#205 Guillaume Moubeche – $150M Founder Reveals How To Make Your First $1M

I have at least three or four conversations with our customers and if you look at other CEOs , they will not want to do it .

This episode is a deep dive in how you can do this , going from $0 up to your first $1 million . We're documenting exactly the steps you need to do to find a great big idea , to master your outreach , to master your sales , to build a great product , build a great team , for you to hit your first $1 million . What's up , people ?

Before we get into this video , please make sure to subscribe , like and comment down below so we can get bigger and better guests for you every single week . Let's get straight into the video right now . Let's kick off . Well , man , I'm excited for this .

Been a long time coming and before we start , I think one of the most interesting observations I have of Lemlist well , obviously there's Lempire , which sits on top , but of Lemlist is that it's the only product that I have to cancel my subscription for because it works so well . Genuinely , every time I use it . It works and I cancel my subscription afterwards .

I genuinely handle my heart . So for the past two years I would get the subscription , I would run a shitload of sales outreach and then I would get the leads I need , and then I would sign the clients I need and then I'd just cancel the two last two . I need to get a better way to the clients , man .

But yeah , it's very impressive what you've been able to build for the last couple of years .

I think , as founders , when you take the leap of faith and you go all in on a project , you really need to believe in yourself , because most people won't I mean , unless you are very , very well surrounded .

But often people don't really like to see someone they don't change , because it also reminds them that they're not taking action , they're not doing something outside of their comfort zone . I feel like when it gets really hard which it always will when you launch a company , people are looking for way outs .

I think often founders believe that it doesn't work because the product is not good enough , it doesn't work because their team is not the right team , etc . But for me , in the end , it's on the founder's shoulder to make a business work . If you can't do sales , learn how to do sales , because sales for me is pretty much everything .

A lot of people believe that they can build an awesome product and that everyone will come and use it . It's not the case . Even product-led growth companies started as sales-led companies . The founder was outreaching to potential customers , onboarding them personally . Whenever you want to hire someone .

It's exactly the same as sales If you want the top talents , you need to outreach to the one that you know like , get maybe 100 job offers every single year and you need to convince them to join you on the adventure .

So I think people will always find excuses and I think if you start acknowledging the fact that you're the owner of your own success and that whenever you face a challenge , you can always overcome it Overcome it by learning , overcome it by getting coached , overcome it by I don't know making mistakes , then eventually you get better , and I think this is when you

start owning your destiny 100% .

He's a great book called Turning Pro which you would really like .

He also has the art of war yeah , the art of war and ours , the war of art of war , I think it is and basically talks with the wall of resistance , saying that most people when they have they split into an amateur or a pro mindset just for life and someone who's an addict could have the same example .

But when they have the amateur mindset , they're basically coming up against a wall of resistance and looking for a way out , like a cope or someone to blame or so on . But basically the crossing , the kind of the chasm , basically , is coming up with resistance .

So if you can push through those resistance , those resistors , that's when basically you have like more of a professional mindset and whatever you do , basically you're kind of like all in . And having that kind of like all in a mentality means that when you do come up against it , you'll find a coach , you'll find a tutor , you'll buy a course .

You'll basically be able to solve that problem because chances are someone else has done it anyway .

And it's a beautiful book because he went through kind of his story and his journey , how he ran from his problems for so many years as a writer and then basically was working in like these picking cherries and apples and then swapping back over them to writing when he had the money .

And I saw it was very , very interesting because , like it's never been easier right To some degree , to be able to build stuff . We have the availability .

Like everyone wants , you know , like the easy way , everyone wants the overnight success . No one understands the true power of delayed gratification . No one understands , like what sacrifice it takes , you know , to be at the top or like just reach like summit . So I think you know , like social media are also like part of it .

When you have like always like instant gratification and dopamine hit every time you post , every time you do something , I think people like yeah , don't realize that they can push themselves and every time it gets a bit hard , they give up .

And I think it's a shame because if you live an intentional life , meaning you set like a goal that might sound like unrealistic for many , but that's also linked to your passion and what you want to accomplish If that goes aligned with what you're ready to sacrifice , then you know like you're going to enjoy the journey , no matter what happens , no matter the up ,

no matter the downs . You know that you will do it for a reason , and I think that's the power of delay , gratification of overall . It's like can you like sacrifice your current state so your future self can be proud of you ? Man , where did I come from ? For you .

Because , like , that's the kind of rootless side , I guess in many regards right , that you've kind of controlled and tamed and basically can work with Oops , sorry , my camera just jumped . Yeah , it's back , never mind . So that's like the other side basically .

So how have you been able to kind of build those other principles , because they're very foundational principles to build huge , successful companies , I imagine right .

But since I was a kid , you know , there were rules where I lived so I could go out and play in the street with my friend when I was like younger , as long as you know , like I would do my homework and get good grades . So I knew that I had to be like super focused on doing things the right way so later on I could have fun .

Then , you know , it was like if I was doing the right thing , or even when I was maybe like tenish my grandad's after he retired he didn't have like a lot of money , so he would work on like construction field , like to help like build houses etc .

And during the summer we would go there and I would help like move like bricks from the car to like the house and at the end of the week I would get maybe like the equivalent of two or three dollars . I was definitely not good at business back then , but for me , you know , like all the efforts was rewarded by money .

And when you are like I don't know , like 10 and you start getting money for the work you do , you understand that sometimes , like suffering can lead to , you know , like more reward in the end . And eventually you know like , with that money I would like maybe buy little things and then start trading it at school and get like even bigger things .

So I understood two things . One is like if you put in the work , you get rewarded , and then with the money that you get , even if it's not a lot , you can always purchase things that in people's mind will get a greater value and leverage it afterwards to get the thing you want .

There is a code that says , I think , like if you want to get what you want , help other people get what they want , and I think it's the same like , for example , for you know , like simple example , you have someone like I'm currently in Cape Town , there is like a place called Lions Head which is a place you have to climb upstairs so you have to work for

maybe , like I don't know , depending on your condition , let's say , two hours if you're like in very basic condition and at the top . Obviously it's like super hot , it's South Africa , you have sun , et cetera . People , like a lot of people , don't have water .

If I'm on top and I meet a guy with like a billionaire , you know like it , just climb all his way up and I'm selling water . What price is he going to be able to pay ? A lot , because that's what he wants .

So the value of the water totally changed because you are like in a unique space , rather than if I was just down the street at the shop and I tried to sell him water , he wouldn't care . There are plenty .

So for me it's always the matter of how can you find like those really valuable things for the right people at the right time , and then you're good to go .

If money wasn't actually one of the key factors , it was like a secondary factor . But knowing that , basically it's like make people money , save people time , improve their status . That's kind of like what we do at our podcast , for instance .

But then , in contrast , as you got into Lemlist and Lempire , you were just putting that on fire basically , wasn't it effectively ?

Because you met such a big need , basically , and like your kind of story from , like having a lead agency seeing all the problems and then being like , okay , we're going to recreate this and build a new , better tool , made it like the obvious choice , like , would you consider Lempire or Lemlist to be the main sales outreach tool in the world at the moment ?

No , but it's quite funny because , like I think , from our stage meaning like they were created maybe like five or six years prior to us , but if we look at the current growth versus what they accomplished , I think we're like faster and at a higher stage , with zero dollar raised .

So I would say that our trend is to , later on and at the goal , like overtake them . But yeah , I mean for me what's good , it's like markets are huge . A lot of people are afraid of competition , but I think like it's really like the wrong way of doing things .

I remember when I started my first businesses , every time I had an idea like to launch a business and someone would tell me oh yeah , but there is this tool or is that tool that does exactly the same , I would be like crushed . I would be so discouraged , I would be fuck . I thought I was creative , etc .

But later on I realized like if you don't know about something that already exists , maybe it's because they're not marketing properly , maybe it's because the market is so huge that there is room for everyone . Like it does seem like if you walk down the streets you're going to see like five or six restaurants .

Does that mean that you shouldn't open a new restaurant ? I don't think so . You know , like all the studies and research that have been made shows that when in a street you have like more and more restaurants , it actually doesn't reduce the amount of money that they are making . It's actually the opposite , because it becomes like the restaurant street .

So people like come because they want to eat in that street and they know they will have the option they want . So it drives a lot more traffic and hence a lot more revenue .

So for me , you know , like if I had to start all over again , I would pick a crowded market because it means that the product market fits Already exists , but I would focus on a niche that is underserved . Because if you go back to pretty much like every success stories that exist today , you mentioned , like earlier that you were working with Salesforce .

Salesforce is a really good example Right now . Salesforce , they are making the most of their revenue with the biggest enterprise in the world , talking like companies with hundreds of thousands of employees . But if you look at where they started , they started focusing on small companies . Why ?

Because their product wasn't ready , because it was super important for them to get a lot of feedback so they could iterate , etc . So they started focusing on the niche of the smallest companies in tech and , step by step , they started expanding .

And once they expanded , essentially you have this cycle where you start super niche , then you start to expand , then you want to go up market , so all the features you're developing are more like oriented towards enterprise , and then what happens is that your product actually become irrelevant for the niche that made you successful .

And this is when market opportunities happen . This is why you always have cycles whenever you have like crowded markets , and this is why a company , for example , like Pipe Drive managed to come after Salesforce and Upspot and eventually like grew to $100 million in annual revenue by focusing on that specific niche . So for me , it's wild .

But , to your point , there's a point when you're ready and there's a point when you're not ready . We need to learn and get feedback early on , right , but it's like everyone wants to jump up there but they're not willing to do the work to get into that position in the beginning .

Right , but it's very interesting because , like , there's room at the top for everyone and also , if you have one or 5% of market share , you can still make a multi seven figure business that you can sell . Right , that's the kind of idea here is that you don't need to be so let's take a step back .

So on the on the path to making the first million , you look for a crowded market and that would be , you know , at odds with . People would usually say now talk about , talk me through . Like the idea process . I like some of your videos on that being like a good versus great idea . How do you decipher ?

To give you an example , I was running sales campaigns for companies around the globe with an agency and I was using pretty much every single sales automation tool on the market and I found that , even though they were saying put your sales on autopilot , it was not really the case . There were tons of manual work . It was really annoying .

They didn't offer like a lot of personalization , even though personalization was key to actually get meeting booked . So I got like so frustrated that I had a unique insight and I decided to solve a problem that I had for myself and I realized many other people had that same problem .

So the industry and the market was well known , but I had like a unique take on that position . Option two it's it's a market you're passionate about and you know people in that market .

So , for example , I don't know , it can be like your wife , friends all work in a specific industry or your friend actually work in a specific industry that you really love , or you've met that guy that's at a hotel , at a bar or whatever .

That just like gives you like insight on an industry and you start being passionate about it and you know that they can introduce you to that market . Once you have that , then everything becomes easier because you already have kind of like your first customers to test the product .

And option three , which is the hardest , is you don't know anyone but it's still like part of your passion and you are good at sales , so you know you can outreach to people and you know you'll make it happen .

So once you first have like this first step , I would if it's your first business , I would focus on one or two maybe , but the first option for me is the best . And then once you have that , this is the time where you need to pick up like the right idea .

So what I love , to be honest , especially when it's the first business , is to find something that already exists that you can improve . And you know like if you look at how ideas have been created and how you know like we've been developing things year after year , it all comes down to small improvements . You know , before you know , we had cars .

We had basically like the wheels , and then the wheels we put that , you know , with horses . Then people were sitting on there , then we started like moving everything from that . Then you know , like , we build engine and then we're like , okay , actually an engine plus wheels , that sounds like a good combination . Let's make cars . So it's always the same .

So for me it's like take something that already exists and after that , the way I would do it is I would go , you know , like to , if you want let's take an example and you want to build like a software , if you want to build a software business , I would go to website reviews , like G2 , crowd captera , etc .

I would find a product that I want to improve . I would go to that product . I would look at all the negative reviews and I would see what people complain about . Then I would go on Twitter , I would search for , like , what people are complaining about again on that product or on Reddit , etc .

And from there , this is where I would build my pre-audience of people I would like to reach out to and serve better .

So once you have that , this is when you find like a profitable market and your profitable market is essentially like people who are already paid customers because they left a review they must be paid customers and who have like enough buying power that essentially they will be able to purchase your product and ideally they are part of a growing market , which means

that , for example , if you take salespeople , you know that every single year there's going to be tens of millions of new salespeople around the globe , maybe hundreds . If you take , like CEOs of companies with 10,000 plus employees , the market is not growing that much every single year . You're not going to find many more CEOs of 10,000 plus companies in a year .

So I will always find a market that is accessible , meaning that you have an entry point as I mentioned , option one , two or three or that you can outreach easily .

And I would also take a growing market , because if you run a growing market , chances are that every single year your market becomes new again , so you can target new people and it's basically a lot easier to grow when you do that .

I wasted many years doing this , making it all up as I go , so I put everything together in a very seamless and easy to follow course for you guys to follow and just learn exactly how to do it .

So if you want to bypass a lot of the mess with your podcast , check out the links down below the podcast university and we'll show you exactly how to launch and scale your own podcast . Your LinkedIn sales navigator when you refresh it , you come up with new people every year .

I want to dig into maybe some of the aspects that you mentioned around the purchasing power , so this is quite interesting . So I run a B2B business , so purchasing power and I also want to dig into the CEO list . So we do B2B and sometimes I think B2B can almost be easier than B2C , and I'll tell you why because generally we need to interact with someone .

They kind of know that it's about sales or it's about a product , about a service . They're kind of more educated , put it that way . But B2C I kind of get scared on sometimes because it's like you need so much of a big critical mass or you need like a lot more volume of people .

Right , and I know you're like an excellent community builder , it's like a big skill that you have . So like , how do you think about that ? Because , like , with the purchasing power , we'll give a bad example . So like , if you're selling , if you're selling , I don't know , like insurance to students , students are fucking broke .

They're just like , oh , I'm not going to get sick , I don't need it right Now . It is like a growing market or it's like a stabilized market , but it's like it's not , it's not a starving crowd , they're not going to have the purchasing power . So how do you kind of think about that philosophy ?

Because for Lemlist and for your other products , it's almost like an obvious choice , right , like that's where people get stuck for it . They're in a wrong place .

It's just like the perceived value An iPhone versus like a health insurance is not quite there and for me , for me , that's like the power of brands . I think in B2C it's you must build a strong brand .

If you don't have a strong brand , you'll never do anything , whereas in B2B , even if your brand is not that strong but you are really good at building trust , then you can succeed easily . So I tend to agree with you on the fact that I think you can make more money more easily in B2B .

But in B2C I feel like if you have the secret sauce to building a brand because , I don't know , you just have the right way of approaching a certain target market then the cumulative effects that you can build and the traction you can get on B2C for me can be insane .

Because B2B , yeah , it compounds , because for B2B it's pretty like , it's pretty basic Like people will buy , as you mentioned earlier , either because you help them make more money or save time . In B2C it's a bit different . Like they can buy because of their health , their wealth , their status .

It's the purchasing decision are not , I would say , influenced by the same factors and parameters .

So if you look at what we did when I launched Lemlist , I spent 18 months being the only one doing customer support , meaning that I was the only one answering every single ticket online . So I had intercom open almost 24 seven and I would answer and talk with my customers and what I've realized is that most people they don't want to do this .

Even now , like the company is making , like we cross $23 million in annual recurring revenue , highly profitable $8 million in EBITDA I still talk weekly with customers . Like really weekly , I have at least three or four conversations with our customers and if you look at other CEOs , they will not want to do it .

And if you want to build a true community , like if someone reach out to me and even if they're not customers , actually , if they reach out to me and they want help on a specific topic , like they send me , for example , like here is a business I do , here is where I'm struggling what would you do in that situation ?

I would always spend the time to answer with a very specific response and as many insights as I can from my learnings . Like this is what I do .

So for me , to build a community , you need to be passionate about helping people , and I think a lot of people are not just passionate like they want to make money , they want to have the fame , they want to do like all the nice stuff , but for them , helping others is not a top priority .

And if you look at what we did with Lemnist at first , like in the community , it was pretty simple , like I would run . Like if we look at our gross loop , basically it's step one . I built a product where I knew the exact needs that people might have because it was my needs .

So that's also like a good thing to do , like solve your own problems , essentially From there . Exactly what we did For me . I think it's the best , because a lot of people will tell you yeah , you need to be careful because , like , you don't represent your entire market , etc . Etc . In my opinion , we're seven billion people .

If you have a specific problem , chances are that there are at least 10 million other people in the world who have the exact same problem . Like probabilistic speaking , to be honest , it's you will find others . So once you have that , once we start having that I was step one , eating my own dog food .

So using my product to actually launch sales prospecting campaign . The one that would work , I would write deep down articles explaining why they would work , and the one that would didn't work I would not talk about it . So from these campaigns I would basically be on meetings with people .

I would be able to close deals , start making money the same way you do it for your agency and you cancel your subscription afterwards , which I don't recommend . And once I had , like , the meeting booked , I would basically invite all those people inside a community where I would share with them very dedicated insights on what works , what doesn't work .

Then they would ask questions , they would give feedback , they would think like , hey , could we do XYZ , or hey , I'm stuck with this , and that From their problem I would recreate more content to help them , and they would be really grateful for it . Share insights will allow me to improve also my product .

So we would develop like new features , new add-on , et cetera , and from that I would go back to using my product and , this time , leveraging the feature that they had asked for as specific when they give specific feedback , and the loop goes back again , because once you start doing that , what happens is that people are going to keep talking about you because

they're going to be like and to build also a true community , which is something I forgot to mention . But I think it's like .

The foundation is to mention very clearly what's your mission and where you want to take your company , because , from day one , what I did is I told everyone that I wanted to build the best sales automation platform ever created in the world . That's still my goal , like every day , this is what I want to do .

So , for me , when you do that and you keep repeating it , then people want to be part of the adventure Because , in the end , what's in it for them ?

It's like if you manage to do this , they're going to get better results , they're going to be able to close more deals , they're going to be able to make more money and if they see you trying and trying every single day some of them when you say that for the first time , I remember when I got started , people were like who the fuck is that

guy Like why is he saying that ? Of course , yes , he wants to create the best sales automation platform . Thank you for that . But then when they see you doing things every single week , then they're like why the fuck is he posting on LinkedIn ? Why is he doing this with his French accent , et cetera , et cetera , like haters , haters , haters , haters .

But then after a few months , they're like you know what , maybe I'm going to give it a try . And then it's like oh yeah , it works actually . Or like , oh yeah , I'm going to give it a try . Oh , he's answering my message when I send him a message . Oh , he's doing X , he's doing Y .

And then after like a year , everyone is like , yeah , but you know , like from the beginning , I knew that you would succeed . I remember .

That's always the case , right , but it's with everyone you know , because it's breaking the belief , shattering the internal belief and bringing them across . Man , and I can't believe you're that close to the product and to the business , right , because that's the reason why it works , right . And if you kind of , you almost forget that those things happen .

And a friend said to me recently he was like you still take your sales calls . And I was like , yes , I did . I went fucking sales calls and he was like , why just just bring someone else in ? And I'm like , because I can find out what we should be doing by getting the feedback right . And it's a great book you might actually like .

This is called Gapsaling .

Right , and that's what you guys are able to do so effectively .

Because I want to look good , most people will stop there and they would focus on , like hey , here's a like weight loss program , so you look good . No , ask why again , why do you want to look good now ? Like why now ? I mean you , you're like 35 years old , like you've been looking like shit for 35 years . Like what's happening now ?

Oh , you've met that girl , ah , okay , so you want to look good for that girl , but why ? Yeah , because you're in love with it , okay . So you know like the more you dig , the more you're going to understand why people want to do things . And the minute you understand what they're true , why , the easier it is for you to find the right solution .

Because maybe actually , you know , like the the issue is not like your weight , is not like looking good , it's just like your self confidence , and to boot self confidence .

You know , maybe like doing sports is going to help you boost self confidence , but just because you're going to feel good , not because you're going to look ripped and super handsome , et cetera , you know .

So I think it's super important and most people think that to be a good sales rep you need to be like a kind of like a park someone like always smiling , like talking a lot , making people's laugh et cetera . But actually , like during like my sales goals , I mostly don't speak . I ask one question .

When people like answer , I always leave two or three seconds of silence , so often they keep picking up again . When you know like I feel like they didn't give the full answer , I just ask do you mind elaborating on this ?

Then you know like they continue and the more you listen , the more you're gonna understand what true problem people are facing and the easier it will be for you to give them the right solution . And sometimes you are not the right solution and that's fine and people appreciate it hundred percent because it's better like yeah , I think you agree on that .

But it's like if you become really good at sales you have like you start , it starts becoming easier and easier to close deals . But the fine line is also being able to say no to the deals that are not the right one , because often it happens that people are looking for something that we're not doing and it's fine . It's fine to say .

It's fine to say that it's not a fit , because if you have people Coming in and you've oversold and you can't deliver , what's gonna happen ? They're gonna turn , they're gonna be unhappy and they're gonna say that your service sucks . Is that like the type of things you want people to say ? Probably not . It's always best to focus on the straving . Yeah , definitely

.

It was so the gap-selling approaches , like understanding the facts , the problem , the impact , the root cause and the future .

And Basically , after doing that , the gap wasn't big enough and I just said you know what we recoup in six months , twelve months , maybe we big enough , but it wasn't something that was a big enough investment for that individual as an emotional investment , not not financial investment . Therefore , it just was better not to go through the process for them .

I mean , that's way more trustworthy than bringing someone in and the time delay effect .

I think which is very interesting , which I really observe from your work too , is the fact that when you do the work now and you build a community , build a brand , that doesn't take effect for a month , it takes effect six months , twelve months , eighteen months , and this is what you have , probably such a fucking low turn rate .

Right , because time time tells the ultimate is the ultimate . Hell , did you do the work ? And also , is your work shit ? I always think about that , right ? Oh , it's been a big philosophy over . Is everything really ?

You know , even though I followed up five times and I have zero . It's really funny , it's really funny .

Right , because it's been so many years .

So that's also important . I don't really do like sales calls anymore Like as closing calls , because we have a team for that and you know like from time to time , I would listen to sales calls and maybe give like some feedback , but otherwise , like I try to . You know like I've delegated to the team and I trust them and it's important to do so .

And now I think like Since I hired like a COO , so chief operating officer , I think like is the transition period was basically until the end of 2023 and now my focus is really more like the top-up funnel .

So I spend a lot of time with people who are trying like to grow their business , to understand what pain they are solving , and my goal is really like with . So lemlist is obviously like the maybe most well-known of our software , but we have several and the goal is to kind of like , build a suite of products that helps people grow their business .

And for each product that we develop , we have only one rule we must be power users of what we want to develop . If we're not power users , it doesn't make sense for us to develop it , because the the goal is we don't want to teach something that we don't use ourselves . We want to be like , as authentic as possible .

We don't want to tell you because you know like it's the same . Like if you look at all the I don't know biggest companies in the world , like if you take Coca-Cola , for example , and you say , okay , like , if Coca-Cola was like so good would you have ?

Like your children , you know like drink this In the morning , at lunchtime , and you know , at dinner , and the person's gonna say no , you know like . But if I asked myself , like , should you use lemlist morning , lunch and dinner ? Yes , I do it . You know like I send outreach campaigns . I love that . It allows me to meet with people like I thought I could

never meet .

And what's so beautiful about sales is like when you learn it , you can transfer it over . So to give me , give you an analogy , I was doing sales for my podcast for many years , for like for many years before my company was built . So I was convincing people to come on my show and they give the transfer of Knowledge for the platform and distribution .

Like that was the exchange of value . And then , as the show grew , it didn't become easier . I was going after bigger guests and then the platform as it grew was a . It was a bigger , more powerful tool and I just kind of intuitively brought that over into a business world because it was the exchange of value and I was able to do it .

But my sales education is very like limited . It's not like I went off and learned lots of stuff . So how do you kind of go about that ? Writing philosophy , some theories and practices you've been kind of implementing . All right , guys . One short little update for Vox . I want to give a short overview about my own company , my media company called Vox .

So if you are a company or you are an enterprise looking to grow your brand and looking to grow your podcast , feel free to reach out to work with us at Vox . What we do is a fully fledged end-to-end management of your podcast . We take care of the strategy , the consulting , we take care of the growth , the management .

We take care of all the editing , all the boring stuff , so you can focus on creating good podcast and create and growing your brand . If you want to grow your podcast and get to new users , if you want to grow your business , generate more revenue and all that good stuff , check out the links down below to Vox .

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Maybe they're gonna answer LinkedIn too , but some people Will always pick up the phone and never answer their emails , nor the LinkedIn , and some people will not answer their email , not pick up the phone but answer on LinkedIn . So if you're in B2B , there are like three things that you must do , which are email , linkedin and phone .

If you don't do the three , you're basically like missing on a lot . That's , for me , like the first rule . Then the foundation of sales , especially in B2B , as we said it's earlier , is trust . To give you like the .

The simplest example if Tomorrow you tell me hey G , if you give me like a hundred bucks today , I can give you like a thousand dollar in a week . I've got this fence like really nice thing , etc . Because I trust you , I'm gonna give you a hundred bucks .

But if there is like a random dude in the streets , I don't know who they are , I don't know what they've done and they asked me for a hundred dollar now and I give them like , and they will give me back like a thousand dollar . I will not give them a hundred dollar Because I don't trust them .

So the question that you should ask yourself is Is what I'm doing building more trust ? If the answer is no , then do something else and then you should ask yourself what is trust built upon ? And for me , trust is about essentially like a triangle where you have like three sides . The first step is reliability . Second step is credibility .

Reliability means if you say that you're gonna do something , do you actually do it ? Then the credibility part is okay . Is that person legit ? Do they have social proof ? So , for example , like when you asked me to come on the podcast , yeah , I looked at your profile , I look at what you were doing . I looked at one of the interview . I look , it was legit .

So I was like , yeah , there is trust . So , of course , you know like I enjoy doing this and for me , once you have , like built a lot of trust and you understand , you know , like why people are doing things , then you should ask yourself how do I build trust at scale ?

And Today , in today's world , the best way to build trust at scale is to start writing contents . For me , if you're like a founder and you don't write posts on LinkedIn or Twitter or even Instagram if you want , you're missing on a massive opportunity .

Because right now , whenever , like Even my sales rep and my team , like when they reach out to People and do their outreach campaign , the amount of time of people mentioned my content or the content of our team is just insane .

It's insane because you reach millions of people by writing valuable content that people are gonna see and it's a simple way for you to have people see what's inside your brain . But at scale .

So for me , you know , like , the the more you write , like and and the reality is like , if you look at my reply rates and how it increased over time when we launched Lemlist , it really correlates with the increase in Reach that I had through my post on LinkedIn .

So at first , what I would do is just like post , post , post , post regularly and eventually I starting like getting more and more traction .

I would reach out to people who have engaged with my content and the reply rate would go from yeah , like five to ten percent to maybe like 50 percent sometimes in some of my campaigns and if you want to do like another bit , because there is something that I've discovered recently is that social media platforms are full of lurkers that will never engage and the

biggest deals that I closed in the past . So let me tell you the story of how I discovered it . Essentially , when we closed like a Zen desk , which is one of the biggest like support company in the world , it all started by a guy messaging me Telling me like hey , I've watched your content for like six months .

I saw that you also have like fresh desk , which is their biggest competitor from India , as customers . I'd love to have a demo . And eventually like Actually , no , it's the other way around .

I reached out to them out of the blue because I wanted to close bigger tech companies , and they replied that they were watching my content for months , which I was like what the fuck . So when they told me that I went through every single of my posts in the last six months and you know what ?

Not a single like , not a single comment from the guy I was in there , so then I was like what the fuck ? And then what I realized is that if I look at the amount of views that I get on my profile versus the amount of like I get on my post or comments .

I get actually maybe a hundred times more profile views than I get likes and comments , and then that's insane . And here's the trick . What you can do now with Sales Navigator is that you can look in Sales Navigator . You have a filter that shows show me all the people that visited my profile in the last 90 days .

So what I do is all these people who visited my profile I know they look at my content , I know they watch all my stuff I put them directly in a campaign and I started to reach out to them and even though they had never engaged on my post , never commented , never liked they knew who I was .

They knew that my content was getting rich , they knew that everything I was saying actually made sense and they answered because they wanted to meet me and they knew that what I was doing was actually like helping the community . So for me , it's really about building that trust and then trying to grasp as many people .

So the best way to do outreach is to have a combination of pull and push . Some people will obviously reach out to you , but it's social media . It's the same . You know what you mentioned at the beginning of the show . It's like , hey , I was following you on Instagram for two years and then I make the connection between you and Lemlist .

But here's the thing , if you were a follower and I have done my job properly I should have reached out for being a guest on the podcast , because the podcast is great and that's the thing sometimes we're missing opportunities .

That's like fucking literally insane right To see someone sitting on the side , and I'm well actually aware of that , but it's like seeing it in motion .

But another thing I look at it too is like if you do sign a client or you do sign a customer in your instance , they'll usually validate before getting on the call or saying yes , by checking you on social anyway . So if this is the start of the getting them into the funnel , it's basically like they land on your page and realize you're not a robot .

And that is like the ultimate combination because , like , at the end of the day , people want to realize that you're literally not a robot and that's the best way to do it .

And I've several clients that we're working through this process with at the moment and they're like , yeah , they're content businesses , right , so they sell like info products or learning products and so on , and they're hesitant to do it . And I'm like it's not like someone will read a post and then just buy , but what they will do is they'll get the .

Actually , you'll find it's quite interesting If you're familiar with a guy called Daniel Priestly , a guy who should definitely check a very big and Instagram yeah , very big on LinkedIn . So he's wrote several different books called oversubscribed and keep person of influence and you're really a key person of influence . You've kind of built that trust .

He is a fucking great start , which is like people need to consume about seven hours of content with you before they purchase . So let's give the example of a podcast you could listen to seven episodes of kickoff sessions and be ready to purchase .

Or if it's your post on LinkedIn , that could be a year of reading to get to the seven hours and at that point then they're ready to get on the call , right . So it's like again it goes back to cause , effect and time .

One thing's cause and effect , but they don't realize the time delay in it and when you're bootstrapping you only have all these obligations , or when you have , like , your cost covered , you can kind of play a long game , right , is that correct ?

And I think , like I mean , I think podcasts and videos are extremely powerful because , like the day like you start seeing people , the day like you start listening to what they say , their tone of voice , because sometimes you know , like when you write , people might not notice that it's actually a joke , people might not understand it , but if you're listening to

people , like I'm guessing that you know , like , if people have been listening to this like 15 minutes of podcasts so far , they already have an impression , like they understand whether or not , like they like us , whether what we say is relevant , like they have their opinion .

And I think , like the more you help people from being an opinion about yourself , about what you can deliver , the easier it is to build trust . And the more trust you have with people , the easier it is later on , like to do business together .

Because the reality is like for us , if someone is not getting more money , and it's the same for you , like if , if the people you work with don't get more money one way or another , it's a fail . It's a fail for you , it's a fail for me , like it's it's not something we want .

So what people need to understand is that they are using the right tool , that they can have access to the right content , that they can have access to the right people , so eventually they can succeed . And for me , like once you make sure that people are convinced about that , then every come be everything becomes easier .

So he had the calls , he went through all the sales calls and I was like , were you not kind of pissed off that you were not interviewed by him ? And he was like , no , not at all . He was like .

He was like I didn't presume it , just like when people come true and interview to come in or to do a discovery call for my company , they don't get access to me . So it's kind of similar to you , right ? You're the one that's building the brand and the trust and so on , and people may not even ever come to interact with you .

Well , I know they can , but they may not ever have to come and interact with you and you can still make those sales .

And I think that can be a big kind of issue for some founders because they're like oh well , you know , I'm not really customer facing , I'm just building this product and I'm even , like you know , a really big CEO and we don't interact with them . But it's like those small nuances , I call it the intangibles .

It's something you find very difficult to measure , which is kind of why people look down on branding so much not so much , but there's a negative connotation , because they're like , well , we could just run a fucking ad and , as a result , they don't realize the benefit and to double down on what you were saying .

If you go on a website , let's say , to buy like I don't know , clothes or anything , and you feel like the website is maybe a little bit dodgy or there is one thing that feels weird , maybe there is a glitch on the website , and you're like , hmm , should I put my credit card on that website ?

But then if you see like a video of someone was a founder or was like explaining something , et cetera , and then you check the name and you look that that person is real , that they are actually like writing good content or they are talking about stuff , for example , even even if it's fashion , like the guy can have like an Instagram account where he shows like

different ways to wear , like shirts or whatever , eventually you have trust because you know that there is a real person behind it . And I think in the world where everything can be automated , everything can be like done from a computer anywhere in the world .

Having this human touch is actually like game changer and I think , like too many people , especially in the software world , believe that human and people are like useless and everything should be automated . For us , it's something we're like tripling down , like we have customer support , for example .

Like if you ask me what's one of our differentiator , I would tell customer support , because we serve exactly the same way like the small customers to the big one . We answer very quickly , we have like a dedicated team to help people being onboarded , understand etc . And that's not something you can copy because it's part of human 100% .

You know like we all have sometimes like different combination . So , for example , yes , I love software , but I also love triathlon .

I also love like different things and eventually you know like the moment you start sharing the unique things that's part of your life , the broader the audience you get , or sometimes you know people discover a new like facet of your personality and they connect a lot better . So for me , I think like we shouldn't hide behind who we are .

We should like show to the world . You know like how we can help people and just be ourselves . Because in the end , when we build a company , you want to be like surrounded with people who you get on well . You want to help the people that you get on well with .

Like I don't want to help like if a customer is a jerk , even if they want to pay like a million dollars per year . We're not going to work with them Like that's out of the , out of the way , like directly .

So building a business is hard , don't make it harder and find like shitty customers Of course , and that's always the case , right , it's like one , it's 80 , 20 .

You mentioned a really good point about the human to human touch and it's something that I'm massive on .

I have loads of questions for you off that , on the human to human side , even thinking about like AI and tech and moving forward in automation the way I'm positioning like podcasting and is the art of communication and I feel like the art of conversation is like we're losing that . It's like a lost form , right , of how we converse to each other .

So I'm basically trying to like bring that back , and it's a philosophy in our business that , hey , like you can automate everything , but you can automate this , right , and that's what people are seeking . People seek to keep the connection . Now , when I use Lemlist , I know you started implementing AI and AI writing and AI systems . How do you think that's ?

How's it going so far , and do you think that will kind of mimic human touch to some degree ?

For me , I think what's the most important and why I love AI is that it removes the blank page Whenever you're staring at a blank page and you don't know where to start . For me , I think AI will get better over time . I don't know how much time it will take , but it will get better Eventually .

I do feel that we need to see it as a human enhancer and not as a human replacement , because for me , it's like , whenever you have AI and you start writing things , if AI can help you make it sharper , make it more understandable , make it in a better tone of voice from your audience , or even better when it comes to targeting .

This is something we want to start implementing . It's like smart campaigns . For example , you're going to tell me that your target markets are executives at tech companies in the marketing department .

That's pretty specific , but maybe you know what we're going to do is start reaching out to a lot of execs at working in marketing at tech companies , then what we realize is that the people we reply to you are actually the one that have a marketing budget over 2 million , that have more than 50 percent growth on social media followers in the last three years .

That's more and more criteria . By understanding this , through AI , we can recreate sub-campaigns automatically to narrow down even more your target audience .

You don't have actually to reach out to thousands of people , but you can reach out to 100 and get 80 meeting booked , because my goal down the line is to reduce as much as possible like spam and wrong targeting . The vision of Lampire overall is like you have a great idea and a service . That's all the specific problem .

There are a lot of people having this problem , but it's sometimes difficult to know where they are , etc . Can we be the connector from your great idea and service these people who have a problem ? I think AI can really help you do that .

Now I know LinkedIn sales navigator tries to do something similar which is like oh , you've posted recently or something , but there are things that you wouldn't observe or you wouldn't be able to articulate in LEMLIST or in specific sales automation platforms . You would need to go and do that work . Basically , that's what currents into a lot of issues .

It's basically like a way to be more specific , less about how to replace how you write things , maybe improve and enhance them , because even if you get really good at GBV , you can make your writing better , but sometimes you can't . If I just drew in a post , it would compare it to a shitty novel , but it wouldn't tailor it for LinkedIn .

Does that make sense ? It's like the knowledge base that it's trained on needs to know how to be specific , basically , which , as you said , it's going to take time . It's just going to be longer in that process .

Now question for you , off that is I've asked a lot of people that are kind of I wouldn't say spearheading it , but are just definitely thinking ahead with this stuff , with products and services . It's like how do you make yourself AI-proof in that instance ?

Now it's kind of different for a founder , but even for employees , because we've seen companies get rid of copywriters , get rid of marketing executives , get rid of designers , get rid of editors , to go zero to one and to stay at one for their current process .

But here's the thing If ChatGPT writes you like 50 hooks because it can write 50 hooks or 100 , how do you pick the hooks for your social media posts ? For me , I think this is how you are AI-proof . The AI-proof means you still need to be skilled and knowledgeable about a specific topic if you want to be good with AI .

I think people who are average will always be average with AI , because they're not going to be . I've seen people create content with AI . I've seen people using pre-written prompt etc . Eventually , what they do is that they create something that's average because the input , which is their knowledge and how they see things , is average .

For me , what you need to be AI-proof is to be extremely good at noticing what good looks like . What I've noticed is that it's very tough for people to notice , because to notice you need experience . Experience is something you can't buy .

If you want to know what hooks will work best in your next social media post you need to have posted at least 100 times .

The beauty of that is that when you are a good writer , you can make your writing better , but if you don't know what good writing is , you're fucked . That's the same with Dalai , the new tool . We do a lot of design work let's put it that way a lot . We started using Dalai to do thumbnails .

We would see some of them being really good , really bad , but we can decipher between which is good and which is bad and then give it to designers to make it one bit better . Does that make sense ? Our click-tru rate is actually a lot higher because we eliminated 24 hours of concept design .

Basically , like air says , that's basically what you're doing every single time over . We're able to get up to 90% . The other 10% is just branding , colors , schemes , a few small changes , because that's what we're trying to get to . Initially , when we looked at it , it was like this will never make sense .

I think we did it for a three-week straight and now the model is familiar with our process . There we have it . It's done . Now we still have the designer , because we're still going to need the designer , right , but it's just a small extra bit .

But some of your influences in product , even in content , because you do , again , many different stuff , right .

When it comes to SaaS in general , I also like Jason Lemkin . I think he has really good knowledge and has been in the SaaS space for a long time . Kyle Porter , also from OpenView . Elena , who was VP Gross at Dropbox I forget her last name , but she's also publishing really in-depth content .

I think there is something like a newsletter called Sakura also , which is really good when it comes to insights about industries et cetera , et cetera . To be honest , I follow a few people and I love to read articles and blog posts . When it comes to also the journey in itself , the delivering happiness from the founder of Zapo , I think it was really nice .

I really love these entrepreneurial stories with the ups and downs when it comes to why you should bootstrap and be owner of your company . I think Renfischkin is also a really good one . Renfischkin was the founder of Moz , which was like an SEO platform . He wrote a book that's called I forgot . I don't know why I forgot the name .

Let me double check Lost and Founder .

Lost and Founder is a really good book because it goes through in full transparency with how you went from raising funds , getting an offer from HubSpot to be acquired , having investors saying that it was not the right offer to the company , starting Plateau and declining because of the market in which he was , to him getting fired of his own company .

It's just crazy . I think we don't realize . We see in a lot of press articles tech crunch how we're always raising the most amount of money , especially in 2020 , 2021, . Capital was so easily accessible , money was free , everyone would raise , everyone would do these crazy rounds .

What people don't talk about is the rounds and the valuation are just the tip of the iceberg . What matters is the terms .

If you have people that can fire you , if you have people that have all the voting rights , if you're just a CEO but you can't decide exactly what you're going to do and every single decision must be approved by the board , it's not your company anymore . It becomes something very different . I think this is the hardest part .

Another good book , inspiring on my journey .

That was in 2021 , 2022 . They were like you want to build a trading product ? They were like we can get you a call . I was like I had a product background but not engineering background . That was the challenge . Right , how the fuck do you build a global product with zero money and zero engineering experience ? That's what made it funny .

I love that lesson from you . There's lots of them . Next podcast I do really want to go down that route and there's obviously a thousand different ways . I think the next one will be in Bali or Cape Town .