💜 Will Allred

Lavender

Lavender helps companies get the most pipeline possible from email.

We understand what drives replies. We help you know: what to say and how to say it, based on who you're talking to. We turn this understanding into pipeline via two products: our coach (active in 30k+ inboxes) and our agentic platform, Ora.

The coach is the perfect writing companion for your top accounts.
Ora tees up tailored 1:1 drafts or it can run autonomously.

We build AI that feels like AI.

Set up your first self learning agent in minutes: Ora.Lavender.ai

Co-Founder & COO

LavenderLand

A show where I answer real email questions with the help of some not so real friends.

Watch at https://lavender.ai/land

Host of "Ask Allred" on LavenderLand

Sorter

Sorter’s internal AI, CATIE( Creative Algorithms for Text and Image Enhancement) blends behavioral sciences with cutting edge data science and natural language processing enabling you to easily apply an objective science to the art of communication. 

We help create better content faster.

Fueling the backend of our platforms for healthcare,  marketing, sales, and HR, CATIE analyzes and determines  what distinguishes top-performing campaigns from baseline and under-performing content within your audiences.

Sorter (sorter.com): 1:Many Communications
Lavender (trylavender.com): 1:1 Communications

TopRight

TopRight is a strategic marketing firm based in Atlanta practicing Transformational Marketing. Our work puts the customer first through TopRight’s 3S Methodology. We help companies; define a Story that motivates customers to care, buy and stay, develop a Strategy that gets the right message to the right customers at the right time, and enable the Systems needed to execute on those winning Strategies.

In my time at TopRight, I have served as support and run several internal, partnership and client projects. Below, I have outlined a few highlights from my time as a Senior Associate and the head of HR at TopRight:

I currently lead all technology-focused initiatives and projects within TopRight. This includes: 
• Helping clients assess the best possible marketing systems. This includes technology sets, the people running those systems and the processes that enable them.
• Currently managing TopRight’s technology partnerships. 
• Running day-to-day execution of our clients' digital marketing needs.

I am also on a TopRight's team of three working on the launch of a client's groundbreaking ICO and future blockchain application that is set to redefine the private equity market. My role on the project is focused on the creation of the client's whitepaper, buzz-creation (aka marketing the launch), and general support. 

As a core member of TopRight’s internal marketing team, I assist in TopRight’s inbound marketing strategy execution including campaign ideation, content creation, influencer outreach, and funnel conversion strategy and tactics.

As part of a larger initiative to improve internal processes, in addition to my role as a Senior Associate, I am serving as the HR Coordinator. This role has required:
• The creation of an employee handbook to help define and shape company culture
• Improved meeting processes
• Improved recruiting processes
• An initiative to improve team dynamics through the better analytical management of skillsets, capacity, and personality.

Senior Associate

As an Associate at TopRight, I served as support and run several internal, partnership and client projects. Below, I have outlined a few highlights from my time as an Associate at TopRight:

• Led a grassroots, multi-channel campaign for a non-profit to support free speech from ideation, through research, to creation.
• Managed the relaunch of the TopRight website. 
• Helped in the brand relaunch of a Marketing Technology Operations Company in ~30 days. Our teams are also currently leading a multi-channel, co-branded campaign.
• Helped multiple clients assess the best possible marketing systems. This included technology sets, the people running those systems and the processes that enabling them.
• Assisted a multi-billion dollar Telco in establishing a partnership alliance program for the software industry.
• Currently leading an initiative to improve internal operations and efficiencies.

Associate

In my time as an Analyst at TopRight, I served as support and run several internal, partnership and client projects. Below, I have outlined a few highlights from my time as an analyst at TopRight:

• On a team of two, my team helped rebrand a supply chain management software company. With a new brand narrative and a revised corporate sales deck, the company saw three consecutive record-breaking quarters of sales growth.
• Helped multiple clients assess the best possible marketing systems. This included technology sets, the people running those systems and the processes that enabling them.
• As a core member of TopRight’s internal marketing team, I assist in TopRight’s inbound marketing strategy execution including campaign ideation, content creation, influencer outreach, and funnel conversion strategy and tactics.

Analyst

YoVo

I was working on Yovo in the background for a while. I learned loads about entrepreneurship working on this project, but ultimately I could never get it off the ground. The idea was simple: 
- resumes are ineffective at screening 
- recruiting calls are filled with human error/bias

Using voice analytics, the plan was to help hiring mangers make smarter decisions by giving an objective look at conversations.

I was able to spin up exciting conversations in the enterprise, but eventually, I decided to focus my time and energy into Sorter.

First Founder Attempt

Healthgrades

Worked with Healthgrades as an initial member of their Elective Provider Solutions team. After building out the initial pipeline for Healthgrades direct sales model. We consulted with heads of marketing for enterprise level specialty practices to help design digital marketing solutions to best utilize Healthgrades.com. 

Tweaking and building upon market insights for our products- we were able to design action oriented campaigns for practices and their physicians. The challenge was not only to create campaigns that would succeed, but to create campaign designs that would sell in a market adverse to change. Through our work we found it was important to help providers:

 1. Make practices and providers more discoverable, 
 2. Increase new patient acquisition, 
 3. Enhance practices and providers' online reputations.

These were the three things we could do most effectively for our clients. 

At Healthgrades, there is a "healthy obsession" with driving a ROI for clients. So by working in concert with our clients, we help maximize their ROI by learning from our current marketing efforts, and making the proper adjustments as needed.

In my tenure there, I was:

•a top revenue producer on my team
•able to uncover optimization strategies not only in product design, but also sales and marketing strategy for both Healthgrades and clients
•built out entirety of the direct sales pipeline
•cultivated relationships with agencies and practices

Healthgrades is backed by Vestar Capital Partners, as is the top site for rating doctors and hospitals. Truly on the cutting edge, it is where America goes to find a doctor.

Manager: Elective Provider Solutions

As a summer sales intern, I served as CEB's first interaction with HR executives. Cold calling on a territory of 100 HR executives, based in firms with annual revenues ranging from 50-750 million dollars, I was able to effectively introduce C-suite executives to CEB's valuable advisory resources. 

As an intern team, we were tasked with helping recruiting with their outreach to prospective employee's. We designed potent marketing material driving the impactful value of one's work at CEB, and the advantages of being a member of CEB's motivated workforce. 

CEB is the leading member-based advisory company. By combining the best practices of thousands of member companies with our advanced research methodologies and human capital analytics, we equip senior leaders and their teams with insight and actionable solutions to transform operations.

CEB offers comprehensive data analysis, research and advisory services that align to executive leadership roles and empower clients to focus efforts, move quickly, and address emerging and recurring business challenges with confidence.

CEB trades on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: CEB).

HR Leadership Council

Northwestern Mutual

After working to attain my North Carolina Life, Health, and Disability Insurance, I worked with potential clients to develop financial solutions to achieve their desired long-term success. 

This is where I learned my love of sales and marketing, as I saw the impact I was able to have by effectively showing the benefits of Northwestern's Life Insurance products. Through this valuable experience, I was able to drive many never would be customers into the sales pipeline at Northwestern.

Financial Representative

Carrboro Capital

As a summer intern, I evaluated small, rapid-growth businesses in North Carolina for acquisition. I would forecast potential risks for the companies and report a pro/con analysis to my senior managers. 

Also as a summer intern, I was tasked with analyzing financial statements for potential acquisitions. My timing when joining Carrboro Capital was especially advantageous, as I witnessed the acquisition of the local retailer Southern Season.

Private Equity Summer Analyst

Kidder Properties

Working for the four employee (including myself) start up Kidder Properties, I was able to effectively work cross-functionally with a litany of responsibilities that wouldn't have otherwise been given to a person of my age and experience. 

In my first summer with Kidder, I assisted in the analysis and acquisition of approximately 50 foreclosure homes. Comparing acquisition costs and renovation costs with the projected income from renting and ultimately selling the home, I was able to produce ROI reports. After openly discussing the tangibles and intangibles of these potential assets with my supervisor and the CEO, we would come up with a judgment for the perspective home. 

In my second summer, my focus shifted to the operational side of the business helping to reduce costs and improve the overall quality of the rental properties we provided. After analyzing the past performances of different purchased assets, I would determine if budget changes needed to be made to improve the long-term quality and therefore profitability of the home. Also in my final summer with Kidder, I helped train and coach a successor to take my place.

Real Estate Acquisitions & Renovation Operations

👋 4 Resources (3 Free):

1. Install our free email coach: install.lavender.ai

2. Sign up for my free email courses levelup.lavender.ai

3. Since you made it this far, use promo code "LavenderLove" to 2x your free trial when you sign up for Lavender

4. Check out the future of Agentic prospecting: Ora.im

Lavender helps sales teams write better emails, faster.
Get started for free at Install.TryLavender.com. 
(Available in Gmail, Outlook 365, Outreach, and SalesLoft.)

Lavender is the ultimate email assistant. As a salesperson, it provides everything you need to quickly write, high quality emails.

Lavender's coaching dashboard gives revenue teams never before had insight into what's working in each reps' inbox.

Rare that I share a chatgpt prompt.
Even rarer that I see one and it makes me think "this should be a required exercise". 

Prompt 1 {optional}: Write me a cold email for XYZ persona.

^ You can obviously jazz this up... or bring your own email... the magic is in prompt 2.

Prompt 2: Pretend you're XYZ persona. Given {situation}, what objections would you have to the following email.

This prompt chain might seem "obvious"

But what's not obvious is that everytime someone reads your email and doesn't reply - there's a hidden objection that you didn't answer.

Either it looks like a tool they have / have decided wasn't priority

They experience the problem differently than you phrased it

They have a different problem thats a bigger focus right now

etc etc etc

These objections are things you can handle up front. You can call out the obvious and show them that you really get their day to day. 

Rare that I see a prompt idea give that perspective.

PS. S/O to Kellen Casebeer for this one. Came up a couple weeks ago during our weekly masterclass. If you wanna join, Samantha, Kellen and I are doing it live every Wednesday. Think of it like office hours for clay tables, messaging, propsecting strategy etc. 

Dm if you wanna link to join

PPS. Yes - this prompt concept is already baked into Ora's empathy layer.

💜 🔮 Will Allred

👋 4 Resources (3 Free):

1. Install our free email coach: install.lavender.ai

2. Sign up for my free email course: Lavender.Thinkific.com

3. Since you made it this far, use promo code "LavenderLove" to 2x your free trial when you sign up for Lavender

4. Check out the future of Agentic prospecting: Ora.Lavender.ai

Cofounder @ Lavender | Cold Email Agents Powered by Deep Research, Reasoning, and Billions of Analyzed Sales Emails

Be Honest: How many of y'all have an Outreach/SalesLoft/Gong sequence with manual email steps that say {{personalize here}}? If yes, this experiment will blow your mind:

We gave the same concept to our new agent Ora.

Uploaded a list of emails only.
Gave it templates in the instructions.
Put brackets in the template
Gave it some rules to follow for the brackets

Ora just filled it in with it's research.

When I recorded, this cold email campaign was at an 8% reply rate.
Now at 9.5%
50% positive reply rate holding

Best part?
I can easily push these emails into Outreach, SalesLoft, or Gong.
So they can be manual steps if you still wish
They can be paired w multi channel sequences

No crazy clay tables.
Just a simple "prompt" if you will

What do y'all think of the "dogfooding" vids?

guess this was bound to happen  

AE spun up a free trial with Ora- got 7 solid replies in 10 days - canceled before getting charged.  

Legit told us his plan upon canceling... not even mad. We did our job. Just funny how people operate.

As the founder of an email company this might come as a surprise but...
If the prospect replies, call first.
If the customer has questions, call first.
If the customer/prospect creates a roadblock, call first.

99% of sellers won't call. Immediately, you stand out.

Email did it's job. You got a reply... don't make it work harder than it has to.

Now, if they don't pick up (or even if they do) here's how to manage post reply.

ASK QUESTIONS!

The data shows that most sellers respond to emails in an informative way. Typically with 0 questions.

Yet, we see the best conversations continue when a sales rep comes back with 2-4 questions.

Get curious about their response.
Namely... seek to understand a layer deeper behind their response.
Ex.
Not our focus --> Why? What else is focus?
We have a solution for this --> What solution? What about it do you like?
We're still talking internally on this? --> What can I offer to help the conversations? Who else is involved so I can make sure they have what they need?

If they just need "information" and you're only giving "information", you're no different than an LLM.

The difference between an LLM and a seller is that you can ask the clarifying questions that actually help *guide* the buyer to the best.

Want to learn more about "post reply" emailing?
Check out Episode 8 of the Lavender Cold Email Course: https://lnkd.in/ehpmfSBj

How's this for a "buyer journey"?

Met person at conference 2+ years ago.
Person recommends us to spouse.
Spouse takes demo 1+ year ago.
Emailed once a quarter to see how things were
3 months ago - they reach out after seeing new product launch.
Had 6th sales call since with team today
Entering IT/Budgeting Approvals next.

Killer activity for *ANY* outbound sales team: Review your automated emails you already sent out - person by person. Look up each person, their company, their market... Would you have still sent the same email?

If yes, you're automating correctly.
If no, your automation is flawed.

If you want to learn more about what you should / shouldn't have sent - join the weekly masterclass I'm a part of. 

Think of it as free consulting / office hours.

Ping me if you want a link 🫡

Founders tearing down founders is cringe

I saw someone that "advises" founders trying to tear down the Fireflies CTO's founding story... now you get my rant.

If you don't know, Fireflies is a meeting recorder valued over $1b. Their founders were grinding. Couch surfing, eating pizza to survive. They didn't have the tech yet.

So... they faked it. They sat on calls. Took the notes as a human. The users thought it was AI.

This person thought that was a "scam".

Dude... this is an incredible story of creative grit! 
How can you claim to support disenfranchised founders?!

My cofounder and I have a similar story. We were building Sorter. 

We knew *how* to segment a marketing list by predicted psychology traits... we had read every scientific paper on the topic. We hadn't worked directly with the researchers at Cambridge University to build models yet... and we didn't have the code to run the algorithm... so we did it manually.

Users don't care. 

SaaS means I interact with a software and a service gets done.

Is SaaS a scam if you upload a file and get 4 files back?

We had to pull that all nighter to eventually sell to brands like Yamaha and Gravity Blankets.

If you've ever read Lean Startup, you'd realize this is the *right* way to build. 

Do it manually. 
Verify the demand. 
Get the "how" down to a science. 
THEN put it into code.

Fireflies wasn't started when everyone had access to an LLM. 
This was the way folks used to have to bootstrap.

They'd be horrified to know how most "tech" works 

Trying to vilify this story just means you're looking to find some moral high ground that doesn't exist.

I get non-founders not understanding. Its not a story for everyone. 

But when I see a "in stealth founder" and a former founder who advises trying to take it down... I just see two people to avoid.

When you point out the creative ways to make it happen you unlock so so so much opportunity for founders who don't have access. 

We have to lift these stories up.

Not every company should raise a $4m seed round. Showing them paths to survive are key.

*End Rant*

Anyways... not sure which hellish corners of the internet y'all saw this week. 

I'm gonna go enjoy Thanksgiving ✌

My sister teaches special needs 1st graders in a low income area of Atlanta. The things she deals with on the daily range from daycare to social services. A nice thanksgiving reminder that if the hardest part of your day is cold calling strangers - be grateful ya turkeys 🦃 

PS. Don’t  forget to donate to your local foodbank

Cold email deliverability is a *muuuuch* bigger IT investment than teams realize. 
”Warm this domain for a few weeks... a month... 6 months. Oh, but if you get marked as spam its cooked.”

Oh and for those 6 months? We’re seeing primary domains are 3x more effective. Want to tempt the spam gods?

Here’s some of the things I’m seeing

✅ Redundancies aka multiple domains, back up inboxes = win
✅ Rotating inboxes aka low traffic per inbox = win
✅ Website cloning > domain forwarding = less likely to be identifiable as a spammer = win
✅ Verified email lists = fewer bounces = win
✅ Targeted List Building = more relevant messaging = fewer mark as spams = win
✅ Message variation aka less templating = less likely to be pattern detected as spam = win
✅ 1:1 email writing = more content variance + more relevant messaging = more replies = win

What did I miss?

Kinda funny… we get mad at AI for hallucinating.  

But, you'll make up an entire personality in your head based on a stranger's LinkedIn picture.

Holidays are cooking for cold email. My Ora agent is batting in the double digit reply rates today. 5 replies, 3 meetings booked before noon today. Quiet inboxes = receptive buyers for high quality messages.

Everyone likes to talk about "account based prospecting" but if you're not threading your threads you're just spamming w a shotgun vs. actually working the account.

Think about it like this:

Most folks just "target" multiple persona, and let it rip.

But if someone asks about specific "people" on the team
Brings up specific people they've reached out to / talked to

You move from persona level to individual level
You move from spammer... to a person that is showing they're trying.

Let's say you wrap up an email sequence to Jim (the VP of Rev Ops)

At the end of the sequence - ask if Mary (Director of Sales Strategy) would be a better person to reach out to.

Then start a new sequence to Mary with "I pinged Jim about ___ given ___"

You run this play with enough people you start to become undeniable within the account.

You can do the same thing by adding in the perspectives from folks on the front lines.

Just remember... the goal is to tap insights from those in "maker" roles to bring to folks in "manager" roles.

PS. If you're running this play - 2 things to remember:

1) more attention means more scrutiny... you better nail your reason for reaching out

2) don't email two people at the same company on the same day - this can create a deliverability issue. 

If you want to merge activities within account on the same day use other channels. Call one, LinkedIn message a couple, and keep email to one person per account per day.

Black Friday deals are an annual masterclass in sales / marketing psychology. Here's 9 principles to be on the look out for (#6= 🔥 )

1- Scarcity (duh)

Scarcity makes something feel more valuable simply because it’s limited.

“Only 2 left at this price”
“Sale ends in 2 hours”
“Limited edition / online-only drop”

These trigger FOMO which overrides your ability to be rational.

It's hard to do this in sales / marketing... but not impossible.

2- Anchoring

Our brains judge a number based on the first one we see.

Example: Was $399 → Now $179

Even if $179 is the normal price, $399 sets the high “anchor,” making the discount feel huge.

Ex. AI startups have crushed this by comparing costs to human labor vs. tech

3- Decoys

This is another form of Anchoring. But you anchor both sides. One feels too cheap. The other too expensive.

ex. software pricing pages

4- Loss Aversion
Humans hate losing more than they love gaining.
“Don’t miss these savings”
“Claim your credit before it expires”
The idea is: by not buying, you are losing something.

Messaging strategy comes to mind here. People look to avoid pain > find gain.

5- Social Proof
We look to others when unsure. This can be as simple as the choice to "participate" in black friday.
“1,247 shoppers bought this in the last hour”
“Top seller”
“Featured by XYZ influencer”
Social proof reduces uncertainty and speeds up decision-making.

Sellers know this all too well. Name dropping, and thoughtfully using case studies are key. What inspo can you find to take it to the next level?

6- Community Identity

People buy things that align with who they see themselves as.
Examples:
“Gear for creators”
“For the coffee-obsessed”
“The ultimate gift for home cooks”
Buyers want a tribe, a movement, a reaffirmation of their identity in their purchasing.

How can you use these examples in sales? Put them in a category they aspire to be in

7- Foot in the door
Start with a small, easy commitment to make the bigger one feel natural.
“Add to wishlist”
“Save your cart”
"Submit your email for a discount"

Once someone takes the first step, they’re more likely to check out

See this in prospecting. "Offers" are effectively a foot in the door strategy. Get a reply.. it's all easier from there.

8- Dopamine Reward Pathways
(& variable reward schedules)
Dopamine drives motivation. When you know "action" = reward - you do it. ex. Spend $35 more and get free shipping. It's a predictable reward. Variable rewards? 
“Spin to unlock your special deal”
Mystery outcome = more dope

For sales: Outcome pricing > seat / subscription based seems to play on this variable reward idea. What else?

9- Visual Heuristics
Design guides the brain to feel big savings fast
Splashy “% Off” graphics
Red price drops

It's about ease of processing

Faster brain understand value = more likely conversion

Sellers, a picture tells 1k words. Using visuals, memes, etc is good. Great inspo for slides

If you want to master the craft, always study the game

Common belief: AEs don't want to prospect.
Yet... our AI agent starts at 6k/y and AEs are signing up on their personal cards? So, what the heck is going on here?

Now... I'll save pricing & packaging for a different post (I think these need work) 

There's a few things I think we're tapping that can help folks to get their AEs prospecting more.

AE generated pipeline typically converts 2-4x higher than other pipeline sources. 

So how the heck do we get them to do the work?

In the same ways that we've looked at AI to 10x SDR functions... we need to start looking at ways to better tee up AEs for prospecting.

Better Territory Prioritization
Pre-Researching Accounts
Teeing up activity for them (ex. call lists & pre-drafting cold emails)

I think one of the biggest problems is workflow misalignment. 

This leads to AEs rejecting the major sales engagement platforms.

Prospecting is typically a 1 off task for AEs. Something they'll get to when inspiration strikes or they have time.

The prevailing feedback I hear is that an SEP feels like a Ferrari when all AEs are asking for is a bike. 

It's overwhelming.

(doesn't mean they're right)

But, this one off nature is also why the prospecting they do is so potent. They know why they want to hit up and account, they pin point a few ideal targets at the account, they reach out manually.

It works cause its not a "scaled" activity.

The way to encourage more process?

I don't think it's done by continuing to try to drive the same failing change management programs to get them to adopt the processes they hated as a SDR

Instead... Build a workflow that doesn't feel like such a chore

That means - revops should be working with AEs to gather all the contacts they'd care about within accounts ahead of time and organizing lists for them

That means - leadership setting "blocks" on calendars and holding activities to account (carrots & sticks)

Now there's better folks to tell you how to tee up the cold calling work. The big thing I'll note is that I've found AEs are allergic to cold calling randomly

They want to feel like they know their reason for calling - see 1 off prospecting above. It's misaligned to the whole job

With cold email - AEs don't want AI doing the work for them (at least the good ones) they want AI to tee up the work like they would

I think this is where we've tapped into something simple.

Give us your territory, and we'll work it like you would. Tee up the drafts in our OCD mode with all the research riding shotgun... AEs can launch a campaign quickly, and prospecting becomes a quick daily review activity.

Feels like teams have made huge strides using AI in the SDR or the marketing org

Yet, because AI prospecting tools are falling into the same SDR workflow efficiency traps, it feels like we're not seeing AE prospecting get the same benefit

It requires some new muscles... but if that same time and energy went towards enabling account executives... it feels like a no brainer

Enterprise selling, Expansion selling & Cross selling share this one thing: You need to be a free internal consultant... here's a story:

One of our biggest customers has -a lot- going on in their tech stack. AI tool over here. Internal AI project over there. Big transformation from one platform to another over there... 

I know our renewal is depending on our ability to differentiate and survive the tech stack musical chairs as a key piece of the workflow.

All of these flows and changes... and reps are still leaning on our lil coach at the last mile to clean it up. That's good news, but it ain't enough.

So, I'm doing what any good consultant would do:

1-Understand the problems they're actually trying to solve

2-Understand the reality on the ground
That means a lot of user interviews, coaching, and enablement sessions... but from those conversations...

3-Finding any opportunity to look at workflows and contribute to leaderships initiatives. That sometimes means offering my insight from knowing the space. Market insight is a must.

4- and as the sprawl begins? Communicate, communicate, communicate while always establishing a next step so things continue making progress.

That means showing up for meetings overly prepped.
That means showing up with insights they don't have elsewhere.
That means sharing learnings from calls across teams.

I've already started to uncover discrepancies from what leadership thinks is happening vs. what's happening on the front lines. These go into docs... these go into quick notes to leaders to keep them up to date.

An easy win if you're going onsite? Carve extra time into your onsites to understand the day to day of your end user. Make it happen.

One of those moments I'm glad I spent time in consulting... Selling in big companies requires you to become an internal consultant to truly show the customer how to get to the outcomes they need.

No wonder the best event advice is "get on a texting" relationship. Most sales emails connected to events are... awkward.

This is true for webinars, dinners, conference meet ups. 

*Just be a normal person*

you see

If you were texting a friend, you'd never be so goofy!

"Hey, you around on the 13th? Getting a few founders together for dinner. Thought your perpectives on __ would be great. I've got some other founders coming with similar backgrounds."

"Hey, you in Vegas for ReInvent? We're hosting a happy hour at the chandelier bar in the cosmo. Was telling our VP of solutions engineering about your ___. He had some ideas."

"Hey, saw Sarah just started her role in ___. Given she's probably still in planning mode - I wanted to get this webinar on your radar to help."

"Hey missed you at CES this year. Was talking to my CS leader about your recent hiring trends. (was hyping him up to meet you) He mentioned a few things he's seeing our customers doing that I thought you might find interesting." 

This is normal... not some weird grand invitation... no odd pitch... just a person texting another person with a goal of helping

Oh, and I dropped our email 101 course on youtube.

This note is partially an update. But, also a big thank you to Devin Reed.
I love writing. I love the process of organizing my thinking on paper. It gives me clarity. As we get into our groove with our new product Ora, I'm finally getting back into my content production groove again.

Udi Ledergor had given me the nudge to talk to Devin. 

Now... I'm a total Devin fanboy. His work is a big inspo for me. So, I organized my thinking for our call. You don't show up to talk to a hero unprepared.

Devin within 5 minutes unraveled my whole talk track and goes "I can just hear it in your voice. This content pillar on helping folks *really* understand how to get better with email *feels* like where your natural energy is drawn"

*lightbulb*

Yes, AI has effectively flipped the world of cold email on its head.

But, you can automate the world's craziest workflows on the planet. But, if you don't truly understand *how* that messaging should come to life - the campaign is trash.

I immediately got to work. 

I've been working on revitalizing our blog & our weekly Lavender Letter with this at the heart of it all.

Yes, I'll share things I'm seeing in the AI market. Stuff we're doing. Things we're learning. But, those fundamentals (and the data we have to help guide) are going to be at the core.

We've got some amazing marketing assets that I've done a poor job of distributing. But, I also needed to get back to building on those assets as well.

Here's my thinking:
- Start blogging more.
- Continue posting here.
But, email is a hell of a distribution channel.
- Continue improving our weekly Lavender Letter
- Start building some fun email drips you can subscribe to based on some of these assets (like did you know I built a free 2 hour email video course lol)
- Make it easier for y'all to engage with the weekly office hours (masterclass) I'm cohosting w Kellen Casebeer and Samantha Novak-Federmeyer

If these things are interesting, follow along.

But Udi / Devin - I appreciate y'all both. Our convos were the kick in the pants I needed.

Cognitive Misers are either a jujitsu opportunity... or they'll kill your cold email.
"Wait... is this like Gong" this was Samantha's immediate reply as someone tried to explain their service during our weekly masterclass. If that's Sam's response... wtf do you think your prospects are doing???

A cognitive miser is a "mental shortcut"... your email is categorized in the first 3 seconds.

"sales email"
"oh this is like ___"

Analogy can be your friend. It can also **** you.

Ironically we used Gong in the early days. "What value Gong's pulling from your calls, we can provide for your outbound email."

Immediately a different mental category than "cold email tool" that might have them thinking sequencer, Ai thing, etc.

Using their miser can help short cut people to think about you differently... or the same.

It could be that you're *like* that solution. It could be that you expand the value they get from that tool.

Some messaging hacks I've found help:

"Have you ever wished you could get ____ from tools like ___?"
"We built ___ for ___."
"Tools like __ can be great for ___. But, customers like ___ found they still needed ____. We do this"

Psychology is your friend if you know how to use it.

Ping me if you wanna join our next masterclass 
or if you just want to check out a recent blog I wrote on psychology principles that every outbounder should know!

Social media is full of black and white choices. But, a question like this isn't simple... but that's the bait :)  How are you sourcing pipeline? How repeatable is your pipe gen? How repeatable is your sales motion? What's your average initial deal size?  These should all fuel how you make the call.

Too many founders bail on their sales motion too early and try to outsource it.  

But... same could be said for marketing. 

Founders don't get the funnel mechanics and hand it off too early without proper understanding.

Same with CS...this logic can be applied throughout the whole process of business building. 

I'm a big believer in "letting others play with your legos" (if you've ever read the First Round Review blog) but you gotta know how the legos work before you can be an effective manager of the work.

What do you think?

"Me, Tarzan. You, Jane. You, problem. Me, solve it". This is word for word how one my favorite customers described a Lavender model issue.

"It just feels like Lavender's working overtime trying to fit it to a 5th grade reading level"

If you've ever felt like Lavender's coach was "oversimplifying" your writing - Good news!

Borrowing from the advancements w/ Ora. 

We just rolled out a big update to our email coach.

Our email drafter (start my email) + the "fix it all" button are working insanely well.

Team put in some extra hours over ThxGiving to get these out, so go check em out!

taplio

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