In this enlightening episode of the Peak Demand Podcast, host Hans is joined by Kyle Rasmussen, a visionary in the field of sales outreach and automation. Kyle shares his journey from starting as an SDR at Glassdoor to becoming an expert in optimizing and automating sales processes.

He discusses his innovative approaches to sales outreach, the impact of technology on sales organizations, and how he's helping companies transition to more efficient models.

Key Points Discussed:

1. Kyle's Background and Journey: Kyle recounts his career trajectory, highlighting his successful stint at Glassdoor and his progression to consulting roles where he revolutionized sales outreach strategies.

2. Collaboration with Andrew: Kyle talks about his collaboration with Andrew, emphasizing Andrew's unique skills in a specific area of sales outreach.

3. Revenue Share and Retainer Models: The conversation delves into the dynamics of revenue share and retainer models in consulting, with Kyle sharing his experiences with different clients, including a case study on working with the company 'Route'.

4. Transitioning from Traditional SDR Models: Kyle illustrates the shift from traditional SDR (Sales Development Representative) models to more automated, efficient systems. He shares insights on how he helped companies replace entire SDR teams with automated solutions.

5. Challenges in Large Sales Organizations: The podcast covers the challenges faced by large sales organizations in adapting to new technologies and strategies, particularly the fear of moving away from established, bloated sales structures.

6. Innovative Outreach Strategies: Kyle provides details on his unique approach to sales outreach, including the use of automated, personalized tactics like screenshot usage and customized email campaigns.

7. Tools and Technologies for Success: A discussion on the tools and technologies that Kyle finds indispensable in his work, including Google Sheets for advanced lead scoring and smartly leveraging sales navigator insights.

8. Future of Sales Outreach and Adaptation: Kyle and Hans discuss the future of sales outreach and how companies, especially large enterprises, can adapt to these evolving trends.

Guest Speaker:

• Kyle Rasmussen: Expert in sales outreach automation and optimization. Founder of IntentSignal & Head of Sales at Chat Metrics, specializing in replacing traditional SDR efforts with innovative, automated solutions.

How to Connect:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyletrasmussen/

Closing Thoughts: This episode provides valuable insights into the evolving world of sales outreach. Kyle's expertise and innovative approaches offer listeners a glimpse into the future of sales and how technology is reshaping traditional models. For companies looking to revolutionize their sales outreach and embrace automation, this episode is a must-listen.

Subscribe to the Peak Demand Podcast for more insights on sales, marketing, and technology.

Transitioning Sales Organisations Transcript

Hans (10:39.976)

Hi everyone, it's Hans here from the Peak Demand Podcast and today I'm joined by Kyle Rasmussen. Kyle, thanks for joining us.

Kyle Rasmussen (10:47.97)

Good to be here.

Hans (10:50.3)

Would you please go ahead and introduce yourself to the people in about you know yourself your Your background what is that you do so that everyone knows, you know who you are

Kyle Rasmussen (11:01.31)

Yeah, so I love outbound. I love good outbound. I started my career at Glassdoor as an STR there, climbed the ranks. I was consistently either one or two globally of 65 STRs and found myself in positions where I had to, try new things and build new verticals and

Because of that, that meant as I grew in my career, I still had, because I was trying new things, still had to build my own pipeline and then ended up following my boss from Glassdoor to another company to build the SDR program where I had to do more with less resources and how do I replace myself? And then went to another company and did the same thing and just got really, really good at thinking about how do I take my skillset?

Hans (11:55.099)

Thanks for watching.

Kyle Rasmussen (11:59.242)

and 10 exit, 20 exit, 30 exit. And after enough time and enough people saying, hey, can you do this for us? I never respond to cold emails. You got me for some reason, we're struggling, can you help? And I was always like, no, I've got a job, no, no. And finally, an opportunity came up to go build my own thing and consult with several clients on...

essentially replacing the output of the email output of their SDR orgs. And so that's what I'm doing now. Um, and, and it's working. I didn't know when I started doing this, if I could actually do it and like replace the output of what entire orgs of 20 SDRs are doing, but it's working. Um, I don't know how long it'll work.

Hans (12:32.372)

So that's what I'm doing now. And it's working. All right.

Hans (12:41.809)

Mm-hmm.

Hans (12:50.52)

Yeah, well, I mean, my sense, I'm pretty sure it will work for quite a lot. I think it's the direction. And that's, you know, that's one of my one of my next questions. But I do personally think that's the direction. Let's call the macro is moving, moving towards so that everything is moving towards. And so, you know, if you want my opinion, I'm pretty sure it will work for who knows, potentially the rest of your career. Yeah. But so.

Kyle Rasmussen (13:13.166)

I think, I hope so. It's fun.

Hans (13:17.108)

You were sending cold emails and the people said, hey, I really like your cold email, can you do the same for me? That's a pretty good cold email, I think.

Kyle Rasmussen (13:24.83)

Yeah, yeah.

Hans (13:26.228)

That's the, that was your advert, right? You don't need any paid ads if your cold emails are that good.

Kyle Rasmussen (13:33.534)

Yeah, so.

Hans (13:36.216)

And then so we already I guess you know, we sort of already started with this question And I think we're pretty aligned there, but just curious So what are some of the biggest changes that you're noticing in that's called a macro environment? And how are you adapting to it? So what like what are things that you're currently seeing?

Kyle Rasmussen (13:55.943)

Um...

There's, it just, it seems like there's this, this major fear in every large sales organization of like going away, like they know what they need to do. Cause they, they see what technology is capable of now, but they've spent the last 10 years building these massive bloated sales orgs that do really, really high quality work, uh, that build good solid pipeline.

Hans (14:09.536)

Hmm.

Hans (14:24.287)

Mm-hmm.

Kyle Rasmussen (14:28.418)

But the return there continues to diminish. And so there's this like, there's just this weird thing where it's like we've got all these folks doing this like really strategic outreach. But there's all this technology here that we know could do the same thing. Like how do we, can we blend them? And so there's just a lot of it's, there's just a lot of confusion it feels like.

as you go more and more into the enterprise. Whereas like every small business right now that's, that's series, that's seed series a growing hasn't had salespeople. They're like fully embracing this stuff already.

Hans (15:04.028)

Series, Series A, growing, hasn't had salespeople. They're like fully embracing that. Yeah, for them it's a bit like, ironically almost, they're in a better position to adapt to this just because they're growing into it. So they can decide which route they wanna go, right? So that this is for growth and they can just say, you know what, we'll go with what we know is far more scalable. Whereas, yeah, these enterprise orgs, they would have to take a lot of steps back.

before they can potentially move into that direction.

Kyle Rasmussen (15:36.298)

Yeah, and that's super risky too. Like it's kind of a scary place to be. Time to be like a small, scrappy startup that understands how to leverage all this technology.

Hans (15:38.635)

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Hans (15:46.229)

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. So my guess is, but you're probably far better equipped than me to answer this, is that if an enterprise org, usually how I see them, that these types of changes, they start small, so maybe they have like a little task force, right, where they try something different, they do a pilot, a trial, and then slowly start moving the entire organization towards it, but that can take years. Does that sound accurate, or are you seeing something different?

Kyle Rasmussen (16:18.514)

Yeah, no, that's exactly how we start. So, um, with our first client, we started in the SMB vertical where they weren't spending as much, um, of their reps time and energy just to see like, how can we scale this is this, does this messaging scale, do these frameworks scale? Um, and then over time is there was momentum and you, you hear about intent signal on the sales floor. And there's just a little bit there. We booked 110 meetings are.

Hans (16:26.069)

Mm-hmm.

Kyle Rasmussen (16:48.098)

third month and all of a sudden, even though they were, a lot of them were like really small, like these are S&P, e-commerce companies. And so, but when you have 110 meetings floating around all tied to IntentSignal, there becomes a lot of buzz. And so even though the revenue wasn't super high yet at that point, the momentum was. And so then

Hans (16:54.09)

Yeah, but it's pretty good.

Hans (17:08.585)

Hmm.

Kyle Rasmussen (17:11.446)

Let's go to mid market. Let's go to enterprise. Let's, let's go to large. Let's go to enterprise. And so now the whole, uh, the whole mark, the whole team all the way up to enterprise is where we're at now in, in they're viewing us as, uh, as their SDR partner. Um, and even as far as, is.

Hans (17:16.655)

Mm-hmm.

Hans (17:29.856)

their SCR partner. And even as far as reps building sales map lists to guide all.

Kyle Rasmussen (17:35.262)

Um, reps building sales, not list to guide our outreach. And so, um, it has kind of become like. Intent signal is there SDR and we are partnering together, um, and, and getting super, super strategic. Their reps are reaching out, showing us how they're doing their manual outreach and we're just automating it. And if I find something that works, we automate it for everyone. Um, so.

Hans (18:00.593)

super strategic, their reps are reaching out, showing us how they're doing their manual outreach and it's automated it. IT networks can be automated for everyone. So, it's really nice. Exactly. All right, and then, speaking of things that work and your mission intent, which is obviously a hot topic, everyone's always about intent data, this and intent data, that.

Kyle Rasmussen (18:04.546)

I don't have that.

Hans (18:16.684)

But if you wanted to talk specifics, what are some really specific things like tactics, strategies, you know, maybe without giving away your secret sauce or without giving away anything that the client wouldn't be comfortable with, you know, with your sharing. But what are some specifics that you see are working that you think may be applicable to people who are listening that they could replicate for themselves?

Kyle Rasmussen (18:38.666)

Yeah. Um, the biggest thing I think that, that we've been doing that lands is looking at like, okay, what is available today? So right now it's easy for any company to talk about a new job, to talk about news releases, to talk about job openings, to talk about you visited my website. Like what are all those signals and intent?

data points that people are looking for. And then like, let's run away from those because everyone knows that those can be automated now. And so what are the things that we can automate that people don't really think yet can be automated. And so, um, one of those things that we found, like what, what can we automate that could scale really well. And, and, and one of our use cases, it's screenshots of, of checkout pages.

Hans (19:11.618)

Exactly.

Hans (19:27.062)

it's screenshots of checkout pages.

Kyle Rasmussen (19:31.178)

for e-commerce brains and some messaging around that where someone sees a screenshot and there's a ton of opinions on screenshots and emails, but I kind of listen to what people say and do the opposite and Yeah, and so while that's not necessarily taking a screenshot of

Hans (19:37.91)

Right. If you can get them into the inbox, then great, right? That's the only thing.

Kyle Rasmussen (19:56.222)

a company's website and their checkout process is not an intense signal, but it shows, okay, this person came to my website, they had to click around to get here. And they're asking a question about something that's not there. That could potentially be super valuable to the business. Like, this is just an interesting and different way to get my attention.

Hans (20:07.537)

they had to click around to get here.

Hans (20:14.912)

and that could potentially be super valuable to the business. Like, this is just an interesting and different way. Mm-hmm.

Kyle Rasmussen (20:23.838)

And then another thing that, that we're doing a lot of is like taking, um, descriptions of in this, in this case, again, for this e-commerce client, um, taking descriptions of their prospects, top selling products and tying what they say about their products to what this company does to get creative with like, just like your five ingredient serum, blah, blah.

Hans (20:40.812)

selling products and tying what they say about their products to what this company does to get creative with like, just like your five ingredient serum, blah, blah.

Kyle Rasmussen (20:53.846)

the father five steps of protecting your packages, blah, blah. Um, and so building models that do that really well, it is where it's like, okay, this would only make sense if a person did this. And so, um, can this be automated and did a person have to do this? How do we automate that?

Hans (20:55.28)

steps of protecting your packages. Right. OK. And so building models that do that really well. OK, this would only make sense if a person did this. It's your OK.

Hans (21:14.784)

Yeah, exactly. Okay. So, you're sort of, I mean, it's not necessarily a better interrupt, but you're really investing a lot of time upfront into building something that really would not ever make a person think, okay, this is automated. So, just like you already mentioned, just look, okay, you ask an SDR, ideally, imagine you had a...

an hour to reach out to an account, two hours to reach out to an account, what would you be doing? Okay, if this is what you would be doing, how do we replicate that? That's more or less what you're saying, right? Okay. And then tools, so I know you have access to one, really, really vital human resource, but outside of any tools or anything that stands out in your stack that you're saying, okay, this is something that maybe is flying a little bit under radar or is maybe undervalued by others. What?

Kyle Rasmussen (21:49.742)

Exactly.

Hans (22:08.936)

What are tools that really make you successful?

Kyle Rasmussen (22:14.307)

Uh, smartly. That's it.

Hans (22:19.276)

Yeah, right. Yeah, they're pretty good. They've gotten a lot better over time. I heard they have some pretty interesting additional updates coming up as well. I think their, what do you call it? Their master inbox is gonna be even quicker. So you get your replies pretty much in real time, that type of thing. And yeah, because their API is really good as well, you can just build so much stuff just on top of them and just really use them as that engine. And they've really taken, you know, taken a lot of things.

that people want it, they've built. I mean, that's pretty simple for a product, right? You just look at what people want and what they're already doing and you just build it. So in a way, they've, I suppose, productized a little bit what you're doing, just for a different use case, I suppose.

Kyle Rasmussen (23:04.254)

Yeah, I think that if there's one other thing I would add, there's just, there's just so much that we do in Google sheets. Um, one of the biggest challenges that we've run into when we try and like replace what a bunch of SDRs are doing. There's a lot of value when SDRs are in sales navigator and they know when they go to a big enterprise account.

Hans (23:14.697)

Mm-hmm.

Kyle Rasmussen (23:30.55)

they can take into account like a VP of, let's say you're selling an HR software, a VP of talent acquisition might be.

Hans (23:39.444)

Mm-hmm.

Kyle Rasmussen (23:40.674)

the person in a thousand employee company, but they might be 10 lows below if you're going into Amazon. And so there's like so much nuance in titles within orgs. And so one of the things that we've started doing that's been really interesting is we'll just, we'll be super, we'll cast a super wide net when we scrape our leads. Then we will take into account company size.

Hans (23:48.672)

Mm-hmm.

Hans (24:03.616)

Mm-hmm.

Kyle Rasmussen (24:08.866)

how many people in each department in that company, how many similar titles to basically build out a model of like who are the top five to 10 contacts within this account. Sometimes a VP of talent acquisition in this case would make it on the list. Other times it wouldn't because there's other titles based on relevant content that match. And so that's been huge in driving higher reply rates because...

Hans (24:19.948)

Mm-hmm. Sometimes a VP of telemat position in this case would make it on the list. Other times it wouldn't, because there's other titles based on the title. Right. So that's been.

Kyle Rasmussen (24:35.274)

that right there in Google Sheets solves one of the biggest problems that we've had in just targeting the right people at the right companies.

Hans (24:42.536)

Okay, so really advanced lead scoring in Google Sheets is something that you've built out for yourself internally. Yeah. All right, that's pretty cool. I don't know how to do it though. Yeah, all right. I think both you and I, we were thinking, man, it would be really cool if we could do that. I've had the idea. I've almost tried it, but I thought, you know what? I'm not ever going to be able to do it. But yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

Kyle Rasmussen (24:48.506)

Yeah, I don't know how to do it though. I partnered with us.

Hans (25:10.036)

but to then actually be able to do it, that yeah, I can see that adding a ton of value. So I'll ask around and see if I can at least have a peek at that because it sounds really interesting. And then circling, circling back to you. So would you mind giving people your elevator page so they know what it is you do and they can see, okay, this is something for us, yes or no. And then if they're thinking, hey, this sounds interesting, we potentially want to engage.

and let's have a service where do they contact you.

Kyle Rasmussen (25:42.686)

Yeah, so we're just going to spend a bunch of time with your best reps who are building the best highest quality pipeline. We're going to spend a ton of time with them figure out everything that they're doing and we're going to make it better and then we're going to automate it across your entire org. And the goal is not necessarily to replace your Your SDR is it's to get them away from

Hans (26:00.703)

Okay.

Kyle Rasmussen (26:10.69)

from having to send emails that they don't need to do because technology can do it for them. So.

Hans (26:17.283)

And who do you do it usually for? The larger organizations or?

Kyle Rasmussen (26:21.546)

Yeah, ideally, organizations with at least 10 SDRs. But the more SDRs you have, I think the better this works.

Hans (26:34.7)

Sure, okay, that makes sense.

Kyle Rasmussen (26:35.455)

And then as far as where to get in touch, LinkedIn is the best place right now.

Hans (26:40.832)

makes sense. Alright then yeah appreciate that for everyone watching listening like depending well I catch this I'll drop your LinkedIn profile in the description so that you know YouTube description Spotify show notes anywhere for now I appreciate you joining us Kyle been a pleasure and everyone else with you and then thanks for watching thanks for listening and hopefully I'll see you in the next one.