When And How To Automate Outbound Sales And Marketing Messages

Intro

Since AI came into the picture mid 2022 it’s never been easier to send emails at scale. But have you been getting more customer meetings?

Quite the opposite. Tracking open rates are no longer reliable, you’ve probably been getting fewer replies from prospects, while more and more of your emails are landing in spam.

That’s because email servers like Google & Yahoo started shutting down spammers to protect users from being scammed. As they should! But where does that leave us as Sales and Marketing teams?

Personalisation matters now more than ever to hit your quota. And you need to figure out some way to do so at scale.

Hi, I’m Viktor, a full-cycle Account Executive turned Sales Manager with 10 years of B2B Sales experience, and on this channel I cover topics from prospecting to closing and everything in between.

Today I’m joined by Brigi Ruha from Grow(Th) Today to discuss when you should and should not automate outbound. Lots of tips so you can build more pipeline and crush your quota. Let’s do this!

The Interview

Setting the stage

Viktor Hatfaludi (00:44.637)

Hi, Brigi. Thanks for joining today's session. I wanted to set the stage by telling the audience what we are and are not going to be covering in this session. So specifically, we're not going to cover what mistakes to avoid when doing bound outbound, like lack of personalization, wrong positioning. We're going to take it for granted that our audience already knows this. And instead.

Brigitta Ruha (00:47.981)

Good.

Viktor Hatfaludi (01:14.225)

we're only going to cover when to automate outbound and when should outbound be left to a manual touch. So also we will not be discussing positioning and we will take for granted that our total addressable market or every ICP customer that we want to, or ICP account that we want to target is already in our CRM or we know who they are. And from now we're only gonna be talking about should we automate outbound?

Should we do it fully manually? Is there an in-between? Let's find out.

Brigitta Ruha (01:50.27)

Thanks, Victor, for setting the stage up. And I think what you also mentioned, including the time and why we take it for granted. I think a great question is that what we should not maybe take for granted right now, that we should also take into consideration. And when we talk about my first question, it really came into my mind, as we know, in this ecosystem, there are a lot of things that are changing. So what do you think, what is the main goal of the good on-bound strategy today?

And is it really just a book commenting or there is more to it?

The goal of outbound

Viktor Hatfaludi (02:25.217)

Right. So that's a good question actually, because what most salespeople do is think that the goal of Outbound is to book a meeting. And yes, that is the ultimate goal. We want to book a meeting that turns into a pipeline that we can close and hit our targets so we earn commission. But if we take that approach as our goal, we end up making mistakes like including our booking link as the call to action in our email template. So instead, I usually advocate to go into an outbound motion with this in mind. I want to start a conversation. And if we do that, instead of trying to book a meeting, we'll likely write sequences and templates that are more customer-facing and with higher probability get responses.

So one thing on that topic actually, one thing I was wondering is how has AI, and AI is a hot topic, right? So how has AI changed the way that you specifically do outbound as a growth professional? And what should and should not AI be used for in your opinion?

Brigitta Ruha (03:47.178)

Yeah, it's a great question. And I think when we talk about AI, I think there are a lot of things that are going on in the ecosystem, but like, if you're just thinking about generally, like the role of AI, I think right now you can use AI to take the calls. You can use AI to do some automated SDR or AI SDR stuff. You can also use AI to write more personalized email, less personalized emails as well, and basically anything. So all era basically you can use AI to do so.

But I think how it really changed the world and how we are using it is basically what are the kinds of parts that are really time consuming for me and maybe there is a better way to do it or maybe there is a faster way that AI can help me be more effective. And when it comes to when it's used and not to use, I think it's a great question because what I'm seeing is that there are a lot of way too many people fall into the trap that, okay, right now you need AI, you've got less if a chat chip is your third party tool and they use AI to write the entire sequence slash the email and how I think teams should be thinking about the use of AI is just like an enabler, meaning that, okay, maybe some parts of the email can be written by AI, but maybe not the entire should be because then you are just going to be less human. And I think the really key focus here is how you can also use AI or technology to really stand out in the crowd because the market is saturated.

We know that we have less team members in sales marketing. We know that we also have less budget generally. And now there are a lot of AI tools that really make outbound harder to stand out. So what I also think about the role of AI should be that how you can also use it to be more relevant, not explicitly think about personalization, but how you can use it to be more relevant. And I think one great thing that we should also think into consideration is how has AI changed the way that salespeople work today and their efficiency? So Victor, do you see that AI drastically changed it or is still ongoing? And if so, how has it changed where the salespeople work today?

Viktor Hatfaludi (05:56.585)

Really nice transition there. So this is a good topic. And just yesterday, today is October 4th. We're recording then. So October 3rd, Google actually released a statement for how they're doubling down on spamming efforts starting February 2024. And why they did that has, in part, to do with AI changing the game for salespeople since the past year.

Because what happened when AI got introduced? It became super easy to write emails at scale. And even though you set up some parameters to try to personalize it to the persona, it's not really doing the trick. You can't really use AI for creative work. Or at least, in my opinion, and I'll be interested to see what you think later.

But because it's become super easy to send high volume let's say customized, but not in a human way, we've seen that response rates have gotten lower. And even when you do get a response prospect, or if you're sending it to a customer, they might tell you that, hey, I found your email, but it landed in spam, so go check out what might be the issue. And yeah, so primarily how I see AI has changed the game is it's become super easy to send outbound.

Not saying it's quality outbound, but it has made it easy. So it's becoming harder and harder to, um, to build pipeline from cold email alone. So there will be other ways that sales reps now need to take to, um, to actually build pipeline.

Brigitta Ruha (07:46.122)

Yeah, and on that part, like you mentioned Google, and I think it's a great thing to stay up to date with this news, just for the future and just because January, February is also quickly approaching, but what are the kind of emerging trends slash techniques that you think that revenue teams can use today to improve either the deliverability or response rates or the open rates

Viktor Hatfaludi (08:08.841)

Right. So ideally, salespeople never just stick to a single channel like cold email or email alone when trying to build pipeline. Because you can build pipeline from live events, from cold calls, cold emails, social selling. And ideally, you should be doing all of these. So for salespeople who haven't already used this omni-channel or multi-channel approach to building pipeline, they need to move away from using a cold email alone and go in more heavy on cold calling, social selling, because those social touches, those cold calls are parts where AI has or is currently at the time of this recording, isn't dominating those fields. So it's still easy to show that, yes, the effort that I'm taking to contact you right now is still a manual or human effort. And it's not a robot or AI automating messages that are being sent to you? So the short answer is incorporate not just cold email but social selling, cold calling, and also live events when you're trying to build pipeline from your list of total from your list of ICP accounts. I think that would be my short answer. However,

I can also say that I don't think that outbound is the same for all the accounts that we're gonna reach out to. And my question to you, Brigi, is, how do you think sales outbound strategies should be different when we're talking about SMB, commercial, mid-market, or enterprise segment clients?

What good looks like

Brigitta Ruha (09:58.846)

Yeah, I think it's a great question because you exactly answered how should we really think about outbound and generally speaking like any channel. So I don't think that there is an answer that, hey, here is how to use AI tool for everything when it comes to SMB mid-market because those motions are totally different than the way a team internally should operate when it comes to marketing and

Brigitta Ruha (10:29.114)

What I see from the growth side is that if you have an ICP that is strictly SMB or mid-market, then you have to think about what is the kind of ACV and sales cycles. Because when it comes to SMB, the really high time and low ACV, and if you have a clear persona, then I think growth and those kinds of more programmatic approaches and more automated efforts really need to be there. And the reason just why is because simply from a unit better perspective, you definitely don't want a BDR or experienced salesperson to chase accounts who you would expect to three or five thousand ACV, because then from unique economics wise, it's just really hard to be really positive in that thing. Yeah. Also one thing here is just low stage awareness that, for example, as the company grows, you might want to send more like

Viktor Hatfaludi (11:11.034)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brigitta Ruha (11:26.57)

I would not say generic messages, tailored messages, but more like based on triggers or certain kinds of signals to kind of warm up the prospects. Like 50 years ago, ads were also very creepy and we said that, okay, hey, buy an ad, you know, knows a lot of things about myself. But right now, if you think about it from a Growth Marketing perspective and in the case of SMB and mid-market is the same thing that’s happening on the outbound side as well, that you need, you can also use other channels to warm up the prospects.

So if the goal is right and the ACV and you have a clear person and a really big tab that you, by the way, would not be able to prospect just with Salesforce because it would be too much, it would require too much bandwidth. Then it really makes sense to use more automation because just from outbound strategies perspective, it's just different when it comes to SMB mid-market and enterprise.

Viktor Hatfaludi (12:17.942)

Right. So there were two specific points that I loved about what you just said. Number one is that for ROI purposes alone, there will be a segment that just doesn't, where it doesn't make sense to involve salespeople because the effort that it takes to actually book that first meeting with the account, there's not going to be a payoff.

the company's not gonna reach their revenue goals, right? And the second part is the splitting of the funnel to top of funnel, middle of funnel, bottom of funnel. And at the top, when you're specifically talking about low stage of awareness buyers or target customers, it takes way more effort to convert those type of target prospects into a meeting than it does like a later stage when someone's already problem aware or maybe even solution aware.

And I guess that's a question for another topic on when this handover should happen between growth and sales. But I love that you mentioned it nonetheless. I'm thinking, do you have an example off the top of your head for companies that you worked with in the past that successfully implemented this?

high volume, low ACV, or implemented an outbound strategy that works for this low ACV, high volume customer segment.

Brigitta Ruha (13:53.386)

Yeah, I think actually there are a lot of companies that are doing and I really hope that more will do because as mentioned just from an economic perspective it makes sense. But just to name a few, for example, if you think about Rippling, how the growth team operates and how the BDR sales team operates or when we think about Gorgeous and Segment Rift, they were also thinking about serving the low ACV market or splitting or having two different motions to also do that. But for example, Gorgias is a really great example. And when we are thinking about re-playing and what the growth team was built there, it's a really good exercise there that how you can use automation and internal people who are really experienced in ops slash growth to use AI automation and the tool for scalability and make sure that the unique content is there. Because yeah, as we discussed, you don't want to chase a prospect with the expected two, three, five thousands ACV.

Viktor Hatfaludi (14:56.413)

Right, right, right. And when we initially talked, you also mentioned something about trigger-based or intent-based outbound. So when you talk about intent-based outbound, what do you actually mean specifically?

Brigitta Ruha (15:11.006)

Yeah, I have two great answers on that. When we think about the low value, high volume sending, I think you can also use these insights to really define why you are outreaching those people right now, right? Because if you think about if there is a prospect that is installing your competitor, doing some research and you definitely see that it's happening, then it's a good way to reach out to them. And really like how you think about advertising, do the same just on an outbound side, and really make it very tailored that why right now and what.

And also from the mid market side, what I mean by triggers and insights is that if you expect and you already have an operation team in place and the total address market account is already there already in the CRM, then your main job to really level up and help sales to be more effective and build a pipeline is the way to go to there is definitely to use triggers and insights that can really help.

In the mid-market prospects to know the sales, okay, who are the people that I'm sure are reaching out and then they can decide how exactly they are reaching out. It can be either templatized, they can also incorporate automations, but I think in that case, the short answer is that you can use this as a kind of validation of when it's the right time to reach out to those because it can be a buying momentum and more mature go-to-market team.

Know when it's a really good buy momentum. And when it comes to the mid-market, then there is definitely a lot of tools, like PredictLeads, Lonescale, Crunchbase that can help you to really reach the CRM, build something great for sales team. And then they just go into the CRM and see all of these insights, all of these accounts, and then they just take it there. But they don't necessarily focus on prospecting because it's hard and they should be not explicitly spending their time on researching them in the mid-market. You can basically use these insights to help them focus on selling.

Viktor Hatfaludi (17:14.265)

Right. And so there's one thing that really stuck with me on what you said there. When we talk about outbound, successful outbound to get a response, what are the factors that are needed? You need the message to be relevant. You do that by personalizing or customizing your message to the persona. But on the other hand, you also need to time that email, right? And that's what you essentially highlighted or one of the many points that you just mentioned is enabling salespeople to reach out to the right people, but also at the right time, because that will increase their reply rates.

Brigitta Ruha (17:53.462)

Yeah, and just talking about that, how do you think, what are the kind of best practices when it comes to the more mid-market or enterprise products? What are really some of the good examples of best practice that you have seen working? And it's definitely the kind of thing to do so.

Viktor Hatfaludi (18:09.969)

Yeah, well, one thing I can say is that less automation definitely works. The last thing you want to do is spam a bunch of people. So when we're talking about mid-market and enterprise, these are typically 1,000 plus, 5,000 plus, 10,000 plus organizations. And chances are that some of these people are sitting side by side or next to each other.

So if you send automated messages to everyone and these messages are the same. Number one, your deliverability is going to be lower because the mailbox or the mail servers are identifying that you're sending a lot of messages to the same accounts and all of these messages are the same. So it could be spam or a phishing attempt. So you're going to get shut down. But also imagine two colleagues sitting next to each other and like, “were you also contacted by this guy or gal with the same message? Yeah, I was.” and then you're not going to get a response.

So instead, I really like, again, when you mentioned trigger-based or insights-based outbound approach: if you can, in general, show to people that they're better off with you than without you, when trying to solve a complex topic, that's definitely the way to go. This educational route is definitely the way to go when we're talking about outbounding into mid-market and enterprise.

But you also have to realize that it's going to take a lot of effort. So typically for these accounts, you have business development reps and account executives working side by side, sometimes even sales engineers, all doing the role of account research and crafting messages that are very specific to that account. Imagine if you're reaching out to a Banking client. Something changes in the industry that could qualify as a trigger event and your solution solves a problem for them. You would reach out to multiple people and there are, there could be up to a hundred people easily who you could target.

What worked for us in my past company is account executives would target the higher level or mid-level managers, let's say, which are highly targeted, maybe even ask for introductions from your own network to get into an account, while business development reps would focus on the floor-level employees within the domain that you're targeting and do more of the volume that frees up time for account executives to have more qualification and discovery calls to learn more about the account.

So it's definitely a high touch, but also highly personalized way of doing outbound. And there's no right or wrong way to do this. But since we also talked about AI and what can be automated, what we didn't have like two years ago, for instance, AI, we imagine like going into enterprise, having to find a trigger, how do you do that? You would download the company's 10K report and then skim it for the keywords that are relevant to your company. And if you found something that you can latch onto, you would embed that in your message, in your template. Imagine using ChatGPT or really any other AI tool to skim that 100, 150 page 10K report for specifically the keywords and summarizing that report for how you can use those insights in that 10K report to reach out at scale to personas within that specific account.

That's a huge productivity increase. So that's something which I think the account list building just like isn't that labor intensive, but the research huge burden takes a bunch of time. And if you have a 6 to 12-month sale cycle, right, your chances of booking meetings and closing these deals is low if you're doing everything manually.

Now with AI helping us out, it could be used effectively to do that research for us, automate that part and leave the creative work manual. I think that's the way to go for mid-market and enterprise.

And I think that's a good segway into my next question, which is when should and should not outbound B automated. What is your take on this?

When and how should outbound be automated?

Brigitta Ruha (22:59.53)

Yeah, so just in a kind of short to earlier, it's definitely not if you have a high total addressable market and a low ACV and you have a clear persona and the entire kind of buyer journey is not so complicated, meaning that you know how to reach out to those persons about messaging, then it's really good to automate. So mostly on the SMB and the smaller mid-market side, low ACV, K-person and high temp.

And one kind of thing that came into my mind where we were discussing enterprise solutions and when to automate is that how do you think about that? Do you think that the sales cycle impacts this decision when to automate or not to automate? And if so, how?

Viktor Hatfaludi (23:45.318)

Just off the top of my head, I have one example that comes to mind. It's SMB, not really automation for enterprise. Maybe I'll have something for that as well. But let's say there was a handoff between sales and marketing because the ACV is still low, but it's big enough to warrant a salesperson getting involved. And let's say it's a 5k account.

4 or 5K is let's say your minimum for involving sales. And in that case, the prospect is running a free trial. Is it gonna be worth your time to follow up with that person and this person might be dodging your emails as well? Probably not. So what I did was for these very low, high volume, low ROI accounts, I just had a very simple trial automation sequence, which whenever I started a free trial for someone who was low value, I would sequence them. And all that did was really just automate the messages that I would be sending anyway.

Messages like, hey, how's the trial going? Need any help? Or if I see that they were running out of credits and didn't respond. Like would another, like a trial extension of two days help you to finish the trial and get the impact that you're looking for, that sort of stuff. So messages that I would send anyway, and that relates to the POC stage, but for other parts of the account, I don't see how I would automate it. I would automate steps that I take or certain tasks, but not necessarily the messaging that I send. So POC is a good example.

Brigitta Ruha (25:35.438)

Mm-hmm. Make sense.

Brigitta Ruha (25:44.03)

Yeah. And for example, events, you mentioned follow up and bumping, bumping past, uh, and generally just the role of automation. Uh, and when we get back to again, this, I'm pretty sure that you're probably got a lot of many connection requests that, you know, kind of almost immediately you've got the kind of PGA, Hey, we do this X, Y, Z, we can help X, Y, Z. So what are the best practices in the case of social selling to avoid sounding spammy or being spammy.

Viktor Hatfaludi (26:12.093)

Right. Great that you referred to our previous conversation, because I did mention that bump emails, for those who don't know, bump email is basically sending a one-liner that bumps your initial email to the top of the inbox without taking away merit from the relevance of that first email. And typically, that's a step that can be automated, even when it comes to mid-market and enterprise. Another thing that could be automated using tools, let's say like HeyReach, which is a LinkedIn automation tool, that let's say you have a list of 100 or 200 prospects that you're going to reach out to them in a second or third step of that outbound sequence anyway, and you're going to send a connection request. That's then typically a task that you could automate. Now, there are ways that you can still sound spammy.

Like when you're pitching in the connection request, so don't do that, or pitching five minutes after someone accepts your connection request. So those are the things that, even though you're using automation, you should avoid, but there are two good ways that you, let's say you can use, or three ways you can use social selling to increase your efforts. Number one, just liking someone's post, making sure that you pop up in their notification feed. Now they're familiar with your profile pic, your name, your company, what you do.

And that makes it much more likely that they're going to respond to your emails when you do pop up in their inbox. And when you're sending connection requests, you can send just a blank request, typically good for people who are trying to grow their audience anyway, and send like a personal touch to someone who might not accept all, and every one of the connection requests that they do send. Like what is like a one-liner that you can write to show that you did your research on them and it would be cool to connect.

That's one way to avoid sounding spammy when it comes to social selling and something that also improves your reply rates. But I mentioned HeyReach. Curious to see if you also have some tools that you advocate using, whether we're talking about outreach for sales reps or specifically Founder-led Sales.

Brigitta Ruha (28:36.182)

Yeah, great question. I think when it comes to Founder-led Sales, and when we are thinking about automation, I think one way is that if it's really Founder-led Sales and definitely product market fit or just even, you know, in a building phase, I think the focus should be the kind of a BizDev, meaning that you ask for product feedback and generally just kind of using the messages to validate the need and challenge and get feedback, and not really pitch ourselves because still I still get a lot of messages, a lot of social that are still very just pitchy, very saucy.

And I think when you are a founder, especially it's the worst thing to do. And because you are always a little bit unknown and small and not yet the kind of, you don't have that kind of brand, I think for Founder-led Sales, the goal should be to build relationships and how you build relationships is definitely ask for product feedback and not sales, because it will come later. If you are interested, if you are interesting for them, it will come later. And I think that's the way to go.

And for other side, that when they are kind of, there is a transition between Founder-led Sales and sales or sales led, regardless if it's product led motion or less product led motion, I think the kind of good tools that can give a lot of help is definitely the intent or insights related tools, like anything from the G2 reviews to product scale, PredictLeads, Lonescale, basically anything that you can give you any insights when it's the right time, when it's the right time to reach out to the people. And then the messaging is the other part that, okay, do you do this for relationship building or do you do this for product building? It just depends on the stage where the company is.

Viktor Hatfaludi (30:27.609)

And just to tie this into the topic of today's discussion, relationship building, it's not something that you can automate, right? Or not in my experience.

Brigitta Ruha (30:38.847)

Yeah.

Viktor Hatfaludi (30:54.577)

So when you mentioned that specific exercise of founders reaching out to their target group, asking for feedback, typically what I do think it helps if they also like give something of value like, hey, I can give you like a week long trial, like we're trying to validate this challenge for this, these types of people happy to give you like a two week free trial. If, uh, if you're open to feedback, would, would you be open to like a back and forth, you know, experience sharing is like that something that you would advocate.

Brigitta Ruha (31:12.498)

My honest, really honest question, answer on this is it really depends if the product, meaning the challenge is relevant for me. Yes. And also depending on how busy I am. Sometimes I just say, hey, I'm going to trial just because that's, you know, sometimes I just say, okay, just what if you just send the video of why? Because then if I go to trial, maybe, you know, it's just like, okay, I don't want to really bother about it. And especially the higher people you're talking, the less.

they would like to actually install something, they will just forward or delegate. So it also depends on that. But I think providing a value, even if it's not a trial, but just generally anything else that maybe a kind of influencer pose that is relevant to that person, I think can also be a good way to start building relationships because anybody like, if you try to help somebody, then it's a really good way to build a relationship and maybe the trial also comes later or maybe that person will ask that...

Okay, yeah, and then he will bring this question also.

Mistakes to avoid when balancing personalisation and automation

Viktor Hatfaludi (32:15.613)

Yeah, you make a really good point there. So one thing that I just noticed is that so far we've been talking about all the ways that we can use automation in our bounds in a good way and when we should use the human touch. But typically people say that it's easier to avoid pitfalls than it is to do everything right. So here's an interesting one.

You know how sales and marketing teams point the finger at each other all the time? In your experience, who should own what part of outreach or outbound specifically and more specifically when it comes to automation since that's today's topic.

Brigitta Ruha (33:02.614)

Yeah, I think the high level kind of describe it, but as a kind of recap, it's like, if it's product-led motion, then it's basically will be really kind of automated. And then I think the growth and the product is the right people who should own that part. And when it comes to more like product-led selling or more like marketing, let's say somewhere before transitioning into the fully enterprise, I think it's growth again, but with a really strong involvement with the sales, just because...

I think when the deal, when the targeting reaches a certain kind of engagement or the account is really interesting, then you might want to remove less automation parts such as low value, high value, account low value can be mostly or fully automated high value. Let's use the BDRs to really, to, you know, do more with the people you have. And you can also do this different, like, okay, if there is a really account that is really wants to talk to us, or maybe it reached a certain kind of account score then maybe you also want to channel into a sales team because there must be something why it's happening with the account. Versus when it comes to sales, that is definitely ABM and the handover to sales and the stage of the awareness and the lead score if it's very high enough.

Viktor Hatfaludi (34:16.573)

Right. I love how you defaulted to the channel strategy. Basically, is it product-led? Is it sales-led growth? Is it marketing-led growth, product-led sales maybe? So that's an insightful way to think about it.

Brigitta Ruha (34:42.262)

Yeah, and curious to see, for example, from your experience, like, OK, this is one way to add the kind of go-to-market motion. But if we remove the go-to-market motion from this model, what are the one or two things that you can do to align these things together in your experience? Because young marketing and sales, as you mentioned, will also kind of point out. And we know we have a specific go-to-market motion. But what else we can do to align the two things?

Viktor Hatfaludi (35:09.073)

Well, one thing that worked for us in the past is putting in place rules of engagement, basically just internal SLAs and defining who does what by when at each part of the buying journey, which starts at no awareness all the way until we're expanding the account. Who owns what by when? And we can talk about departments, we can talk about people and how fast they respond.

One specific thing that marketers call out is hey, I sent you an MQL and you haven't picked it up within two hours or within 24 hours even. So having these strict or some level of strict rules in place internally, I think if nothing else, then it does remove internal conflict, which is already better than pointing finger at each other, right?

Brigitta Ruha (36:05.034)

Yeah. And can you share us some other maybe real examples or challenges that arise or how other people can avoid it? Have you seen something else like SLA's or anything else that maybe we should also take into consideration when it comes to how marketing and sales work together?

Viktor Hatfaludi (36:22.457)

Yeah, another, so SLAs are one thing and then making sure that we're like all as a go to market team, we're working on the same things or and or building on top of each other's efforts instead of working in different silos. So one thing that worked for us is putting in place monthly territory team sync meetings. These territory team meetings would like we had a separate one for EMEA and separate one for the American market.

And typically we involved the sales team, BizDev and ASE. We had the marketing team, content, product marketing, growth marketing, and the customer success team. Because everyone's working on something, marketing's building top of funnel, sales is building top of funnel, but also a closing bottom of funnel, and then customer success is growing these accounts. But which accounts are we actually targeting? Are marketing warming of the accounts the enterprise sales reps want to outbound as well. So we're actually using an account-based marketing strategy. And these territory team meetings made sure that we are targeting the same accounts. We are all respond, we all know what we are responsible for that in turn will result in us reaching our revenue goals as a region. So I think if.

I had to pick just one real life example. It would be that put in place monthly territory team meetings so that everyone knows what the other silo, it won't be a silo after that, right? So what each team is working on is transparent for everyone. And let's say if someone, one department, one person within one department needs input or help support from someone at another, at another department, they could ask for help and then everyone gets to finish projects on time. So that's something that I always advocate for. So I think, yeah, so the three pitfalls that we covered were how to avoid sales and marketing teams pointing the finger, who owns what part of the automation, how do you align these teams and just a practical example of that.

Wrapping things up

Viktor Hatfaludi (38:45.109)

To sum everything up, what would you say, or what advice would you give organizations who are looking to strike the right balance between automation and leaving the human element in?

Brigitta Ruha (38:58.326)

Yeah, I think there are three main things and the conclusions. Basically, what we discussed is definitely whether you automate or not, always try to customize the message and make sure that it's relevant and timely. So if it's computed because it's an assembly bid market, then compute it, but make sure that somebody checking in on the computation parts really works so it's relevant, timely and tailored. And I think the second part is use and select the outbound strategies really according to your go-to-market motion. And that's your...

really top number of our revenue goal. So if you want to do like also mid-market and enterprise, or if you also want to do SMB and mid-market, that's fine, but you have to dedicate the resources there and make sure that both marketing and sales really go after the same people and really align on that goal. And it's not, sales chase these type of accounts and the different motion and the other two differently. So really use any kind of strategy. So including outbound and use it and build it according to your go-to-market motion.

And the last part, I think, is that especially once you move up market, before that, try to think about how technology can automate the low value task, because if reps in sales and marketing can also focus more on the value-added task, like enrichment and those messages that you would send anyway, then it's really a better way to do so, because then marketing and sales can focus on selling and not just, you know, the heavy, heavy enrichment part and researching. So really automated all over, repeatedly task and use and enable the teams to focus on the high value task because that will result in a higher revenue at the end of the day, which is what all companies and teams want to achieve.

Viktor Hatfaludi (40:43.093)

Wow, you really summed that up nicely. So thanks, Brigi, for joining today's session. Really enjoyed our talk. For viewers who would want to read more of your content and get in touch, where can they find you?

Brigitta Ruha (40:57.746)

Yeah, so just check Grow(th) Today with Brigi and just sign up for the newsletter and then you will see everything, what are the kind of best practices from courses and just really get into a kind of better revenue area and then teams can work together and automation and everything is right correctly. So Grow(th) today with Brigi.

Viktor Hatfaludi (41:21.045)

Thanks, Brigi. For the viewers still listening, I'll leave a link to all the resources in the description below. Thanks, Brigi, and see you around.

Brigitta Ruha (41:30.818)

Thank you, Victor, for having me. It was exciting to talk to you and discuss these topics.

Thanks for tuning in!

If you enjoyed this post why not share it with a friend?

Also don’t forget to subscribe to my free newsletter so you get notified when the next post goes live!