What’s up everyone, I got a lot of great feedback and replies last week from all of you so I figured I’d turn this CMO strategy into a sequence of emails.

Today I’d like to expand on last week and dive into what I believe is one of the key factors that differentiates a great CMO.

This is probably the single biggest reason why your average copywriter could never run a marketing team.

For many of you, this may also be the most uncomfortable role you’ve ever been in (along with the most hated part of the job).

However

I can 100% assure you that you will NOT be a successful CMO if you fail to do this aspect of your role correctly.

What am I talking about?

Integration Between Sales and Marketing

A good CMO knows how to get sales and marketing on the same page and how to diagnose issues across your entire client acquisition ecosystem.

Sales and marketing teams have hated one another since the dawn of time.

Their failure to effectively communicate causes the large majority of companies to leave enormous sums of money on the table.

I believe it’s your role as a CMO to bring these two teams together.

If you have a world-class head of sales, this may not be necessary.

However, I’ve worked with a lot of clients over the last few years and worldclass heads of sales are a very rare commodity.

Salespeople are ALWAYS going to take 100% of the credit when deals close while ALWAYS shifting 100% of the blame to marketing when deals are not closing.

A good CMO needs to be able to operate on both sides.

So that’s what will be the focus of today’s email.

Let’s walk through the entire client acquisition process that I spoke on last week.

As a CMO you need to keep tabs on:

• Leads

• Booked Calls

• Marketing Qualified Leads

• Taken Calls

• Offers Made

• Closes

• Cash Collected

You need to make sure that your setter team is AGGRESSIVELY calling all new leads and doing it fast.

Sub 5 minute contact time is ideal.

You need to make sure that your setters are triaging every single call that ends up on your closers calendars (regardless of whether they booked the call through the VSL or not).

It’s the setters job to make a decision on Marketing Qualified Leads and whether or not someone is qualified to get on the Closers calendars.

It’s also the setters job to make sure that the prospect SHOWS UP to the call.

It’s the Closers job to make offers, close deals, and collect as much cash as possible.

I take a lot of consulting calls so I tend to see the same issues pop up again and again.

There’s 5 main issues I see ALL THE TIME:

1) Lead Quality/Lead Volume Problems

2) Setters are not calling the leads fast enough

3) Setters are not doing a good job of confirming every call on the Closers calendar

4) Closers simply can’t close (because they suck)

5) Follow-Up Game is bad

I’m going to talk about each one of these individually:

Lead Quality

You want lead quality to have strict measures that can be graded simply and easily (ideally this is 100% data-driven and can be outsourced to a VA).

I like to run a really simple application following the VSL and before booking the call.

Something as simple as:

1) Are you [insert your target market]. Yes or No

2) What is your currently monthly revenue.

If someone answers “No” to the first question or puts a number that makes it simply unrealistic for them to purchase from you (like $1K/mo) they’re immediately disqualified and not an MQL.

So setters cancel the call.

If someone answers yes to both, they are declared a marketing qualified lead (MQL).

It’s super important that you have a data-driven way to determine MQL’s because every time the Closers aren’t closing, they’re going to start complaining about how “the leads are trash!”

Sometimes the leads are trash.

Sometimes the Closer is trash.

You don’t know unless you have the data to back it up.

Lead Volume Sucks

Unfortunately there’s no way to guarantee that Facebook spits out the exact number of leads you want every single day…

Doesn’t work that way.

This results in varied lead volume.

I do feel that Facebook ads have been a lot more consistent and predictable over the past year or so.

I personally like running broad targeting on CBO campaigns as these tend to be pretty consistent over time.

But ultimately paid advertising will inevitably have its ups and downs.

As a CMO, you will have a lot of people VERY angry with you when lead volume isn’t where it’s supposed to be.

This is not your fault (you can’t control Facebook’s algorithm).

BUT it also kinda IS your fault (it’s your department and therefore your responsibility).

In order to combat this you need your marketing to be diversified to some degree.

If ads go to shit for a week…

Make sure email is dialed in and hammer some offers to the list to offset it.

Build an organic IG presence and drop offers there.

This is a band-aid solution to get through a short term problem.

I believe paid ads should be the main driver of your client acquisition ecosystem.

Email and organic are ultimately just a way to mitigate risk and reduce your cost per acquisition.

Setters Not Calling the Leads Fast Enough

Ok so this one is pretty simple one IN THEORY.

In execution it almost always proves to be difficult.

If your setters aren’t getting through to the leads, then there’s a large chance they aren’t calling fast enough.

You need visibility into this.

In order to do so, you’re going to create two slack channels.

1) New Optins

2) New Booked Calls

Setup two zaps and send the name and phone number into each channel.

Every time a new lead comes into either channel, your setter needs to comment when they’re dialing and whether they set the call or DQ’d.

WATCH YOUR TIMESTAMPS.

If they’re taking too long to call the leads you need to publicly call them out.

A daily part of your job is inevitably going to be slacking your team and telling them to “Call the damn leads @channel!”

Don’t be a complete asshole about it (of course)…

But you also should be kind of a dick about it (it is their job and it’s very simple).

In my experience you have to be very direct and very forceful when it comes to dealing with salespeople because they’re very averse to change.

Offer financial incentives to get them to do what you want them to do (I.E. I’ll buy dinners for setters if they have 2 sets close in one day).

Also threaten negative repercussions if they’re not doing what they’re supposed to do (for example - taking away access to your CEO’s IG DM’s for a few days which cuts off a lot of their lead flow).

Let’s move on.

Setters Not Confirming Calls

No-show rates are a travesty right now.

It is what it is.

But a killer setter can definitely help.

Your setters should start work BEFORE your closers.

They should wake up, check all their closers calendars, and call EVERYONE to confirm they are showing up to the call.

It’s as simple as:

“Hi Mr. Prospect, Damon here. I’m [Closers'] assistant. I see you’re scheduled in for today at 1:00 EST. Is that time good to go on your end? Cool. I’ll drop you a message afterward to see how it goes.”

This is so simple yet nobody does it.

…and they’re losing so much money for not doing this.

In your setters end of day reports you want them dropping what percentage of their sets showed.

For example:

3/5 of my calls showed up today.

Ok onto Closers.

Closers Can’t Close

This is an easy problem to diagnose if you ALREADY have a good closer.

A lot tougher if you don’t.

Ideally you want to hire two closers at the same time and have them compete with one another.

Watch their close rates and shoot for atleast 25% or so.

Your key determining metrics for measuring closers performance should be cash collected and units.

Who brings in the most cash money.

This doesn’t really work on an unvalidated offer because it’s possible you have a talented closer on your hands…your company just hasn’t figured out the optimal way to sell it.

[SIDE NOTE: It’s YOUR JOB as the owner of the company to figure out how to sell it. Not the closers. Don’t just hire a closer and tell them to figure it out. That won’t work out well for you. Ideally you want to be taking the calls to start and cracking how to sell it.]

If you aren’t happy with your Closers performance, you can either fire them or try to get them help.

I strongly recommend working with Cole Gordon’s team at Sales Team Accelerator.

If you’d like an intro, just drop me an email and I’ll connect you with one of their top guys.

I’m also a consultant inside their mastermind so membership comes with unlimited 1 on 1 call access to me.

Follow up Game Sucks

If you’re selling high ticket then you need your follow up game dialed in.

Your Closers will simply want more leads and try to 1 or 2 call close everyone.

But when you’re selling a $10,000 offer, a lot of people aren’t ready to make a buying decision right away.

I recommend putting the deal back in your setters hands and having them manage all follow up.

Closers can be big time prima-donna’s about doing anything that isn’t taking closing calls.

…to be fair though they make a decent point.

Ideally you want your Closers spending 90% of their time on closing calls and getting deals across the finish line.

Hand the deal back to the setter.

Put it in the long term followup pipeline.

Tell them to set a slack bot reminder to follow up at the specified time.

This can definitely compound too if your setters keep them engaged.

Similar to email revenue which basically inserts profit into your business…

Follow ups are like this too because you’re already paid to get them into your ecosystem.

So make sure to hawk your setters about their follow-up game everyday.

I PROMISE you will make a lot more money if you’re doing this daily.

Why Are We Doing All Of This?

The point of this email isn’t to create a dick-measuring contest over who gets the credit for a deal.

Instead the point is to show how to isolate and identify problems, fix said problems, and create a world class client acquisition ecosystem.

Ultimately you will establish a baseline on each of these numbers and then you’ll be able to find the leaks in your system.

For example:

Typically if I’m able to get 6 calls booked per day per Closer that are all MQL’s…I’ve covered my bases on lead quality/volume.

If my setters book 5 calls per day then they’re in a good spot.

If 3/5 of those calls show then I’m happy with them.

If closers close 25-30%+ of their taken calls, then they’re doing well.

These are just my numbers on a B2C offer - but they vary a lot from industry to industry.

That’s all I’ve got for you today.

If you’d like this email, shoot me a reply back. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

• D

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