Signs of a world-class sales org: Reps multi-thread the sh*t out of their deals
Want some stats that'll blow your mind + double your win rate (literally)?
Have your Ops team pull win rates based on:
✅ Avg # of attendees to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd sales calls
Gong data is pretty conclusive on this one. Closed/won deals have twice as many participants in 1st and 2nd calls as closed/won deals. You'll probably find a similar pattern.
Action: Get more proactive in adding participants to 2nd and 3rd+ calls
✅ When specific personas are on calls
Example: You might spot that early engagement from a particular role or persona leads to better win rates. For example, you sell a security solution. But you don't involve SecOps unless the buying group recommends it. But win rates are higher every time you involve them early.
Action: Sell the story on why that particular persona should be involved—how does the buyer get a better outcome?
✅ When more of your team is invited to calls
Example: You might spot that when you engage a similar persona on your side, those deals have better win rates. Like inviting an HR leader from your side if you sell to HR.
Action: Get better at looping in your internal team
✅ Win rates based on when SEs join calls
Example: You might find that engaging an SE earlier in your deals leads to a higher win rate. This one BLEW my mind. Very counterintuitive. Buyers love speaking with someone who really educate them.
Action: Bring SEs in earlier/later based on what the data shows you
✅ % of single-threaded deals
Pull patterns between the % of single-threaded deals and win rates. I bet you'll find low win rates on reps who are more single-threaded.
Action: Prioritize enablement for reps who find themselves single-threaded
✅ % of deals with access to power
Pull patterns between win rates and engagement with a VP+ stakeholder.
Action: Help those specific reps get access to power quicker in their deals
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This is the granularity that's needed to multi-thread better. Get specific with your sales motion and look at win rate correlation and stakeholder involvement.
Nail down:
- Who should be involved
- When they should get involved
- When to bring in internal resources
Then run your deals based on that data.
The worst AEs use customer stories that sound like this
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⛔️ Amateur AEs: “I talk to _____ every day”
We don't mean it. But we say things all the time to buyers that make us look and sound generic:
"I talk to business owners every day who run into this challenge..."
"We help thousands of security professionals every month..."
"I've spoken with hundreds of Safety Directors who tell me..."
It's not that any of this is bad.
It doesn't accomplish the ultimate goal of a customer story: building credibility.
✅ Top AEs: “I was talking to a ______ yesterday and..."
Great AEs use SPECIFIC customer stories. They tell stories that sound real. And that help the buyer see themselves in the story.
This sound like:
"You know—what you said reminds me of Jim over at ABC MANUFACTURING. They have two dozen locations and he wasn't able to see safety incidences as they happened. Everything was reported after the fact so it was hard to be proactive. Oh, and to report on the dozens of facilities he managed? Tons of paperwork, guesswork, and errort. He was constantly misplacing physical documents. Does any part of this resonate?"
✅ Pro tips
Use this to open up discovery conversations. It shows the buyer instant credibility and helps get the conversation going.
Be specific.
Use customers in similar industries and size of company.
And use names of real people when you tell stories. Keep it to the first name if you need to be anonymous.
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Upgrade your customer stories and your deals will move way faster.
There’s a lot of confusion on who owns the upsell, cross-sell, and renewal.
If you think it’s confusing for your sales org…imagine what it feels like for your customer.
⛔️ The problem
Customer: "Dude, I've gotten 3 emails from your team and a BDR calling me every week. WTF?"
Your hard earned customers are getting messaging from:
- The marketing team
- The BDR team
- The Account Manager
- The Customer Success team
Holy sh*t people, this has got to stop.
You're lighting revenue on fire when you treat customers like this.
There's confusion in two areas:
⛔️ 1) Lack of clarity around roles & responsibilities
You have to decide who owns:
- New Revenue
- Retention (technical support is in this bucket)
I get why you wouldn't want that to be the same person. The strategic seller can extract more revenue from a client. But their strength isn't customer service.
So split those roles.
The Customer Success person should NOT have sales conversions. They should not be prospecting into the account to upsell.
It's confusing to the customer, and it's not their skill set. Keep it to helping the customer get the best outcome from the solution.
Then bring in the AE or the AM as the "product expert" who can help with driving additional revenue.
⛔️ 2) Shared quota
I'm not sure who thought of this bright idea, but I'm seeing it all to often.
The CS team is required to help with upselling. And they share a quota with the AM.
Do we really need to talk about why you shouldn't have two separate parties owning the same number?
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Does this setup already exist in a lot of companies? Yes.
Do they stick to distinct, split roles? Many don't.
For god's sake people—STOP harrassing your customers.
One of my clients Armis is hiring for tons of roles right now.
Here's why you should consider joining their team:
✅ They're a 🚀
Just crossed $200M ARR earlier this year. The journey from $100M ARR → $200M ARR took only 18 months.
Armis just closed a $200M Series D round with a valuation of $4.2 billion on their path to IPO.
✅ Great leadership
I've personally worked with Sean Barrett, VP of Enterprise Sales. And Angela Frackowiak who leads the BDR team.
Great culture for any enterprise Account Executive or BDR to grow your career.
✅ World-class product
They have arguably the best, most comprehensive suite of cybersecurity products.
Why does this matter? You'll rarely lose deals due to product/feature gaps.
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They have openings for the following roles:
- 14 Account Executives
- 3 BDRs
Hiring in both U.S. and international.
Check out Armis's careers page here: https://www.armis.com/armis-careers/#discoverjobs
Tag someone you know this could be a great opportunity for.
AI will most certainly replace 99% of the work it takes to create enterprise grade account plans.
I can't believe how much time reps spend creating account plans.
For one of my enterprise clients—AEs spend 1-2+ hours creating an account plan before they even begin reaching out. It's crazy and wildly inefficient.
Here's the problem:
❌ You waste hours on accounts only to find they're a bad fit, the timing isn't great, etc
❌ Command + F searches for keywords don't find patterns, they find words (good luck!)
❌ Because account plans take so much work, the hardest part is getting started
Here's where AI comes in...
Let's say you sell a cybersecurity solution.
Here's how to make account planning a ton easier.
✅ Use a tool like Seeking Alpha to find the most recent quarterly earning report
✅ The report is great, but the gold is in the transcript of the call
✅ Copy/paste that into a Google Doc
✅ Use Google Gemini and drop in the prompt below
I sell a cybersecurity solution that helps security teams detect security anomalies in their information technology and operational technology, protect those assets, and remediate findings to fix them.
This document is a transcript of their most recent quarterly earnings call.
I'm looking for any mentions or risks related to:
- Cybersecurity threats
- Cybersecurity initiatives
- Hesitance from executives on their confidence or abilities to detect or remediate these instances
Provide details related to:
- Specific individuals or departments in charge of these initiatives
- Internal language they use related to project names, initiatives, goals, OKRs, etc
Help me answer these questions both from this document and Google research:
- Top 5 business objectives from their most recent quarterly earnings report
- Top 5 business challenges
- Important industry news to know about related to the account
- Top 5 competitors
- Important news related to the company in the last 12 months
Can you help me?
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Voila! You just did an hour's worth of work in a few min.
My good friend over at Zoom Garrett Grastion is hiring AEs
👇
Here's why you should consider joining his team:
✅ He's a top 1% sales manager
He led Zoom's top sales team in 2023. The #1 AE in their segment was on his team.
He has countless reps get to Champion's Circle (their President's Club) every year.
✅ He's a solid human
I've known Garrett for 14 years now. I've worked alongside him as a rep and sales leader.
And most recently, we worked together in 2020 when Outbound Squad trained 125+ of the Zoom AEs in his segment.
Just a solid dude who cares a lot about his reps and their development.
✅ This is a hunting role
Garrett's looking for:
- A hunter who can make an immediate impact
- Someone ready to own 100-150 greenfield accounts
- A passionate advocate for Zoom’s innovative platform
The ideal candidate will live in Denver, Chicago, Detroit, Twin Cities, KC, or General Midwest USA, but we will hire exceptional talent anywhere.
✅ How to apply
Drop a message directly to Garrett Grastion to apply.
Tag someone who you think would be interested.
