Self-sourcing is sustainable sourcing

Allie Brotherton and Nick Cegelski are here to teach you to fish

Adam Sockel (00:01.141)
You're listening to Bold Calling, an award winning podcast presented by Orum where every episode we're bringing on the biggest and brightest minds in the tech and sales industries for a discussion about their biggest challenges and the unique ways we're all working to solve them. Today, I'm joined by Ali Brotherton, a senior sales manager and one of the longest tenured Orum sellers here at our company. And we are also joined by Nick Cegelski, founder of 30 Minutes, the President's Club, the number one sales podcast in the world.

and importantly for us here at Orum, co-author of Cold Calling Sucks and That's Why It Works. Thank you, Allie and Nick, for joining me today.

Allie Brotherton (00:34.293)
you

Nick Cegelski (00:41.268)
to be here. You said, biggest and brightest minds, and so I'm glad we have Allie to sort of carry us in that element of the conversation, and I'll try to provide comic relief as appropriate.

Allie Brotherton (00:41.355)
Yeah.

Allie Brotherton (00:52.162)
You

Adam Sockel (00:52.213)
You know what? We all have our station in life, and I'm just glad that we all kind of know where they're at. All jokes aside, Nick and Allie are here because the topic we will be discussing today is self-sourcing specifically for account executives, something that I know you both have experience with and have talked a lot about. And the reason why I want to talk about this is in the 2024 State of Sales Development Report that we released,

We are finding that on average, every single SCR is now responsible for building pipeline for at least four account executives, if not more. And 72 % of sales leaders are saying that their account executives are already self-sourcing more than they were in previous years. So if you're an account executive listening to this and you're not self-sourcing now, you're going to be soon. And so want to give you a kind of playbook, a guide, best practices on how to do that and how to get comfortable with the.

So the first thing I want to ask, we're going to start with Ali here. This would be maybe a little bit of an ORAM specific answer and that's okay. But when you're working with account executives, what's a realistic expectation for how much of their own pipeline they should be sourcing? I feel like that's a good place to start.

Allie Brotherton (02:05.209)
Yeah, of course. I think you hit the nail on the head, Adam, by mentioning like more and more we're seeing teams have to be responsible for self-sourcing. Gone are the days where you rely on in-bounds, you rely on SDR book meetings, you have to take your own destiny into your own hands. And I would argue that like the top sellers throughout the history of selling have already done that as well and have that worked into their process.

It is tough to put an exact like percentage or number on it because every segment, every company, every business is going to be different and every person is going to be different. But I would say by and large at a minimum and especially in meeting with a lot of clients on the ORAM side, we're seeing teams are responsible for around 30 % at least coming from self-source meetings. You know, here at ORAM, sometimes we range more towards that like 50, 60 % and a lot of our customers that

we're meeting with as well are close to that 50, 60%. That being said, again, it does really vary based on segments and based on your conversion. And so what I encourage my reps to do and what we do at the start of every quarter is run through your funnel math of sales. So for example, let's take your win rate, let's take your average deal size, let's take your stage conversion. And maybe your goal is not to hit 100 % of your number, but you want to double your number.

Let's put that ACV number in the math of sales and work backwards and get really specific with how many demos or how many SQLs, however you classify it, you need in order to hit that goal. And then I would look at historical data and understand how many of those opportunities in the last year or the last quarter have come from marketing, how many have come from SDRs, and then you can determine what that gap is.

and then put a little bit extra on top of that gap just in case things push or miss or whatever, right? You gotta plan for the worst and make sure you're prepared there. But that would be my advice to everyone is rather than throwing out like an arbitrary, know, 30%, 40%, 50%, like where do you wanna be? What are your personal goals? And then work backwards into that number.

Adam Sockel (04:07.208)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Sockel (04:13.897)
Yeah, you know, Nick, I know that you don't work with just one organization at 30 NPC. You guys work with all sorts of different people, but I am curious, like, is that a similar approach that you guys would be taking to the people that you're working with?

Nick Cegelski (04:22.51)
Good day.

Yeah, I mean, I think depends on segment. It depends on your company. It depends on resourcing. But I think, Ellie, your answer of 30 % honestly reflects the experience that like I had when I was in AE. I would say about a third of my pipeline came from self-sourcing. I would say that unless you're in like a really, really enterprise sale where you have like three accounts, you're responsible for Apple, Google and Amazon, and you're like expanding and you're meeting with the CIO there. Like if you're

in like a real like mid-market sale, I would say I'm going think about those less of like a pipe percentage number.

There's no reason that as a upper mid market AE and down, you can't be consistently even without using ORM, like cold calling for an hour every single day and hitting 200 dials every single week. If you cold call for an hour without using ORM, you should be able to hit 40 dials. I don't even know what the numbers are. I think it depends with ORM, like how many people you have a dial at once, like the lists that you use, but like

I think the bigger theme that I'm seeing is more and more teams are using the phone for outbound pipelines. I do not believe that you can rely on email and LinkedIn as much nowadays because there's so much AI crap that is just totally bombarding our prospects. And one of the last ways that we can actually cut through is by doing the hard thing that requires interpersonal risk, which is picking up the phone and calling somebody. So maybe not the exact answer to the question that you asked, but yeah, the phone really, really matters, Adam and Ellie.

Allie Brotherton (05:30.248)
Mm-hmm.

Allie Brotherton (05:55.934)
Yes, the phone matters, the phone matters. And I'll echo that sentiment. mean, obviously we're a little biased here since we're a phone based solution, but a lot of our meetings come from cold calls because it helps cut through the noise, especially where teams are really relying on like AI and using that for email writing and LinkedIn, right? It's very easy to suss that kind of thing out as a prospect or as a buyer and nothing replaces a live conversation and building that relationship and building that.

It's going to be a lot more memorable, even if it's a no right now. They know who I am, they've heard my voice, and I can start that nurture process from there too to eventually book a meeting.

Nick Cegelski (06:34.508)
Well, and even if you don't cut through the noise and book a meeting on the phone, the reality is like when we wrote cold calling sucks and that's why it works. One of the things that the gong data that we looked at when we wrote that book showed that was when you cold call, it doubles your cold email reply rate, even if you don't connect live on the phone, because the calls draw attention to your emails. And so a lot of sellers, they they'll make 20 dials and nobody answers the phone or they get shut down by a nasty gatekeeper or they connect with someone and the pitch doesn't go great.

yeah, sounds nice, but not right now. And they're like, the phone doesn't work. And they're not willing to consistently go deal with the discomfort of cold calling. And so they delude themselves into thinking, you know what, instead of dialing, I'm going to go social sell more, or I'm going to triple down on hyper-personalized emails, you know what, like nobody answers on Fridays because people are getting ready for the weekend. So I'm just not going to call that day. And the reality is like,

Allie Brotherton (07:09.128)
Mm.

Nick Cegelski (07:30.198)
no matter how good you get at cold calling, and even if you use something like- like Orum, you're still gonna deal with adversity when you cold call. But, one of the things to think about is like that adversity causes a lot of your competition to give up on the phone, and so, if you're willing to consistently go deal with that adversity, you will see more success than your competition, because they're not even showing up on that channel.

Adam Sockel (07:38.12)
Mm-hmm.

Allie Brotherton (07:38.28)
Yeah.

Adam Sockel (07:53.621)
Yeah, I will say at the risk of making this up an ORM commercial, which I won't do, I promise. I know I love this. Yeah, Nick. Yeah, thanks. No, thank you. I always say people I think people are averse to the phone because it's an active no versus a passive no. Like you can passively blow me off on your LinkedIn DMs or ignore my email if you pick up my cold call and you

Allie Brotherton (07:58.123)
You

Nick Cegelski (07:58.562)
Sorry, I'm the one taking up there.

Allie Brotherton (08:00.587)
Come on Nick!

Nick Cegelski (08:12.084)
Mm. Mm.

Allie Brotherton (08:12.62)
Mm.

Adam Sockel (08:19.285)
it doesn't result in a positive outcome. It is an active no where you're telling me no for one reason or another and people do have to like start to wear armor around. OK, but before I need everyone to know, I wrote a bunch of questions for Nick and Ali, forgetting that they are two wonderfully like exorbitant, talkative, knowledgeable people. It always makes me laugh when I over prepare questions and then I'm like, we've been talking for 10 minutes about the first thing. I think we're going to be just fine here. So one of my favorite things about 30 NPC, what you guys do is you always

give actionable things people can do. And so I want to steal a little bit of that thunder here and ask you both tactically, right from the jump, the first thing, you become an account executive or you are an account executive and you're like, OK, great, good Lord, how do I do this? How do I self-source? And I think the first thing really, you have to understand time management. So I want to ask you both tactically. And we'll start with Nick.

How should account executives approach calendar blocking and time management so they actually do have the amount of time it takes to self-source?

Nick Cegelski (09:23.564)
Yeah, so a couple things I'll recommend here. One is you have to treat...

cold calling almost like a workout. I see a lot of AEs when they get into cold calling. They'll make four dials at 9.15 in the morning, then they'll get sucked into email. They'll make five or six more at 10.45, and then they go do something else. And then they make a couple more in the afternoon and they sprinkle their day, they pepper their day with cold calls, which kind of sucks. Cold calling, at least for me, it puts me in a pretty heightened, anxious, emotional state, and you're gonna totally burp.

Allie Brotherton (09:52.877)
you

Nick Cegelski (09:59.398)
yourself out. If you're like task switching all day trying to get to your whatever dial number throughout the day, you've got to condense it just like you would have worked out. You wouldn't do a set of bench press at 9 a.m. and then another set at noon and then another one at 3 in the afternoon. You would do it in one focused sprint. And so the same thing applies as it relates to cold calling. So step one is like don't pepper your day with it.

Step two is the number one way to ensure that you make time for your cold calling is to do it first thing in the morning before you do anything else. And what that ensures is that you actually get it done.

If you save it for later in the day, especially if you're an AE, there's gonna be like an urgent demo request that comes in, or like your boss is like, hey, surprise forecast meeting that you have to prepare for, or something's gonna go awry with your kids and you've gotta pick them up early. Like, the reality is, nothing is... Like, there's pretty much nothing that's more unpleasant than having to cold call as an AE, and so the best thing to do is like, get it off your plate first thing in the morning. And then the last piece that I would recommend folks do...

especially for AEs is if you think about the elements that go into cold calling, there is the preparation for cold calling, which is like researching your prospects, segmenting your lists or list building, like getting people into sequence or cadence, and then there is the execution of the calls themselves. Those two things require very different energy states from yourself. When you're cold calling, like it's a very, very active thing and you've got to be on.

Allie Brotherton (11:07.449)
Thank

Nick Cegelski (11:33.538)
When you're list building or looking for contact information or researching a prospect, like that's a more passive thing. You might throw some music on, you get a cup of hot tea. The worst thing you can do is bounce back and forth between both of those things in a dial blitz. And so what I recommend that you do is do your preparation, plan your attack.

and then attack your plan in a totally separate block. For me, what I like to do is in the afternoons, I'll do that list building and prep, and then the next morning is when I attack my plan and actually go work that list. Then I make all my calls, I'm done for the day, it's 9.45 in the morning, I feel good, I've made my calls, and then later that afternoon, then I build the list for the next day. So those are three big things that I would recommend folks who are trying to fit that into their calendar as an AE.

Allie Brotherton (12:22.674)
100 % agree. It's that old saying of like swallow the frog do what you hate doing first thing like get that done get that out of the way for a lot of us it might be cold calling for others maybe I'm maybe I'm a One-off weirdo case here, but I actually like cold calling. I don't like emailing I don't know what it is something about like actually writing out a personalized email and just spending the time there That's what that's the frog for me

Nick Cegelski (12:40.046)
Mm.

Nick Cegelski (12:47.171)
Yes.

Allie Brotherton (12:47.184)
And so that's the other piece I would recommend is like identify your strengths. Where are you most comfortable? Where are you finding that like your sales and your personality shines? And that's your superpower. Now go do the thing that you hate doing the most, do that first. So for myself, how I try and structure time when I was selling and what I recommend to my AEs is, yeah, like swallow the frog first thing in the morning.

And then whatever comes in your day, like, you just have to be diligent with making sure that whatever time you've allocated to prospecting, to finding accounts, to doing that research, I'm with you, Nick. I prefer to do it at the end of the day, and I recommend doing it at the end of the day, since usually you don't need to be in those prime selling hours to do a bunch of scraping on LinkedIn and finding of accounts. But as you're doing that, set that up for your next day.

so that you're using those golden hours to really execute on all of those specific tasks. I think that the hardest thing as an AE is to what you've mentioned, like as the day gets going, something's going on in a pilot or somebody has a question or it's a big demo request or X, Y, and Z, your boss needs to talk to you. All of these things can happen. And so even though if you might have your day planned to a T, something is gonna probably pop up. And so I also recommend like we have to be flexible and adaptable.

Nick Cegelski (13:43.554)
Yeah.

Allie Brotherton (14:08.454)
or I'm like, run pilots of our software. so oftentimes when we're running multiple pilots, our days get really busy. And so maybe my prospecting block for that day, I don't get it fully done. Dedicate that and make sure that you're moving it to the next day. And whatever way you do that, just making sure that you're allocating that time, that collective time throughout the whole week. So let's say it's, you know, an hour a day, five hours during a week. If you don't get it done that day because

you things got crazy and you had to jump into whatever XYZ conversation, making sure that you reallocate that time so it doesn't fall through the cracks or slip through the wayside.

Nick Cegelski (14:45.43)
Yeah, one recommendation that I have for folks is...

It actually seems weird, but you almost want to have a backlog of dial inventory of people that you plan to reach out to, meaning I see a lot of AEs, like, they think, they'll look in their sales engagement platform and they'll see overdue tasks, and they're like, I shouldn't have any overdue tasks. I actually think that's wrong. I actually think you want to have a backlog of people that you've done the research on, you've found the contact info for, and you plan to reach out to. It's actually better to have that backlog because if I'm going to miss one of my...

prospecting blocks in a day, I want it to be the list building block, not the cold calling outreach block. And so what I could do is like, I would always rather move a research or like call prep block if a day gets really, really crazy versus skip my cold calls for the day, because it's a slippery, slippery slope. Once you miss one block, it becomes really, really easy to keep moving them.

Adam Sockel (15:39.135)
I want to ask you both about that a little bit because moment of vulnerability, as I take out more strategic things here from a marketing standpoint, the individual contributor things absolutely fall through the cracks. Again, as a content creator, it'll get to four o'clock in the afternoon. I haven't even thought about what we should be posting as a brand today on LinkedIn, let alone my own stuff, but all these other things. It becomes harder and harder. I want to ask, as account executives do this, as they move up, as they're taking on more

leadership roles, more mentor roles, as they're getting bigger and bigger accounts. You mentioned Nick, if you miss something, you'd make sure it doesn't snowball. Are there ways that account executives can find ways to kind of hold space, as the internet is saying right now? Can they hold space for their own self-sourcing as they get more and more, you know, of quote unquote important? Like what can they do to make sure they don't let those missed blocks snowball?

Nick Cegelski (16:29.774)
you

Nick Cegelski (16:33.89)
Well, I think one is acknowledging that like it's really, really easy to move that stuff. And some mantras that I live by as a seller are as follows. One, your success in sales is determined by the number of uncomfortable conversations that you're willing to go seek out. That's cold calling. So if you can commit that to your mind, like...

Cold calling is the best way to go have those hard conversations and get that real-time rejection and also that real-time acceptance, Adam. Like, you're going to have people who are like, it's funny you called. We were just talking about this. And you're going to book meetings. So one is, understand that your success is determined by the number of those difficult or uncomfortable conversations that you are willing to go seek out.

The other thing is I believe the great sellers are really, really disciplined. And my definition of discipline is doing what you don't want to do when you don't want to do it. And 90 % of the time for me, that's picking up the phone and cold calling. I don't want to do it, and I definitely don't want to do it right now. But I know to succeed in sales, I have to be disciplined, and I have to do that thing. And I give myself reminders. Like I literally have on my calendar, every single quarter, I have a reminder that says like,

Do not take your foot off the gas with your prospecting because the outbound that you do right now is going to turn into the deals next quarter. And I made that mistake once as an AE and it sucked. Like the quarter after I took, was, was, I will never forget it was Q4 2020. And I was closing business like crazy. Like I think I probably closed $700,000 of NetNewBusiness at this legal tech startup, it wasn't a startup, this legal tech company I worked at. And it was wild. I mean, I was in back to backs all quarter,

And I stopped prospecting. stopped hitting the phone. I stopped reaching out on email. And then I closed all this business at the end of the year. And then Q1, I looked at my calendar and it was empty. And I had to do twice as much outbound prospecting to make up that gap. And so like the suck is going to be there regardless. It just depends like, do you want to deal with double the suck in the future? Which frankly is going to be even bigger because you have the pressure of not having that pipeline. It's not so bad to like stay in shape if you're in shape. And I think about the same thing with your pipeline. It's like...

Allie Brotherton (18:30.456)
Yeah.

Nick Cegelski (18:39.598)
If I have a pretty healthy pipeline, it's not so bad to do an hour a day. If I've got an empty calendar, it's brutal to try to make that up before I get put on a pip.

Adam Sockel (18:49.812)
Yeah, Ali, what do you think?

Allie Brotherton (18:52.814)
Yeah, no, I'm 100 % aligned. I think sometimes we look for magic bullets and there really isn't a magic bullet. You just have to do it. You just have to stay diligent and you just have to honor and respect that time. And yeah, I mean, it hurts, right? I think every seller at some point in their career has taken their foot or let that slip through and it will come and get you. it's to Nick's point, it's...

It hurts doubly as bad when it builds up, right? When it builds up and builds up builds up and then it's this big massive mountain that you have to climb for self-sourcing versus if you just continue to eat the frog, you know, in small little bits every single day, it's gonna be much easier for you to get to whatever your goal is. But yeah, I don't think there's a secret, you know, sauce or a magic bullet. You just gotta do it. You just have to put the time in and be diligent about it and respect that time on your calendar.

Adam Sockel (19:48.213)
Yeah, I want to ask it not that this is a these are magic bolts since you just said there are none but you know, sourcing prospects building out those lists like we've been talking about for a little bit here. It's it's a core role of both the SDR and the AE role but SDRs they can spend hours doing this to get the the prospects that they want and they need and AEs just don't have the time. where would you both say and Ali we'll start with you on this.

Allie Brotherton (19:55.034)
you

Allie Brotherton (20:12.538)
Mm.

Adam Sockel (20:16.68)
Where are some areas you identify as kind of quick, reliable places to build prospecting pipeline as an account executive?

Allie Brotherton (20:24.486)
Yeah, yeah, I think this is super important. You know, there's two keys to success, right? We have to focus on finding the right types of accounts and the right people within those accounts. And I've seen AE's, you know, in previous lifetimes where we are prospecting a bunch, we're putting in the activity, but if we're not focusing and we're not finding the right accounts, it doesn't really matter. And it's not gonna lead to meetings. Or if it does, it's not gonna lead to the right types of meetings.

So the first thing, if you only have a small block of time, is be very, very diligent with getting comfortable and understanding what your ICP is. And my recommendation on how to find that out would be like ask other people in your company, look at the deals that you've closed in the organization and also your most long-term clients. And what are the characteristics, what industry are they in, how big of a company, how many X, Y, and Z personas do they have?

and then go and find some of their competitors. One of the things that I'll do is go on like G2 reviews and look at alternatives to X, Y, and Z solution. Because if it was a great fit for X, and Z client who's been with us for 10, 20 years, whatever it is, it's probably gonna be a good fit for their competitors as well. And so that's my first piece of advice is take the time. It might feel like it's tedious.

but that's really good time spent. so take the time to find the right types of accounts that, you know, if you could only close one deal, like would make your year or something along those lines, find that first account. And then the second piece I would share is really focusing on some of that low hanging fruit as well within that bucket, right? Still staying in terms of that ICP account bucket, but what are some referrals that you can generate?

What about closed lost opportunities? If you're a new seller joining a new company, what about old inbound leads that never converted or never came through fruition? Those are all great, like low hanging fruit pieces where they have some kind of familiarity with your company, with who you are, what you do. And then the other piece I would mention too is upsells. If that's a part of your comp and your structure, upsells and expansion opportunities into your

Allie Brotherton (22:41.437)
current existing book of business, that's gonna be a really great way to break in and hopefully generate some quick ARR as well.

Adam Sockel (22:49.436)
Nick, do think?

Nick Cegelski (22:49.484)
Yeah, I think obviously like the low hanging fruit of clothes lost, former customers, seeing people who used to use your product and then change jobs who might be able to buy it at their new company. I think some other places I would recommend people look are look at your executives networks and you can actually do this by having your executives like they can export a list of all of their LinkedIn connections. And I would do this like

on a quarterly basis is get that LinkedIn connection list and have your team go through it and find who do your execs know that they can get warm introductions to. That's a really, really awesome path in. Another one is if you use LinkedIn sales navigator, you can see people who are following your company on LinkedIn. So if I worked for Oram, like I would go and I would see, who's following Oram that's on my target account list? And then to the point of referrals, I think...

Like, I hear that advice again and again and again, like, mind your networks, work referrals, etc. And I see a lot of sellers, like, not really know how to do it. And if I think about, like, asking for referrals...

The wrong way to do it is to ask Adam, hey, Adam, do you know anybody who might be in the market for Orum that you'd be able to introduce me to? And that's what a lot of sellers think like asking referrals is, is asking, Adam.

Do you know any, you know, VPs of sales who might be in the market for Orum? And what that requires Adam to do is, like, scan his entire mental Rolodex of everybody that he possibly could know, and then cross-reference that against who he's spoken to recently who has expressed a need for something like Orum, and then he has to think, do I want to put Nick in front of that connection of mine? And even if you really like me, Adam, that sometimes is a reach, because I didn't really come to

Adam Sockel (24:20.625)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Cegelski (24:41.064)
you with intent. I was like, hey, do you know anybody? I came to you in a really, really lazy way. And I don't think that's a great reflection of Adam to just like throw me over the fence, like, and have me go talk to one of his peers. Instead, my recommendation with referrals is you need to almost treat referrals as another outbound channel from like a messaging perspective. And what I mean by that is when you are outbounding somebody, you have a target in mind, the person that you want to talk to.

Adam Sockel (24:46.75)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Cegelski (25:08.972)
And you have a reason for why you want to talk to that person. And so, Ali, if you were my prospect and Adam was our mutual connection, I wouldn't just go to Adam and be like, hey, you know anybody? I would say, hey, Adam, I see that you're connected with Ali. I'm hoping to talk with her because I saw that she just hired six SDRs. And typically, when I'm talking to a VP of sales who is growing their SDR team, a big focus of theirs is having more success on the phones. And Oren would help them for these five reasons.

I know that, like, it's a big ask to ask for somebody for a warm referral to their network, but I guess if I ghost wrote a message for you, would you be willing to pass it along to her? That is a much higher likelihood of me getting a yes from Adam because, one, I showed that I did some prep here. I saw this thing about Allie. This is a personalized message. This isn't just like, yo, Adam, do my job for me. Introduce me to people. And so referrals are an

Adam Sockel (25:47.848)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Cegelski (26:00.84)
Awesome awesome awesome way to generate new business I would see like right now 80 % of my business is coming from me asking for referrals in the manner that I just described but way too many sellers they avoid it because they don't know how to do it or they take the lazy approach and it doesn't work when you take the lazy approach

Adam Sockel (26:07.4)
Mm-hmm.

Adam Sockel (26:17.522)
Yeah, the professional podcaster here. was going to be this is our next topic anyway. So thank you, Nick and Ali, both of you. Ali, I want to hear your thoughts on this. How do you coach your team here and for your own experience? How do you approach referrals in a way that doesn't feel like Nick said and like a, man, do you have anybody I could talk to desperate feeling? How do you approach it?

Allie Brotherton (26:34.027)
You

Allie Brotherton (26:37.44)
Yeah, yeah, it comes off really desperate when you do it that way. No, I'm aligned with Nick. That's my approach as well, and that's what I coach the team on, is to look through, right? So step one is make sure you're following all of your champions on LinkedIn, that you're connected with all of your champions on LinkedIn. That way you'll get notifications as well when they move jobs or if there's changes or posts or things like that. Like stay connected to them. You've built that relationship, so keep it going.

And then from there, look through their networks and see who they're connected to with similar titles. So for our ORAM, I will go through and look at Nick, for example, like who is he connected to? And then once you find someone he's connected to, typically I'll reach out and just as a starting point, like, hey, Nick, I saw you're connected to so-and-so. Are you connected beyond just a LinkedIn connection or do you know them on a more personal level? That's another way too, to just kind of scope out.

Sometimes when we reach out for referrals, especially when we're reaching out to other sellers, they connected with them to prospect into them. So if they don't have a relationship, we want to know that as well, and it's totally fine. That's the first thing I would do. And then to Nick's point, yeah, being really tailored. And especially if you're reaching out to somebody who probably has a lot of LinkedIn activity, make sure that you are ghostwriting that piece for them as well.

Nick Cegelski (27:39.533)
Mm-hmm.

Nick Cegelski (27:58.478)
Mm-hmm.

Allie Brotherton (27:59.138)
And typically I'll say like, hey, this is what I was thinking. This is the premise. This is why I want you to reach out. This is how it would help them, how it will help us. This is a piece that I've written for you. Feel free to put your own spin on it. I don't want you to say anything you don't feel comfortable with as well.

Adam Sockel (28:15.378)
that I this kind of gets into something I want to ask you both about because I do feel and like Nick, you would know this even more than we would like. I feel like network based selling is such a massive thing now. It's you know, obviously, it's like a lot. Everyone always is jokingly said it's not what you know, it's I feel like that's more true now than ever, like just the ability to go to someone and say, hey, we're prospecting into this particular place. Can you share their share your experience with Oram with them?

if you get a minute and then like you said, kind of help them with what you would like them to say. But I think in my opinion, one of both of your superpowers is like relationship building and maintaining relationships. I'll give you a specific example. One of the first few times I ever spoke with Nick was via LinkedIn DM and it was, I come from a book, the literary world. And like he asked me for book recommendations. I gave him some thinking nothing of it. was like this guy who co-hosts the most popular of sales podcasts, never gonna hear from him again.

We hopped on a call like months later and he's like, by the way, appreciate those recommendations. Here are the ones that I read. Like it just like the the ability for you to not only like remember it, but actually action on it and then bring it up. I was like, my God, I love this guy already even more than I already had. So it was a long way first of buttering up, buttering up just a little bit. But do you both and Nick, we'll start with you because I gave you your flowers. Do you guys have tactics for staying sharp on like?

Nick Cegelski (29:29.74)
Yeah.

Adam Sockel (29:38.693)
all these different connections you're making and who you know is where. How do you keep it all straight? This may sound like a silly question, but the more account executives grow, the more people they know. How do you keep it all straight in your head?

Nick Cegelski (29:50.658)
Well, I mean, obviously part of this is like taking notes and writing them down. So Adam, like when we talked about that, I put it in the CRM and before the next call, I looked at those notes. But that's obvious advice. I think a piece of non-obvious advice is this is going to sound like really, really dorky, but anytime I'm meeting somebody new for the first time, I actually like prepare a piece of small talk for that meeting. Meaning like I go look at their LinkedIn, I Google them and like

Not everybody wants to jump into business right away, but a lot of people like they want to warm up a little bit. And so like I usually try to show up with like a non lame piece of small talk to make with people. And I found that that leads to better conversations. It actually springs up from when I was in high school, I want, I went on a date with a girl and

I was really, really anxious and nervous and I was like, I don't know what we're going to talk about. And so I literally like made a list in my phone of all of the potential topics of conversation that we could have. And the date still didn't go great, but I carried that over into my lovely sales career. How sad is my life? Gosh. But no, I legitimately do prepare at least one, I prepare one piece of interesting small talk with everybody I'm going to meet with.

Adam Sockel (31:04.564)
love that. That was so wholesome, Nick. I feel like...

Nick Cegelski (31:06.828)
Yeah, you love that I got shut down on a horrible- I'm married now, so I got better. Think, maybe.

Adam Sockel (31:11.486)
There you go. That's wonderful. Ali, how about you? Do you do you write down notes? Do you also much like Nick and I have social anxiety, it seems like?

Allie Brotherton (31:14.759)
I love it.

Allie Brotherton (31:19.946)
Don't we all at some point in the sub-level? Yes, yes, yes. I have to prepare. Otherwise the anxiety creeps in, right? The cure to anxiety is action. And so the more you can do research, the more you can prep. And specifically when you're meeting with new people, whether it's on a demo or in a podcast setting or whatever it looks like.

Like looking at their LinkedIn, seeing who they're connected to. I mean, there's so many little things that you can look at, but I find that, you know, I find that in conversations oftentimes like, I know so-and-so or, you know, I have this in common with you that already automatically just builds trust with them. But in terms of keeping track of where people go, I think it sometimes can be difficult. And so,

Making sure that you're just a diligent note taker is like step one, so that you're keeping yourself on track and keeping everything top of mind. You know, I'm a big fan of solutions like user gems that helps track everything automatically for you when champions do move. That's always helpful. And then at least like once a quarter, if not every other month or so, I would go through all of my close one opportunities.

and just look at my champion and look at their LinkedIn and like be diligent about it. Take the time and dedicate that and see like what's going on in their world, what's going on in their life, like what's happening and do they know anyone that I'm connected to or are they moving or are they hiring or little things like that. And if you take that time, yeah, again, at least once a quarter to just stay in touch with people, they remember you and then referrals start coming to you naturally as well. I'll give you an example.

At Orum we do live cold calls on our demos, which is like a super memorable fun thing. But if you continue that momentum, people will reach out after the fact. And we just had an opportunity come back into us with 100 plus potential seats, which is a big opportunity for us because they had remembered and we'd stayed in touch with them over time. So just being diligent, blocking that time and going through your clothesline and engaging with your champions on a regular basis, not just when you need a referral.

Nick Cegelski (33:35.862)
One thing that I like that you do there, Ali, is you have a rhythm for doing it. Like you said, you're doing it quarterly when you go back to those people. I think just like we talked about time blocking with your...

outbound cold calls. Same thing applies here. I think it's a poor use of your time to say, I thought about Adam today. Let me go, like, do that warm touch. Don't get me wrong. If that, comes up and you have a real reason to reach out, do it. Don't be like, I have to wait till the next time in my rhythm or cadence. But like, yeah, on a quarterly basis, that's a great way to say, I'm going to put an hour on my calendar once a quarter, and that's my blitz for reaching out to close one customers. And I think that's a really, really smart way to think through that.

Allie Brotherton (33:55.701)
Mm.

Allie Brotherton (34:15.031)
Thank you. I appreciate that. think a common like misconception of salespeople is we're, we wing it like, they're just naturals that conversation or they're just naturals that X, Y, and Z. But in my experience, yes, right. That, does play some of a role, but at the end of the day, the best sellers have a plan for every single thing that they do. They're prepared. They have a structure. have a cadence and a sequence for everything to make sure that things don't slip through the cracks. Cause

Yeah, when you're juggling a hundred things a day, might be, you know, maybe you have a superpower brain, but I don't, so have to write every single thing down and leave multiple different reminders for myself to make sure I do it.

Adam Sockel (34:55.524)
Okay, I have two questions two last questions for you one is not entirely specific to this conversation So I'm gonna we're gonna skip to the very last one from a timing standpoint And I'm gonna maybe turn the other one into a piece of content if we have a few extra minutes after so we're gonna jump to the end That's the Easter egg people listening to the podcast if there is one thing AEs should take away from this conversation is something they can start doing today Of course who want them to do all of the things we just suggested, but if there's only one thing Ali What is the one tip you want?

account executives to walk away with right now.

Allie Brotherton (35:28.409)
Yeah, the one tip is get focused on, when we're speaking about self-sourcing, don't feel like you have to cast a super, super wide net to be successful. I think that it's more important to focus on the right types of accounts so that when you do break in that energy and effort that you've been putting into it, maybe it's not the first cold call, maybe it's not the second, maybe it's not the 50th cold call, but once you do break into that account, you know.

Adam Sockel (35:32.67)
you

Allie Brotherton (35:56.162)
this is going to be a great account for me. It's going to be a great account for my company. And like, I have a high propensity and likelihood to close this deal. I think it's really easy to spend time spinning our wheels on prospecting and not necessarily getting the outcome or the conversion in our actual closed-on business. So that's my takeaway is spend time getting really tight on what the right accounts are and what the criteria is that you need to be looking for to find those accounts.

Adam Sockel (36:26.76)
Nick, what do you think?

Nick Cegelski (36:29.11)
I I want to talk about the referral piece. the piece there is oftentimes when folks think about their outbound prospecting, like we talked about the targeting, but I think what a lot of salespeople think the only thing that really matters is like, does their message resonate? But one of the other things to think about is like, there's two things that a buyer would be evaluating when they're deciding whether or not to take a meeting with you. It's your message.

And it's also like where that message is coming from. And what I mean by that is like, I can have a really, really great reason for reaching out to somebody. I can really have like, I can have a very tailored, tailored pitch, but like there are some buyers where like, if I go through cold outreach, like it's not, like they're not going to give it the same weight as if it goes through a peer. Meaning a cold call from me to Ali might resonate less than the exact same, exact same message coming through Adam.

Allie Brotherton (37:12.622)
Hmm.

Nick Cegelski (37:20.374)
And so what I would recommend is that's not advice to say, don't do your cold outbound prospecting. I wrote a book about cold calling. We're here on Orum talking about, like, cold, bold calling, whatever. But one thing for folks to consider is adding into your prospecting cadence that idea of a referral blitz, where there's nothing stopping you from taking all of the deals that you've closed over the last two years, putting those people in Orum, and like calling that list, too, and asking for the referrals. You've got to do some prep to make sure this thing really works, but...

I think referral prospecting is a really, really repeatable channel if you do it the right

Adam Sockel (37:55.796)
I love that so much. For everyone listening in, I will put Ali and Nick's LinkedIn's in the show notes. I can't imagine a world where you're listening to this podcast and you don't know what 30 minutes of President's Club is, but I will put a link in there as well, as well as to the book. This has been so fantastic. Ali, Nick, thank you so much for joining me today.

Nick Cegelski (38:14.35)
Thank you, this was a lot of fun.

Allie Brotherton (38:15.825)
Yeah, thank you.

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In the latest episode of Bold Calling, Adam Sockel sits down with two sales powerhouses: Allie Brotherton, Senior Sales Manager at Orum, and Nick Cegelski, founder of 30 Minutes to President's Club. Together, they tackle the evolving challenge of self-sourcing, sharing actionable strategies for account executives (AEs) to take control of their pipelines, build meaningful relationships, and, ultimately, close more deals.

If you’re an AE, sales leader, or SDR looking to stay ahead in today’s competitive landscape, this episode is packed with gold.

Why Self-Sourcing Is a Non-Negotiable

The sales landscape is changing, and self-sourcing has become a critical skill for AEs. Orum’s 2024 State of Sales Development Report revealed that 72% of sales leaders expect AEs to generate more of their own pipeline than in previous years.

"Top sellers throughout the history of selling have always taken control of their own destiny," Allie noted. "It’s not just about inbound or SDRs—it’s about being proactive."

But self-sourcing isn’t just about effort—it’s about strategy. For Allie, this means focusing on high-quality prospects and understanding what makes an account a good fit. "It’s easy to spin your wheels on prospecting and not get the outcomes you’re looking for. Spend time getting really tight on what the right accounts are and the criteria you need to find them."

The Phone: The Most Underrated Tool in Your Toolbox

In a world bombarded by AI-generated emails and LinkedIn messages, the phone is emerging as the ultimate way to stand out. Both Allie and Nick emphasized its importance as a tool for building meaningful connections.

"Nothing replaces a live conversation," Allie shared. "Even if it’s a no right now, they’ve heard my voice, and I’ve started the relationship."

Nick added: "The phone is one of the last ways we can cut through the noise and connect in a meaningful way. There’s so much AI crap bombarding our prospects—cold calling is a chance to do something different."

Their advice? Make the phone a consistent part of your day. Even unsuccessful calls serve a purpose, as they can increase email reply rates by drawing attention to your follow-ups.

Discipline: The Secret to Self Sourcing Success

When it comes to self-sourcing, discipline is non-negotiable. Nick described it as the ability to "do what you don’t want to do when you don’t want to do it."

Cold calling, he said, should be treated like a workout:"You wouldn’t do one set of bench presses in the morning, another at noon, and another at 3 PM. Cold calling should be done in focused sprints."

For Allie, discipline also means being adaptable: "If your prospecting block doesn’t happen today, move it to tomorrow. The time can’t fall through the cracks."

Both agreed that preparation is key. Nick suggested separating the preparation and execution stages of cold calling to avoid burnout. "Plan your attack in the afternoon and execute it first thing in the morning," he recommended.

How to ask for referrals as an Account Executive

Referrals are often overlooked but incredibly powerful. Both Allie and Nick shared their frameworks for making referral requests that actually work.

"Referrals are an outbound channel," Nick explained. "If you want a referral, don’t be lazy. Be specific about who and why, and even ghostwrite the message for your connection."

Allie highlighted the importance of staying connected to champions on LinkedIn and monitoring their networks. "Once you find someone they’re connected to, ask, ‘Do you know them personally, or is it just a LinkedIn connection?’ That way, you know if it’s worth pursuing."

Both emphasized that referrals require preparation and personalization. A generic ask won’t cut it.

Strategic Time Management for AEs

Self-sourcing can feel overwhelming, but AEs can fit it into their already busy schedules with the right time management strategies.

Nick’s advice? Block time for cold calling in the morning and reserve afternoons for list-building and prep. "If you save cold calling for later in the day, something will always come up—a surprise meeting, a demo request, or a personal obligation. Get it done first thing."

Allie agreed, adding: "Swallow the frog in the morning. Do the thing you hate first, whether it’s cold calling, emailing, or researching. That way, it doesn’t weigh on you all day."

Both encouraged AEs to stay flexible but diligent. If you miss a block, reschedule it. If you fall behind, catch up the next day.

Building a Long-Term Strategy for self sourcing

For Allie and Nick, the key to self-sourcing isn’t just about tactics—it’s about having a long-term strategy.

"Your success in sales is determined by the number of uncomfortable conversations you’re willing to seek out," Nick said. "If you avoid those conversations, you’re avoiding success."

Allie added: "The best sellers don’t wing it. They have a plan, a structure, and a cadence for everything they do. That’s how you avoid letting things slip through the cracks."

Key Takeaways for Sales Leaders and AEs

This episode of Bold Calling is a masterclass in self-sourcing and pipeline generation. Here are the top takeaways:

  1. Get Proactive: Take control of your pipeline and stop relying solely on inbound leads or SDR support.
  2. Leverage the Phone: Use live conversations to stand out, build relationships, and boost your multichannel success.
  3. Stay Disciplined: Dedicate focused time to prospecting and stick to your schedule, even when it’s uncomfortable.
  4. Referrals Matter: Treat referrals as an outbound channel by being specific, personal, and prepared.
  5. Prioritize High-Quality Accounts: Focus on prospects that align with your ICP for better outcomes.

As Allie summed it up: "You just have to do it. Respect the time on your calendar, and don’t let anything slip through the cracks."