Unlocking the Power of Automated Lead Generation with Michael Falato | MDIDS2E19

Hey everyone, Paul Finck here, The Maverick Millionaire and this is the Mavericks Do It Different podcast where we create a difference by thinking different, being different doing a different every single day to create a difference in our future. This is where it's at. I've got somebody here, who is going to change how you look at your business and what you're doing within it. This is the key. We're talking about Full Throttle Falato leads coming atcha Michael Falato is here he is the the amazing guy producing qualified leads, recruiting just top talents and bringing it all to the table. He's he has access to over here, this 950 million contacts can develop your drip campaigns, your emails, your LinkedIn automation is the man who can make it all happen for you and bring the leads right to your doorstep. I'm gonna let him tell the rest of the story. But let's get into it. Michael, welcome to the podcast. How are you, buddy?

How you doing Paul?

Doing great. So tell tell us a little bit more fill in the gaps like, so what do you do?

So there's companies that mostly will hire a sales development rep. Those of us who have kids right out of college salesforce.com made this a really big push, like, why are sellers hunting all day we need them selling. So what I did is I said listen, if we're hiring kids, and they're learning, they're gonna burn out. And they're gonna want to be AES or, or quit. So why not automate all this and do a rinse and repeat approach repeatable and scalable approaches like what SAS is, so I took that and made it a process. So I'm able to send out like 20, or 30,000 emails a month, or an over 150 to 200 InMails invites or group messages on LinkedIn, which produces 20 to 30. SQL or MQL is marketing qualified leads or sales, qualified leads. So you do that you're focusing on prescribing What's wrong, fixing it, and selling versus clicking on buttons and doing what a virtual assistant can do some work in another country, which is very slow. And sometimes there's a language barrier. So someone for 25 years, I know how to do this, right. And I know how to make sure your domain doesn't get broken, which a lot of people do, and your LinkedIn profile doesn't get shut down.

So some of the people that that talked about that and I'm not a fear monger. But however, they've got to understand some of the components that you just talked about, why would those things break or get shut down? What happens? Well, your own Gmail or office 365 is against the terms of service to send out more than about 500 emails a day. You do send out 500 emails a day and they bounce or get subscribed, you'll start seeing all your emails go to spam. I happen to me my last company I was at, I was using HubSpot. And I was using Gmail and I made 15 different email addresses and fill out a one and fill it out to add and fill out three. And I'm like, Hey, I'm saving up 4000 emails a week, guess what all of our emails to our clients and our contractors were going to spam. So we found I have an email engineer, we set up a subdomain and alternative domain, we used a thing called SendGrid to send out the emails. And guess what now we don't have all that reputation blacklisting errors that happen and we're not not damaging the capabilities and deliverability for them to do their own job, which is a daily thing. So if you don't know what you're doing, which most people don't, because I was one of them. Don't do it. I really made a mistake for you.

Oh my gosh, I don't know how many of my mistakes I should start talking about now. Only they're all coming rushing to the front of my brain. I've been in business for 36 years, as you know, we talked about that. Oh my gosh, over over the time. And as I got into the technology world, man I had my whole account shut down I was in what was a constant contact and down there horrible. The the there was so many of the those services that would shortchange me one way or the other because I was looking at building up and looking to send out a whole lot of emails and the with challenges every step of the way. And you got the system that streamlines that so that by business keeps working every day.

Yeah, yeah. But if you look at it, it's though shut down your email address and then you can't do anything. Right Gmail officers, in fact, Catholic contact will look at this because using their IP address, right and the emails, they don't want, they don't want you to send out spam. Right? But if you we can, I can actually get a different IP address. Make sure that your deliverability and your bounce rates low and make sure that the messaging is who cares. So what what are you going to do for me and who if you help type emails versus I do this, I do that I. So that's dumb email sinuses, very protective. I've email engineer that works for me, who has a background working at Coca Cola, and do an email technology for them. So he knows how to smoke about DKM demark, SPF MX, all those records, DNS records for that subdomain. There's a whole a whole other ways to do this right and wrong.

It's amazing. And I will tell you, no matter how long you've been in business, I guarantee you unless you have someone with Michael's expertise and capabilities by your side, you will get you will get hooked in and fall down a down a rabbit hole, if you will, of challenges without ever knowing. And that's been my experience over the years. Until I met with and connected up with with you and others just like you in that capacity of knowing, having the history having the knowledge base, you're you're walking into a firing range that you were not prepared for it.

You know, there's just a whole LinkedIn side, right? I mean, so you got the email going, you're doing drip marketing, you got to understand how to do a B testing, turn things on use Moneyball approach analytics. Don't, don't tell me what works and what doesn't, I shouldn't I've give you my best judgment, but let the stats tell you what's going on. So there and then and then segmenting, but on the LinkedIn side, people will sit there and go, Okay, I'm gonna send out 100 invites a week, and I'm gonna try to use this for sale, and I'm gonna buy in minerals. And what I do is I could send out 150, to 200 to 300 emails invites a group messaging the day by knowing how to warm it up, and also mimicking human behavior using bots. So there's a really good way to actually use LinkedIn for lead generation. But again, the messaging needs to be, you know, hey, let's grab a virtual cup of coffee over zoom, let's just chat to see if there's a fit not here's what I do that it's like dating, you know, warm them up, you got a call, you know, then again, a video call and then ask him out, just like you would like if you were single. So that's the same way you got to look at the LinkedIn approach, you know, emails a little more like, hey, I want to introduce myself, let's, let's, let's try to ramp up time. Always give them a calendar option as well. So you can make it easier not back and forth. But ask them, Hey, here's my calendar, if that makes it easy, or can you send me your calendar suggest a couple of times, if you just send your calendar? I've had people go, why should I send out your why should I fill out your calendar your cell mean? So they've gotten a little pissy about it? I'm like, really? Okay. All right. Mother told me to ask a certain way, I'll change my wording, you know,

It's so fascinating. You've got a strong background in communication sales, going back decades now. Yeah. And and Britt, you're obviously, and it's so powerful, bringing all that information to to serve your clientele. Talk a little bit about the sales process and in how do you build this funnel and attract these people for your clientele? What's, how does that expertise lead into what all you do?

Well, there's an onboarding document that I send to them so they can understand what I'm looking for, we want to make sure we don't hit people that they already talked to. So we want to import Do not contact, we want to look at all their content, they've been using it and get rid of any pictures or HTML, because that will get hung up in spam filters, and really understand what what type of content is going to gravitate to. We're not selling we're trying to get a meeting. We're not telling them why they should, should should use your product, we're trying them get to get on a call. So just like challenger sales, Hey, be prescriptive point out, there's a $2 million dollar problem we have that's going to be solved by $50,000 a year solution. You know, so be the teacher not not the seller. And that's really what you're trying to do. But you can't do that if you don't understand their business, you don't understand their business, because you haven't talked to him. So in that calendar, calendar invite or HubSpot, if you use that. Ask a couple of questions like What's so I can prepare for this mean? Would you like to share a couple of things you want to chat about what brought you to the table is the first thing I asked on these discovery calls like why did you take the call with me? I'm just curious what grabbed your attention and let them chat. Let them talk because people love to talk. But if you're talking they're gonna zone out.

You've brushed through so many things that for you is just happenstance that oh, it's it's your wrote information that is easy peasy. And for others, these are some gems. I want everyone to pay attention. There's some key components that Michaels already said, like, send your calendar link or let them send yours because you don't want that power play, understanding that process of, of engaging with them in communication, not selling to them and talking I all the time talk about that engagement, so many things and you said some great stuff. What is it that the that? Why would people want and grab hold of you? What where are they at in their business? And why would they say you know what? I need full throttle full auto leads by my doorstep in my business.

Yeah, I think a lot of it is that they have SDRs, they want to add another one that you're thinking about, like hire another one, or hire outsource approach like meet some basically a fractional demand gen guy. I also have a zoom info type platform, which is not zoom info, that's a 10th of the cost and with Zoom, so if you pay 50 cents to $1 Per Name, and zoom. You know, my service includes email, LinkedIn roundtables, and all these things that produce four to five things, versus you paying for zoom probably 30 to 40,000 a year. So that's one thing that integrates with HubSpot, Salesforce, they don't know how to set that up. I actually give him a free HubSpot service they want for me to integrate into them. And then there's these companies that it's it's five to 50 people, and they have maybe a CRO or VP of sales or a couple of salespeople. But they're spending way too much time hunting, sending emails, and certainly it's very clerical and tactical, should be strategic. Take your ABM approach and do 30 accounts for the account that you really want to win. And have someone like myself, do tier two, tier three, tier four, because you're never gonna get Sonos and you're leaving money on the table. So it's it's still a numbers game, no matter what with sales. So you gotta be prescriptive, but you gotta be, you gotta have a machine gun with our sniper scope planning.

Here, here ... So someone who's getting started. And there's we talked to and communicate and I know our audiences are full range of people that that are already players in in the game, and you're going to be an add on to what they do. And some people that are moving to that space, if you will, what should they be doing to to step up their game to get ready to be your perfect client, if you will? What are the what should they be doing in the max, which I think would be really helpful for them?

They should be definitely making their LinkedIn profile very about what they do. Most people say I work for Maverick consulting. And that's it. And it has that What does Maverick consulting do? Right. It's a front facing resume. So make your LinkedIn with a with an image behind your face with with a headline like mine, mine says, you know, 25 years sales, black belt, Jujitsu, Muay Thai, whatever talks about who I am as a person. And then you want to make sure that you join tons of groups, because if you're on a lot of groups and LinkedIn, you can, you can basically send free messages to so that's that's one thing on the LinkedIn side, an email side, if you're not using automation tool, you should still probably have a separate domain, go to GoDaddy, go get a.us for eight bucks a year, like full throttle, full auto leads.us versus full throttle a lot of leads.com and use that you won't know how to set up a subdomain, like m.domain.com. So at least set up a separate domain for those emails to your real email inbox. Just make sure you don't break because most people don't get a HubSpot start start doing sequencing or getting middle shake or, or Yesware, salt, whatever the other stuff that you can do, but still, it's still you're still gonna break that domain if you don't have a filter, a cleaner subdomain, a separate D Mark P Chem approach, which is what SendGrid does have engineering I can't even do it myself. Technically, because it's very difficult.

Yeah, yeah. So many people they get into these things without realizing all the backside of what happens. And I was one of those guys in this in this day and age you need a full time IT team or you need a really good outsource consulting team team members like yourself, in being part of your company. You cannot go it alone.

I like It's like being a doctor like, it's like, okay, you got something in your brain? Would you want him going into your into your into your your brain? Or do you want a neurosurgeon looking at your brain and MRI? They know what specialists are, that's the same exact reason why someone's going to hire you that you're going to help them solve this problem, because you understand it, that's all you do. I say, Listen, I'm not a caller, I'm an automation guy, I'm not going to be everything that you want me to be, I'm not going to help you do middle and end with sales. I can't repeat myself. But I'm gonna rinse and repeat guide for automation. So I will help you as much as I can. Because otherwise, but I can't, I can't triple my time in life. Right? I stay in my lane.

You create the automation. So someone comes in you create the automation, and what are they? What do they receive? What's the end result of what you offer?

It's usually 10 to 20 meetings a month, qualified leads, again, I'm amplifying your brand. So if it's good, it has something unique. And because we do the filtering the messaging altogether, I don't say hey, let me do this. And we'll go, let's go. No, no, I'm not a subject matter expert. What Paul does, or Steve does a time does, you're gonna have to give me some sense of what you think is right. And then I can give you my expert consultation. And the stats on LinkedIn and email are going to tell you what's up. So that's on the LinkedIn and email. So we've been talking about roundtables, which is kind of we're doing a kind of a one to one. But roundtables are something I also use to kind of go listen, let's get a whole bunch of people together to talk about best practices. And guess what it's brought to you by Paula brought to you by micro philosophy on full throttle. And we say like, who? What's your good? What's your good? What's your superpower? And if we have 30, people show up with breakout rooms of five, guess what the other things, I'm helping people get business. But I'm also being that Think Tank connector. And, you know, why should I count on all these different people doing events when I know how to drive people to an event? Right? Most of my events are using LinkedIn as the way to register to click on one button, get all that data. And then I use Zoom, because I do breakout rooms.

Yeah, so powerful and smart, smart, smart, we're gonna be doing a roundtable together sometime shortly. And so look for that. And we're going to be creating some of that magic together to help everyone with our combined backgrounds, we're, we've got a wealth of knowledge that brings to the table, that's for sure. Only

When you're lost between the both of you exactly

What you do, Michael is so powerful. And it's it's so interesting that that bringing those leads those qualified leads to the doorstep is the key and, and some of what they need to do is they need to know their messaging, they need to know who they are, and where they're bringing people to know how to what to communicate to you to bring those qualified leads, because you can't qualify them if you don't know what qualified means. So, so much of that that pre work. But once you get your messaging, you need a machine, you need something that is going to duplicate, triple, quadruple at 10x your time, and that's what Michael brings to the table is that automation that magnifies everything that you do.

And that you hit it. Yep. Yeah, Full Throttle, I get it. Full Throttle is the key word and that's my personality. And I got that nickname from a Marine. I'm an Air Force veteran. You know, I'm a black belt in jujitsu. So is this guy, he's an Orlando PD. He's like, Dude, you're full throttle all the time. Like, full throttle full out. That's my that's my company name. So ...

I love that. So So jujitsu. I heard what else?

Like kickboxing, Muay Thai, it's called Muay Thai. Right? Yep. And so that's what I do those two things mostly, and I played hardball baseball for about 30 years. And then I was a wrestler in high school. So that's kind of like if you I think if you're like sports minded, it teaches you teamwork, but also get it done. Don't make excuses. Let's go. And that's kind of you know, what I done I guess also signed a famous shock to help them with his guest appearances and all these different restaurants probably have diviney I know he's on Top Shop. So things are things are going crazy, where I'm like getting past six figures a month for very small business. that not a lot of overhead. And not a lot of headcount.

Really key really key guys is and one of the things that Michael and I connect on at a deep level is that you can build multimillion dollar businesses with with what some people might consider a skeleton crew Do you know what you're doing? And you're streamlining your businesses. And that's what I've done for the last 36 years. Absolutely at a high level in the last 20. And it's what you are also and have been doing also, Michael, and it's so great. It's such a great example for so many people out there who they either think, Oh, I'm a solopreneur, or I am this, oh, I've got a high rise, and I've got 200 employees, and I don't want all that. So I'm just gonna stay here.

Yeah, they're stuck in their own way. They're the old school. Like, I got a Rolodex No. Listen, why work for someone else? I'll never go back and work for their software company again. I'm gonna make 120 to 200 a year, and I'm bringing in 1.2 million. Yep, no, no, and then I'm gonna get Hey, what, how'd you do this last quarter, every single time. If you if you have a semi decent business and go, I'm not gonna sit there and try to get clients all day, I'm gonna work on my clients. And that's what he that's when he had to do some sort of top of funnel approach, whether it's me or someone else, but there's a lot of Legion companies out there. And originally, you're hiring someone that's in the US that's selling you and then they outsource it to Manila, or Phil, or Taiwan or whatever, whatever, another country, which is not a bad thing all the time. But I wouldn't want phone calls coming from another country into US companies, I think us folks want to deal with a lot of us people. And also, that's your time to build that rep of the report. While you're doing that. So why you get on a call do completely cold calls when you can come together? Hey, I saw you open my email. Not that you're saying that. But right, go in with a little bit of a warmer approach.

Yeah, no question. And there a lot of people out there, I have gone through the test of time, if you will, and and that was a hard road. In looking for people like you who actually have the background have the experience in multiple different fields, to culminate to what you're doing, rather than, Oh, I learned how to build a funnel. So this is my new company, I'm gonna bring you leads and they know nothing of the sales process. They don't understand communication, they don't understand messaging, and with all your background that you fine tuned and hold for 20 3040 years, and then created this and that's a whole different game

The go higher as a chair, a demand gen person, it's gonna be a 182 50 year non 5k a month, which is what you pay a kid with no tools. No experience, doesn't want to do this boring six months is going to quit or go somewhere else and be an E somewhere after after he's an SDR. BDR Yep, not a good fit. And there are you hire virtual assistant in our country for 10 bucks an hour and you get you get what you pay for.

You do indeed, I've done it all. I can tell you the horror stories. So absolutely. Pay attention to this reach out. Michael so a couple things here. One is how do we get in touch with you? How should someone reach out to you give us the the best way?

Yep, it's fullthrottlefalatoleads.com. That's the best way to look at it. You can email me at michaelfullthrottlefalato.com as well. And there I'm the site. There's also my calendar where you can book a time. Oh, that's wonderful. You can always email me I can send you the deck. Yes, I integrated my platform into HubSpot as well. So I keep track of everything. Definitely have a CRM. So you can you can manage your business. Know your KPIs. You're gonna go you're going to be going around in circles.

Yep. fullthrottlefalatoleads.com You absolutely have to reach out get a console with Michael it's well worth your time and effort. And we've got people all around the world listening to this podcast, last words?

Just do what you say. Say what you do. You know you gotta you gotta like when someone emails or calls you don't wait a day don't wait two days get back to people you know there's too much of that going out with going around with people that always are been busy. Just be a good good be a good to be a good citizen corporate and personal. Yeah, I

I often say the speed with which you want to be communicated with communicate in that way. Now there are some people I want to slow down communication. I really don't want to talk to them. So then I just delay texting them at all. I will tell you there's a tactic in that. However, you know, you want to really connect with people. You've got to respond.

You got demos clients that's supposed to do you want them as clients, versus someone that's trying to sell you something or annoying, because they're trying to sell you something that you don't need. And that's where that's where you want to. That's why I like them the book me, because I sent them something I say, Listen, have your power statement. Let me just talk about how to get your top three clients in my first 90 days. That's a great power statement that says, How am I going to help you now how I'm going to help me?

Yep. Yeah, huge, huge. I had tons of great gems, tons of great nuggets. And I don't say that lightly. These are really the core of how to build a business, how to be engaged, and reach out to Michael get a console, He absolutely has a wealth of knowledge to share with you will help you out, bring it to the point of yes, you need it or no you don't. Here's where it is. And he'll tell that give you the straight scoop.

So look for look for our roundtables. Paul and I are going to be doing roundtables together.

Yes. Yeah. And that'll be us. Engaging at a even a next level conversation with everything.

One to one, small groups and just getting into your business and just trying to help everybody helping each other. That's what that's what the whole world's about. Yeah.

So key, Michael, absolute pleasure for having you here. It's been great. Thank you so much for spending your time and energy here. This is this is all about building our life and our business and you've brought some great tools and advice here. So thank you so much.

Thanks, Paul. Have a great day, buddy.