CRO/CMO/Founders Roundtable

controversial, I might not put it up there. But, you know, just try to think of like we want to be open, honest, and not afraid to share. But we also like to use this for people that couldn't make the roundtable as well. So right now it looks like we have about 20 people join. Again, please put your information in chat. Um, I usually take my signature file from my, um, um, emails and put it in here so you guys can see who I am. There's 3 buttons next to your name there that you can basically save the chat. Um, I would put more— like, I see a lot of people just putting their LinkedIn. If you look at me, I got my phone number, my email, Some examples. Um, it's, it's easier— just make it easy for someone to get a hold of you. Like, if you look at my email, my name and Victor's name, Michael Filato slash Full Throttle Filato Leads. Ryan, same thing for you. Add who are you, who's Ron. Like, is Ron a president of this company? Is he— I help this, or my company is that. So Rajiv always does the same thing, Assassin for Hire New York City. He helps basically, uh, free your name up if it gets somehow tarnished. So I don't even have to talk to Rajiv yet. At least, at least I know a little bit between his background and his title there that he does this for people. So same thing with Bob. Bob does, you know, does this all the time with me. So this is, that's just a little, um, Tip that I learned is like there's time on air, and if you're on a TV show or being interviewed, it says Matt Dixon, but I have no idea what company Matt Dixon's at. I got no clue until he talks to, to say that. So I would definitely add that, Matt, as well. See, not to call you out, Matt, but I always appreciate feedback. I mean, the only thing I know is I learned this from watching other people. I was the same guy. I love when people have like small letters and it's their kid's name because their kids use Zoom before them, so they logged in, it's their kid's account. Um, I think we got decent amount, right? Sean McDonald's coming in. We got just about everyone in. Yeah. So I'm Michael Filato. I am the CEO founder of Full Throttle Filato Leads. I live in Orlando, been in sales for 25 years. Started this roundtable up 3 years ago as a way to kind of attract people to engage, interact, hopefully sell something with them, to them, from them, be sold to. Actually, not maybe sold to, but help. I want someone to help me and teach me new things. And that's kind of why I started doing this. Um, it's a really good tool for people to actually use as a front line of opening the door. Everybody uses email, LinkedIn to say, I do this and I help that, and here's 20% off of this if you try. And it's all about them. It's what they say about that whole you know, we, we, we, I, I, I. It's too much. So make it about what you do. And that's why when I do these roundtables, I said, listen, I want you to be a special guest because you are engagement on this thing. It's not Michael Filato, let me show you all these automation tools I use and maybe you can use me. I mean, I love to— if you guys have questions about automation, LinkedIn, email, and roundtables, happy to chat about it. It does produce meetings because we all talk to each other, but it's business dating. Think about when you were single and go, did I just ask that lady or, or man, whoever, on a cruise the first time I met them? Or did I get to know them? Did I go to Starbucks? Did I find out what they like? Is there a fit? It's the same thing as business. You know, we all know that I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I do know relationships and I was the guy that would go be a little bit of rough around the edges, go, let's cut. What can I do to get this agreement in front of you? What keeps you up at night, Steve? That's stupid questions that we did in 1990. You know, the best question I ever thought about was, hey Victor, you joined the roundtable today, what grabbed your attention? Or you booked a meeting with me and then Victor goes, well, I— this is what's going on in my life and this is why I'm looking. I just got back to budget authority needs and timing by asking a question like a doctor or like a lawyer, but very casually. It's how you present yourself is how you're going to get energy back. And I'm not a psychologist, but it works. I learned this only 3 years ago, that question. Steve, you booked the time with me. What grabbed your attention? What brought you to the table today that you actually said, I'll talk to Michael today? I said it just like that and I get tons of information instead of going, so what are you using now? How do you like that? If people feel like they're being investigated, guess what? Boom, they close down. So, um, I was guilty of all this bad stuff. And then back in the day, you know, doing Legion for myself, getting D&B, uh, files and trying to get leads and making phone calls. I mean, that's just a horrible idea to spend all that time trying to wonder if someone's even interested or in the same cycle as you. Get to know who they are, what they do, why they do it. And event-based approach, gonna see you're gonna be at Dreamforce or Event 2.0 conference. Do you wanna have a cup of coffee? I'm gonna be there. Even if you're not going to be there, just say, hey, I'm probably going to be at the show. Make as best efforts as you can. If you can't make it, say, listen, I'm not coming. We reached out on email or LinkedIn. I want to basically book a, a virtual cup of coffee with you. Is that okay? If they're really interested in talking to you and you're interested in talking to them, they're gonna, they're gonna book that time with you. Find ways to automate whether it's using me or anyone else, the opening, you know, it's just make sure it's an ICP and persona that you want to go after. Why should they care? Who cares? So what? Why are you bugging me? How does this help me? And why is this going to keep— help me keep my job or my company? Talk to here and here, then you're going to get a meeting at least. Then it's up to you to do your magic as an entrepreneur, salesperson, or whatever. I'm not the most educated man in the world. I got a bachelor's degree, but I know how— I know this space. Automate what you can. Use human interaction and, and the human touch to cultivate. Otherwise, you're wasting time on the whole top of funnel side, unless you are selling missiles to the Department of Defense and there's only 10 military and federal and state things you could sell to, you don't need automation. Do it, spend the time really one-to-one-to-one. So that's my long tale, what I do, why I do it. Um, that's not what I really want everybody to do because, uh, um, we want to get through any points or strategies. So I want to open up the floor to anybody have questions about what I said, and then I'm going to open up I'm gonna start asking people to raise their hand and say who they are, what they do. But it's not about— don't tell me a commercial. Tell me like what you do, where you live, and the reason why you're here is because I was trying to figure this out. I've been banging my head on this. I know like MK I was talking to, um, a couple days ago, and she's like, I'm launching a new product and I want to get people's opinion about A, B, and C. I forgot everything we talked about, but there's— I know she would have a great ask and also give. Um, I know I have Munya, um, that's, uh, my friend from Africa that helps companies from Africa come to the US and vice versa. We're actually doing a roundtable together, I think on the 15th. So I'm gonna first ask if anybody has a question or feedback on what I asked. Then I'm probably going to go to Munya and then MK because I know I want to highlight them real quick. So anybody have a question about what I interjected so far? You can raise your hand on the— or just talk, I guess. Rajiv, I knew it would be Rajiv. Go ahead. I'm just kidding.

I just want to quickly comment on what Michael said is that, you know, thinking of this as business dating, I think is very relevant because Think of it as two ways, right? You're kind of trying to put your best face or foot forward. You're trying to speak about— you're trying to engage with people such that people have a clear understanding as to who you are, how they can potentially benefit, because this is business. And I think the dating part of it is mostly just to be a little bit more sociable and to be a little bit more approachable, be a good listener. You know, something that I heard a while back was try to be interesting and interested, you know. So those two things, interesting and interested. So when you display those attributes, there's a very high likelihood that the other party may also choose to be interested in you, which obviously then becomes a springboard for further conversation.

Cool. Thank you, Rajiv. So I'm going to go to Munya, are you there? Munya?

I am, Michael.

So Munya, um, what's, what's, what's two things that either I said or you, or you want to bring up, the questions, or, or something that not as general as, as kind of what I would do? This, I'm talking about really specific things that we can figure out how to use it, like be, you know, be outgoing or not outgoing is great feedback, but I want like, like stuff where it's like, I didn't even think about that, you know. It's like we're getting some good insights from people. I know it's almost like a master class, but I don't want to call it a master class because I don't know how many master classes we have here, but mastermind we could call it. So do you have any— do you have anything like, like, hey, I'm— I really helped— not really, not you, but What's the biggest challenge that you see companies from Africa or any other country coming in the US that you can say, you know what, these are two things that if you're ever talking to a foreign country trying to get in the US, you should think about, hey, don't do this, or hey, do this, because especially in today's tariffs world, you should think about this.

Any—

educate us.

Yeah, Michael, very good question. I think for me, the, the challenge, which is also why we're having this session, is that we've become a very global ecosystem. The fact that I'm sitting here 8,000 miles from the US in Zimbabwe, Africa, right, and we're having the same conversations around AI, about go-to-market strategy, I think that the world's becoming much smaller. And I think the challenge with that is how do you then do very specific target marketing and leveraging these tools such as AI and machine learning to really understand your audience. And one specific example for me is that you look at companies like Netflix, Netflix, Uber are doing very well in Africa, right? But they've been able to really customize their models and be relevant for the ecosystem. So I love these sessions because I get to hear what people are doing and open-minded about how they're thinking about these opportunities. Specifically as it relates to, you know, for these companies who are either looking to expand into Africa or for African businesses that are also expanding into the US. Waymo is a good example. That's actually an African-funded company.

Are you seeing African— I mean, this is kind of a weird question, but are you seeing in Netflix, is the content changed a lot for more African?

Absolutely. Absolutely. Netflix has gotten that model very well. In fact, it's not just the content, but it's actually the pricing. So I think of the time that when I was still in the US, I'd pay $19.99 for Netflix subscription. You come to Kenya, it's $3.99, but the content is very specific to, to, to, to the market. So I think that, uh, there are some global companies that have got that model very, very, uh, well, well locked down. But I think there's still a lot of opportunity.

LinkedIn changes some of their Sales Navigator pricing for different countries too.

Yeah, absolutely. But I still think the challenge is that we still, you know, Africa's 54 countries, you know, the same marketing, direct kind of strategy of, you know, trying to get a customer in Kenya is very different from South Africa. So that's the challenge we overall kind of navigate where we are from. But yeah, those are the challenges that are top of mind for me.

Thanks, Munir. If you guys want to join one with Munir and I, it's kind of a cool collaboration in a couple of weeks. What was that one? AI? What's the topic of that?

Yeah, we were bringing CEOs together to talk about AI and the challenges around that. And I think it would be a great session because again, we're getting a whole cross-cutting edge of CEOs, just asking them, you know, what are their challenges, how they're navigating the system, because You know, you know, we're also in an ecosystem in Africa where our unemployment rate is high. So these are real issues. Yeah.

And I know, I know, Munya and I were talking about inviting VPs and not just CEOs, and I encouraged him, and we were supposed to talk about this today. In America here, it's definitely VPs, directors, CEOs that all become part of the ecosystem. No one Rougie makes a decision, at least here, without having 4 other people go, yeah, he's either not invented here, I didn't screw this up, or we did this as a team. Or I appreciate probably more that Steve, my VP, uh, Tanya, my director, and my manager, and my other CEO are in alignment. Row in the same direction on your— on that canoe, otherwise you're going zigzag. So I was going to talk to you about that later, but if you want to kind of interject on how people think here in companies, I think it's a lot more, lot less of a one-person decision, even if you are a founder here, that you got to have buy-in from your team, otherwise you're not going to do it. MK, do you want to, you want to interject?

Yeah, so Michael, I agree with that statement, but one of the things we're seeing is Private sessions with the CEOs that are more educational. So they all know they have to use it. They don't know where to start or where to begin. Like really, they don't know where to start. They know the language. They've got generative AI confused with agentic AI and they don't really know. So if you're trying to do educational, I think the private CEO session, CEO to CEO, where they can safely ask the dumb question. And I've got some content for you guys that I'll share with you. And I've got a white paper that I wrote on responsible AI adoption that we've been out. So I'll give you those things. So if you're trying to get them educated so then they can know how to make the decision, I'd keep it smaller and private, just the CEOs. If you're trying to say, here's the actions to take your decision, then I would open it up, Michael.

Yeah. So, uh, Ron, who's a good friend of mine, who's probably gonna be working with me soon— Ron, what do you think so far of what we've been talking about as far as the decision process tree? And what have you seen in your space of, man, I learned something, or wow, that was really bad? And I'm not going to suggest anybody do what I just did or something I just did that was really great in the last 6 weeks, 8 weeks. A lot of things have changed based on politics, tariffs, good and bad things. I mean, the market's doing this, market's doing that. Um, this year has been really strange for me as far as pressure. People are scared to make decision. I thought it would be like, boom, we're gonna go crazy. Um, I think we're on the right path. That's personally, but I want to get Ron's, uh, Ron's vision.

Michael, love everything about you, man. Just total respect for you. Uh, a couple of things.

So I think it, it very— before you do that, say who you are, what you do, and, and because I forgot to ask you to introduce yourself. Sorry.

I'm Ron Hubsher. I run a company called the Sales Optimization Group. We specialize in sales and negotiation training. We have a sale— a close— we have a, a negotiation system called Closing Time. So we help companies increase close rates and reduce discounting. By our negotiation methodology.

And where are you based?

Based in Florida, Boynton Beach, Florida. And we serve clients worldwide. Yeah.

Ron, I'm in West Palm.

Oh, okay.

We should get together.

Yeah.

Excellent. Yeah, I'm just up the road. And our ideal— our ICP is any business-to-business sales organization. We do mostly with SaaS, but we go across the board, anything business-to-business. And Michael, to complement what you were saying, a couple things. I find it's very industry-specific. So we have one client who literally, they literally import tropical fruit and tariffs have just totally screwed them up. Like they are in total paralysis because they have no idea. One day it's one thing, one day it's another. SaaS companies tend to be a little more isolated, but they're worried about the environment. So when I look at our portfolio, We always skew more towards SaaS and technology. And software seems to be the most insulated from tariffs. But there's just an overhang of what's going on in the economy. So very similar, Michael, I find. Yeah, I find more indecision this year than in the past.

And what kind of grabbed your attention to join the roundtable today?

Uh, one of the things I'm always looking to grow, and, uh, you know, what works, what doesn't work. Um, so every year I do an analysis of where our clients come from. And, uh, every year, uh, so it always— the number one is happy customers leaving firms to go to a new place. That's our number one source of new leads. And then it's all the above. And, uh, What I find is LinkedIn works best, um, than anything, uh, as far as getting response rates and everything. So that, that's where we're focusing more of our, our efforts in LinkedIn.

And you—

are you automating that approach? Are you doing it manually? Do you have SDRs?

Yeah, we just crank it out manually, which is really ineffective, you know. Not, no, not, not ineffective, um, labor intensive is a better way of putting putting it.

Yeah, cool. All right, um, let's get— let's get, um— I've, I've not heard— seen this name. Chris DeSelkie, come off camera and just kind of give us a little, uh, why you joined the roundtable and maybe a couple things that you want to share. Chris DeSelkie. Guess he's, uh, busy. How about— I see Gregory Austin here. Hello. Hey, Greg.

Hey, good to see you, man.

Good to see you.

Uh, so Gregory Austin, I'm a director of business development and bioanalysis for a contract research organization called Solarion, and sell bioanalytical lab services to biotech pharma. In the eastern part of the US. I'm based in the vacation capital of the world, Kansas City. If you haven't been here, you gotta— you usually fly over, you gotta stop and get some barbecue. Um, I, I jest, but, uh, the reason I came, uh, back to this is I wanted to first of all thank you, Mike, because I started using Linked Helper, um, and I think it was you that suggested that.

That's what I use.

And it's, it's been a very helpful tool that has helped me reach out to a lot more people within and kind of outside my first connect network for some corporate events that we do that generate leads and just getting, being able to do more and get more out there. Very careful because automation kind of scares me and I want to remain authentic as possible, but part of the reason I joined today is just to kind of hear if anyone else is using it, if anyone else has— can share any best practices. And I'm happy to share any of my experiences if you're interested.

Yeah, obviously with Linked Helper, there's a lot of things you got to know and not— and do or not do. Um, there's a lot of things like proxy servers so you don't look like you're basically, uh, in another country doing it. And then there's a lot of tips and tactics around How do you scrape lists? How do you go after your first connections versus second connections?

Groups.

There's ways to look at open profiles on LinkedIn where you can send free in-mails. There's all these things that you could, A, try to learn yourself, or B, you know, hire, uh, hire an expert like myself. Not to do a commercial, but, um, let's go with Louis. I haven't seen Louis here before. Or Luis?

It is Luis. And it is my first time. I can't even remember how I came across this Mastermind. Anyway, I'm Luis Bardov. I am a CTO and a CEO of several organizations focused on AI. So I am kind of the AI geek in the room.

Okay.

So what we do is we both implement large language model AI projects as well as we have our own AI. So we've actually developed a very, very interesting and some may say very scary AI.

Why is it scary?

It determines human personality from an image of their face.

Oh boy, so now everybody knows I'm a jerk before they even talk to me. Great.

Now let's, let's twist it a little bit. If I know, if I know your personality as you walk in the door, I know exactly how to sell to you. I know what motivates you. I know how to push your buttons.

And how do you do that? By just the way I walk?

No, just from your face.

My face. Okay, what if I'm having a bad day, or what if I'm taking, uh, antidepressants that day? I mean, there's a lot of—

again, again, it is, it is, it is, it's about genetics. So, so it's the genetics of the face. It's not, it's not how you feel, whether you're smiling or, or nothing like that. It's just your— the genetics of your face, uh, and we have a lot of research that shows that you're actually born with your personality.

Interesting, right?

While it may develop over time, the foundation you're born with, that is genetics.

Is that also being used besides sales but also for, for Homeland Security type stuff?

Uh, we haven't gone the government side yet. Uh, we're starting to have conversations. But mostly this is, you know, we focused on commercial. So think about it when you're hiring someone, when you're trying to determine if, you know, this person is a fit to your team, as well as, you know, sales motivation, sales motivations, dating and personals. So I come from a background of dating and personals.

So you, you work for those companies?

So I was one of the first, uh, VPs of engineering at Match.com for 8 years. So my team and I pretty much built Match.com.

Awesome. Yeah, there's Bumble and Tinder and—

yeah, there's all that, but you know, the, the foundation— remember, Match today owns about 90% of the entire dating ecosystem worldwide.

Worldwide. What do you think? What do you think could match up with Match, no pun intended, in the business world? Because LinkedIn's obviously that, but it's not doing anything close to, to like connecting people. Like, I'm trying to do this somewhat manually using automation, but then now we're talking to get to know each other. But it would be great. It'd be really awesome if there's a way to, to swipe left or swipe right if I want to talk to somebody too.

There's nothing stopping us from making that happen, right? The real question is, is it the problem with swipe left and right?

I know that was kind of a joke part. Yeah, you're not.

Yeah, I know. But, but the problem is, is you don't know what you're going to get. Yeah, whereas LinkedIn— LinkedIn to me, and, and that's my preferred platform, is where, where you actually— if, if you read people's profile, you know what you're going to get.

Yeah, and that's a good thing to point out there. I don't know if you meant to point out, I see a lot of profiles— VP of Sales, Michael Filato, picture not well lit, no background. It should be my— look at mine, Michael Pilato, nice background, well lit. I am help with go-to-market, I'm a veteran, I have a black belt. Tell a story. Don't make it be a front-facing resume, but sell what you do and why you do it, why people should care. Just like it— just like your profile in a dating match, right? It's like, don't just say I like long walks on the beach. Exactly, exactly. And don't— and don't— what's the thing? If it's on LinkedIn or Match, don't, um, catfish, right? Don't put a picture 25 years old. And also be realistic of what you looking for, uh, as a match in Match or, or in LinkedIn, because otherwise you're wasting your time and their time. And there's a lot of that going on, like, let's just network. Well, Why should we network? You know, make it something about them, right? I mean, I don't want to be the only one speaking about this stuff, but I— it seems like with your background you can give us a little insight. I, I find what you're doing is really interesting because, uh, I never thought about the whole structure of your face and how that could actually make it real. I mean, what's— is there case studies that, that you guys use? And how, how much business are you guys getting right now doing it? Because it's very interesting.

Um, so we're, we're about to launch a commercial product. So, so far it's been B2B, but we're getting ready to launch a commercial product where anybody for $29 can get one of these, one of these, uh, analyses done.

What is this company called?

The company is called Phenometrix. And I'm going to put it in the chat.

I think it needs a shorter, more explanatory explanation.

Well, the product— this is the company. The product is called FaceCode.

FaceCode? Love it.

Love it.

Anybody have any feedback on it? I mean, I really didn't come across this Lewis solution here, but it's pretty damn interesting. Who raised their hand?

I had a question.

Last year, I think Europe actually came out with some laws that were preventing the use of AI for things like emotional intelligence, emotional, you know, basically trying to do what it is that you're doing over in Europe. So it's a—

Nope.

How does this whole thing play into that? It has nothing to do with emotions. It's a static image. It's a static image of basically a driver's license picture. No smiling. We don't care right now. There, there is a law, and, and the one law that is actually in the United States is actually in Illinois, which is their, their, uh, I forgot the name of it. But anyway, so, so Illinois has a very, very strict law about biometrics and the use of biometrics. And if you guys follow any of the lawsuits that are going on around the world, there's a lot of biometric law that originates in Illinois. Now, here's the fact. If you give consent, then all that goes out the door, right? You just have to give consent, right? And say, hey, I, I am allowing you to do this.

This ain't California, it's actually Illinois. This is interesting.

Yeah, uh, California is not, is not as, as, uh, severe as Illinois, but yes. So, so we are very familiar with GDPR in California, and we've actually been Is that where you're based?

I'm sorry, you're in California?

No, we're actually in Dallas.

You are too?

Yeah, I am in Dallas. Yeah, but, uh, no, in, uh, in California we actually had the, uh, the AG actually go through our process and actually evaluated and said nothing to look— nothing to see here. As long as you ask for permission, right, for consent, yeah, you're free, you're free to do that. And, and in a, in a commercial product, right, you're taking your own picture, you are giving consent, you, you are saying, yes, I am agreeing to this. Now, if you take somebody else's picture without their consent, that's on you.

Igor, I want to kind of open it up.

I see a lot of, a lot of hands popping up.

Igor, go ahead. You there? Good question.

So I want him to put a screen so you can't put that guy who wants to walk on the beach with his bathing suit as his match profile picture. I just live in Florida and just like Please, Louis, can we just—

how about—

how about—

I've been—

I've been away from that for a few years, but yeah, I know some, some of them are just—

the guy with the fish is what drove me nuts.

Yeah, yeah.

So like, I'm looking at guys, but you, you guys have no idea what, what I've seen.

Yeah, well, I'm inside, Louis. I probably have a very good idea what you're seeing.

Yeah, I'm just getting divorced, so I'm back on the dating apps, and, uh, it's amazing some of these pictures of people, or, or, hey, I'm looking for, uh, to get to, uh, for my love language is gifts. Okay, great. Pay to play on either that or on business, which is the whole nother politics thing.

Yeah, I wanted to ask a quick question from Louis. Louis, when you're talking about, you know, looking at the picture of the person and determining their personality, I've seen that your personality evolves as you grow sometimes. So does age on the picture— how does that impact the outcome? I think it does, but I wanted to hear your thoughts on that.

You are 100% correct. So what we've done, we've actually done timeline tests, right? So here's a 2-year-old picture of at 2, at 4, at 10, at 20, and the person is now 70 years old. Okay, so we can map a human personality from, from literally about 2 years old on forward. The foundational personality is there from the beginning, right? If a 4-year-old on a playground who is the leader of the gang will end up being the CEO of the company, Right. So, so that, that evolution occurs over time. Now it's not exact, right? So, so that 4-year, and, and we, we measure in terms of, of traits. So those traits, some of those traits change over time, but the core personality is there from the beginning to end. Now, so we did this literally yesterday on, on a CEO a retired CEO, right? When he was 4 years old, he was very, let's call him a hard-ass, okay? When he was CEO, he was less of a hard-ass. But so it adjusted over time, right? He was more human, humanizing along the way. But at the end of the day, the personality is the personality. You're born with it, whether you, whether you believe it or not. We have genetic, we have genetic, I mean, papers of geneticists and psychologists. And there's over 40 years of research in this space. And actually, a lot of it came from Russia. Initially on, on the progression of, of genetics as they relate to personality.

Makes sense. So when I want to kind of dovetail into Michael's question about applying this in sales, so it doesn't really matter how old the picture is, you can still get the information that you need to enable you on that sales journey, right?

Exactly.

Okay.

And our system, again, I'm going to pitch and I'm going to shut up. So we also have the ability to, if you're in a dating situation, right, to put both people together and see how they mesh.

What your kids are going to look like?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We don't do that. That, that is, that is beyond our, our capability. But you know, you're going to love this person, or you're gonna have a problem with this person.

I'd be curious how accurate this is. This is not normally something I go this deep into because I don't want to be commercial, but when it's this interesting and this unique, we should dive deeper because I don't, I don't know anybody else on here that does this or has this capability. But Munya, go ahead.

I, I'm particularly interested in this technology as it relates to, uh, the visa interview process. I think you might be aware that the US is one of the very few, uh, countries in the world that still has in-person interviews for, for visa approvals. I think Canada, the UK has all automated. So I'm curious how you see this apply to kind of visa processes.

Again, we have not interacted very much with any government entity for this.

Okay.

For our own personal reasons, we just prefer to be just commercial.

There's a lot of other headaches with governments that you can—

Well, and I'll tell you the number one problem, and we've experienced this with other projects, is at the point where the government is involved, they can restrict your travel. They can say, uh, you can't go here, you can't go here. You— because of, of knowledge, they can actually restrict where you can actually travel. So that's, that's one of, one of the reasons that we are not looking to, uh, engage with the government.

Yeah.

Have you, uh—

again, this is— I don't want to get so deep in this, but You guys, are you guys, uh, VC funded, or like, are you getting revenue now?

Or right now we are self-funded. Okay, so, so we, we own 99.8% of this, and, and there's just 3 of us.

I see a Sylvia on here. Sylvia, do you want to come off camera and mic and introduce yourself?

Sure.

Hey everyone, Sylvia Quirizosa in the Tampa Bay area in Florida. I heard there are a few Floridians over here. Yeah, um, finally good weather this week. Um, uh, you have been inviting me to come to these meetings for about a year now, and, and I'm just logging in for the first time, just listening to what you guys do here, um, and, um, just enjoying the conversation.

I will put in my LinkedIn information so that we can What do you do?

I am a leader in revenue operations, sales operations for high-tech companies.

So you work at a company or you're a consultant for many companies?

Currently I'm working for a company, but I'm also in the process of transitioning to start my own business.

Oh, cool. And what are you going to start?

When or what am I going to start?

Both.

Um, well, I'm hoping that probably in the third, fourth quarter of the year, um, I like to start my own consulting business on helping companies grow their top and bottom lines.

What's— what company you work at now?

Uh, I work for a hardware company called Promethean.

Okay, and what do they do?

Uh, they, uh, manufacture dynamic panels and software associated to the product.

Cool.

Any questions for Sylvia?

I do have a question for Gregory. You mentioned earlier that you started using Link Helper. Yeah. And I was wondering if you wouldn't mind just sharing a little bit about your experience. Never heard of Link Helper. How do you use it and why do you like using it?

Sure.

Yeah, no, thanks. So it's a third-party app that, you know, connects through your LinkedIn profile and can act basically as an agent on your behalf to, to do a number of things. And the way I use it is if I need to get a list of people on LinkedIn into, let's say, an Excel spreadsheet, I can do a search based on you know, bioanalysis director location, and then get that list and put it into a CSV file. And from there we can use other tools to try and get some emails, for example. I've also used it, we've, we've put on a couple of very successful kind of like dinner, scientific dinner meetings that are like networking and some, it's like a mini conference in a, in a dinner setting. And I would, you know, find the people that I know, like first connects in Boston and have just a, a nice message. They know me, so they're probably going to at least maybe pay attention to it if they see it. And it'll go out and you can set the message either through InMail or through your regular, you know, LinkedIn messaging DM, and it'll just, it'll do it. And the way it works is it works like a human. You can watch it working on the screen and it will click on this name and it will open up the message and you'll see it typing so that LinkedIn doesn't, you know, feel that it's automated because unfortunately it is a, you know, not really with their terms and conditions if you use it that way. Thanks, Michael.

Yeah, I was going to say I'm the one that told them about it so I can give you a little more insight.

Yeah, it's really cool. And I've used— so what's nice about it is I can say, oh, I want to reach out to these 150 people I know in Boston for this event. And it will just send it out. And so it'll, it'll take a couple, 3 hours maybe to run through all those. But I can be doing other things and then I can just respond to the people who are responding. And you can set it up as a cadence where it'll do it. You can, if they don't respond, it'll send them a second message. Hey, the meeting's coming up in a couple of weeks, just letting you know, you know, those types of things. And I'm really, I try to be really careful about how I generate those lists and how I message so it doesn't sound like— because I hate getting this automated stuff, ironically. So, but I think there's a way to use it, use it well. But you got to be careful scrubbing your list because I have accidentally sent messages to competitors that have bioanalysis in their title.

You got to have Sales Navigator to do it. You got to really spend the time to know how to use this. Yeah, I can recommend this for like solopreneurs to, to do this. I actually help companies that have like more of a company, more than just one or two people, right? Because then it's affordable for them to use this. But there's levels to knowing how to use a software, right? Um, and what we're talking— the biggest thing I noticed when I use Link Helper is I private label it, one thing. So people— I don't even tell people it's Link Helper. But on here I kind of tell some of my secrets, but you still have to know how to use it. And the biggest thing here is warm-up, invite, and follow-up. Is you, you basically follow them, you invite them to connect. Don't send an invite like, I see that your profile is this, and then I was— I'm really interested in your business and you look like you're doing well. I want to throw up when I get those. It's just horrible. Don't send a message on invite. Just say, like, to invite— I like to connect with you. So you already followed them, then you send a message to invite, and then the follow-up is, hey, I'm going to be at this event, gonna be hosting event, do something like that. But if you start going follow-up is, hey, my name's Sylvia, I'm starting my own consulting, I would love to get your feedback— I don't know who you are, I don't know why you're asking me this, I don't have time to give you my feedback. So make it about them, not about you. It's my suggestion, Sylvia. You know, um, the other thing that's really interesting is messaging sequencing. Take your first connections when you're first starting. I booked $12,000 to $15,000 a month in my first 30 days being my own consultant in lead gen because I had 20,000 connect— 15,000 connections. Now I have 30,000. So go after your low-hanging fruit and say Hey, I wanna, I wanna basically introduce what I'm doing. They already know you a little bit. The other thing is, like he was saying, is scrape other events using this or using some Chrome extensions and look at other events. This one's really good at scraping LinkedIn events and saying, all these people are going to an event, how to use LinkedIn better. Why wouldn't I attack that? Me, because I sell LinkedIn automation. Fish where people fish. Guerrilla marketing. There's all these tips and tactics that you should think about when you're using tech. If you're using tech blindly, it's not going to work. If you're spending half your day trying to learn this and not run your business, not the best practice for yourself either. So leave the experts doing the expert things and start and stay with— stay in the lane so that you can be really good at your business is my opinion. I can mow my own grass. I can clean my own pavers. I can make more money talking and helping versus doing manual work that I do. The other thing would be in-mail sequencing. Um, you get 150 in-mails a month, I think, or week on LinkedIn. You could scrape things on Linked Helper. Everybody has an open profile. Open profile means like me, you can message me. They're open for communication. I don't have to pay for it. I don't need even Sales Navigator to do it. All these little things. But the whole idea, intent data would be things like, okay, they posted on LinkedIn, they're going to an event. That means that they're already interested in what you're, you're talking about or what you want them to talk about. When people start going to an event and just walking around, so Steve, what do you do? I see you at Dreamforce. You got no idea if the guy is an engineer, is a salesperson, a CRO, some guy that's starting his own company. It's, you're really throwing darts at the wall. You should really, really be machine gun approach, which is go fast and efficient, but be a sniper with that rifle. but have it rotating like a machine gun. It's how the best I could describe it being a military guy. It's like BABM, account-based marketing, but do it fast. Doesn't mean you have to— if you focus in and spend 35 minutes researching a company and, and then Gregor's like, I don't care who you are, leave me alone, now you just wasted it. So does that help you, Sylvia? Because I, I just want to make sure, because Gregory just started using it and he's doing some great things there, but this is— there's certain things that, that like each, each one of us is using that we're experts at. And if we try doing everything great, you're not going to be great at everything.

Yeah, I, I agree. And, and I think that you can, you can get like, I think, a free week trial just if you want to, you know, mess around with it and, and give it a test run. But it is not terribly intuitive or user-friendly. I think it's very complex and powerful.

Yeah, it was way worse than this. They didn't have any of these boxes to click on to set up a predetermined campaign. I had to do it from scratch 4 years ago. Wow.

Yeah, so, so I, I could see the value of having, you know, Michael and his team help, help with that because I, I struggle at times. I'll, I'll, I'll do what I can do, but I, I can only go so deep. Otherwise I'd be just spending all my time doing it.

My biggest tip and trick there is Groups. Join as many groups, 100 groups you could join. Don't think about posting in those groups and that's going to change the world. No one needs that. One-to-one. Don't sell, don't pitch slap. Find something that's in common. Don't say, I see that you went to Illinois State University. Great. Who cares? Yeah, but you say, hey, I saw you're an MMA jiu-jitsu guy like me. That's interesting to me. That's my love. Right? Cool. But the thing for me in a business would be events. Are you going to— I did this for SASTR. 6,000 messages went out, um, 6,000— like 4,000 messages went out, my first connections. Are you going to SASTR in San Mateo in May? 600 people responded. I had 45 meetings at SASTR. I had another 60 on, uh, just Zoom. Hey Michael, I haven't talked to— I know I'm not going to SaaS, or what is it?

Great.

I, you know, it's a little bit of a long-tail sale, but I just want to open the door. If I start selling like, yeah, I do lead gen, I want to do this, I want to do that, Michael's talking about himself again. Make it about something else than yourself, or about what they're doing. But you got to do it So it's not so AI-driven that it looks like, so I see that you, uh, worked at this company and you're in your— and your company's doing really well and I'm really excited about— that sounds like a bunch of crap in my opinion. I think most people have any idea of how all these AI automation tools come up. It's not authentic. You make up something because you saw something on someone's LinkedIn profile. I have 16 things that say I'm, I'm active at, which is Orlando Tech Community, this other community. That's not where I work, but that's what it picked up. Yeah, using automation, it picked up from that LinkedIn profile that I work— I don't work there. So if you have 10 clients you're going after, spend the time. Don't use automation, you know, maybe automation for your second, third tier But if you have 20 accounts, that's going to make you and break you. That's what you should focus in on. I'm a professional sales guerrilla marketing stud. I know that for a fact. Everything else I'm not as good at, but there should always be first, second, and third tiers that you're going after. First tiers, you should always spend that time looking at their financials. Put those financials, the PDFs, put it in, put it in, uh, ChatGPT and say Help me write a really emotional-driven how I can help this company, and here's who I am, here's who they are, and have that— have them write that core message and then finesse it and then look at it 3 other times and then tighten it up. Talk to ChatGPT or Gemini like you're— like they're a 2-year-old, and they will give you some good stuff back. Um, running out of time here. I want to get to Ron and then Igor, and then we're gonna, um, this is my marketing one. I do the first Tuesday of— first Wednesday of each month. I do a CEO, CRO, founder-led approach every second Tuesday and fourth Tuesday. Again, I try to make it more about what people are doing. I think we went very deep into Lewis today, but I gotta tell you, that's pretty interesting stuff. And when I hit something that I haven't heard before, sometimes I go— we go a little bit deeper with one person's, uh, background. But it doesn't mean that I'm selling that or that I normally do that. But the more unique and specific things you can talk about, the more we're going to talk about it because it's interesting. So go ahead, Igor.

Um, just one that— well, 2 things. I forgot to introduce myself. So I have a business consultancy. I help business founders and business owners grow from 6 figures to 8, and I focus on wholesale distributor, manufacturer, and tech companies. And the second thing I wanted to mention, what works for me on LinkedIn, is posting that educational material of what to do within that space. And what I've seen, it's kind of funny, a lot of people follow me, not a lot of engagement, but I've seen many situations where a prospect or a customer send me a screenshot of my post and say, this is cool, I want to do it. Not right now, message me in a couple of weeks or in a month. So I just wanted to share it with you all.

Yeah. Okay. And then was there someone else that raised their hand?

Michael, can I go for a quick sec?

No, Ron, can't. Sorry.

Okay.

Sylvie, by the way, if you're starting a business, feel free to contact me. I'd be happy to give you tips or pointers or anything that you need. I sent you an invitation to connect. And then I think Michael, being the guerrilla marketing expert and LinkedIn expert that you talked about, I think the one thing that always worked for me is I always go through people's profile and find out the thing, you know, that makes them unique. With Michael's jiu-jitsu, military experience— I had two calls this week. One was with an opera person, another person was a musician. So no one ever asked, no one ever asked them about that. And same with me. I have things that are very personal on my LinkedIn profile. And literally nobody ever asked me. And it'd be like the magic, you know, the Groucho magic word.

You said those magic words, bam, heart and mind. That's why I put jiu-jitsu, saxophonist, diver, yep, military. It's like, try to connect with me, I'll try to connect with you. We're not going to be able to be the best researcher in every single call, but I put that on to give me some little difference. I mean, that I don't know, I have people leaving the gray behind the gray wall behind their, uh, picture, or they have a picture that's so AI that doesn't look like them, or they have a picture that's 30 years old. Own who you are, what you look like, and put some, put some time and effort in your marketing of yourself. And this is not— I met— I reached 20%, uh, goals this year, or 100% goals of the President's Club. No one cares. This is not a job interview, you know, to make it about what you do and how do you help people on the LinkedIn. There's so many things I could show you on LinkedIn that has nothing to do with me selling you, but I, I mentioned them earlier. Same thing, everybody should be helping each other, these little things in life, because not everybody's going to be good at every little thing in life. I should— you actually, that's a good phrase, I might use that. Anyways, thanks everybody. Let me know if you guys want to join that are at the C and V level. I'm sure most of us are on this thing, but we really try to stick to tactics and tips and strategies and, and not sales pitches. I think we did a pretty good job today of that. Um, but God bless you and, uh, be safe out there, and happy Fourth. Happy Fourth, America! Thank you.