Daniel Rood is the VP of Marketing at LeadIQ.

After a recent webinar that he and his team led where they compared using ChatGPT and their new standalone product, Scribe, to see which was better for assisting in writing cold outbound emails, I knew I had to have Dan on to talk about generative ai in sales. I was blown away by what I saw. 

During our interview, Dan helped put some important context to the discussion with advice on how to use storytelling structure to improve the effectiveness of our messaging and how we do discovery.

While I had Dan I had to take the opportunity to pick his brain on what’s working at LeadIQ. They’re a successful company so I got a peek into how they’re doing to do more with less.

#salesconsultantpodcast #generativeai #storytelling #salesdevelopment #outbound #personalization

Time Stamps:

[1:00] I ask Dan to tell us how he got to where he is without mentioning what’s on his resume or LinkedIn profile. Funny thing is I stole this question from him.

[4:30] How music and story have a lot of similar qualities and how the principles of structure parallel to sales and outbound messaging.

[5:50] Dan describes what a story is in one sentence and explains the structure of a good story including the primary characters. 

[7:30] Covers the 3 main characteristics of a problem. We usually get the first one but rarely get to the second and third:  1) External Problem, 2) Internal Problem, and 3) A Philosophical Problem.

[10:10] Why the Hero is the most powerful character in the story and they have 3 practical roles: 1) Empathy, 2) Authority, and 3) A Plan. Salespeople, take notes! 

[13:00] Getting to the internal problem is hard, it has to do with exploring how people are ‘feeling’ so I ask Dan to share some techniques on how to get that out of our prospects.

[16:24] Dan’s take on why sometimes reps should intentionally ‘misidentify the problem’ because it can lead to the prospect correcting them as to what the real problem is.

[20:00] We dig into what’s working at LeadIQ in terms of driving pipeline and accelerating revenue. a) One of the things that’s working is their recent transition from their SDRs working remotely across the country to a hybrid model in the Denver area. b) Improving the intent data and lead scoring model to feed more and better leads to SDRs. This is partly driven by a change they’ve made in the approach to structuring territories.

[27:20] Adds how they are finding new ways to run tests.

29:25] Dan had shared with me offline that 50% of their funnel is created via outbound efforts by their SDRs and AEs. Their AEs are actually self-sourcing more new pipeline than ever before. Dan talks about how they’re doing this. “LeadIQ makes outbound work” -An Industry Board Advisor

[30:18] Enters Scribe! Dan explains their new functionality and how they're personalizing at scale.

[33:50] “Personalization at scale” using AI like ChatGPT comes under attack and has been labeled as “fake outreach” so I ask Dan to address this and explain where “human agency” fits into the workflow.

[38:50] I ask Dan if someone could fully automate Scribe up to the point of sending where no human is interacting with the content before it goes out. He explains why not and shares his views on that sort of thing generally since we will likely see other players try this. This is a massive fear in the market that SPAMy email will only increase now that AI is doing a good job of writing full emails.

[43:00] Dan talks about their free version of Scribe. While it’s an integrated part of their platform, you don’t have to be a customer to try it out. They have a very generous free option with 40 credits. For existing customers, there is a separate bucket of credits for Scribe separate from your other LeadIQ credits - contact your CSM to learn more.

Mentions:

• Scribe.leadiq.com
• Leadiq.com

Guest Bio:

Dan's passion is the math and science of storytelling, the rhythms and tones of persuasive messaging, and building teams as a people leader. 

During his 18+ years of industry experience, Dan has worked alongside incredible professionals from various disciplines and backgrounds to create an orchestra of collaboration to persuade customers to buy products. 

His experience in clear, concise messaging and creative product marketing methodology has touched the minds and hearts of buyers at companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Expedia, American Express, Sprinklr, and Gladly. 

Connect with us:

Dan’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/drood/

The Sales Consultant LinkedIn Page - https://the-sales-consultant-podcast.captivate.fm/

Derrick’s LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/derricklwilliamsjr/

Derrick’s Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/derrickis3linksales/

Derrick’s Twitter - https://twitter.com/derrickis3link

These interviews are also available on Derrick’s YouTube page - @derrickis3linksales