What Eric Learned Through 100 ABM Calls

0:00Your ABM company, you have a topic in here that you did 100 calls. What did you learn? Yeah, so I'll give a couple things. So this is Carrot, which allows you to run personalized, scalable LinkedIn ads. What's interesting to me is I would say 90 % of the calls, and most of these are mid-market to enterprise companies, they're like, we really want to get going on ABM this year. I'm like, so you guys haven't been doing anything? Yeah, we haven't been doing it. So their budgets, they're like, yeah, we're planning to ramp it up, but there just hasn't been a good solution out there for ABM. I'm like, but don't you guys pay for some of these solutions out there?

0:32Some of these are like 120 grand a year platform fee. Plus you have to pay the ad spend on top of it. So it's pretty significant, right? And they're just like, everything sucks there. So one is, it seems like almost everyone's starting an ABM motion this year, right? It's like new. The second thing is, most ABM companies from what we've seen suck because everyone complains about all the ABM software out there. And then a lot of the things that they want, it's pretty easy for us to build in, right? So we're using a lot of these sales calls. My CTO is on the call as well. We're using them as customer development calls too.

1:07And so if people start to say the same thing multiple times, that signal for us, and that helps us prioritize our product roadmap. I would say the fourth thing is people want to move very quickly. So when you have something that isn't quite out there, people are just like, dude, can we get started like yesterday? And it's different than the agency type. And you know, you've had software before too. You know the different types. Usually the software will pull you with it. But with agency, you have to do this dog and pony show. Software is also easier for people to get onboarded with than an agency.

1:41And it's substantially cheaper so there's less hoops to go through internally. And a lot of people ask for free trials, right? Especially the homies. He's not saying homies. He's actually saying some people just ask for free trials and they expect it. And they expect him to make changes to their product without paying for it. Oh yeah, exactly. And so what we say is, Hey, look, no, we're not doing that. Um, but we're doing a paid pilot. So you pay, you know, uh, three grand for 90 days or whatever. And then we expect you, you're going to do a shared Slack with us. We're going to white glove you in.

2:13And then, um, that's what happens. And so that way you have some skin in the game and they have some skin in the game and they take you seriously. Cause you and I both know when we receive things for free, we don't really use it. And when we get things, when we give things for free, people don't respect it. Yeah. Speaking of the white glove service, there was that email company, I think it was called Superhuman. Yeah. They were trying to do the white glove service. You had to get on the phone and they teach you how to use it. I use Superhuman. You still use it? Yanniv pays for it. They made me put in a credit card right then and there.

2:42And I canceled it right away. I'm like, this is not that helpful. Yep. Do you actually like it? White gloving? No, Superhuman. I love it. So I hated it because Yanniv kept telling me how much he loves it. So you know how if I keep telling you to use something, you're like, no, I don't want to use it, right? So I was like that. but it's actually made me faster at email. Yeah, but you're already pretty fast with it anyway. Yeah, I'm already pretty fast at email. Out of all the points you made, the only one I would say, because I know quite a few ABM companies, people that do ABM and software companies in this space, I would say the only point that is skewed for you is your point number one where a lot of people are getting to ABM this year is because you got into, created an ABM software, you're getting tons of inquiries but the market's massive.

3:30And from everyone I know who has ABM companies that are like large, the quantity of people that are jumping on the ABM bandwagon for corporations isn't that big, but you're spot on with something in which most people are not happy with the solutions they're using. They're expensive and they're not getting results. And that's why I think you're getting, you know, just a shitload of inquiries because LinkedIn is one of the best places to go and you solve the problem that LinkedIn didn't give people. Well, here's the thing. So a lot of these companies, they're already paying for the big ones out there, right?

4:05So they are doing ABM, but they're also not doing ABM. Because it's not working that well. So they're looking for a solution desperately to solve their ABM problems, and that's all it is. So yeah. But I think more than anything, if you're going to build software, just understand that you're constantly doing customer development and you can't build in a vacuum. Because if you think you know all the features, you're already screwed. Watch this, everyone. So Eric, out of these hundred calls, how many of them were you on? All of them? Exactly. Yeah. So the point I'm making here is if you really want to do well, you need to get involved yourself, listen, learn, and go and fix.

4:43Yeah. By the way, any business is like that. You're constantly just solving problems. And if you get it right, you probably hit lightning in a bottle, but it's also not fun if you get it right immediately. So no, but I do prefer getting it right. We're running a lot of Facebook ads right now. How's that going? It's going okay. It's not converting as well as we want. We have some technical issues that we just had to go through. It's not tracking our, if a lead turns into a call, if the call is qualified, then we send out a proposal. So the data is not passing it in, although the CRMs and everything are saying they are passing it in.

5:18So we're just troubleshooting, but that should be solved really quickly. And I think the reason it's not tracking really well is because we use this weird concoction of multiple solutions to get what we want done. But again, I don't think this will be a problem after the next few days. And, you know, Mike and I started going through all the problems. So we're like, okay, our price per discovery call is around$389, what I was told this morning, which is still too high. I think we can get into the lower hundreds. Wait, how much? $389 right now per lead per call per call. Okay. Okay. Uh, and we disqualify a lot of people before our call.

5:58That's actually pretty good. Yeah. But you know, it's, it's the numbers aren't panning out, uh, well enough right now. And when we looked at it, the first thing that Mike and I did, my co-founder, Mike, he's like, all right, let me just go listen to all the calls. So he starts listening to the calls. He's like, you're doing this wrong. You're doing this wrong. He's like, let's fix this. He'll get on the phone with all of them and be like, here's what I want you to do. so that should start improving some of the numbers. And we have a pretty fine-tuned sales team, but yet, as I mentioned, the purpose of this is Eric still gets involved.

6:31Mike and I still get involved. Even if you hire amazing people, sometimes you're better at some things than other people are and they're better at you than at some things than you may be, right? So it counterbalances each other and you need to just be involved. And then I started getting, I had Solo get involved in the texting. So we're going to start texting people that aren't booking a call. So that should start helping improving our numbers. And then I started getting involved in the creatives. And I was just like, you know, you guys are running creatives the wrong way. We're recording a script.

7:04It was generic. They would take some of our most popular content on the social web and use that. And I was like, all right, what are their main industries? And I'm like, let me go record an ad for every single one of them. And we ended up doing that a few weeks ago for three industries to just keep it simple, e-com, legal, and home services. They're not our biggest, but we started with them because we thought targeting would be pretty great. Legal didn't work out too much. The cost was just too high. We don't think we can end up making it work in the long run, but home services and e-com potentially.

7:40And what I started doing is testing quite a few different hooks, then body copy, and then CTAs. And then in the same ads, they're in different compartments. So I'll test out like four or five hooks and run them with four or five different bodies and four or five CTAs. And Facebook can help you automatically do this. So you don't actually have to go three times, four times five. Yeah. Yeah. And then I was like, all right, now that we know that worked, scale it out to 10 industries. And then I also added in social proof. And I made sure the script works where I can add the social proof at the top right after the hook, or I can add at the bottom right before the CTA.

8:19So then we're going through all of this. And then we will start testing landing pages because to keep things simple, I told the team, I'm like, dude, just run it through Facebook lead forms. It's always cheaper, but the quality of the leads is always worse. Every marketer knows that versus sending them to your landing page. But the reason I wanted that is it was just quicker versus having my team go crank out 10, 12 different landing pages and then having to test those landing pages. I just wanted to figure out what's working because Eric and I are in an industry where there's not tons of volume.

8:55It's a deal's worth a lot, but it's not like you're getting a thousand leads a day. So it takes a while to test. So it's like, let's just keep it simple and use Facebook's lead forms and test all the other elements. Once you get it right, which I think will crack the rest within the next two weeks to a month. Then I'll go into testing landing pages and then moving it all to our site. The leads will be more expensive, but I bet you the quality of the lead will be way better. The good news about Carrot, it's coming out with one-to-one personalized landing pages and you could do meta in Google. So I'll hook you up.

9:25All right. I'll hook you up. Yeah. So what Neil's mentioning, by the way, I have a question for you. You mentioned the scripting, right? I personally hate scripts, So when you're doing a script, are you reading off the teleprompter? Yes, I am. You do that here, huh? I do that here. So someone comes up and sets it up for you and you're recording. And I take them to lunch after. Oh, that's a good deal. I have a team of three that come and do it. One manages the teleprompter. One is managing the camera. The other person is there. They can also give ideas and stuff and help out and rotate. Did you grow to love the teleprompter?

9:58Did I what? I hate the teleprompter. No, no, no. I don't hate it, but I found it annoying. Do you love it now? Dude, it's so much faster. Yeah. I use teleprompters for everything. You've been doing it for a couple of years now. Yeah. Don't use it for short form videos. Yeah. It's too much work for short form videos. I've seen you use it in short form videos. I can tell when you're reading off to teleprompter. Used to use it for short form videos. Long before. Yeah. Because all I was doing is I was just taking my X posts and then putting them on a teleprompter and recording them line for line. I can tell you're reading it.

10:27Yeah. Yeah. And it worked quite well. When it stopped working, I stopped using the teleprompter. I just talked because it was quicker and easier than people writing stuff out. When it's a teleprompter and I wrote the copy, it's easy for me. If someone else writes the copy and then puts it on the teleprompter, I can't do it as well. Because it's just not in my verbiage. It doesn't flow the way I would talk. It doesn't feel like you. It doesn't feel like me. Which is why I hate when other people write the script for me. So then I just ignore the script. Yeah. So then the other thing we use a teleprompter is for our long form videos.

10:58So I just finished a shoot. We're going to start producing more long form videos. Uh, the teleprompter is amazing for hooks. Um, and then just main points to talk about, like go into this and it'll just be a bullet and I'll just riff. Yeah. And it's just great. Cause it keeps me on track and then the team will figure out where to edit and adjust, but it makes the experience quicker for me versus, uh, shooting, you know, all on my own. And to give you an idea, you know, who I'm working with for the long form videos. they were telling me oh you need five to six hours of studio time and I was like really?

11:38five to six hours? it can't be and I got it all done and no joke three hours on my first run and I'm like yeah I did a lot of things inefficient I think I can get it done in like two will be hard I think I get it done to two to two and a half I think close to two and a half no problem and the three hours included a lunch break wow wow Are you making YTAM videos now? The what? Are you making YTAM videos now? I'm making YTAM videos. I don't think it's going to produce a ROI. The whole purpose of YTAM videos is experiment of is, does a recognition decrease the cost for our Facebook ads? That's really only it.

12:19And how long are you going to run that experiment for? Two months? Three months? Probably three months. It's got to be at least three months. A year. You're the type to give up quick. Okay, yeah, yeah. A year. A year's good. But we'll do it for 2025. It's not that expensive. Yeah. It depends what you consider expensive, but call it a few hundred thousand bucks. Yeah. So we already earmarked it in our budget. And we're just like, we don't think we're going to get enough results in the short run. I don't think it's actually going to work that well in the United States, being quite frank. The bet here is if we do it and we have our team, you know, pop it through, hey, Jen, and then we do it from a global aspect, we think where I don't have as much brand affinity, EX Italy, Germany, places like that.

13:03We think it's going to help more there. Well, we don't think it's going to really help in the United States. That's the play. We'll see. I mean, this is recorded. We'll see in a year. We can come back to this in December. I think we'll know within six months. I think, yeah, maybe even a little sooner. Yeah, we'll see. If you've ever built a website, you know how tough it can be to keep a strong design while ensuring site performance is fast. That's where Framer comes in, and it totally changes the game. Framer is the design-first, no-code website builder that lets anyone ship a production-ready site in minutes.

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15:12Sign up for your$1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com slash marketing school. Go to shopify.com slash marketing school, shopify.com slash marketing school. All right, pick one. All right, let's go with the age of augmented introvert. The age of a, I'll do it. I'll do it. The age of the augmented introvert has arrived. So it's a little bit of word soup. so this guy Dave Shapiro tweeted this he basically said look AI isn't just working alongside us 24-7 never tiring never complaining when we want to dive deep into the technical weeds at 3am so wait hold on let's rewind real quick ah okay okay okay sorry guys so I have this meme over here have you seen this meme before Neil?

16:15No, but I pulled up the Twitter link at the same time. Okay, so you have, the first meme is, there's a boss and he's directing people, he's getting pulled on a little trolley by these humans, right? That's the old way of working. And then a leader is someone that's leading in the front, he's pulling with them, right? And then you have an introvert who just pulls by himself. And then you have an introvert with AI that's pulling like three carts by himself, right? So what that means, what this basically is talking about is, you think about leverage. Okay, if you and I had 50 ,000 agents working for us right now, and they can do everything a human can do, are we going to just produce a lot more?

16:53I believe we will. And I would actually adjust this meme. And my last one would, I would still have introvert with AI, but my last one would be AI with introvert. And then you have a robot carrying the carts with a human on top. Yeah. Yeah. And so here's the thing, right? I think, as I mentioned earlier, machines will automate repetitive things, but human creativity is going to be at a premium. Entrepreneurs are the most creative people in the world. Neil and I were creative in different ways, but there is no shortage of things that we want to do. We're getting to a point now, people are like, oh my God, artificial general intelligence is coming out.

17:29Today, OpenAI just announced operators. You and I pay for a$200 a month version, so we're going to have basic versions of agents. Everyone's like, oh, 2025 is the year of the agents. I just think the age of the AI introvert is coming out and that really means this bodes well for entrepreneurs because all we want to do is create. Because we're so bored. Okay, you think about what Jensen Huang said, right? All he does is work. When he's not working, he thinks about work. When he goes on vacation, he's watching his kids, he thinks about work. All he does is work, right? And we have something that's wrong with us, sure, but it's genuinely what we enjoy doing.

18:04I don't think about work that much. Yeah, you do. I don't have any work is my only hobby work and your family yeah that's a hesitant yeah no no no you're spot on but even when I'm with family I still think about work by the way when I think about my family or certain things it ties in back with work I'm really lucky in which I can do you may be able to do it too but I can do two things at once and specifically this two things at once when someone's talking to me, I can doze off and think about work and I usually can recite exactly what they said back. So it sounds like I'm paying attention. So Neil is really good.

18:46He used to leave the TV on all the time with the movie and he actually knows what's going on in the movie as he's working. Which I still don't know why you do. I need it. I work better with CNBC in the background than not having it. That's different. You do it with a movie on and you still know the details from the movie. It's a very unique, useless skill. By the way, we should talk about this one for fun. Do you know about the thank you President Trump strategy? No. First off, what is the thank you President Trump and then what's the strategy? So the thank you Trump strategy is when you look at when TikTok was restored, what was the message that was posted?

19:25It was thank you President Trump for getting TikTok restored. Okay, that was the message. There's like 170 million people in the US got that. When the deal was brokered between Israel and Gaza, right? So the Biden administration should take credit for it. But the next day, the Israeli Ministry of Defense was like, they tweeted, thank you so much, President Trump, for your help, right? So I'm pretty sure he's in the back end saying, hey, thank you. Say thank you. Say thank you. Because he knows it will help him. It's just like when he was on Rogan, he was on air asking Rogan. He's like, hey, can you just endorse me?

19:58And so he knows. Wait, he asked on the, I didn't watch the whole three hours or however long it was. He asked on air. Yeah. And he said, will you endorse me? Yeah. And Rogan said... I think it was a non-response at the time, but eventually it became like Rogan was on... I think he was at one of the rallies and publicly endorsed him. So I'm pretty sure he knows the value of getting that thank you. And so to get TikTok and Israel to say thank you like that and know you would get hundreds of millions of impressions, pretty good move. Did you see what's happening with TikTok phones, iPhones? No. What's going on?

20:34They're selling for up to$10 ,000. Why? If you have Apple phone, you know, TikTok was pulled for a day, right? Or a day, day and a half, something like that. And then now it's restored. So you can use TikTok if you have Apple phone. The last I checked, if you have an Apple phone, you can't go into the app store and download TikTok. So if you have TikTok already installed, people are willing to buy your phone for arm and a leg. That's insane. But it's back now, right? But not in the app store when you want to go search on Apple to go download the app. Oh, wow. Now, Apple didn't delete the TikTok app from our phones because I'm assuming you have TikTok on there.

21:07It's still there. If you had TikTok or if you didn't have TikTok and even though it's restored in the US, you can't go to the Apple App Store and download it. So your only solution is go for, I think the only solution, there probably is something else. But for most people who have a phone that already has TikTok installed, I'll buy you, I'll buy the phone. Would you sell your phone for a million dollars? Yes, I would. 100 ,000. Yes, I would. 10 ,000. Yes, I would. Why don't you sell it then? I don't think I can get 10 ,000 anymore for it. Okay, guys. It's been dying down. Oh, okay. All right. You just had to keep in mind, I don't log into TikTok.

21:44My team does it for me, so I don't need it. I would, of course, erase my password. I don't really use TikTok either. I think we're just because we're older. Yeah. I don't really use any of the social apps. You don't? No. Sometimes you read my IG stories. Yes, but sometimes it's my team's reading your IG stories. Oh, wow. Stalkers. Stalkers. All right. So that is it for today, guys. Go to marketingschool.io slash agency to learn more about the Agency Owners Association. And that's the group where you're going to see our churn numbers get even better. Goodbye.