Michael Falato With Full Throttle Falato Leads

Intro: [00:00:05] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:15] Lee Kantor here another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Michael Falato with Full Throttle Falato Leads. Welcome, Michael.

Michael Falato: [00:00:26] Thanks, Leigh. How are you doing?

Lee Kantor: [00:00:27] I am doing well. I’m so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your firm. How are you serving folks?

Michael Falato: [00:00:34] Basically, folks spend way too much time hunting and hiring stars and lead gen approaches, and they don’t necessarily get enough leads or they damage their domain or their LinkedIn profile. So I basically serve up top of funnel qualified leads using email, LinkedIn, automation and roundtables.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:55] So what’s your backstory? How did you get into this line of work?

Michael Falato: [00:00:58] I was working as a software salesperson the last 25 years. Also, I have a background in the Air Force Reserve, and I’ve always been kind of hunting and gathering and selling the whole full cycle, and I’ve always been better at hunting than anybody else. So I basically started my old Legion company the last couple of years and grew it from zero to about 650 the first year and the million last year. So it’s been in hypergrowth mode. Took a couple other companies from 250 to 2.8 million in one year and helped them raise their series A. So I have a really good experience and background and just helping startups and companies that don’t necessarily know how to build their top of funnel or realize that they should be focusing on closing and selling, not on hunting.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:44] So since you’ve kind of gone through the whole process yourself, and what are some of the mistakes that folks make when they are trying to build out a funnel like you describe?

Michael Falato: [00:01:54] Well, the higher steers and they’re usually out of college, so there’s a lot of turnover and they don’t know what they’re doing yet, unfortunately, because they’re just starting. They’re using HubSpot or other things like outreach and they’re using their Gmail and Office 365 to send emails. And those tools are great. But if you’re using your own domain, you’re going to ruin your domain and ruin your your deliverability. And if you don’t have an email engineer that understands how to deliver these emails at bulk but personalized bulk, then it’s a really bad idea. And I actually have done the wrong things that I can basically shorten your time so you don’t have to do those yourself. So they’re doing that a lot. They’re also using automation tools for LinkedIn that get their LinkedIn profile banned or or penalized or suspended. I’m sitting out 200, 300 invites a day on LinkedIn or emails doing 20, 30, 40,000 emails a month and not damaging domains or LinkedIn. So I have a repeatable and scalable process that works.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:55] Now, one of the challenges for a lot of folks when they’re kind of they have an idea of who they’re they don’t have a clear idea of who the ideal client is and they market to maybe too broad a group. Do you help kind of hone in on who that that ideal target is so they can, you know, get some low hanging fruit so they get some wins right away?

Michael Falato: [00:03:18] Yeah. I mean, a lot of folks, especially when they’re starting out and getting through the MVP stage or getting just to go to market, they just raise a series A or seed round. They’re not for sure what their ICP is sometimes. And if you look at what I do is I deliver emails in bulk but personalize. So they’re good a B test and figure out what works, what doesn’t, and we reinforce the good and we stopped doing what’s not resonating. So I definitely help with that because otherwise there’s a lot of market research that is not real world and they’re guessing what their IP is, especially if they’re startups. So yeah, stats tell everything and that’s why Moneyball and all these analytics companies are popping up because you’ve got to do what the stats tell you, not what the heart and mind tell you all the time.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:03] Now, is it something that like walk me through what happens? Somebody says, you know what, Michael, I’m in. Tell me what to do. I don’t know what to do. I got this great thing. This is who we think the ideal customer is. But I need your expertise to really hone in on on, on the right person and double down when you find them. So how do you help me kind of get started to maximize kind of the value I’d get out of your firm?

Michael Falato: [00:04:32] Well, there’s a startup guy that I built because I get that question a lot. Like, what’s your IP? What’s your personas? What you do not contact list? Whose LinkedIn profiles do you want to automate what you’re offering? I always say, Listen, you’ve got to make the emails and LinkedIn about them. Who cares? So what? Why are you bugging me? What are you going to do for me? How are you going to save my job? And what’s the fear of missing out if it doesn’t attach to your brain or your heart? It’s not going to get people to book a meeting. Stop selling features and functions and buttons and start selling. Can I figure out a way to help you be prescriptive, be a doctor, be an investigator, ask 4 to 5 questions deep, and then you’ll find a solution that will fit their budget and fit their needs. Because realistically, doing this internally, it’s not getting the same type of people. And just the data alone on Zoom info or some other platform, it’s $0.50 to a dollar. So you’re going to pay more than that just for data and not have a good way to deliver it through automation. That’s not going to hurt. Domain or your LinkedIn. So you leave the expertise to the experts just like you would do for anything else in your life. Most people think they can just go out there and hunt themselves and it’s not the best way of doing it. Subject matter experts should be selling mat hunting press and buttons all day and trying to figure out how to automate.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:52] Now, Is this something that is done for you? Done with you? How does it work?

Michael Falato: [00:05:58] Done for you? But I think the partner approach like let’s talk about your messaging, your ICP or personas, have a week to two weeks. Every two weeks we have a meeting and we talk about strategy. So it’s I don’t like being left alone and saying, this is what I want to do. Go for it, because things change and we always got to be able to adapt and overcome. So it’s really more of a joint partnership. But once we get set up, you know, automation bots, they don’t get tired, they don’t complain, they don’t want to have their next job. As to it’s one of those things where it’s repeatable and scalable and way faster for me to do it for them and cheaper than doing it internally and trying to figure out. I mean, people spend millions of dollars on an SDR team and on a demand gen specialist, a demand gen manager, and I’ve been at companies, I don’t want to name them to call them out, but they’re really they’ve run their domains and had to change domains. They’re using HubSpot and using Gmail and they’re getting their email shut down because it’s not made to send mass emails that are not scrubbed. It’s a lot of people moving around. So emails get bad. You got to know what you’re doing and how you’re doing it and have a strategy. Otherwise you’re just throwing stuff at the wall.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:14] Now. So you’re still a believer in email marketing? You’re still a believer in in LinkedIn marketing that these haven’t been played out. They haven’t been too kind of saturated by so many of the scammers and spammers.

Michael Falato: [00:07:32] Yeah. You got to you got to think what’s in it for them. If you’re going to send a LinkedIn message and then the next message is, here’s what we do, here’s everything about us. It’s going to scare people away. You’ve got to look at it as a dating approach. Let’s introduce myself. How are you doing? Look at their background once. Once they connect, it goes off to automation and then up to that person to kind of find some common ground. That’s the same thing you want to do on email and LinkedIn. It automates to get the door open and then the subject matter expert or the person at the company should should kind of take over their messaging. So you have to do enough to get through the noise is kind of what I heard you ask. And if you don’t do that, you’re not going to get a plate appearance. So you’ve got to get up to bat. You have to have a chance to get a single or double. And that’s what I really provide, is that chance to get up to bat and get a single or double. And it takes time and effort and cost a database to do that. And if you don’t know how to deliver that, then you’re basically going too slow or you’re not going to get through the noise and email and LinkedIn. Another thing that I’ve added was the round table approach where you have everybody come on and talk about what they do, how they do it, why they do it, what’s their game and what’s their take. The whole idea there is to kind of just spread knowledge and then it’s brought to you by that company that I’m helping. And so they kind of get leads from that too. It’s more of a white paper thought leadership approach, roundtable approach.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:57] Now, do I have to have a big list to begin with, or is that some of the services you provide is kind of the way and the group to communicate with?

Michael Falato: [00:09:08] No, there’s 250 million people I have in my database, which is similar to like Zoom info. And then LinkedIn has 750 million people at least. So there’s a billion people I can reach out to. So I just focus on B2B for my particular approach. I’m outreach. I don’t do b2c, but there’s if they’re on LinkedIn, there’s a pretty good chance that we can we could find them. If you’re looking to sell like refrigeration equipment to Joe’s Pizza and there’s three in Chicago and three in Detroit. That’s not what I do. Mine’s more of an enterprise sales approach. It’s services or tech companies that I help. And it’s really it’s more of a more complex sale. And it’s really not like a $20 a month thing because you’re going to you’re going to spend 5 to 6000 a month on hiring SVR. I say, Hey, listen, we’re hiring an expert instead who’s going to do everything for you and put it in a rap and a bow and have it connect to your HubSpot or LinkedIn so that you can monitor all the data as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:08] Now, when you’re working with people. How quickly do they see results? Is this something that takes six months to a year to get kind of momentum, or is this something that if you do this right, you’re going to see results pretty rapidly?

Michael Falato: [00:10:23] Well, the first month you need to warm up the IP address and the LinkedIn profile. You’re not going to pretty much do full, full throttle, but you can go pretty half throttle to three fourths throttle in the first month and then month two, three and four and five. Then you’re going full throttle. So I say give it at least 3 to 4 months because you wouldn’t hire an STR or lead gen person internally and say you got a month or two months and then probably going to fire you if you don’t have this, because my KPIs are, listen, you can hire someone to do this or you can hire me and I can send out this volume and it’s a joint partnership. You know what I’m doing? I know what you’re doing, and we’re all on the same page. So it’s usually at least 3 to 4 months. Sales takes time. Momentum takes time. If you don’t have a brand, that’s a definitely challenge as well. A lot of the companies I work with, no one knows who they are yet because they’re a startup.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:20] Now, do you use LinkedIn as kind of the top, top of the funnel? And then once somebody is connected and then interacted a bit, then you move them off of LinkedIn into email?

Michael Falato: [00:11:31] No, it’s a12 punch. It’s email and LinkedIn at the same time and just get them in multiple tasks so they can communicate. The more salespeople are stars that I can automate their LinkedIn. That’s always good because there is a limit about how many we could send out a day. And then, like I said, the roundtables is more of a more of a approach just to kind of a thought leadership approach. So we use LinkedIn and email to drive people to those events.

Lee Kantor: [00:11:59] So you mentioned a variety of companies that you’ve helped, the types of companies, if you had one kind of group is there. Is it startups, Are they technology? You mentioned B2B. It has to be a sale That obviously makes it make sense. So it can’t be a $10 sale necessarily, but. So professional services, I would imagine, would benefit from this. What about, like some franchisors trying to get more franchisees? Do you work in that space at all?

Michael Falato: [00:12:27] Yeah, that’s a little bit harder. I mean, it’s hard to find people that own. Franchises. First of all, I’ve worked for a tech company where we had subways and Jamba Juice, and there’s folks that have like 20 Jamba Juices and ten subways, and they’re trying to find people that own that they’re not they’re not hidden. The people that are visible on LinkedIn are usually the ones that we want to help because we know that they’re not trying to hide from folks or not be contacted. So it’s services, it’s software. It’s really not hardware like mixers that that’s going to be a good fit. It’s really things that are more unique, the more unique the product and solution and the pain it solves, the better the approach. I’ve helped companies that just do web design and they had one client and there were two guys and they had no branding. So that wasn’t easy and that wasn’t something that was very successful. But if you have something unique, you have something that has the solving of pain. I amplify that. If you have something that’s okay and it’s not really that exciting and not many people want it, then I amplify that and I try to help, but I can only amplify what’s good or what’s bad from your company.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:43] So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Michael Falato: [00:13:49] For me, it’s I do really well because I’m a lead shoe company, so I produce my own leads. But I’ll see working with you on your audience and helping some of the companies that you work with, it would be great. And just, if anything, just just not working. I just like to network and go to events and I do a lot of shows, whether it be blogs or blogs or or radio. So I’m here to help.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:14] So, okay, let’s give some advice. So what some low hanging fruit that anybody could do right now to generate a lead this week or next week.

Michael Falato: [00:14:24] I would say get this, get in Sales Navigator on LinkedIn. That’s not necessarily automation, but that will let you really get into who knows who filter out exactly who you need to go after and save list. So that’s a that’s a good start. You know, there’s a there’s a platform I use called Link Helper that takes a lot of. Studying to kind of figure out how to use it. But that’s what I use for link for LinkedIn and I can definitely help there as well. But it’s some of the stuff you just you just need. You need someone to help you. It’s not something that I can you go to that website and start doing it because you have to teach yourself pretty much, and what do you want to do? You want to sell and do your, your your normal job? Or do you want to try to figure out every single technology and try to be an expert to everything.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:22] So when they work with you, you’re giving them qualified leads that are closer to close.

Michael Falato: [00:15:29] Yeah, we call them skills or skills in space. I mean, that’s really I think they’re more skills because. They filtered out what we want to go after. We put some band questions in the calendar program like, you know, help us prepare for me. And what do you want to talk about? What’s your decision time process for this? A couple of questions that just talk about budget authority needs and timing would be nice to ask. And when you book an appointment, you’re using calendar or using HubSpot calendar or something like that. So the more you ask, the more you’re going to be prepared for the for the first call. And for the first call is someone that you really want to talk to because we just didn’t throw an advertisement on some sort of Google search. I think that’s a better lead because we targeted that person purposely.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:17] Now when you’re explaining the value to someone, obviously your work can’t close the sale. It’s up to the client to ultimately sell them whatever it is they do. How do you kind of explain that to them in a way that they don’t kind of blame you for their lack of sales?

Michael Falato: [00:16:38] Well, I know I’ve been selling for 25 years. I didn’t challenge her activist training Dale Carnegie. So I try to help them as much as I can as a consultant. But that’s not really what’s repeatable and scalable in my process. It’s more the Legion. So they should have some sort of sales. Ackman To basically close a deal once they do a demo or discovery call with them. So that’s I don’t necessarily get them to that because I don’t find that I have unlimited time as Michael Falardeau So mine is more of a repeatable, scalable type of funnel. Let me get them through the door and then we make sure that’s the right fit and then you build or read the person that that’s the client. They build a relationship with that person by asking them discovery questions and hopefully they get to proposal. My job is more just to get them to the door funnel, right?

Lee Kantor: [00:17:33] But when they’re kind of discerning if this working or not, are they going by, Wow, you gave me ten people to talk to or they going, I sold three people something.

Michael Falato: [00:17:44] Yeah, it’s mostly when they’re dealing with me, I let them know where I stop and where I start. So it’s usually how many meetings do I book and how many outreach do I do? And realistically I try to explain them. I’m FedEx and UPS. I’m delivering the messages that you and I both agreed on that the filters you and I both agreed on you. Either you can do this yourself or you can hire me. I’d be glad to help you, but just realize that this was a joint decision on the on the process. And my advice was this. And your advice was that. But we pushed it out. We got these meetings and it’s really more of an audit. I’m a automation expert more than just, Hey, what’s the KPI of the of the meetings? I’ll see that’s what they’re going to judge if they continue with me. But it’s also branding as well. So they have to realize that this is just the same, just meetings.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:38] Now when you’re working with these folks and they’re getting the results, is there been a story you can share that don’t name the name of the company, but one in which you kind of blew them away or you surprised yourself or was more rewarding?

Michael Falato: [00:18:54] Yeah. I mean, I would say the company that I was helping, that was an I.T. staffing company, boots on the ground, I.T. support, It took them from 250 to 250 K to 2.8 million in a year. And they were able to raise a series A because of that. I also worked with another company that is a software SaaS company, and they’ve been with me over a year and they brought in some big clients. Also another client in LA, they’ve got the meetings with guests. Home Depot, they go after brands, Tik-tok, Netflix, stuff like that. So I have a pretty big background helping people have in my past. I’ve also sold to AT&T, NFL worked in sports marketing. I have a pretty big background in as far as knock down the door, get someone in there, whether it’s me or someone else, and then the magic’s up to that person.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:53] So if somebody wants to learn more, what’s the website? What’s the best way to do to talk to you or somebody on the team?

Michael Falato: [00:19:59] Yeah, it’s full throttle. A lot of leads dot com. My phone number is 5126393375. But everything’s basically on the website and I’d be glad to set up a discovery call to see if there’s a fit.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:14] Good stuff, man. Thanks so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Michael Falato: [00:20:19] Thanks, Lee. Appreciate your time.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:21] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High velocity radio.