Data, Automated Outreach, Openers, Closers and a High-Level of Scaling “High-Ticket” Offerings

• High-ticket to be defined as a product or service that costs at least $500/month or its annual equivalent

“The entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield.” ~ Jean Baptiste Say, a French economist who first coined the word entrepreneur in about 1800

As we forge a new age, market development teams are piecing together new solutions that help them drive revenue while building lasting and meaningful connections with their audience, prospects and clients. Many are pouring money on the fire and “burn” has become synonymous with a “necessary waste.”

Bullshit.

Think like an entrepreneur:

Over the past few years, we at Thumos have driven revenue for ourselves and clients at approachable burn rates, with an emphasis on results. This is my attempt to share my learnings and how I see the “high-ticket” landscape as well as the types of mechanisms that are creating compound growth. The following are components of a client acquisition machine in order from top to bottom of funnel.

Target: I’m going to assume that you already know and to some extent have defined your target demographic and understand the importance of doing so. If you have not, please stop reading and get to work!

Environment: Consider the environment your target is operating in. Is it digital (Facebook, Instagram, Google, Twitter, Slack, LinkedIn, Zoom) or is it Physical (event, conference, meeting)?

Think like an engineer. What are your sensors, processors and actuators in this environment?

Sensor: Detects events or changes in the environment and sends that information to processing. This is responsible for information inputs.

Processor: Turns data into intelligence that can be acted upon.

Actuator: A mechanism that is responsible for creating action and putting information in front of the prospect.

In other words…what are the existing mechanisms for aggregating information (data) on your target audience in each of the environments? What analytics come from that? What are the mechanisms to put your offering in front of those targets — optimally? What message/asset do you need to get in front of them and in what form?

Terraform: Think omnichannel and “Terraform’’ your environments as needed: Taking a multichannel approach is very important. Think about ways that you can leverage data from one environment, concatenate it with other data and build new and more efficient machines powered by information in on a new platform or environment.

Find case studies for how we use data here.

Find some of our capabilities for scaling outreach here.

Creative: All the technical prowess, technology, data and insights in the world cannot replace a solid offering to someone that has a need, curated in a way that catches their attention and triggers the right emotional trigger and pushes them to a call to action.

Destination: Drive opportunities either straight to a conversation with a salesperson (closer*), to a connector (opener*), or to a digital environment capable of capturing cookies and heat mapping mouse movements (check out hotjar). Also be sure to create segmentation utilizing the data captured from these environments and speak directly to the data points (make it feel personal at scale) while utilizing link tracking to follow your prospects through the funnel. Combine the behavioral data with the base data to decide WHO to retarget in order to reinforce your sales campaign.

CRM: There is no magical CRM. Most have a per contact monetization strategy, so don’t limit your relationship tracking to CRM, but rather — track relationships through the funnel until human contact and keep them in a spreadsheet. Once your opener* or closer* make contact, pull them to the CRM and track to close.

Who not how: This is where we get into the human elements of the process. I see these as two of the most important positions in the client acquisition process for “high-ticket” companies, and if you don’t figure out who sits in these seats, you can spend a lot on generating opportunities and fall flat at the finish line or never even get there.

Opener: Someone who is relationship focused, loves to connect with new people and makes orthogonal connections that lead to introductions which result in a value exchange once a person with a need and means is connected to a competent person with a solution. I recommend using an opener to network and do market development while having them sell and make a warm introduction to the closer.

Closer: Someone who is intelligent enough to know the offering inside and out, is hungry for revenue, hyper-focused on results, often is great at networking with openers, thrives under pressure and lives for the high they get when they close a deal. They are the person that will see to it that the team does NOT fumble on the three yardline.

Client Service: Be sure to offer tremendous client service and deliver on your promises. Your clients will become your most talented openers.

Be thoughtful. Be different. Be deliberate. Win for yourself and win for your clients.