Braydan Young: $200M Sendoso Fundraise to Authentic Customer Connections at SlashExperts

Freddy D: 00:02:39

Hey Superfans superstar Freddie D. Here in this episode 129, we're joined by Braden Young, a visionary entrepreneur and sales leader who's been transforming the way businesses connect and grow. As a co founder of Sandoso, he's helped raise over 200 million to build one of the most successful direct marketing platforms in the industry.

Now Braden is taking his passion for innovative sales and marketing strategies to the next level with his latest venture, Slash Experts, revolutionizing how companies build pipeline and streamline referrals by connecting prospects directly with customers.

With over five years as an investor and advisor to early stage companies, Braden brings deep expertise, a proven track record and a mission to change the sales process for the better. Get ready for an insightful conversation.

Freddy D: 00:03:30

Welcome Braden, to the Business Superfans podcast. We're excited to have you. How's it going today?

Braydan Young: 00:03:37

Good.

Braydan Young: 00:03:37

Good to be here. Thank you for the invite. Excited to chat and solve all the world's problems.

Braydan Young: 00:03:43

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:03:44

Well, before we started the recording, we turned out that we have some similar backgrounds in the software space. So excited to really kind of get into that. Let's go back to the beginning.

What's the backstory of where you came from and today you're working with a new agency. Let's talk about all that.

Braydan Young: 00:04:03

Yeah. So I went to Chico State, so a social institution, Northern California. But I was in entrepreneurship there. So I went into insurance right away.

when I graduated it was like: 0809

And I remember in insurance I was like, I wanted to try to sell it in a different way. I wanted to use webinars. And my boss was like, hey, we don't do webinars. Like we're a hundred year old company, we don't do that here.

y. And that was like probably: 2011

It was like a really fun VC backed companies that would be overnight successes. And at least it looked like overnight successes.

to do marketing, and in like: 2015

So we sent out gifts to customers to Prospects to employees. And we wanted to plug gifting into your CRM to make it easy to track any gift that you sent it if that helped kind of close the deal.

And it grew quick. I mean, we went from. We raised about 200 million. Went from just me and a buddy to about 600 of us. Covid was amazing. Like, for.

If there was any silver lining of COVID everyone went home. Everyone was like, I need to send things out even more because I'm not seeing folks at conferences. And we absorbed all that budget.

So we grew really quick as that was growing. We had an idea about a year ago to change the way that sales top of funnel happens. And we just built a company called Slash Experts or Experts.

The way that it works is we allow you to go to a site, take Sandoso now, and you type in sendoso.com experts and there's a whole directory of current customers of Sendoso that you can book a time with. So your first step in the sales process doesn't become talk to sales. It becomes talk to a current customer or talk to a peer. Talk to a.

Which we've seen really change the way that folks are gathering information.

It's almost like taking like static reviews you get on a website and making it where you can actually talk in long form or someone who's already using that tool. So it's been cool to see that grow. Been selling it for about two, three months now. A lot of learnings, a lot of things. We missed a lot of building.

So starting from zero again has been fun to see if we can do it one more time. But yeah, that's kind of my background. And then personally, I'm in the Bay Area still. Never left.

We're from Chico to the Bay Area, only two hours down the road. So I've always been in Northern California. Haven't been able to leave.

Freddy D: 00:06:56

s. Actually,: 1980

And the thing was, when I got in sales, I actually did the webinars, but they were not webinars. They were lunch and learns. And those worked very well because what I was doing is I was selling into.

So I don't understand why that insurance guy just didn't get it. Because those work phenomenally. Because I would send. Back then we didn't have Internet. Internet didn't come out till 95.

But bottom line was we would send out letters and inviting these guys in the engineering and manufacturing space and saying, hey, come out. Check out this new Technology, it's completely changing the engineering and manufacturing space. So it was a lunch and learn.

We weren't selling that stuff. We were educating. It was the approach that I used.

And so we would send out letters and then hire the girls in the executive suites to contact the guys to. To invite them in for the lunch and learn.

Braydan Young: 00:07:53

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:07:54

And then we would demonstrate our technology of here's how it's changing the world. Here's this and that.

And people would say, come on, invite us to come into their company, take a look and explain to them how it would help with them. And so I got invited in. So similar to what you're doing and is now with your sales Slash Experts is similar concept. You're coming into a warm market.

Braydan Young: 00:08:19

Exactly.

And like, I think that as more and more products go on the market, folks just want to learn from their peers as what's working, especially with like just the boom of AI. And there seems to be a new tool every other day.

And folks are just not sure what to purchase, nor if it'll actually do the job that they're saying it'll do. So everything's back channeled. And so we just wanted to make that process easier for folks.

Freddy D: 00:08:43

Yeah, because right now you're absolutely correct. It's overwhelming. I mean, there's just stuff coming out. Back in the day, we would do a release a year and then we got to two releases a year.

Then we got to four releases a year. Today, wait five minutes and there's an update.

Braydan Young: 00:08:59

Yeah, I mean an update or someone AI tool gets acquired and then it's part of another tool and now it's all the same stack. It's the pace of change is pretty wild to watch in terms of all these new tools that are popping up. For sure.

Braydan Young: 00:09:14

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:09:14

It's totally hard to keep up. So let's talk a little bit more about how slash Expert works with your other product.

Braydan Young: 00:09:22

Yeah. So essentially you go to a page like sendoso.com experts and like on that page there's a bunch of faces.

Think of it can be Freddie would be on there and it would say like how good you are, how long you've used this product, and I can book a time with you directly. And if that call takes place, we then will gift you as a customer saying, hey, thanks so much for doing that phone call.

Here's a donation in your name. Gift or cash or a physical gift, whatever you can accept.

And then also you can control your calendar as well, so you can take references when you want to. Because most of Us already do references, but no one really tracks how many you do, nor a lot of folks are typically thanked for them.

So, like, I do a ton of references and the amount of like, hey, thanks for doing that phone call is rare. It's because folks forget about it. And so we're like, that needs to change.

And so our goal is to make that process easier, trackable, and to give prospects a different direction. I think reading reviews, like going to a trust Radius or a G2, it was great 10 years ago because you could read reviews on software.

I don't think that works now. I think that, like, reviews are just there's too static.

And I think that people want to have conversations with peers to know if things actually work.

Because as bandwidth has become less and less and as layoffs happen and one job is being done or four jobs being done by one person now, I think that, like, you need to make sure you're implementing the right tools. And so you need to do your research before you buy anything. And so we want to make that easier.

Freddy D: 00:10:52

Yeah, I totally agree. That's one of the things I used to tell people is over the years is getting testimonials.

I started getting testimonials when I was a tech guy installing software and teaching people how to go from 3D thinking in their head to 2D drafting boards and telling them, forget the 2D drafting board, go 3D to 3D design on the computer screen. And I would get testimonials from those companies on my training back then.

And so that I used to get 10% raises all every year, which is the maximum that they could give because of the fact that I got social proof.

So what you're talking about now is taking it to a whole nother level where it's much more conversational wise versus the static review, as you mentioned.

Braydan Young: 00:11:39

Yeah, a hot take for you. And I've bought a lot of software and everyone always sends me case studies and I don't read them. I think they're like, cool.

And I see a logo like, oh, Meta uses this software. I'm like, cool. And there's a case study on it. You've checked a box that you sent me a case study. So now I'm like, okay.

Like, I feel warm and fuzzy that someone was willing to give you a case study. I like that. But I'm gonna find holes in it. I'm gonna be like, well, of course they did a case study.

And of course the software works, have huge teams. And so I just don't think case studies Work the way that they used to.

I also think every B2B site that's out there, they list all the logos they work with. Cause it's supposed to make you feel warm and fuzzy that this company works with all these big logos. And so you're like, okay.

I think it all stems from the old phrase of no one got fired for buying IBM. It all stems from that. But I think that seeing logos is not enough now.

I think you need to know how those companies actually work with that tool or that software for it to be worthwhile or to be worth your purchase.

Braydan Young: 00:12:36

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:12:37

s, early: 2000

Because I came up with the term. If you look it up, it's still, I think it's still being used as machining intelligence. Before AI, we never.

But it was an AI aspect of it was a relational database and based upon some geometric shapes, it would help determine the tool paths to use and all that stuff. But to get people to start believing it, I went to a multitude of third party channels to give that product viability.

Braydan Young: 00:13:27

Yeah.

Braydan Young: 00:13:28

Which I think you have to have in order to have success in your product.

of the budget, this was like: 2020

Whereas if you buy a piece of software and it's not being used properly, then you should get rid of it.

And so I think that because of that, because people have a fear of having like a shelfware type system they purchased, there's a lot more research done at the top of the funnel. And I think that's where so many of the review sites have had and seen a lot of success. And that's what we're kind of trying to fit in.

Braydan Young: 00:14:08

Sure.

Freddy D: 00:14:08

So let's dive deeper into Slash Expert. And how does that work?

Braydan Young: 00:14:14

Yeah. So on the page itself, like we're just an iframe that plugs into a website. On that iframe is a list of your customers you've provided.

We can also suggest experts that People that you should have on that page. We suggest, like, people that left you reviews and maybe even found them. Or we also look at your CRM.

So we'll say, hey, like 6 Salesforce, for example, we'll ingest that and we'll say, hey, like, Braden's purchased you six times at six different companies. This is somebody who should be an expert for you or an advocate for you, and you've never talked to them. So we can suggest folks who might be good.

We found is a lot of companies know a certain logo. Let's take my same example of Meta. Hey, meta works with us, and that's great.

But 99% of employees internally couldn't mention who the person is at Meta who's using that tool. That's where we're trying to help folks be like, okay, it's not just Meta using you, it's Braden who's there, and that's the person who's an expert.

So I think that will be a big step to get people to start to identify who these individuals are that actually truly love their tool. And they would be the ones who are up on that page for the other side of the equation.

So for the expert in the phone call, they have a dashboard they can log into. They can see all the earnings they're getting. I say they got a certain amount, like 500 bucks. Let's say they can donate that to a charity.

They can take it for an E gift, they can take it for cash. It's kind of cool. It depends on, like, the time of the month as to, like, when, what folks do.

So, like, beginning of the month, they'll usually do charity. End of the month, it's usually like cash. So just that's what I'm really trying to do. But that's kind of funny to watch.

But, yeah, it's a good tool because it's an iframe. It's very simple. You can kind of plug it in anywhere, which we made it really easy to install.

Freddy D: 00:15:58

Interesting. Yeah, because one of the things I used to do, what you're doing is really kind of what I used to do manually.

When I would go into a prospective customer, we would be talking. Back then I had a daytimer, I had a Mac because I wrote my own CRM back in 86 using Helix, a relational database.

But then I used several different platforms.

But nevertheless, okay, I still had it with the daytimer, and I would turn around, says, okay, when it came down to the point, and it says, here's my daytimer, here's A list of all the companies, because I had them all printed out in there. And I'd say, braden, here's my cell phone. Here's my daytimer. Pick any one of these customers. They're all referenceable. Pick one and call one.

It was a power move. Nobody ever took me up on it. I usually closed every deal with that power move. Because back then I would just. Here it is. Here's the phone.

I just shut up.

Braydan Young: 00:16:57

That's.

Braydan Young: 00:16:57

You know what's crazy about that is like, we see like, if you look at page like sandoza.com experts if you look at that page, there's a bunch of customers on there that you can book times with. We see a lot of people just use that link in RFPs or go to that or the send that link over and there's no call booked. But it closes the deal still.

Because I think people feel comfortable that if they wanted a reference, they could do one. Which is very interesting.

Braydan Young: 00:17:22

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:17:23

Because I had them all and they were all for real. They were all referenceable because my success was my customers versus my salesforce. They were my super fans, as I call them.

Some of my fastest sales were I would be referred to so and so company. And they'd call me up and says, hey, Jack. Says, I need to get this. We're doing overflow work for them. What's it cost me? How fast can you get it here?

That was it. That was a sale. Most of the time I was just doing the paperwork.

Braydan Young: 00:17:47

Yeah. Yeah.

Braydan Young: 00:17:48

Which is. Which is nuts. And like, those ones are so good too, because, like, now that person is a reference.

Cause you're like, oh, yeah, it's easy to work with once someone's ready to purchase. Like, why over complicate it? Just I see so often in the sales process, like, well, your first step is a disco phone call.

You're like, no, I just want to buy the thing. Just sign me up. Yeah, yeah.

Freddy D: 00:18:07

Because again, a superfan, when you get a referral from a super fan, it's a done deal. It's still ready to go.

Braydan Young: 00:18:14

Yeah.

Braydan Young: 00:18:15

Which happens a ton. And like, I see so many SaaS companies over complicate that process where there are certain steps you gotta go through.

And if the notes aren't in your CRM, they're like, oh, I don't know if I could close this person. It's like this person said they want to purchase. Send this up to them and just make it happen. I see that happen, like time and time again. For sure.

Braydan Young: 00:18:33

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:18:34

So share a story with us about Slash Expert, how somebody used it, and it really kind of transformed their business. And they became super fan of the platform. And even though I know it's relatively new, but you've got to have some successes.

Braydan Young: 00:18:47

Absolutely. So there's a company that uses this called Mobley, and it's really cool what they did, where we pitch them on the concept.

And a lot of the time when you're pitching folks on, hey, let's use your customer base to help you essentially close more deals. Folks get a little bit concerned around, well, I have to identify who these folks are. And, like, I don't know if I want to be able to.

I don't know if I want to post these people out there online. And Mobley looked at it as a totally different direction.

They're like, I want to add a button on my page that doesn't say talk to an expert, but it says talk to a customer. So when you go to the book a demo button, there's a button right next to it. It says, hey, talk to a customer.

And if you press that, like, we pop up saying, hey, here's all the folks you can meet with that already use this product.

And it was such a light bulb moment for us, because, folks, I was just like, yeah, like, that's the entire thing we're trying to do, is you're trying to meet a customer. And it's been really cool to see that grow and scale.

Rather than folks booking a demo, they'll go to that site, look at a bunch of folks already using it, and book a time with somebody. What's cool.

And what we want is when you go to that page, you see somebody you recognize, maybe someone you worked with in the past, maybe someone who you kind of knew at a conference. Maybe you kind of cross paths. Like, when that happens, which has happened a couple times, that's the most ideal.

And that's like, the best thing ever, because it means that deal is going to move even quicker because you're like, oh, Freddy's already using this thing. Cool. Like, I'll give them a call. And so that's been kind of cool to see them scale that.

Rather than hide their customer base and hide these experts or these customers, they've kind of made it front and center, which is really cool to see.

Braydan Young: 00:20:19

Sure.

Freddy D: 00:20:20

Because, yeah, now you've got.

More importantly, as I'm looking at it, is you've got somebody that you are familiar with that all of a sudden happens to be using that same platform. So you've already got that social Proof that in and itself they may not even make that phone call because Braden's using it.

That's good enough for me because I know Braden and he picks the right stuff. So I'm gonna go check this platform out.

Braydan Young: 00:20:43

Yeah.

Braydan Young: 00:20:43

What I was just thinking about too is like when we started Sendoso, something that we did was we brought on a ton of advisors like early and like we'll be like, hey, Freddie, be an advisor for us. And what we wanted is we wanted every advisor to add on their LinkedIn, hey, like Freddie is an advisor of Sendoso.

And like the reason because of that was cause you was a social proof. So it's the exact same thing. Just like the difference is now we're like, hey, can't we direct phone calls your way? It's been cool to see that grow.

For sure.

Braydan Young: 00:21:11

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:21:11

And your other platform, Sandoso, is a brilliant idea because that works, gifting works.

Braydan Young: 00:21:19

That's a model as old as time. So I guess like getting a business. And it's been funny that no one tracked it or put it into your CRM as to like how like what it took or automated.

It was a big one too.

Freddy D: 00:21:32

I mean, that's one of the things that I would do back then is, and still do is I would send out thank you letter for everybody. So we would go into a company, we would demonstrate our manufacturing software.

The guys from the shop floor that nobody ever recognizes, they would come into the meeting because they're the guy who's going to be utilizing it. And I would make sure I got everybody's name.

And I would send an old fashioned letter through the mail and acknowledged everybody for their time and participating into the meeting, their suggestions, everything else that would land me a deal because after the fact they felt. Because I would ask, why did you pick us? And they'd go, well, after the sale, we felt you guys would provide us the best support.

And it was all because of the fact that I sent out the thank you letter to Jim that's on the shop floor.

Braydan Young: 00:22:25

Yep.

Freddy D: 00:22:25

Which nobody ever recognizes Jim. And all of a sudden he gets a letter saying, hey, Jim, really appreciate your time. He feels like a rock star.

And then when they got everybody in the vote, they says, man, I love these guys. Deal's done.

Braydan Young: 00:22:38

The handwritten note is one of the most underused things I would say in the business world today. There's a company that used us, a particular sales rep that when he lost a deal, he would send a note two or three weeks after like closed loss.

And the note would Be like, hey, sorry it didn't work out. Would love to stay in touch, like, good luck implementing.

But it would hit right when they were implementing that software that they chose over them and they'd be going through the pain and being, oh, maybe we made an error. We shouldn't have gone. But the other guy was checking on the other guy.

He would save deals from that sometimes, which is such a brilliant move around. And it was an automation. It was an automatic note. It took two seconds and it was.

Freddy D: 00:23:16

Yeah, I've done that many times. Thank you for the opportunity. Sorry at this point in time. It's an old Tom Hopkins tactic.

Braydan Young: 00:23:22

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:23:23

Just sorry that the opportunity didn't work out at this particular time. Let's stay in contact. And people would sometimes refer me somebody three, four, five months because of the fact that I handled it eloquently.

And they'd say, hey, you need to talk to us, because they've got something that you could utilize. What we had wasn't for that particular customer, but it was for somebody else. Good work.

Braydan Young: 00:23:49

Yeah.

Braydan Young: 00:23:49

We've seen so much gifting take place where they send a gift when the renewal is approaching and they send the gift to the person that signed the contract, not the users, which is like the example you just gave with the shop floor person that running the actual tool, they would totally ignore that person. It's a huge mistake, Huge error.

Freddy D: 00:24:08

Because when I was managing 60 resellers around the world, these are independent distributors that can rep multitude of different products. And so how did I get Mind share? Most people will recognize the distributor agency. Thank you so much for your sales and everything else.

I did one step different. I recognized the agency, but I also recognized the sales individual and a tech guy that collectively helps sell the most of our product.

So now that got everybody in that agency motivated because, wow. Everybody else is just recognizing the agency. Freddy D. Comes along and recognizes the individual as well.

I got everybody started to be, hey, I want to start promoting this product.

Braydan Young: 00:24:55

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:24:55

So you're exactly right. The users is the most important people. That's the front line.

Braydan Young: 00:25:00

Yeah.

Braydan Young: 00:25:01

When someone comes in, hey, do we want to keep this tool anymore? Like, yeah, we do. Because it's important to me. You get axed real quick if those guys don't recognize you.

Braydan Young: 00:25:09

Right.

Freddy D: 00:25:10

So, yeah, huge mistake. So one of the things I always say is the little things are really the big things.

Braydan Young: 00:25:16

Yeah, I agree.

Freddy D: 00:25:17

And that's a little thing is to recognize the users. But in the end of the day, it's really a big thing because they're going to pull the users and say, what do you think of this technology?

Should we look at something else? Or whatever. And if you don't have those guys as super fans of your company, you're out.

Braydan Young: 00:25:36

Yeah.

Braydan Young: 00:25:37

So I mean like that's what we're doing. It's been cool to build. Building software is a lot different now than I would say like even 10 years ago.

So it's been fun learnings in terms of people are much more cautious of like software offer purchasing right now. So we've learned a lot about that. And so I think that will fit in nicely to that, to helping people do back channels.

Braydan Young: 00:25:54

Sure.

Freddy D: 00:25:54

And the other thing is that I always tell people, and I'm sure you'll agree, is that getting the deal isn't the deal. That's just the paperwork.

Braydan Young: 00:26:02

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:26:02

It's the whole everything that happens after the paperwork or the signing up online and that's one of the things I just don't understand is you go onto a platform, you sign up, you try it, you don't hear anything from anybody.

Braydan Young: 00:26:16

You get an email in a couple weeks saying, come on back to us. I've never talked to the PLG Land Expand model is an interesting one. I agree.

Braydan Young: 00:26:23

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:26:24

It's crazy because you're not keeping me around and me being in the software industry for decades, I toss software out like, just like that. It doesn't work too well. I can't figure it out fast enough. It's gone.

Braydan Young: 00:26:35

I forget what the number is, but I think you have 20 minutes and it doesn't really, especially with sales. If you mess up with sales once, trying to get back in there, never work again and have them use it again is very rare. You get one time and that's it.

Which is interesting.

Braydan Young: 00:26:50

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:26:50

One of the things I tell people when I do some coaching is that a lead comes in, you got a 15 minute window.

Braydan Young: 00:26:56

Yep.

Braydan Young: 00:26:57

I agree.

Freddy D: 00:26:58

A 15 minute. And I always prided myself as being the first guy to call because they'd be. Most of the times people be like, wow, I just submitted it.

Braydan Young: 00:27:08

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:27:08

Since I got it and I'm calling you and it'd be wow. And being the first guy in sales and you understand I can set the bar.

Braydan Young: 00:27:17

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:27:18

And I could put it up high enough that there's nobody that can come up to it. And most of the time I close the deal on the spot because of the fact that I'm the first guy talking.

Braydan Young: 00:27:27

That's honestly a lot of what it is like just being this responding. That's across most of sales, having good support and responding is 90% of the problem.

If your software works and functions and solves the problem you say it's going to do and you actually have a good clean sales process that's fast, you're going to have success now.

Now with all the creation of the millions of AI companies that are out there that are growing via plg, sign up and figure it out on your own thing, I think those are fine. You still need sales to help expand those deals and I think you still going to have to have a demo process at some point.

And I also think those products are scary because I think there's a lot of companies raising a lot of money and everyone's sprinting towards the brick wall right now and one will make it and one won't and it's going to be interesting to see it. I don't think the old model of sales goes anywhere.

I think maybe you can get your foot in the door of a million companies, but to expand those deals and to stick around for three or four years I think is the hard part.

Freddy D: 00:28:21

I would agree, I would agree with that because technology is changing so fast today as well and so companies are going to keep up with the tech.

And I look back at over the years, companies have fell by the wayside because they weren't keeping up with the technology and pivoting when they needed to pivot. And then all of a sudden they got stuck with rope around their ankles and they just did a face plant.

Braydan Young: 00:28:49

I think there's so many companies too that start. So I have so many buddies in startups that want to build like a company that goes from 0 to 100 million in a year, which I think is a good ambition.

But that's kind of the exception. There's like building a good company that grows slowly and has a good customer base and you solve a problem that's out there.

That's a real complicated problem to solve. I think it's still a success story.

I think that building the company that goes from 0 to 400 million in six months is great, but there's not many of those.

I think though, it's good to keep in mind when I talk to founders who are like, yeah, we're going to build this thing, all these customers will come in. Well, it's not really the way that it works. Yes, I know that it's worked for some, but I don't think you're figma. I don't think you're cursor.

I think that just Takes time to build sometimes.

Freddy D: 00:29:30

.: 0001

Braydan Young: 00:29:42

Yeah, incredibly fast. Like it's all the same people though that were in the role like 10 years ago. Everyone just happens to be at like now a higher level role.

So I'm selling all the same folks. I sold send DOSA too. So it's interesting to hear how what their initiatives are.

Everyone has initiatives to figure out AI, but I don't know where all that goes. So I think doing a traditional sales model is so important.

Freddy D: 00:30:06

I would agree. Because people still buy from people that they like and trust.

And what you've done with Slash Expert is given the ability for people to trust the people that they're dealing with because they got social proof in a unique way, which is they can actually contact an individual to get that social proof.

Braydan Young: 00:30:27

Yeah, exactly.

Freddy D: 00:30:28

And that's a really cool idea that you guys are put together and I really believe it's going to take off in a good great way.

Braydan Young: 00:30:37

Thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:30:40

Because it's just a fact of being able to see. We mentioned earlier that I can see two or three people that I know that happen to be using X product.

I may reach out to them just to say hi because I haven't talked to them in a while and that'll come up in a conversation. But the fact that I saw three of my people that I know using this particular platform, I'm in.

Braydan Young: 00:31:00

Yeah, right.

Braydan Young: 00:31:01

That's the goal.

Freddy D: 00:31:02

I mean it's not that complicated.

Braydan Young: 00:31:03

It's a very easy demo, which is the greatest part about it. It's like a five minute walkthrough.

Freddy D: 00:31:07

Right. Is there a fee for it? How does that work?

Braydan Young: 00:31:09

Yeah, we charge. There's a fee on both sides. So we charge a SaaS fee ranges from 500 to 3,000 bucks a month. It's a monthly fee. Right now we know folks to do pilots.

It's fine with us. Try it for a couple months and see how it goes. Eventually that fee will be annual, but like it's monthly right now because we're new.

And then if a call takes place and that call, let's say you're paying the expert 100 bucks to say, hey, thanks for doing the phone call. Here's $100 DoorDash card or whatever, we'll charge a 20% fee on top of that.

And so there's Another model for us being like, hey, here's 20% like back to us. There's. It's kind of like a two lever sales approach for your sales folks listening to this. If you pay a larger SaaS fee, that 20% could be 5%.

If you pay a larger fee on a call then the SaaS fee will go lower. So we're trying to figure out what the best model of mix is there. I think consumption with SaaS is the future in SaaS around.

I just think that works better especially as folks are trying a new model for sure.

Freddy D: 00:32:07

It's an interesting approach. Yeah, it's not something I've ever heard of before, so I like the idea.

Braydan Young: 00:32:13

Thanks.

Freddy D: 00:32:14

Yeah, it's got some wheels to it. So that's kind of cool.

Any other stories that you want to share of how the platform's kind of and I know it's relatively still new, but any other stories you want to share with us?

Braydan Young: 00:32:24

Yeah, I think some cool insights I've seen folks use with the tool itself is so we have all these call recordings and I know I've been talking about AI for a while. So these call recordings of the customer talking to your prospect are really valuable.

And so we've been starting to pull insights from those call recordings, give them back to you. So we're talking about testimonials and like those are, we can pull testimonials from that.

We can help like edit and create content for case studies from those phone calls.

And so that'll be a big use case for us is actually using that data from those calls and plugging them into a tool to be like hey, here's a cool little breakdown of how your customers talking about your own products. So I think that'll be huge for us. The other one is like helping identify experts has been probably the biggest hurdle for us for companies.

And so as we ingest reviews as we look at your CRM, we can only get better at that. And the reason we're trying to do that is so we can suggest someone that the person should talk to.

So if you for example go look at X software and you're like oh, look at their expert page page and be like hey Freddie, we know you know Jim, because you guys are connected on LinkedIn, here's the person you should talk to. That's the goal we should get to is get it very customizable, almost an account based marketing approach trying to book a time with somebody.

So just kind of like iterations where we can take this for marketing. I think you can apply the same to sales. Like sales, we should make it easy for them to send links for folks to be able to book calls for prospects.

So I think, like, we'll get better there, just make it more refined and make it easier to use. And there's been some fun learnings over the past couple months, for sure.

Freddy D: 00:34:02

All right, I can imagine.

Because you're putting it out as fast as you can put it out, and the ideas are flowing in, and so trying to get those ideas out the door as fast as you can, that's.

Braydan Young: 00:34:14

The fun part, for sure.

Freddy D: 00:34:15

Sure. It's always been a fun part.

Braydan Young: 00:34:17

Yeah, exactly.

Freddy D: 00:34:19

That's the whole fun of being in the software business, coming up with some cool ideas and then getting them out the door and then getting people to utilize it.

Braydan Young: 00:34:27

And then when folks use it, you're like, I didn't think about that use case or should have thought about that button. That button doesn't do exactly what it's supposed to do, which you learn real quick.

Braydan Young: 00:34:35

Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:34:35

You want to make sure that the developers aren't in a vacuum because they may turn around and says, look, it works. Yeah, but I gotta make 10 clicks. Yeah, you wanted it to do this stuff.

Braydan Young: 00:34:46

This is the way you wrote the wireframe. Yeah, but it doesn't make any sense now that you actually built it.

Freddy D: 00:34:50

Exactly. So I want to just do one click.

Braydan Young: 00:34:53

Yep.

Freddy D: 00:34:54

Yeah. So anyway, Braden, as we kind of get close to the end here, how can people find slash expert?

Braydan Young: 00:35:01

Yeah. Reach out to me. I'm the only Braden Young on all of LinkedIn.

My parents were creative with the spelling of my name, so B R A Y D A N. So it's creative. So Millie went on there. So reach out to me on LinkedIn or go to/experts.com as well. That's another spot to check us out.

And we're small right now, so if you want me to give you a walkthrough, happy to see how it could apply to you. Maybe you have some insights we can add to it. Awesome. Let me know. But, yeah, I think for us, we're in the learning stage.

We're trying to figure out where we can take this. And please reach out.

Freddy D: 00:35:34

Yeah, we'll make sure that that's in the show notes for our listeners. Thank you so much for your time. Great conversation. You and I could talk software for days.

Braydan Young: 00:35:42

Yeah, we stayed away from a lot of the AI stuff, so I think it's a whole other path we could take next time.

Braydan Young: 00:35:46

Yep. Yeah.

Freddy D: 00:35:47

Well, we'd love to have you on the show again down the road. Awesome and thanks so much.

Braydan Young: 00:35:52

Thanks.

Freddy D: 00:35:53

That's a wrap for today's episode of the Business Superfans Podcast. Today's pillar was nurture building lasting relationships with customers, partners and team members that fuel long term success.

Braden Young reminded us that the real magic happens when you recognize and engage people who actually use your product. From the decision makers to the shop floor champions, here's your challenge this week.

Reach out to one person who plays a hands on role with your product or service, not just a buyer, and thank them personally. Do this and you'll spark loyalty that lasts and turn a quiet user into a vocal advocate.

And remember, one action, one stakeholder, one super fan closer. Until next time, keep building your business super fans.

Outro: 00:37:02

We hope you took away some useful knowledge from today's episode of the Business Superfans Podcast. The path to success relies on taking action. So go over to businesssuperfans.com and get your hands on the book.

If you haven't already, join the exclusive accelerator community and take that first step in generating a team of passionate supporters for your business. Join us on the next episode as we continue guiding you on your journey to achieve flourishing success in business.