Max London is the co-founder at Contact Bird, a high growth lead generation SaaS company. For the past 7 years + Max's focus has been marketing and sales for Ecom, Saas, and B2B businesses. In this episode we discuss his viral moment on TikTok, his Twitter growth strategy, personalizing DMs in mass, taking Twitter seriously, the origin story of Contact Bird, prospecting on Twitter, creating variations of the same ideas, why people pay for meetings, and much more.
Max London is the co-founder of Contact Bird, a tool that helps B2B offers build their pipeline through Twitter DMs. According to Max, Twitter DMs have a high response rate, allowing users to talk with decision-makers with less effort than traditional channels.
CHAPTERS
[00:00:00] Intro.
[00:01:09] Viral TikTok moment.
[00:03:33] Twitter account prediction.
[00:04:44] Taking Twitter seriously.
[00:10:12] Coming across Michael Gardiner
[00:11:19] Twitter growth strategy.
[00:14:33] Variation of the same ideas.
[00:16:30] Origin Story of Contact Bird.
[00:20:55] Prospecting on Twitter.
[00:22:22] Running agency throughout college.
[00:23:24] Cold DM scripting and strategy.
[00:27:05] Personalizing DMs in mass.
[00:28:14] Getting Customers for Contact Bird.
[00:32:04] Sending links on the first message.
[00:36:11] Mastery and weak links on Twitter and SaaS.
[00:39:37] Contact Bird success story.
[00:41:24] Learning from followers.
[00:44:34] Philosophy on competition.
[00:47:22] Personal and business vision.
[00:54:09] Business to go from zero to thousands in the bank.
[00:56:31] Why do people pay for meetings?
[00:58:35] Future of The Louis and Kyle Show.
[01:07:13] Three outtakes.
Connect with Max.
Check out Contact Bird.
Resources Mentioned in The Episode:
Help The Louis and Kyle Show:
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Connect with Louis and Kyle:
[00:00:00] Louis: Hello, and welcome to another fun episode of the Louis and Kyle Show. Today I sit down with Max London, the co-founder at Contact Bird, a tool that helps anyone automate their Twitter dms to get high quality leads and find new customers using what Max believes is a highly underutilized channel to send messages.
In this conversation, we talk about Max's backstory. From going from a viral TikTok content creator to a Twitter lead generation business to business type agency, and now turning that into the SaaS platform of Contact Bird and his vision for the future. There we discussed the challenges and opportunities people have when using Twitter Cold Dms to find new customers for their business.
We discussed how Max went viral on Twitter so quickly, and of course, as always, we discuss a whole lot more. I'm excited for you to listen to this conversation and I'm gonna switch over to it now. Enjoy.
Max. We are about to have a fun conversation. Thanks for being on the show.
[00:00:50] Max: I'm super excited to be here, dude. I know we've talked a little bit in the Dms. We also have talked before this, so I think this will be a fun hangout session.
[00:00:58] Louis: Oh, absolutely. Why was it not until this morning that I knew you had a TikTok account. How'd I only find that out today?
[00:01:06] Max: Yeah, dude. So I actually back in 2020...
[00:01:09] Louis: A big to talk account. I'd say as well.
[00:01:12] Max: Yeah, I think and slept on too. It's a sleeping giant right now. So I, in 2020, I'm a huge book nerd. We were just talking about his books in the back, but I used to read a shit ton of personal finance books and still do the, to this day I love, personal finance stuff and I was like, yeah, none of my friends like personal finance, like no one likes, the investing strategy, saving money, all this type of stuff. And I was like, I think this is super interesting.
So I just made a TikTok account about it back in December of 2020, I'm pretty sure. And this was when I was working, I had an agency at that time. But I was in Nashville and I was working for a startup FinTech company as an SDR, and I started that account on Monday and on Friday the account had 40,000 followers.
[00:01:56] Louis: Whoa.
[00:01:56] Max: I posted like a TikTok on there and it went stupid, and I was like, holy shit. Other people care about this too. This is wild. So I pushed that account for about a year or so, a year and a half maybe. And then I've really just slept on it since then. I've fall in love with the Twitter game, man.
It's just like way more rewarding. I feel like the connections that I get there, like I get to meet people like you, like I get to connect with people that are, I don't know, maybe on the same path as I am. And TikTok is more of just a grab bag of things and...
[00:02:27] Louis: Sure.
[00:02:28] Max: Also, I just, it was all for fun. I think I maybe made $10,000 from that account maybe like off of sponsorship sponsorships, probably around 10 K. And you would think you would make way more with 30,000, or, sorry, 350,000 followers, but, I don't know if it's just a platform or, the sponsorships I was getting and stuff like that, but I was just like, eh, it really wasn't tickling my fancy anymore, so haven't been pushing it that hard now. That's funny that you found that though.
[00:02:53] Louis: I was looking at your YouTube channel, as well.
[00:02:57] Max: Yes.
[00:02:57] Louis: Cause I was trying to find some previous podcasts you've been on to listen to, just to do research. And I'm like, okay, 5K is not an insignificant amount of YouTube subscribers either.
[00:03:05] Max: Yes.
[00:03:05] Louis: And then I think there was like a, I don't totally know what what gave it away. I think there was just like a link one of the episodes in your show to, you're like, follow me on TikTok. And I'm like...
[00:03:16] Max: Yep.
[00:03:17] Louis: Follow him on TikTok. All right.
[00:03:18] Max: You're like, hold up.
[00:03:19] Louis: Alright so right now you've, you just hit 7 K followers on Twitter pretty recently.
[00:03:23] Max: Crazy.
[00:03:25] Louis: It takes me, I'm not the fastest podcast publisher. I'll probably be a solid four weeks at least to get this.
[00:03:31] Max: That's fine. That's fine.
[00:03:32] Louis: What's the prediction for four weeks from now?
[00:03:35] Max: Four weeks from now...
[00:03:36] Louis: 10 K , 10 K..
[00:03:37] Max: Current rate...
[00:03:37] Louis: Before this is published?
[00:03:38] Max: Man. That would be great. I think 10 K would be beautiful. I'm just floored by how quickly my Twitter account has taken off in my opinion.
Obviously I know some accounts, like there's much bigger accounts to myself, but just seeing kind of the Twitter growth as is 10 K would be amazing. I would be ecstatic. I really started taking Twitter seriously maybe four months ago. Besides that, I was all on TikTok, like you've seen TikTok, YouTube, really pushing that.
And I just didn't like Twitter. Like I was just not a fan of Twitter. I pushed it hard probably back in 2014 to 2016 and then just gave up, was like, yeah, I was just messing with my friends. I never used it for business.
And then yeah I just jumped back in the game and started taking traction. So hopefully in four weeks soon, if we were at 10 K, I would be the happiest camper alive if we're there.
[00:04:29] Louis: Alrighty. The people listening to this will know. Maybe I'll wait four weeks to record the introduction.
[00:04:35] Max: Yes.
[00:04:35] Louis: So I can have some some cheating with some context. The benefit would be of making content asynchronously.
[00:04:42] Max: Yes.
[00:04:43] Louis: Why are you taking Twitter so seriously? What changed? What did you realize that you're like, damn, Twitter's I'm a young guy, I'm trying to make money. It is worth it to spend a lot of time on Twitter. Why?
[00:04:52] Max: Yes. Great, great question. So four months ago I think it was, yeah, God that's flown by. Four months ago, I was still in the agency space. When I was in Nashville, I was doing a bunch of real estate, like flipping houses, wholesaling, buying rentals, and that type of thing.
Still have my agency though, just to pay for my life and stuff like that.
[00:05:13] Louis: What did the agency do?
[00:05:15] Max: So I started my agency back actually in 2017 is when I opened up the LLC. So I've been in the agency space for a while now. Had a hybrid of an agency and an e-com store. At the same time. I didn't realize it was an agency, but I was like helping other people and they would pay me, a monthly retainer for that.
And I had an e-com store at the time. So I was doing both actually at the same time. So it was more of a creative agency of anything where I was just helping brands grow. The problem I saw with that was like scalability and all these different types of things.
But to answer your question about Twitter was, I wanted to scale my agency more. It was like right around, I think 18 K MRR at this point of when I wanted to touch Twitter and I actually saw a video by Michael Gardiner I'm not sure if you are familiar with Michael Gardiner. He's super, super smart guy.
He's in the email marketing space. Someone I look up to a ton and have had the privilege to talk with him on a couple of different times. But super smart guy. And he was on a podcast and he was talking about Twitter, like so much. He's I'm landing probably 10 to 15 calls a month off of Twitter alone.
And I'm like, damn. I did not even think I could make money on Twitter, which is just again, just talking about my TikTok. I know how to do TikTok. I know how to do Instagram. I had an agency focusing on Instagram and TikTok...
[00:06:35] Louis: I don't even follow your instagram yet either. I gotta take care of that after this too.
Check out.
[00:06:39] Max: Yeah, dude. My Instagram page. Actually, my personal one's low key. I like to just keep it like, just kind of stuff that I like
[00:06:46] Louis: Personal.
[00:06:46] Max: But
[00:06:46] Louis: Yeah.
[00:06:47] Max: I had five clients on Instagram that I grew from zero to around an average of probably 150,000 followers on each of these accounts.
So that was what my agency was based on, but I was struggling with scaling it. And like I mentioned before, I know we're going out of, chronological order of the origin story doesn't chronological order. Yeah. Hopefully people are getting it.
But since I was in the SDR world for startups, FinTech company, in the SAS world, I was like, all right, I know how to book meetings for people. I know how to connect businesses from one to the next, I'm gonna start following what Michael Gardiner's doing. Cuz he was saying like his business at the time, I think they were right around 40 K MRR and I was like, I kept hitting a ceiling right around 20 K MRR cuz I had all these different types of companies and they had so much variability.
It was like, there was no blueprint, there was no scale, there's no SOPs or anything like that. So it's damn, I really need to get something more scalable. That's what I kept running into that problem of scaling. So that opened my eyes to Twitter and I I switched more to a B2B offer, still have my creative agency, but I was like, let me just test the waters here.
I booked a meeting I think like maybe day four or five being on Twitter and I was like, holy shit, this is...
[00:08:01] Louis: And what was the offer?
[00:08:03] Max: So this was B2B Legion. This was B2B Legion for agencies, startups that had some form of backing, some sort of funding. Behind them or some SaaS companies too. We had one SaaS client, but I was like, I know I can do this cuz I've come from the SDR place. I was a sales lead. I knew how to do all of that type of thing. So I was like, damn, people were getting paid, 100, 200. Some of my clients were paying me 300, $400 a meeting.
So I was like, I'm double downing on this. And as soon as I got an offer or not an offer, a meeting there, closed the first meeting. By luck I didn't even know what my offer was on the meeting. But locked in that and I was like, I've sold on Twitter ever since then. Just the caliber of people, the people that are driven on there, the community that's on there.
[00:08:45] Louis: So was four months ago, or? That was a while ago.
[00:08:48] Max: My B2B legion like agency was three and a half months ago is when I started that.
[00:08:54] Louis: Wow.
[00:08:54] Max: But the creative agency, I had that for, fuck man, from 2017 on, so 2017 and I had a job then too, so I took it less seriously when I had a job cuz I was like, oh, let's see what this is about. And I was like, yeah, no way. I'm built for this.
[00:09:08] Louis: Yeah.
[00:09:08] Max: Like I really wanted to scale much faster and then started making more with my marketing and I was like, yeah, I'm dipping out of this. And just started taking on more clients there.
So the evolution, just to recap, was started an agency started getting in kind of the marketing space back in 2016. 2017 is when I opened up the LLC. Had an e-com store, realized it's going to be very hard to make six and seven figures selling, $15 profit shirts. So I was like, yeah I'm not gonna be doing this for too much longer. But a lot of people were hitting me up to help them out with growing a social media.
Fell into the agency world, I didn't even know that was the agency world. Just started picking up some clients doing that. Realized that wasn't scalable cuz there's too much variety and the blueprint wasn't there really, is what it comes down to.
And then during that time I was an SDR sales lead, really transitioned over back into the agency space and then went B2B. Then from the B2B we went into Contact Bird after that. So that's the...
[00:10:04] Louis: Okay.
[00:10:05] Max: The evolution. Just to sum up everything, I know we bounced around there, but hopefully people could grasp that.
[00:10:11] Louis: How did you first find Michael Gardiner?
[00:10:14] Max: So he was actually on Iman's channel probably two years ago. Was the first time that I saw him.
[00:10:24] Louis: So Iman just interviewed him? Iman Gadzhi?
[00:10:26] Max: Yeah. He's Michael's actually an Apex coach now. So he's
[00:10:31] Louis: What's Apex?
[00:10:32] Max: He's evolved. Iman has grow your agency and then he's got Apex on top of that too.
[00:10:36] Louis: Okay.
[00:10:36] Max: Apex is like the next step after that and Michael's a coach in there. I've seen him pop around on Iman's page I think a couple of times and I watched one of his interviews then and then he popped up as a suggested video and then I clicked on that and he was talking with Nils from instantly.
[00:10:52] Louis: Yeah.
[00:10:52] Max: The founder of Instantly. And then they were just shooting the shit there and I was like, dang, Michael's a super legit doom and then dove into all of his content there. So honestly, just by the blessing of the YouTube algorithm, gods just saying here's Michael Gardiner. And then I was like, dang, this is something.
And literally day one, like as soon as I saw that, I just dove headfirst into it. I'm like, I know I can do B2B Legion, I just need to be posting on Twitter like a madman. So that's the evolution there.
[00:11:19] Louis: What's been your growth strategy on Twitter?
[00:11:22] Max: Great question. So in the beginning was an absolute shotgun, just try anything post like a man. And then I,
[00:11:29] Louis: Am still there.
[00:11:30] Max: Talked to, right?
[00:11:31] Louis: Am still there.
[00:11:32] Max: Dude, that's how I figured it out. And then I talked to some people in the ghost writing space, like who had seven figure ghost writing agencies and the blueprint that I use, and by all means steal this. Anyone that's listening to this run with this.
I do five tweets a day, like five short little tweets, little pieces of value. Five of those a day. Then I do two to three threads every single week. One to four DM posts on top of that. So that's the triple threat option that I'm running right now. For people that do not know what a DM post is, basically it's like you make something valuable, whether it's a pdf, a loom video or some sort of resource.
And then you say retweet or comment this, that and the other, and then I'll give it to you for free. And then use Hype Fury or Tweet Hunter to basically automatically send it to them.
So that combination of those three things, I find the DM post is like the cast net going out there, getting a new audience in the threads are let's dive into a subject where they you might have some authority behind it, you might be able to show a little testimonial. That's like authority building.
And then the little bits and pieces of value is like okay, I see him every single day. It's at the top of mind. Now if I ever needed this, that, and the other from this person, I'm going to that person cuz they're always on my timeline. So that's the blueprint that I've been running with.
I might switch it up later down the road. I haven't been doing as many DM posts right now. Basically that's the exact blueprint of, what I've been running from, and that's scaled me from, in three months from I think 300 followers I had to now 7,000 that we just hit now, hopefully 10,000 by the time this launches.
[00:13:06] Louis: Hell yeah. There's probably a lot more I can ask you about like Twitter strategy and are you writing. Everything one day per week and just scheduling it for the next seven days. Are you waking up every morning at six and just Twitter mode? Where you at?
[00:13:18] Max: These are great questions. So I actually I'm way too busy to do all of this on my own. I actually had a full-time copywriter helping me with my B2B legion agency. Now he's just more one of my friends, and we just bounce ideas off of each other. So we have like sessions where we brainstorm basically and front load and leverage everything in that time. So it's like, all right, let's like grind this for an hour or two hours and then schedule everything out for the week.
So then we've leveraged that time where it's much easier to just get the creative juices flowing for me personally. Just to sit down for an hour or two, grind it all out, and then have it scheduled for that time than to just think of these things on the run. Because you're just so busy in your day-to-day where you just forget to, schedule or forget to post something. Or you might have a good idea and shit, I forgot that, that type of thing.
I like to leverage and schedule everything in an hour to two hour settings for at least three to seven days ahead of time. That's what I've found has worked for me. Some people might like to work more on the fly, but yeah that's what I've been running with.
But I have someone who's a much better writer than me that I get the ideas going and then we just brainstorm back and forth on what do you think? Like, how should I put this? That type of thing. And it's just made it way more polished. So I wish I could do it all by myself, but I do not have enough time to, come up with all of it on my own.
[00:14:29] Louis: One thing I think that you do really well is not repetition, but like repeating the same types of ideas over and over again. And I think that's something that's difficult for people to learn. It's like you can say the same thing over and over and over again. Do you have like a brand document where you're like referring these are like my five beliefs that I'm trying to like just exert into the world, cuz I feel like the premise of a lot of 'em are like, send a lot of cold dms, right?
[00:14:54] Max: Yes.
[00:14:54] Louis: But it's like you found a thousand ways to say that.
[00:14:56] Max: Yes. And it's not exactly, I wish I had a good, like a thing to say this is what I've been doing for that. The reason why I do that, I don't know how exactly we do it, but the reason why we do that is I just think about it like normal advertising. Like you might pass the same billboard a hundred times, but on that a hundred once time, now you're like, I actually do need that thing on the billboard. Or the same thing where it's like you see, maybe 5 to 10 different variations of commercials and by on the ninth variation, it then clicks there.
One of those commercials might be quote unquote better than the other ones. It's just the repetition of being at top of mind. So really you're right, it is very much like you're saying the exact same thing. It's a lot of people know if they work out and they eat right, they can get into shape.
But like to see a personal trainer say it a hundred times, and then on the hundredth one time it's okay, now I'm actually gonna do that. It's the constant being at the top of mind, just getting a little bit of attention every single time. And I don't know if it's this, the creativity of just what I've been seeing in the marketplace and I obviously have a lot of people I get to talk to about Dms, so I see a lot of different perspectives, so that can help me come up with multiple different things.
But you're right, we basically say the same thing, million different ways and try to keep it as interesting as possible. And then we'll sprinkle in some other things on top of it. But the reasoning why we do that is just to always be at the top of the mind when you see it on the timeline. I will start ripping dms today, not wait tomorrow, or just skip over it.
[00:16:27] Louis: Let's get into the meat of the conversation a little bit now. Contact Bird. How did Contact Bird come into existence?
[00:16:33] Max: Great question, and I think this is probably where people are gonna get the most amount of value. And maybe see a little bit of a glimpse behind building a SaaS. So Contact Bird of all places started from a cold dm, so it's like a perfect circle of life on where it started.
So this is when I still have my B2B Legion Agency. My now business partner, Steven, he reached out to me on a cold DM and was like, I'm a developer, I'm building. He actually already sold a SaaS by this time. Just, a smaller exit, more of an a micro exit, but for that matter still sold a SaaS
And he sent me this long ass spammy cold dm. And I remember just looking at it and it was like, I think 8.30 in the morning. And I looked at my girlfriend, I was like, should I jump on a meeting with this guy? I'm really tired. I don't know if I want to. And she was like, yeah, do it. You got nothing better else to do. I'm like, all right, I'm gonna go do it.
we jumped on a meeting and basically he was like, hey I'm building Saases. I wanna see if you can help me market it. I wanna see if you can help me connect B2B, basically pushing on my offer. And...
[00:17:35] Louis: Because...
[00:17:35] Max: I was like, yeah...
[00:17:36] Louis: You'd already been pushing on Twitter. I'm the guy for...
[00:17:39] Max: Exactly.
[00:17:40] Louis: B2B offers. I'm the guy ...
[00:17:42] Max: Exactly. So I was already positioning myself, I know how to do B2B. I was just chilling on Twitter, never posted anything, and he hit me up and was like, let's build a Saas together.
I was already posting stuff, B2B wise already on there, and then it was like, okay. I need help building my SaaSes. I can build them, but I'm just not good at marketing and connecting them with businesses. And I was like, let's just see where this goes.
I was very just ah, we'll see kind of, you probably won't, pay my offer. It was very high tickets. I was like, I just don't see, this working out. And sure enough, like we started, talking, sending voice messages, memos back and forth on WhatsApp.
And I was like, I will not do anything unless I'm jumping in with equity. That was just my...
[00:18:27] Louis: Yeah.
[00:18:27] Max: My one thing from the get, I was like, I don't wanna waste your time. I don't think, you want to pay the thousands of dollars for my offer, but I will jump in with equity. And then he was like, I'm down, let's do equity. And...
[00:18:38] Louis: Did he come to you with an idea or he just said, I wanna do a Saas vaguely related to your niche?
[00:18:43] Max: Both. So he already had the idea, he was already building something similar, like basically what we have today. He was already working on the idea of Contact Bird, and then when I jumped in, I just had the product market fit in mind where I was like, I'm booking meetings right now with, cold dms.
Let's work together and like really change this. But he laid the foundation like he was already working on an MVP and then he was like, I need help, like scaling this up to market after that. So he already was putting the pieces together, he just needed help, basically marketing it.
And then I saw, and I was like, dude, let's run with this and brand it as hard as possible as like the instantly, but for Twitter. And I told the instantly boys that's literally what we're doing. We're trying to make the instantly, but for Twitter and you don't have to pay for leads.
So that's like the approach that we came to. But it all came from a cold dm, which I think is like the proof is in the pudding right there. Like we are built on the foundation of how we started, of what we offer actually.
[00:19:37] Louis: So were you already sending a lot of cold dms before Contact Bird?
[00:19:41] Max: Good question. I was probably sending 10 to 20 a day and very high personalized. Like very sniper method. Not going shotgun spray and pray, but this is someone that I think I would be a good client. I'm gonna reach out to them.
So I was sending probably 10 to 20. And the problem was, is when I felt like it.
[00:19:59] Louis: Yeah.
[00:20:00] Max: So it's not, consistently 50 to a hundred a day. It was 10 to 20 when I felt like it, and I knew the success that was, I was already getting from it. So I was already sold on the product market fit. I was like, we need to sell it like this though.
So 10 to 20 a day and then, some days I might send 50 if I'm feeling crazy, but then there was a lot of days where I would just forget to send it because I had to do service fulfillment or I had to do something else that, was more priority on that day.
[00:20:24] Louis: Were you writing them yourself?
[00:20:25] Max: Yes, I was doing all them myself.
[00:20:28] Louis: Yes.
[00:20:28] Max: I had an inbox manager to help me out a little bit once the responses came in. But they were more helping inbox managing my emails and I was like, hey, can you just help me manage my Twitter? Like it's not that bad.
It's maybe five responses a day. But, it was all very personalized. A lot of time like trying to dig into something like I was like trying to have normal conversations. It took a ton of time outta my day, especially when you're trying to run an agency.
[00:20:55] Louis: How are you doing the prospecting?
[00:20:56] Max: Good question. So I would basically go to how I would prospect now, even using Contact Bird. But I would go to these accounts and I now call them Watering Holes, where you can find your Target ICP is surrounding, this watering hole or this person's account or profile and going through that and saying, okay, is this person qualified? Are they not qualified?
When I say sniper mode, like going in every single person...
[00:21:20] Louis: Clicking the profile.
[00:21:21] Max: Exactly like scanning it. Is this a legit person? Is it not a person? So I was going through accounts where I felt like my ICP was there. I just had to do more, digging to uncover these people.
But now, with Contact Bird, I just basically go the Chaka method, pull 'em all, and then just hit everybody in the entire industry. It's like our play now because we'll hit everyone at that point. But then I was going very surgically through thinking in my mind, would my offer resonate with them.
If it was yes, I put 'em on a Google Sheets and hit them. If it was no, I'd just skip 'em and go to the next person. Very time consuming though.
[00:21:54] Louis: We'll come back to some Contact questions in a second. You went to college, right? Did you go to college?
[00:21:58] Max: Yes, I went to university. Yeah.
[00:22:00] Louis: Okay.
[00:22:00] Max: Went to the business school in there too. Not for grad school.
[00:22:03] Louis: You went to, oh, you went to Georgia?
[00:22:04] Max: Wake Forest.
[00:22:05] Louis: Wake Forest, okay.
[00:22:05] Max: My family went to Georgia.
[00:22:06] Louis: Yeah. Okay.
[00:22:07] Max: My entire family went to Georgia. Huge Georgia Bulldog fan, so
[00:22:10] Louis: Okay.
[00:22:10] Max: Big Dub there this year. But yeah, I went to college
[00:22:13] Louis: And you went to Wake, we talked about that. And I sent you a picture of me there when I was like 16.
[00:22:17] Max: Exactly.
[00:22:19] Louis: That's funny. Okay. And so you were running your agency throughout college?
[00:22:24] Max: Yeah.
[00:22:25] Louis: Okay.
[00:22:25] Max: That's when I was still doing kind of the e-com agency hybrid. And I remember sitting in a business class like, like in marketing, if all places marketing. And I remember sitting in the class being like, this is so outdated, because I was running literally a marketing agency at the time, and I was like I don't think this person's ever run like a marketing agency.
So that's in my mind I was like, all right, I'm gonna double down on the thing that I know that's paying me now.
[00:22:51] Louis: Yeah.
[00:22:52] Max: But again, it was very much like when I had free time and I wasn't treating it like a full-blown business. Even starting it when I was, whatever, how many years ago that was whenever 2016, 2017 was, I was like, dang, this is paying me. I'm just gonna keep doing this. I didn't even think about scalability or anything like that. I was just like, I'm gonna continue this and try to get paid through college and just keep running through it then. But I had no plans with it.
[00:23:15] Louis: Sure.
[00:23:15] Max: I was like, I'm just gonna keep doing this cuz I was getting paid.
[00:23:18] Louis: Okay. I just wanted to ask this question. So I thought this would be helpful for some people and for me.
[00:23:22] Max: Yes.
[00:23:22] Louis: Let's talk about cold DM scripting and strategy now.
[00:23:26] Max: Beautiful.
[00:23:26] Louis: So who are the main people that you're trying to get to use contact with? I think I've come up with a somewhat novel use case. I've primarily been using it for content marketing.
[00:23:35] Max: Yes. I love that idea.
[00:23:37] Louis: So one example, I think , I shared this with you, but I'll share it again, is I wrote a tweet about Upwork, right? I wrote a thread that was like proposals I used on Upwork that led to booked appointments.
[00:23:53] Max: Yes.
[00:23:53] Louis: Like how do I...
[00:23:54] Max: Love that.
[00:23:54] Louis: Upwork proposal.
[00:23:55] Max: Love that.
[00:23:56] Louis: And scrapes thousands of people using contact word who follow Upwork. I said, I saw that you follow Upwork, so there's a decent chance you're also a freelancer. This is some copy that's worked for me recently and...
[00:24:06] Max: I love it.
[00:24:07] Louis: And that's just like nice building goodwill and like getting engagement for the thread as well.
And also just a lot of followers from that and people being like, this is nice. Thanks for sending this to me.
[00:24:16] Max: Yes. And you are a nominally, I can't even speak. You are someone who is very special in the case. They do not put two and two together where it's I'm gonna build goodwill.
The people that do by far the best on contact board are people with high ticket offers. So I'm not talking about I'm gonna sell, the $15 t-shirt like I was doing before, but selling a high ticket offer to someone and going in and not going for the sell off the bat.
I think I saw a tweet the other day, I can't remember who posted it, but it was like, the best way to sell is not to sell. And that is so true, especially when it comes to Twitter. Email and LinkedIn a little bit different, I'd say arena, it's just, a little bit more professional. Hit me with the offer and let's see if this works.
Twitter's let's be friends. Let's see if we can figure something out here and then let's move forward after that. A lot of people will, and I had a space this last night when we were talking about it there. We'll be like, hey man, I saw that you had a podcast. Like absolutely love this video with X, Y, Z. Anyways, I am this, that, and the other. Here's my life story. Here's my offer after this.
It's like a Harry Potter novel in your dms, just makes you wanna throw it to the trash. So if I'm giving any recommendations here, you have to come in like a real human being. Actually come in with some value and be like, hey, I saw your podcast curious, how many podcasts do you do a month? Oh, I do X. Then you start the conversation, you start talking after that, then they might start to pitch you short form content.
They might say, hey I didn't see you at a TikTok. Maybe they saw you were only doing YouTube shorts. Now they have some ammo to actually, use to pitch you to jump on a meeting to, close you through the dm.
So a lot of people go for the kill too early. When I see it on, the dms. I would say if you can stick to patience and try to take a two to seven day window of, I'm not gonna try to book for a go for a meeting here, but really just have a conversation in these two to seven days, you're gonna have a much better chance of getting these people onto a quick call because it's like the next step, hey, we've been talking in two to seven days. I'd love to just connect with you that way. So...
[00:26:12] Louis: We're like wasting our time by continuing to keep sending these long messages.
[00:26:15] Max: Exactly. It's the next human step, right? It's like you don't just off the first bat if you just met someone on the street, you get their phone number and you're like, hey, let's start FaceTiming every night.
They're gonna be like, dude, I literally just met you.
[00:26:26] Louis: Yeah.
[00:26:27] Max: But if it's like you're talking and back and forth and then you realize they're in this, you have some similarities. It's dude, let's jump on a call. I think maybe my business might work with your business. We might have some synergies, and if not, it's good to just connect.
So if you take that approach where you're not coming in like a needy person really trying to push for, please buy my offer, please buy my offer, you're gonna have a much better chance of booking these quote unquote meetings. And I even hate to call them meetings now, on Twitter just to chat.
Because it's just to chat. Like it's literally just to shoot the shit and jump on and be like, dude, this is what I do. I want to hear more about your business. Let's see how I can help you out. If you take that approach, you'll have way more success in the Twitter dms.
[00:27:05] Louis: How are you personalizing in mass, right? Because you're saying shock and approach, but you're also saying, come across and be personal. How are you doing that?
[00:27:14] Max: Good question. I actually think the best is a combination of two, if you have the time, but if you are doing mass kind of shotgun approach, it's not high personalization. Using their first name to catch their attention and then asking them a short question got an idea for you, got something you might like.
I think you'll love this talking like a human being where they're gonna say, yeah, hit me with it. And then the real personalization comes in the meat of the conversation where you guys are going back and forth. You maybe have an inbox manager doing that, maybe you still have time to do that. That's where the personalization of the human connection starts.
The first message doesn't have to be super personalized, it's just to get a response out of the person. As soon as you get the response out of the person, you can start working the conversation, asking questions there, and qualifying from that point on.
That's where I feel like people actually care, not necessarily on the first message. You don't have to come in and say, hey I know your grandmother, how's the weather down in, X, Y, or Z? It doesn't have to be that personalized, it just says, are they gonna respond or not? If the answer is yes, and then you start to work the lead after that
[00:28:13] Louis: How have you gotten customers for Contact Bird? I know how I found the platform, but I don't know if that's the same funnel everyone went through.
[00:28:19] Max: Yes. I would say at this point...
[00:28:22] Louis: The boy Luca found me, so
[00:28:23] Max: Yeah. Yeah, we have affiliates, which has been really helpful. I'd say 90% of our acquisitions have come through the dms in Twitter.
[00:28:33] Louis: Back to the rest, the good story, the full circle.
[00:28:37] Max: It's literally like when people ask do you have any case studies? Do you have any testimonies? It's yeah we actually do have that so we can send it to 'em. But it's like we're having a conversation right now. What else do you need? The conversation has started, this is a walking testimony.
[00:28:49] Louis: You're considering giving me money because I sent you a cold dm.
[00:28:53] Max: You will be able to do the same with someone else.
[00:28:55] Louis: Yes.
[00:28:55] Max: It's the exact same game. We're a walking testimony, like a walking case study because like they are basically seeing our message. We're having a conversation and now they're actually interested in our offer.
That I would say is we use Contact Bird to sell 90, 85% now cuz we're running ads and everything else on top of it now too. But it's also free acquisition cost to us cuz we own the platform and we can just run it from there.
[00:29:21] Louis: Yeah, it's okay for the...
[00:29:22] Max: Exactly. That's what we did for the first...
[00:29:24] Louis: You don't have to expense the contact for subscription.
[00:29:27] Max: I wish we could
[00:29:28] Louis: You got that coupon code.
[00:29:29] Max: Yeah. The SAS founder coupon code. But yeah, we really have acquired customers like practicing what we preach. But that still takes a lot of time. So we're trying to find a more scalable way. But we...
[00:29:42] Louis: Contact Bird was built for, first and foremost B2B offers, right?
[00:29:47] Max: Yes.
[00:29:47] Louis: Where you're gonna make LTV per deal. One to take thousand dollars, versus...
[00:29:52] Max: Exactly.
[00:29:53] Louis: You're gonna make 100, 150 a month from some people, but that's just requires 10 times as many people.
[00:29:59] Max: Exactly. And I highly recommend to everyone who, unless you are in the Saas game where you're building equity on the side, if you are not building equity, you need to be doing high ticket.
There's just no way around it these days. Like again, if we go back to the same model of I'm selling $10 profit t-shirts, you're gonna have to sell a lot of t-shirts to hit a hundred grand that year. If you're selling even a $2,000 service and like $2,000 a month and you close five people, it's only five people, you gotta make happy.
[00:30:27] Louis: Yep.
[00:30:27] Max: And convince 'em that your offer's worth it. So you're completely right. Contact Bird was built for that. Now we have some interesting case studies of people pushing for lower ticket offers, but it's always the start of the funnel. So it's a low ticket offer that they get on board, they build a relationship with those clients and...
[00:30:42] Louis: Get 'em on the email list. Yeah.
[00:30:44] Max: Bingo. Now you sell them the higher ticket thing a month, two months later down the line. I think even for you, with a podcast, like you might not be making any insane money from one viewer jumping on, but now they see your brand. Now they know who you are.
[00:30:57] Louis: They follow me.
[00:30:58] Max: Now they might just reach out to you. Exactly. Now, they might just reach out to you to connect, and then they might need a high ticket offer that you're selling on top of that too.
So It's really just to start the conversation. That's all Contact Bird is used for. Obviously since it's a numbers game, having a high ticket service on top of that just makes it a no-brainer after that point.
But any sort of outreaching or marketing, like we want to be the one stop shop, for Twitter.
[00:31:21] Louis: Yeah. I've been doing one where so I interviewed the founder of Swap Stack, which is like a newsletter ad marketplace for
[00:31:27] Max: Yes.
[00:31:27] Louis: Sub stacks.
[00:31:29] Max: Yes.
[00:31:29] Louis: And I Dmd everyone who follows Swap Stack the company's page, right?
[00:31:35] Max: Yes.
[00:31:36] Louis: Hey, I see you follow Swap Stack. I thought you might find this behind the scenes interview with the founder to be interesting.
[00:31:42] Max: Yes. I love that, like amazing targeting. Very related to, the people that are sitting in there like very very very relatable in the sense where it's like this is the next step to check out, what you're already following and you are just collateral cuz you just sent it to 'em and now they know you too. So it's like...
[00:32:00] Louis: Exactly.
[00:32:01] Max: It's an absolute no-brainer. That's great targeting on your part.
[00:32:04] Louis: What do you think about sending links and, cause I know if we go back to the email marketing world, right? You don't wanna send a link in your first called email cause deliverability and anti-spam.
[00:32:12] Max: Yes. Same thing.
[00:32:14] Louis: So yeah, that's what I've been struggling with that strategy.
[00:32:18] Max: Yes.
[00:32:19] Louis: I could just rephrase it I guess. Would you be interested in watching this interview? It's not quite as it just, hey, literally here's the interview. But
[00:32:28] Max: Right. It's...
[00:32:29] Louis: I wanted to ask you about that.
[00:32:31] Max: It's a good question. I actually treat it the same as email. If I see a link in there, and for you have a legit page. So people look at your page,
[00:32:40] Louis: you got a blue check, got a thousand followers. Yeah.
[00:32:42] Max: They trust you. You not, everyone's like you. So if I see someone with 16 followers and they're sending me a link, it's and they have no profile picture, they don't have any profile optimization. It's are these people stealing my credit card? You can't trust anybody.
[00:32:54] Louis: I have the mutuals. I have followed by swap stack or something.
[00:32:57] Max: Exactly. You have the walking case studies on your page. Like you are a billboard of what you say. So it's okay, when they come to the page, they know that you're legit. I wouldn't say it's that big of a deal with you.
I always think though, if you waited two more like questions past that hey, ask them about their interests, maybe about, the company or the account, like solving, like Joe Rogan,
[00:33:25] Louis: Why you follow him? Yeah.
[00:33:27] Max: Why, like, why I'm curious to know why are you interested in this, that, and the other? Oh, actually I run this business. Oh dude, that's super cool. I actually run a podcast and I had this person on there. Here's the link, if you're interested in it.
It's already like you showed that you cared about them. Think about if you're just like asking asking asking in the dms and you're never like giving anything to people, you're just gonna scare people away.
So I try to wait to send a link. We rarely ever send links now probably until maybe the 10th message that we're going back and forth is what our salespeople are doing now. I just think the more that you can have a normal conversation with someone, the more they're gonna resonate with you, the more that they're gonna be like, I'm interested to see what else you have.
Because if you just ask off the bat, they're like, what does this person want from me? Their guard is up. Your job is just to lower their guard. And then it's dude, I forgot to mention this. I literally had this person on my podcast. You wanna check it out? Here it is. Now it's oh, okay. We're just friends.
[00:34:26] Louis: Respect to not needing this too.
[00:34:28] Max: Yes. If you are not selling, that is the best way to sell. It's like the Alex Harmozi approach and I have nothing to sell you. Meanwhile, he's also acquiring, these companies and making tons of money on top of it too.
[00:34:40] Louis: Yeah.
[00:34:40] Max: But it's genius. Like it's an absolute genius marketing approach.
[00:34:43] Louis: Yeah. I do
like
Cold email wizard, Daniel says the opposite.
[00:34:48] Max: I love him.
[00:34:48] Louis: He's like I do have something to say. He's like if you're watching this video, it is because my end goal is for you to like my shit and eventually end up inclined Ascension.
[00:34:56] Max: Yes.
[00:34:56] Louis: But he's transparent about it.
[00:34:58] Max: Yes.
[00:34:59] Louis: So that's the other way you can do it. You can have nothing to sell, or you can be like, yes, I literally am trying to sell you this, but the way he said, he's look, I'm gonna be in business for the next 40 years. He's like am I'm 24.
[00:35:11] Max: Yes.
[00:35:11] Louis: Or 25, 26. However, Rob Daniel is, he's like I would not be trying to get you in this. And ruined my reputation if I did not think this was the shit.
[00:35:19] Max: Yes. And I also love that approach too. That is very much like like the Contact Bird marketing too. Like we're human beings. Like he's a human being at the end of the day. He is trying to make money from a business and he's telling you blatantly upfront, I want your money.
But I'm gonna give you something in return. It's not like he's I'm gonna steal your money. It's I want your money. We offer a good profit.
[00:35:39] Louis: We're stealing your money. Exactly.
[00:35:39] Max: Exactly. Exactly. That's the difference. People feel like they're getting swindled or people feel like you're stealing money from them.
You're not gonna have a good taste in their mouth after that. So having those approaches there shows through. And again, he's on Twitter, he's obviously a master on Twitter, but he has the real human aspect about him too, which I think is the biggest thing on Twitter. Having the human aspect, having a brand, having a tone, having a voice, and that should seep through to your cold dms and on your meetings when you jump on people to close them.
[00:36:08] Louis: Speaking of the word master, in terms of this Twitter game, the Dm game, the Saas game, what parts do you think you, you have mastered at this point, but in what parts are you still learning? Shout out Danny Miranda.
[00:36:20] Max: Yes.
[00:36:20] Louis: That's a question that he posted. He had...
[00:36:22] Max: I love him.
[00:36:22] Louis: Few, once. That was like my favorite podcast questions and I just snagged that, put it in my notes and...
[00:36:27] Max: I love it.
[00:36:28] Louis: That's a Danny question.
[00:36:30] Max: Danny's the goat. He's a master of his craft, honestly. In terms of mastering man, definitely not the Saas world. Like no chance. We're definitely still learning that, even now it's the first time I've ever jumped into that business. I don't know if I've mastered anything besides maybe I'm very comfortable in like the tone and the approach that I'm taking.
Like I'm very me on there and you won't get anything else. I don't care if I'm talking to someone who's buying, 50 seats and they have series seas funding to, someone who just wants to buy one seat, you get the same Max every single time.
So I think I've evolved in that sense in like that tone and that branding and my own personal, like me when I take that approach on marketing, but still so much to learn, man.
I would not call myself the master of a Twitter game. I still need way more time in the game in like Saas. We test new shit every single day. I'm like, let's try this, let's try that. Like one day that I could, one in the beginning, especially one day the software is, breaking the next day.
We feel like we're on top of the world. We're just now getting comfortable. We just passed 500 signups on the Contact Bird, I think last week. So..
[00:37:44] Louis: Sweet.
[00:37:44] Max: We're...
[00:37:45] Louis: Sweet.
[00:37:45] Max: Just getting our good footing, in the Contact Bird space in the Saas world, but definitely haven't mastered. And I hate to also peg myself, as a master. Even I just turned 25. I hate to say oh, I know everything. I'm a master of that. I think I'm good at certain things, but I don't think I'm, a 10 on everything.
[00:38:03] Louis: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:38:04] Max: So it's like me being Max, I think that thing I have pretty dialed in and you either like it or you're just like, nah, this guy fucking annoys me. He's too much.
[00:38:12] Louis: That's quite something you good at from TikTok, I imagine too, like you have some very like, personality type TikTok you know what I mean? You were a personality on TikTok. You were just like a guy who's like I'm gonna talk about the book. It doesn't really matter who I am. That wasn't like your...
[00:38:25] Max: Yes.
[00:38:25] Louis: That wasn't your voice at all.
[00:38:27] Max: Exactly. And I think I learned that from a very young age, like seeing, like YouTubers growing up, like everyone's playing the same game, but they only like them because their personality. That's why people like them.
So it's if everyone can play the same game and make a lot of money and the only difference is their personality, then they just have to be them. So I think that's something I've played when I know how to play that kind of in the marketing space. And I like to resonate with like humans, and I think that's very very slept on, is like just connecting with another person is like, it's very much please buy my offer. It's not like please care about me.
Like, I actually wanna make sure I can make you money before you sign up for, my offer. I think that's another thing that I just play on too. And I don't know if that's just because I've seen the corporate world where it's like, let's get funding, let's get all these pretty presentations and you have to do all that stuff.
And it's dude, I just wanna do the thing that works. Like whatever's gonna get me paid, let's just do that. Obviously, if it's in the realms of business, like we're not selling meth out the back, if it gets me paid, let's just do that. Let's just double down on those things. So I think personality is one thing that I think I got in my deck of cards.
[00:39:33] Louis: Do you have a, if you're able to share one of those 500 people, like a pretty cool success story of some that's not yourselves, that some use like Contact Bird?
[00:39:44] Max: Man, we've gotten some really cool ones. It's tough cuz I love all of them. I like the...
[00:39:53] Louis: Yeah.
[00:39:53] Max: We just saw...
[00:39:54] Louis: I got time for two, so yeah,
[00:39:56] Max: Okay, cool.
[00:39:56] Louis: For more than one.
[00:40:00] Max: I like the, I closed my first client like that is like the biggest leap. We get those a lot where it's like, you helped me book my first client. But then also like the ones where it's like they sell a $7,000 service and they close four or five people, it's like they just made an insane amount of ROI so they're equally as important in my book. Obviously making a lot of money is great.
But I also, the ones that really warm my heart is my offer works, I made money and it's dang, that's crazy. And seeing threads that people post about Contact Bird, like where it's here's what I'm using with Contact Bird and here's how I close my first client, or here's how I'm booking, 10, 15 meetings a month.
I look at that and I'm like, the reason why I love SaaS so much is I'm just a tool in someone's toolkit to make them a ton of money. That's so rewarding for me. So it's tough for me to pick out one that I'm like, this was the coolest testimonial ever. Because I love the little ones where it's I signed my first client or I book my first meeting, or the ones that are massive where it's yo, we just made $45,000, from DMS this month.
It's those are both equally cool to me. But I have a certain place in my heart where it's like that first dollar online is your mind is unlocked and you're like, holy shit, I can actually do this. So it's tough to pick one. It's tough to pick one, but I love both of them like equally as much.
[00:41:21] Louis: Let's do a couple more Twitter kind of theme's, questions. Who are your like two to three favorite followers right now? Who are you currently learning the most from on Twitter.
[00:41:29] Max: Man, Favorite or learning or different because yeah, I love...
[00:41:35] Louis: I like some like right wing schizoa accounts just for fun, right? It's the log fits, private feeds been on fire lately.
[00:41:42] Max: Yes.
[00:41:43] Louis: But I dunno if I'm learning the most from him. It's just...
[00:41:45] Max: Right.
[00:41:46] Louis: Certainly entertaining. I am learning a lot from him on in some other stuff, but his Twitter comes not so much.
[00:41:52] Max: But great personality.
[00:41:53] Louis: Yeah.
[00:41:53] Max: Like at the end of the day he's got a great personality.
[00:41:56] Louis: He says some egregious things. He says he's...
[00:41:59] Max: It's so him though.
[00:41:59] Louis: Yeah.
[00:42:00] Max: You know what I mean? You will not copy him because that is so him. So the people that I love I love Cody Carnes. I love Graham, he's a ghost writer. I love Brandon.
[00:42:11] Louis: Is he the an ...?
[00:42:12] Max: Yeah.
[00:42:12] Louis: Okay.
[00:42:13] Max: Graham.
[00:42:13] Louis: We've been in the Dms. He's been chatting me up
[00:42:15] Max: I love him. Dude. Definitely. Whatever he says, believe him. We have tons of ghost writers on Contact Bird. He's by far if not top one, he's top three. So I love him so much. Like those accounts. I laugh I like to look at those because again, they're human beings.
Like they're saying something funny and they're making great money every single month. I think people think especially in the LinkedIn world, like you gotta be polished and you gotta have a beautiful resume and all this shit. It's like dude, these people are literally making outlandish comments in closing tens of thousands of dollars a month by doing this.
And it's that just makes me so happy. But learning, man, I don't know if there's someone specifically that, let me think. I would have to go through like my feed. I really like Dakota Robinson. Someone who I really look up to and someone I've learned a lot from in the space. JK Molina he's definitely someone that I love too.
Like being able to talk to him and just learn from him has been really helpful for myself. I'm biased because it's one thing to know these people, like when I first joined Twitter and started liking their stuff, it's different when I actually know them on top of it too.
[00:43:28] Louis: Yeah.
[00:43:28] Max: Where I can sit down and really have a conversation with them. I look at their content differently now. So for better or for worse?
[00:43:36] Louis: That was tons of accounts. Yeah, that was solid. It's a good list there.
[00:43:39] Max: Oh yeah. I like 'em all. I like the funny things to, keep the timeline light, but I also like the strategic things towards damn, I've never thought about it that way.
[00:43:47] Louis: I just missed the weekly call with notes I did this instead of that. So sorry Dakota.
[00:43:52] Max: He's the man, dude.
[00:43:53] Louis: A regular listener.
[00:43:54] Max: Not yet. He's a beast.
[00:43:56] Louis: Yeah.
[00:43:56] Max: He will be. I'll send this to him. He'll be listening.
[00:43:58] Louis: Oh yeah, I'll send it to him. We'll both send it. I'll Contact Birds. Send it to him. I'll send it to all of his followers.
[00:44:04] Max: Yeah. Everybody literally everyone.
[00:44:07] Louis: Saw you call Dakota. I say his name once in this episode.
[00:44:10] Max: Please watch it, please.
[00:44:12] Louis: And please watch it.
[00:44:12] Max: And also buy my $10,000 offer.
[00:44:15] Louis: Exactly. Thanks, please, and thanks. And also be the Harry Potter series.
[00:44:21] Max: Exactly.
[00:44:22] Louis: That's so funny. You made a point there. I was trying to remember not about the ghost writers, not about Dakota. Oh, about JK. This was the point I wanted to get to.
[00:44:32] Max: Yes.
[00:44:33] Louis: Slightly less relevant cuz I think he sold Tweet Hunter. But what are your kind of thoughts on like competition, like Tweet Hunter? Cause I know they might have some sort of prospecting tools in the pipeline.
[00:44:43] Max: Yes.
[00:44:43] Louis: There's another one, I forget what it's called. I'll send it. Super sends, it's doing Twitter dms now too.
[00:44:48] Max: Yes.
[00:44:48] Louis: What's your philosophy around the competition?
[00:44:52] Max: Overall I think competition is great. I think that is one of the best ways to stay... that is probably like the best way to stay on top of your game and not settle. The competition, eases you on. You better start thinking because you have people on your ass 24/7 and that's only gonna lead to constant improvement.
If it was just us on Twitter we would have a monopoly and we could just be cool with the futures that we have, but seeing what other people are doing, one is gonna improve us. And too like really push, Contact Bird to be the best tool out there. So that's the first thing when it comes to it.
I think it's really gonna come down to who has the best community. Again, like the example that I gave earlier, everyone can play Call of Duty, on, especially back in the day, like everyone can play Call of Duty and monetize it their own way.
There's tons of creators that still make millions of dollars in money, right? So it's the same platform, the same tool, the same, everything. It's really gonna come down to the personality and then, everyone's gonna have very similar features. So might have better this, some might have better that, but at the end of the day, it's like, building the community around it and making it cool.
And I told Raul this too, like Israel instantly has..
[00:46:05] Louis: He's one of the founders of Instantly.
[00:46:07] Max: Yeah. Nils and Raul I think there's four of 'em total. But I, when I was talking Raul about this I told him like, y'all made email cool. He, like you can post a screenshot of your instantly campaign on Twitter and get a hundred likes on it and you're just sending cold emails. So it's like they made it cool.
And I think, limbless has been around, like emails been around for a while now, like even mass sending email. It's been a while now. Now we got the bells. There you go.
[00:46:33] Louis: On the hour mark.
[00:46:34] Max: So funny.
[00:46:34] Louis: Gosh, no, but that Mike's doing a pretty good job of not getting the church bells in. It's not.
[00:46:39] Max: Okay, good. Hopefully it's not making any of those ears bleed.
[00:46:42] Louis: Yeah.
[00:46:43] Max: But yeah having whatever your service and making it cool and then also giving them the roadmap and the blueprint to make money with your tool is the best way to do it.
And I think, having competition there, you're gonna sift out people just based off of the community that you've built and the people that trust you at the end of the day. That's what I really think about it. And I think overall it's great. I think it's great for the marketplace.
If someone has a really good feature. We're gonna add it too. Like we want to give the marketplace the best, outreach tool on Twitter.
[00:47:13] Louis: What is like your two to three year personal and business vision for yourself, for Contact Bird, for your online content creation? What are you building towards, let's say the next thousand days?
[00:47:26] Max: Yeah, good question. And personal and business really do go close hand in hands. Because business is like my favorite thing to do, build businesses. In terms of the business. I think if we could exit Contact Bird in 18 months, I think that would be great. I think that would be such a cool experience to see, selling, the Saas itself.
I think, getting to a hundred thousand dollars MRR would be really cool just because it's just a milestone in a landmark that I would really like to hit. We want to get 4,000 users by the end of this year, is like our goal that we're shooting for right now. So we'll see what we can do there.
But yeah, just really building it up, seeing what it's like to have a Saas] that, pays really well and then look to exit it, would be a really cool thing.
And then I'm not leaving Saas anytime soon. My business partner Steven and I, we'll definitely be in the Saas game .I think it's the best business model out there. I'm very biased towards it.
So starting another Saas after that. Something that, solves another problem and something actually interesting enough, like what I want to do in the future is build a SaaS that lives alone, not being based off of like Twitter or being dependent on another source.
[00:48:46] Louis: Sure.
[00:48:46] Max: I think that's something else that we want to do, but. In terms of goals, 4,000 users by the end of this year. I can't even think so much in five years cuz I told myself like four months ago, I wanna get in Saas in five years and here we are.
[00:48:59] Louis: Yeah.
[00:49:00] Max: I can only think like at a year, at a time, but I think build that up and either live off the MRR and, have a lot of fun with the MRR or exit and see what that process looks like there.
And then personally I think. Let's see, again, they mesh so close with each other. But I think one of the things that I really wanna work on is like being like really comfortable with silence. Cuz I'm always like high energy, I love business. I love to jump to the one thing to the next. I always like having plans to do something.
I always have another meeting after this. Something that I think that I lack is like being very comfortable in silence, cuz I'm always trying to think of something new. So that's a goal that I've been working on just for, personal sake too. But again they, they're so close hand in hand. But yeah, those I would say are the two goals.
[00:49:51] Louis: I gotta do like a cool, like no-code SaaS series. So I had Alex from Closify on and I had, you got a figure.
[00:49:56] Max: I love Alex.
[00:49:57] Louis: Like a third guy to to round it out. I asked Alex, I was like, what should I ask Max in this episode? He's just ask him the Contact Bird story. It's good enough for a whole episode. I'm like, fair enough.
[00:50:07] Max: Yeah, dude, Alex is the man. I love Alex and no Code Saas. Something I know we really didn't touch on here cuz Contact Bird is complete custom database, but ...
[00:50:16] Louis: Yeah, it's true. It's not no code SaaS at all.
[00:50:18] Max: Yeah. But still no code in general is so cool where people can get into the highest, in my opinion, out of all business models out there, SaaS being the highest leverage business model, the fact that you can do that without knowing how to code effectively is a superpower now.
So if someone wants to get into SaaS and they didn't look out and find a partner where they can split equity on. Look into no code, try it out, see what happens. Make your first dollars doing that. I know people that have sold no code SaaS for millions of dollars, so it's doesn't have to be a custom database.
The cool thing about a custom database though is just having another ... Yeah it's good to have someone who can literally build what you dream. So no code you might have some limitations at some points, but yeah, for anyone that is listening to this and to this point, look into no code Saas, especially if you have an agency and if you don't have someone that will split equity with you, you just have to have, cash on the side.
Because if we were to build a minimal viable product of what we're doing, I'm probably would've cost 50 K to really build what we were doing and then to get to where we're at probably 250 K. So to have the equity in someone's brain, to really build this with , I hit the lottery there, so no code will be your friend to build something for $6,000 and then yeah, after that, see what you wanna do after that. But Saas is the best.
So I will definitely be playing the Saas game. And huge shout out to Alex. I love the hybrid Saas agency model, and I think he's gonna be switching more into Saas later down the road diving more into that, but he's the goat.
[00:51:51] Louis: No. Alex is crushing it a hundred percent.
[00:51:53] Max: love him. I love him so much.
[00:51:56] Louis: Thinking a couple final questions here, so I'm gonna copy my Danny Miranda question. Dickie Bush had another thread. So not Danny Miranda, but Dickie Bush. That was like, yeah. His favorite questions. So I screenshot of that, put in the same note and one of those questions, what is something that's important to your daily routine that you wish you started doing sooner?
[00:52:15] Max: Man, what a good freaking question. I don't know if it's necessarily like a specific thing, and this is like super, super simple. The concept is very simple. The execution is what I find is really hard. But in terms of adding, if you could do this every single day, the difference in your business from now and three months will be a completely different business.
And it's really sitting down, putting your phone away and doing like the deep work every single day. I don't care if it's, Saturday, Sunday, if you just even take 10 minutes to do the deep work on like actually doing the thing that you need to do, that is what's gonna move the boulder every single day.
I think a lot of people try to get in these fancy routines and, If I work out at 7:00 AM and do this, like dude, all those things you know, are great when you're in a routine, but as soon as you travel, as soon as something you know comes up and you can't do that thing at 7:00 AM are you still going to do that thing that you have to do?
And I think that right there, like that realization of is, as long as I get these boulders that need to be moved every single day moved, it's crazy how far the business will go.
And it's like such a simple concept, but people get very caught up on the bells and whistles on I need to have instantly before I can send, emails I need contact bird before I can rip cold dms.
It's no, you can just do it. You can literally do it obviously might not be the best use of your time, but you actually do it at the end of the day. And I think if every day, I still continue to push the boulder a little bit more yeah, that has been a huge game changer for me personally and something I really want to do in the future as well.
[00:53:54] Louis: Amazing. I think this will be the final question. If you were a beginner and you didn't have any capital or negligible amounts of capital, like you could, you could like work and drive for Uber, you could like, have a job in making 10 to 20 bucks an hour. You'd have some money, but not...
[00:54:05] Max: Yes.
[00:54:06] Louis: Several, not lots of money.
[00:54:07] Max: Yes.
[00:54:08] Louis: What would be some offers that you would be starting, like businesses to go from zero to couple tens of thousands of dollars in the bank and kind of get yourself some footing to go for bigger things down the line, but just to get started.
[00:54:19] Max: Yeah, I would give, I'm gonna give one very specific one that I think is playing on the trends of Twitter. Obviously I'm super biased, but you can start this with literally like $0 if you can effectively write, and I'm not talking about I was not very, I was not a good writer. Like I made okay grades, in English, I want to consider myself as a writer. I'm a much better public speaker.
But if you have decent writing abilities and you can, put yourself in someone else's shoes and you can like, really connect with people. I think the ghost writing route is by far the best route out there. The offer specifically would be approaching people and saying, I will book you meetings on your calendar and you do not pay me unless they show up for these meetings.
So there's no setup fee, there's no retainer, it's all off results base. The only investment that I would say that you would make on your side is Tweet Hunter and Contact Bird or Hype Fury. They're great, but I'm biased with JK. But and I use Tweet Hunter myself, so Tweet Hunter to schedule all of their posts to write everything out, to leverage your time as effectively as possible.
It's 50 bucks. And then contact Bird on top of that as another 50 bucks to do all of the outbound. So you run the inbound funnels for these people and the outbound funnels, and you book the meetings for 50 to $150 a pop, pay their calendar with meetings, and then, if you even do 10 to 30 meetings a month, like you're making good money.
So I think in terms of a trend like. Actionable things. You could start a ghost writing agency tomorrow. Obviously some people are gonna be better than others, but if you can write, you can put yourself in someone's shoes, you can relate to the people that they're trying to reach, dude, you're going to make a killing, an absolute killing.
So that's the best offer that I think is on the table. Even with again, like I love instantly, but even using instantly, that's $97 off the bat. And then you have to pay for all those leads.
[00:56:08] Louis: Yeah.
[00:56:08] Max: You have to pay for all the leads. Most of those leads, aren't gonna like you, but it's still a numbers game. Twitter's there for the taking and a great opportunity to jump on. So if I were to do that, I would do that again. And I would definitely push that offer right there. But yeah, that's what I would say. If I were to, restart everything, I would run with that offer.
[00:56:29] Louis: Why do people pay for meetings? Just for people who are like I get it at this point, but if I was listening to this, I'd as a beginner, I would be like, why would someone pay $50 for a meeting?
[00:56:41] Max: Great question.
[00:56:41] Louis: I think that's like a belief you have to break for someone to actually take action on that idea.
[00:56:45] Max: Yes. If you want to scale effectively and you want to make a good money, you should only be focused on dollar driven activities. So jumping on a sales call and closing someone in 30 minutes to, sell a $2,000 offer, that's really good. 30 minutes if all of your other time could be delegated, where you're not gonna be making a dollar from it, like outreach, or posting tweets or something like that, and you can give that to someone else. You're leveraging your time a really much more effectively.
So if someone's booking you 30 meetings a month, you're paying them $50 a meeting that's 1500 bucks a month. It's damn, I don't want to give 'em $1,500 a month. It's like you need to do either one of two things.
One, you need to close more whether it's a smaller offer, you need to close more people or you need to raise your prices cuz you're playing the numbers game at the end of the day. If you know that you're gonna be probably paying someone a thousand to $1,500 to book you, X amount of meetings a month, then okay, just charge that. Charge one close. That's how much you have to cover them. And then every single person after that is, pure profit on the month.
And again, like close things at a retainer base. So you pay, you have to pay that person $1,500 a month. It's dang, that's a lot of money. But it's no, even if you break, even the first month, you hold those people for three to six months, you are cruising on money after that. You really have to play the lifetime value game of let me get an agency, let me get these people on for a thousand, $2,000 a month and run it from there.
And you have to give, in order to get like . You have to give, if you wanna scale effectively, you just have to invest money or you have to invest your time. And I think your time should be focused on dollar driven activities like closing people.
[00:58:24] Louis: There you go. That's the the framework you can use in your meetings. About meetings
[00:58:28] Max: Yeah.
[00:58:28] Louis: And your Dms.
[00:58:30] Max: Yeah.
[00:58:30] Louis: That are just conversations at first, before their sales conversations.
[00:58:33] Max: Please. You will, I will thank you. And they will also thank you as well for doing that. But I have a question for you. Where do you see, your podcast going in the future? Do you see it more as I get to have cool conversations with people and, build a brand around this?
Or if it's I really want to go the sponsorship route and make this my full-time gig, or is it I want to get people to like me and consume my content and then sell them an offer later down the road? I'm curious to know what your take is and where do you see the podcast going in the future?
[00:59:04] Louis: So I think the reason the podcast is sustained as long as it has, cuz this is, we're going on three years, right? This is not like a new project.
[00:59:11] Max: That's great. Yes.
[00:59:12] Louis: And, or it will be the three year mark and then we'll be embarking upon at the beginning of year four, right?
[00:59:17] Max: Yes.
[00:59:18] Louis: And the most durable motivation, I think is just, Very intrinsic, right? Like I want to, the followers are necessary, the followers, subscribers, analytics, good numbers are necessary to have the credibility to bring on people on the show, right?
[00:59:37] Max: Yes.
[00:59:37] Louis: So it's like certain people, guests of a certain caliber are not gonna say yes to this interview cuz it's not worth your time to do unless there's a certain minimal level of reach, right?
So it's someone who's got a YouTube channel with 3 million subscribers is unlikely to want to come on a podcast with under a thousand subscribers on YouTube. Yes though that has happened before.
But the point is, it's like increase our hit rate. It's just like what you're saying about my profile on Twitter and like why people answer my Dms cuz I have the blue check and the people are gonna answer the yes to the pitch when they see those indicators of credibility.
And first and foremost, it is still just about wanting to continue to learn and develop and grow and enjoy. I just enjoy meeting people. I'm a people person. Again.
[01:00:19] Max: Yes.
[01:00:19] Louis: It's like what you're saying about your friends and TikTok.
[01:00:22] Max: Yes.
[01:00:23] Louis: In your, wherever you were at that point in life, 2020, your immediate in-person front group wasn't into the thing, right?
They were not into personal development books and you wanted someone to talk to about those things.
[01:00:32] Max: Yes.
[01:00:33] Louis: For me, I've actually solved that problem quite a bit. Like I, moved to a pretty nice apartment building in Arizona. A lot of, almost everyone here is like an entrepreneur in interested in the same stuff.
But that being said, so like I have solved like the, my in-person community doesn't share my interest problem that like the podcast originally was born to solve. But that being said, it's like there's only so many people that live in this building, right? It's I know most of them at this point or feel like I do.
And there's new books that come out, like I wanna speak with authors of books when they, I feel a new book comes out and it's gonna be like the best seller in a category. Like I wanna be able to have access to that person. It's just very selfish. I just like reading the book's cool, but talking to the author's cooler and I wanna be able to talk to the author.
Financially right now, near term next year or two. I think I'm gonna make the majority of my income from Orbit, which is my agency doing data and analytics work. Again.
[01:01:19] Max: Love that.
[01:01:19] Louis: For a podcast to make $2,000 a month, you need a lot of income.
[01:01:23] Max: Yes.
[01:01:24] Louis: For me to get another $2,000 a month into Orbit, I just need to get on contact word a little bit more consistently. You know what I mean? I just need to be a little consistent.
Bit more dm.
[01:01:32] Max: Exactly. That's it
[01:01:33] Louis: Bit more dms. So it's like I would have to make two grand, three grand, five grand a month from the podcast. I'd have to be pretty substantial. That's just, you need a lot of, you need a lot of audience for that.
[01:01:43] Max: Yes.
[01:01:44] Louis: And to get a lot of audience quickly. Sometimes you have to just do, I don't know, just growth tactics. Point is I enjoy doing the podcast for its own sake. I enjoy meeting people, I enjoy helping you know yourself. If you like have a EA or you have an editing team. I can send you the raw footage and you can chop this up and use it for ads, for contact version.
You could go do this super easily.
[01:02:04] Max: Exactly.
[01:02:04] Louis: That's a nice thing you can do. Now it's like I forced you to sit down for an hour and tell the story, and now you can go send these to some agency and start ripping these on TikTok and just do
[01:02:12] Max: Exactly.
[01:02:14] Louis: It's very much. For it's own sake.
[01:02:17] Max: Yes.
[01:02:18] Louis: But after two years from now, after I have a more, let's say stable income from the agency, I would love to do this full-time, do seven interviews a week, travel, do 'em in person, things like that. I could do exactly what I'm doing right now for a long time, if necessary in terms of just Riverside fm meeting people like yourself, having a reason for us to have a follow up conversation besides just I'm one of the, an early adopter of your tool, so let's have an onboarding session. It's a reason for follow up with the types of people I enjoy meeting.
[01:02:48] Max: I love it. I honestly think, like before I even got into the SaaS world, I always thought podcast, like being a podcaster, having people on your podcast is the coolest thing cuz you get to talk to people at the top of their game in any niche or anything like that.
[01:03:01] Louis: Exactly.
[01:03:01] Max: Obviously the more followers, like you say, the cooler, the people you can get on you, you might like Matthew McConaughey's book, you get to talk to Matthew McConaughey, like that would be sick. It's just one of those things where it's like, get to leverage your audience and leverage the eyeballs beneath you where they just wanna have a conversation with you for an hour.
And I think that is such a cool thing where you can just talk to so many people. You have so many more connections and you get to be able to learn so much yourself. And then obviously everyone else that listens with it, to the podcast gets to learn on top of that. I didn't realize that would be similar with Saas, but I get to talk to so many cool people.
I get to make so many cool connections where it's like , we have, 500 people that I can connect. Oh, you need a ghost writer. This is the best one. Just like I was saying with Graham, like he's my favorite. I'm obviously biased cuz I love him as a person too. I think being able to talk to multiple different people in everyone's, game is so cool.
Being able to talk to Legends in the space is a superpower in itself, so I love that. It's very cool to hear that, coming from your side of things and I appreciate you breaking down the framework and giving people a persona of here's the podcast, but I'm gonna build up the agency and then maybe focus on this, maybe more on the business side of things too. So I love that. Absolutely love it.
[01:04:15] Louis: Even just in this conversation , you spent a lot of game about how to use outreach for, how to use cool outreach for offers. Like I'm gonna use that. I'm gonna use that for what I'm doing, so.
[01:04:24] Max: I love it, dude.
[01:04:26] Louis: I'm learning.
[01:04:26] Max: It keeps you paid. It works. It's a numbers game. Even if your offer is shitty and you're sending 20,000 Dms a month, and you have a $2,000 product you're getting paid on that month. That is just a numbers game. Obviously, the better you get, the better your numbers look and the higher your conversions and these type of things.
But it's a numbers game at the end of the day. Like you kiss a lot of frogs, you are going to make a lot of money.
[01:04:47] Louis: Yeah.
[01:04:47] Max: That's just what it's gonna come down to.
[01:04:49] Louis: Yeah. You you're the one who introd me to Luke Grey. That was you Luke from Zappier.
[01:04:53] Max: Yes. Luke Ward.
[01:04:54] Louis: Yeah.
[01:04:54] Max: I love Luke.
[01:04:55] Louis: I've been really inspired by his use of Twitter for his business, cuz very similar offer and...
[01:05:02] Max: Yes.
[01:05:02] Louis: I had a bit of a belief about oh, it's hard to get a tech, sell a tech offer on Twitter versus...
[01:05:09] Max: He's crushing it though.
[01:05:10] Louis: But he's crushing it. And
[01:05:12] Max: Yeah.
[01:05:12] Louis: I need to start just like doing a lot of things. I started doing some work last night with my business partner let's do an inventory of every single thing that we've done for our clients. So I can start talking.
[01:05:22] Max: Yes.
[01:05:22] Louis: So I can start writing these threads. It's okay, in the past six months, we've built 30 dashboards, these in these five industries, right?
These are the KPIs, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know what I mean?
[01:05:30] Max: Yes. And then in the past, he does such a good job of that.
[01:05:34] Louis: I'll screen share you for something after, but yeah, that's, it's pretty cool. So
[01:05:38] Max: dude, yeah, Luke's the man? Connect with him too. Like he's, I don't know if you've ever...
[01:05:42] Louis: Everyone should follow Luke. Everyone should follow Max never should follow Alex and everyone else we talked about too.
[01:05:46] Max: Yeah, everyone follow everybody. But yeah, dude, tho it's crazy like just seeing what other people have to offer and then I get to connect the dots there is amazing.
[01:05:54] Louis: Exactly.
[01:05:55] Max: Same superpower you have with the podcast, but no, dude I absolutely love it. I absolutely love it. Keep crushing your offer too, like just be a maniac when it comes to content and dms and you will get more meetings.
[01:06:06] Louis: This is probably the first podcast featuring the merch. I'm just, this is my uniform.
[01:06:11] Max: Dude, that's Fire.
[01:06:12] Louis: The north face.
[01:06:13] Max: I love that.
[01:06:13] Louis: Every day, all day. At the gym.
[01:06:15] Max: I love that dude.
[01:06:16] Louis: Yeah. Everywhere.
[01:06:18] Max: I love it. Rep it everywhere.
[01:06:20] Louis: Everywhere. I'm like, when it becomes summer in Arizona, I'll swap it out for, I don't know, a t-shirt or something. But I got couple more months of of full zip season.
[01:06:29] Max: I love it. I love it, dude. Keep repping the brand.
[01:06:31] Louis: So cool. Max, thank you so much for doing this. Where should people, it's still .io right? Contactbird.io...
[01:06:38] Max: .io yeah, Contact Bird.
[01:06:39] Louis: MV London is our number. Is that 15? No?
[01:06:42] Max: It's mvx. It's just like the A is flipped upside down. I couldn't get Max London. So it's Mvx London on Twitter on TikTok and on Instagram.
We've got it all branded all the way through on all of those. I'm the most active on Twitter. Feel free to hit me up there and then yeah, if you wanna do all of your outbounds and all of your outreach and automate that entire process, contact Becher's Place. That's your spot.
[01:07:04] Louis: Sweet man.
Thanks so much for doing this.
[01:07:06] Max: Thank you so much for having me, brother. This was so much fun.
[01:07:09] Louis: Hell yeah.
That's gonna wrap up this conversation with Max London from Contact Bird. I had a blast. I hope you had as much fun as I did. Three takeaways from me and then we'll all be moving on to the next thing.
The first takeaway is framing your conversations in the dms actually as conversations. So a lot of people just, hey, I sell this. Do you want it as their opener? And that is just not the way to do it. The strategy that Max suggests is literally just trying to start a conversation. You're just trying to get a reply and then maybe 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. That's way too many. I was just counting three, four or five replies. And then that's when you jump in and actually start talking about what you do and what they do, and if it's potentially doesn't make sense to work together.
Does it make sense to have a conversation about what I actually do? You're having a legitimate conversation rather than just saying, hey, you're in this position, you probably need this. Do you want it. People are just not gonna respond to that, especially on Twitter.
The second takeaway is about trying to leverage the lower traffic channels when getting someone's attention. So we all get thousands of emails today, hundreds of dozens of emails today. I don't really know the exact number, but people get a lots of email, but still a lot of smaller accounts don't get that many dms on a daily basis. So it is just a less traffic channel. So your DM is way more likely to be read than your cold email is likely to be read just from a pure volume play.
The third takeaway is on the same points about volume. I think a lot of people are too quick to dismiss that what they're doing isn't working when in reality all they needed to do instead was just send more volume, a higher quantity of messages. So a lot of people without automation only send 5 to 10 DMS a day.
So that's 150 to 300 people per month that you're starting a conversation with that may or may not need what you are selling versus if you something like Contact Bird you can send, a hundred a day, 3000 per month. That's a ton more people.
So if you think about conversion rates, if 5% of people in a given market may be interested in what you're selling, the difference between getting that in front of a hundred people a month versus 3000 people a month is astronomical. So definitely. Get the volume up. More reps, more quantity before considering if what you're doing is or is not working.
Those are my three lessons from this conversation with Max. I'm curious what you think as well. You can hit me up or hit Max up on Twitter to start a conversation with us about what you learned in this episode or what you thought was interesting.
Otherwise, if you are not already, please make sure you're subscribed on YouTube so you know about the next episode and I will see you there. Have a fantastic day, and thank you so much for listening. Bye, bye.