GTM Full Throttle Falato

What does an Air Force veteran, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt, and a salsa dancing saxophonist have in common with a bulletproof high-growth business strategy? As it turns out, the exact same discipline it takes to master the mats is what it takes to scale a business to the moon. Welcome back to Talent Thrives Here, our podcast where we talk to people in the business managing all sorts of moving items right now. I'm Lance LaFort, I'm your host of LaFort Talent Group. Our guest today is a certified go-to-market powerhouse with 25 years of experience. He is the mastermind behind GTM Full Throttle, where he architects human-centered systems designed to build undeniable trust, authority, and pipeline at scale. Please welcome to the show, Michael Falato. Michael, nice to have you on today.

How you doing, Lance?

I'm good, I'm good. I hope that intro wasn't like, uh, shooting over the moon or anything. I hope that it's the right, uh, right tone. But look, I, I, um, I wanted to look at a number of things, and I'm curious about how you're managing AI automation because everyone talks about it, but you know, there's still some disconnects in the marketplace. So without losing that authentic sort of human connection, how do you, how do you embrace AI, I guess, is the question. What I'm looking at right now with your clients and with the services you provide.

I use AI to find the right ICP and intent data, signal data. I do not use AI to write one-to-one-to-one. I use AI to help me write the initial outreach, which is, hey, Lance, I'm doing a podcast or a roundtable. Think you might be a good fit, but let's chat. When are you free? And that works. It gets me 10 to 15 Zoom calls a day. Or discovery call for me to talk about what they do and who they are. So it's a great lead tool, but it's also a great way to get guests on my, my, uh, podcast, just like you do for yours.

Yeah, yeah, I get you, I get you. Cool, cool. And, um, give me an idea, or give our listeners, our viewers, an idea of exactly what services you bring the market, because I'm, you know, in my head it's lead generation, but there might be other aspects of that, and I want to make sure that we identify exactly what do you provide your clients with?

Um, I do automation using email as an outreach tool, LinkedIn as an outreach tool. I also produce roundtable masterminds, classes, uh, content where you're giving and then you're getting a meeting before that give of a roundtable or podcast. And that give gets me a discovery call. So the whole outreach is LinkedIn and email and being able to do not breaking email domains because I set up 30, 40 different email addresses. And on LinkedIn, I use 2 or 3 different profiles, and I know how to automate so it doesn't break your LinkedIn, that you use group intent data, signal data, second connection partner approaches so that you get people to sign up and get people to basically, uh, engage with you. And I open the door so that you can do your business dating.

Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah. And, you know, that's how we met too. I have been in a number of your, your mastermind roundtables and, and it's always great networking. I always come away with at least 3 or 4 people, new connects, you know, and, and we're always talking about how can I help each other, you know, how could you have a network that I need to know and so on. So, and I find it really valuable. So it's a good adjunct, I think, to your business that these roundtables occur. And as you know, like different topics, different guests. And so there's variety there all the time, right? That's what I really enjoy. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't really let people pitch. You guys can pitch each other in a different aspect, but our idea is give value, tips, tactics, strategies, what's working, what's not, help each other out without going, well, my product does this. So this is— no one wants to hear a pitch right now.

Yeah.

You know, before you pitch somebody in life.

Absolutely. And I got a question for you about, you know, cold email versus warm email. You know, what's an opt-in and how do you approach those things? Because I've done in my own business lots of cold email and it feels like I'm throwing, you know, pebbles out in the ocean. Like, it's not— I'd rather have an opt-in format where people like, dude, I love your content, I want to subscribe. But I'm curious with you, when you're dealing with customers, is there, is there a time when cold email works better? Or, you know, what are you— what are your sort of thoughts and philosophies around cold versus warm and in and—

Well, the warmer you can get is using intent data, sender data, but that's still cold email, right? To use intent data. So doing cold, cold and pitching is different than just doing cold and giving. So people say cold email doesn't work. It does work.

Yeah.

Hey, hey, this is Jim. I'm doing a podcast. Want to see if you want to be a guest on my podcast. It's about go-to-market leaders, strategies. I don't know if you're a good fit yet, but I'd love to have a chat with you to see if it is. Yeah, that's a give, then take away. Or, hey, are you going to be at Inbound Conference in June? Wanted to see if we can meet up. I haven't even been there yet, so I'd love to get your, your opinion on if it's a good conference. Opinion-based questions. Cold and old email, cold LinkedIn works. You spam people, you send out 4,000 emails a day from one email address, it will not work. So people say it doesn't work. It's like saying, well, I went out with an Italian guy or girl and they were mean, so I'm never going to date Italian again. It's like, come on, guys, don't throw everybody out with the baby.

Yeah. Yeah, it's similar. We've run some campaigns similar to that in the sense that our podcast is like, I think it's the least aggressive or it's the most friendly. And people do want to come and talk about, you know, what they do. And so We often try that. We, you know, you're like, you know, we test. And that one over the years, probably last 7 or 8 years, has been the most favorable response. And it's a great icebreaker, right? It's, my analogy is always like going to the dog park. No one says, "What's your name?" They say, "What's your dog's name?" Or what, you know, "What breed is that?" Or, you know, it's a safer intro in rather.

Yeah, they want to talk about their dog or them.

Yeah, yeah. Or the baby in the baby carriage or whatever, you know. And similar, I keep hearing a lot lately about stories whereby don't ask them what their pain point is. And you know this stuff inherently, I'm sure, because of what you've been doing.

What? Come on, dude, come up with a better question, you know?

Yeah, I know, exactly.

But right now we're getting to know each other, right?

Yeah, yeah.

What do you think you want to do when you're selling somebody something? Get to know them. So why is this a bad medium? It's not.

No, I agree, I agree. Yeah, the, the one thing I keep, keep hearing lately is tell them a story that makes them feel seen, right? So whatever pain point they're having, talk as if you're having the exact same pain point. Like, you know, I'm a recruiter, so often it's like, hey, I know I'm stretched for resources and I can't get another $25,000 or $30,000 from the CFO to get this hire approved. But if we don't get it approved, we're not going to hit our deadlines. We're going to piss off our client. We're probably also going to burn out employees because everyone's working overtime to So the idea is, you know, to tell that story that my potential client looks at and goes, oh, he gets me. You know, he's done this before. Yeah.

But that, if I honestly, cause I'm recruiting background, if I said that, I know why you're saying it. Cause you want me to use your services. It has to be less, less, less obvious than that even.

Right.

Lance, book some time with me today. What grabbed your attention? Like what he said, like I gotta talk to Michael today. Best question. Not what keeps you up at night, but if you say what's gonna— like the challenge approach, which is what you just kind of mentioned, like this is going to cost you that too, you know. To me, it's like I wait for that and go, are you going to any conferences this year? Like, right, right. I'm trying to find some good conferences, like, you know. Oh, I saw that you were in the Navy. I was in the Air Force. Yeah, I'm saying like that's, that's the stuff you got to hit up with. But if you go into, into like, this is good, this is going to affect you because of this. And then they correlate the reason why you're talking about this is because I'm going to get someone to hire. It's going to be, it's going to be very easily caught that you're doing it for a reason.

Yeah. No, I hear you. I hear you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, again, different methodologies, right? I hear a lot of different— there's so many different people pitching, try this idea, try this. I joke about my logo every time someone looks at my logo. You know, people want to redesign your logo or your website all the time. You know, you probably get 10 calls a week. Oh, we could redesign your thing and do this. I'm like, I don't care about that. People aren't coming to me because of my website. You know, people are coming to you because of the service you provide, right? So it's, it's just funny. But it's that, that pitch slap too. It's too early, you know, and people come at you right away with a pitch.

You're like, dude, it's like you're not going— not going to tell that woman if you're single, right? You know, hey, let's go to the first date that you meet with them. Like, you're a little too, too aggressive, dude. Same thing with the business. Like, slow your roll, right? Find out what really is stressing me out. Yeah, but don't make it so obvious. And that's why the roundtable podcast— are you going to this event? Do you want to grab a cup of coffee at this other event?— is okay. But yeah, this type of thing that you're doing right now Obviously you get why you do a podcast. You want content, you want people to tag you and them on your, uh, LinkedIn and vice versa, and you get to know me. Now we have a relationship.

Yep. Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah.

It's just, uh, Michael, it reminds me a boss of mine years ago when I first marked my first recruiting agency job, my boss golfed about anywhere from 3 to 5 days a week in the summer. Like he was gone. And all winter he'd be lining up golf dates. Like, you know, so by the time the season hit, his schedule is full. And he'd come in in the morning about 7:30 or 8:00. He'd work till noon and then go golf 9 and be home, you know. And I remember saying, what are you doing? Like, are you addicted to golf? And he said, no, I get 3 executives for half a day for several hours and lunch. This is the best lead gen ever, right? And he said, I get fresh air and I'm out for lunch and have a few drinks. And he said also, he likes golf. Too.

You gotta like golf. I, I wouldn't want to do it. I wish I liked— yeah, I wish I would do it. I'm not gonna do it. I suck at it.

Well, also, like, he liked, uh, he was a good golfer, so he said also you got to throw money down, like it's $50 wager, $100, or someone's got to buy— like he said, like, otherwise it's golf. But he said if it's competitive, now people are focused. Anyways, he made a sport out of it, right? He had a great time.

But if you can't back up Like if you look at your weak golf, you look like a weak person.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm just gonna invite people to do jiu-jitsu with me and I'll win on retirement.

There you go, there you go. Perfect, perfect. But anyways, that was just—

Book a person out and get your business. No, that ain't gonna work.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, for him it was a lead gen thing. He just said, look, I only golf with the vice presidents and chairmen and, you know, board members. And so he stacked his business. That was his lead gen thing. But, And yeah, and he also, you know, for bragging rights, he liked to invite the golf pro sometimes from the club and beat that guy in front of other people and stuff.

He would beat him?

Oh yeah, yeah, he was, you know, okay, you're golfing 5 days a week for 25 years, you're a pretty good golfer.

So, you know, that's pretty, uh, he's not gonna have a problem. Plus, if you have a good business or business name, you know, yeah, that helps.

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, look, Michael, I'm curious too, what makes a good client for you? Your ICP, is it like small independent? Is it, uh, multinationals? Is it SMB? Where do you fit in the market? Where do you find the majority of your clients stack up, if I could ask?

I'd say over $2 million revenue in tech space, services space, recruiting space. Um, people that just got a seed Series A too, that's good. If they're bootstrapped, probably not. Um, you know, I could help people source if they're in recruiting, but I mostly deal with finding— like, for yourself, for you, I would find new clients, right? I mean, yep, you're out there trying to figure out how to get more, um, positions to fill. But if you're going to be doing all the time, it's, it's a lot of work. It's just like why you hire a recruiter. Do you want to— yeah, you could, you can make your hires, man, but you're gonna interview them. And then you're going to move along and then you're going to do— then you're going to talk to the— it's just too much. It's too much. You can't do this.

Yeah, no, you're right. You're absolutely right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The small businesses are wearing too many hats and they get to midsize and that's exactly— you start to compartmentalize. Here's our sales guy, here's our recruiters, here's our researcher, you know. And yeah, I hear you. Good. Look, I'm just conscious of the time too. If people want to find you, is LinkedIn the best way or GTM Full Throttle. How do I get in touch with Michael if people want to contact you?

Full Throttle Falato leads.com. Um, I changed my name to GTM Full Throttle, but I haven't made the complete brand switch, and there's gonna be two brands anyways. But, um, I want to be considered obviously a go-to-market strategist than just a lead gen company because I do a lot more than just give leads. Um, my phone number 512-639-3375. Please text me. My email is Michael at full throttle, falatoleads.com.

Awesome. Great, Michael. Thanks very much for being on the show. Always good to see you and good chatting with you. And hopefully we'll, we'll connect later in the year again.

All right. Thanks, Lance.

Yeah, take care.