From Pipeline To Revenue: Rewriting The Marketing Playbook

[00:00:00] Tessa Burg: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Leader Generation. I’m your host, Tessa Burg, and today I’m joined by Gabe Lullo. He is the CEO of Alleyoop, and if you haven’t heard of Alleyoop, and you’re a B2B marketer, well then you’re in for a treat. We are gonna talk about some of the biggest challenges that we face as marketers, driving more qualified high-value leads into the pipeline and turning that pipeline into revenue.

[00:00:27] Tessa Burg: I’m super excited about this conversation. I’ve been working in B2B for over 20 years, which sounds totally crazy, but this challenge of getting the right people at the right time is so persistent. So Gabe, thank you so much for joining us today.

[00:00:43] Gabe Lullo: Absolutely, Tess. Well, thanks for having me. Uh, I’m a huge fan of yours, your content to show.

[00:00:47] Gabe Lullo: I’m super excited to be here and thanks so much for inviting me in. It’s gonna be a great conversation.

[00:00:52] Tessa Burg: It is. And thanks for saying that. That’s so nice. Uh, so we know that every CMO wants more pipeline, but before we jump into this big topic, tell us a little bit about your background and Alleyoop.

[00:01:03] Gabe Lullo: Yeah. Like you, I’ve been doing this for 20 years too.

[00:01:06] Gabe Lullo: Uh, so, uh, you know, it’s been, it’s been a whirlwind, right? You know, I got into sales right outta school. Uh, started working for my, my best friend’s dad company in the staffing business. Turned into my own business and did staffing sales training for many years. I found this company, uh, we were called Inside sales team back then, which was, you know, pretty defining moment, uh, of a name of judging, a book by its cover, if you will.

[00:01:28] Gabe Lullo: So that’s what we did. And, uh, we rebranded Alleyoop years ago. But the concept was we wanted to take that analogy, that basketball term, I know you’re a big basketball fan yourself, right? For those who don’t know, Alleyoop is a basketball term where you throw the ball up perfectly and then it’s really the ultimate assist.

[00:01:44] Gabe Lullo: Someone comes in and slam dunks and gets the credit. So it’s really that bridge between marketing and sales, right? Where that sales development has really kind of been born about a decade and a half ago, and that’s where we started our company. It was really to come in and, and, and help bridge that gap and, and run a, a professional BDR function.

[00:02:03] Gabe Lullo: And that’s what we do. We’ve been doing it for a decade and a half for some amazing brands, uh, companies like Peloton, ZoomInfo, Amazon Web Services. We’ve had over 1600 companies come to us over the years to help scale, build, manage raw, and fix their BDR function. And that’s what we do.

[00:02:23] Tessa Burg: I love it. And when we talk about the metrics of success in BDRs and SDR mindset, it’s something that marketers crave, but sometimes the path to getting there isn’t so clear.

[00:02:40] Tessa Burg: And even when we feel like we’ve really gotten to know the persona and we’re targeting the best that we can, we can still end up with unqualified leads. So tell me a little bit about, from your perspective, what’s really causing that unqualified, or as you call it, the unqualified pipeline syndrome, and how can CMOs fix it?

[00:03:00] Gabe Lullo: Yeah, I think you said in our introduction really, well, actually, it’s about finding the right people, but also at the right time when you mentioned. I think we have to understand what qualification is. You know, we sit down with countless founders, CMOs, heads of revenue, and they come to us and they don’t really even know what their ICP is, and we have to figure out what that is.

[00:03:21] Gabe Lullo: We don’t know if they have product market fit and we have to figure out what that is. They don’t know. We don’t know their, their timing, their technology, their pricing. We have to help them kind of define and redefine and redefine what it is they’re offering even looks like. So figuring out who that specific person is, uh, that we need to reach out to does evolve and does, you know, really change with the market and the messaging.

[00:03:45] Gabe Lullo: And then I think the biggest piece, the missing piece that most people don’t really think about or miss is that timing piece, right? If you look at the, like the check home pyramid in regards to sales, there, only 3% are really looking to buy. About 15 to 20% are actually looking or interested to evaluate, and then the rest of the marketplace needs follow up and nurturing.

[00:04:05] Gabe Lullo: So I think finding the right person in the right ideal client profile is yes, the biggest piece of it. But the other piece is timing, and that’s really where I think the BDR function really shines, mostly because you’re having those real-life communication that. That dialogue and that’s where those timing qualification points start coming out in that conversation.

[00:04:28] Gabe Lullo: And I think that’s really where, you know, the BDR and the marketing function really work really well together.

[00:04:34] Tessa Burg: Yeah. And I think some people might be taking a, a step back and saying, do I really know my icp?

[00:04:43] Gabe Lullo: Yeah.

[00:04:44] Tessa Burg: Have I really proved out product market fit? And if not, like, how did that happen? Uh, as marketers and as salespeople, we’re very invested in what’s happening right in front of us.

[00:04:55] Tessa Burg: Like we always have very aggressive goals. I’m sure there’s a lot of testing happening, but even if you do have an ICP profile, there has been so many shifts and how people are researching and looking for products and services. It’s probably a good time just to refresh it anyway.

[00:05:16] Gabe Lullo: Yeah.

[00:05:17] Tessa Burg: Anything has changed within how your target audience is engaging or even what’s triggering them to want to seek out new vendors.

[00:05:27] Gabe Lullo: Absolutely. I mean, we did a campaign for Adobe Sign back in the day, which is an e-signature platform by Adobe. And they invented the product to really go head to head with, uh, DocuSign, which owned the market. And when they were looking at it, they wanted to really take market share and their intention was, oh, we know what the ICP is.

[00:05:45] Gabe Lullo: It’s the same as DocuSign. But once we started actually marketing it and having conversations. We realized, one, they were completely priced out. Uh, they weren’t going head to head with the, the right people, and they really reimagined the product even though it was relatively similar to what the, the competitor was offering. And then they scored in a big, big way.

[00:06:05] Gabe Lullo: Uh, but again, having those conversations. It, it was where that actually started to happen. You know, they ran events, they did Dreamforce, they spent millions of dollars on running these events thinking it was pretty much a slam dunk if they just priced it accordingly.

[00:06:19] Gabe Lullo: But it, it wasn’t just that, it, it was a lot more than that. And, you know, they had to really reposition it and they actually rebranded that product three different times in like four years. And, uh, now it’s going very well. But it’s interesting when you think you have it all figured out. Especially an enterprise company like that going to market.

[00:06:37] Tessa Burg: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:37] Gabe Lullo: And then you realize, oh my goodness, we were wrong the whole time. And it was all because marketing and sales, working together on that is how that actually came about. And when they don’t work together, it just usually is when things start to fail in a big, big way.

[00:06:52] Tessa Burg: Yeah. You probably just struck a chord in every marketer’s heart, which is when marketing and sales work together is not always easy.

[00:07:01] Tessa Burg: We. When I was on the client side, I felt like sometimes sales was, uh, taking too much credit or everything I tried just like wasn’t good enough and didn’t produce the results for the types of leads or the timing of the event that they wanted. And we’ve heard the same thing from our marketing clients.

[00:07:18] Tessa Burg: So tell us a little bit about how do you, like, in that case, what did that symbiotic relationship look like where marketing was able to add value and they were able to, you know, take that, um. Challenge and solve it together.

[00:07:33] Gabe Lullo: Yeah, it’s interesting not to toot our own horn or plug us at all, but you know, again, going back about 15 years ago when ZoomInfo, which was then DiscoverOrg came to us and said, Hey.

[00:07:45] Gabe Lullo: We need sales development reps. And I will say what we said was, what the heck is a sales development rep? Right? We were a full cycle sales agency at the time, and when we sat down with Henry at ZoomInfo, he had a a bunch of really good closers and AEs, but no marketing was happening there were a startup company, but he had these really group, group of cultures and he needed more at bats.

[00:08:06] Gabe Lullo: So we built the first SDR function for that company and still work with them today. But why I say all that is because we actually built it through the sales side ’cause there was no marketing. And then on the flip side, we work with these awesome brands that have a ton of inbound and they don’t have very good closers, so we’ve been helping them as well.

[00:08:25] Gabe Lullo: Long story short, our uh, logo at the time was a guy in a parachute, and the concept was that we parachute it in and we kind of bridge the gap and we’re like the mediators between sales and marketing because back then. Uh, and many companies haven’t evolved since then. So many of them are still dealing with this, as you were mentioning, where there’s, they’re always at odds.

[00:08:45] Tessa Burg: Mm-hmm.

[00:08:46] Gabe Lullo: Which is always interesting to me because out of all departments that should be working together, those are the two that should be working together the most, but they’re throwing spears over the, over the wall. Right. Marketing is saying, you know, sales, you can’t close my leads. Sales is throwing spears over and saying, marketing, you can’t give us good leads.

[00:09:02] Gabe Lullo: And there’s always that disconnect. So where sales development or business development comes in is. It’s really that go-between, right? We’re not closing deals and we’re not asking for money, but we’re also not, you know, creating case studies and creating demand either. We’re really that in-between mediator and I think that’s really evolved since that, uh, conversation a decade and a half ago.

[00:09:23] Gabe Lullo: And now you see departments like heads of revenue and, and marketing and sales is starting to work together, and sales development does have its own place within the sales journey. I think it’s. I think it’s getting better for sure, but there’s still obviously, uh, some, some blamed games going on.

[00:09:39] Tessa Burg: Yeah. And one aspect that I think it’s debated a lot is we’re more likely to come together and work together if we have shared vision, shared goals, shared processes.

[00:09:51] Tessa Burg: But one of those goals always seems to be the MQL.

[00:09:56] Gabe Lullo: Yeah.

[00:09:56] Tessa Burg: And that becomes a very controversial. Metric. So what is your definit definition of a truly sales ready MQL, and how can marketing leaders use SDR level qualification to ensure that that is followed and becomes a shared mantra or something they can come together on?

[00:10:19] Gabe Lullo: Yeah, I think the problem is. What started was that there’s these big trainers that come out and they write these books and they do these seminars, and they do these trainings that are just sales training and they’re teaching sellers how to qualify and close things like band, for instance, budget, authority, need, and timing.

[00:10:37] Gabe Lullo: And sellers are like tattooing this, you know, on their arm and saying, I need all of these. This is what’s considered qualified. And then marketing is like, what are you talking about? We’re gonna talk about budget in, in, in my marketing content. There’s no way that shouldn’t be maybe the right approach, especially in B2B enterprise, not everywhere, but maybe in B2B Enterprise.

[00:10:55] Gabe Lullo: So it’s like, the reality is, is that my qualification could be one thing and the client could have a totally different qualification. So we have to figure it out together. Whatever qualification is, it has to be a set of rules that both marketing and sales agree upon. And that’s just clear. That has to be figured out and they have to figure it out and be super clear with those rules of engagement, I like to call it.

[00:11:17] Gabe Lullo: In my world though, when it comes down to it, I don’t wanna know about the, the, the budget in a sales, uh, development conversation. I want to know if there’s the right person, if it is the right company. And if there is a really like pain or really strong interest, then there’s a, a problem to be solved.

[00:11:35] Gabe Lullo: If those three things are aligned, then we wanna pass that MQL into a SQL for sales to then uncover that pain, determine qualification on the cost and the structure of it, and then go from there and, and follow up accordingly. So that’s where we like to, to set the rules of engagement. Every client has a little bit of a different conversation for sure, depending on how they work with their offering.

[00:11:57] Gabe Lullo: But those are usually the, the framework we go by.

[00:12:01] Tessa Burg: I love that framework and I really like that you ended on, is there a pain we can solve? That’s another area that I think adds to the tension, not just in marketing, but when I was in product management. Sometimes they felt like our salespeople were just chasing any pain.

[00:12:16] Tessa Burg: Like, oh, we, we heard exactly a pain. I understand English. Maybe we’ll go and solve that one for you too.

[00:12:24] Gabe Lullo: Exactly. And then, and that’s where you get into the weeds with client success, right? ’cause that’s that there’s another. A debate there, because now sales closes the deal based on the pain in which they found, which may not have been pain at all, that the solution even provides, uh, you know, health or answers to, or, you know, making it alleviate that pain and then client success gets it, and then it’s all totally misaligned.

[00:12:48] Gabe Lullo: Because they signed up for the wrong reasons. And that’s, that’s a misalignment there as well. So sales messes it up all the time. No offense sellers, but uh, you know what I mean? I’m just joking. But at the end of the day, yeah, you have to have clear rules of engagement and clear communication and a feedback loop.

[00:13:04] Gabe Lullo: There has to be feedback to marketing from sales constantly. So again, ’cause sales is the boots on the ground, they’re the ones listening and hearing. And if the, the, the prospects and the marketplace is telling sales one thing and we’re not putting that into the marketing motion, then that, that’s a huge miss.

[00:13:24] Gabe Lullo: And that feedback loop has to be continual.

[00:13:27] Tessa Burg: Yeah, I agree. And, and you often say that marketers need to think more like SDRs. And I do feel like that is so important and we work with all different kinds of marketing, uh, leaders. But if we have those shared metrics and if we’re all focused specifically on the different triggers or behaviors that lead to a sale of the right solution, again, it’s like coming up with those that shared.

[00:13:55] Tessa Burg: Kind of mantra and measurable metrics expectations, but what does it take to kind of move marketers into that mindset?

[00:14:04] Gabe Lullo: Yeah, so thank you for breaking this up, because like I said, back 10, 15 years ago, our POC for our clients was always VP of Sales, Head of Sales, CRO. A nd very, very rarely we would get marketing involved in our discussions in, in our point of contact.

[00:14:22] Gabe Lullo: Now it’s 50/50. Oh, right now 50% of the people we’re talking to as our POC is the head of marketing, and I love that. Now there is a big debate whether or not SDRs and BDRs should be reporting up to sales or should be reporting up to marketing. My, my conversation is that it should be both. Like I said before, it’s, it literally is both.

[00:14:44] Gabe Lullo: The reason why I like talking to marketing though, is because they get us a little bit more because they’re measured similarly, right? Sales is measured on revenue and closed deals, but a sales development rep doesn’t sell anything. Like they don’t ask for money. They don’t ask for terms, they don’t ask for credit card.

[00:15:01] Gabe Lullo: They’re not getting closed deals, nor is marketing. So I think sales development relates more to marketing because it’s about impressions, it’s about interest, it’s about, you know, raising the hand. It’s about qualified leads and, and that’s all very similar to how. We talk as sales development managers and sales development reps.

[00:15:19] Gabe Lullo: So I think it lends definitely more to the marketing side of what we actually do each and every day. But it is something that sales obviously needs to be very, very connected on because we’re giving those leads to sales.

[00:15:30] Gabe Lullo: I look at it like this. We’re, you’re running a relay. My daughter’s a swimmer, so she does the backstroke and she does, you know, she does relays all the time.

[00:15:38] Gabe Lullo: But you know, the first leg of the race and the relay is marketing, then they, then sales development jumps into the pool and they do do their race and then sales jumps in and do, does their race. And then you, you know, you have a successful relay. So we have to realize we’re all on the same team. But you have to treat each one of those departments strategically and differently.

[00:15:57] Gabe Lullo: But at the same time, they’re all still, uh, at the end of the day, gonna be scored collectively.

[00:16:03] Tessa Burg: I love that analogy. So I’m gonna keep building off of it with the relay.

[00:16:06] Gabe Lullo: Okay.

[00:16:07] Tessa Burg: Because each. Member of the relay team brings their own strengths. They might have slightly different styles, but they’re still on a team.

[00:16:15] Tessa Burg: And you mentioned earlier about the feedback loop, and I feel like at a race you can automatically see what’s happening. The whole team can see how each teammate is doing. Then they know how they might have to adjust, uh, in order to contribute to the end goal. But in real life between marketing and sales, what have you seen?

[00:16:36] Tessa Burg: As the most successful mechanisms or tools to facilitate those feedback loops.

[00:16:41] Gabe Lullo: Yeah, I mean, going back to the analogy. Is is really important. One thing I wanna mention is that when you see someone, let’s say the first relay is really good and you’re in first place against everyone else, all the other teams, but then the second leg of the race, they may have gotten to second place or third place, at least you now know.

[00:16:59] Gabe Lullo: That your, your closure’s coming in and they’re the best swimmer at the end. Maybe you’re strategically not the best swimmer at the end. Maybe your best swimmer’s in the beginning, but let’s just say it’s the best swimmer at the end, you know, and you have hope and you have intention that this is still, you know, we’re still on the, uh, in the race here, and so yet also they’re all.

[00:17:16] Gabe Lullo: Collectively applauding and sharing on the other swimmers, you know, it’s, they’re never just gonna go off to the other end of the pool and, and not cheer on. The race isn’t over. So they’re all cheering on the concept of them all working together, and that’s super, super important. So I think the big thing for feedback is, you know, internal communication.

[00:17:36] Gabe Lullo: I’m not a person that likes. Overly meeting with people, but also on the of the day. I love video communication in our world. Everyone in our company has video on rules. Uh, we communicate effectively. We have syncs across departments. Uh, we have what we call a client happiness meeting where our IT team gets on a call, marketing gets on a call, sales gets on a call, sales development, gets on a call, operations gets on a call, and we all collectively talk about what are the fires, what’s working, what’s not working, and we just have a meeting of the minds.

[00:18:08] Gabe Lullo: So, yeah, there’s a lot of project management tools. There’s a lot of different CRMs. You can go really advanced here, but I think the best way to do it is put everyone into a room and talk through it and get it consistent. And then we can do a little bit more of an asynchronous type of approach to communication.

[00:18:25] Tessa Burg: So we’re talking about solving some of the biggest challenges and points of tension between sales and marketing, and you have cited now conversations, feedback loops. Being present, communication. And none of this is replaced by AI yet. There is a fear that AI is gonna take a lot of sales and marketing jobs.

[00:18:50] Tessa Burg: Where does AI have a role in helping to solve some of these challenges? And if so, where? Where is it?

[00:18:55] Gabe Lullo: So I was at my great aunt’s birthday party over the weekend she turned 70 and I said, so have you seen this new AI actor that’s coming out and Hollywood’s freaking out? Her response is, who cares? I’m like, what are you talking about?

[00:19:09] Gabe Lullo: Like, everyone’s freaking out, and I’ve been dealing with this for three years. Everyone’s been talking about sales development’s going away, marketing’s going away, sales is going away. Like this is old news for me. I’ve been talking about this for, for the last three years, and now Hollywood and, you know, all the different anchors, you know, on, on news or feeling like they’re about to be replaced with AI.

[00:19:27] Gabe Lullo: And he is like, my, my aunt said this. She’s like, nothing’s gonna replace human, human communication. And I’m like, wow, that’s pretty powerful. Maybe she’s just out of touch. She’s old, right? I don’t know. But the reality is, is there is a time and a place for AI. Like, first off, we are adapting AI extraordinary.

[00:19:44] Gabe Lullo: Well, uh, you know, we have AI role play tools where our. All of our reps are sparring. There’s, we call it our sparring partner, and they’re sparring with AI to try to get them to say yes to a meeting. We can turn up the difficulty. It’s like, it’s like watching a video game, right? Yeah. Trying to get them someone to say yes.

[00:19:59] Gabe Lullo: It’s really, really fun and, and our reps love it and it’s amazing and the tools is, is one tool that we’re using for AI, but it’s really a way to sharpen the ax and, and get people prepared versus completely replaced for now. You know, the way we prospect usually is through a sales call, and that can’t be replaced.

[00:20:18] Gabe Lullo: It’s illegal to do it right now, but at the end of the day, it’s like that human to human conversation. That live conversation is really where the magic happens, especially in enterprise sales. As a buyer of enterprise tools and technology and data, I wouldn’t be excited to. Spend $500,000 a year on a product that was closed by an AI tool, um, for me.

[00:20:40] Gabe Lullo: So I don’t think we’re there yet, but is there a room for it? For sure.

[00:20:45] Tessa Burg: Yeah, I agree. I feel like back in the day when I started my career, uh, offshoring customer service was a huge thing. I started in my department. Almost everyone in our internal IT department was then outsourced.

[00:21:01] Gabe Lullo: Mm-hmm.

[00:21:01] Tessa Burg: And we were a services company.

[00:21:03] Tessa Burg: So our clients are now calling people who are speaking different languages in different time zones who aren’t in the walls of the company. And it’s a very different experience. And that same thing is gonna happen with AI. Someone on a board somewhere is gonna be like, oh my gosh, we can replace all these people with AI.

[00:21:21] Tessa Burg: But if you are a brand that’s leaning into. Elevating the experience of your clients and customers, and we already know, especially in B2B, that the experience is hurting. Like not only do like 14 to 25% of sales in the pipeline convert, but forced are reported that 86% or is over 80%. I don’t wanna misquote it, are disappointed after they get onboarded.

[00:21:49] Tessa Burg: Right, and if we’re saying you’re gonna have less humans in that when you’re already not leveraging and investing in services like yours to make sure that timing is right, to make sure that solution is aligned, I feel like at this point, throwing in a fake AI person is going in the wrong direction when this massive opportunity, if you address something that’s 86% wrong, that is massive opportunity.

[00:22:16] Tessa Burg: For growth instead of looking at where can AI cut costs?

[00:22:21] Gabe Lullo: Yeah, exactly. I mean. Why do, why does Bentley still build their cars by hand? You know, it’s like, why do they do that? They don’t have to do that. They’ve been doing, they’ve been doing that for years. I mean, Ford figured out how to do as an assembly plan a long, long, long time ago.

[00:22:35] Gabe Lullo: Why are they doing that? And it’s because that’s what you pay for. Like, that’s what you want when you buy it. Now, maybe that’s not your market. Maybe you’re not trying to sell a high-end technology or service to the marketplace, and that’s fine. Maybe there is room for low-end customer support or outsourcing, but if that.

[00:22:50] Gabe Lullo: Brand and you’re in the professional services business is important to you, then I would highly reconsider. You know, we make 11 million cold calls a year as a company, so my team makes 11 million cold calls a year more than any company, including our competitor who’s twice our size. And so we execute a lot of phone calls a year.

[00:23:09] Gabe Lullo: And I say that because at the end of the day, you know, that’s what our clients pay us for because most companies in our space don’t do that. They’re just emailing everybody all day long. And a lot of the AI especially in sales and marketing, is just more email. So we are going the route. We’re like, we’re doing what most people aren’t doing, and that’s why we’re having more results and why we can charge a premium.

[00:23:31] Gabe Lullo: Because we do things that most people won’t do. Sending more email is not the answer to the go to market strategy. And AI, which allows you to send even more email to me, isn’t the right way to approach this. I think being more human-centric and cutting through the noise. Is the better approach to doing it.

[00:23:50] Gabe Lullo: And not everyone agrees with me, but I will say this, there’s a company called A-I-S-D-R, that’s literally the name of the, that’s literally the name of the company. And they just announced two weeks ago that they partnered up with a company like ours that does cold calling because they feel like they need to do that now.

[00:24:07] Gabe Lullo: And it’s interesting. So I think the dust is settling when it comes to the AI conversation about whether it’s a full rip and replace. But I do feel like, you know, it’s still just starting and so we don’t know what’s gonna happen in the future.

[00:24:21] Tessa Burg: Yeah. And like I like that you said it has a role, just like email has a role.

[00:24:27] Gabe Lullo: Yeah.

[00:24:28] Tessa Burg: All marketers who have sent an email campaign, if they got 50% open rate on those campaigns, they’d be losing their minds.

[00:24:35] Gabe Lullo: Correct.

[00:24:35] Tessa Burg: They’d be so happy.

[00:24:37] Gabe Lullo: Back flips

[00:24:38] Tessa Burg: teams, half your audience didn’t open it. Right. So slamming them. With more email isn’t going to be more effective. And then as all marketers know who have tested email, that open rate when you continue with high frequency continues to go down.

[00:24:56] Tessa Burg: So we talk about it a lot and yet people still want a silver bullet. There is no silver bullet. Yeah. Having that healthy mix and knowing that. Even your buyer’s research and engage differently and being responsive to that, that is the ultimate personalization. Can AI help with personalization? Yes, but to your point, sometimes it can be the personalization in giving the sales person that extra deep insight that they need to really connect at a human level with the person on the other line and craft a beautiful email that maybe them alone couldn’t do, but now that they have this additional context.

[00:25:37] Tessa Burg: It elevates it.

[00:25:39] Gabe Lullo: Yeah, absolutely. And I know we’re gonna talk about content soon. I think Content lit has a, a place too. That’s so exciting because we’ve been doing a lot of content on LinkedIn, um, over the last few years here. Like insane amount actually. And now we are able to go into rooms where we don’t have to.

[00:25:57] Gabe Lullo: You know, convince people or sell people or tell people why we’re great. It’s, they already know who we are. They already heard about us. They kind of had a good understanding of what’s going on, and AI can help with that too. And now it’s more of, okay, let’s talk about how we can work together and figure out how to solve your problem versus whether or not you wanna work with us and think we’re a legitimate company.

[00:26:17] Gabe Lullo: Right? So like, those are very night and day conversations that I think AI is definitely helping with in a big, big way. And also content is, is. Also helping with in a big, big way.

[00:26:28] Tessa Burg: Yeah. So let’s jump into that because that’s the dream scenario. I mean, I feel like every person in sales wants to walk into a room where you’ve heard of them, they kind of get the product already, they’re excited about you.

[00:26:40] Tessa Burg: Maybe they read some reviews. Tell us a little bit about how you’re using LinkedIn and how that has become a treasure trove of intent and engagement data.

[00:26:50] Gabe Lullo: Well, it’s funny, so I left Alleyoop. On very good terms years ago to go run two software companies. It was a passion of mine that I wanted to go do that.

[00:27:00] Gabe Lullo: I did it and then our founder retired and said, Hey, Gabe, I’m retiring. I said, congratulations. Why are you, why are you calling me? He’s like, well, I want you to come back and take over for me. As CEO and I was honored and said yes. And I knew that when that change of I guess leadership and approach, um, was happening, we had to tell people about it, tell the world about it.

[00:27:23] Gabe Lullo: And we were always a very boutique, high-end enterprise, BDR team, small 30 person sales floor. Now we have over 150 people on our sales floor and in four years we went from 30 consistently for years. To over 150 and became the second largest company of what we do. Now, I don’t say any of that to be, I impress you, but to impress upon you how we did it, and again, we’re a sales development team, so we prescribe our own medicine.

[00:27:50] Gabe Lullo: We’re making outbound calls for ourself. We’re booking meetings for ourself. But I said, you know what? Let’s create some content on LinkedIn. To really just tell the world about this new shift of leadership and what we wanna plan to do in the world. And just that one little idea has now spawn into this massive result that I’m now, now being asked more about what we do on LinkedIn than I’m about how we do cold calls, which is really unique.

[00:28:13] Gabe Lullo: So we went, we looked at our entire company and all of our profiles for every employee in our company, and we had a little over 20,000 followers across all of our employees. Not a lot collectively. Just to give you some numbers, we’re at 1.2 million right now.

[00:28:29] Tessa Burg: Okay?

[00:28:29] Gabe Lullo: I went from 3000 followers to now 25,000 followers.

[00:28:34] Gabe Lullo: My marketing director went from 400 followers to 15,000 followers in less than a year, and it’s all through our organic content. Now, I know marketers are listening to me, and you’re probably not gonna like what I’m about to say, but here’s my recommendation. Let your employees post on LinkedIn. All right, so like, and, and not only just let them support them, help them, give them tools, give them encouragement, give them a track to run on.

[00:28:58] Gabe Lullo: So that’s what we’ve done. You’ll see that most of our profile, our posts are not on our company page. It’s all personal pages. We’ve created ambassadors and brand ambassadors for our company through their personal pages. And it’s been amazing difference for us in a big way. And here’s the bottom line. 40% of our new business comes from LinkedIn content.

[00:29:20] Gabe Lullo: And uh, before it was almost zero. And so that’s our story a little bit.

[00:29:26] Tessa Burg: Yeah, that’s incredible. And I think that is so important. And one of like, we created a tool to help. Our clients with that to empower people and it just simply checks for voice tone. Is that helper again? But let your employees be who they are, especially if they love working for you. Because their voice, that authenticity really shines through kind of the work slop and the, you know, AI generated crap that’s out there too.

[00:29:56] Gabe Lullo: Yeah, absolutely. And video works really well. So we actually hired a full-time videographer. Uh, we hired a content writer. We hired a social media marketer, and, um, they all work for us full-time and we create content at scale where we’re posting for just a small company like us, 250 organic posts a month.

[00:30:16] Gabe Lullo: Across multiple, uh, not all of these individuals that work here have a full-time job. They’re not marketers. They’re not content social media marketers. They’re, you know, VP of sales, right? They’re, uh, head of, head of talent management, HR like, they’re all different types, but we bio and essentially just kind of document their life on videos like this.

[00:30:36] Gabe Lullo: Create content and it, and it creates a great message and it’s all totally organic. And another piece that’s really helped us in a big way is we used to spend thousands of dollars a month on ads for recruitment to attract sellers and SDRs to come work here. Thousands of dollars, indeed. LinkedIn, all career builder. All the all of them.

[00:30:57] Gabe Lullo: Now we don’t spend any, and we had 4,000 applicants apply to our company last year. We hired 2.5%. So it’s, it’s pretty, we hired about a hundred people and so it’s pretty amazing to see, you know, not only the content from this client side of it, but also just the internal recruitment side of it as well.

[00:31:16] Tessa Burg: Yeah. And this may be a little new for B2B marketers, like looking at social engagement as a part of your sales process.

[00:31:24] Gabe Lullo: Yeah.

[00:31:24] Tessa Burg: How are you attributing the success on the content and social to pipeline revenue?

[00:31:32] Gabe Lullo: It’s 40% of our business. And the reason why we, we know that is because when we are getting inbound leads and having these conversations, we’re very fanatical about our, our sellers asking where you came from and how you came through it.

[00:31:43] Gabe Lullo: Uh, we have taken a step further actually, and built a referral marketing program with our, uh, you know, ideal client profiles, which are CROs and VPs of sales and CMOs and VPs of marketing. So we pay a very robust revenue share. To those heads of marketing, heads of sales to refer us business. And they’re happy to do so because they’re doing it, because it’s helping them out as well.

[00:32:07] Gabe Lullo: So a fractional CMO, for instance, has clients and part of their strategy is they need appointments and leads. And so we can come in and step in and be that SDR function for their specific client. And they’re very happy ’cause we make them look good. They also make some money along the way, and then they refer us business.

[00:32:25] Gabe Lullo: But we found them through LinkedIn and so that the partner, and so that’s how we do it.

[00:32:31] Tessa Burg: I love that. I know marketers and salespeople like love measurement, love when things are accurate and everyone’s getting credit and able to party together. What do you see the future of this marketing and SDR relationship looking like?

[00:32:48] Tessa Burg: As you know, the landscape continues to evolve and as AI continues to play a role.

[00:32:53] Gabe Lullo: I think we’re heading there. I think, like I said, when when you’re putting revenue as a department versus a sales and marketing department, I think that’s step one is that we’re working together and our job is to generate revenue and we do it through marketing and sales.

[00:33:06] Gabe Lullo: I think sellers and marketers working together on social. In, in a big, big way is, is huge. Even at, at the SDR level, I know SDRs for, for very, very big companies have 80, 90, a hundred thousand followers on LinkedIn, SDRs, and they’re generating most of their pipeline through their own social engagement to get their, get their quota done every month.

[00:33:27] Gabe Lullo: I mean, that’s incredible, but that’s a synergistic way of sales and marketing working together. And to go back to tracking, I think it’s super important if you build a referral program, which is also becoming very successful for many companies, organic referrals, is you need to make sure it’s tracked accordingly.

[00:33:43] Gabe Lullo: When we built our program, I used to refer people things all the time just as a friend and never asked for anything in return and. But I did wanna at least get some sort of recognition or credit that, that it was just tracked, right? Yeah. Here, you know, you have to really be very cognizant of that. So we worked and invested in software that allows everything to be tracked.

[00:34:04] Gabe Lullo: So anytime someone sends us over a lead, it’s in a dashboard and they can see the entire sales journey as a referral partner along the entire way. And they encourage that sales journey. So now we’re working collectively with our, our referral partners, just as we would expect them to work with us if they were working for us full time.

[00:34:22] Gabe Lullo: So it’s all working together is, and, and actually, you know, that’s the recipe I think,

[00:34:29] Tessa Burg: And we are going to end there. This conversation has been amazing. You’ve given some really clear and actionable steps for marketers to come together with sales under that umbrella of revenue and driving growth for the business together.

[00:34:42] Tessa Burg: Gabe, thank you so much for being our guest.

[00:34:45] Gabe Lullo: Thank you for having me. This has been awesome.

[00:34:48] Tessa Burg: And if listeners want to find you or Alleyoop, where can they go?

[00:34:53] Gabe Lullo: You guessed it, it’s LinkedIn. Uh, I’m very, I, I post twice a day every day, just myself on LinkedIn. Uh, we have over 3000 videos all for free. You can listen.

[00:35:03] Gabe Lullo: Um, and we share all of our other content that I was just mentioning, uh, from our team. So just ping me on LinkedIn. I’d love to help out in any way I can.

[00:35:11] Tessa Burg: Yeah, and your content is really amazing. When I got the notice that you wanted to be a guest, I immediately went on your page and I’m like, holy crap.

[00:35:18] Tessa Burg: Yes. Like, yeah,

[00:35:20] Gabe Lullo: We’re not messing up so many followers.

[00:35:21] Tessa Burg: Thank you for that such great concept. Yeah, so I highly recommend find Gabe on LinkedIn. And if you wanna hear more episodes of Leader Generation, get the transcript from this episode. Links to Gabe, LinkedIn and Alleyoop. Find it at Mod Op, modop.com/podcasts for a list of all the podcasts including today.

[00:35:44] Tessa Burg: Thanks again, Gabe, and we’ll catch up with you again soon.

[00:35:47] Gabe Lullo: Thanks, Tessa.