“As an Account Exec here — you'll get tons of inbound, channel, and SDR here. It's little, if any, outbound.”

“As an Account Exec here — you'll get tons of inbound, channel, and SDR here. It's little, if any, outbound.”

☝️

Recruiters & sales leaders before 2022

I bet they're regretting saying that in 2024.

Here's my thesis on why so many sales orgs are struggling with pipeline right now:

⛔️ Poor culture & expectation setting

AEs were hired with the expectation they wouldn't have to outbound. Frankly, I don't blame them for resisting.

A massive culture shift needs to happen.

⛔️ Front-line leaders don't know how

Many of the front-line leaders in your org today sold prior to 2022. At a time when they didn't really have to outbound to crush their target.

They had an over-inflated SDR org, lots of inbound, and tons of proactive buyers with budget and little oversight.

These front-line leaders need to be tought how to outbound. So that they can teach and hold their reps accountable.

⛔️ Lack of marketing/sales alignment

The age old problem. But I'm starting to see a very alarming trend of revenue orgs splitting pipeline into 3-4 categories:

1) BDR sourced
2) Sales sourced
3) Marketing sourced
4) Channel sourced (if applicable)

What's the problem with this?

Pipeline building is a sh*t ton more effective when marketing builds tools for reps to enhance their outbound results.

Content, webinars, assessments—stuff that's actually valuable for the prospective buyer.

When marketing & sales compete against each other for credit, there's ZERO incentive for marketing to drive the BDR and Sales sourced pipeline.

Am I saying that pipeline shouldn't be broken apart? No.

But we need to create higher incentive around the hitting total pipeline target. Chris Walker has some interesting ideas around this.

~~~

What's your take?