is gonna really help and, like, we're gonna make this investment, time, and money into bringing him on board, and he's gonna accomplish everything that we need to accomplish as a business." But even if they feel that way, it might not be that you feel the same with, them, right?
[00:30:24] Like, there are prospects out there that I just know from the first or second conversation that this is may- they're maybe looking for something that I'm not gonna be able to deliver, or they're looking for a silver bullet, and my services are not a silver bullet, right? I'm gonna give you all the foundational tools, processes, approaches, strategy, and execution that I can to make you successful and get you to where you need to be.
[00:30:47] But I'm not gonna come in and swoop in one month and you're gonna have a million opportunities and a million dollars in pipeline, right? That's just not realistic. So it's aligning those expectations, but also understanding culturally that, "Hey, I'm aligned with you and what, who you are as a founder or co-founders and your organization and where you wanna go, and you're aligned with me from a personal perspective and see me as an extension of your leadership team."
[00:31:11] I think that's really important.
[00:31:13] James: I wouldn't say it's a hot take. I definitely have some thoughts on this because what I don't see a lot of are agencies or, fractional services that, are very explicit in what they don't want from a, client. I don't see, like, webpages on their site saying, "Here's who I am. Here's who I expect you to be."
[00:31:51] I don't see a lot of, And this is like, this is not revolutionary, but again, people aren't really doing it. I don't see a lot of, like, pre-call homework that is designed to get the client to invest a little bit of time. And you can see if they've done the homework, like how serious are they? Like, where's the order of prioritization?
[00:32:11] How do you feel about that? How do you feel about that concept where, like, you're very clear and this is what I would expect from you and making it, you know, public knowledge that this is what you would expect?
[00:32:21] Matt: Yeah. I have a couple different opinions on that. I think, you know, if I, flip it to some clients and we've done similar kind of things, like almost like I call them knockout questions, right?
[00:32:29] Or, like, homework to your point.
[00:32:32] They are always a little bit hesitant that it's gonna, like, cancel out other people that maybe they should talk to. And my opinion always is like, but are they just gonna waste time, right? Are you gonna waste 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour, you know, talking to them, putting together a proposal, and then it's never gonna work out?
[00:32:48] Or worse, you force it through, and then six months down the road, you're like, "This, was a big waste of both of our times, and I'm sorry, and this didn't work out." And it just actually caused more headaches than anything for you as a business owner. It's funny 'cause I preach ICP all the time to all my customers, is really identifying who your ideal customer is.
[00:33:10] But to your point, like when you're starting a company, everybody's your ideal customer. Anybody that would like sign on the dotted line, you wanna bring in. But then as you start to evolve and grow, you start to really find what your, niche is. And yeah, I'm not opposed to it, right? I think...
[00:33:26] But I think a lot of times, at least with the founders that I'm working with, they have maybe one or two ideas in mind, but they don't really truly understand the full picture or understand really maybe where all the pain or gaps are in their business. So it would have to be kind of, I don't know, very high level of like what you're looking for.
[00:33:42] Like, I don't do, you know, web development, right? But I could do content and messaging or something. Like, you have to almost be very specific because a lot of the initial calls I have with, prospects are, they don't even know some of the problems they have, right, until we start talking and I start asking questions.
[00:34:00] And, you know, maybe they just think, "Hey, we have a lead problem," or, "We have a go-to-market messaging problem," or, "We have a, our sales team, like we don't... We have one salesperson, and they're not doing anything." You know? Right? Like, and then you start to dig in, and even 30 minutes, you can start to realize, "Oh, actually, there are some foundational pieces."
[00:34:19] But so I wouldn't wanna knock out those conversations 'cause I think those are super valuable for me as a founder and I think probably a lot of other founders to kind of fine-tune their pitch and what, matters to founders, and prospects that they're talking to. But I'm all for kind of narrowing down so you're not wasting your time with people that are never gonna be a good partner for you.
[00:34:41] James: Right. Right. And I guess, so like... Okay, so if everyone is your early like your ideal customer at the beginning, how do you, in your engagements, how do you help people to actually define the ICP, that, you know, that clearly they need to be able to define to scale? Like, what do you do? What's that process look like?
[00:35:02] Matt: Yeah, I mean, there's two different ways to really approach it. There's more of the technical data-driven, like finance way of like looking at your, you know, three, four, five years of data, like which customers were the most profitable, like reoccurring revenue, all of the data points you can pull from a CFO to really understand, okay, these are the buckets we should go after because we want, that same exact customer profile.
[00:35:27] That I've done a couple different times. It just really depends on the size of the business and, the data that they have, right, and kind of their, how they go to market. Typically, the way that I approach it is, let's look at all your existing customers and which ones are good customers and which ones aren't good customers, right?
[00:35:45] And really dive into the ones that are good customers and why they're good customers and start to kind of build back that into a profile or an ICP profile, and then ultimately buyer persona profiles. And that's typically like a workshop with sales operations people, leadership, etc., you know, a couple hour workshop starting to kind of jot that down.
[00:36:04] I have some questions that I typically lead into, but as they start to, you know, a lot of it is surface level to a degree, and then you start to really dig in those kind of whiteboard sessions and understand really what makes these ICPs tick or why this ICP versus the other. Nailing down the ICPs isn't the hard part.
[00:36:24] The hard part is then getting the teams aligned to just focus on those ICPs. And I have a couple clients that it took a while, but once they understood that, "Hey, this is all we care about," then it goes into every other piece of your sales and marketing and go-to-market strategy, right? You're, "Okay, we shouldn't do this partnership because that's...
[00:36:43] our ICP doesn't hang out there. That doesn't matter to them," or, "We shouldn't send this type of communication because they don't communicate that way," or, "We shouldn't go to this event because our ICP is not there," right? So it really gives them that filter. And if they start to filter everything in their go-to-market motions with that ideal customer, that's the harder part, I would say, versus just identifying the ICPs.
[00:37:07] The other struggle, honestly, James, is that you have founders still a couple of years, you know, in business grown to, you know, a good amount of revenue. They think like everybody's their ICP still. So you have to kind of, you have to kind of narrow it down and that you can then bring in the finance.
[00:37:23] Okay, like how you have 50 customers, 30% of them are in education. So let's focus on education and like what's then the messaging and our approach for education customers, for example. So really starting to kind of coach them into, "Hey, you don't need to have one ideal customer, but maybe you have ideal industries that you go after," for example.
[00:37:43] James: Right. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's why you hear, I mean, there are different ways to phrase it, right? You could say multiple ICPs. You could say that they are trenches of your ICP because they, you know, they add up to the entirety of your user base. But I think from my experience coming from a head of marketing perspective for the last 13 years, when I've had that conversation with founders, it's been very challenging because I think there's a reluctance to niche down.
[00:38:10] There's just this reluctance to say, "Okay, but yeah, but my, address-- my total addressable market is, you know, it's 100 million companies," but in reality, you probably best serve 2,000. It's hard to hear that. But I think it, to your point, that lens helps you to narrow down to, like, okay, for this segment, these are the places that they, that this, these persona go.
[00:38:38] These are the competitors they look at. Here's how we stack up from that perspective. It really should help you to color everything. And I think if you're a founder listening who's at the beginning of your journey, don't be afraid to do that because you could try that across multiple, profiles and find out what sticks.
[00:38:56] Like, don't be afraid to be more segmented. And it's having that courage to, narrow down the ... Really, and again, you know, talking to a couple of different people recently, that's what made them successful. They had initial success, then it stalled, and then they thought, “Well, I need to do something different."
[00:39:14] Had conversations with users, figured out there were, you know, three or four things that weren't really clicking, but found out there were two segments that were doing really well, and then they doubled down, tripled down, and grew on from those segments.
[00:39:25] Matt: 100%. I mean, it goes back to the simplicity piece that we talked about with the channel, right?
[00:39:29] Is, like, if you are trying to be everything to everyone, first of all, you're gonna be flooded in a sea of sameness. You're not gonna differentiate yourself, right? Because your message is gonna sound so broad and out there. It's not gonna speak to any one of the buyers, you know?
[00:39:45] It's gonna speak to everybody, which means that it speaks to nobody, ultimately. And the other piece too is if you don't nail down that ICP, then you don't know how to go after them, right?
Look at all the leads that have come in. What were the win rates or conversion rates on those leads that came in, right? And okay, you wasted a lot of time in this vertical, and you think that that's a market for you, but you've wasted a lot of time, and you've only won 5% of those opportunities, right?
[00:40:34] But here you've had 10 calls that have come in. You've landed 60, you know, 60% of them, 6 out of 10. You, obviously we have something that clicks with that type of buyer, right? So that's another data point that sometimes validates a little bit. But also to your point earlier is like focus on something small.
[00:40:56] Be the best at that. Capture as much market share as possible from that, and then use that as a vehicle and a story to then tell into, you know, subsequent verticals or ICPs that make sense, right? So I mean, for me, come from staffing and recruitment. That is a very clear ICP that I can go after and I am going after. But what's a one that is like a parallel industry?
[00:41:19] After that I can go into professional services, right? 'Cause that makes sense, it's a line. You're selling solutions from a marketing and sales perspective. So don't be afraid, to your point, to start off small. Be the best in that niche and gain as much market share as possible. And then when you've totally tapped out that market, then you can add on, right?
[00:41:40] But I think a lot of these organizations especially, you don't have a huge team. How are you gonna go after an entire addressable market, you know, with a team of one and a half marketers and salespeople? Like, it's not possible. So really focus that small team on a small vertical and be really, really good and precise on messaging, go-to-market, sales approach, everything there, and then scale from there.
[00:42:03] It's exactly like we talked about the channel strategy, right? Like simple is better.
[00:42:07] James: Right, yeah.
[00:42:07] Matt: Build the foundation. Right. Build the muscle memory, and then scale it from there.
[00:42:14] James: Yeah, and I, think that, you know, that leads me into sort of this, idea that, I don't think a lot of people talk about.
[00:42:23] If you've gone through all this effort to define your ICP, and then you've found those segments you can potentially verticalize in, there's also this, and I would love to hear what you think about this. Not enough people are scoring leads once they get into CRMs. Not enough people are prioritizing those leads based on the information you just shared there, right?
[00:42:43] So naturally, what would flow from understanding your win rate of a particular segment is a potential score that you could assign to every lead that comes in based on the company they belong to, who they are as an individual. Why do you think that not enough people are, prioritizing their leads even though it's, basic functionality that's been included in, most marketing automation and, CRM systems for probably close to 10 years?
[00:43:09] Matt: Yeah. I think they, first of all, they probably don't know what to score it on. Like, they don't understand what good looks like from a lead perspective necessarily, so that's one piece. And I think the other piece goes to your other point earlier is they're afraid that they're gonna score people that kick them out of the process, and they're gonna lose potential business opportunities.
[00:43:31] I think that's what needs to click with founders and, leaders of organizations is that you're not saying no to business, you're saying no to bad business, right? So you're saying no to business that's gonna ultimately hurt you in the end. It's gonna drain resources, time, money, whatever, versus focusing on the ones that are gonna be easy, right?
[00:43:55] You've done it before. You're copying and pasting your approach, your messaging, everything that you've done before. Why make it harder for yourself and for the end customer if you've done this before, right? Versus trying to kind of fit your, value and your, value prop into something that, you know, it's like a round peg in a square hole idea, right?
[00:44:19] Like, it doesn't make sense, but I understand why people do it because they're afraid of losing out on potential business when they should be thinking, "Actually, that's gonna save us time, energy, and money in the future." I'm focusing just on the ones that, you know, are lead score seven and above or whatever, right?
[00:44:38] And I think it also like, I mean, knockout questions, all of that, like there's a lot that we can do, especially with AI now, on really prequalifying those leads coming in, right? So there's a lot of tools, not only in our CRMs, but built in our CRMs or plugins where you can have not your sales team of one or two people, or if you have a larger sales team, they're not doing some of that prequalification, right?
[00:45:00] You can automate a lot of that so that they're only spending their quality time with quality conversations, which I think is really key, especially in these medium-sized companies.
[00:45:10] James: Right. Yeah, yeah. That makes me think of sort of something, really that you hear a lot about cold email is that it is, square peg, round hole.
[00:45:23] And I believe that when a cold email is of high quality, it can actually lead to something. What is the best cold email that you've received, and what was good about it?
[00:45:36] Matt: I can't think of a specific one. I know the ones that I click or engage on are either one of two things. They're either very personal, like they've done some research, and I'm not talking about fake personal, like, you know, you used a couple tokens and pulled some stuff from my LinkedIn profile, but you actually spent, I don't know, two minutes looking me up and figuring out who I was and what I cared about.
[00:45:56] Those or just like super humorous or, like consistent too. Like I've gotten a several cold emails that, you know, it's part of a sequence. Like I think anybody knows, but I definitely know from my seat it's part of a sequence. But just the consistency of it and the being able to not give up, I think, because I've been on the other side.
[00:46:15] I've been a salesperson. I still am a salesperson and like I know how frustrating it is when you don't hear after 20 touchpoints. But like that consistent touch, you know, staying top of mind. If somebody's constantly following up with me and following up with me multiple different ways and use humor at some point there, just because I react to humor, better than other things, I think, that those have really always...
[00:46:42] Just the creative kind of humorous ones I tend to at least give them a little bit of time, like, "Hey, that was good." Like I wanna kinda see the, you know, see who's behind that. I mean, a perfect example is, I just had it today, is we need to clean the outsides of our windows at our house, and there's 10 million window cleaning companies, in Charlotte where I live.
[00:47:07] I receive probably text messages and emails, from thousands of them, right? But there was one that stood out in just kind of their approach. They were humorous. I saw some advertisements. They popped up on Instagram. I got some emails from them. And just their... They just made fun, like, they made fun of their industry, basically.
[00:47:27] And they just... You could tell they were having fun, like the founders and the workers were having fun. So I think that personal approach and the fun humor, like, we're spending so much time working. Like, we might as well have fun and enjoy it and, be with people that enjoy it. So I'd much rather give my money to clean windows to somebody that comes across as they really enjoy this job and love doing what they do versus somebody that just, you know, happened to give me a discount or, like, hit me at the right moment, right?
[00:47:56] So I think that the humorous side and the personal side are really key for me in any outreach email or, anything else.
[00:48:04] James: The data would support what you just said there. Apart from the funny thing, everything else you said there is exactly what the best practices would agree with.
[00:48:13] Before we wrap up, what is one piece of advice that you wish you could have given yourself before the Fractional CRO journey began?
[00:48:29] Matt: I think one piece of advice I'd give myself is don't be so hard on yourself.
[00:48:35] I think, I don't know if you're anything like me, James, but probably a lot of founders are just hard on themselves or they're worried about stuff they can't control. And I've realized in the time that I've been doing this that, there's a lot that you can't control, right? But if you can show up every day, you know, ready to do something positive and in the right direction for your business, good things are gonna happen.
[00:49:01] Yes, you're gonna have bad days. I mean, there's plenty of days where I wake up and I'm just, I know this is not gonna be a good day, or you get a phone call or an email or something doesn't... You know, you thought you were gonna land that one, client and it doesn't work, out. Like, that stinks for sure.
[00:49:16] But I think, like, if you let that dictate how you run your business and, what gets you up in the morning, then you're gonna crush yourself a lot earlier than you need to. I think pushing that aside and really focusing on why you've done this, and so for me, going back and saying, "Hey, you left the corporate world because of ABC reasons.
[00:49:37] You're doing this, and you're excited to wake up every morning." Just kind of reiterating that to yourself, I think is really, key as you're growing something, especially if you're a sole entrepreneur, or you have a team. I mean, I think either way it's, really important to remember why you started, and not be hard on yourself.
[00:49:55] James: Those are brilliant words to end this episode. I've had, yeah, a great time talking to you, Matt. Thank you again for joining us. Everyone, that is Matt Lauro, the founder of Fractional CRO. If you want to hear more about, Fractional CRO, we will be sharing information in the description of this episode, as well as Matt's contact details.
[00:50:15] Matt, once again, thank you so much for joining us.
[00:50:17] Matt: Awesome. Thanks, James. Thanks for having me. It was great.
[00:50:20] James: Thanks, Matt.
[00:50:20] James: If you like what you heard, please like, subscribe, and explore even more of the Outfoxed community by visiting www.outfoxed.hunter.io.