Hey friends!
It's almost 5AM EST my time, but we have officially posted Pitchfire on ProductHunt. If you would like to support us, please go check out our post.
Let me dive into why we build Pitchfire.
We’re on a mission to replace cold prospecting. It’s a hard mission… it’s ambitious.
However, in the words of Doctor Emmet Brown, “if our calculations are correct, when Pitchfire hits 88 miles per hour, we’re going to see some serious shit.”
Let me tell you why we are doing this wild experiment…. why we’re trying to replace cold prospecting…
🔥 Cold calls, email, and Linkedin DMs are annoying, and actually hurt productivity.
We don’t like them and salespeople wish they didn’t have to do them. That’s the truth.
It also doesn’t work as well as it used to… so over the past decade, sales teams buy sales engagement platforms, get your contact data from one of the 220 sales intelligence providers, and blast away even more calls, emails, and LinkedIn DMs.
98% will reach out to you more than once.
We get prospected an average of 800 times a year. There will be 647 billion attempts by sales people this year to get a buyers attention.
🔥 The average decision maker who is actually buying and using products isn't some suit riding helicopters into work everyday… carrying a briefcase full of money, blasting Yacht rock (Note: I may be describing a typical 80s bad guys, but you get my point right?)
It's normal people who make less than $80k a year. On average, they usually have over $90k in personal debt. That's excluding mortgages/rent too!
While that’s happening, the average enterprise B2B company spends between marketing, sales tech, advertising, and data… more than $3500 to get a meeting with a prospect.
🔥 The B2B companies we all work for are supposed to get 40-50% of their revenue from cold prospecting, but it only works .4% of the time.
60% of teams will miss their revenue goals, and almost half of that number is supposed to come from outbound prospecting.
And this is one of the main causes of our tech economy struggling. Our second biggest source for revenue likely won’t exist in 10 years, and buyers are paying the price with more disruptions from sales people than ever.
Pitchfire is all about connecting buyers and sellers together in a safe way that is mutually beneficial for the buyer, the seller, and the companies they work for.
It’s a place where sales pitches are welcomed because buyers are compensated to give them attention and answer them.
🔥 You get extra income for your attention.
We estimate an average user could potentially make 5-10% of the annual salary each year using Pitchfire.
“Wait isn’t this a bribe?…how is this not corruption?”
Buyers aren't influenced by money here.
They get paid the SAME amount of money for saying they are interested as they do for saying they aren’t interested. We just ask that you give the sales person a little clarity on why you don’t want to talk to them.
🔥 Sellers get their time back.
We’re trying to build a highway for sales. Most sellers are using the backroads, and if we add an interstate with tolls, the times savings are huge. We’re talking multiple days back per week.
98% of sales reps will reach out to a prospect more than once. If every prospect responded back to sales people, imagine what they could do with the time they get back.
Telling a seller why you aren’t interested is the second most valuable response they can get.
This saves them time, and allows them to get actual answers from prospects, with no follow up necessary.
Now they can focus on a better account on their target account list, instead of chasing waterfalls.
The higher they bid to get buyer to respond, the higher probability the prospect answers the pitch.
When a buyer indicates they are interested, we show mutually available times via both parties’ calendars, making booking a meeting easy.
We prioritize pitches by the dollar amount offered, and also allow sellers to find new prospects in the buyer marketplace.
🔥 Company's employees reduce 90% of interruptions from sellers, while helping their employees earn extra income.
After time, an employee’s attention is the most precious asset. We estimate that for every 1000 employees at a company, they'll lose $1.4M in lost wages from disruptions from sales people.
When an employee uses our Gmail plugin, it replies back, forcing most sales automation platforms into pulling the buyer out of the automated sequence or cadence.
This becomes a company wide policy for dealing with cold outreach, and helps employees earn income with no conflict of interests.
So..that’s the backstory and how we view the market right now.
If you want to help us with this experiment, this is some of the data we will look at to learn about the human element…
🔥 What is the conversion rate of a salesperson submitting a pitch when they are sent to it via the Gmail Plugin?
🔥 How much are sellers willing to offer to get their pitch reviewed and answered?
🔥 What percentage of sales pitches do buyers accept?
🔥 If a whole team uses Pitchfire, how much does the conversion rate of a seller putting a credit card in increase?
🔥Who gets prospected the most?
🔥 How much does Pitchfire reduce cold calls and LinkedIn DMs?
This is better than ignoring or occasionally answering cold prospecting. Help us take marketing dollars and give back to people.
Ryan O'Hara is the founder of Pitchfire. Prior to starting Pitchfire, he has been an early employee at several startups helping them with marketing and prospecting tactics including Dyn (Acquired by Oracle 2016) and LeadIQ (first GTM employee-Series B).
He's had prospecting and marketing campaigns featured in Fortune, Mashable, and TheNextWeb. Ryan specializes in go-to-market strategy, branding, business development, prospecting, and sales training. He also mentors two accelerators, The Iron Yard and The Alpha Loft.
