Hey everyone, I’m here with Jamie Partridge from Uplift Sales and he’s going to be sharing a bit more about his experience working together at B2B Leads and a bit more about his company as well and what he does. Welcome, Jamie. Thanks for having me, Ryan. No worries. Well, would you like to kick off and tell everyone a bit more about what you guys do at Uplift Sales?

Yeah, so interestingly, we actually work in a very similar space to B2B Leads and Ryan. So we are actually… a lead generation agency exclusively focused on technology clients. More specifically, I value technology clients. So we basically take care of lead generation exclusively through cold calling.

So whilst we do a lot of email and LinkedIn stuff for ourselves. We overly take care of we only use cold calling to get leads for our clients. And the main reason for that is that’s just where my expertise is. I spent a long time training and hiring SDRs. I know what it takes to be successful in that area.

The characteristics you need to look for for people to be good in that area. And yeah, so we basically long story short, we generate sales qualified leads for our technology clients. So as you know, any technology company, they need to have qualified leads to be able to. There’s multiple different channels, as you know, and as you take care of, there’s LinkedIn, there’s email, there’s cold calling and we basically take care of the cold calling function.

There’s a lot of, sort of, bad reputation surrounded by the word cold clearing. We’re in a very similar space where, like, there’s a lot of cowboys out there and, and yeah, there is a, I guess, a negative stigma, generally speaking, associated with it. And that’s going to be one of my questions actually is like, yeah.

How, how do you find that being in a similar space to what we are? To be honest, it’s actually incredibly challenging because I cannot explain to you, I’m not even exaggerating 80 to 90% of the time I’m having sales conversations with potential prospects. They’ve been burnt by an agency in the past.

It’s really, really bad. And I think I’m, I’m always, because obviously I started my career in England, there wasn’t as much of that over there. It was, it was very rare to have an agent, to have a company that outsourced to cheaper labor countries. That was. Not really putting up too much time into the research or into the data.

So it’s been a quite a big shock for me. Realizing how many companies out there are, as you say, the cowboys. And I’d like to say that using the machine gun approach, they just spray and pray. They’re sending out. Thousands, hundreds of thousands of emails, LinkedIn and first of all, I’d be a hypocrite, hypocrite to say that it can’t be effective sometimes we do that.

We run a lot of LinkedIn and email for ourselves. But I think what companies aren’t aware of is they have to factor in the damage that’s being done as well as the potential leads that are coming in. So, yes, you can get a few people that say yes, but if you’re burning through your whole target market and you’re not doing it professionally, especially cold calling, if you’re, if you’re bringing up a company and you’re speaking to a prospect and you get the references wrong, or you accidentally call someone that’s…

In an exclusion list or you don’t represent the brand in a professional way. It can be incredibly damaging. So you have to be really, really careful of that. So we’re only hiring local was professional Australian callers. And yeah, it’s been a real shock to me that. How much I have to emphasize that even when I think that understanding of the local culture is super important as well and just how to communicate effectively and professionally is, is, is a major component to it.

But. It’s, it’s interesting that there is a negative connotation with it, but it’s still such an effective strategy, especially when it’s done right and done professionally. So, like, similar to what we do, if you have the right approach, then there’s, you know, there’s lots of people who really need help in this space.

Yeah, I think one thing that I always come back to is there’s a reason that all of the biggest tech companies in the world, have armies of SDRs and BDRs. And it’d be the same with your process. There’s a reason that these account executives and. People responsible for selling are using LinkedIn.

They’re using a social selling and they’re physically cold calling people. It’s because it’s incredibly effective. One thing that I am really passionate about is I think it was a quote from Gary V. He said that. Selling should not be about convincing someone to do something they don’t want to do.

It should be about finding people that have the need, have the challenge and then helping them through that process. So I think that there’s so many different channels, there’s so many different mediums that you can use to find people. But I think what people need to realize is there is there’s people out there that are desperate to solve their challenges and it’s about getting in front of them.

And I think one, one point I do want to definitely touch on is it’s exactly the same in, in the LinkedIn space. I’m sure you’ll have people say to me I would never answer a cold call myself. So therefore it doesn’t work or I would never respond to a LinkedIn message. Therefore it doesn’t work or I would, I’d never reply to a sales email.

Therefore. I’m not going to do any outreach for myself. And that’s a huge, huge mistake because there is a lot of people that do. And, and I think it’s testament to obviously the work that we’ve been doing. We’ve already closed a couple of deals from your service. Fortunately, I’ve already worked in this industry, so I know how it works.

I know that you are only. At any moment, one of those can come in. It’s just about putting yourselves out there and getting it done. But yeah, that’s one thing that really grinds my gears and it’s difficult to come back to that. But what it’s interesting though, like, because. Yeah, a lot of people say that, but I’ve had people say that to me, say, Oh, you know, I don’t never respond to them.

I’m like, but that’s why we’re talking now, but it’s also like, it’s kind of a moot point. It’s like, not everyone has to respond, just, just in the comment. And that’s the cool thing about like, when you get your targeting right, is you find people who are likely to respond. Absolutely. And I think that there’s, sorry to cut you off, but there’s a really nice.

It’s the perfect example and it’s a really nice blend of our services and how we work together where one of the guys that I, one of our most recent clients that came on for a pilot period, he responded to a message that you helped us send. And he said cold calling is dead. That was his first message.

That was his response. And I didn’t, I didn’t reply. I let it, let him brew on it. And then he said, he said okay, right. I’m interested. That is like, it’s the perfect. It’s the perfect, I think one really important point. I see it so much within cold calling. It may, I’m sure you see it too, but I think it’s probably more prevalent than cold calling.

The bottom line is a lot of people try and use the excuse that cold calling doesn’t work because it’s bloody difficult and people don’t want to do it. I think if, especially if you’re a founder, if you’re a senior salesperson, I’m guilty of it, everyone’s guilty of it. The fear is a real thing, having that confidence, having that having the balls, part of my French to actually make those cold calls is not easy and that doesn’t go away.

You always have to overcome that. So it’s very easy for, especially my favorite is when it’s been a senior salesperson, they’ve been in a VP of sales position, they’re a massive company. And they try and say that cold calling doesn’t work when really it’s because they don’t want, they don’t want to have to do that.

They don’t want to deal with rejection. They don’t want to deal with the people saying no. So that’s where we play and I think I’m very fortunate. Where there’s fear, there’s opportunity. Absolutely. And it’s very exciting for us because I’m I think people really, deep down they know the value that’s there.

They know that deals get done, big deals get done from multiple channels, not just cold calling from direct outreach in general. And I think that just like you, obviously we’re playing in a slightly different area, but we’re doing essentially the same thing. There’s incredible value there, incredible value there.

Yeah, a hundred percent. Well, I know you’ve done a little bit of artwork, I’m pretty sure you’ve done a little bit of LinkedIn lead generation prior to working. With me or with us. So what, what was your situation before? And I guess, how does that, how does that compare to what you were doing previously?

Yeah, so it’s an interesting one because we are a lead generation agency and I think I fell into the trap which a lot of people do of thinking I have all the answers, I know how to do it. If I can, if I can generate leads by cold calling. I can definitely generate leads via LinkedIn and email, et cetera.

And whilst we definitely have had success we’ve brought on clients through that. The, the, the challenge for me was I’ve never challenged, I’ve ever find it challenging with the messaging. I’m quite good at the messaging and evoking relevance and qualifying, et cetera, but the problem I’ve always had is the targeting it’s been very.

Few and far between when you’re finding the right type of organization. And I think the biggest challenge for us is we are very, very niche with who we can work with. And as you’ve experienced, and as we’re experiencing together it’s sometimes impossible to tell because basically we work. We, we work very specifically with, for example, a sales director or sales manager, director of a technology company, but that technology company, it needs to have a high enough deal value.

It needs to have a 30, 40 K per year deal value to warrant the spend with us. So what will often happen is we’ll get people interested, but if they can only sell a deal for one or two grand, then it’s not worth the investment of using us, our professional Australian team, et cetera. So that’s been a real challenge and to be completely frank.

Obviously that’s something we’re still working through. There’s no magic wand, but I think what’s been great about you and we’ll be actually initially engaged probably a year or two ago. And I always, I always knew that there was potential there, but. To be honest, I thought I could do it myself. And I could, which is probably very often the case.

It’s funny you say that, like we’re, we’re at a point now where people often say, oh, well, why do we do it ourselves? And we, we just say, yeah, you can. The training material will show you exactly what to do, go nuts. Absolutely. And, and that’s, and that’s why I think it’s so easy for us to work together because we do exactly the same.

It’s people speak to us and they ask us how much it costs and how the pilot period would work. And then you can almost see it. They’re ticking over being like, Oh, why don’t we just hire someone to do it? And then the most classic scenario is they hire someone that’s right out of university, incredibly confident, some would say cocky, arrogant.

They kill it. They smash the job. They do incredible. They book some amazing meetings. But then they leave after a week because there’s no challenge that they’re not stimulated and they just want to move on to the next thing. So I think one of my biggest attributes and thing that I picked up is knowing what to look for in a caller.

And that’s, that goes far beyond just being able to get the job done. I think you have to really look at what are their goals. What are their ambitions? Do they want to start their own business? That’s often a very good thing. That’s a huge green flag because I started cold calling, and if you can learn how to sell in the same way as what you’re doing, that’s incredibly valuable.

That’s a really interesting point. Like look, people who do want to start their own business, I guess the understanding is that won’t be there forever, but that they’re committed to like learning from someone and understanding like really important skills. Absolutely. And I think that’s really important.

And I think I’m very upfront and open with our clients. I’m very upfront and open with. The callers, the people that I hire I’ve been there. No one wants to be cold calling forever. It’s not, it’s not something that you want to be doing is very often a stepping stone an incredible stepping stone something that’s very, very valuable to have, but I think that there’s no, that’s not a problem that doesn’t need to be an issue.

I think if you work. If you have systems in place where you can substitute people into campaigns, you can move them onto different campaigns, you can promote them internally that’s fine. I think you, what you can find is, what, what companies often do is They expect an SDR to be with them for multiple years, they expect them to just be doing the same thing day in, day out.

And they don’t consider the toll that cold calling can have on someone. It’s, it’s, it can be very, very challenging. Very, very challenging. One thing I always say… To callers than to clients is it’s quite, I find it quite straightforward cold calling, but the difficulty is the mentality to keep going to, to face that rejection and to keep wanting to go forward.

And I think a lot of people are trying to pull up, pull the wall over everyone’s eyes and say, yeah, we’ve got these callers. They’re going to be with us for years, or I’m really hope you’ll be calling the first years and. What I’ve found is, so for example, my, one of our employees at the moment, he’s actively working on another business.

And he wants to earn more money. First of all, he wants to develop his sales skills. Second of all and it’s been an incredible fit. It’s been really, really awesome. We I think importantly. What we’ve done, that’s a lot of it is on me. I need to set expectations with the client. I’m, I don’t agree personally with have someone locked in for eight hours a day, make 150 calls because at the end of the day, people just care about leads being generated.

They care about deals closed. So I think people often measure the wrong metric. Yeah, measure, measure outcomes. That’s always. Such an important part of especially of the front end lead generation is focus on outcomes because in the end people don’t care How how things are generated just as long as they’re generated really and that’s it and I think that’s that’s also a good point to touch on is You provide one thing that you guys do great is you provide the spreadsheet, you provide the data, the analytics, the conversion rates, the different campaigns and I think probably you’re very happy about it.

The thing is, for me, And a lot of people, in the nicest way possible, don’t really care. Yeah. It’s not for, it’s not for the clients. Some, a very small, that’s the thing. I used to have all this stuff and I’ve worked with a lot of agencies. They, they promote dashboards being like their fancy thing. I’m like, yeah, yeah.

I’ve worked at a lot of agencies. Like I used to work in an agency before we used to promote this dashboard. I’m like, fine, for the most part, some people who like data like me care, but for the most part. They don’t care. They just don’t have the time to analyze it and do anything with it. They just want to know the results.

But for me, it’s a fantastic tool to say, yeah, we’re getting better results here. Let’s focus there. So yeah, it’s really, yeah. And that’s it. That was also a really important point. And I think one thing I often come up against when I’m. So we have reporting internally, but I’m very much a person of let the results speak for themselves.

I need to, I know that I need to work on that as a business. I need to develop that area of our, of our skillset for sure. But one thing that I find a lot of companies do, and a lot of these bad actors do, which we’re often having to come up against is they massively over report because they’re not doing anything.

They’re not getting, they’re not getting any results. So it’s like. They’re throwing all these metrics and these numbers which is just fluffer. And I’m very conscious of not doing that, of letting the results speak for themselves. Yeah, a hundred percent. That answers a number of the questions I was going to ask.

So I guess my last question would be, what would you say to someone who’s thinking of working with us, someone in a similar space, lead generation, even maybe digital marketing? Yeah, I’d say I definitely recommend it. I definitely recommend it. I think one thing that I would do for sure if if I was to work with you and I didn’t have my own knowledge is really tap into that knowledge more.

I probably should do that myself more as well. But I think something that is maybe bigger than the immediate results we’re getting is understanding the market, understanding which verticals. A receptive, for example, we’ve had really good success with custom software, development houses sort of managed service providers.

And I think that information is invaluable because that, that will shape, that will now shape everything else I’m doing within the business that will shape if we move on to LinkedIn advertisements, or if it’s email campaigns, outreach and that’s really valuable that can’t be understated. I think that.

I’d really recommend the value for me, obviously there’s huge value in having it done for you, of course but the real value for me is help with the targeting and understanding how you work, even on the onboarding, when we ran through the filters and the different tags. Of the sales navigator.

I’ve been using navigator for years. I had didn’t, didn’t have a clue about any of that stuff, so that’s really, really valuable. So yeah, so you’re looking like you’re learning really valuable insights about how to improve your messaging, your targeting, and all the while like you’re getting a return at the same, it’s like you’re getting paid to learn.

So I think we’re a couple of months in, you’re at, I think three or four R X R O I or something like that, which Yeah. Yeah, it should keep growing as well. Yeah, and that’s the thing. And that’s the, the positive thing is I know I can see what’s being put out there, I can see the output and I know it’s only a matter of time before another one or two or three comes in.

So that’s really, really valuable. I think that even more so if I didn’t have the knowledge that I do, and I didn’t work in the industry, it would probably be 10 times more valuable because you can literally just trust you to get it done. And learn along the way. I think you’re very, a great thing about it was you’re incredibly transparent.

I didn’t, I didn’t expect the first onboarding to be you to essentially be like, this is what I’m doing. There’s no, there’s nothing behind the scenes. I’m just. This is my knowledge and I really respected that and I try and do that myself. Awesome. Thanks so much for sharing Jamie and and everything that you shared today.

And it was really interesting to get your insights from, I guess, from an industry, I’m, I’m experienced similar things in, in my space as well. So I know you’re a very busy business owner as well. So thanks so much for your time today. No problem, Ryan. Thanks.