Get your Outreach to Breakthrough with Richard Mechaly

​Clear messaging isn't. It's haptic. It's actually a strategy and you don't have to yell louder to get notice what we're seeing now in the marketplace. People are yelling louder, sending hundreds, if not thousands of emails to try to get through. But what really this boils down to is having a clear, specific message that has your client. At the center of it. And you'd be surprised. You think that we're talking about brand strategy, messaging, strategy, and positioning.

Excellent. How you doing, man?

Doing pretty good. I'm excited to have you on. Our conversation has been teed up for quite a while now. So this has been brewing in the back of my mind. For everyone here listening though, can you tell us a little bit more about who you are, what you're up to and why you're doing what you do?

Yes. So my name is Rich. I run a growth agency. I should call it

And yeah, it's amazing, right? I remember in my parallel and the direct response marketing space, you would launch an ad, send people to a webinar that has a 2, 000 to 3, 000 course people bought. And you might get an amazing return on ad spend. And those used to be quote unquote, the heyday, the easy days, of course, there's nothing easy, but same thing with email. You send a hundred emails, certain percentage gets clicked, maybe 5, 10%. And from there you get appointments.

It's an excellent question. Yeah. I mean, the first thing that comes to my mind is like these funny messages that I get pitched on. They're all the same. They're like, Rich, can you handle seven to 11 new clients or something like that?

Oh yeah.

they changed the numbers. So I have fun with these guys. I'm like, no, actually I'm looking for 13. If you would have said 13, we would have had a deal. So now obviously it's not a stupid messaging because it peaks the curiosity and it worked. It obviously worked. The problem is, is that when something works. It has a lifeline. It has a life cycle. And if you copy and paste what other people are doing, it's not that it's bad, it could work for you to a certain degree, but at some point, it dies.

too much.

worked very well as you said in the beginning years of cold email and outreach today, even when it's like, can I send you this paper or that paper or whatever it may be, it's really got to make sense. it's got to have a very specific, I think, first liner to the person. And it has to build enough curiosity for them to be like, yes,

I started my first company off of cold email and I think you're hitting it on the head, like for me to book those appointments, it was

exactly that. And in fact, you know, there's a trend on LinkedIn that is also going to have its cycle, but it's kind of like the guy with the video. And he's like showing something that's like obviously amazing and there's like 400 comments and everybody wants that.

Oh yeah. Give me the guide. Hey, I'm running ads to that. Anytime I need communications, I just run ads and I got it. And I kept

yeah. and it works because it's like, a version of storytelling. It's like, you look at that, you understand that that could be for you and you want that. And then the guy says, well, if you want that, just type this in the comments. Okay. It's the same principle for the email as well. Yeah. It's like if you can tell a success story about a client that's in the recipient's industry that they know about and

let's pair that because I want to get your thoughts on this. And this is again, why I've been looking forward to our conversation because like a live strategy session, just two dudes jamming. Like I get this, like, Hey, I looked at your profile. I have to say I'm impressed with what you've accomplished. Okay. Curious. Have you ever considered turning your content into a book? So this is different because it's poking at. Hey, are you interested in doing this thing?

yeah, it's,

Versus do you want this lead magnet that's valuable,

haven't seen that one. I mean, turning my content into a book. Wow.

Yeah, they've done, I've gotten this exact message from like 15 other people.

I haven't gotten that one yet, but I will tell you that my first impression of that, don't forget as agency owners, we're a lot more stricter than other people. we have an affinity for messaging and we can kind of read between the lines because a lot of times I have these very similar conversations with other business folks. And they were like, Oh, I didn't see it as deep as you did Rich.

Yeah.

I want to make a book?

Yeah. that was my point too. And I wanted to get your live reaction to that because that is very similar to what we just talked about. Like you give a value piece, like, here's something that I, like planning to run or just doing as well, like, Hey, we're doing X, Y and Z. Would you like me to show you how we're getting this kind of result or what we're doing here?

to that exact example, let's say the guy pitched and said, Hey, rich, I took a look at your last 40 LinkedIn posts and I wrote five pages of a potential book we could put together for you. Can I send it your way?

that's gold.

that's cool because even if I didn't want to write a book, you just piqued my interest. That's pretty cool. You know, when people buy a book of LinkedIn posts that I put together, if I market it properly, maybe it just out of the curiosity, it's interesting, you know, mind you, the messaging is easy. Now, the execution for that guy, I don't know how we'd ever dream of doing that, but, but it's like, yeah. It's for marketers like ourselves.

No, I liked that. And that was really good. How you came up with that

So my process for messaging, and I think we discussed this the first time we connected, I'm a big Donald Miller fan. I really, I love the story run framework. I use it all the time. I use it for every single strategy session that I do. I don't try to jump in right away, try to play super dumb. Like, what do you do? Who are you? Who's your hero? What's the problem? You know, then I think, okay, if I was marketing for myself, how would I do this? So I let the client talk.

Interesting.

Yeah, I used to. What I used to do is procrastinate it, like record this and be like, Okay, well, and then, you know, you wait a week, forget it. All of your ideas are gone. It's hard. I gotta re listen to the thing. It's annoying. So I really try to do the copywriting literally after the session. I wait till it's recorded. Then, of course, I leverage AI. I take the whole transcript. I have a very special AI, what do you call it?

Yeah.

I upload the whole chat and it breaks down the story brand and then it breaks it down per some of the rules. You know, I want my emails to be short. I want it to be pattern breaking. Okay. I want it to be thought provoking and sometimes I'll even use humor and then I try different combinations. Until I read it through and I bounce it off Ilya and Ilya says, yeah, but what's in it for the guy?

Is it a volume game that you're testing in the beginning? So two weeks is a time frame versus like sending 10, 15 emails a day.

Yeah, it's a time and a volume thing. So depending on

And the inbox

You're screwed. It's really, it really became a mess to figure out how to do this. I had multiple conversations with so called email experts. I went on a search. I went on Upwork. I spoke to people at Instantly, at SmartLead, at

Oh, wow.

yeah. And when I came to the conclusion, it's one blind guy leading the other blind guy. I promise you, I don't, think today that anybody clearly has

That's solution.

all of the information very well understood to explain an agency owner why this and this is happening, what they, some of the best guys they do, there are some experts out there, they have recommendations, but they cannot pinpoint it.

Exactly. Why? It's almost like an algorithm, right? Like I remember in the Facebook side, people would come to me and this is because, we retrain and I've helped. some interesting names, some good names in the internet marketing space. You don't know the nature of the piece, in my opinion, you just know this is what's happening, but I don't know how the algorithm works. I don't know what's going on. I don't know what the changes are internally. I mean, that's to my extent.

and I'm not like I follow people that I believe are successful and I follow their LinkedIn post and then we test into everything I do. I try to test on myself first. How does

Yeah.

If it works for provoke, okay, let's try it on this client before we roll that out fully.

So what's your setup now? Like dedicated servers

Yes. so right now we have like three, we got a little bit of mail reef. We got a little bit of scaled mail cheap in boxes. Okay. And then there's

Cause with that, you're sending like, how much volume are you doing today?

otherwise it's, if Ilya was here, you would tell me it's I'm not a numbers

that's incredible, right? you're in the numbers game, but you're more creative. that's the thing that I love

don't.

Like you're creative and story first.

I'm sure We're sending in the millions. Yeah, but the way it is now is

Yeah. I'll chat with you off recording about that.

Yeah, it's in that. So I've been playing around with that. And trying to, but the emails, it's like two or three emails per mailbox. It's nothing. So you end up with these massive, like email boxes that need to be maintained and organized. Okay.

That's a, it's a whole value add in itself. Just getting those set up. And then I mean, I'm obviously not running a cold email agency. I just know about. The game, but like you have to have its own dedicated account to inbox and the ratio has to be right. It's its own little science experiment. It's very synonymous with the nuances with advertising and ad spend.

Well, that's more account based. Yeah. It's more account based. How do they call

it could be ABM. it's still synonymous to what you were talking about here. Like outreach, cold outreach, base signals, et cetera, warm follow up, et cetera. But the reason I say that is I think sometimes right now the hype is to automate too quickly. The hype is to just dive into let's dive from the beginning because you're manually writing that copy in the beginning.

have not played around with like AI written emails that I haven't even looked at. No, no. The only AI stuff that I think you saw recently on a post that I did is we brought on a client recently called phone call dot bot, which I'm very fond of. I think they have one of the most hyper realistic. A. I. Calling agents. Now I'm starting to incorporate that in my campaigns and from my clients, not A. I. Selling agent, but as a caller that just simply provides additional support

That's amazing. We need to talk about that in a second, but I think the original point is just like, don't automate too quickly is kind of like the forewarning sign. Like we still have to be thinking and you're, I mean, frankly, you're the authority here. You're sending millions of emails and you're not automating the first email.

No, you definitely have to have a thinking strategic. That's one of the things that I felt like a lot of my experience in the tech world brought me. just my work experience in general is that I always felt like if you're not going to do face to face with the client you're not going to really take the time to talk to them, understand their issues.

Yeah. And I mean, you can automate the follow up and I understand that. But even just like what my major point is, like, I think we're getting too caught up in the technology to start like the overhype. And there's some great tools out there, like an incredible suite of tools, and I pay for them. But I think what you're mentioning for start with a human, like, I know, like in the end tech, like you mentioned, You met a client in person

Oh, yes.

don't know what's going

Yes.

Hmm.

that was a great, experience. And I have a couple more lined up, but yeah ever since I started the agency what, 99 percent of all of my opportunities came in through the email was a call like this where I'm seeing the, the prospect. And the only thing going through my mind is, Rich, this is like, you got to pitch this, like you got to close this, that here's your opportunity, he's in front of you. This call is to close the opportunity. So it's kind of very focused.

Yeah. And I think that's like what we're talking about earlier too, like leveling up technology wise is great, but never forget the aspect of the human, like forgetting the aspect of the initial message, forgetting the aspect of this. I still have clients manual, like I forced them. We're not automating your first message. You have manually have to go through the grind. It's five emails, dude. It's not that hard. Life is not that hard.

No, you'll never. It's where the magic is. It's really where the magic is. It's, it's quantity versus quality. And it seems that the divine is in the quality, not in the quantity.

Yeah. And that comes, I mean, you're sending millions of emails. that's saying something, dude. I know very few people that do. But what else are you seeing? Like, what's piquing your interest? So you got the AI calling, which I think is fascinating. Like, what else is piquing your interest that you're like, wow, this is fascinating. Let me lean into it.

Well, there's a lot of things that pique my interest that go down the rabbit's hole, but like I fall for like all of these, like these little LinkedIn posts with like the This is how I'm doing this. I like, and then I throw it to my people and like, like analyze this. So I have like 50 of them that I haven't like checked out yet. I get all the links and stuff like that.

we just have to do, yeah,

overwhelming us, overwhelming us with the amount of tools and I sometimes I think I even explained this to you when we first connected. Sometimes I sit in front of my desk. I don't know where to go. I don't know where to start.

Hmm.

And then I think to myself, if I had an AI tool that could tell me what I should prioritize, that would be great.

Oh, yep.

know what I mean? my focus. so these days what I do, I literally make a list, I write down a list of things that I want to do on paper, you know, I hardwire it in my ADHD brain. And then I kind of glance at it, you know, and then you got to go with the flow because this guy rings and your wife calls you and the slack goes off and then the text and then somebody comes in the house. So You got to keep it balanced, but

keep it balanced. Yeah. That's the key thing. And your kids, you got the kids.

that's right.

Oh, that's fun. Oh man. No, but I appreciate you keeping it real. Cause even though you're using cutting edge tech, even though you're sending millions of emails, you're still keeping it pretty, pretty focused on how can I improve as a human first? And how can I. Substantially add value through my own thinking, leverage

Yes, even when I use ChatGPT, for example, I have something recently I came across, it's called NVC, it's called Non Violent Communication.

yeah.

Hey, you ever hear about this? So, somebody spoke to me about it, I said, that's a fascinating idea, I did research on it, and I said, wow, I love this. I noticed that when clients don't respond the way I want, or clients don't pay on time, it's fascinating. My initial reaction is to be mean to them and to be like, what? Like, so what I do is I write my mean email as I feel it,

That's good.

I go through the NVC and then I say, wow, I could get across the exact same thing by being nicer and so

Yeah, I'm going to totally make that about now.

no, but we'll look for it. It's called Go find NVC it's on chat, GPT. Okay. It's a really great one. And it helps me. So now when I write my emails manually, I've almost like kind of trained myself, rich. You don't got to be mean to get what you want. You know, you don't got to be like violent in your communication to like, cause you're frustrated, right?

Yeah.

You want to let the other guy know that you're frustrated. So you're hoping that he sees that you're frustrated so that he gives you what you want, but it doesn't work like that.

Yeah. It's just, how do you communicate effectively? And that's, that's the crux also with team members. I had a team that I met up in person and they were talking about how they have an issue, the sales with the marketing guy, they had an issue whenever the communication and I had them do a personality profile before. And they're like, they shared that they swapped as like, Oh, that's why I'm not coming across well with you. Cause they just read the other person's personality.

even, you know, over the vacation time, it was the first time that I decided to do a zoom holiday party. Okay. I said, I got guys working in Serbia. I got guys working in Bangladesh. I have another one in Ontario. Like I can't see these people, I can't see them face to face. I can't connect with them. So I'll give them a budget. They bought pizza. I was on vacation, but I connected on zoom. We sat down. We had a normal conversation. Nothing business. I said, guys, talk to me about your lives.

Yeah.

That's how we built more of a human connection.

Yeah. And the work quality will probably follow with that too.

Yeah. you know, before when I used to go in the office at my tech job my boss would come up and he'd literally be this close to me and be like, Rich, what's wrong, man? like, I could see it on your face. what's up today. You know, and then my, yeah, my kid is sick. I have to bring him here to da da, all of that. You lose man in the digital world. You lose that.

Yeah. And I think we need that. I was talking to a practitioner. she focuses on coaching now, but she also does go to market, but she came from AWS and Google, so you know who you are. We had an awesome conversation. But she talked about how in that space, when you're in the tech scene and you're growing in hyper growth companies, it's almost like you lose yourself, your sense of being, because you're caught up to it. You just focus on your KPI. You're focusing on the next big thing.

Yeah. I recently experienced also just working on a community project. You know, especially when you work for these non-profit community projects and people are volunteers, you should see the level of stories that go through people's minds.

Well, Rich, I appreciate you being on. Where's the best place for people to Thank you for being on and to learn more about what you're up to.

you can catch me on Facebook. Catch me on LinkedIn. I guess LinkedIn is probably the easiest one. Connect with me on LinkedIn. Say hi. Say bye. Ask me a question on a cold email. I'll be happy to help you out. And yeah, that's about it.

Well, you know, the hack now to get to his email. So you just got to create the content first and then send it over to

That's right.

Rich, thanks for being on man. And we'll go from here.