Introducing the Narrow Top Sales Funnel, and How Sales Can Close More Deals

Speaker A: Hey.

Speaker B: Hey, hey. It's January 2025 and this is Paul Mosenson, founder of Newspark Media Group. And we are here to talk about marketing and sales as we always do, and, uh, and how to drive, uh, leads and sales into your funnel and close them efficiently and effectively. We always talk about that, right? And really the message, anything we do in marketing and sales is did it work? Did this, did the strategy work? Did the tactic work? Did the funnel work? Did the count, did the content work?

Speaker A: Work, work, work, work.

Speaker B: That's all we, that's our job is to analyz. So we're always doing that. And you know that, uh, every company has their own philosophy, but at the end of the day, what's our revenue, what's our profit? And are we growing? You know, growth, growth, growth. Right. And now with AI involved. So we have a lot to talk about today and we have a special guest here, which is, um, a metal LinkedIn. And I've never met his feet before. Um, just his, uh, you know, chest up. But I'm sure his whole body is great. And, uh, his body, his work is great. Oh, there's a pun right there, isn't it? Anywho, um, his name is, uh, Dennis Roman. And, uh, let me, uh. Hey, Dennis, how are you?

Speaker A: Great, Paul. Thanks for the opportunity. Glad to talk to you today.

Speaker B: Great, great, great. I have an intro here, so I'm going to turn my head. Um, of course, in radio land. Um, you don't know I'm doing that anyway, but here we go. Um, Dennis Roman, the founder of Roman Numbers LLC and the CMO of 2goIO, known as a Wall street guru for sales teams. Yes, He's a messaging maven for marketing teams and a corporate training pro for firms of all kinds. Dennis brings a unique blend of expertise that drives success at every level. At the heart of his work is his signature program we call change your arguments. Change, change your audience. Known as CA2, which equips sales and marketing teams with transformative strategies to align their messaging with the financial priorities of their target audiences. His acclaimed Wall street concepts to reach the C suite workshop has revolutionized how tech firms approach go to market strategies, creating a bridge between a company's value prop and the financial statements of their customers. With over 15 years of global leadership experience at Tata Consultancy Services, where he mastered brand building, product launches, and team motivation, Dennis now shares his wealth of knowledge through public speaking, training, fractional services, and impactful corporate workshops. And how's that for an intro? Let's get started. Hey, Dennis. So, ready to go?

Speaker A: Gee, I sure am. All right, talk to your audience, Paul.

Speaker B: Okay. All right, so here we go. We just talked about in your intro this concept called CA squared. Like I never really understand that, but it's interesting to me. Why don't you explain it?

Speaker A: So I'm, I am a part time branding maven, so I gave this a great deal of thought about what in fact may resonate with the market marketplace. And I spent a lot of time working on it and I spent good dollars to trade market. And since then, people have been trying to buy the trademark off me. As a matter of fact, CA Squared stands for change your arguments, you will change your audience. Change your argument, you'll change your audience.

Speaker B: So, yeah, what does that mean? Change your argument.

Speaker A: I find this to be the most capable way for a tech firm sales team to distinguish themselves from their competitors. By embracing this concept of CA squared, you want to make business arguments to your prospects, and if you're successful at that, you're going to end up talking to more business people at your prospects than you would possibly otherwise. Paul, we both are very, very skilled at helping technology companies in the areas of marketing and sales. My experience includes, though, and it may be like yours, many tech firms are extremely comfortable talking about the technology that they represent and talking to their counterparts at the companies they go after on the technology side. But many individuals would be woefully inadequate and quite frightened of getting stuck in an elevator with the CFO of the company they're calling on because they wouldn't know what to say. But they would at least know what they would normally say isn't going to work. You need to make business arguments in order to break away from only or primarily talking to the technology side of the account you're going after. But rest assured, you make business arguments, you're going to be talking to the business people very quickly because the technology people are going to be delighted to bring in the managing directors of profit centers, et cetera, to listen to what you have to say. So CA Squared. Change your arguments, change your audience.

Speaker B: You know, in marketing and sales, we're used to talking to tech people and trying to sell them, but the end of the day, the CFO makes a decision and all that. So, so that's kind of interesting where you want to talk in their language and that's really part of the concept that you train on.

Speaker A: That's exactly right, Paul. Here's a working example. Uh, a tech firm may be a, I don't know, they may sell blockchain hey, we're a blockchain company. Blockchain's a hot property. I explained to them you don't sell blockchain. They go, yeah, we do. We're a blockchain. No, you don't sell blockchain. Okay, smart alec, what do we sell? You sell revenue generation or you sell cost containments and you happen to use blockchain to do that. The business argument is, and this is true for every company in the world, there's three things that they're concerned about. Increasing revenue, decreasing costs. And I'm going to leave the third one a secret for right now. So if every company's predominantly worried about those two things, don't you think you should be adopting that vocabulary and explain why whatever it is you're selling either does that either increases revenue or decreases cost? Now, you may not readily understand how that's possible, but let's take an example. Let's assume you sell something that's, uh, used to make customers happy. A digital front end. Okay? A really great digital front end. And you're trying to sell that to a company and you say, we're here to sell you a digital front end. No, you're not. You're here to increase their revenues. Well, how is that going to work, Dennis? Easy. If you're selling a real top notch digital front end, then customers who react with it are going to be happy, or at least happier than they were otherwise. And you know what's true about happy customers? Uh, what, Dennis? What's true about how they buy more stuff? That means the revenue goes up. What's also true about happy customers? They tell their friends, and if friends come, they buy more stuff. Anything else true about happy customers? They probably aren't going to leave your company. They're probably going to stay back and buy more stuff. It seems like if you put it in a digital front end that's worth its salt, you're going to increase the company's revenue. That's what I mean about making business arguments associated with the technology sale.

Speaker B: Well, that's what I'm saying. And I think it just, it's an emphasis on that, right? Because we're so used to talking to who's the buyer, right? And you know what? Sometimes they look at themselves and say, oh, yeah, I want more efficiency, less errors in my system and this and that. But at the end of the day, you got to go through if this happens, if this happens, if this happens, which means more revenue, more profit, or however you word it, right? Because the bottom line of a Company, because that's how the top people are going to make a decision. Where the change vendors is. What's my bottom line, basically?

Speaker A: Right, well said, Paul. Well said.

Speaker B: Yeah. So, um, we can, we'll talk more about that. But you know, your other, um, I guess your other scenarios here, or whatever you want to call companies is, um, the concept of Wall street guru. And, uh, explain that and how that relates and what that comes.

Speaker A: So CI Squared is concept that I need my target audience to buy into that. In fact, there's agreement, there's generally agreement that if you change your argument, you're going to change your audience. Um, I mean, I know I go out with couples all the time and I'm not proud of this, but all the men sit on one end of the table and the women sit on the other end of the table. I mean, we're not really that. There's a lot of reasons for that. But anyway, that's a working example in our private lives. Why is it that all the men are sitting at one of the. It's not always the case. Okay, so fine. So once you get into the concept of CA squared, the next question invariably comes, well, how do we manifest that then? And what do we do to make CA squared come alive? And I have these two value propositions and you can see them, uh, for those of us who have, who are picking this up on, on, on video. So on one hand is what I call Windows on Wall Street.

Speaker B: Windows on Wall Street, Right.

Speaker A: Okay, so these are two hour, three hour webinars that I run for technology companies, sales and marketing teams to teach them how to do this stuff. Teach them what information in the market is available and where. Teach them what parts of the information are important, uh, and why. Teach them which buyers are interested in which kinds of information and why. Etc. So Windows on Wall street is basically me working my way out of a job. I'm teaching tech companies, sales teams to do exactly what I do. Okay? Now the companion to that which was spawned because when I would run these classes and get to the end, the boss would always say to me, well, what do I do now? I loved all you told us, Dennis, but what now? What do I do? And I go, well, you want help? And they go, yeah. Can you either qualify the funnel that we're chasing, or can you get us a qualified funnel according to your Romans numbers philosophy? Sure. And that's what I call sales with an edge. If Windows on Wall street is teaching people how to hunt, not farm, hunt, uh, this is hunting, then sales with An Edge teaches them how to actually find the opportunities. And I don't go out on sales calls. I do all my analysis in the back end and produce what I call my numbers and narratives, reports on public companies to help the sales and marketing teams know, who should I go after or avoid? Like, why chase companies that are broke? Why should I go after these companies? And what should I say to them in order to get their attention? What messages is going to work? So those are the two companion pieces, Windows on Wall street and, uh, Sales with an Edge.

Speaker B: So with all these layers and this is, I mean, it's interesting though, but it's, you know, when I first met you, I said there's zillions of companies out there. And, you know, why is this unique? And why are they not doing it? Like sales VPs, like, how do they do it now? And like, what, what's the bottleneck?

Speaker A: So studying financial reports is just one level above studying the tax code, Right? And that's just one step above having to go to the DMV to renew your license. Right? You never want to go to the dmv. You never want to have to do your own taxes if you can avoid it. And studying financial reports is very much like that as well. Make a, make up a number, Paul. Let's say there's 400 lines of information, numbers of information between the income statement, balance sheet and the cash flow statement. Let's just assume there's 400 numbers on there. And people started to hear me say, you got to become more familiar with those three reports. And they're going to go, I'm not going to become familiar with the 400 line item. And then I quickly add, but there's only about 20 numbers that even matter to anyone in sales and marketing. Did you deal with 20 numbers or 10 or just take five to start? I make it easy to digest those, those financial, uh, reports by telling them where to get them. Where do you find these buggers, Dennis, and how to look at them and which of the parts of each one is important in terms of determining your go to market strategy, who you're going to call on the messaging you're going to deliver.

Speaker B: Well, no, I hear you. Sounds like in the typical way they might say, um, oh, here's a prospect. Go to Crunchbase, right? Or something like that.

Speaker A: That's right.

Speaker B: Which is typical, you know, so you know what their revenue is and you might look up some trends, but. But it's just not as deep as what this system does.

Speaker A: Not at all. Not at all. And it's fully on display. This stuff is hiding in plain sight, almost invariably without any costs associated with it. Except for time you got to dig this stuff up. So some teams will, um, concentrate this function in an individual or a couple of people who service all of the sales and marketing team members as opposed to each sales team member trying to absorb this on their own. Uh, so the information is available. It's easy to explain. It's not complicated to link it to the business, but a lot of people are reluctant to start it because it's not part of the discipline. But I say to them, look, did you make your numbers last year? No. Okay. Did you make your numbers the year before that? No. And why didn't you make your numbers? Uh, because, I don't know, marketing didn't give me good info. Uh, my boss gave me turkey accounts. Yeah, right. I didn't make my numbers for all these reasons. Okay, fine. You know what would be great? What? If your boss said to you, you pick the account you want to go after. How would you choose who to go after? Okay, I know your brother in law works at this company, so you'll go after that one. But just in a, uh, a group of accounts. How would you pick? Here's a perfect example. Paul, you may or may not know this, but there's five companies, large cap US Companies that were at the bottom of the barrel of performance this year. And probably a lot of people will go, well, uh, yeah, it's probably people I never heard of. Just, you know, the account said, well, let's try this. Here's the five worst performing large cap stocks this year. Walgreens, Intel, Nike, Moderna, and Estee Lauder. Now let's assume your boss gave you a list of accounts that contain these five. What would you do? I'm not going after them. They're, they're, they're, they're, they did terrible. Okay, that, uh, I understand it. But you know what's also true about these five guys? They desperately need help. They want, want help. So maybe you should pick those five guys just because they're willing to say yes to somebody who comes over and makes cogent arguments.

Speaker B: I mean, to your point though, like we're, um, it's that. I guess it's a balance. I hear you. It's like maybe there's a balance of are they, do they have enough money to, I mean, it's their own business model. Are we willing to redo things and relook at things? They're probably. When companies are going down and, you know, LinkedIn, you know, a lot of places have that data. You have it, they're more open to. And, you know, obviously, what can we do to improve things? What are we looking at? You know, we have to lay people off? Do we have to outsource more? I mean, you know, more efficient systems? Right. You know, um, you know, and I think what you're saying is, no matter what a salesperson is selling, depending if that company is on the lower. You know what? We identified that everything we talk about is selling the revenue and profit, ROI capability of your little ERP tool or something.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Or whatever it is. Because that's really saying is we're going to contribute to the growth and the return of your business.

Speaker A: Well stated. Well stated.

Speaker B: Thanks.

Speaker A: So here comes the. Here comes one of the most underutilized and easy phenomenon in financial analysis. There's three numbers that really matter. Revenue. Oh, no kidding, Dennis. I did. I realized, well, okay, hang on. Revenue is the top one. And you know where that comes. That comes on the top of the income statement of every company in the world. There's 200 countries in the world, however many companies there are, whether they're public or not, the income. Stay with, the first number is revenue. What do you think that means? Okay, yeah, we get it. Revenue matters, Dennis. Yeah, I get it. The next one comes in one form or another. Costs, man, there's a lot of rows for costs. And let's assume that the difference between revenue and costs in this simplified example is earnings. It is. That's the entire mathematical structure of an income statement. You make my. You. You sell stuff, it costs you to sell stuff, and you have earnings left over. You know what's true about those five companies? What I meant about their performance.

Speaker B: Uh, January 2025, by the way. So maybe next year they're different anyway. Go ahead.

Speaker A: That's right. You know, true about all of them. Their earnings were terrible. Their earnings went down. Do you know what happens to companies when their earnings go down? Their stock price collapses. That's what happens. And you know what happens when earnings go up? Wait for it. Stock prices go crazy. Going up. Okay, I'm oversimplifying, but at least let's start with that. So if a technology company has anything in their kit bag that could either increase revenue, um, or decrease costs, doing either of those two things makes earnings go up. And if earnings go up, the stock price will go up. If the stock price goes up, uh, the CEO's bonus is going to explode. Most people don't know that, but Most of the C suite is highly compensated on how the stock price did and the stock price is directly related to earnings improvement.

Speaker B: Well, to your point, I mean that's, it's obvious. Right. And um, what I wanted to do was ask you as a tangent to this because obviously it makes sense. Well, I didn't want to forget to ask. This is does your system work for public or private?

Speaker A: Okay, I do get that question with some regularity and as a matter of fact I have a class that I run just for non public companies. How do you figure out non public companies? Now inherent in that question is the fact that non public companies information is non public. That's why they're a non public company. Right. So calling upon them makes it more difficult. And this is where startups come in and uh, etc. So um, whereas public companies are required by regulation to submit quarterly reports worldwide, this is not a US phenomenon. This is everywhere in the world. Revenue in India is the same as revenue in Israel, it's the same as revenue in, uh, Italy, it's the same as revenue in Ireland. It doesn't matter where it is. The income statement is one of your absolutely best friends. Now non public companies aren't required to divulge that information. I can assure you they know the information because if they don't know the information they're not going to be in business very long unless they got some really fat cat that's uh, funding the organization. And so what I tell sales teams that are uh, going out on this road, um, and I'm going to assume the worst case scenario, there is no relationship between the salesperson and the CEO of the startup. I'm just saying there's none. So you don't have five years of trust where he's going to share with you non public information because he doesn't know you from a hole in the wall. So I explained to him that it's prudent to capture that information for any public company that that particular startup may be competing against and use that as a metaphor to start talking to the startup, the non public company. They're not all startups obviously the non public company and use that as a metaphor to open the doors. Here's the kind of things that you're going to be expected to be able to uh, deliver on and be able to share as you approach going public. Um, so in that way hopefully you can get this startup or the non public company to be willing to divulge and you're not asking for the entire divulge you want to know the trend lines on revenue and sales, uh, revenue and costs. You want to know the trend lines. If revenue is continuing to go up, but costs are going up faster, that's a non sustainable business model. And it also is like ringing a bell. If costs are going up faster than revenue. Get in your VW bus and drive over there with anything that will cut their costs. And don't leave home until they listen to you because they need you desperately.

Speaker B: So I'm going to be proactive here as a marketer is for the private companies, just for sake of conversation here, If I wrote because I'm a, you know, I use AI and things to help writing and things like that. If I reached out to these people in marketing and saying for sake of conversation, 10 ways to improve your bottom line in this technology, Whatever. Something that affects that and somebody reads it or downloads it, you already know that they're interested in that topic. And that means they're amid funnel and ready to be followed up with. Because we've already decided that if they downloaded this educational guide about saving, that there's a need there.

Speaker A: And it's almost universally true. Everybody in business either wants to increase. And, uh, I'm gonna, I'm now gonna divulge my third. So they're interested.

Speaker B: Here we go.

Speaker A: We're interested in increasing revenue. They're interesting in decreasing cost as a, as a grand basis. That's absolutely true for everybody who's in business in the entire world.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: They're trying to make more money. Hey, I have a test question for you, Paul, before I come out with my secret. What business is Ford Motor Company in

Speaker B: automotive manufacturing?

Speaker A: And what business is Budweiser in food and beverage? And what business is bank of America in financial services? Okay, uh, I would like to abstract that one level higher.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker A: All of them are in the business of making money. Your answers are correct. That's the way everybody would answer. But until the sales team start to recognize and absorb this driving principle. They're making cars in order to make money. They're making beer in order to make money. Bank of America is making mortgages in order to make money for the shareholders. And as we own that concept, then we can make business arguments that go to how does this company make more money? Not just how do they sell more stuff, how do they make more money? Okay, the third secret. How do I make more? How do we sell more? How do we cut costs? Those two are preeminent. The third one nobody ever pays attention to. How do I minimize or contain My risk. I know it's self evident once you say it out loud, but those are the three driving forces for every business on the planet.

Speaker B: So that's right.

Speaker A: A company may want to hire a fractional as an example to do its marketing, but maybe they perceive that as introducing a risk into the organization. Yes, they want the innovation that the fractional CMO can bring. Yes, they want the experience and track record. Yes, they want the CMOS contacts with the appropriate agencies. Yes, they want their skills with contracting for, uh, search engine optimization. They want all of those things. But the person they're bringing in as a fractional could be a risk the existing organization may reject the individual, whatever. So people need to talk about all three of those elements. How does doing business with me keep from increasing the company's risk or even lowered if I, if I could, right. If, if I'm going to hire a brain surgeon, I probably want a PhD as opposed to a master's degree as the guy working on me. Yeah, ridiculous example.

Speaker B: But risk is always one of those, um, we don't think about it as much like, because, you know, we're all selling, we all want our programs to work and companies have to take, you know, that's the sell part. Right. And the customer success and all of that is, you know, is the client happy and, you know, how do you alleviate, you know, you know, risk? I think it's, I mean, for me it's overcome that with how you communicate and how you build trust and educate.

Speaker A: I'll tell you how I deal with risk in my business. People are not going to believe this when they hear me say it out loud, but it's well documented. Here's what I tell you. Like what you hear? Yeah. Hire me to do this for you. Okay? That's why when I get done, you're not happy. Don't pay me. Okay? There's a risk because you're going to devote some of your people's times to engage with me and do these classworks and work off, etc. There's no financial risk. So I've eliminated the risk criteria right at the top. And I, uh, use that as a, as a pro forma because everybody competes. Uh, most of us are willing to acknowledge increasing revenue and decreasing costs are two of the primary drivers in the business world. And so all vendors attempt, they attempt to do that. None of them tempts to eliminate risk as the opening salvo. Okay, there's 10 vendors calling on a guy. The 10 vendors say, I'm going to increase your revenue uh, the other mine are going to say one guy says, I'm going to increase, decrease, uh, your cost. None of them leads with risk avoidance, risk containment.

Speaker B: Well, isn't that depending on who you're talking to? If they even understand it, they probably, maybe many don't even at the company side, the buyer side, do they?

Speaker A: I mean, are you, are you asking me about risk now, specifically?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just curious about like, is that a. It might be on a CFO's head, but is it like your straight buyer, like your cio?

Speaker A: Oh, so you're, you're the guy who's, who's leading a team that's charged with implementing artificial intelligence. Okay. Is an area of your extreme expertise, Paul. Which is why I want to, uh, align with you and in doing these things. So the guy who goes out searching for AI is going to lead, get led to some number of vendors, and vendors fools. That guy realizes there's a risk picking any one of those guys. Because the industry is very nascent right now. People haven't, you know, established the forward winners that are going to be present. So even that person realizes there's risk. I don't mean risk to the entire company, but he has a risk of his job. I'm old enough to remember when, when, when CIOs would say, Buy IBM, right? Just say, Care what? Buy IBM. Um, nobody gets fired for buying IBM. You know what I mean? As a, as a, as a technology. That's the way it is now too, with AI. But if you don't have a tried and true set of examples to, to pull from everybody represents a risk, even to the buyer of something like AI or, um, fingerprint analysis or. It didn't matter.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's definitely, uh, uh, an education, that's for sure. You know, with everything. Um, hold on one sec.

Speaker A: It's the narrow top funnel, right?

Speaker B: Right. Narrow top funnel. Um, yeah, we're just talking about this right now during a little break here, but, um, there's another concept. You know, we have the, we have a number here, but now we have another one that is, you know, really something you have to think about. And it's. We're so used to the funnel, you know, the top and people coming in and nurturing them and coming down to the. Well, you know, one or two at the end that's closes and things like that. A typical funnel. Talking about something different here, um, a concept, it's based on all of this, but it kind of really, um, brings everything to this concept and you have to hear it. Dennis, what do you call it again? I'm calling it upside down, but what are you calling it?

Speaker A: Upside down is accurate, but I like to instead refer to it as the narrow top funnel.

Speaker B: The narrow top funnel.

Speaker A: Basically, you invert the funnel, right? It's fat at the bottom and narrow at the top. And people will say, yeah, I've heard this story before. Okay, so let me try. So let's assume a company and all right, assuming that almost no sales teams make their numbers every year, and assuming that's been going on in perpetuity now, however, many of the audience is going to identify with that, I don't know, but almost everyone I know identifies with that. They don't make their numbers. And so they keep saying, well, next year we'll try harder as an example. So let's, let's, let's just hypothetically, let's assume that a marketing team grabbed a thousand records and shoved them in the top of the funnel, and out the bottom came 1% success rate. Okay? A 1% success rate means, to me, likely the cost of doing business is greater than the revenue that's coming into the business. You're getting a 1% success rate. So people have the wrong understanding that if they send 2000 records in the top of the funnel, they're going to get a 2% success rate. That's not how it works. If you send in 2000, you're going to get a 1%. If you send in 5000, you're going to get a one percent. Okay? So I mean, it's self evident when you say it like that. Uh, okay, so that means things don't work and trying harder is laudable. But that isn't really the answer, in my opinion. The answer is to use a narrow top funnel to actually put fewer and fewer and fewer records in the top. People say, well, what if I only put 20 records in? If you didn't do anything else, you'd still have a 1% success rate. If all you did was take 1000 down to 100, it's still only. Okay, but Dennis, how do we improve the success. Ah. Uh, how do we improve the success rate? By pre qualifying the records that go in the top. Oh, pre. Qualified. M. What does that mean? Now? That means you look at their financial statements and you figure out people who are suffering, who are distressed. Is this company's revenues falling? Huh? Huh? That's bad. Is this company's costs going up faster than revenue? That's fatal. That that can't continue. So why not look at companies whose revenues may be falling or whose costs may be going up. And perfect, perfect what you're going to say to these people. Perfect your messaging for those kinds of business reasons.

Speaker B: Ah.

Speaker A: Uh, so instead of a thousand records, unknown, uh, um, history, uh, or unknown, uh, parenthood, why not get a hundred records of these guys? Revenue is bad. These guys. Costs are bad. So let's get 50 of each. Because they were already hurting. Why not? This is not elective surgery. This is required surgery.

Speaker B: I'm going to create a term ready, because we're having fun here. Okay. Earnings, qualified leads.

Speaker A: Very good. Nice. That captures both. That captures vote. And you have the math. You change revenue, you change earnings, uh, you change costs, you change revenue, and you change or change costs, you're going to change earnings. For good or bad. For good or bad. And no matter what you first pitch, you're pitching costs to the company. You're saying you, uh, now spend $100 million a year on whatever. I want you to spend 105 million next year and give me 5 million. You represent cost to that company, which makes earnings worse. So you better figure that. Okay, so now that we're down to 50, 50 going in the top of the funnel. 50, 50 going in the top of the funnel. Out of that. Great. Those rules says 20% of those records are going to make up 80% of your success. So find the most distressed out of the hundred and put 80% of your energy on the most distressed and put the other percent on the rest. Okay, so that's point one about the, uh, narrow top, uh, funnel. Now, I submit the funnel in this shape makes more sense for more reasons. A. As soon as you start approaching these prospects with your level of financial intimacy, you know, enough about them from their income.

Speaker B: Oops.

Speaker A: Question. We'll throw out whatever I've already given you and we'll start over.

Speaker B: Okay. Um, so sorry about that, listeners. We did have a little sound, uh, glitch. But, um, but we're still good. You're still with us. Okay, good. We're almost done here. And very, uh, interesting topics. We're actually talking about this, uh, the, the narrow top funnel. And we're getting, we're just kind of summarizing what's happening near the bottom. We understand the top as we talked about, um, you know, the, the, you know, the, you know, the, um, earnings issues from the top and then how to close more of them because they have issues and we're communicating to those people. Dennis, why don't you finish up that, um, you know, the end of the um, bottom and how that works and anything else you wanted to say about that?

Speaker A: Okay, Paul, so we're moving down the funnel now. And it's not just a gimmick, a narrow uh, top funnel, it, it, it actually holds. I shouldn't, it's a silly metaphor. It holds water, if I could say that. Uh, it makes a lot of sense. So the narrow at the top means fewer records are coming in. Fewer records coming in that are already qualified means the sales and marketing teams could put a lot more energy into a lot fewer accounts. And if that's true, then it's likely going to increase the close uh, rate. Um, but it's also true that the closing uh, very fact that you're competing on financial intimacy by being more literate on the income statement and balance sheet, et cetera, you're going to establish trust with the client much faster than any of the guys or gals you're competing against. If you establish trust faster, that means you're going to get to a yes faster than the other people. It also means they're going to start chatting about you inside their company. And you may find more opportunities at the same company because you've made such an impression and that makes the funnel fatter at the bottom. And as it moves down these people may in fact talk about you on a uh, public stage. They may talk about you with their uh, peer groups and you may find opportunities at even companies. So funnel upside down actually makes a lot of sense for all those reasons. And since the right size funnel, the right way funnel has everybody not making their numbers every year, I think it's time for a change up and we use the narrow top funnel as a solution.

Speaker B: Right. You know, I was thinking because I've actually, you know, create a bunch of custom chat GPTs and one of my created actually a while back, which actually is the point here, is messages. When you target somebody and they're not the decision maker, I have a, an AI that takes your message and relays it to what makes sense to the CEO and what makes sense to the CFO to, so they can sell it internally because that's, you know, a lot of times obviously in sales we're not selling the CFO or CEO, um, mid managers, upper management. But they need, but they also need, how do they make decisions. They need to run a buy and do reports and recommendations and we need to give them as much information as possible to show them that here's the bottom line that we can, that uh, contributes to the Growth of our company.

Speaker A: I like the way you put that. You know, when I, when I talk to my, my target, uh, my students, if you will, I usually start off by asking them, you know, who do you compete with? And there's no shortage of names that surface. I'll even write them on the board. Right, so we compete with this firm and that firm and the other firm, and I go, okay, now remember that when we get to the end of the class. At the end of the class, I asked them the same question. And by now they learned a lot. And they finally realized that the money they're asking for has to be approved, often by the board. I mean, if it's a trivial amount, forget it, but I mean, if it really, really is going to cost some money, it's going to be the board who has to decide. And you know, who you're competing with at the board level. You're competing against dividends. If the company is a dividend payer, they don't want to give you the money that they would give their shareholders as dividends. Okay, so you're competing against dividends. You're competing against capital investments. If the company wants to open a new factory in, uh, Arkansas, are they going to forestall opening the new factory in Arkansas in order to give you money? They might. Depends on the quality of your arguments that you're making to them. So the board's making decisions around four or five or six. Absolutely required, uh, expenditures. And they all come out of earnings. They all come out of earnings. So your competitors are really those things. Should the company cut its dividend and give you the money? Good luck with that argument.

Speaker B: Yeah, well, I think we're also dealing with, um, priorities. And we always deal with that like, am I buying this year, am I buying next year? We got other things we got to do, you know. And you know, what's the sales job is to, um, um, to. Sorry, um, about that. What? A salesperson's job is to, uh, persuade someone they need it faster than they really, you know.

Speaker A: Imagine starting out with that mindset, Paul. I am starting to approach a client today, and I'm going to base my arguments on convincing the board why they should do this. Convince the board why they should do this and start out with that as your driving force. Uh, I'll make a joke. You know how I used to do my taxes? I used to figure out how much money I needed to get back at the end of the year, and then I would figure out my deductions.

Speaker B: I do my own taxes. You Know, because I know what I'm doing. But anyway, go ahead.

Speaker A: So it's hard for somebody to absorb that. That. You want me to start at the end. You want me to start at the end, to work backwards. I go, yeah. Figure out what's going to make the CFO M Happy because he has certain numbers. Figure out what's going to make the COO Happy. He has different numbers entirely. Figure out what's going to make the CEO Happy. He or she has different numbers entirely. They all have different. They're all specialists. They all work on the same team, like a basketball team or a football team, but they're each specialized. They don't all have the same number in mind. They have different responsibilities.

Speaker B: Yeah. You know, whether it's sales or marketing messages to these people, like ABM or whatever you want to call it, you know, I think the bottom line here is, with a number of bottom lines, I'm just gonna say, what's in it for me? What's in it for us? You know, make me happy, make my department happy, make the company happy. That's how you, you know, if I'm happy, I can recommend things to the company because I'm convinced that this will increase our bottom line and make my job more efficient in a way.

Speaker A: Very often, though, the person who's making the upward recommendation is not making the upward recommendation with the, uh, enough emphasis on the business outcomes.

Speaker B: Right. That's why we got to coach them and tell them and give them cheat sheets. That's what I'm saying earlier, you know, because they're. No matter how we do it, it's still up to the bottom, you know, and they're advocates. It's an advocate. Right. Anyway. And then, you know, private companies, I know it's harder, but I mean, like I said, as we kind of close up here on the marketing side, you know, we, as we work together is basically, we still got to build trust. We still got to even find people, because even though they're smaller in the top of the funnel now, it's a sales thing. But if it's marketing, especially with private companies, we're still looking to identify them based on research, based on the ICP but then based on their financial need to the company, and all those things work together. But, um, is there anything you want to summarize? Because we've been on for a bit.

Speaker A: So I guess in summary, I would say the following one. What I'm asking of our listeners today is to first accept that what we're talking about is reasonable Right. We're not talking about inventing a cure for cancer. Right. We're talking about a very reasonable thing. And, um, after that, if it is reasonable, would you feel comfortable camping this kind of an approach as a delta between what you used to do and what we're going to start doing in the future? The reason I wanted to start there is for this particular thing. Recognize that if you accept this, nobody you're competing against is doing this. No one. When I first started this, the first, second, third client I had, I don't know who it was, he said to me, how do I know if I hire you, you're not going to go teach my competitors how to do this? I said, believe me, I am going to go teach your competitors how to do this. This is a wide open field because it is under, underdone, underutilized. So if you could figure out you, meaning a salesperson or, uh, marketing person at a tech firm, if you could figure out an area that's reasonable that you actually. This makes sense to me. It's not some bloody abstract that I have to. If this makes sense to you and realize nobody else does, it seems like a great way to get your foot in the door. All to distinguish yourself from your competitors.

Speaker B: Well, that's the point. Like, at the very least, we're always looking in marketing and sales side is, uh, how do I get you on the short list? Should I even talk to you? Right. Versus others. Right, right. And

Speaker A: we're.

Speaker B: What we're selling here is bringing to the table unique perspectives that someone says, yeah, you know, we should go forward, um, versus the usual, you know, oh, we have great service. And, you know, like, this is an important conversation out there that people need to listen to and say, you know, he's got a point.

Speaker A: Instead of competing on price or service or quality or innovation or any of the hundred and other things that we compete on, compete on financial intimacy. Just show the client that you know enough about his operation that you can glean from the public domain, and you will have distinguished yourself from every other vendor that's going in there, period. Man, you're gonna make fire sit up and take notice. I mean, I.

Speaker B: Great stuff, Dennis. Um, and what's. If they want to contact you directly? What's the website?

Speaker A: The website is very uncomplicated. It's www. Romansnumbers.com.

Speaker B: right?

Speaker A: Romansnumbers.com. i was going to use Romans numerals, but that was seen a little out of date.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker A: So Roman stuff.

Speaker B: Right. Or you could just use that around the Super Bowl. That's the only time they use Roman numerals, it seems like, is the Super Bowl. Right? And maybe the Olympics do. I'm not sure, but, um. I know, right? It's like cursive writing anymore. You're like, who does that anymore? Just for signatures. And it's all electronic. Anyway. But anyway, it's another story.

Speaker A: But, um, my email, Paul, is Dennis Romans, numbers.com.

Speaker B: okay, good.

Speaker A: Very uncomplicated.

Speaker B: And, uh, great stuff.

Speaker A: And that's not Dennis Rodman. Don't. Don't type Dennis Rodman. It's Dennis Roman, please.

Speaker B: Right, yeah. Just think of, like, Rome, you know, Roman Times, right? You're entering, you know, the. You know, the Roman Times. The New Roman Times. There you go. That's a name in the newsletter. There you go. That's great. The Roman Times. There you go.

Speaker A: Yeah, I got it named after it and everything.

Speaker B: Yeah, there you go. But anyway, but thanks. And, um, we'll be, uh. This is great. And stay tuned. There'll be another podcast at some point, but happy, um, listening. And, um, the bottom line is, listen to this. You can always listen to it again. And think about it. Think about it. Okay. This is Paul Mosenson. Thanks for listening.

Speaker A: Bye. Uh, bye, everyone. Thank you.