Integrating Marketing Automation Tools With Sales Message

Wes Schaeffer (00:00.896)
Chris Brisson after 8 years returns to show us sales message. Welcome back to the CRM Sushi Podcast.

Chris Brisson (00:12.059)
Yeah, I'm good. I'm good. Look, I've got a couple of gray hairs that are growing in. Yep. Yep.

Wes Schaeffer (00:15.566)
I know dude, welcome. Look at that dude, I got them here, got them here. Yeah, so we caught up last week, had you on episode 713 of the sales podcast and realized your software probably changed a little bit in eight years. so we figured we'd take a look at it, right? So it was ironic. So we're doing this May 1st, 2025 and you were on.

first time, if I can find all my tabs, was May 2nd of 2017. And you said like you hadn't even launched, maybe you were launching right around then?

Chris Brisson (00:48.439)
my gosh.

Chris Brisson (00:52.915)
Yeah, I mean, I did a in October of 2016 to pre-sell the idea of Sales Message. So it was just an idea in October and then we really broke ground, want to say, December, November. We started building it. So we didn't have a product, I think, we spoke. I don't know. But 2017 was, that was the early days, man.

Wes Schaeffer (01:04.366)
Mmm.

Wes Schaeffer (01:15.896)
Well, that's it.

So the title back then, we called it Gmail for SMS. Our house sales message is Gmail for SMS. So what the heck does that even mean?

Chris Brisson (01:24.731)
Okay, yeah.

Yeah.

Chris Brisson (01:33.587)
Well, I think the idea was the same way that you send emails over Gmail is you can do that now for text messaging. So kind of like an inbox, right? Which actually, I mean, the idea sort of stands still true because, you know, more and more people today are getting texts. And so how are you managing those text messages the same as email, right? So in Gmail, you're managing it through Gmail and having all the tools and filters and inboxes.

Wes Schaeffer (02:01.421)
So all these junk texts, they're all your fault? I just forward them to you?

Chris Brisson (02:05.79)
A part of the system, my No, I mean, it's come a long way, right? So back, this is 2017, you know, I've been in the messaging business for a long time. So most people were just using as a sort of one way tool, right? Hey, I'm going to send mass text messages, this one way notification. There was no two way SMS platform out there. Maybe there was, I there's early signs of that. And so sales message, idea was, hey,

Wes Schaeffer (02:08.333)
you

Chris Brisson (02:34.513)
This is the platform for a conversational two-way texting. So you have an inbox, right? You have your messages that come in and you can manage those responses the same way as if you would do it with Gmail. So there you go.

Wes Schaeffer (02:49.363)
Right? So I recently learned, like some of these platforms, I was working with a client that has Go High Level and they were sending from there. But these messaging platforms, like when you go to an iPhone, they don't show up as blue. So is there a way around that or is that just the nature of the beast?

Chris Brisson (03:12.913)
Yeah, so blue messages is iMessages, which is owned by Apple, right? So that's why Android's always been green is because, well, Apple is like, no, we own iMessages. We want to control that mind share for a customer, right? So when you get a blue text, know, hey, that's Apple. So for the longest time, right, Google has been trying to

Wes Schaeffer (03:16.897)
Yep. Right.

Wes Schaeffer (03:30.849)
Right? Right?

Chris Brisson (03:40.255)
Unify the messaging right you ever get into a text group and that person in the text here, but the retext you can't send a picture There's that one right so Apple knows that right so they held on to that mode for a really long time. So It's called RCS right so rich communication Whatever and so the idea with that is like hey look you can't really send you know the same rich Texts as you would on iMessages versus on

Wes Schaeffer (03:45.431)
There's that one.

Chris Brisson (04:07.395)
Android and so RCS is sort of this unification So if you updated your phone in the last couple of months now when someone types you could see it on Android right you can see it on your iPhone right when someone sends an image now the image actually comes out is not this little tiny little thing it comes out as

Wes Schaeffer (04:17.837)
Wes Schaeffer (04:22.775)
So Apple had to change something, so it's rich communication services, so RCS. So it's designed to replace SMS and MMS with a more modern engaging messaging experience. is that a protocol? Does Apple own that? Did they invent it? Like I don't understand what they released or had to let go of. I don't know that.

Chris Brisson (04:27.165)
Yep, yep, yep.

Chris Brisson (04:42.877)
Yeah, yeah. So Apple, right, so iMessages is their own sort of messaging entity, right? So it's like WhatsApp. Yep, yep.

Wes Schaeffer (04:48.845)
Sure. And it's encrypted, right? Yeah, but it's our own encryption, blah, blah. But why, but is it a different protocol? Like I remember back in the day, like Sprint was what CDMA and others were, I don't even know that, GSM or, I forget. But like, man, I sold test equipment in that space for years. I sold millions.

Chris Brisson (04:55.419)
Yep, yep.

Chris Brisson (05:00.572)
It is,

Chris Brisson (05:09.363)
You're getting nerdy now.

Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (05:15.799)
Google was a client. mean, I was deep in that stuff for years. Unfortunately, I'm forgetting it because I've been out for over a decade. So it's good. I'm Well over decade. so is it like that? They're just different messaging. And then they just kind of all rose up to whatever next LTE and above. So now everything's kind of unified. Is it that kind of similar?

Chris Brisson (05:19.217)
Yeah, yeah.

Chris Brisson (05:25.651)
Yeah.

Chris Brisson (05:31.624)
Yeah.

Chris Brisson (05:35.761)
Yeah, so Google's been trying to

Chris Brisson (05:41.203)
Pretty much, yeah. Now Apple, sort of their last release, whatever it was in October, said that now we're going to have, they didn't call it RCS, they just called it Better Messaging, right? So anyhow, what that means to businesses, right? So RCS is a separate protocol. So you know how on like, trying to think of the, on like Facebook, you could do those little chips. So like, hey, you know, click yes, or, you know, click this. So RCS,

is a richer experience. So it hasn't really taken hold, right, from this rather than typing yes to clicking or tapping yes. That's what RCS is, it's whole separate thing. But really what the blue messages, you're seeing it on Go High level, I get those ads too. They're basically just using iMessages protocol. So iMessages has an API, Apple has an API that enables businesses that are approved, right, not everybody can get it. And so you have to be approved to use

iMessages, right? So you got to go through Apple's approval process. They don't just allow everybody to go through and get approved.

Wes Schaeffer (06:40.353)
Mmm.

Wes Schaeffer (06:44.691)
Okay, so not everybody. Okay, so some mass senders, SMS platforms can deliver with the blue field. Okay.

Chris Brisson (06:58.983)
Yep. So like we're, we're going to be doing it, right. Which will enable businesses to use iMessage. Now they have to go through the process of getting approved by Apple. Right. And, you know, you got to go through that process to get approved by Apple to then send blue messages, which go through iMessage. So, needless to say the, the fun parts of messaging, but soon you'll be able to send blue messages, across sales message.

Wes Schaeffer (07:25.239)
Right?

So, I mean, we're gonna look under the hood here in a little bit, but if somebody has Go High Level, you have Keap, right? You can text from within Keap, can text from more more platforms are rolling it out. You can do it with HubSpot. Why does someone need another tool if their main tool has that capability?

Chris Brisson (07:55.271)
Yeah, HubSpot, example, right? So HubSpot does SMS, but if you're like, we work well with larger growing companies. so traditionally HubSpot releases products, they serve like an audience for a given use case. Like HubSpot has HubSpot quotes. I don't use it, we don't use it, we use PandaDoc. Why? It's got better functionality. And so...

You know, for the businesses that are looking for, you know, more sophisticated messaging platform with like AI and AI agents and lead qualification and two-way texting and shared inboxes and, you know, team management and all sorts of more enriched experience versus, yeah, I get outbound at text. Right. So if you're just looking to outbound a text. Sure. You know, you can use the off the shelf one. I know go high level, you know, builds most of their stuff and they've got a great product, you know? And so.

You know, they built a lot of that tech inside of their platform. we actually did build an integration funny enough for call loop to be into go high level. and so learned a lot in that experience and we'll integrate sales message and go high level too. they offer a lot of different unique ways that we could integrate into it. but you know, there's an ecosystem already. And so, you know, some marketplaces will win and some marketplaces.

It doesn't make sense for us to continue building. like keep, for example, like we built that integration years and years ago and just that audience is not the audience that we serve. Well, you can use keeps texting. can use our texting. But we're, you know, we, work best with like a Salesforce HubSpot, not to say anybody can't use our platform, but, yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (09:45.793)
Right. But bigger teams, longer sales cycle, is it more B2B?

Chris Brisson (09:49.778)
Yep.

Chris Brisson (09:53.587)
I mean, we serve both B2B, B2C. So we work with franchises, you know, we work with Tony Robbins and his team. work with all types of different businesses, recruiting companies, logistics, high volume, low volume, right. B2B companies that aren't integrating SMS into their own sales site. Like we use sales message, right? Cause we do calling and we do texting. And so part of that whole journey, we use texting, new lead comes in, we text them, we engage with them.

A meeting is booked, we remind them, right? We engage with them, that sort of thing. Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (10:28.737)
Okay. So if somebody, you know, HubSpot, use their meeting links and I've used Calendly in the past. Calendly had some SMS, you know, they have email reminders. HubSpot has email reminders. I don't think they have SMS reminders. So like if I'm using their calendar, would I just turn off those reminders and just then kick it off to you to run the drip sequence?

Chris Brisson (10:58.129)
Yeah. So, so like Calendly has SMS reminders, but one, that's a number they share with all their customers. Right. So it's happened before I booked something. I'm like, I booked a meeting with another company four months ago. Right. So that's a shared number. You don't really own the number and it's just a reminder. So if someone replies back to the text, you don't have it. So what we say is, Hey, you know, own that relationship. So fill out a form, whether it's HubSpot form or meetings form or Calendly.

Wes Schaeffer (11:09.943)
Mmm, yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (11:20.589)
Got you. Right?

Chris Brisson (11:27.729)
then send a text message and you can build it into a sales message as a campaign or workflow or build it into HubSpot, Zapier, however you want to automate that.

Wes Schaeffer (11:39.598)
Right. So is the one of the benefits then, the, the, it's two way, right? Cause like you said, if I reply to that Calendly, I won't get anything. but it's also, you know, I'm working with a local company. They've got four sales reps and trying to put systems in place. they're, they're sporadically using go high level. So, and all the, all the salespeople are contractors.

So they're on their own. They bring in their own laptop. They bring in their own cell phones. And so they're having conversations on their own. So the company has no insight into what the heck's going on. So, you know, a sales message, it be like in that case, would they enter the lead into go high level? Or is there like a CRM component to sales message? Could they?

put a new contact into the sales message and then start corresponding there, you know, over mobile and then does that, does the history get pushed into go high level or HubSpot so managers can see and coach and know the history of the dialogue with the prospect.

Chris Brisson (13:03.059)
See you in it.

Wes Schaeffer (13:12.333)
First we've got lawn mower blower guy, now the interwebs. Is the world, are they conspiring against us? Is this the Matrix? Is this Elon trying to shut us down?

Chris Brisson (13:25.144)
this is what happened in Portugal and Spain. It's happening here.

Wes Schaeffer (13:29.061)
yeah, I've only seen a little bit of that. Like the whole grid, did it go down or like it almost went down?

Chris Brisson (13:35.262)
I do not know. I do not know.

Wes Schaeffer (13:36.941)
Yeah.

Uh, so anyway, yeah, I was giving you that, that use case, right? Of individual reps, you know, cause it's, it's hard to consolidate, to develop processes, consolidate them, keep your finger on things. Cause it's everybody's moving fast. Like I'm helping my son right now. We're selling, um, this huge nine by 12 inch postcard advertise. He's in real estate. So I've been helping him. Like we had a

printed newsletter and we sold ads and so that paid for his marketing, right? He went door to door, passed them out. Now we're doing postcards. We're selling ads. So now he's reaching 10,000, 20,000 homes each month for free and we're actually making money doing it. But as I develop, like on the fly, I'm making products, pricing, pipeline with stages. I'm creating lists. You know, there's multiple lists. Somebody is a, a,

postcard prospect. Well, now they're going to be a postcard customer. then do we, I got to create pricing for one time versus repeat pricing for, you know, give it creating units. So, you know, one unit is 10,000, two units is 20,000. but then there's other things that we're going to create because then we're going to be in surrounding cities.

So do I make different interests subsets for there? And if you've never done it, like it's daunting, right? And then I'm going to, I'm including bonuses, you know, we're having, hosting a dinner each month for the advertisers. I'm letting them participate in the inner circle. So now I've got to kick off the inner circle, sequence, you know, but not too soon. Cause I don't want to confuse them. So, I mean, there's a lot. So I can see, you know, a business owner saying, just make calls. I just reach out to people. Here's the list. Reach out to them.

Wes Schaeffer (15:30.605)
Oh hey boss, yeah we need, I know you're paying hundreds or thousands for this CRM, oh now we need another $100, $200, $300 SMS package. Oh hell with that. I everybody is swamped with tech that they're not using. Or certainly underusing.

Chris Brisson (15:39.534)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Brisson (15:45.944)
Yeah. yeah. I would say it's more of the latter, right? Like the underusing of it. And so yeah, mean, SMS is simply the way to engage, right? So everything that you're mentioning from a sales process, right? So I'll give you good example. So newly comes in, you you've got, let's say reps, right? You want to round Robin that lead to the rep.

And well, how do you automate as SMS as coming from that individual? So one of things that we have is sort of send as contact owner. So hubs as owner, right? So, Hey, send that text message. Yep. Yep.

Wes Schaeffer (16:23.297)
owner. Yeah you got to round robin make the owner you know give it half a second yeah merge fields blah blah blah text goes out here then here's a task check on new lead.

Chris Brisson (16:36.43)
Yep. Yep. You got it. So, you know, being able to automate that, right? You know, your question earlier is like, how do you do that and go high level? So like sales message doesn't have a go high level integration, right? Other company, you know, call Luke does it's quite good. Um, but somebody comes into an automation, right? They fill out a workflow, miss call automation, whatever it is, go into that workflow. And then you can start to if then and automate those texts. So create a contact, send a text message, MMS.

You can do voice memo, right? You can essentially send out this rich text message, right? If we go back to sort of the RCS idea. So Sales Message does, you know, text messaging. It does MMS, right? MMS is media. So GIF, image, PDF, audio, video. So you can do all the different media types in Sales Message. So, yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (17:35.52)
Art, what are you seeing for opt-in rates? You know, because back in the day, you just got their email. People would not give you their cell phone. Are people more comfortable giving their cell phone? Do they even prefer to give their cell phone? You know, because I always tell people, the more info you ask on a form, the fewer the people that are going to do it, but the higher quality the leads of those that do. So, do you do like a two-step? You know, because I do that a lot.

you know, say first name email, boom. Now I take them to a thank you page, maybe give them a little bonus. Say, it's your last name, cell phone and you know, company name or whatever. So at least I've got their email and can drip on them. So like, what are you seeing for a best practice to get their mobile?

Chris Brisson (18:21.966)
Yeah, I mean, right. Like any marketer is going to say, well, the more information you ask, the less the conversion rate. Um, you know, we ran a split test the other day and the idea was, Hey, if we were to collect Gmail and free email addresses versus company addresses, what is going to convert better? Now, obvious answer is, the test was, Hey, um, which one's going to convert better.

So as it turns out, well, free emails did. But when you actually looked at, did that actually turn into customers? The answer was no. so that's really what, right? Same. And so that's really the end goal of what we're looking at. So is a lead that is going to give you just an email gonna convert into a customer better than a lead that gives you an email and a phone number?

Wes Schaeffer (19:00.493)
Yeah, I've turned all free. Yeah.

Chris Brisson (19:21.142)
And so that's the optimization. So, and that's really the test. So in our experience, again, what are you doing with that phone number? Because if someone gives you an email, that's your only mechanism for communication. So that's your, you're only going to be able to email them. However, if you open up the second channel, which would be a phone, you can call, can text, right. And to move that conversation a lot faster. So.

I don't have any direct data to share with you, but in our experience, right? And what we have seen is companies that are using text message as a way to engage, they're seeing a 40, 50 % response rate from those texts. So the response rate from email is not that the response rate from text message is that. So if you want to engage, right, if the goal is an engagement to get a conversation going.

Wes Schaeffer (20:16.557)
Hmm

Chris Brisson (20:18.296)
A phone is really going to do that. And so, you can split test that. So, Hey, if you just want to get email as a lead, great. Maybe on the second step you go, Hey, we'll text you that PDF. What's your text? You know, what's your phone number? So, you know, provide some sort of opportunity or reason why I think we talked about this last time, but like, what's the reason why to give you their cell phone and what are they going to get in exchange? Are they going to get a whole bunch of spam texts and calls or are they going to get

some sort of free report or some sort of other mechanism or benefit to give the phone. So, I that's what we've seen is people just, they preferred SMS versus a sort of an interruptive phone call. Not that calls are bad, it's just it's interruptive. the stats towards that are not as pleasant as just a passive sort of response to a text.

Wes Schaeffer (21:16.061)
Right. Do you have any experience with calls? Like any of your customers? Like, you know, let's text three times and call on day four or something. You know, people having success with that? Or even calling sooner?

Chris Brisson (21:21.55)
yeah.

Chris Brisson (21:29.452)
Yep. Yep. So, you know, this gets to this whole idea of speed to lead. So new lead comes in, right? Wait delay for 30 seconds, a minute, whatever it is, but get that immediate text message out. That's, that's automated, right? Typically, if you want to get an engagement, ask a question, people are going to respond to a question versus statement, right? And so at least you can get that initial text out and then

You know, if you have a calling, right, we do calling as well. One of the cool features that we have is it's launching soon, which is this whole idea of speed to lead. So how about if you were to just automate and newly comes in, Hey, it pops up on your sales reps website and all they have to do is call. then, so now you get into this, you know, how do you engage within the first 15 minutes, right? We all know that those leads will rot over time.

And so, how do you proactively doing it versus waiting for the rep to do it? And which we all know, I mean, they're going to lean into allowing that time to delay. So, you know, that is, uh, obviously reaching out to people as fast as possible. But the truth is, is most people aren't calling immediately right after a new lead comes in. So how do you automate everything?

Wes Schaeffer (22:50.367)
Right. People are afraid of the phone. The younger generation, they're terrified of the phone.

Chris Brisson (22:56.878)
That's crazy. That's crazy.

Wes Schaeffer (22:59.991)
Well, they know they I'd literally I'm working on a book called Please Date My Daughters. I've got five daughters. I've got a junior. She's 17. She just went to prom with a bunch of other girls. No dates. You know, and these girls, they're beautiful. They're athletes. You know, I'm like, why are you all single? Boys have no game. And I think the gaming generation, the iPhone, iPad generation.

COVID locking everybody up. everything, all that combined, you the iPhone, I was watching the first Daniel Craig, James Bond last night, Casino Royale, right? So it came out in 06. mean, so the, you know, they're filming in 05. The iPhone didn't come out till 07. You know, so, but the iPhone is 18 years old. You know, so we take this stuff for granted. Yeah. I mean, I got kids 28 down to 11.

Chris Brisson (23:46.392)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Brisson (23:53.624)
same age as your kids,

Wes Schaeffer (23:58.379)
And so they grew up with iPhones. But they grew up gaming. you know, stay at home, throw your headset on, immerse yourself into this world. And like, whoa, like, you're a real person. What do I do? Like, they literally, they, so, now I have to talk to some, no, no, no.

Chris Brisson (23:58.751)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Brisson (24:15.544)
Mm-hmm.

Wes Schaeffer (24:21.837)
It's rough, I companies, I'm telling them, you better standardize some stuff, your communication, you know, and then you better train the hell out of these people because you got to ramp them up. There's no interpersonal skills. It's insane. But it's reality.

Chris Brisson (24:23.222)
We good. Yeah.

Chris Brisson (24:28.856)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Brisson (24:36.78)
Weird. Yeah, yeah, my kids are nine and 11, so I've got a little bit of time, but.

Wes Schaeffer (24:44.129)
Have them set up some ice cream or lemonade stands. Have them talk to people, Give them some flyers. Say, go door to door. You can't come home till you sell a new sales message account.

Chris Brisson (24:49.497)
yeah, I'm doing a lot.

Chris Brisson (24:57.912)
Yeah, they've been selling coconuts and they've been pretty successful with it. It's been pretty cool. In our backyard, right back here, we've got some coconut trees. Tropical Florida, man.

Wes Schaeffer (25:02.045)
there you go.

Wes Schaeffer (25:06.337)
Where you getting coconuts?

that's cool. that's bad ass. All right. Yeah. Well, I've got a lemon tree. I got a Meyer lemon tree. That thing, we get hundreds of lemons and then I got a pomegranate. I got a peach and those have been spotty. We had like a lot of rain a couple of years ago. So a couple of mediocre seasons. So fingers crossed for this year. Yeah, that's cool, man. Yeah. Get them, get them engaging with people. It's so important. so, okay.

Chris Brisson (25:20.108)
Yeah.

Chris Brisson (25:28.12)
Yeah.

Chris Brisson (25:31.703)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (25:39.394)
So let's say, let's be specific, Somebody's got HubSpot, they can be whatever, HubSpot, Keep, GoILevel, whatever. You got your CRM, you've got your web form, so it's on the website. Like what are you seeing, like where do people start? Is it a generic contact us? Is it, hey, schedule a free demo, know, speak with an agent? Is it, you know, opt in here, get my guide, you know, seven deadly sins of.

of text messaging, like what, what's a good way to start? And I, and again, we're assuming B2B like I'm on my favorite Mexican food. get their texts every day. I'm like, bring it on. Hey tacos, we're hitting it. But I'm not on a lot of B2B texting.

Chris Brisson (26:19.788)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Chris Brisson (26:26.83)
Yep. Yeah. So, so the way, yeah. So we have a framework, it's called text as your business, right? And the idea with this is, you know, every business has the same life cycle. know we talked about it before, but like, you know, fusion soft had the perfect customer life cycle. So we have text as your business sort of life cycle. And so there's four parts. So you have like capture, connect, convert and care. And so.

Wes Schaeffer (26:28.683)
You know, so walk us through that scenario.

Chris Brisson (26:56.652)
The thing to realize with messaging is it's just a time. Yeah, we should actually. think, I think we do actually. and so, you know, the idea with this is, all right, well, where am I business, right? Cause every business needs to capture leads, connect with them, convert them and care for them. Right. So where in your business can you quote unquote text size it or add texting? So great example, Hey, go to your website.

Wes Schaeffer (27:00.479)
Have a little heart, the care.

Chris Brisson (27:25.846)
run an audit and say, Hey, do you any of my web forms? Am I capturing a phone number? So I have a contact form. I'm capturing a phone or am I doing anything with them? No. Okay. Well, let's do something with that. So rather than just get an email notification, put them into workflow. Well, one, like let's text them and then start that conversation. Hey, thanks for filling out contact form.

Hey, are you mostly interested in residential or commercial real estate or whatever it is, right? To just sort of grease the sheets. Hey, thanks for filling that out, right?

Wes Schaeffer (27:57.185)
Well, but what are you seeing though, like yourself, if you have access to this for your clients? know, be it, let's say I'm selling marketing, let's say I'm selling, you know, cybersecurity. I mean, what does a decision maker at a good sized company, like, what do they fill out? Is it a contact us? Is it a demo? Are they downloading white papers and case studies? You know, and do they want it?

Chris Brisson (28:20.642)
All the above. Yeah. Yeah. All the above. Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (28:24.813)
Do they want it as an SMS? Like if somebody, if I go to somebody's site and go, go give us your cell phone and get this guide, I'm like, I'd rather use my hidden email address. But then, all right, you take that away from me. I mean, I guess I could text and always block it later if they're abusive. But I mean, are people just opening up more to cell phone? Like, yeah, here, here's my cell phone. You know, because I mean, we protected it with our lives 10 years ago.

Chris Brisson (28:47.022)
Yeah. Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (28:52.627)
even maybe before COVID even. I COVID like things kind of pivoted. Did you see that or is that accurate?

Chris Brisson (28:56.994)
Yep. Yep. Yeah. Most of the, I mean, I mean, most of the B2B websites, right? Like go fill out any demo request form, right? They're going to ask you for a phone number. So if you're, you know, a case study form, right? Maybe you just want an email address, right? If your blog subscribe is just an email address, right? So the, you know, it needs to match sort of the outcome.

or the expectation. So if you're going to go through a demo, I want your phone number because I want to call you. want to, you know, it's a different quality lead. So, so for us and what we see a lot too is any of these sort of higher level B2B, you have a web form, you have a demo request form, you're already asking for it, right? So where, so again, for any business that's listening, Hey, where are you already asking for the phone number? You already have that asset, but what are you doing with that asset?

Well, now you can actually do something with the asset. Use it as a text message channel, right, to engage with people because the whole idea is engagement, right? A new lead comes in, right? You get a, call, they don't pick up and now you're sort of playing phone tag and doing this whole thing. So what we say is just, hey, if you're already collecting it, well now you can use it in your business as a way to engage with those leads and customers. So a checkout form, you're already asking for a phone number. What are you doing with it?

Well, why not turn it into an asset in your business? And most people aren't. So they just, have it, they've collected it because that's what you do, but they haven't really activated it as a way to engage and drive revenue.

Wes Schaeffer (30:25.858)
Right.

Wes Schaeffer (30:41.367)
So let's say I've got my form and it's a case study or whatever and first name, email, cell phone. It goes into my HubSpot. Do I then hand it off to SalesMessage and let SalesMessage start the drip sequence of texting? And is that populated in my activities column?

And, and I guess there's an API or a native integration. Like if somebody that can trigger the next steps of my workflow.

Chris Brisson (31:19.606)
Yeah, totally. So we have integrated HubSpot, lot of these other tools. So with HubSpot, you just have that trigger, which is a web form, right? And then you set a delay, like a minute or whatever. And then you just say, send sales message, text message, type it in, what the text is, what's the outbound number, right? What phone number it's going to go to. And it's as simple as just setting it up, right? And it's all built into HubSpot.

Now we do have campaigns, we have workflows, but if you use HubSpot, cool, you can use HubSpot to do that.

Chris Brisson (32:06.178)
to cut out.

Wes Schaeffer (32:08.653)
All right, we're gonna get through this. I'll leave it in or edit. don't know, I'll go back and listen. So walk me through that again. So they opt in and then is it a native integration with HubSpot and the other big guys?

Chris Brisson (32:25.95)
Yeah, HubSpot, Salesforce, PipeDrive, right? Yeah, all the major platforms, Zapier, Make.

Wes Schaeffer (32:33.995)
And do you have like playbooks or templates that they can, it'll jumpstart their, their interaction. Okay.

Chris Brisson (32:40.62)
Yep. Yeah. We've got a bunch, you know, a of campaigns. We've got templates. We've got like AI agents you can set up. So like an AI booking agent. So we've got a lot of these sort of pre-built systems inside of inside of the pop.

Wes Schaeffer (32:55.901)
And do you have any results studies on, cause I've always said multimedia multi-step, you know, you've got your four C's. I've got, I've got my cycle of life and it's ABCDE, right? So you attract, you bond with them, right? Multimedia, multi-step phone call, email, text, social media, direct mail, whatever, however you can reach them, convert them to a customer, right? Then you deliver, you delight, then you endear yourself to them. Now they like you.

Chris Brisson (33:02.573)
Mm-hmm.

Wes Schaeffer (33:24.95)
Now they're back to the attraction phase. They buy again, they give you referrals and testimonials and the attraction, gets faster and faster and faster. so have you have experience with multimedia? you know, text them, boom. All right. Email. And, I get, is it going to bounce back and forth? So you'll send the, you'll send the text, but then it goes back to HubSpot. Hey, send an email back and forth. And then there's triggers off of that based on action or inaction.

Chris Brisson (33:51.918)
Yeah, I mean the same from like go high level, right? So like send an email, send a text, wait five minutes, wait a day. You know, it's just the same sort of, same sort of setup. So we're the ones that deliver the text message, right? So if you then need to manage the conversations and you know, have all the information and in sales message, like it's all there. Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (34:11.573)
Right. And something like HubSpot, are they not two-way conversations and that's why they would go integrate with you instead of just using the native SMS? Okay.

Chris Brisson (34:23.458)
Yep, yeah. I mean HubSpot has texting, but again, it's very light. It's just one way texts. So ours is a more robust platform to manage at scale.

Wes Schaeffer (34:29.974)
Okay.

Wes Schaeffer (34:33.835)
Yeah, right. Yeah. Cause you need that history, you know, for coaching, make sure you're not over promising something or whatever. cause everything salespeople keep, they want to keep all their data. So companies have to be smart enough, you know, either bludgeon their people or whatever, just don't give them a choice. I mean, they can, of course always do whatever, whatever they want on their own phones. But if things are starting from there,

their own business line, then at least you've got that history. So then, I've got my phone, I got a HubSpot app, do I also have a sales message app? Like if I'm mobile, how am I receiving the communications, if I'm out and about, how am I getting these and how am I sending them?

Chris Brisson (35:25.39)
Yeah, we have a mobile app. So mobile app, we've got a web app as well. So if you're on your desktop, you can send texts. Or if you're out and about, you can download our mobile app and respond to those texts, make calls.

Wes Schaeffer (35:41.752)
So the company would just have to make that the standard operating procedure, right? For their field reps, it's like, don't call, don't text directly, call from the app. Okay. Can they...

Chris Brisson (35:51.82)
Yep, exactly. Yeah. And then everything gets logged to the CRM and yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (35:57.175)
but it would have to be the sales message app, right? Cause I've got a HubSpot app that's very good. But for text, mean, just like my desktop, I've got WhatsApp, I got WhatsApp on my phone. So I just hop over there to do the business correspondence. Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's fair enough. It's everybody's accustomed to apps now, right? I mean, good grief. got all these things open.

Chris Brisson (36:10.956)
Yep. That's it. Yep. Yep.

Chris Brisson (36:22.466)
Mm-hmm.

Wes Schaeffer (36:24.749)
I'm on some telecom and one of the things that has a signal, I'm I'm not opening those, I'm sorry, I'm apt out. But I've plenty. But eventually you're like, yeah, I don't want another channel. But in business, you've got to standardize it, like it or not.

Chris Brisson (36:30.988)
Yeah.

Chris Brisson (36:38.23)
Right. I know the drill.

Wes Schaeffer (36:44.929)
Salespeople are humans. Eventually they're going to rob you blind if you let them. So you better be monitoring and controlling what they say and how they say it.

So I imagine if people go to your website, there's a form for them to give you their cell phone number to do a demo or a trial. There better be. Get to their website. Okay, mail us a letter. Here's our address. No.

Chris Brisson (37:07.362)
You got it. Yep. There is,

Chris Brisson (37:14.572)
Yep, yep. Yeah, I know. We've got a web forum. They can request a demo. We capture their phone. We send them a text. Yep, we use our own stuff, Eat our own dog food.

Wes Schaeffer (37:26.869)
And then like, does every message have the old opt out so they know it's coming from a machine?

Chris Brisson (37:32.014)
Yeah, not every message has to include it. Sort of that initial text has it and then, yep, yep. Then you're good to go.

Wes Schaeffer (37:35.467)
Okay, initial for sure. Then you're good to go.

Okay. And are there file size limits? Because I know you're saying now it's MMS. Like what shouldn't be sent? You know, a two hour movie? You know, like what's practical?

Chris Brisson (37:56.248)
Mm-hmm.

keep the text as short as possible, right?

Chris Brisson (38:06.7)
Yeah, I mean, if it makes sense. Yeah, people do it. mean, right, like most people are sending a text and then you have, you know, version of them are going to send an image and then you've got all the other media, right? It's like image and then video and audio and PDF, right? So it's a small percentage. If you do need to deliver a PDF, you can do that, right? But it's a small percentage of people. Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (38:31.275)
And that file, like the PDF, am I uploading that to sales message or is that a doc in my, know, HubSpot has files. Each file has their own URL. It can be public, can be no indexed. So is it just linking? Okay, so they would put it on your platform and you would deliver it. Okay. Or they could include a URL, right? Because like what I do,

Chris Brisson (38:46.264)
Yeah, you upload it to our platform.

Yep.

Chris Brisson (38:58.03)
Sure.

Wes Schaeffer (38:59.861)
What I do is when somebody opts in for something, I don't send that thing. I send a link to that thing. And I don't take you to a landing page with that thing. Because I test this all the time. I'll put phony number, phony email just to see if it takes me. And a lot of times it does. And so now I get the info I want it they don't have my info. But I say, hey, okay, thanks. Check your email. know, check your text. Because now I send the email.

Chris Brisson (39:16.301)
Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (39:27.649)
But even then you don't know, opens aren't totally accurate. So I'm like click here, it's a big file. I don't want it to get gunked up. So, cause now a click is actionable, right? I can track that in my platform, then take the next steps. So are you, you're doing something similar?

Chris Brisson (39:36.824)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Brisson (39:45.624)
All the above, man. You just gotta see the product, you know? Like, you gotta see it all. You can do all of it and then you realize, you can do all that stuff. Yeah, but you can do that, you know, short URLs, track clicks, all the fun stuff, yeah. But, yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (39:53.356)
Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (40:00.951)
Yeah, yeah, very cool. All right, well I'm gonna put a link and have you run into any frustration with the shortening of the word message?

Chris Brisson (40:15.598)
I have. What do you think the frustration is? Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (40:19.745)
Well, because people spell out the full word. I've been rebranding as Fixer Wes because after 17, 18 years, I'm like, people can't spell the Sales Whisperer. cute name. And they misspell it. So I'm like Fixer Wes. And that just redirects to Wes Schaefer. I'm just rebranding as myself now. You mentioned Tony Robbins. It's like the Sales Whisperer became synonymous with Infusionsoft and the CRM guy.

Chris Brisson (40:29.976)
Yeah, yeah, Right.

Chris Brisson (40:37.197)
Yep.

Wes Schaeffer (40:44.365)
And that was never my plan. just the way timing worked and I found opportunities and ran with it. But it's like, you don't go to Tony Robbins and say, Hey, should I buy salesforce.com for my business? You know? So I'm like trying to brand Wes Schaefer as the gray haired guru. You know I'm saying? But yeah, they misspelled the sales whisperer. they, so they misspell sales message.

Chris Brisson (40:55.073)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Brisson (41:06.392)
yeah, yeah people put, I mean it's salesmessage.com but sales MSG, that's what the logo shows. Yeah, yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (41:13.835)
Right. And why did you do that? What was the rationale?

Chris Brisson (41:18.072)
Good question. So originally it was sales MSG and we have the domain sales message. And so we just sort of said, hey, let's just keep it as sales MSG even though we have sales message. So yeah, we should change it or do something with it. But yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (41:40.263)
I mean, you're known now. Did you ever toy with like sales SMS or sales MMS?

Chris Brisson (41:45.678)
no, not really. mean, know, the funny thing it's got, yeah, the funny thing it's got sales, it's got SMS in the name. Yeah. Yeah. So.

Wes Schaeffer (41:47.831)
You there's always message.

Wes Schaeffer (41:53.397)
in the middle of it. Yeah. Or maybe make that capitalize the other smaller.

Chris Brisson (41:58.966)
Maybe, yeah. Yep, well. All these things to figure out, Yeah.

Wes Schaeffer (42:03.088)
well. Cool, cool.

Okay, well look, so every eight years we're gonna meet and I expect hot air balloons, sky riding, the release of pigeons and doves in eight years. Okay? And no gardener and a stable internet connection. Is that too much to ask?

Chris Brisson (42:18.038)
Okay, let's do it. I'm game.

Chris Brisson (42:23.552)
Yeah, it's a lot. It's a lot. I'm trying. Awesome. Good stuff, Wes.

Wes Schaeffer (42:28.365)
All right. And so after eight years, all right, I expect you're to go back to short hair and clean cut, right? We're going to.

Chris Brisson (42:35.34)
Maybe, maybe, I don't know, we'll see. Hopefully not be bald by then, but you never know. Could be rough.

Wes Schaeffer (42:39.031)
Tragma.

dude, now you got the widow's peak. I learned they say if you got the widow's peak you don't go bald. You ever heard that? Yeah. Yeah, they got the straight hairline, they're probably gonna lose it. It's all genetics. Blame it on your mom's dad. That's what I've heard too. It comes from the father on your mother's side. We shall see. All right, Chris Brisson, back in the house. Thanks for coming on man, it's good catching up with you.

Chris Brisson (42:47.594)
Okay, I'm lucky then. I have not. No, that's the first time.

Chris Brisson (42:57.612)
Yeah.

Chris Brisson (43:01.506)
That's it.

Chris Brisson (43:04.942)
All right, good deal. Awesome.

Chris Brisson (43:11.502)
Thank you Wes. All right man. Ciao.

Wes Schaeffer (43:13.04)
Have a good one.

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