I’ve joined Drift to help reinvent marketing and sales using messaging
I recently joined Drift as VP of Product, joining founders David Cancel and Elias Torres in their mission to reinvent marketing and sales using messaging. Throughout my career making B2B software, and especially over the past four years with join.me, I have witnessed world class marketing and sales teams squeeze every ounce of optimization out of every step in the funnel. The current state of the art looks like the following: where you capture new leads with a form, score and nurture with your marketing automation platform, and if the lead is qualified, the sales team calls at least five times to get the deal closed.
This playbook is no longer working. When is the last time you enjoyed filling out a large form? When is the last time you read a marketing email? When is the last time you answered a call from a sales rep? The best teams who have optimized this playbook are converting about 1% of their new leads to customers. Meanwhile, the other 99% of people are leaving frustrated by the onslaught of emails and voicemails they never answer.
Drift does an end-around this entire process. Drift uses messaging bots to capture and qualify leads instead of using forms, and when those leads are qualified, Drift immediately notifies the sales team who can communicate with and close the lead right away over messaging, without ever using the phone. The result: a simpler and more human approach that works much better than the old way.
Meeting the first few Drift customers was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Their pipelines through Drift were eclipsing their “normal” pipeline in the first few months. Some customers doubled their demo meetings the first week using Drift. Reps were closing deals from their smartphone within the first 24 hours of setting it up. Drift is supercharging their businesses, all without employing the costly marketing & sales automation systems they are using today.
The final part that has me excited about working at Drift is the team and culture. Each week is bookended with two all-hands meetings that don’t feel like your typical meeting. On Monday, we review the previous weeks metrics and progress against goals, and on Friday, it ends with a show-and-tell where every single employee shares their work for the week. The result is a transparent culture with extreme urgency to solve customer problems. It is like nothing I’ve ever seen.
If you want to learn more or chat about how Drift can help your funnel, click here to send me a message through Drift. Otherwise, the best way to learn more is to sign up — its 100% free to create your Drift account and get started. Give it a spin and let me know what you think.
