Andrew Shapiro

The future of SDR outbound feels something like your voice agent (with access to your private/company data) calls the prospect's voice agent and talks for as long as you want. You, as the caller, pay for both parties' compute — and you can scale this up horizontally to run a ton of simulations. If there are unresolved gaps or surprising opportunities, they should be latent in the transcript, which can be, again, summarized and mined by AI systems that are aligned with the interest of one party or the other. The recipient should be able to make the choice of whether or not to escalate to asynchronous or even live interaction. Bigger the prize, the more compute you should be willing to pay for. Sales and marketing spend has already started shifting from labor to capital with performance marketing. It would seem to me that the voice agent thing would accelerate that trend.

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🗣️Pipeline Development is one of the biggest revenue growth challenges for most companies today 🙂‍↕️ Though only a minority include pipeline generation as part of the sales incentive compensation plan. Every AE can relate … when you’re sitting in the bench because you have little pipe, it’s absolutely miserable … Usually when you’re working on a ton of deals at once, it’s so hard to make and stick to the time to prospect… As a AE, I would have loved pipe gen to be part of my comp plan… Hear me out … keeping your reps motivated is EVERYTHING … so why not motivate them even more by rewarding quality pipeline build…. It’s not rocket science 🧬 You then have reps that are not only motivated to close deals… But also super motivated to build their own pipeline too … How would that work at your business?

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Top H1 takeaway from QBR's about our Rev Org: "We're an ecosystem, not a hierarchy." (h/t Alexandra B.) We collaborate, everyone's voice matters, and we strive to put people in roles they love so they can be madly successful. Hearing this statement was validation that what we are building in the Revenue Org at LibraryPass is unique, and scalable, and contagious. And we have roles coming soon! So if you're interested in being part of an ecosystem, let's chat. Here's to an even better H2!

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SDRs don't work for AEs.... In fact, AEs should work for SDRs. If you're in a position to have an SDR helping you crack meetings you need to point them in the right direction with the right messaging and use cases. SDRs aren't your assistants. They're the tip of the spear. Cole Praver 🙌 #sales

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Ashi from Gong is fast (😮‍💨10k) But not as fast as Gong Engage users when they use Lavender. Access to your Gong calls in our personalization assistant ✅ Access to our coach & "Ashi fast" personalization in Gong ✅ Better 🤝 Faster 3.0 (and so much more) coming soon

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Automation is the way to go. So much to be gained by using the right tools for the right job.

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Outbound Sequences can do more harm than good for SDRs. (I think when used appropriately, they can be a massive help, but most teams use & abuse them -- completely missing the point of them & wonder why they can't land in the primary inbox & get no responses) I think the days of the traditional 27 day sequence are over. We need change. Most tasks get long overdue anyway and end up not being completed. Here's the issue with them: Often, SDRs are reactive to their sequences/cadences... When in reality, you should be pro-active. Let me explain: Imagine you send your first initial email and it gets opened 5+ times. Or you send a LI connect request and they accept it + look at your profile. Most SDRs will move onto their next task and ignore the intent signal. Instead, use prospect engagement as a way to be more pro-active. IE: do not wait 3 days from the day you sent your first email if there's a ton of engagement. Try calling them same day, bumping your email the next day and throwing a connect request on LI. You should try and switch your messaging up based on prospect engagement, too. IE: your cold call opener should be different for someone who has accepted your LI request + looked at your profile / opened your email a bunch vs someone who hasn't engaged at all. Be the quarterback of your sequences.. Don't let them control you! Second issue: most sequences end up piling up overdue tasks.. This is because sequences have way too many steps. If you liked this, I share 1 free outbound prospecting tip that 4200+ SDRs and AEs read every week. https://lnkd.in/e2cJkJqr

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38 Comments

If you are an SDR manager, you can help your team get meetings by responding to the outbound you're receiving from other vendors. Ask the SDR who is emailing you if they use anything for revenue intelligence [obviously insert your category] and go from there. Find out the information, and then give it to the lowest performing rep on your team for an easy win. Here's the email you can draft for your SDR: "Hey VP of Sales, I spoke with my manager who mentioned you were using XYZ already, she talked to John (one of your SDRs) who gave us the tip. Would you be willing to have someone on your team evaluate us as an alternative?" ^^ It sets. Try it! #sdrlife #sales

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Conversation with EVP of Sales of a $600M remanufacturing company. Over 150 outside sales reps. "As sale leaders, we are taught to look for folks that played sports growing up. They had goals, they worked hard to succeed. When they failed, they got feedback from coaches to help make them better. Better yet, let's get graduates that played sports at the college level. Afterall, they balanced academics and sports and a social agenda. They were held accountable to performing at a high level in the classroom and on the field / court. Sadly, the prevailing leadership models in most outside sales driven orgs these days - remove the competition. We remove the expectation of excellence for fear of being seen as big brother. When they remove accountability, they lower the bar of excellence and they settle for mediocrity. You get what you settle for. And then they wonder why their team doesn't take pride in their work." The best leaders, get the right folks on their team. Set the right expectations by measuring what matters. Holds the team accountable to what matters. You do that - and your team will storm the hill with you. #outsidesales #fieldsales

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There are two ways to solve gaps in signal-based selling. Only one is guaranteed to work at scale. 1) Revenue Enablement Provide continuous training for (a) every new hire who joins a team and (b) every 6 months to refresh reps on essential information, workflows, and processes. Many factors can impact the effectiveness of enablement activities (from the comprehensiveness of training materials to the trainer’s institutional knowledge, to how closely the individual reps were paying attention that day). Enablement only becomes harder as more people and processes are added to the mix because there are so many moving parts. 2) Revenue Operations Through automation, RevOps can reduce gaps — especially from human error — that cause friction or inaction among reps. Specifically, end-to-end automation. Most common “automations” in signal-based selling usually don’t go far enough. Therefore teams are overly reliant on enablement touchpoints to stay aligned. Ex: A champion moves to a new role and this is automatically updated in Salesforce This automation gets the process from point A to point B, but still relies on multiple human touches from B to Z. End-to-end automation ensures that essential tasks throughout an entire workflow are set up to keep the process moving toward an end goal. It anticipates gaps and opportunities for human error from point A to point Z (meeting booked). Ex: A champion moves to a new role, the CRM record is updated, a rep is notified, and a multi-step persona-specific email sequence is triggered. Would every rep follow this process if it was entirely manual (even with enablement training)? Probably not. That’s why every signal play should be accompanied by clear workflows enabled with end-to-end automation. The play can scale with your team. Signals without action are just noise for reps. Automation guarantees signals get actioned.

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Converting your AEs to start sourcing a majority of their own pipeline might not be such a good idea and here’s why: Typically this transition fails for three main reasons: 1) The pipe gen goal that’s assigned is completely made up and is based on the financial model and not relevant sales data 2) You don’t have the right resources in place including an airtight ICP, deep understanding of your persona, the right messaging or tech stack  3) Typically exec or senior level leaders are disconnected from the realities of how difficult cold outreach really is and don’t give the campaign enough time to be successful Here’s what you can do to give yourself a better chance at success: 1) Pick a few key data points to track (such as number of accounts worked, positive contacts, opportunities created, pipeline generated, closed won $$$s) and benchmark these over a period of time that makes sense for your sales cycle. Use this data set to understand what is or isn’t working and make adjustments from there. 2) Start with a small campaign to select accounts within your ICP using targeted messaging and an intriguing offer 3) Cold outreach is a team sport, get your execs and senior leaders involved by having them look through your target account list and see if there are any doors they can open from their network 4) Have some fun while doing it, celebrate the wins along the way! What do you think?

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Are you building an SDR/BDR function? Stop what you are doing and read this. Megan Hardy is some you need to learn from - I’m stoke I get to learn from her EVERYDAY She’s really brilliant. She’s freaking cool. She’s got a fire to win like no other. She’s a builder. She’s a wife and mother with an awesomely cool family……..ask Chester Hardy….he’ll agree 😁 She cares about her people……..but doesn’t put up with nonsense. She done this multiple times….. She’s been an SDR (multiple times), AE (multiple times), run enablement (multiple times)…… Built a kickbutt SDR/BDR organization multiple times……… Read the dang thing….. She knows her stuff……. https://lnkd.in/gFG7qSem. #sdr #bdr #sales #saas #enablement #rockstar #leadership #restauranttech #wfm #leader

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A good friend of mine and mentor, 🔶🔸Mason Cosby🔸🔶, joined B2B Pipeline Pioneers to discuss his recent success with Scrappy ABM. In just 15 minutes, Mason uncovers: 1) His biggest 2023 lesson 2) What GTM strategy he's most excited about in 2024 3) Where he's choosing to allocate his budget and time to generate pipeline Love this clip of Mason discussing how he educates and build credibility with his target market using actionable content. View the full episode here: https://hubs.ly/Q02zt4X90 #founderled #b2bmarketing #abm

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Had a blast chatting with Curtis Ropp on the Rev-Up Sales podcast recently! We talked about reevaluating the vision for your revenue tech stack in 2024. Curtis is the CEO of Outbound Funnel and understands the revenue tech stack better than anyone I've spoken with! They help their clients implement GTM tech every day. Tune in to the full episode, link the comments section! #sales #salespodcast #salestips

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Sam Jacobs does a great job calling out CROs who are just glorified heads of sales. The inflated C-level title is why there is often friction with heads of marketing, and why in the CMO community a major red flag is reporting to a CRO and not the CEO or President. The modern CRO needs depth in sales, marketing, and CS - plus some finance, to successfully do their job. If you’re just giving a C-title to your head of sales, you have the wrong person for the job.

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Promotable AEs... Do not: 1. Single thread 2. Hope as a strategy 3. Complain without solutions 4. Pitch features 5. Reject accountability Do: 1. Diversify their pipeline generation methods 2. Know why they win 3. Great discovery 4. Sell solutions, not meetings 5. Work for a company that promotes AEs :) This is the way. 🏆

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One of the biggest disconnects preventing an AEs ability to provide a world class buying experience to prospects is this ⬇️ No visibility of marketings influence on the prospects journey prior to their first call with Sales 👀 By the time and AE speaks to a prospect they may have… - Opted out of a marketing list ✉️ - Had zero dwell time on a number of display ads 😢 - Skipped by video ads on social channels 👀 - Been to an event 3 years ago 😱 BUT 🥊 If you ask any AE do they have this information prior to their meetings 🙃 The answer is NO 🛑 That’s why connecting Marketing and Sales is more important than ever before 😀 Stellar advice to any AE in SaaS is to spend time with your Marketing team. It should be part of all companies onboarding programmes tbh 😎

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Ready to unlock the full potential of ZoomInfo? "For 17 years I’ve had the vision for what is today ZoomInfo Copilot, but it wasn’t until GenerativeAI’s power was able to be harnessed that we could actually deliver it." - Henry Schuck ZoomInfo Copilot will mine pure gold buyer intent signals from your CRM and our best-in-class B2B data, then deliver you tailored engagement recommendations, and AI-powered personalized outreach. Learn more here 👉 https://lnkd.in/gwGPjDf6 #ZoomInfoCopilot

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Getting the right GTM process is important - it needs to work for the customer and for the business’ profitability. Operatus worked with Bloomfire to: --Create an Outbound sales motion​ --Improved Marketing > SDR > AE handoff process in Salesforce --Account segmentation and database cleanup Plus much more… Samantha, COO, quoted:  As we continued to grow, the lack of Rev Ops on our team was a blocker. With Operatus we were able to tackle several improvement projects that would have been difficult to manage otherwise. For the past 18 months, Operatus has been an extension of our team - and working with them on a fractional basis was just what we needed. Check out the case study here: https://lnkd.in/gh9BESF5 #SolvingGTMChallenges #RevOpsAsAService

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