In March of 2024, a guy popped into Rick's inbox. I’ll skip the small talk. He had earned over $1M in 2023. He’d been following Rick for well over a year and wanted to hire him to help make a change in his life. It worked. We’ve all stayed in touch.
Last week he sent Rick this email with the subject line: “Something for Junto”. He’s visited, but, as the CRO of a startup, is too busy and focused to participate the way he would want to.
Rick asked Elliott to share with the world.
Hyperlinks were added by Elliott for reference.
Red text was added by Elliott as a reply to him and clarification to you.
Here it is...
"How'd you guys grow so fast?"
Got asked this question yesterday. My initial take was to gloat. Brag. Look at me, I'm the greatest CRO on earth. Why? Because it would have felt good ha.
In reality, all I said was, when you know good people, it's easy to do good work.
And I reflected on Project 200. It may not be the exact version Rick intended it to be, but it's a version that worked for me and may work for some of the folks in the Junto.
Here's how I think about Project 200. I kept the bones (although I may add a D tier as a simple placeholder)
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40 A People every week
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40 B People every month
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120 C People every quarter
The changes or specificity I've added is:
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They don't have to be a current client. They can be a prospect. Although the post reads “clients”, the 40 could include centers of influence, past coworkers, college classmates, “hot” leads or intros, etc. Anybody who could be one of the 40 most important people to your success. When somebody more important replaces them, they become a B and the B becomes a C.
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There can be multiple people from same company on my project 200 that are in different buckets. Absolutely!
a. Example) I just closed the largest deal we've done. There are 6 people in my project 200 from that company. 2 are A. 3 are B. 1 is C.
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They can be neither a client nor a prospect and simply an area of influence. Suggestion for new grads? Who of your friends has a parent that likes you and could be a center of influence or a prospect?
Now here is where things get interesting.
A mix of low hanging fruit paired with ruthless prioritisation.
That account above. 6 people. For a period of time they were all in my A group. They slowly started shifting around.
Not for the reasons most people think. It was because other people needed to be moved into the A group.
I found myself fighting the marriage of wanting to put my A group as simply the Whale type prospects. Mega deals. For me that was wrong.
I found that it's a balance. Clients & Prospects & Areas of Influencers need to be measured on 3 categories.
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Opportunity/Deal Size
a. "How big?" -
Length till decision
a. "How soon, How serious?" -
Amount of influence
a. "How important?"
This was a ramble that brought me to the end & my punchy lessons.
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I'd imagine most people don't have 40 people they are even talking to. That means they are all A prospects. Treat them that way. List everyone down. If you aren't at 40. Start filling the cup.
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Work in reverse. If you want to land an intro to a massive account, and the only connection you have is someone in C tier or not even in one, you must prioritize that C person into A no matter what. Figure out a way to make that person thrilled they have you in their life.
a. A simple question to jump start a conversation I've been using is:
i. "Rick, it's been a long time. What's new in your world?" -
200 people might not sound like a lot to you. If it doesn't think about the area of influence of your 200. 200 people that pay you $1mm a year? I'm at a point now where I am debating between industry experts/CEOs/VCs if they are A or B tier.
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Project 200 is constantly evolving for the time of your life. It should never end.
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IF you start today. In less than 4 weeks with intention you can have your A tier double itself and consequently fill your B’s.
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Add on. The quantity of your tiers is most important. Get 200 people in it. Have 200 people in it at all times. Once you have 200, now you start building the quality. Get in the habit today of managing 200.