“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?

I’ve never met an enterprise exec who takes meetings from cold emails...

UNLESS:


✅ 1) You're a category leading brand

Doesn't get acknowledged much. But it absolutely helps.

You work with a peer? I recognize your brand? I've used this solution before?

Massively increases your odds.

At the least, they'll forward the email to the right department leader to get their take.


✅ 2) You've spoken with people on their team

The 'old groundswell. This works extremely well.

But the kicker? It's a sh*t ton of work to speak with people on their team.

My motto:

Put in the work before reaching out to a senior exec.

- Learn more about internal projects
- Get the specific names of those projects
- Get permission to name-drop people you've spoken to
- Get intel on who might own specific projects
- Learn about problem areas

This will require you to speak with a few ICs/managers. Build rapport. Talk about how you can help them. Get the lay of the land.

Then get in touch with department heads. These are folks with more influence. They're an introduction away from a more senior leader.

When you start speaking with department heads, that's the time to email the senior stakeholder. But don't ask for anything.

Let them know you're having conversations. Get an email thread going. Keep them in the loop.

Then, do one of the following:

1) Get an introduction through the department head (this is multi-threading)

2) Go direct


~~~


Enterprise meetings require enterprise effort.

In the enterprise world—a cold email with zero insights from actual people in the company is just lazy.

There’s this fairy tale that the future of sales is…

It's laughable really.

Sales is THE best career out there. Hands down.

The upside is higher than any other job.

But that comes with a sacrifice:

Just crush your quota? Let's increase it.

This year was hard? Let's 2x next year.

Oh cold calling is hard? Suck it up and build pipe.

The number always goes up in sales. It never end.

No matter how great the culture is—sales will always be a "what have you done for me lately?" career.

In my humble opinion, the future of sales is:

✅ Going back to more in-person

Hybrid at the least. People may not say they want it, but many teams get way more production from it.

And back to more in-person prospecting and selling.

✅ Hiring for quality > quantity

The "growth at all costs" playbook from 2009-2022 is over. Sales orgs will be way pickier about the talent they bring onboard.

✅ More pressure to create great sales cultures

There's too many review sites out there. And reps posting on LinkedIn. You can't hide from a sh*tty culture anymore.

✅ Less busy work for reps

Automation & AI will be built into every tool we use. If it doesn't require high level thinking, your reps won't spend their time on it.

Not more manually building lists, manually doing research, etc.

✅ Better remote enablement

Many enablement teams are still struggling to adjust to hybrid onboarding. It's way easier to control learning when reps onboard in-person. There's fewer distractions.

But the reality of 2024 and beyond is that you need to enable remotely. And do it effectively.

~~~

Agree or disagree?

If you're not using AI to eliminate 80%+ of the time you spend doing account research...

What are you doing?!

Here's a prompt I use to:

1) Find referencable triggers for outbound
2) Prep for sales calls

All in about 2-3 min (what would normally take 15-30 min of research time)

✅ ChatGPT prompt for account research

I need help preparing for a deal I’m working.

Can you help me find triggers in the following areas?

1) Hiring Activity Insight: Look into open roles, especially if they're hiring Account Executives (AEs), BDRs, or SDRs.

- Scan job descriptions for any indication of self-sourcing pipeline or outbound-related tasks.

- Summarize the hiring count for these roles, using data from job postings on LinkedIn or other job boards.

- Hyperlink to their careers page where these jobs are listed

2) Recent news & Product Launches: Research if the company has launched any new products or services within the past year. Share any relevant news related to expansion.

- Include specifics on product lines and link to relevant announcements or press releases, showing you’ve done thorough research.

- Segmentation. Research from their website the different industry verticals they specialize in and sell to. Tell me the types of job titles they sell to and how they segment the business.

- Funding announcements. If they’ve recently raised a funding round in the last 12 months, please summarize and link to the announcement.

3) Quarterly Reports for Public Companies: If the company is publicly traded, scan recent quarterly earnings reports.

- Look for mentions of growth opportunities, especially those impacting the sales team. Focus on initiatives the sales team is likely targeting.

- List those quotes here

4) Find Peers and Decision-Makers:

- Identify and link to LinkedIn profiles of key executives like the CRO or VPs of Sales to support multi-threading efforts.

- Looking for any public announcements on Google news or their website about newly hired executives and summarize anything mentioned about their focuses

5) Tech Stack and Sales Methodology:

- Identify the tools they currently use (CRM, conversational intelligence platforms, etc.) and any mention of their sales methodology if available in job listings on their careers pages. These are tools like Salesforce, Gong, Outreach, etc

- This can be gathered from job listings, press releases, or tech stack insights from platforms like BuiltWith or G2.

6) Top Competitors:

- Identify their top three direct competitors and note these in the outreach to better understand their market position.

- Competitors are typically mentioned in press releases, funding round updates, on G2 articles, Forrester reports, etc

I’m reaching out to: [NAME + ROLE]

They work at: [COMPANY]

Can you help me find these triggers?


~~~


Adapt and customize for your company and customers.

How are you using AI to help with account research?

My cold call pick-up rate is 22.2%.

Here's what Jeff Bajorek and I are learning from daily cold calling:

✅ Optimize call times to maximize pick-up rates

My best pick-up rate is 7:57am local time for the prospect.

I catch them right before the workday starts. It's close enough to 8am that no prospect has mentioned anything.

8-9am local time for the prospect remains the highest pick-up rate window.

✅ Use multiple data sources

We pull as many as 3-4 phone numbers across two data providers to get the right phone number. Then, we make sure to mark bad phone numbers so we don't call them again.

Rarely is the first number the correct one.

✅ We call mobile numbers

This one's obvious for many of you. But there's still reluctance, yes, in 2024—to call cell phones.

You just have to do it. And deal with the OCCASIONAL angry prospect.

✅ Double & triple touches

No "naked activities." We never call without emailing. We never send an email without calling.

Salesloft data shows that this type of "combo prospecting" (a la Tony Hughes) increases contact rates by 3.1x.

It works.

My ideal workflow:

→ Call first. Things happen way faster on the phones. Feels like less work for me this way.
→ LinkedIn second. Send a blank connect request.
→ Email last. Send the email last.

I do this all at once. Then give it two days to rest and hit with a double touch of phone + email.

✅ Prioritizing calling prospects who open emails

For all the talk out there about innacurate open rating tracking—pick-up rates are much better when I prioritize prospects who open emails.

We have an automated call task created after 3 email opens.

~~~

That's it. We follow fundamental sequencing best practices.

How are you maximizing cold calling pick-up rates?

And another! Jeff Bajorek and I just wrapped up an outbound training with 165 Cross-Sell AEs at Shopify.

I'll tell you what—you won't find a group that proactively works existing business as well as this one.

Adding tons of value to existing customers vs. "checking in to see if you're ready to upgrade…"

Shopify has 20+ openings right now for SDRs, AEs, and leadership right now across the entire globe.

Why you should consider joining their team:

✅ Shopify is a 🚀

I'll say it again and again. Shopify is growing 25%+ year over year.

You won't find a better product in this category. 150+ product updates, $1 TRILLION+ GMV, and gross profit is growing faster than revenue!

✅ World-class tools at your disposal

You're armed with everything you need to add VALUE to existing customers. They're using AI better than anywhere I've seen.

✅ Great front-line leaders

Virag Khara heads up the Cross-Sell team. Shout out to all their front-line leaders/coaches: Gov Sharma, Nico Serratore, Maiwand Faqiri, Al Sohrabi, Jamie Clapham, Estin Guerrero, Sydney Johnson, Samantha Sousa, Jory Cherief, Shiv Patel, Samantha Magder, Karan Malik, Sean Nishimura, Hala Hlaibeih, Keegan Hasbrook, Laura Troyano

✅ World-class enablement

Siobhan Sweeney, Brittany S. S. H., Prianka Siva, Daniel Wetton did an excellent job of setting up the program, building buy-in, and making sure everything went smoothly.

~~~

Check out Shopify's careers page here: https://lnkd.in/egjix93v