Consulting Spotlight

Michael Bernzweig (00:01.998)

Are you ready to unlock the secrets of consulting success? Tired of sifting through endless noise to find actionable insights that actually move the needle?

Welcome to Consulting Spotlight, your weekly deep dive into the transformative world of professional consulting. Your host is Michael Bernzweig, who in 1998 launched Software Oasis as one of the first platforms enabling businesses to download, license, and deploy software instantly across their networks with a single click. Today, Software Oasis has evolved into one of the leading communities where businesses find top consultants across the USA and Canada.

Each week, Michael sits down with industry titans, innovative leaders, and game-changing executives to bring you exclusive insights you won't find anywhere else. From emerging methodologies to market trends, Consulting Spotlight delivers the strategic intelligence you need to accelerate your consulting career and stay ahead of the curve.

Join our growing community of consulting professionals and decision-makers. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform and visit softwareoasis.com/subscribe to get our bi-weekly newsletter delivered straight to your inbox.

Get ready for weekly data, trends, analysis, interviews, and insights that will propel your consulting career forward.
Subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter https://softwareoasis.com/subscribe/ to stay updated with more insights from technology leaders and transformation experts.

Are you ready to unlock the secrets of consulting success? Tired of sifting through endless noise to find actionable insights that actually move the needle?

Welcome to Consulting Spotlight, your weekly deep dive into the transformative world of professional consulting. Your host is Michael Bernzweig, who in 1998 launched Software Oasis as one of the first platforms enabling businesses to download, license, and deploy software instantly across their networks with a single click. Today, Software Oasis has evolved into one of the leading communities where businesses find top consultants across the USA and Canada.

Each week, Michael sits down with industry titans, innovative leaders, and game-changing executives to bring you exclusive insights you won't find anywhere else. From emerging methodologies to market trends, Consulting Spotlight delivers the strategic intelligence you need to accelerate your consulting career and stay ahead of the curve.

Join our growing community of consulting professionals and decision-makers. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform and visit softwareoasis.com/subscribe to get our bi-weekly newsletter delivered straight to your inbox.

Get ready for weekly data, trends, analysis, interviews, and insights that will propel your consulting career forward.

Subscribe https://softwareoasis.com/subscribe/ to our bi-weekly newsletter to stay updated with more insights from technology leaders and transformation experts.

I'd like to welcome everyone to today's edition of the consulting spotlight and joining us from Maverick app, we have Steve Wallace, who's joining us from New Hampshire and Steve, I'd like to welcome you to the podcast. And I know a lot of our listeners have been following along and definitely every organization has an area of sales.

in their solution and sales is what makes the world go around. So I was hoping you could give us a little bit of your backstory and for anybody in the audience that may not be familiar with Maverick app and your solutions, a little bit of what the solution does.

Steve Wallace (00:35.779)
Yeah.

Steve Wallace (00:48.11)
Yeah, absolutely. To start us off, Michael, thanks for having me. This is awesome. I'm excited to continue building this partnership and relationship with you. So, you know, where I started, it's kind of a loaded question, right? I can go all the way back to when I was a baby or the the recent the recent story is probably more relevant. So the quick hi to your audience. I'm Steve Wallace. I'm the chief revenue officer of

Michael Bernzweig (00:56.804)
Fantastic.

Michael Bernzweig (01:05.999)
Sure

Steve Wallace (01:16.45)
Maverick app, it's a business development, automation and prospecting platform. We'll dive into at some point, probably what prospecting really is at its core. And I also own a consulting business that's very, very similar, but in a sense that it's about the tactical prospecting steps that need to be taken for people like you and I to grow our companies. Happy to dive into the platform and take us wherever you go.

Michael Bernzweig (01:30.146)
Sure.

Michael Bernzweig (01:42.04)
Yeah, I mean, if you want to give the audience a little bit of a feel for the origins of the platform and what it does for different organizations who might be using it, that type of stuff.

Steve Wallace (01:56.238)
Yeah, absolutely. So Maverick App, which I'm repping, Maverick App is a, like I said, a prospecting automation platform born from the pain points that our CEO had as he grew sales teams and as they set out to go hunting for leads. So for example, he'd have a team and there'd be some call reluctance. They wouldn't want to pick up the phone. Even if they did, by the way, they'd still need to know who they were going to call. So

Michael Bernzweig (02:07.844)
So, example, you have a team and there'll be some call reluctance, they wouldn't want to pick up the phone. Even if they did, by the way, they'd still need to know who they were gonna call. So, their daily grind involved a lot of this building. And his observation, and I'll see him this too, because I come from a full-sale cycle background.

Steve Wallace (02:25.176)
Their daily grind involved a lot of list building. And his observation, and I've seen this too, because I come from a full sales cycle background as an insurance agent, where I was 100 % responsible for sourcing my own leads, closing them, and then servicing them. So full sales cycle for both my CEO and I.

Michael Bernzweig (02:37.782)
Sure.

Steve Wallace (02:48.654)
We noticed that we were spending or our teams were spending an exorbitant amount of time during the production hours of their day Doing tedious time-consuming list building. So for example, I needed to build a list of enough people for me to reach out to that day or the next day So I'm a smiler and a dialer. I can do a lot of calls very quickly my record was like a hundred and seventy eight calls in a

Michael Bernzweig (02:49.466)
We noticed that we were spending, or our teams were spending an exorbitant amount of time during the production hours of their day doing tedious time consuming list building. So for example, I needed to build a list of enough people for me to reach out to that day or the next day. So I'm a smiler and a biologist and do a lot of calls very quickly. My record was like 178 calls in a day.

Steve Wallace (03:19.086)
in a power hour type session. Yeah, I can fly. In order for me to do that, even if I do a fraction of that every day, I need to have a renewable list of people to reach out to every day. And my CEO's sales team was spending hours and hours building out their lists. Now a third of the day is gone and now they have to do their outreach. remember they have call reluctance. So some of them need to email. Well, shoot, I didn't get the email address. Back to the search.

Michael Bernzweig (03:19.382)
I love it.

Remember that all of London's so some of you need to I'll shoot at it. Get the email address back to a search finding addresses math them together. Make sure they're good. Do the outreach. I did my phone LinkedIn whatever. Fast forward. It's been four five six hours. The day is almost done and how many replied to me or no.

Steve Wallace (03:49.048)
Find the email addresses, map them together, make sure they're good, do the outreach, either by phone, email, LinkedIn, whatever. Fast forward, it's been four, five, six hours. The day is almost done, and how many replies did we get? None, or no. Right? Rejection, and.

Michael Bernzweig (04:07.375)
Yeah, exactly You knock on 99 doors and you get 99 nos and one Don't need it right now

Steve Wallace (04:16.078)
Sure, yeah, I mean, it's the story you hear in sales all the time, which is you have to knock on a lot of doors to get the yes. And the yes is worth it, but it doesn't change how time consuming and psychologically draining the list building and the outreach is just to get ignored or to get a no. Now, how quickly is your team going to get deflated and not wanna do that the next day?

Michael Bernzweig (04:24.986)
It doesn't change how time consuming and psychologically draining the list building and the outreaches just to get ignored or to get a note. Now, how quickly is your team going to get deflated and not want to do that the next day?

Steve Wallace (04:45.538)
really fast, right? So that's where Maverick App was born is that the pain points that a sales rep experiences trying to just build a book of business, which is list building and time consuming time, doing that, doing the outreach and doing the followup, kind of a stat for you, but a majority of a salesperson's day is spent on inexpensive, low value administrative tasks, not production.

Michael Bernzweig (04:46.138)
Sure.

Michael Bernzweig (04:50.298)
And it sounds like like

Steve Wallace (05:15.608)
And that's where Maverick at was born.

Michael Bernzweig (05:18.17)
Yeah, it sounds like you were, your team was really early on. I heard you right, uh, before we jumped on the podcast, you said the app, uh, you started building out in, uh, prior to 2020, right? Right around 2018. Yeah. Wow.

Steve Wallace (05:32.642)
Yeah. Yep. That's right. Yeah. So we, we fit in those, in those spots where those pain points, the time consuming pain points that a sales rep has.

Michael Bernzweig (05:37.114)
So that's...

Michael Bernzweig (05:44.411)
So, and I think some of the best innovations, I mean, I think if you look at some solutions like Slack and Trello and other solutions like that were internal tools that were, even what is the video loom, a lot of people don't realize it, but it was originally an internal app that organizations built for their own needs. Yeah.

Steve Wallace (06:04.471)
Loom.

Steve Wallace (06:09.152)
I didn't realize that. And I'm a Loom power user. love Loom.

Michael Bernzweig (06:14.011)
Yeah, no, it's a phenomenal way to have a dialogue back and forth with someone on the other end. And it doesn't matter. It's asynchronous. mean, you could be traveling. You're three o'clock in the morning wherever you are, and you have a thought. You want to get out. You send a quick loom, and the person responds whenever they get to it.

Steve Wallace (06:40.706)
Right, right, exactly. Yeah, it's a great platform.

Michael Bernzweig (06:42.618)
Yeah, that's that's neat. so can you kind of walk me through maybe a day in the life of somebody using Maverick app and what their world looks like before Maverick app and what it looks like after? Yeah, absolutely. So.

Steve Wallace (06:56.204)
Yeah, absolutely. So before is that narrative I just walked you through is hours per week or even per day, sometimes building lists of your ideal client profiles, right? And all of their contact information so that you can make educated outreach and then hours spent doing the outreach and then more time spent following up. That's the life of a sales hunter before Maverick App. And it's...

Michael Bernzweig (07:11.232)
educated outreach and then hours spent doing the outreach.

Exactly,

Steve Wallace (07:22.082)
By the way, no wonder why sales reps don't hit quota most of the time. They're spending all their time doing $5 an hour tasks instead of $500 an hour tasks. But that's before Maverick App. After Maverick App, now they have, they can go throughout their day knowing the list has been built for them because Maverick App did it. You tell Maverick App who to find, boom, AI scrubs the internet and finds the people that you want to be speaking with. But that's not enough.

Michael Bernzweig (07:45.082)
AI is frozen internet, clients, people that you want to see. But that's not enough because a list is used to list the actions of this and never get the prospects of that list in a multi-touch fashion that's consistent in a way that no sale that could do it because they're going to have meetings and meetings like this, business development activities. Never got to admit. So really the net net of this month is hours and hours of it.

Steve Wallace (07:50.668)
because a list is useless without action into it. So Maverick App is going to prospect to that list in a multi-touch fashion that's consistent in a way that no sales rep could do it because they're going to have meetings and those meetings conflict with business development activity. Maverick App's doing it. So really the net-net of this, Michael, is hours and hours of the time given back to them so they can focus on closing deals.

Michael Bernzweig (08:13.681)
So they can focus on closing deals, looking at who's over a million dollars, 10, 15, 20, and bring the call into that person instead of smiling and vile 100 times trying to get more leave. The whole purpose of Maverick is to give the sales

Steve Wallace (08:16.566)
looking at who's opening the emails 10, 15, 20 times and putting a call into that person instead of smiling and dialing 100 times trying to get one lead. The whole purpose of Maverick App is to give the sales rep their time back so they can sell more, more efficiently, more often.

Michael Bernzweig (08:35.362)
Now, obviously one of the most important things, obviously, since Google came out with all other updates and algorithms and all of that, obviously, have all kinds of rules and things like that, which I get it, I get it. How do you handle, in terms of collecting data, scrubbing data, making sure that you're sending out messages to email?

Steve Wallace (08:45.344)
inbox rules and and yeah yeah sure yep

Michael Bernzweig (09:04.142)
domains and email boxes that are not gonna turn into bounces and that they're gonna get delivered.

Steve Wallace (09:11.138)
That's an awesome question. It's also a loaded question. So I'll try to keep it short and sweet for you. But yeah, I think this comes down to two, to a technical answer and a sales answer. The sales answer is stop looping your target markets together thinking they have the same pain points. So if your target market industry is owners of manufacturing companies,

Michael Bernzweig (09:15.37)
Sure.

Steve Wallace (09:35.586)
don't do the same outreach to them as you would to another target market, say financial advisors. They don't have the same problems. And it's one of the most common mistakes I see, whereas those industries get mixed together and then they send the same message to those various industries and then they get lower replies. Why? Because it doesn't resonate. Reply rates go down, which means it hurts your domain reputation. This is the transitioning towards more towards the technical answer, but

Michael Bernzweig (09:44.058)
And it's one of the most common mistakes I see where those two things come together and then they send the same message to the various industries and they get lower replies. Why? Because it doesn't resonate. Reply rates go down between the earth's ability and reputation. is a transition to the technical industry.

Steve Wallace (10:05.698)
Don't send any messaging to any target market that doesn't have the pain points that you solve. And if you can't speak to their specific problems. So make sure your lists are segmented.

Michael Bernzweig (10:05.85)
So really, segmenting your lists and getting the right message to the right individual on the other end of that message because they're all real people.

Steve Wallace (10:23.394)
Bingo. Bingo. Right, yeah, they're all real people and sell the way you want to be sold to, right? If you wouldn't want to receive the message that you're about to send, don't send it, right? Now you can't engineer perfection. You can't make a message perfect for the person who might receive it, but you can do your best. Maverick app will help with that. One of the things that our users experience with Maverick app is

Michael Bernzweig (10:33.914)
Yeah

Steve Wallace (10:50.954)
a very high connection rate both on phone and by email because we actually, when we scrub for data, like if we found you, Michael, using our AI scrubber, if your email domain doesn't match the company name that we find, our users would never receive you as a contact. Gone. We get rid of about 70 % of the data that we find because of inaccurate data points, which keeps the contact integrity really high, right?

Michael Bernzweig (11:01.344)
If your email domain doesn't match the company name that we find, our users will never receive you. Got it. Okay.

Steve Wallace (11:19.586)
Then the next answer to your question though would be is, how do we make sure we avoid spam? How do we not get blocked? And the answer to this is one, don't use a mass email sender. Emails have to be sent one at a time, like a human being would send using a tool to upload a big list into, then from that list, one tool sends a hundred emails all at once. That's the definition of spam. And don't do that.

Michael Bernzweig (11:19.738)
The next answer to your question though would be how do make sure we avoid spam? How do we not get blocked? And the answer to this is one, don't use a mass email sender. Emails have to be sent one at a time, like a human being would send, using a tool to upload a big list into and then...

Yeah.

Steve Wallace (11:49.688)
send emails one at a time and send them at randomized intervals and don't send the same exact message over and over and over again because now all the inboxes are trained to recognize that as something's up. It's a yellow flag now. So yeah.

Michael Bernzweig (12:02.202)
Sure, no that makes that makes a lot of sense and it sounds like a lot of the best practices are really built into the app to you know allow direct messages to get through versus you know a lot of the the common pitfalls mistakes that you see people making

Steve Wallace (12:19.501)
Right.

Steve Wallace (12:25.294)
The pitfalls that I see people making represent the largest body of mistakes. Those pitfalls cause most of the backfiring of cold emails that we see. Messaging that's too long, too broad, not specific to too many audiences. Those are the most popular and most common mistakes that we see but are easy to fix because all we have to do is make couple of changes.

Michael Bernzweig (12:50.218)
So that brings me to a great question. Clearly your team has very deep subject matter expertise in what you're doing.

Steve Wallace (12:54.178)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Bernzweig (13:03.322)
Do you offer a solution for clients that really just want to get it done and don't want to jump into the trenches and go it alone? Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Steve Wallace (13:15.96)
Sure, yeah, yeah. We do have a done for you subscription. The word that comes to mind that I would use is it's our agency subscription. It's not really, but in that subscription, we consultatively learn about you and your company, your value proposition, and even step in to give you guidance as far as what your proposition might be if you haven't quite figured that out yet, right? Let's face it, there are a lot of new business owners who,

Michael Bernzweig (13:28.632)
Right Okay

Steve Wallace (13:46.696)
meet the definition or meet the description you just shared. They don't wanna get in the weeds, they want someone else to do it with them, but they still need some kind of consultative service. And that's what that subscription is for. Well, we will write the emails for them, set the software up for them, monitor the email inbox and meet with them once a month to talk about leads, what could be improved, what's really working well. And then let's talk about sales, let's talk about the fun stuff. Hey, how do we get this person further down your pipeline?

Michael Bernzweig (13:55.29)
And that's what that's good for. So we'll write emails for them, set the software up for them, monitor the email inbox and give them enough time to talk about leads, we can prove, what's really working well, and then let's talk about sales, talk about concept, hey, how do get this person through that? And I'll be honest with you, obviously, before jumping on the episode, I had a chance to take a deep dive and really...

you know, see the app in action. And, you know, everything that you're talking about, I think, is right on the money. And the reality of it is, I think, lot of organizations, you know, across a lot of different industries have a lot of the same needs when it comes to sales. But I think a lot of the structure, the guardrails, the process, the procedure,

just isn't there and a lot of organizations, they're all trying to get to the same end point, bring aboard new customers, bring aboard new prospects, know, all of that, and to turn all of those opportunities and meetings into clients. And I think that's the nuts and bolts of it. So I think it's really neat that you've put together a solution that does just that.

Steve Wallace (14:57.613)
Right.

Steve Wallace (15:06.028)
Right.

Michael Bernzweig (15:15.638)
in doing a little research, I read about a few of your clients that have reported some pretty impressive portions of their new opportunities coming from having used Maverick app. What's the secret behind that? What is leading to these kind of results?

Steve Wallace (15:34.484)
wow. Well, first, I think is what Maverick app brings to the table that every business owner sales rep, anybody who has to sell deals with is a is a lack of consistency and Maverick app solves that right. So to paint the picture for you, if I were to say, hey, Michael, I don't care how good or bad your script or your outreach is, go ask 20 people per day to work with you every single day. And I'll and I'll talk with you in in

Michael Bernzweig (15:39.098)
is what Maverick Africa says here that every business owner on stage that anyone who has to sell deals with is a little

Michael Bernzweig (15:51.256)
Sure

Steve Wallace (16:03.982)
20 days, I bet your business is booming with new leads, right? But if you do it once or twice a week, because you're so busy driving to and from going to networking events, whatever the case may be, now you don't have that consistent outreach happening. And now your business is either going down or is flat. So what I'm doing is putting a spotlight on the problem that we all suffer from a lack of consistency.

Michael Bernzweig (16:20.666)
And now your business is either going down or it's flat. So what I'm doing is putting a spotlight on the problem that we all suffer from lack of consistency. And that's what Maverick has brought to the table for those customers that you refer to is the consistency that they never had before. Maverick did outreach to that person, that client, that lead at the right time. And that level would have to known.

Steve Wallace (16:30.134)
And that's what Maverick App has brought to the table for those customers that you refer to is the consistency that they never had before. Maverick App did outreach to that person, that client, or that lead at the right time. And that never would have happened without Maverick App because of our customer being so busy.

Michael Bernzweig (16:48.248)
So really a lot of it is just getting things set up and just allowing it to do its thing.

Steve Wallace (16:56.492)
Yeah, to an extent, and this is a perfect segue to the second point I'd make, is if you know your sales process, if you know how to sell pain, if you know the problems that you solve, you're gonna do very well with this tool, because this tool will give you a lot of insights into who is opening your emails, who might be interested in taking a call from you. All you might have to do is meet with them and close them.

Michael Bernzweig (17:12.57)
this tool will give you a lot of insights into who is open to emails, who might be interested in taking a call from you. All of you might have to do is do it in a closed group, or all you might have to do is do the high quality outreach to the person who maybe hasn't replied to the email. But that's open 20 of them, right? And if you know your sales process and know how to position yourself in a way, people are very receptive to someone stepping in and offering some of their problems for them.

Steve Wallace (17:23.222)
Or all you might have to do is do the high quality outreach to the person who maybe hasn't replied to the email, but has opened 20 of them. Right. And, and if you know your sales process and know how to position yourself the right way, people are very receptive to someone stepping in and offering to solve their problems for them. And that happens too. So when Maverick app delivers insights like that, all a user has to do is just a phrase that I call putting your sales head on and.

Michael Bernzweig (17:42.362)
And that happens too. So when Maverick delivers insights like all a user has to do is just a phrase that I call putting your sales head on and go do the effort. So I would call person or meet with them, ask questions, and pose them.

Steve Wallace (17:52.226)
Go do the effort, go either call the person or meet with them, ask questions and close them, right? So it's a combination of a great tool for somebody who knows their sales process. But even if you don't, it's doing something that you can't be, which is being consistent.

Michael Bernzweig (17:58.266)
So it's combination of a great tool for somebody to know if it's a process. But even if you don't, it's doing something that you can actually appreciate. Yeah, and I think that's the important thing. I know a lot of organizations use social media. They may focus on SEO. And all of these different things require consistency. It's not as if Google was born yesterday. They get it. They're going to report

Steve Wallace (18:27.726)
Right.

Michael Bernzweig (18:28.172)
reward sites that have been publishing consistently, that have been doing the hard work to get all of the content required to become subject matter experts. it's really just the same in email marketing, I think. obviously, email is by far...

Steve Wallace (18:40.342)
Right, right.

Michael Bernzweig (18:50.862)
you the best return of any channel. mean you own your list when you have you know subscribers that are on your email list. you know are doing the same thing on the flip side of it when you're bringing people to your list. You know no one can take that away from you. And you know as you know with all the algorithms and all the different changes and things like that out there you don't really own any of your other channels other than email.

Steve Wallace (19:09.164)
Right.

Steve Wallace (19:19.126)
Right. I think you're right. And I'll add to that, which is a statement that is an exceptional email marketer with great open rates and great reply rates will become an absolute monster of a salesperson if they know basic sales process and basic sales steps, because marketing will do a great job of attracting people to your solution. Email marketing being one of those solutions. But now what happened once you meet?

Michael Bernzweig (19:25.882)
exceptional email marker.

Michael Bernzweig (19:33.974)
if they know basic sales process and basic sales steps. Because marketing will do a great job of attracting people to your solution, even when they're thinking one of those solutions. That's not what happens once you've

And that's interesting. you know, obviously from where you said you're privy to a lot of stats and things like that, what is a great open rate and a great click through rate? What, you know, whether it's some metrics that organizations should be looking for or kind of measuring themselves against?

Steve Wallace (19:48.206)
You have to know sales.

Steve Wallace (20:07.51)
Yeah, so done done correctly your cold open rate can be as good as your opt in warm marketing rate Generally speaking your opt in more marketing rate is going to be higher than your cold open rate but when you use warm up services Warmy is a good example of a company to reach out to and partner with When you when you warm up a domain well when you have a good strong domain reputation when lists are segmented

Michael Bernzweig (20:16.59)
Sure Yeah

Steve Wallace (20:35.212)
Michael, my point is when all the stars are aligned, right, you can have a 40, 50, 60 % open rate. And that sounds wild, but when you have that many opens, and I'm not so sure that open tracking is the best metric, but when you have that many opens, it's kind of hard to argue with.

Michael Bernzweig (20:46.458)
makes a lot of sense makes a lot of sense and and you know I would think you know having been in the in this game for for some time you've seen the the good the bad the ugly and the best practices so you really if you have a client that's coming to you looking for for a complete solution you can

Steve Wallace (20:56.172)
Right.

Michael Bernzweig (21:15.384)
very quickly guide them to where they need to get to versus talk to me a little bit more about, let's say an organization is pretty tech savvy, they wanna just jump in and get it done themselves. What does it look like in more of the self-serve world where they're signing up for Maverick app, getting up and running? How long is the setup process and what might they expect along the way?

Steve Wallace (21:30.999)
Hmm.

Steve Wallace (21:42.668)
Yeah, great question. The setup is pretty standard. People do it yourself, customers is what we call them. There's an onboarding email. They follow the steps in the email, and they can have themselves up and running in about an hour and a half. We have an embedded email writing tool that will be used. We use the phrase spit out. It will spit out 10 emails that you can

Michael Bernzweig (21:55.79)
Okay

Steve Wallace (22:09.87)
plug and play right into your Maverick app email templates that you could modify a little bit to fit your style of writing. But that said, the variables in it will work. It'll be short and sweet and to the point, which is our method. You don't want emails that are too long. That's a best practice, everybody. Don't let your emails be long. That will backfire badly. So an hour and a half, it's a pretty straightforward setup.

Michael Bernzweig (22:17.774)
Sure.

Now as far as best practices for the actual domain itself, do you suggest that organizations set up an alternate domain or use their primary domain or use several domains? What do you suggest?

Steve Wallace (22:57.132)
Yeah, huge question. And this is I'm going to try. I'm not trying to be salesy, but this is a it depends answer. Right. So for example, Maverick app has been around for a long time. I've sent over hundred and fifty thousand cold emails in my time at Maverick app alone. If my point is, if you're an established company with email addresses that have been used quite a bit. Your email address, your sending domain isn't

Michael Bernzweig (23:14.299)
My point is if you're an established company with email addresses that have been used quite a bit.

Sure. Sure.

Steve Wallace (23:26.71)
really as in as much risk as a newer company or newer domain. That said, it's always a good idea to have a second domain that you send your sales emails from so that you can preserve your communication ability just in case something happens. Always a good idea. We do. We have a second domain for this. But we've noticed big companies never have a problem. We've noticed newer companies having a bigger problem, which is why the

Michael Bernzweig (23:51.278)
Yeah.

Steve Wallace (23:55.584)
Second domain is really important. A warm up service is important. And you even want to send emails from multiple email addresses, 10, 15, 20, 25 emails a day.

Michael Bernzweig (24:08.376)
Yep, so what type of obviously setup you want to have your configuration, your DCAM, SPF, your DMARC, all of those settings set up correctly. as far as email service providers, do you have suggestions that you see clients having better?

Steve Wallace (24:19.363)
Yep.

Michael Bernzweig (24:33.134)
better success with, know, Outlook versus Gmail versus third parties versus.

Steve Wallace (24:34.766)
Hmm.

Steve Wallace (24:39.682)
In my experience, this becomes a moving target game. When I first came on with Maverick app, Google and Outlook were pretty much running the same race at the same speed. And you could throttle up on both. And this is wild. had an email deliverability expert check our activity. Because even I was like, wow, this is a lot of emails from one email address.

Michael Bernzweig (24:51.524)
Yeah

Steve Wallace (25:03.822)
an email deliverability expert came in and looked at our domain and my emails and gave us an A plus, right? From Outlook accounts and Google accounts. Fast forward some time and Google started implementing lower sendability restrictions. So could hit 50 emails sent and no more, you'd get blocked.

Michael Bernzweig (25:08.676)
Wow.

Steve Wallace (25:28.962)
Then Google started easing up on that a little bit, and now Outlook becomes the problem child, if you will. So this becomes a moving target game, and the best way to avoid all of it is just to keep the email sent per email address a little bit lower while sending from multiple email addresses.

Michael Bernzweig (25:35.034)
So this becomes a moving target game, and the best way to avoid all of it is just to keep the emails sent per email address a little bit lower while sending them to the voting office. And is there a volume or best practice for the number of emails per address? Yeah, like I said, great question. It depends on the strength of your domain, how long you can send emails, how many replies you get, or what's your domain number.

Steve Wallace (25:51.182)
Yeah, another, like I said, great question because it depends on the strength of your domain, how long you've been sending emails, how many replies you get, like what's your domain health. But keep in mind 35 to 50 tops.

Michael Bernzweig (25:59.834)
But the email times is 35 to 15 times. Yeah, makes sense, makes sense. And I think going back to what you mentioned earlier, just kind of pulling on that thread of focusing on quality over quantity and really making sure that your messaging is targeted, that your audience is very segmented and targeted, and doesn't take a huge volume of emails to...

you know, achieve whatever your goal is, whether it's booking meetings or scheduling demos or what have you. So I think quality over quantity, it's not like the old days where people would just spray and pray, right? And just get all kinds of stuff out there and hope that a small, yeah, a small portion made it through.

Steve Wallace (26:46.156)
It's changed a lot. Yeah, it's definitely changed a lot. Quality is great, especially if you... So inside of Maverick app, you can see the context that Maverick app has found for you over the last 24 hours. And you could tell Maverick app to automatically prospect to every single one of those people. Or if you wanted to, you could get really specific and decide, you know what, I'm gonna send...

Michael Bernzweig (26:54.257)
So, it's not a maverick app. You can see the contacts that maverick has found for you over the last 24 hours. And you could tell maverick has automatically crossed paths with every single one of those people.

or if you want to, you can get really specific and decide, you know what, I'm gonna send five hyper-customized emails to that list every day. You can Google, and I've seen this, it takes a little bit longer, but your results go up. So when you care about results, they're right? And I care about results, right? So I Google, if I ever got found email for it.

Steve Wallace (27:14.114)
five hyper-customized emails to that list every day. And then you can Google, and I've seen this, it takes a little bit longer, but your results go up. So what do you care about, results or time, right? And I care about results, right? So I can Google if Maverick App found you, Michael. I Google something about you, isolate out of that or parse out of what I find something interesting, put it into Maverick App, and then send you something hyper-relevant and it'll nurture you along until you reply, or until you decide to ignore me.

Michael Bernzweig (27:30.458)
I love it. I hope I wasn't in one of your targeted campaigns. But no, I think we actually reached out to you. But anyway, so that's pretty cool.

Steve Wallace (27:43.982)
forever, which is a very real possibility too.

Steve Wallace (27:51.254)
I don't think so. I don't think so.

Michael Bernzweig (27:59.27)
And I think from an integration standpoint, obviously a lot of the different organizations listening to the podcast, different executives are saying to themselves, well, we've already got more software than we care to use. How is this going to fit into our ecosystem? Does it integrate with other solutions they may be using already, or are they starting from scratch?

Steve Wallace (28:15.832)
Sure.

Steve Wallace (28:25.474)
Yeah, great question. We are so I have what we my response is we have some backdoor integrations, right? So we have a backdoor Zapier connection that we can connect you or any customers, I.T. team with to directly import or export context to and from, say, a CRM. Our Salesforce integration, a public facing Salesforce integration is in the works and is in beta.

Michael Bernzweig (28:28.57)
So I have what we, our response is we have some backdoor integrations, right? So we have a backdoor Zapier connection that we can connect you or any customer that you team is to directly import or export contacts to and from, say, CRM. Our Salesforce integration, a public-based Salesforce integration is in the works. Pretty much anything that you possibly think of to start with.

Steve Wallace (28:53.592)
Pretty much anything that you could possibly think of as far as integration goes with Maverick app. It's usually about where contacts are going to live, where they're going to exist. And we can pretty much tackle any of that at any time. It's pretty simple. Yep.

Michael Bernzweig (28:56.538)
Sure. Yeah, that's really neat and important. And obviously CRMs are the focus of the lifeblood of any organization.

Steve Wallace (29:12.792)
for sure, especially one that can give you real actionable insights.

Michael Bernzweig (29:15.81)
Yeah. And I think the power of Maverick App from what, you know, what I could say is just unbelievable in terms of, you know, having a holistic view of all of the campaigns that are running and what's going on and the status of everything and really just getting it set up initially, but then just letting it do its thing and jumping in when you need. And I think that's, that's the beauty of it. and it's also the type of thing that I can see allowing a sales organization to scale so that the

Steve Wallace (29:29.699)
Right.

Steve Wallace (29:33.676)
Right.

Steve Wallace (29:37.326)
Yeah.

Michael Bernzweig (29:46.254)
the reps are really doing what they're best at, know, presenting and getting in front of customers and not, as you said, using their time for tasks that are really, you know, tasks that could be automated.

Steve Wallace (30:00.558)
Right? Yeah. That's the biggest value out in my mind, right? Because I want my team to perform. I want them to do well. I want them to be happy. And so if I can give them the tools to make them successful, one, I'm being a good leader. Two, I'm helping them hit quota. Three, they're happy they hit quota. To put it differently, if you go back to another life when I was picking up the phone and putting it down every single day prolifically.

Michael Bernzweig (30:11.802)
tools to make them successful. One, I'm being a good leader. Two, I'm helping them hit quota. Three, you're happy to hit quota. To put it differently, if you go back to another life when I was picking up the phone and putting it down every single day, and politically, I would have been thrilled if my sales manager walked up and over to me with a piece of paper and said, hey, Steve, here's 25 people that have been helping our emails store.

Steve Wallace (30:27.338)
I would have been thrilled if my sales manager walked on over to me with a piece of paper that said, Steve, here's 25 people that have been opening our emails for a month. I would have loved that. That would have saved me hours.

Michael Bernzweig (30:36.09)
I would have loved that. Yeah, it was a very warm lead. So from where you've seen the best and worst practices, if you were to walk me through what you've seen for effective sales leaders, sales teams, organizations from the beginning of the journey when they first reach out to a client or meet a client wherever they meet a client or a prospective customer.

all the way through to when they come aboard as a customer. What do you see as the phases in that funnel and what is it that really is effective versus ineffective?

Steve Wallace (31:17.336)
So let's start where we should start, which is the beginning. And I mean it. The very first question. The phrase discovery gets thrown around a lot, but I think we need to emphasize discovery down to the very first question, which is, Michael, other than the fact that I reached out to you and proposed that we can help you with some problems, other than the fact that I asked you to meet with me, why are we here today? What are you hoping for? Right? Because...

Michael Bernzweig (31:31.002)
which is, Michael, other than the fact that I reached out to you and proposed that we can help you with some problems, other than the fact that I asked you to leave, why are we here today? What are you hoping for? Because I can't tell you how many times, Michael, I've spoken with a sales rep, and let's just say they're buying what you do, which I think is the worst thing you can do.

Steve Wallace (31:44.502)
I can't tell you how many times, Michael, I've spoken with a sales rep and let's just say they're buying leads, which I think is the worst thing you can do. The lead shows up for a conversation thinking, I just want to get educated, kick some tires and decide, is this the right fit for me? The sales person shows up thinking, I've got somebody who is high intent. They're going to buy from me. So you're not starting on the same foundation. So you've got to

Michael Bernzweig (31:53.978)
The lead shows up to the conversation thinking, I just want to get educated, get some tires and decide, this the right thing to do? The salesperson shows up thinking, I've got somebody who's high intent, they're inviting me. So you're not starting on the same foundation. So you've got to equal out that foundation by asking great questions, which is, why are we here today, other than the fact that we're here today? Is this a project you're working on? Is it a pain that you're

Steve Wallace (32:13.182)
Equal out that foundation by asking the right questions, which is why are we here today? Other than the fact that I reached out. Is this a project you're working on? Is it a pain that you're That you have to solve yesterday or is this something that you're kind of just trying to figure out? Right? So that that's the first step is is top of funnel unscheduled prospects and then discovery, right? And once you're in discovery and let's just say that this is somebody that you do want to work with and they do want to work with you Now all this is is time

Michael Bernzweig (32:23.39)
Yeah

Steve Wallace (32:43.31)
everything, including budget, comes down to timing. And the phases inside of timing could be, this is a one month decision, could be a one day decision, or it could be follow up with me in six months. But this is what I call evaluation hell. But the people who are thinking about your services for a long time. And we can make an entire episode about.

why someone would want to evaluate for as long as I just mentioned, but that's the middle phase, right? And then once you get past that phase, it's buyer, someone who's higher intent, maybe not quite yet, but they're going to buy. And then for a sales rep, it's put it in commit, whether or not it's done yet. This is somebody who I know is gonna join the company. I know they're going to pay. And I expect it to be January 10th, for example.

Michael Bernzweig (33:15.142)
Yeah

Makes a lot of sense. And obviously just understanding all of the steps and having a tool like Maverick app to actually guide the journey and the process along the way going from initial meeting and prospect all the way through to booked client, you know, and part of your book of business is something any sales rep would...

be thrilled to have and it's come a long ways since the early days of sales where people were using Rolodex.

Steve Wallace (34:11.456)
Yeah, you ever heard of the one card system, Michael?

Steve Wallace (34:17.669)
So it was pioneered by a famous Northwestern mutual financial advisor. And it was a Rolodex CRM. I'm paraphrasing what it is, but it's a Rolodex CRM where you basically manage all of your tasks, all of your new calls, all of your follow-ups and all of your tasks from one card system, which is basically just a Rolodex. And I think back to the days where I was learning it and I thought to myself, man, there's gotta be a better way.

Michael Bernzweig (34:25.694)
Yeah, no, it's

Steve Wallace (34:47.384)
But, and now there's an entire industry based on that CRMs, Maverick Gap, right there, they're everywhere.

Michael Bernzweig (34:54.138)
Yeah, so as far as Maverick Apps approach to personalization, how does it differ from some of the other solutions that are out there? What are some of the things that you're doing to help reps personalize and segment and target their email marketing? Yeah, so segmentation is actually the question on our list of the email capabilities of personalization.

Steve Wallace (35:11.65)
Yeah, so segmentation is actually a question about our list building, the email capability, the personalization, where we're the same as we have, where we are the same as our competitors or our perceived competitors, because I don't believe we compete with anybody. I'm biased, whatever. Yeah. Where we're the same as we have variables, first name, last name, company name, and when you use those variables, the recipient sees their name and their company name, right? Where we're

Michael Bernzweig (35:19.374)
Sure

Steve Wallace (35:41.282)
Different is that we're actually working on a way to change the email that goes out on a per person basis based on that person's data So what what the recipient will see is something that AI pulled in that? Was pulled from a news report or something from LinkedIn. Hey, I noticed you just recently changed jobs or whatever the case may be So that's that's big but really AI is not there yet AI is not there in terms of

Michael Bernzweig (35:49.242)
Sure.

Steve Wallace (36:10.392)
cruelly differentiating one person's emails from another. I'll ask your question and kind of make my point by asking you a question in return, Michael. What I just shared with you, the personalization, AI personalization, have you heard of something like that before?

Michael Bernzweig (36:16.162)
I'll ask your question and then make my point by asking you a question. Sure. What I just shared with you is a personalization, AI personalization. Have you heard of something like that before? A little bit. Some companies are starting to work on that. The early versions were spin-tax and things like that. Obviously, you've started to get some AI integrations, but I think a lot of it has to still be done manually to be effective. Right.

Steve Wallace (36:29.878)
Right. Yeah.

Right, exactly.

Steve Wallace (36:43.126)
Right, right. So as a long way to go, and I keep on using this phrase moving target game, but that's what cold outreach by email is. It's a moving target game. The constantly evolving mousetrap to try to stay modernized and AI integration into cold email templates is the most current version of that evolving mousetrap. But there's going to be something tomorrow and the day after that.

Michael Bernzweig (36:58.569)
AI integration into holding that practice is the most current version.

But there's going to be something tomorrow. The biggest thing for our prospects is are they working with a salesperson who can speak consultatively to help their business, or are they working with a salesperson who is slinging the flies? And I think that's what we separate ourselves. So it's a bit of a different answer than you might expect. We're quite capable of consulting people.

Steve Wallace (37:11.202)
The biggest thing really for our prospects is are they working with a salesperson who can speak consultatively to how to help their business or are they working with a salesperson who is slinging a product? And I think that's where we separate ourselves. So it's a bit of a different answer than you might expect, we're quite capable consultatively.

Michael Bernzweig (37:32.962)
And I'll wrap up by asking this and then we'll obviously leave a link in the show notes for anybody that would like to take Maverick app for a test drive or wants to just sit on the sidelines and have it done for them, you know, from the get go to get ahead by your team. What's your vision for the future of where sales prospecting is heading and how do you see Maverick app positioned to lead that evolution?

Steve Wallace (38:01.368)
So I'm gonna answer this question from the perspective of the done for you service, because the do it yourselfers, we will never have control over, right? So in the world where we have control, what I see Maverick App being is a omnialways outreach platform, calling, LinkedIn, email, following up on all platforms, bringing every piece of data into one pane of glass with consistency.

Michael Bernzweig (38:05.888)
because the do-it-yourself or do-it-never have control over, right? So in the world where we have control, what I see fabric at is on the always outreach.

Calling, LinkedIn, email, following up on all platforms, bringing every piece of data into one particular class with consistency, and then giving the user the deliverability, the insights, and the next action steps in clear pool. So for example, I don't want a user to have to go into an aggregate to run a report.

Steve Wallace (38:31.468)
And then giving the user the deliverability, the insights and the next action steps in clear form. So for example, I don't want a user to have to go into Maverick app, run a report that says Michael has opened 20 emails. I want Maverick app to say, Hey, Steve call Michael because he's opening your emails. See what I mean? Like putting it front and center and then.

Michael Bernzweig (38:47.61)
that says Michael has opened 20 emails. I want to navigate out to say, hey, Steve, call Michael because he's opening 30 emails. Do you what I mean? Like front and center. then- So actionable insights from the data, basically. Bingo, right. Taking data, delivering actionable insights. And then let's just say that you're a person who likes to make the phone-

Steve Wallace (39:03.714)
Bingo, Taking data, delivering actionable insights. And then let's just say that you're the kind of person who likes to make the calls, great. But for every one of you, there's a hundred people who don't, right? I want Maverick app to be able to reach out. We did this because this reason and delivered that as the request.

Michael Bernzweig (39:18.906)
We did this because of this reason and we were able battle through it. That's really cool. Well, I really appreciate your taking the time out. know life is busy and hectic in tech and I know you've got a lot on your plate. So I appreciate your joining our podcast today and sharing everything that you're doing over there.

Steve Wallace (39:36.502)
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. This is great, Michael. You run a great podcast.

Michael Bernzweig (39:42.756)
Fantastic.