Why Chasing Money Made Her Worse At It w/ Gabi Rosen

Jeff Albaum

Man, that's so cool.

Gabi

Thank you.

no worries.

Jeff Albaum

And that's why we have editing. so sorry about that. man, so there's there's so much that I want to unpack there. So a couple of things you said stood out and I and I'm curious to kind of deep dive into each one of those if that's cool with you. So you started you said, okay, first off, building a side hustle. Like that's interesting. And like why have you have you always had an entrepreneurial drive, do you think? Like is it's been always been something that you wanted to do.

Gabi

Perfect. no worries.

Yeah, I've always been like growing up and even in the corporate world, very which is very opposite of entrepreneurs, like I want certainty. Like if I work 80 hours a week, there's a path, there's a ladder that I can take in order to get to where I want to go. And I like that like steady paycheck. So it's kind of like going against my original nature of like uncertainty. And yeah, that's the biggest thing is like giving up.

certainty and comfort to really grow. I always was like, yeah, maybe at one point when I built enough in my career, I'll start something on the side. Like it was always an idea and like a craving. But I wouldn't say it was in my original nature of being entrepreneurial. But the thing that really made me want to do it is growth. I love grow like if I don't feel like I'm growing, that's when I feel the worst in life.

Jeff Albaum

Okay.

Gabi

Like if I don't feel like I'm learning new things. And so ultimately where we got to within corporate was like, okay, I hit the milestones I want to hit. I kind of don't think that if I keep going, I'm gonna grow in the ways that ultimately I want to. And the only path that I think will force me to grow in those ways is being more entrepreneurial.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm. And when you decided to eventually leave corporate, did like were you able to swap in like your were you able to replace your corporate income so you had some of that certainty like before you left?

Gabi

Yeah. Before I left, I had already built about like five cohorts of groups of these like energizing habit groups. So I felt even though it wasn't, you know, a lot of money, it wasn't what I was making in corporate, I felt like okay, I have some stream of income. And I also set myself up where if I didn't pay myself a dollar for a year, it would like not impact my life. So for me, I needed that.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Gabi

Like my brother's always been an entrepreneur, and he's so good at, you know, he did the peanut butter and jelly sandwich every night route, not paying himself for five years, like complete uncertainty. He can handle that, or he did definitely handle it, and he still could do it today. Versus me, I'm like, I n I want a little more certainty. I want to know that I can not eat peanut butter and jelly every day.

Jeff Albaum

For sure, for sure. And so okay, so you kinda you started building up cohorts and you I'm sure also there was like you could see a path to some sort of growth in in the energizing habits cohort building. So like, okay, I feel good about and like confident about the the trajectory that that's on.

Gabi

Exactly. There was I found product market fit within the cohorts. Like, I'm getting amazing feedback. It's growing. People are joining. People are interested in this. And then two, at Spotify, I was already doing the workshops for about three years on the side, like I mentioned. And they were like, we want to take this to AMIA. We want to take this to APAC, all these different places. And I felt, okay, well, if this big corporation wants to expand this around the globe and I keep

Jeff Albaum

Okay.

Gabi

Filling these classes up at Spotify, there has to be other corporations similar that would also want this.

Jeff Albaum

For sure. And so is is that what the cohorts were made of? They were made up of other companies w that were in in the cohorts?

Gabi

So first it was just doing the free workshops at Spotify. And then the cohorts were friends. So friends and like friends of friends. So basically the way started the the individual ones is I put together a business plan. I ran it by my brother, who's an entrepreneur. And then it's like, what's the easiest way to get this started? Like I said, COVID just started. So it's like people want that virtual connection at the time. And I put together like five

Jeff Albaum

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Gabi

questions that I could ask people, just like completely educational. I just want to learn to see if this has enough interest that people would really pay for this. So I basically reached out to like all my different friends that I feel like were really about growth and community. And I would call them, be like, can I ask a couple of questions? And then naturally you're gonna get the people who are like, I want you to update me on your progress. If you ever create this, I want to be a part of it because

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Gabi

When you're asking people these questions, they're helping shape something too. So they're also like part of the building process. So then I would follow up with them and kind of do rounds and like create wait lists and whatnot. So that's how I would create the original cohorts. And then I went after the corporations once I could leverage email.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Got it. Got it. Got it. Okay. So a kind of a question on that. Maybe it's it's nitty-gritty, but like I've often heard from people who are describing like a similar thing, like, I want to go start something. So I'm gonna call and ask questions to who my ideal customer would be. And I would imagine it was a lot of people in your network already, right? It's like friends and family who who liked you, right? How did you navigate the

like that's really cool and kind of your friends that are naturally gonna support you, but then when it came time to actually pay, maybe don't do that. Does that make sense?

Gabi

Yeah, well, I made sure to include a question like after going through the first, you know, four, is how much would you be willing to pay for a group like this? So they would know there was a cost associated and they were already telling me how much they would pay. And then also asking them, do you want me to and most would throughout the process be like, please update me? But if not, do you want me to keep you updated? Do you want me to like when it is time to roll out the community?

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Got it. Got it, got it.

Gabi

For the founding members, do you want me to let you know, basically?

Jeff Albaum

Got it. Got it. Got it. Okay.

Gabi

So you're already putting in their mind that there is cost associated. And then another way to frame costs that I would do is I've spoken to mentors of mine who say that they I should charge $500 a month for this. But for the founding members, I'm thinking I'm gonna charge $200 a month. What do you th do you think that's fair? Like, do you think that's a good price?

Jeff Albaum

Mm.

Gabi

'Cause again, you're anchoring this has high value, but you would get a special deal for being a founding member of it. And then while you're talking to your friends and family, which is what I would do for all my friends, is like who else do you recommend I I should speak to? Is there anyone else who comes to mind? And then that way you're getting people who are not just in your immediate network, but they're, you know, one degree away.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Right, right. Man, that's amazing. And so what was the wall that you hit before you were like, okay, I need to go 'cause you you mentioned like you got into corporations after adding in the email component. So what was the wall that you went that you hit before you're like, shoot, I need to add some sort of new channels?

Gabi

Yeah, for I had created five cohorts, so five different groups that were paying. So I started with like just a hundred dollars a month per member, and then my last cohort was about five hundred dollars a month per member. But I felt if I keep doing this, like I'm gonna hit my my ceiling pretty quickly. And if I could speak to bigger groups at corporations, then I could I like to do both. I also felt like the wall I hit was I'm

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Gabi

Very persistent and I was annoying everybody close to me. I'm like, I can't be annoying my friends this much all the time, you know? Like everybody I would meet, which is something that now that I have email marketing, I'm just like, I'm so glad I don't have to annoy every single person I know.

Cause it's like if I met you randomly out, it's like, can I ask you some questions? Can we have a call? I want your opinion on my cohort so you can eventually become a member. Tell me more members. Or just like my friends who loved it. And I'm like, give me more referrals, more referrals, you know? It's like eventually you're annoying the shit out of out of everybody. Stop doing it. so that was like a major wall where I'm like, I need to go cold.

Jeff Albaum

For sure, for sure.

Gabi

and talk to people who are not in my network and not have to like think of every person in the world as a prospect in my that I meet personally.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

That makes sense. That makes sense. You've mentioned a couple of times like mentors and business coach, I think you mentioned in in the in the beginning. How do you think about those things? So, how do you think about mentors? How do think about business coaches and like where do you draw the line of of this is worth it versus not into it? mostly for business coach, less so mentors, because I think everyone agrees mentors are good.

Gabi

yeah. Yeah, this I've always been willing to invest in coaches. That's been like a big thing for me. I think with business coaches, it's someone who's been where you have been and is like two steps ahead of you. Like they have more success than you, but they're not like too far away from you where it's almost their advice is now unrelatable to what you're going through. Cause

Jeff Albaum

Mm.

Yeah.

Gabi

I have mentors that I've met along the way who, you know, have really massive businesses. They're doing tens of millions of dollars every year, but it's like their advice wasn't relevant to me because they're too far away from like where I was as just starting out, versus my business coach was just a few steps ahead where they have like built a successful business, but they're not doing again tens of millions in revenue at that time. They weren't doing that.

yet so they could really get in like the weeds with me. And I think that's really important is like anybody can turn on a podcast and listen to advice, but do you have someone who can like really drill down and be in the weeds with you on a very specific problem to help you get through that?

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

So if you were if you were starting over t today in twenty twenty six and you had the same mentality of like I want to invest in coaches, how do you start how do you find one? Like how do you go through that process?

Gabi

So my business coach wasn't even a business coach. I just knew him. Like I knew that he was an entrepreneur. He sold a company. He was building a new company. And I was like, I would love to pay you as a business coach if you're up for it. Like if you're willing to help me grow. So I think sometimes it's even just thinking about like who's in your network, who's someone who you admire, who could be a mentor.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Gabi

But you want more of their time, you wanna meet with them once or twice a week and like asking them, Could I please pay you for this? I would really appreciate if you coach me.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

And like you don't have to answer this you don't want, but I'm curious like how how do you determine like what to offer for their time? Right. 'Cause like I imagine what they're what you're hopefully to get from them is extremely valuable, but also like if you're starting out, maybe you don't have a ton of money. So how yeah, how do you how does that work?

Gabi

Yeah, I asked them like what they would charge and they came back with a fair price. Like it wasn't like this extravagant price. I think if someone's naturally ready a mentor, they're not really gonna charge you like some of the business coaches today charge crazy prices, you know? It's like they're always kind of trying to maximize their dollar, which I completely understand, but of course the value needs to be there. Where I think someone who's a mentor who genuinely wants to help young founders.

Jeff Albaum

Okay. Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Gabi

or new founders grow, they're gonna be more fair with it. And then I I believe what you spend on like growing is always gonna come back to you.

Jeff Albaum

Have you have you found that to be true?

Gabi

Yeah, a hundred percent. It's how I even feel about marketing. It's like, have you ever heard of like, there's a story about a guy? I might have said it at the workshop, maybe I haven't, but this is it essentially how I view all effort in life. So there's a story story of this man who is very poor and he dreams of having this big, beautiful home. And so God comes to him one night and he's like, I'm gonna give you this home, but there's one condition. There's gonna be a massive rock in front of the home.

And every day you have to use your max effort to push the rock. And then one day I will move the rock. So it's not up to you to move it, just push it. So the guy gets to the beautiful home. He's like, my God, this place is so amazing, better than I imagined. I don't even care to ever leave it. And of course I'm gonna push the rock with full effort. So a week passes by, rock hasn't moved at all. Two weeks pass by, rock hasn't moved at all. So each week he starts to lessen the effort.

And then eventually he just stops pushing altogether because he hasn't seen the rock move. And then he dies in the home. He goes to heaven and God he says to God, Why didn't you ever move the rock? And God's like, All I asked you to do was like push the rock with max effort, but you stop pushing. So I can never move it. And that's how I think about effort. Obviously, be smart with it, but like if you give your max effort, which means investing past maybe it's you know, it's a little uncomfortable.

Eventually good things are gonna happen in your life. Like things are gonna line up. But if I'm so focused on the value that I get from each individual coaching session or this specific thing that I'm doing, I'm kind of losing sight of like the bigger picture, which is just giving my all.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Hmm. It's a really cool s I hadn't heard that story before.

Gabi

Yeah, it's my favorite. I think about it every day. It's like doing follow-ups with people, you know? It's like no one likes to do follow-ups, but it's like, well, I'm gonna give it by all. And maybe this person will never answer me, but then I'm gonna get a few inbounds one week. Or like even the workshop. It's like, I didn't know if I was gonna get any clients from it. But if I show up and give my all and I try something different, like eventually, eventually that effort's gonna come back to me.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm. Yeah, totally. Well, also, like it can't hurt, right? Like there's no downside to it.

Gabi

Yeah, and if sometimes you get paired up with a coach and it just doesn't feel right and you're like, I don't like this at all and it's okay, just stop doing it, you know? Like you learned.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm. So with with those with those coaches, would you set like a like hey, I'm I would like to love to hire you and pay you for time for A, B, and C. And then with the understanding that like hopefully we'll we can achieve this within a two month period or whatever. Like, do you set those like specific parameters beforehand?

Gabi

It would yeah, it would definitely be specific things that I wanted to work on. And I think that's important too. It's like you're gonna get out of a session what you give. And so what do you actually like the coach isn't gonna do can't really direct you if you're not giving them anything. So I'd be very explicit with what I needed help with. but then I think timelines is always a difficult thing because it took me six months to get my first sale through cold email.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Gabi

But what the six months taught me was a lot. It's like it taught me who my ideal buyer was. It taught me that I knew how to sell at a big corporation, but I didn't know how to sell through cold email. And it's like along the way, you're gonna uncover all the things you actually need help on in order to achieve your goal.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That makes sense. You you mentioned earlier that you're you're driven by like the potential for growth. Is that is that the pure driver? Like are are are you like, do you think about money in the sense of like, that is the goal too? Or is it is it more so like solving problems and optimizing for growth?

Gabi

Yeah, I of course everybody wants money, but I think if you become the person who can attract more money and like is worth receiving more money in a way because your skill sets are higher, like that's always gonna take care of itself. at Spotify, because I graduated early from college to start working for Spotify and like I was the lowest paid employee by far.

Jeff Albaum

Mm.

Gabi

I had they like pulled the stats. I was doing three times more work than the second busiest employee at the company. And for three years, basically that's the way that my life went. And it was like to the point where I was like almost quit. I was so frustrated by it. but then when I got promoted and this amazing opportunity opened where I could become a seller at like 23, which by the time, like the youngest seller other than that, was around 33. So

Just got in at like some, you know, it just opened for me and my salary quadrupled within a year. And I think that's the same thing with work. It's like you might not see the results for a few years, but eventually when you're ready, if you just continue driving, growing and learning, you will attract more and you will keep attracting more. And the times leaving Spotify to go do my own company and then go to a startup.

was so challenging mainly because of money too. Like, I was getting paid s a lot at Spotify at such a young age and I had these all these perks. And then now I'm gonna go do my own thing. I'm not gonna pay myself. I'm gonna invest it all in my company. Then I'm gonna go build a startup, get paid way less. And it's like you have to when you focus on that

I have found you become way worse at what you do and you're just always unhappy. Versus when I let that go, when it finally hit me, like you're always gonna be fine. You always have been fine. Money always comes to you. Like

Jeff Albaum

Mm.

Gabi

you naturally just start attracting more of it when you're more focused on the growth element and you enjoy work a lot more. I don't know if if you have ever felt that, but I feel when I start counting money or focusing too much on money, it makes me not like my job as much as when I focus on my clients and like truly wanting them to succeed. And then me just

Expanding and growing.

Jeff Albaum

Totally. Yeah, totally. I think also the opposite is true too. Like I've I've never like there's never been a point where money has felt anywhere close to the feeling that I associated with it in my head before getting it. Like any bonuses or any raises, like it's never it all it's of it's of course nice, right? But like it's never been like that was totally worth all of the mental bandwidth that I associated with it in the first place. And so I've I I've never like

Gabi

A hundred percent.

Jeff Albaum

sold a company or anything, but I can imagine it's to a different degree, maybe like a similar a similar thought process.

Gabi

Yeah, it's like you always want more of it because there's always something else that you can get with it. But it kind of just like it ruins the enjoyment of the the process along the way. And I think sometimes when I my mind, because my mind naturally is always thinking of what I can do better and more that I can achieve, when I'm like, okay, but maybe I don't even, you know, like I don't know what my life is gonna be like at that point.

But right now I know that I have all these other blessings in my life that money can't put a price on. And so like maybe I shouldn't actually rush to that and I should just fully enjoy now and giving it my all and pushing the rock. It's like, now I feel high on life just by changing that.

Jeff Albaum

Hm.

Yeah. Yeah. Totally. And that's also like probably such it's I think this is also the point you're making is like by doing that you're gonna be so much better at your job and therefore like probably make more money in the long run.

Gabi

Yeah, 100%. Like I was the worst at my job anytime I was focused on money. Like coming to the startup, the times where the founders are like, you're just not showing up as yourself. Like this isn't like the Gabby that we know. And it was that like focusing on what I can get. And then when I really made a switch of like, I don't really care about all my wants right now. I just care about the company succeeding and clients succeeding.

That's all of a sudden every day signing out of work, I'm like, I love my job. And that was the only switch.

Jeff Albaum

Yeah.

Man, that's awesome. So what what is cause you you mentioned at the workshop, like you're obviously an insanely hard worker and it makes sense that you love what you do, but like what is it what does a typical day look like? Like when do you start? How you know, what are you doing in the morning and afternoon, evenings, like when are you done? Like what does your day look like?

Gabi

Yeah, it it definitely varies, but for the most part, I will get up, go to the gym. I'll wake up around like five, go to the gym, work out, sauna, you know, all the Austin stuff that everyone loves, walk my dog, and then yeah, get ready and start the day. I definitely want to start by I'm like Spotify me would be in there at like 7 a.m. I don't know how I did that. I'm like, did I just didn't have a dog back then or something that I had to walk.

Because now I'm like it takes me so long in the morning. But yeah, by the time it hits eight or like eight thirty, I like to be at my desk answering emails. And then usually I'm on calls from like nine thirty to five-ish or like four. And then yeah, sometimes I'll work until nine, but usually I try and work up, wrap up around like six thirty-ish, six thirty-seven. Take the dog out, you know.

Jeff Albaum

Okay. And for sure. And and let's let's talk about EOC a little bit. So like you mentioned at the beginning that you were their second client, but what is it exactly they do and like what is the how how how and why are they so valuable?

Gabi

Yeah, so they do email marketing. So essentially connecting email is all about connecting two people together. No matter what the industry is, we'll reach out to their their ICP, their target buyer, and get them on more meetings with them. So getting them more leads. And then we also do LinkedIn marketing as well, similar, really setting up those meetings for them just through a different channel. The

Reason they are so valuable is they're definitely even a lot more valuable today because email marketing has become a million times harder from five and a half years ago. Like back in the day, you could just get an inbox, a decent list, and have really good copy, and you would get a ton of meetings. Where now, with the rise in AI, trust has really decreased. So, like we're a lot more skeptical. We don't trust as much. A lot more people think they can do it on their own, and therefore

Email providers like a Google or an Outlook are getting a lot stricter. So there's an a lot more technicality behind email marketing in terms of making it work. And you just have to const I mean you need a full team constantly looking at every piece of the puzzle in order to make sure that you get on these high quality calls and then also help convert them after.

Jeff Albaum

Got it. Okay. And so can you walk through an example? Like let's take I don't know, a a a services business. So someone who like or your your cohort, if you can, like it just kinda walk through like what that would look like from the energizing habits perspective, like just a real world example.

Gabi

Yeah, so with and I think this is important, it's like deal sizes like the cohort where they're paying, you know, at at my highest cohort level, like once the five group, fifth group was created and then I focused on corporate. When it comes to the individuals in the cohorts, I wouldn't use email for that because the deal size is a bit too small.

Jeff Albaum

Okay.

Gabi

Where corporate clients, it makes more sense. Like email is really for high value, hard-to-reach people. So if you want, it's more like B2B or B2B deal sizes, meaning like land, if you're selling a plot of land, of course that's B2C, but it's a B2B deal size because it's six figures. Deal sizes don't need to be six figures, you know, but like the lifetime value of a customer should be around $10,000.

Jeff Albaum

Got it.

Gabi

For email specifically. LinkedIn, it can be less because LinkedIn's a lot less expensive. but the way it would work for for setting up an energizing habits campaign, I don't know how like detailed you want me to go. Okay, perfect. Okay. Well, first, just even like onboarding wise, we would really need to figure out what is your value proposition, what makes you different, what are people in the

Jeff Albaum

Start start going the most detailed, then if it's too much, I'll stop ya.

Gabi

your target market actually interested in? Like how do we speak to these people and what is relevant to them today? Are they working with competitors? Are there influencers in the space that they know of? Are they going to certain events? Like what's relevant to them that also connects to your value proposition? So you can, you know, if you're just coming out of left field today.

And pitching them something totally off base, it's probably not gonna land. You're probably not gonna get a response response from them. So that's baseline, just like what's your value proposition? And how do we create relevance and trust with your ideal buyer? Behind the scenes, we are building infrastructure. So we're setting up all of these domains on your behalf and warming those up. And then someone's full-time job is just managing deliverability.

So like energizing habits, I would have two hundred inboxes on my behalf that we would be sending from.

Jeff Albaum

And and you were explaining this at the workshop, but I I actually didn't fully understand. So this is like a for energizing habits, it would be like the the inbox are like hello at energizing habits, hi at energizing habits, but two hundred of those.

Gabi

Exactly. Well, there would be about fifty different variations. And then in terms of like those would be the domains and then inboxes could be like Gabby R, Gabby Rosen, G Rosen. So like you could change your name formatting as well.

Jeff Albaum

Okay.

Got it, got it, got it. Okay. And then what was the process of warming them up?

Gabi

Yeah, so inboxes need about three weeks to warm up, meaning that they're talking to other warm-up inboxes and they're mimicking regular human sending. So, like as if I was emailing you, like, hey, it's so good to see you. what are you having for lunch later? And then you're responding from a warm-up email, like, yeah, so good to see you too. I'm having a burger. Like that's how they kind of talk to each other. And that's maturing your infrastructure.

Jeff Albaum

Okay.

Gabi

So it has good reputation. So these ESPs understand that you're not setting up inboxes and blasting out.

Jeff Albaum

And E ESP is like a Google or a like a Gmail, like whoever the email provider is.

Gabi

Exactly a Yahoo Gmail outlook.

Jeff Albaum

Okay, okay, got it. So if you don't do the warm up process, what happens?

Gabi

they just won't succeed. You'll never go into the inbox really. So, like again, a few years back before the Rise in AI, what you used to be able to do is stand up a single inbox. So, like if a client was struggling with meetings, I I miss these days. I could stand up a single inbox, get a massive list of like 10,000 people, blast it out, and then get you like 80 meetings from it, and they would shut down your

inbox eventually. But in the meantime, like it would take Gmail a few days to understand that you were like sending out a mass cold email. But today they have so much, like their rules are much more strict. So you can't do that. Like if you were to do something like that today without warm up, you would you wouldn't land in the inbox.

Jeff Albaum

G would it just go straight to spam or just wouldn't send?

Gabi

Yeah, it would likely go to spam. And then they could block list that domain. So it just might not be getting through in general to that inbox. And one thing to note is you can have like additional security gateways on top of that. So like a really big corporation might add in additional security gateways. That makes it even harder to land in the inbox.

Jeff Albaum

Okay.

Got it, got it, got it. Okay.

Got it. Okay. Okay. So once you've warmed up the the s the subdomains, then then you start blasting out the copy and the the things that you've talked about kind of in step one.

Gabi

Well, first you wanna start sending at very low volume. So maybe only like an email a day per inbox. And you want someone who's managing that because you want to change the amount you're sending and then the times you're sending and the time gaps in between sending emails on a daily basis. And then you wanna create a really high quality list. So like I mentioned this at the workshop, but if you're using like an Apollo or Zoom info, even if they say verified leads.

Jeff Albaum

Okay.

Gabi

A lot of times they really aren't verified, especially today, because those companies have a lot of competition and very small margins today. So they need to maximize those as much as possible. So like as much as fifty percent of their data could be bad. So if you are gonna use a data source, sorry, go ahead.

Jeff Albaum

Well I gonna say so so what's the solution? Like how do you find a good list?

Gabi

one, you really if you do use a data source like that, you want to triple verify it through like a zero bounce, a million verifier. There are plenty out there. We use three tools to verify. so that's one way to get rid of all the bad emails. But then we also will manually scrape. Like if you use LinkedIn as your data source, then that's good. LinkedIn has pretty clean data source, but you still will need to enrich.

those names and companies with emails through a tool like Clay and then triple verify that.

Jeff Albaum

Got it. Because LinkedIn tells you this person is real, but doesn't give you their email necessarily.

Gabi

Yeah, exactly. Like you should be able to know where that person is working. Cause you know you have that work history. So you should be able to see current company and then their name and then you could just enrich through a tool like clay.

Jeff Albaum

Got it, got it, got it, okay.

And that matches up if you says you work at Amazon on LinkedIn, your name at in Amazon's naming conventions and it just puts them together.

Gabi

I don't really know the way that it like how they do it behind the scenes when it comes to the company emails. But yeah, I just know we enrich through clay because I don't really do the list building, but I know how the process works.

Jeff Albaum

Okay. Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. So then you build you build this clean list and then you're s you're sending out low volume emails from all your subdomains and then just increasing that over time. Okay.

Gabi

Exactly. And you always want to stay really like sub time emails. Really, we like to say between one to five. But basically you should keep volumes low for your first month and make sure you're getting at least a 1% reply rate, not including out of offices, and then 10% positive reply rate. That would show that your list is good and your copy is good and you have strong deliverability. And then from there you can start adding more volume.

Jeff Albaum

And so let's say you send out a hundred emails, you should get your response rates, you should get least one response from that. Well, that doesn't work. So let's say you send a thousand emails, you should get at least a hundred responses back. Of those hundred, ten should be positive.

Gabi

Ex 1% of a thousand would be t yeah, ten to one. So really you should be able to get one meeting from the a thousand contacts you're sending to.

Jeff Albaum

ten. Okay. Okay. So

Got it, got it, got it. Okay. Okay. Man, that's crazy.

Gabi

That's a floor number. Yeah. That's floor. But so if you're doing well and cold email, you have a product that people are interested in, that should be your floor. There's ways to increase that. Like local outreach will definitely increase that. when you're reaching out to people like within Austin, for example, then there's already more of that trust factor. It's like, we live in the same city. You'll get more responses.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Sure. Sure. Okay. Man, that's nuts. And so that's just it's just building the engines and infrastructure, like you said, and then having someone to manage all that setup and then the process itself.

Gabi

Yeah, exactly. Cause you we have someone whose full-time job is deliverability. We have a few people who do list building. We have a few people who do copy. There's about three people who will oversee the copy for every single client before that copy goes out. But then there's like multiple people who do that like first pass who have specific accounts. And then I do more of the campaign management. So working with the customers, drilling in, finding any guests, always finding ways that we can improve.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Gabi

Yeah, you just need a lot of different skill sets in order to make cold email work today. And they're very different skill sets, which is why it's best to have different people doing them. And then of course you need someone who's looking at everything and seeing is the ESP making changes, is it client specific, et cetera.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Man, that's wild. That's

Gabi

Yeah, it's pretty that's when people are like, I think I figured out cold email. Like I had a friend, she's like, came we went for like an early workout, and she's like, I'm so excited. I figured out how to do cold email. I spent all day in Apollo and I'm like, that's so excit you know, I didn't want to like say you definitely haven't just like that's so exciting. Like, tell me what you learned. And I'm like, how many inboxes did you set up? She's like, one. I'm like, no, you need this man. And like I just kept asking her quote and eventually five questions later, she's like,

I'm not doing it. Yeah.

Jeff Albaum

The I even just like the war like the warm-up thing, that kind of blew my mind because I I I didn't know. That's that's it like I mean I told you before we hopped on the call, like I'm not I suck at marketing. So like you don't know what you don't know, but all this stuff is like I didn't know.

Gabi

Yeah. And then people think like, I feel like today we kind of make AI like a superpower, like AI cannot be wrong, sort of thing. Like I just had a call with a guy who's using a lot of AI, and I'm like, how are your response rates? How is this? How is that? And it's like, you know, someone's I'm doing great, but when you really dig in, it's like, you're actually not getting any responses. And this whole call, he's like, you know, I I think AI is just gonna replace you guys. And it's like, yeah, I kind of wish it could replace more of the email.

But like AI kind of knows nothing about email when you type in, because I'll always test it, and it's very helpful with automation if you have a lot of data and you're feeding it into that. but a lot of the advice it's gonna give you is like advice that worked a few years ago, but it doesn't work today because these ESPs are changing quicker than any AI understands.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Got it. Got it, got it.

Gabi

So it is very complex.

Jeff Albaum

Man, what what does like if someone's listening to this are like w like what what are you looking for right now? Like what would be helpful to you and your business if someone's listening and they're like, man, like Gabby's awesome, I wanna help her out, I wanna do something. Like what what are you what are you looking for?

Gabi

Yeah, in terms of like tools or just skill sets.

Jeff Albaum

Tools, skill sets, yeah, anything that would be helpful.

Gabi

Yeah. I mean eventually would definitely like someone else who like can also look at we have the co-founder who's amazing at like making sense of all the data. but I think eventually would love someone who like really digs in with me on client calls and is able to take some of those clients as well and like I trust them to really pay good and close attention to them and be able to always improve their results.

'Cause that's ultimately the goal of all of this is like I just want my clients to get on more meetings and close more revenue.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And man, such a talk about like value add, right? Like I imagine your pitch is pretty easy, like, hey, do you want more money? Because you should use us.

Gabi

Yeah. Yeah, 100%. There's so many, typically on calls, though, it's more I focus on meetings because your clients are gonna differ so much in terms of how much revenue they close based on their sales skills. I feel like sales is such a touchy subject because everybody doesn't think that they have a problem with it. But like I work with really big companies and you dig into their sales process, and it's like,

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Gabi

You had a meeting with this person and you followed up once, like today with calls and sales in general. So, like I used to have a lot of one call closes back in the day. It's like you speak to somebody, you have good energy, and you close them right on that first call. Majority of my energizing habits came from one call closes. But in my the co founder who

Did sales before, same thing. It was like a lot of one call closes. But I think that really shifted come like January, February, because the trust has gone down a lot. It's like, can I do this through AI? Is there someone out there cheaper than you? You know, the people have a much harder time making decisions today. And that impacts everybody's sales. And so one of my favorite ways to leverage email is actually even like postcall, where you have this follow-up engine that just goes.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Gabi

And you're constantly speaking to that person that you spoke to to really get them from I'm interested to okay, now I'm putting you on the fence and now I'm like literally kicking you over the fence and you're gonna work with me because I know this would be good for you, but it's really like what it takes today. I would say all of my sales over the last few months have come from doing that, the follow-up engine.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Gabi

That comes after a great call. So I never promise revenue. It's like this is your best shot because we'll get you more meetings, but it's really gonna be up to you and how persistent you are, how much you leverage us, and how much you're also willing to learn about how to have conversations with people through cold outreach.

Jeff Albaum

Totally. Totally. And that's probably smarter too because you're you can you can control meetings. You can't necessarily control, like you said, closings.

Gabi

Exact and to a certain extent, some clients get a ton of meetings, others don't get as many. Like there's who are you pitching into? You know, what's your value proposition? Is it interesting enough? Like there's really niche companies we work with that do like somebody who just started working working with us a few months ago. he does SEO for hunting brands. It's very niche, but he kills it. There's so much interest in it.

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Gabi

versus like a cybersecurity company, I would say leverage LinkedIn over email because you have more of that trust factor. Or like if you're pitching into financial services, it's gonna take more touches. You're gonna have to follow up more, you're gonna have to have better copy. So it's so dependent on the industry too. But now that we've worked with over two hundred clients, it's like I have more of that insight that I can share with people. And never over promise like

Jeff Albaum

Totally.

Gabi

I think that's a a thing where you're like, yeah, it's such an easy value proposition. But for me, I there's so many companies out there that just overpromise. we're gonna get you a hundred leads, ten leads, twenty leads. It's like I'm just gonna give you the floor numbers all the time. I'm never gonna overpromise because I'm gonna be there with you along the way. And if I overpromise, you're just gonna be disappointed. I'm gonna set you up to fail rather than being realistic and

you being able to get the most out of the partnership and the money that you're spending, and ultimately like achieve the most through underpromising. So yeah, that's one thing I don't do. And then yeah, people are always, you know, price is a big thing. And if you there's so many low quality companies out there that do lead gen and I think it's like the biggest mistake. But if I speak to prospects and they end up going with a a lower cost option, I feel

Jeff Albaum

Mm-hmm.

Gabi

Like, that that kind of sucks for you because you're gonna waste so much time and then you're gonna figure it out. But for us, it's great because when that happens, they end up coming back three months later and then they never leave because they're like, I know what it was like to be on the other side. So yeah, those are all like the the main things when it comes to selling it.

Jeff Albaum

Totally.

That's amazing. You guys rock. You're a very, very amazing communicator. And yeah, the the workshop was amazing and and this was super helpful. where where can people find out more about you and and the company and if they want to reach out or have questions?

Gabi

Thank you.

Yeah, if they want to reach out, they can reach out to Gabby G-A-B-I at EOCWorks.com. And then our website is hey eocworks.com.

Jeff Albaum

Okay. Amazing. And yeah, we'll link to everything in the show notes. Man, Gabby, thank you so much for being here. I'd so appreciate you and and all your knowledge and wisdom. So thank you.

Gabi

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Jeff Albaum

Hundred percent. all right. We'll see everybody next week. Bye everybody.